My first rifle

People on YouTube often ask me questions about gear and I think I already made videos showing all my setups, apart from this one. This is my first ever rifle my dad bought me when I was starting hunting. These were different times and it was a rifle on a budget, but proved to be a very good tool, but probably not the prettiest. 🙄 Looking back I was quite successful with it and did not miss many and shot quite a lot roe deer and wild boar with it.

7×64 vs .30-06

This is typical rifle Polish hunters would use in ’70s. Majority of people would have Czech Brno or CZ rifles, more lucky ones would have Mannlicher-Lucznik, licensed Mannlicher M rifle made in Poland. There were some old German Merkel and Simson combo guns and drillings, but majority would have either Czech or modified ex military Mosin rifles. Funny thing was 80-90% of them were either 7×64 or .30-06 (excluding combo and drillings, but majority would be rimmed version of the first one – 7x65R).
I am not sure why, I think it was one of the problems under communism with shortage of everything including ammo… but rifles usually were available only in these two cartridges and Polish hunters were divided between 7×64 and .30-06 enthusiasts.
I got 7×64. Not that I had a huge choice and selected that round intentionally, but because this one was available. 😆

Brno ZKK600

The rifle is very simple and there is not much to it. It is modified Mauser action with a safety on side which supposed to be an improvement, but for some reason safety is the other way round than any other rifle I handled. Pushing the catch forward makes it safe 🙄 and to make it ready to fire it has to be pulled back. It is not very convenient, and another thing is in my rifle it makes a really loud click. I confess I used to take safety off whenever I heard any movement under the high seat or was stalking closer to deer or pigs as it was so loud that I would spook my quarry otherwise. 🙄 There is no way to do it quietly and I never bothered to get it fixed.

There is no magazine, just a floor plate that can be opened to unload. Trigger is not very good on its own, but when using a set option it is much better and I always used it as a set trigger.

Modified old Zeiss

This is another thing that someone not living under communism would not understand… 😆 Why modify a scope? What’s the point? The point is there was no access to nice new scopes and they cost a fortune back then, but some older scopes were privately smuggled from Germany and there were several people specializing in these kind of modifications. They would convert older 4x models, and at that time variable x50 or x56 scopes were available in Western Europe and old scopes sold cheaply, to 6×42 or 7×50. My scope is an old Zeiss x4 that was modified. How does it perform? Surprisingly well. It is very good in low light even when I compare it to modern variable scopes. It has thick #1 reticule and I never had any problems with it. In all these years it never misted inside and never lost a zero. Another interesting thing showing its age is that it has only vertical adjustment knob. It has no vertical adjustment on the scope and it has to be set on the mounts… It is inconvenient but can be done. Rail mount is very solid and I never had to touch it after zeroing.

Since I got this rifle I was thinking about upgrading, but I still have this rifle and most of my wild boar shot during the night under the moon was from this rifle. Nothing fancy, but a good reliable tool that does the job.

Rifle video review

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