Posted on 09/19/2010 4:30:54 PM PDT by dynachrome
had in their custody 26 firearms and an RPG-7 launcher captured from Taliban fighters or collected from caches.
Of these weapons, 12 were variants of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, 8 were bolt-action rifles from World War II or earlier, 4 were variants of the PK machine gun, and 2 were small semiautomatic pistols. This was in some ways a typical mix for Afghanistan, although the ratio of bolt-action rifles was higher than what many units outside of Helmand Province have seen.
The ratio is interesting and aligns with the experience of patrolling in and near Marja and other contested areas nearby. Insurgents in Helmand Province seem to have used bolt-action rifles more than in many regions of Afghanistan. Whether this indicates a pressure on the supply of assault rifles and their ammunition or a preference for the longer effective ranges of Lee-Enfield and Mosin-Nagant rifles is not clear
(Excerpt) Read more at atwar.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Is it possible that the Lee-Enfield is a copy made by local gunsmiths? They are great at making anything by hand, and they even work very well, if one doesn’t shoot too fast and heat up the so-so steel.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khyber_Pass_Copy - Cached - Similar
Khyber Pass specials. Generally not too safe to shoot.
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