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I'm planning a trip to Russia in October (primarily Moscow and St Petersburg) and recently I read this question and liked the idea of being able to use military equipment, specially AK-47, as this rifle was created in Russia.

I did some research and found some tours like this one, but it doesn't allow pictures to be taken at the shooting range. Other ones allow photos to be taken, but are a bit expensive like this one that advertises one price, but charges extra for photos and has a minimun amount of bullets one should buy at extra charge.

I'm looking for a tour that would be as cheap as possible (I thought of 50 USD), take like a few hours at most (lets say 4 hours round-trip time) and would me allow to take photos with the equipment. If my expectations could not be filled, I would be interested to know that also!

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gmauch
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    I intend to shoot only plastic targets, not any living being, if that matters. – gmauch Jul 30 '15 at 02:14
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    If you come to the US and make the right friends, you can do this for free :) – Michael Hampton Jul 30 '15 at 03:02
  • And @GayotFow explosives dogs are generally not trained to detect ammunition or gunpowder. At least not around here. Otherwise they'd alert on a third of the population... – Michael Hampton Jul 30 '15 at 03:08
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    You don't need to go to Russia. A local outfit offers this: http://www.therange702.com/ I have no experience with the company beyond the fact that they have enough ads around I remembered the URL and so I checked it first. I would assume their competitors (and they do have them!) provide similar offerings although exactly what machine guns they have available is something you would have to check. – Loren Pechtel Jul 30 '15 at 03:56
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    Added extreme tag, as this is not quite usual activity here :) – VMAtm Jul 30 '15 at 10:04
  • This museum in Izhevsk http://en.museum-mtk.ru/exhibitions/shooting/fighting/ says you can shoot AKM which is a flavor of AK-47 – sharptooth Jul 30 '15 at 10:38
  • @sharptooth As I see, OP plans to visit only two main cities in Russia – VMAtm Jul 30 '15 at 13:31
  • @MichaelHampton Would you be one of those? Wanna be my friend ;-) ? – gmauch Jul 30 '15 at 14:02
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    @sharptooth Izhevsk is the city where AK-47 was created, but it a bit far away (over a 1000Km) from Moscow. I don't think I'll have enough time to go visit tha museum. – gmauch Jul 30 '15 at 14:04
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    In the US, see http://wheretoshoot.org/ – Michael Hampton Jul 30 '15 at 20:31
  • @gmauch It's up to you, that's why I made it a comment. Who knows - maybe you contact them and get so enthusiastic that a thousand kilometers one way will be no big deal for you. – sharptooth Jul 31 '15 at 10:18
  • The "average woman you might meet" at your moscow360 link looks like she's intending on collecting hot brass down the front (reloading?) – Spehro Pefhany Mar 27 '17 at 04:09
  • I hope you're feeling strong, the AK-47 kicks like a mule. – zeocrash Mar 10 '20 at 12:13
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    @zeocrash The AK I used had a tripod, so I didn't feel any kicks! Guess it's time for a new trip to Russia to feel the real deal! – gmauch Mar 10 '20 at 13:52
  • The one i used in Cambodia didn't. My shots were all over the place. It's because the AK 47 is such a light gun but uses a really powerful cartridge. When the soviets developed the AK-74, they used a smaller cartridge which, when tested, gave less than half the recoil energy of the AK-47. – zeocrash Mar 10 '20 at 14:53

8 Answers8

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The main concern you must be aware of for such tours is that you have to get details before booking it. The laws regarding such weapon are very strict here in Russia, and such shooting is allowed to take place only in shooting clubs and polygons. Quite popular tour you've linked is all about shooting in specific place (shooting club), with no outdoor experience. Yes, you can take photos, but they wouldn't be shocking. From other side, you'll get shooting experience from a real weapon.

I suggest you to search shooting clubs directly (Central Shooting Club in Moscow, Baltic Shooting Club in Saint Petersburg), without travel agencies - you'll save your money and wouldn't be limited in time or number of bullets. Even more, you can choose some other weapon, for example, in BSC:

First WW weapons

Maxim machine-gun
Maxim machine-gun
Mosin-Nagant rifle
Mosin-Nagant rifle

Second WW weapons

PPSh-41 (Shpagin's submachine gun)
PPSh-41 (Shpagin's submachine gun)

Dozens of AK modifications, even handle machine gun:

AK modification
One bullet (especially for old weapons) is up to 80 RUR, so for 50 USD you can book 20 bullets and a taxi from your hotel in Saint Petersburg. Prices in Moscow can be greater up to 20% more.

Another tour you've linked, as I think, is the similar to previous one, as they say that you'll fire from 50 meter distance, which is a standard distance for shooting clubs.

All other offers are about shooting from copies of weapons, which are pneumatic, so this can be done only for photos :) I suggest you to google the KMB(Курс молодого бойца, recruit training)-course in Moscow, it's fun, you'll take many photos, eat a real soldier's food, learn how to disassemble AKM, but shooting is made from a copy, as I said already. The price for tour I've linked is 2400 RUR, which is near 50 USD.

In Saint Petersburg you can find a popular tour for UAZ driving and AKM shooting - you'll learn how to drive a real military car:

http://spb.daroo.ru/images/data/10879_1_0910uaz1.png

More options can be found here (there are some tours for Stalin's Military Line, knife fight and even tank driving tour), but they are more expensive than you can spend :) (starting from 6400 RUR, which is near 120 USD). Tank driving near Moscow can be done too.

pnuts
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    120 USD to drive a tank! Taking notes for my trip to Russia... :) – Adriano Jul 31 '15 at 15:13
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    @AdrienBe For this sum only car :P – VMAtm Jul 31 '15 at 16:34
  • @VMAtm, I checked both shooting clubs websites, but they are only in Russian. I can (barely) read cyrillic, but could not find an english (or any other language) version. I should've added this to my question, I need some english speaking people to correctly understand the safety instructions. Anyway I'll write an english e-mail and ask them. – gmauch Aug 03 '15 at 14:21
  • Than, may be, a tour will be a better option for you. Hope you'll enjoy your journey, and add some answer here after it! – VMAtm Aug 03 '15 at 14:26
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    @VMAtm Just for the records, The Baltic Shooting Club answered me saying that "use the services of our shooting center can only Russian Federation citizens, with Russian passport". Too bad for me... – gmauch Aug 06 '15 at 11:54
  • Oh, damn it. Didn't know that :( – VMAtm Aug 06 '15 at 12:01
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    @VMAtm Again for the records, the Central Shooting Club told me that "a foreign national must have a good knowledge of the Russian language or the presence of an interpreter and must carry original passport.". Guess i'll have to go with the tours! – gmauch Aug 11 '15 at 15:31
  • Hope you'll still enjoy your experience! – VMAtm Aug 11 '15 at 17:39
  • FPSRussia must be one of the wealthiest Russians around... he fired more rounds than that in a quad-copter mounted gun – CGCampbell Oct 30 '15 at 18:37
  • I think that he has some sponsors for this show/ – VMAtm Oct 30 '15 at 19:35
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    Just a quick note - these are not real military AKs, but stripped down versions known as Saiga, complying with the regulations for hunting weapons. But their look and feel is quite similar to AK. And as for the real AKs, in Russia they're forbidden for any civilian use. – Spc_555 Nov 24 '16 at 08:54
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If you are interesting in AK-47, I recommend you to visit Kalashnikov Museum in Izhevsk city. It's about 2 hours by plane from Moscow or St.Petersburg.
In museum you can see great exhibition of AK-models from all over the world, and other rifles. Also you learn Mikhail Kalashnikov's biography in details. And of course, here you can shoot from arms.

Sash0k
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Many clubs can give you a chance: for example

  1. Price http://www.strelclub.ru/ceny/odinochnye-poseshcheniya/boevoy-tir/
  2. Weapon catalog : http://www.strelclub.ru/katalog-oruzhiya/boevoy-tir/

Just google it "ак 47 москва тир"

If you have money you can even fly on Mig-29 to edge of space http://29mig.com/

Alexander
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  • Looks promising...Too bad this StrelClub doesn't offer an english version of it's website... – gmauch Sep 20 '16 at 20:55
  • No - I just take first what give me google :-) - you can try by yourself "ак 47 москва тир", or for St Petersburg "ак 47 питер тир" – Alexander Sep 21 '16 at 06:17
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I have been to Labyrinth. They have an English website and many friendly English speaking instructors. I don't know if they allow you to take photos in the range though. http://en.strelclub.ru/

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Before coming to Moscow I booked two tours from this company http://www.moscowguntours.com/, I found it on TripAdvisor https: https://www.tripadvisor.ie/Attraction_Review-g298484-d12621727-Reviews-Moscow_Gun_Tours-Moscow_Central_Russia.html , I fired both the Ak-47 and the Makarov pistol, The instructor's name is Evgeny, he speaks perfect English and is a friendly and knowledgeable guy. He actually taught me how to shoot and cared a lot about me actually hitting the bullseye, He told me he operates in different ranges and has a variety of custom marksmanship courses.

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Visited Evgeny (www.moscowguntours.com) before Christmas, he is a really cool guy, the range we went to had a wide variety of guns to shoot from, both Russian and Western guns. Evgeny himself is a Russian-Canadian so his English is great! I own quite a few handguns and rifles myself and can say that Evgeny gave me a lot of good tips on how to improve my marksmanship! There are many ranges in Moscow where tourists can shoot but It's important to have a good instructor!

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Have you tried these guys? www.russiarocks.me/listing/spb-shooting Give it a go, as I've tried a tour with them with some mates and everything went just perfect (I loved the hotel pickup and a return transfer with English speaking guide especially).

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This is the best shooting range in Moscow https://tanksdriving.com/shooting-range-moscow/ They do the lowest price guarantee. Reviews about it https://www.tripadvisor.ru/Attraction_Review-g298484-d19122718-Reviews-Shooting_range_Moscow-Moscow_Central_Russia.html

Kevin
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  • Hello and welcome to travel stackexchange. Are you affiliated to this shooting range? Why do you think it's the best one in Moskow? As this is a very old question, your comment might look like advertisement. – Joren Vandamme Mar 10 '20 at 08:45