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+--- Thread: The Army's new rifle (/showthread.php?tid=2297)
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RE: The Army's new rifle - 727Sky - 05-16-2025
(05-15-2025, 05:16 PM)F2d5thCav Wrote: Had to laugh the other day. A friend of mine who was a "Cobra" pilot told me they called the 2.75-inch folding fin aerial rockets "wonder rockets" ... because once they launched, one wondered where they would land
We came across a hostile elephant in a big water filled clearing. We had been out doing our thing all day but even though low on ammo ,,,there were no friendly elephants in our A.O. Delta 21 rolled in hot and missed the entire elephant with his wonder rocket !!
Delta 21 would put rockets so close to us on final there were times you thought you could grab one as it went by your aircraft !!!
By missing the elephant with his last missile he was more than embarrassed..
Vance was flying with me and he wanted to get some close up pictures of the elephant so I began to hover ever closer to the animal. I was so close the rotor blades were probably over lapping the beast when all of a sudden the elephant sprayed water and charged !! My reaction time was quite good back then or there would have been a letter to dear old mom saying your son was killed by a hostile charging elephant while flying a combat assault mission !
RE: The Army's new rifle - 727Sky - 05-25-2025
Real world testing
RE: The Army's new rifle - Ninurta - 05-25-2025
"Well, sir, we lost that fight because we were able to carry just way too much ammo in to it" - said no combat grunt, ever.
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And that AK-12. I laughed and laughed at the Russians when they started a program to "modernize" and "improve upon" their last generation AK, the AK-74. The AK-74M family probably were improvements, and they should have left well enough alone with them, but those wacky Russians, they just had to keep tweaking and messing with it, and kept going until they broke it altogether...
Then China came out with their new combat rifle (and a new round for it), and I laughed and laughed - that's a boondoggle that they'll never get past, and still they keep painting it in glowing terms. The reality is, it is probably the best rifle China has ever fielded - from the perspective of the enemies that want to kill Chinese troops, without being killed BY them. The PLA might as well issue each soldier a broom handle, and send them off to war with it.
Now, not to be outdone by foreigners, the US Army has decided to screw with a rifle that has been working for decades, and invent a new round for that one, too, with what are to me predictable results... but I ain't laughing this time, because now it's our own troops asses on the line and hanging in the balance of General Stupidity - I think he's about a 4-star general.
Here's an idea, one which Army procurement will certainly ignore - if you're going to improve something, it's a good idea to, you know, make improvements in it rather than break it.
Improvements to the M4 might include going back to the "pencil profile" barrels. Those heavy barrels are useless, and require that stupid cutout ring on the barrel in case a guy wants to mount a grenade launcher on it. You'll never convince me that the cutouts don't have an adverse effect on accuracy - when you've got pressure running down a barrel, and it suddenly encounters less resistance at the cutout, I don't see how that could possible fail to induce accuracy-killing barrel whip.
Getting rid of the heavy barrels in favor of a pencil profile barrel would eliminate that. It would also eliminate about a pound of weight, some thing that would be appreciated by the average, already overloaded, grunt. Furthermore, hte smaller diameter barrels would have to give up their heat quicker, since there is less material to hold in heat. Sure, they might heat up faster, but by the same token, they'll cool down faster, too.
My AR has a heavy barrel. It was the best I could find - they make civilian models for chairborne commandos, and all of the chairborne commandos hear on YouTube that you've got to have a heavy barrel, so that's what they buy. Since that is what they buy, that is what the manufacturers make.
The chairborne commandos don't have to slog that heavy bitch across hill and dale, day in and day out. If they ever do, they'll be cursing YouTube I bet.
Thankfully, mine doesn't have that stupid grenade launcher cutout. I'm not likely to ever try to mount one anyhow, and I don't need that weak spot in the barrel. If it had the cutout, like 98% of the rest of the AR's that were in that store, I'd have just not bought it. Why waste the money? I'd have just gotten a wrist-rocket slingshot instead.
Still, I'm in the market for a Colt model 653 or 654 upper receiver to replace this upper with, if you know where to find one. My old ass would appreciate that pound less to carry.
Oh - and if they just HAVE to have those heavy barrels, flute the damned things. Fluting will lighten them and at the same time make them stiffer, while not losing the perceived advantages of the heavy barrel. Fluting would also provide more surface area to the barrel to promote heat dissipation.
It's science.
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RE: The Army's new rifle - FCD - 05-25-2025
The real challenge with those irregularly shaped barrels is the differential heat and dissipation variances. But you're right; if you're going to "fix" something, at least fix something that's broke. If it ain't broke, don't go "fixing" it!! BUT...then the kids of military brass don't get free swimming pools.
RE: The Army's new rifle - Ninurta - 05-25-2025
(05-25-2025, 09:54 AM)FCD Wrote: The real challenge with those irregularly shaped barrels is the differential heat and dissipation variances. But you're right; if you're going to "fix" something, at least fix something that's broke. If it ain't broke, don't go "fixing" it!! BUT...then the kids of military brass don't get free swimming pools.
You're right. I hadn't even thought of that. It seems that step-down cut would also make the barrels more prone to more or less permanent warpage.
I baby mine, of course, being a civilian and all. I've had it so hot I couldn't touch the barrel, so hot I was afraid it might melt those factory stock plastic hand guards that came with it (no heat shields inside 'em, either!), but not so hot I was afraid I'd warp the barrel... but then my barrel ain't got that step-down ring cut in it.
After that, I went on an "improvement" program of my own. I wrangled some gen-yoo-wine M4 hand guards with the double heat shields in them, because I figure a hand guard ought to, you know, guard your hand. I had a red dot sight on it, and a green laser, but both of them crapped out, so I got rid of them and just have the carry handle iron sights on it now, with a flashlight mounted. That got rid of a couple unnecessary pounds, too, but getting a lighter barrel would take it down to almost normal.
I used to have an AR built out of military surplus M16A1 parts. Man, I miss that gun! It was actually about a pound lighter than this stubby M4 wannabe, and had a 20" barrel to boot, even at the lower weight. The built-in carry handle it had was a lot more comfortable, too. The slot was bigger, because it didn't have to accommodate a mounting clamp to mount it to the receiver, so I could stick a thumb through the front of the carry handle slot and wrap the fingers around the front of the magazine well, and carry it all day long like that. if I tried that with this AR, I'd risk getting my thumb stuck in the carry handle and maybe breaking it (my thumb, that is) off trying to get my thumb out.
When one goes to making "improvements" to a thing, whether a weapon or a widget, it's often the little things that count the most.
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I've read a couple articles praising the AK-12 because it's "good to 800 meters", and I have to call bullshit on that. I think they're saying that because the rear sight is graduated to 800 meters, but I believe that's just overly optimistic. As I recall, the rear sight on my AK-74 was also graduated to 800 meters, but that didn't mean I really thought you could hit anything at 800 meters with it. Sure, it was sort of accurate, and shot groups under 2 MOA which is ok for a fighting rifle, but the barrels was short (16.3") and the rounds were light (52 gr I think), and there ain't no way that it was likely to split a hair at 800 meters. The AK-12 has the same barrel length and the same ammo, so I don't expect it would actually perform ballistically all that differently from the AK-74.
I had a rear sight taken off of an RPK-74 on the AK for a while, because the RPK sights have a windage adjustment on the rear sight. It was graduated to 1000 meters, but that didn't mean I thought that AK would get consistent hits at 1000 meters. I eventually took the RPK rear sight off and put the AK sight back on, after I decided that windage, once set to true, wouldn't make all that much difference in a rile of that character. You're not usually going to be fighting at much more than 300 meters, and usually a lot less. Especially around here, where 200 meters is usually a really long shot because of the ridges and thick woods. Those kinds of guns are meant for close-in fighting, in jungles and urban terrain and the like, not long range sniping. If I need a sniper rifle, I'll break out my .308 bolt gun.
Folks is funny, and I think a lot of them are either not quite aware of how far 800 meters is, or else they have way too much faith in a light bullet to fly true against cross winds and such. 800 meters is a long way for a 52 grain bullet to fight a cross wind.
I believe the video's assessment of the AK-12 is much more likely to be true that the armchair warriors who write gushing articles for the internet. I'm more likely to trust the instincts and reports of the guys who have to carry one on real-world battlefields.
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RE: The Army's new rifle - FCD - 05-25-2025
Plus, at 800m the 5.56 has got about negative energy to do any serious damage.
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Folks is funny, and I think a lot of them are either not quite aware of how far 800 meters is, or else they have way too much faith in a light bullet to fly true against cross winds and such. 800 meters is a long way for a 52 grain bullet to fight a cross wind.
I believe the video's assessment of the AK-12 is much more likely to be true that the armchair warriors who write gushing articles for the internet. I'm more likely to trust the instincts and reports of the guys who have to carry one on real-world battlefields.
Man, I could write a book about stuff like that. Especially the gun rags (internet or in print). All those guys get huge endorsements from firearms companies to give props to anything new.
RE: The Army's new rifle - Ninurta - 05-25-2025
(05-25-2025, 12:08 PM)FCD Wrote: Man, I could write a book about stuff like that. Especially the gun rags (internet or in print). All those guys get huge endorsements from firearms companies to give props to anything new.
Not to mention the alarming frequency that they get "free firearms" to "review". Where the hell do I sign up for that plan!
Nah, it wouldn't work for me. If I don't like something, I'll tell folks, in glowing terms and gory detail. Folks trying to promote a trashy product don't usually like that, unless they actually DO have an outstanding product.
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RE: The Army's new rifle - FCD - 05-25-2025
You know, on those "pre-ban" AR's which were sold during the ban (because their manufacture date was pre-ban) used to have a barrel which was thicker but didn't do anything. I did not know this, and was pretty surprised to learn what was really going on. I'd go to a gun show and see all these AR's with the expanded barrel end. They would say it was a 16" barrel, but if you measured with a tape measure from the breech it would measure like 20". I kept seeing these, so one time I asked an FFL whom I knew at one of the shows what was going on with them. He explained that the last 4" of the barrel was not rifled, so the rifling only came out 16" from the breech face, and the last 4" was a larger diameter which the bullet just passed through. And that way they could say they were '16" barrels'. This made them legal during the ban. But wow, talk about a screwed up idea! And to think I almost bought one of those!
I'll bet there were a whole lot of folks who got one of those home and got a big surprise when they ran their first jag or brush down the barrel!!
RE: The Army's new rifle - Ninurta - 05-26-2025
I've not seen any AR's like that, but I have seen some "Colt Commando" (XM177E1) mockups that fit the principle. They had about 12" barrels, with a 5" flash hider welded to the barrel to make it extend to 16 1/2 inches, within legal length. Then after saying that was ok, the ATF "backpedaled" and said ", no, those flash suppressors are REALLY sound suppressors, so NFA weapons, and that 12" barrel REALLY makes the weapon an SBR, so what you've got there is TWO NFA weapons, needing TWO tax stamps".
Duplicitous bastards!
I've no use personally for those sorts of weapons, or what they call now "AR pistols" with barrels between 7" and 10", but no butt stock, just a brace. I think the barrels are too short on those to make full use of the powder in the cartridge, some of it just gets blown out the muzzle before it burns, and is therefore not being used to propel the bullet. So, wasting powder and money, to my way of thinking. However, their money ain't mine to not waste, to each his own, and more power to 'em! I just ain't gonna have one of them is all.
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