Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here at RIA today with
a very scarce version of a Galil-based DMR.
Not quite a sniper's rifle, like a designated marksman's rifle.
These were introduced in Israel in 1983,
and they were imported commercially into the US in semi-auto only, like this one.
But only in extremely limited numbers because, well, they were quite expensive at the time.
What we have here is the 7.62 NATO version of the original Galil
that has been adapted to take a scope,
and a bipod mounted handguard, and a fancy folding stock.
So let me go ahead and show you around,
what they did to this thing to make it a sort of sniper rifle.
Alright, so what do we have here? We have a standard .308 Galil,
magazines were available in 12 and 25 rounds.
We have a longer and heavier barrel than the standard rifle, this is a 23 inch barrel.
The gun, by the way, is pretty chunky. Even without the scope it comes in at 5.5 kilos,
or about 12 pounds, plus another couple of pounds for the scope.
This somewhat hefty muzzle brake is standard equipment.
Interesting to note that this is very similar in pattern to the muzzle brake
that was put on the Israeli Mauser Model 66 snipers.
The scope is offset to the left, which we'll look at in a moment,
in large part to retain use of the stock iron sights.
So these are just what you would have on every Galil, including the flip-up night sights.
You've got the iron sights and the flip-up night sights on the rear as well.
The handguard has been fitted with a bipod block.
So the two legs of the bipod are just spring-loaded, you just push them to drop them up or down.
There is a little bit of rotation, and a little bit of pivot built into the bipod.
And the bipod is of course mounted here at the back of the barrel, basically under the chamber.
That tends to be not quite as stable for precision shooting,
but it allows you to have a much greater traverse.
You can pivot the rifle across a much wider field of fire
without having ... the shooter to move their own body as much.
So this is the same place where the Russians put the bipod on the Dragunov,
where the French put the bipod on the FR-F1 and F2, it's a fairly common choice to make.
The bipod legs are also extendable,
but not a lot, you can get an extra inch or two of length on them there.
These were all fitted with side-folding stocks, which is pretty handy
because the overall length of the rifle is a bit musket-like with the long barrel.
So you can fold that over when not in use.
Note that we have a cutout right here to accommodate the lever on the safety.
So whether the safety is in the safe or fire position,
you can still fold the ... stock up flush alongside.
It's a nice rubber recoil pad, you've got a sling attachment point on the bottom.
And of course we have a cheek riser that lifts your cheek weld up a bit, and ...
also out substantially to the side, because the scope is offset to the left of the action.
I think the idea here was to retain easy use of the iron sights,
certainly a mount like this one could be cantilevered over the top of the rifle.
But in order to actually clear the rear sight, you'd have to make the scope a lot higher.
And so I think the compromise solution here is,
"We'll offset it to the left, but we'll be able to keep it relatively low."
By the way, here are our receiver markings.
These are colloquially called the "Galatz", which I believe is a contraction
of the Hebrew word for Galil sniper, which I'm not even going to try and pronounce.
But you'll see them referred to as Galatz, g-a-l-a-t-z.
They were imported into the US by Action Arms, who also did a lot of the other Galil pattern rifles.
The scope mount is a quick-detach type, very similar to the standard Russian pattern.
If we pop that up, and back.
And then you actually only bring the scope back about halfway, and then it lifts off.
The thing is, if you try to install it from the very back, your scope rings hit on the rear sight.
So it mounts in right there ... where was it? There we go, right there.
And then it can lock in place.
This mounting rail has been welded to the side of the receiver,
it's not something that's machined in.
Again, because this is made from a standard 7.62 calibre Galil receiver.
The scope that's mounted here is a Nimrod 6x40, named after the famous hunter.
These are scopes that were made in Japan for an Israeli company, Koor Trading.
This pretty well fits the mould of the typical tactical sort of scope from the 1980s,
it has a fixed power, so you get a trade-off of less flexibility but a lot of rugged durability.
These rifles survive in IDF service, which says a lot about how much of a beating they can take.
We have a BDC on the elevation knob. This is cammed for M118A,
which is 7.62 NATO Special Ball, the sniper ammo basically.
And it goes out to 800 metres, right there.
The windage is in half ... mil clicks, and you've got five mils of adjustment to either side.
There is a rangefinder built into the reticle here.
So you align the waist with the top of the head, and see which of those sets of lines at the bottom fit.
2 is of course 200 metres, 10 is 1,000 metres, and then you've got 4, 6, and 800 as intermediaries.
Doctrinally the idea of a designated marksman's rifle like this,
or something like the Dragunov which it would be very similar in application to,
is you're getting a trade-off.
The accuracy is not quite as good as, say, a tuned up bolt-action rifle.
Accuracy on these is, from all the accounts that I've read, about 1.5 minute of angle,
that's what you can do with really good ammo and a good shooter.
And that's simply the maximum capability of the Galil action in this form.
However, in exchange for trading off a little bit of accuracy like that,
you get a much higher potential volume of fire than you would with a bolt-action rifle
because this is semi-auto with a 25 round magazine in it.
And you can, if you need a lot of rapid fire up close,
you can take the scope right off, it's quick detach and retains zero,
and then you have use of the iron sights.
So, these were used by the IDF, they've also been used by a number of other countries.
And there are actually a couple of copies, most notably there's a Ukrainian copy, the Fort-301
made that's very similar to this, but not quite identical.
I believe the ones that are in Israeli service, or were in Israeli service,
were modernised with some polymer furniture and a
newer pattern of bipod at some point during their service.
But finding one like this that made it into the US is fairly scarce.
They do show up but only rarely, so I thought it'd be cool to show this one to you guys.
Thanks for watching.