The Army's new rifle

[Ninurta]

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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