First up was the Enfield. This is easily the smoothest of the 3 rifles. The action is smooth and even with the recoil, it shoots smooth. The conditions today sucked. Basically, I used the small orange dots again, and the sun was directly over and behind the berm. I wear glasses to begin with, and I had dedicated safety glasses over the top of my normal glasses, so the glare was insane. But I was gonna be shooting the Steyr and when I am shooting a 100 year old rifle with 80 year old ammo, I am gonna wear some damn safety glasses. And because I knew I was gonna shoot the Steyr with the safety glasses, I shot all 3 with the glasses to be consistent.
So I shot the No. 5 first. It probably had the best quality ammo, but the glare made using the rear aperture sights damn near impossible. That being said (with much effort on my part to see through the rear aperture) the No.5 shot pretty well in printing a 2.75 inch group, all things considered:
Then, I went with the Mosin. For this test, I used a Type 53 because in my experience, the Chinese Type 53's almost always outshoot the Russian M44's. Plus, my 53's are much smoother to operate than my 44's. That being said, the T-53 did not let me down. It had one extreme flyer over to the left, which spread the 3 round group out to 4.5 inches. But I know that was probably mostly on me and only minimally on the glare, because the Mosin sights are so basic that the glare had much less effect. I think the biggest problem was that I shot the rifle without the bayonet deployed, so I had to hold half value right and there was no dot over there to help me concentrate my aim.
There is no group for the Steyr. This is because it was not on paper at 100. And after shooting 2 and a half groups, I had to quit because I only had one box of ammo and the last several rounds were kinda corroded. Because I was at the range basically by myself, I deemed them unsafe for the conditions. If I am gonna blow my rifle up, I want someone else there that can roll me around on the ground to put me out and/or call 9-1-1 as necessary. But the 8 rounds I did fire did go boom, thought I think they were left of center and maybe low -but with the glare, I could not discern the impact without a spotter.