I'm joining the Tavor Club...

[cbhausen]

I'm up to 300 rounds after the NWI Meet 'n' Shoot and still flawless. Two 30-round mags of PDX-1, a Streamlight TLR-H1 and it's ready for night watch duty.

 

[cbhausen]

Wow, left-hand Tavor is $1,644 with make offer at Buds, probably can be had for about $1,600:

IWI TSB16L Tavor SAR Flattop LH SA 223 Rem/5.56 NATO 16.5" 3 $1,644.00 SHIPS FREE

That's a smokin' deal for sure.

 

[cbhausen]

I'm resurrecting this thread because my Tavor will be one year old in a week (I picked it up on 9/11/14). Just shy of 900 rounds I finally had a failure last night. A stovepipe FTE halfway through a magazine resulted in destruction of the next round which got mangled when the bolt closed on it and the stovepipe.

I've been through three red dots and two or three scopes in the last year trying to decide what to stick with, most of which were never mounted or saw very few rounds. The vast majority of my shooting has been with the folding BUIS. From prone I was able to ring a life-size torso target consistently and hit the 8" center popper about 2/3 of the time from 170 yards with the irons. I also hit a bowling pin hanging from a rope 3 of 4 shots on that same day, which is the extent of my shooting with the Tavor outside of the typical poking holes in paper targets at a 25-yard indoor range.

Here is the target I shot last night at Parabellum just as they were closing. I can only find 28 holes (I shot one 30-round magazine with the aforementioned FTE). I know the FTE was not a squib because I reeled the target in after each string and the missing hole was before the FTE so I can only conclude the missing shot went through an existing hole. I think the double might be at 7 o'clock in the 9 ring of the center target.

The first and fifth three-shot groups are circled. The first group was shot at the center bullseye, the fifth group shot at the lower right. All groups are low because the bore is 3.75" below the sights on this rifle. The groups were shot 3 each at the center, upper left, upper right, lower left, and lower right targets before finishing the magazine back on the center bull.

The groups were patterning right of center until I adjusted the front sight a few clicks (windage and elevation are both adjusted on the Tavor's front sight). I find it a bit annoying the front sight is about 2/3 of the way toward shoooter's right within its adjustment range. A laser bore sighter puts the sight more toward the center of its range left to right so I'm wondering if the shot patterns are a result of poor trigger control and I'm correcting for that by dialing it out with the windage adjustment. Crazy how the first group was the tightest, I'm sure there is something to that.

Now that I've looked through a Vortex Razor HD Gen 2 I know that's what I will finally keep on this rifle. It's fun to shoot with a high cool factor and the Israeli pedigree makes it even cooler. I buy, sell and trade a lot of stuff but I don't see this rifle going anywhere. Next on the list is a 9mm conversion kit so I can shoot it at MCF&G.

Edit: Now that I think about it the three shots outside the first group were the second group I fired with the UL, UR, LL, LR, and center afterward. I really need to keep a pen with me rather than trying to remember later.

 

[cbhausen]

The front sight issue was gnawing at me so I pulled the rifle apart last night (including barrel removal) and reassembled it. Went back to Parabellum and put 30 more on paper from 25 yards. This time I lowered the front sight post all the way and really concentrated on cadence and breath control while shooting with elbows on the bench.

As before I shot the center bull first, then UL, UR, LL and LR bulls. I marked the first three-shot group on each target before putting three more on each in the same order. I moved the front sight one click to the right (to move POI left) after group #2.

This is more like it. 12 of the last 15 in or touching the X-ring... The rifle ran great with 10-round Lancer L5 AWM magazines. The front sight post is still way off to shoooter's right which bugs the crap out of me. I'd be out of room if I needed to make a windage adjustment so I'm sending it back to IWI if they'll accept it. Similar warranty work requests have gotten mixed results.

As for yesterday's failure I might have caused it. Immediately before the FTE I pulled the charging handle back a couple of inches to get at the front sight windage screw, rode it forward, then fired the shot which resulted in the FTE. Coincidence, maybe, maybe not.

Anyway, here's tonight's target.

 

[jhelm]

I really want to like the tavor rifle but, at least for me, the awkwardness of the sighting is my hangup. It appears that any type of red dot or scope would have to sit really high off the rifle. My question is...is this something everyone else dislikes and just overcomes to live with the rifle?

 

[cbhausen]

The line is sight is 3-3/4" above the bore axis on the Tavor when using a 1/3 lower cowitness 1.5-1.59" high (top of pic rail to center of optical axis) mount. This gives a proper cheek weld, similar to absolute cowitness height on an AR. The rail is just lower to the stock on the Tavor.

The big difference between barrel and sight height on the Tavor really affects first and second zero more than awkwardness of sighting. The Tavor's zeroes are at about 80 and 200 yards.

Using an absolute cowitness mount on the Tavor will not allow you to get low enough on the stock. One must also aim a little high at very close range, a couple i of nches, for precise shot placement. The Tavor is not a scalpel, it's a battle axe.

The Tavor handles so nicely the only real hangup is overcoming AR muscle memory. I had none so I didn't have to unlearn anything.