Frag Out! Magazine

Frag Out! Magazine #49

Frag Out! Magazine

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much better with it —we are talking strictly about visual appeal here, given that the half-life for tritium is about 20–25 years for high-end watches, not a Polish gun from 35 years ago... In short, the tritium simply no longer glows, and the at- tachment is just for show. An origi- nal wz. 88 adapter is hard to find, but fortunately, the wz. 96 Beryl one fits. Interestingly, it only works this way; a Tantal sight on a Beryl won't work due to the different di- mensions of the front sight base. It is also worth getting a bayonet and a bipod for the Tantal. This is straightforward, as the bayonet is the classic 6H4, which can be bo- ught almost anywhere and is quite cheap. The bipod is the same as the one for the Beryl and, inciden- tally, is also... yes, you guessed it— it's a COPY of the M16 bipod from the late 60s, which they abandoned almost immediately because it is long, awkward to carry, and aw- kward to shoot with. But hey, 20 years after the Yanks gave up on it, we happily adopted it into service because, well, why not? A real gem in my Tantal set is the original manual for this carbine, which I received as a gift from a viewer of the FRAG OUT! YouTube channel after a video about this ri- a thinner fabric in the wz. 93 „Pan- tera" camouflage pattern. Talk abo- ut progress. The pouch also contains a Tantal cleaning kit, one of several pat- terns used, similar to the AK/AKM carbines. Among the curiosities, I can boast an original blank-firing adapter (BFA), which isn't parti- cularly common. This is likely be- cause for a civilian shooter, using blank ammunition is completely pointless—not to mention that fin- ding 5.45x39mm blanks in a shop is practically impossible. While on the subject of ammu- nition, I also have several stripper clips that allow for the very rapid loading of two magazines. Two, be- cause the carbine set included four clips holding 15 rounds each and a spoon (adapter) to connect them to the magazine. Even the pouch has a dedicated pocket for empty clips, full clips, and the adapter. It is worth noting that identical clips and adapters were also in- tended for the Beryl. However, due to the smaller rim diameter of the 5.56x45mm casing, they were sli- ghtly shorter. While they can be used for the Tantal, they only hold 14 rounds each. The situation with these clips is quite bizarre... It seems some „ge- nius" decided to copy the stripper clips and spoons from the US, whe- re a similar system has been used since the 1960s for the M16 magazi- nes. In fact, it worked so well that it is still used today without changes. There is just one tiny difference compared to our clips. US clips are factory-loaded and delivered to soldiers in metal ammo cans containing cotton bandoliers. Back when 20-round magazines were used, each bandolier had seven pockets containing boxes with two clips and one spoon. For 30-round magazines, the bandolier has four pockets, each with a box conta- ining three clips, and one spoon per bandolier. A soldier removes the ammunition on clips, attaches the spoon to the magazine, and loads it. The empty clips are simply discarded, and after loading all magazines, the spoon can be thrown away as well. The bandoliers can then be used to carry extra magazines by enlarging the pockets (achieved by pulling a single thread designed to un- ravel). In the case of the Tantal and Beryl, ammunition is delivered in crates and „spam cans," packed in 30-ro- und boxes. Therefore, to quickly load a magazine, the soldier must first... yes, load the clips! MULTI-U- SE clips, we might add, of a much more complex and expensive de- sign, and which only work in one direction, whereas the US ones work both ways. Brilliant. An absolute „must-have" for the wz. 88 is the tritium front sight at- tachment. The rifle comes from the factory with a tritium light source embedded in the rear sight notch. For the front sight, there was a spe- cial adapter mounted on the front sight base, with a housing for the tritium vial that moved on spring guides and sat on the front sight post. As a result, at night, the shooter saw two dots (on the rear and front sights) and had to align them into a „snowman" configuration, where the two dots touched. This allowed for firing „more or less" in the direc- tion of the target, though you could forget about any stunning preci- sion. Regardless, the Tantal looks www.fragoutmag.com

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