PSL rifles, whats the difference

[dirtymike1]

Ok, just out of curiocity, what's the difference between these two rifles.

http://www.jgsales.com/product_info...o-style-scope-/cPath/209_214/products_id/4241


http://www.jgsales.com/product_info...o-style-scope-/cPath/209_214/products_id/2392


Besides almost $100 and lack of accessories, whats the difference?

 

[mshootnit]

the first one is a build using a US receiver the second is an actual foreign build. The second one is the one I would go with for sure.

 

[dirtymike1]

:facepalm

I can't believe I missed that in there...

 

[WardenWolf]

The foreign build is built in the same factory as the military PSL's. They use the same receiver and other parts, but the receiver is only drilled with two fire control group holes and uses a civilian AK trigger system in order to not be classified as a machine gun. The military PSL was never fully automatic, but it still used an AK-style fire control group that the BATF considers a machine gun.

The foreign build is brand new. Everything but the scope is unissued. The Romanian scopes use tritium illumination. As a result, they have a functional life of only 7-10 years. Because of this, new scopes go out on military rifles and older ones with expired tritium are put on the civilian export rifles. Many of these exported scopes have never seen field use, but expired in storage.

 

[dirtymike1]

Warden - any way to change out the tritium bits? I don't know much about tritium in general. But that gives me something new to read up on hahaha

 

[W L Johnson]

I seem to remember finding a website where someone tried to do just that complete with pictures
here it is, found it
http://www.akfiles.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28770
the problem seems to be finding the right size and shape.

 

[dirtymike1]

Ahh so in short, no lol.

 

[wally]

The Romanian scopes use tritium illumination. As a result, they have a functional life of only 7-10 years. Because of this, new scopes go out on military rifles and older ones with expired tritium are put on the civilian export rifles. Many of these exported scopes have never seen field use, but expired in storage.

I call BS.

Tritium has a half-life of twelve years, that means half of it is gone in 12 years, in terms of the decays producing light half the intensity is 1 stop photographically, and not all that noticeable. After 25 years your night sights will be dim, but probably still usable.

So unless these have been sitting around for about 30 years they should still be usable unless designed to be near the visual threshold initially, in which case I suspect they'd have used radium instead.

I've got 20+ year old night sights on my Glock 17 and they are still usable.

 

[W L Johnson]

Ahh so in short, no lol.

Maybe not "no" but it would be too much of a PITA to make it worth while. You're probably better off just getting a replacement scope that takes batteries and put the old one in storage if you really want the cross hairs to light up.
Such as this
http://www.kalinkaoptics.com/rifle-...-rangefinder-rifle-scope-sks-svd-version.html
I have one on my Saiga 308 and it works great.