Shooting with the PLA in Beijing

**timo** · Posted On: 6/16/2010 1:58am

It's a national holiday today and for fun, me and a group of peace loving friends went to the shooting range run by the PLA up by badaling.

Coming from the UK means my knowledge of guns is basically zero. ok. well i did a whole year in the army cadets and fired L98s and LSWs 16 years ago, but it may as well have never happened. so here's how the experience went:

Hired a driver for 400rmb for the day and gave him the address. Made sure we left early with a bag of snacks, water, passports and a fat wedge of cash. It took about an hour to get there and it's out in the sticks. However it is a totally new build and about 80% complete, so instead of sitting out in the burning sun you get air conditioning and comfy seats and everything that civilisation means. no beer though.

turns out only one member of the group had to show a passport, though to be safe I'd always bring your own anyway. then they lead you into a room with lots of guns on the wall. A dude walks with you and you choose what you want and he orders it on the "menu" (his word not mine). The only fee is for the bullets which range from 10rmb per round for 5.8mm to 15rmb for 5.56mm and there is a minimum order of 10 rounds per gun.

after that you sit in the corridor and when it's set up you go into a booth which opens onto an outdoor range. Handguns were attached to a counter by a chain. I walked in, got given a pair of ear defenders, then the gun. That was it. No safety advice, no indication of the gun being loaded and ready to go, nothing. Hilarious. The targets can be moved and as you shoot the system records your shots and tells you how many points you've scored. The hand gun I used was:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QSZ-92

My impressions, as a non shooter, were that it was distinctly more difficult to shoot accurately than hollywood had led me to believe, the trigger was extremely light and the recoil was much smaller than i expected. fun.

Next up I moved onto what I thought was a sniper rifle, but apparently isn't. It's the chinese variant of this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragunov_Sniper_Rifle

Target was at 100m and it was sooo easy to shoot. The safety precautions here was that the barrel is bolted to a movable fixture: you can manipulate it no problem but you can't turn it on the solider keeping an eye on you. Oh, and I thought I was playing it safe with the distance between the scope and my eye. I didn't get hit but I did modify the distance after the first shot...

I ended the experience on the current PLA assault rifle:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QBZ-95

Same set up as above but with iron sights no scope. Much more difficult to hit the bull (or whatever you call it....). Had a go on full auto and realised it was a pointless endeavour. One bullet at a time for me....

So if you are in Beijing and your home country doesn't give you access to such things I thoroughly recommend it. That said, the glint in my girlfriends eyes when she first finished shooting the handgun made me very glad access is restricted....

**kcvmac** · Posted On: 6/16/2010 11:03pm

The Type-95 looks like fun. How was the recoil on full-auto?

**Mr. Machette** · Posted On: 6/17/2010 2:46pm

I am very jealous! Those are weapons that we in the States would never get to try unless we traveled to China like you did.

Too cool man!

**timo** · Posted On: 6/17/2010 6:57pm

the recoil on full auto wasn't bad at all, i'm just a total noob at guns.

here's the website:

http://bfshoot.com/index.html

being that it is in china don't be surprised if it just doesn't work on some days....

**TheMightyMcClaw** · Posted On: 6/17/2010 11:36pm

I'm curious - were the customers at the shooting range mostly other expats, or were they Chinese?
10 RMB/round seems a bit on the pricey side.

**timo** · Posted On: 6/18/2010 1:01am

It was mostly chinese, no tour buses present and too far off the normal expat circuit to attract casual visitors. China is a very poor country, but, there are a lot of very wealthy people here and the new middle class love to spend money/gain status. I spent 500rmb in a very short time, but i will be going back next month.

**Hooded Justice** · Posted On: 6/18/2010 2:15pm

Originally Posted by Mr. Machette

I am very jealous! Those are weapons that we in the States would never get to try unless we traveled to China like you did.

Too cool man!

Are you serious? In america if you have the $$ to drop you can get pretty much anything you want if you aren't a felon. The range down the street from my house rents full auto guns for use on their range as well as a Draganov SVD for sale among a ton of other stuff and I live just outside seattle which is pretty liberal and not know for its pro gun stances. In america its all about getting the proper license and then you could probably own a Dillon mini gun if you had enough money.

**Wounded Ronin** · Posted On: 6/18/2010 2:34pm

Oh, I'm glad the OP learned that automatic fire can be hard to control and is not some magical holy grail of shooting.

**judoist** · Posted On: 6/20/2010 3:38pm

A Dragunov, Type 95 and a handgun? YOU lucky bastard! And all of this in China. BTW, what was the "glint in your gf's eyes"? Please, describe it with a little bit of detail, for the sake of all the Bullshido members...

**timo** · Posted On: 6/20/2010 11:42pm

we're planning on going back at the beginning of next month, so if any of you guys are in beijing get in touch.

if any of you expert gun people have any links to good information on how to shoot, it would be great if you shared. the supervising staff really don't seem to care what you do, plus my mandarin is beyond awful.

the "glint" looked like she enjoyed shooting A LOT combined with some evil intent that she was day dreaming about...