Farseer Anath'lan wrote: There's a heap of "The Geneva Conventions say it's illegal" stuff floating round every western military it seems, because we got much the same spiel. The Red Cross publishes a summary of the GC, and it's less than 20 pages long. Most of it deals with the treatment of PoW, and occupied territories. This is all the GC really says about weapons:
"Conduct of combatants
The Protocol lays down the rules governing the conduct of com- batants during hostilities. The basic principle underlying these rules is that the right of the warring parties to choose methods and means of warfare is not unlimited. It follows that it is prohib- ited to use arms, projectiles and materials and methods of warfare that cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering (P.I, 35).
It is prohibited to kill, injure or capture an adversary by resorting to perfidy (P.I, 37). The recognized emblems (red cross, red crescent and red crystal emblem, white flag, protective emblem of cultural property, etc.) must not be misused (P.I, 38 / P.III, 1, 2). The use of nationality emblems of adverse parties or other States not party to the conflict is prohibited (P.I, 39). The Protocol thus affirms that the law of armed conflict requires a degree of fairness on the part of the combatants.
It is prohibited to refuse quarter (P.I, 40). An adversary who is not or no longer able to take part in hostilities, who has surrendered or who clearly expresses the intention of surrendering, must not be made the object of attack (P.I, 41, 42). A captor who lacks the means to evacuate his prisoners must release them (P.I, 41)."
See, the funny thing is the rules lawyer in me says,
Well, anything that causes "unnecessary suffering" seems like it would make FMJ illegal and hollow points preferred. Under the logic that a soldier is more likely to survive a FMJ round and thus suffer while he lays injured. A hollow point is more likely to end the suffering quickly. Or if body armor is involved we must obviously switch to API or APX rounds.
Tongue firmly in cheek from myself as I think these rules are dumb, but if someone actually cared about them then this would make more sense than sticking to FMJ only.
catbarf wrote: Forgot to reply to this earlier- yeah, the CETME is the most cost-effective battle rifle nowadays, but I don't think it's the best example among the big four (G3, FAL, AR-10, M14). The roller-delay is great for a subgun but pretty violent for a rifle caliber, and it mangles brass if reloading is a concern.
I'm pretty partial to the FAL. Most aren't any better than 3 MOA and using steel-case ammo can be risky, but the adjustable gas system makes them exceptionally soft shooters, and the controls and layout feel surprisingly modern considering its age. DSA makes decent new ones, or builds on old Imbel receivers can still be found for $1-1.5K.
I'm partial to the CETME for the price and the Spanish lineage. I mean, I did write a book on the Spanish Civil War, so it's clearly an area of interest to me.
The Spanish made some solid weapons and they're relatively cheap. While the Spanish don't get a ton of respect in military firearms discussions, they adopted autoloader sidearms before the British or the French. Indeed, the French came to them cap in hand during the Great War.
I mentioned our zombie discussion to a coworker who once worked maintenance for battlefield recovery and he found it funny. He noted the many, many ways his equipment could ruin zombies, even without using their weapon mounts.
Again, zombie stories have to be set in an imaginary world where these things are not intensively studied by bored GIs in support arms who are absolutely certain that they could outperform the infantry.
Haighus wrote: I thought there were also treaties about landmines, but with not great signature coverage so plenty of nations still use them.
I'm not convinced landmines are obsolete in modern warfare. They are cheap and therefore can achieve massive coverage, as seen in Ukraine. Breaching defended minefields is very challenging.
They're absolutely not obsolete, but they have (or are supposed to) very strict requirements for their employment. The world is moving towards anti-personnel mines, at least, not being acceptable. And the Ottawa treaty has 164 of the 200 or so nations of the world as signatories - the issue is the US, Russia and China refuse to hold themselves accountable.
And Yes, the Claymore mine can absolutely be set to trip mode. It's not just a clacker mode.
And also take a grain of salt with an Airforce MP telling me how their Shotgun training qualifies them as an expert of laws of war.
Right, but it's not quite as easy as "press a button". It requires a whole new triggering mech to come with it. And the signatories of the Ottawa Treaty treat a trip-mode claymore as a landmine, and therefore prohibited. The Claymore not being a mine is based wholly around it being a clacker operated mech, and that is very much NOT a sheer technicality, it's entirely consistent with the treaty.
Yeah, I'm not going to assume anyone outside of a lawyer specialising in the Laws of War is an expert, because the number of things I've been told that are just downright EASILY verifiably false have come from everyone. Combat corps shoot well. Or are supposed to. That's it. It's not like they get a course in the laws of war. They might get a 15 minute power point presentation telling them not to shoot PoWs.
Well, anything that causes "unnecessary suffering" seems like it would make FMJ illegal and hollow points preferred. Under the logic that a soldier is more likely to survive a FMJ round and thus suffer while he lays injured. A hollow point is more likely to end the suffering quickly. Or if body armor is involved we must obviously switch to API or APX rounds.
Tongue firmly in cheek from myself as I think these rules are dumb, but if someone actually cared about them then this would make more sense than sticking to FMJ only.
It IS interesting though, and yeah, it's quite the line to walk. I think the difference being between suffering, and unnecessary suffering, is an interesting one, and I sort of land like this - I would hate to be shot by FMJ. But I'm probably going to survive, and I'll take the suffering, because being alive is basically always better than being dead. SO I'd rather cop an FMJ than a hollow point. But I don't want to get hit by white phos, because that falls into unnecessary suffering - I'm probably going to prefer being dead than having my skin burning with no way to put it out.
And Yes, the Claymore mine can absolutely be set to trip mode. It's not just a clacker mode.
And also take a grain of salt with an Airforce MP telling me how their Shotgun training qualifies them as an expert of laws of war.
1: Not an Air Force MP. It was an Army recon platoon tasked to guard an army airfield. B. Not sure where I claimed to be an expert on law of war. I was an expert on tanks and the rounds we used as a tanker, and know all our training had to conform to law of war requirements and did have to sit through way too many law of war training sessions.
Even with 'trip mode' you need an electric charge to set off the blasting caps, or an entirely different mechanism than the provided blasting caps.
Forgot to reply to this earlier- yeah, the CETME is the most cost-effective battle rifle nowadays, but I don't think it's the best example among the big four (G3, FAL, AR-10, M14). The roller-delay is great for a subgun but pretty violent for a rifle caliber, and it mangles brass if reloading is a concern.
Yeah, my HK91 does shred some brass. Shocked me the first time, was not expecting that.
I was watching a video about how the US spent $380 million developing the xm-29 grenade launcher, but then realized that it violated international treaty and was a warcrimes stick.
Long story short, it was a smaller, 25mm grenade launcher for urban combat. It could program grenades to detonate mid-air at a set distance from the shooter, effectively letting you snipe targets hiding behind walls.
The problem? Explosive ammunition is a war crime. In order to be legal, explosive rounds must be large enough to classify as "ordinance", which requires rounds to be at least 37mm in diameter, or 400 grams in mass. These mini-grenades were neither.
The program was quietly canceled (despite good reviews by troops) and swept under the rug. One of those times weapons developers and politicians really should have consulted with lawyers first.
First, the XM29 was the OICW (Objective Individual Combat Weapon) program which started in the early 90s, and consisted of a 20mm airbursting launcher with an underslung rifle. The program was cancelled in 2004 and its constituent components were separated out into the XM8 (a 5.56 rifle) and the XM25 (the standalone launcher, scaled up to 25mm), the latter of which was soldiered on until cancellation in 2013. So that's twenty full years of development in which, apparently, nobody thought to check legal.
In reality, the prohibition on explosive ammunition under 400g stems from the St Petersburg Declaration of 1868, but there is no caliber restriction in it (37mm was just the most common artillery caliber of the time that exceeded the 400g requirement) and more importantly the Declaration was only adopted by a handful of signatories and is not considered legally binding today. Many of its terms were adopted in the Hague Conventions but with alteration; the use of incendiary and explosive ammunition is explicitly permitted for non-small-arms (like autocannons), and the 400g mass requirement did not carry over. Expanding ammunition is banned, and explosive bullets are customarily understood to cause excess suffering to no military advantage under the same principle. But grenades, autocannon rounds, anti-materiel rounds, and airbursting munitions are understood to have no viable non-explosive equivalent, and are therefore militarily justified. This was further codified in the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions, which established three guiding principles specifically because setting hard numbers inevitably leads to loopholes.
The XM25 was cancelled because it didn't do anything well enough to justify the bulk and expense. Troops didn't find it more useful than an underbarrel 40mm launcher, and the initial deployment trials came back with well over a thousand recommendations for improvement.
And while we're at it, 40mm grenades have a typical projectile mass of 200-300g, which is a violation of the St Petersburg Declaration, yet in common use across all of NATO. South Africa actively fields the Inkunzi PAW-20, a 20mm grenade launcher. China fields and exports a variety of 35mm launchers. Under the Hague Conventions, caliber and projectile weight do not matter, only the intended purpose of the munition.
Kind of like vampire movies, etc. "What is this strange, new inexplicable thing that has an entire genre of entertainment built around it? How do we respond to it without betraying obvious and easily exploited conventions?"
The simple option is the convention is either wrong, or only partially correct.
For example: Zombies can be put down with salt in mythology, but movies rarely use this option. Conversely, sunlight harming vampires is almost entirely the invention of cinema.
But, this is getting OT for the thread.
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CptJake wrote: Seems amazing we developed the M1028 canister round for the Abrams if they are 'illegal'. More amazing we used them.
I was under the impression that AMP replaced CAN, or was that delayed by COVID?
BaronIveagh wrote: The simple option is the convention is either wrong, or only partially correct.
For example: Zombies can be put down with salt in mythology, but movies rarely use this option. Conversely, sunlight harming vampires is almost entirely the invention of cinema.
But, this is getting OT for the thread.
Not at all. This is about firearms and their uses. Totally within topic to debate what works best for downing certain things.
My point is that zombie lore is deeply embedded in military types and if they notice people shambling around who feel no pain and only die from head shots, they will come to certain immediate conclusions.
The discussion of the grenade launcher ties into this. As noted, the concept of an infantry squad equipped only with rifles is a Hollywood thing, based on keep the prop budget low. This also explains why revolvers and manually operated shotgus remain popular choices - blank ammo for them is cheap and easy to use because it doesn't have to cycle the action.
It is interesting that all three fatalities on set involving firearms (Alec Baldwin, Brandon Lee and John Erik Hexum) involved revolvers. I don't think it speaks to their lack of safety, merely that because they are so cheap and easy to use, armorers are more casual with them (or less qualified armorers are employed).
Getting back to the military, these support weapons are expensive to show on film (especially rotary aviation and tube artillery), but it's there. I'm not saying they would call up heavy artillery, but mortar sections would require minimal difficulty to activate once the nature of the threat became known. They'd be plenty enough to deal with zombies.
In the immediate contact, grenade launchers and various automatic weapons would be employed. The US does not have "leg" infantry, so if troops get activated, they're going to have vehicle-mounted heavy weapons of some sort.
My point is that zombie lore is deeply embedded in military types and if they notice people shambling around who feel no pain and only die from head shots, they will come to certain immediate conclusions.
No, Hollywood's version of zombie lore is embedded. Which was my point.
Further, the first conclusion they're going to probably come to isn't "Oh, Zombies" it's "Oh, Body Armor" unless they're *much* closer than they should be to said Zombies.
As far as support weapons, the estimates I was running off of when I said the *entire* United States military does include the now mothballed Iowa class battleships, which most other vehicle mounted weapons ain't gak compared to.
Let me explain: FIBUA, buildings block shrapnel, so mortars are not going to be as effective as you seem to think. And that's assuming that it didn't impact on a roof and render itself useless. The M120 is potentially lethal out to 200 odd feet, but the area where we're making kibble is much smaller, at about 14 feet, as they contain Comp B. This has a sustained fire rate of 4 rounds per min. Assuming that Zed is packed cheek to jowl, this would deal with about 25 targets, max, under ideal circumstances, which, most likely, do not exist in the field. These mortars will be *the* most effective weapon that mechanized infantry can deploy, under the circumstances.
The ultimate problem is, that this is a numbers game the US military can't actually win. In this scenario, it'd be like the entire population of London, men, women, kids, dogs, cats, were assaulting your position.
Quantity has a Quality all it's own.
This doesn't even get into the part where the men they lose, become zombies themselves, and to what degree those are, themselves, combat effective. The possibility of "Night of the Living Death Squad" isn't something to write off, either.
How do the zombies defeat a deployed coil of razorwire? Eventually it will be covered in zombie corpses but the resulting flesh wall is still going to majorly slow down the zombies that have to climb it.
Unless they are of the supernatural variety of course, but that is a different kettle of fish.
I'm confident that none of us use our firearms against zombies. I tend to agree that zombies/star wars/hollywood, and militaria outside civilian legal firearms is off topic. People do like to talk about those things and it can be interesting but I do wonder why no one just makes a "How I would own the zombies IRL" type thread. There is clearly enough interest.
Now for *my* take on the US govt vs zombies! I'd think it would take some time before enough of a consensus could be reached where they would actually start using tanks and mortars on "infected" US citizens rather than hunker down and work on a cure. Even in Last of Us where that fungus expert instantly understood the threat after one autopsy and told the official to immediately start bombing the city, the government has decide to order that and those orders have to be obeyed all the way down the chain. I don't see that many people chomping at the bit to become potential mass murderers.
Regarding the Geneva Convention, what do you think the rationale is behind the new 9mm M1153 ammo for the M17/18s? They are 147g "Black Talon"/Ranger T style hollow points, with the jacket forming a second set of petals.
Regarding the CETMEs, it looks like a lot of those are still Century parts guns, and may be very similar to my C91 Century parts gun, and those are cheap for a reason. The build quality is not exactly up to "HK precision" standards and you might want to inspect one before you buy it. Check the weld on the cocking tube, the fit of the stock and trigger housing/lower, and try to cock it. The newer ones and the Atlantic version may be better, I don't know. The PTRs are better. I don't really regret buying mine, but would not have made the purchase with the all information available in 2024.
BaronIveagh wrote: No, Hollywood's version of zombie lore is embedded. Which was my point.
Hollywood didn't make it up, they adapted it from books and then modified that even more. And as we all knows, there are many, many flavors of zombies. And vampires. One could do a whole thread tracking down the tropes, etc.
Further, the first conclusion they're going to probably come to isn't "Oh, Zombies" it's "Oh, Body Armor" unless they're *much* closer than they should be to said Zombies.
Right, but if chest shots don't work, they'll try head shots. Or sweep at leg level. They're not just going to mindlessly do the same thing without any feedback...you know, like zombies.
The ultimate problem is, that this is a numbers game the US military can't actually win. In this scenario, it'd be like the entire population of London, men, women, kids, dogs, cats, were assaulting your position.
But why? Are they looking for brains, angry about the playoffs? Why wouldn't they disperse? And if they do concentrate, they get really easy to obliterate.
The larger point is that most of the zombie stuff just fast-forwards to the last stand because that's the story the authors want to tell and also because it's hard to figure out how you get there from a standing start. Which is why, though I enjoy the discussion," I don't want zombie stuff because I see the contrivance and it turns me off.
This doesn't even get into the part where the men they lose, become zombies themselves, and to what degree those are, themselves, combat effective. The possibility of "Night of the Living Death Squad" isn't something to write off, either.
Obligatory:
"Fleshy-headed mutant...are you friendly?"
"No way, eh. Radiation has made me an enemy of mankind."
Regarding the CETME (or really any purchase), doing the research is very important. I always do a deep dive to confirm if what I want is really what I want, and finding a physical specimen (even if it isn't the exact make and model) is very useful.
Gun boards are a mixed bag, as we've discussed. Either the M-16 is a plastic abomination that should never have been adopted and can't reliably harm bunnies, or your tacticool setup will dominate the woodlands.
Further complicating things are make/manufacture. It's not enough to buy a "platform," you have to buy a certain version of it - and if it's surplus, pay very close attention to those tiny markings!
My beloved 172nd would love to argue to point that the US doesn't have "leg" infantry. All you worthless non-jumpers are "legs". We "allow" you to call yourselves infantry because you've demonstrated which one of your booger hooks make the bang switch go from safe, to rock and roll.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: My beloved 172nd would love to argue to point that the US doesn't have "leg" infantry. All you worthless non-jumpers are "legs". We "allow" you to call yourselves infantry because you've demonstrated which one of your booger hooks make the bang switch go from safe, to rock and roll.
One of the funniest things I saw when at Braggistan:
Had to explain to my 13 year old daughter what a Leg was. Then I had to explain that I loved her, even though she was a nasty rotten Leg.
As my grandfather once observed, he'd happily chase the enemy on foot, swim after them, chase them in boats, but he'd be damned before he flew after them ever again.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: I'd love to get a 7.62mm "battle rifle" at some point. I think the CETME is probably the most cost-effective option, and it dovetails with my Spanish inclinations, which is nice.
A tangent but battle/assault nomenclature etc. is why I never engage in firearms discussion on social media. Turns out for many internet denizens they aren't doctrine terms but US political ones. I don't even think they are using the terms incorrectly in a correct way (mixing up a bunch of illiterate terms used by control enthusiasts with a bunch of illiterate terms used by enthusiasts).
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: I'd love to get a 7.62mm "battle rifle" at some point. I think the CETME is probably the most cost-effective option, and it dovetails with my Spanish inclinations, which is nice.
A tangent but battle/assault nomenclature etc. is why I never engage in firearms discussion on social media. Turns out for many internet denizens they aren't doctrine terms but US political ones. I don't even think they are using the terms incorrectly in a correct way (mixing up a bunch of illiterate terms used by control enthusiasts with a bunch of illiterate terms used by enthusiasts).
Even firearms enthusiasts can have lengthy arguments about this given reality tends not to fall into neat categories, and doctrinal intention often does not line up with how weapons were used by troops at the front (WWII US tank destroyers are a great example of this).
Is the M1 carbine an assault rifle? Is the FG42 a battle rifle? Discuss
catbarf wrote: And speaking of fuddlore, 'modern rifles are designed to wound' is one of those chestnuts of wisdom that seemingly everybody knows- except the ordnance board at APG. Suffice to say that the institution that rejected the .276 Pedersen, .280 British, and 9x19 on grounds of insufficient lethality did not do a sudden and temporary 180 on their stance during the 1960s. Methinks they were swayed more by the fact that when a barely-stabilized M193 hits flesh at 3000fps, it blows apart in a way that FMJ .308 doesn't and produces comparable terminal effect.
I think because it is repeated to recruits in training and stated in briefs to staff and politicians. People then take that with them and spread it. Of course rounds are selected for terminal effect against whatever criteria the assessment is given (range, body armour to defeat, etc. etc.). You then have stuff like (I want to say Swedish) rounds that are designed to minimise fragmentation to be a more humane way of killing people. In line with that whole unnecessary suffering thing. Indeed if we were presented with a weapon whose brochure stated is all about maiming people instead of killing them (the new XR13 will cause widespread brain damage in a single application with zero loss of life!) our lawyers would have a fit.
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Haighus wrote: I thought there were also treaties about landmines, but with not great signature coverage so plenty of nations still use them.
I'm not convinced landmines are obsolete in modern warfare. They are cheap and therefore can achieve massive coverage, as seen in Ukraine. Breaching defended minefields is very challenging.
Yep. We are big fans but have to go through hoops to use versions of them.
To go back to firearms and uses though, and the US, it is fascinating that for home defence landmines/booby traps seem to be treated very differently to using a sidearm (no ideal about cannon ). I really don't get the patchwork of laws you lot have! Got to say being risk adverse it would turn me off firearm ownership there.
To go back to firearms and uses though, and the US, it is fascinating that for home defence landmines/booby traps seem to be treated very differently to using a sidearm (no ideal about cannon ). I really don't get the patchwork of laws you lot have! Got to say being risk adverse it would turn me off firearm ownership there.
Cannon, weirdly, depends on the date of manufacture (Before 1898 or after) and ammunition type (artillery munitions not being something one buys at Walmart, anyway).
In a SHTF moment, where the world goes to hell, the only thing I'd want is a reliable 9mm. Easily the best cartridge for the weight, class, and ease of use. You can literally find it anywhere on the planet as every major country uses some form of it, be it police forces, military, government armament, or as with the US, sold in most every store. There is no catching up to the availability of the 9mm no. You may have made the case for the 7.62x39, but again, weight, ease of use, ability to find. Nope, best weapon in a world gone to hell scenario is some form of 9mm carbine or short rifle. Anything that needs longer range than is provided can be avoided all together.
Booby traps are one of those things which will most definitely get you in trouble, there are a few cases in the US where that happened so it is pretty well established as a no no. Though I must confess I personally don't see a ton of moral distinction between setting up a deadly booby trap which kills an intruder and you personally opening fire on said intruder and killing them.
Land mines are destructive devices which have to be registered and tax stamped, and I doubt anybody who does own any is going to be casually using them to defend their home.
Cannons, as in black powder cannons, aren't legally considered firearms anywhere in the US as far as I know. Neither are black powder small arms.
Grey Templar wrote: Booby traps are one of those things which will most definitely get you in trouble, there are a few cases in the US where that happened so it is pretty well established as a no no. Though I must confess I personally don't see a ton of moral distinction between setting up a deadly booby trap which kills an intruder and you personally opening fire on said intruder and killing them.
Land mines are destructive devices which have to be registered and tax stamped, and I doubt anybody who does own any is going to be casually using them to defend their home.
Cannons, as in black powder cannons, aren't legally considered firearms anywhere in the US as far as I know. Neither are black powder small arms.
I think, again, it comes down to indiscriminate triggering vs a conscious decision to open fire. Would kind of suck to blow up a kid who was chasing a ball into your yard - sure, technically trespassing, but also... yeah.
Then add the factor of things like paramedics or firies attending your property for your benefit and getting killed or maimed, and, again, I can see why indiscriminate weapons are frowned upon.
It's also why cluster munitions are banned, but America still uses them. Because some of those little freedom pellets don't always spread dreams and hope, and some farm steps on them 2 years later and accidentally kills himself and 3 other people. Incredibly stupid design for a weapon. It's like the self dispersing landmine ordinance. You let it fly/glide onto/over the target from a sufficient height, raining landmines with internal clocks that are SUPPOSED to self detonate after a set period. Guess what impacting the earth at a high rate of speed does to internal clocks?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: It's also why cluster munitions are banned, but America still uses them. Because some of those little freedom pellets don't always spread dreams and hope, and some farm steps on them 2 years later and accidentally kills himself and 3 other people. Incredibly stupid design for a weapon. It's like the self dispersing landmine ordinance. You let it fly/glide onto/over the target from a sufficient height, raining landmines with internal clocks that are SUPPOSED to self detonate after a set period. Guess what impacting the earth at a high rate of speed does to internal clocks?
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: It's also why cluster munitions are banned, but America still uses them. Because some of those little freedom pellets don't always spread dreams and hope, and some farm steps on them 2 years later and accidentally kills himself and 3 other people. Incredibly stupid design for a weapon. It's like the self dispersing landmine ordinance. You let it fly/glide onto/over the target from a sufficient height, raining landmines with internal clocks that are SUPPOSED to self detonate after a set period. Guess what impacting the earth at a high rate of speed does to internal clocks?
only really if you can't make clocks.
Well, apparently we can't because mud is still going pop in Laos and Cambodia, if we want to go 50+ years back. Iraqistan and Afghanistan are both in the last 20 years and those pop rocks are still killing kids. You know what. US AIRFORCE DOESN'T GET ANY MORE TOYS OR MONEY TILL IT PICKS UP ALL IT'S TOYS.
Cannons, as in black powder cannons, aren't legally considered firearms anywhere in the US as far as I know. Neither are black powder small arms.
Even non black powder artillery. It's weird. I've seen British deck guns from 1893 for sale, and they're basically 75mm, but because they're made before a particular date, and the ammunition isn't commonly available, they don't fall under FFA.
I have seen some great content online about black powder weapons. So would that extend to black powder revolvers? Is it the design or the year they were made?
I am currently trying to work out how smoothbore cannon can be used in home defence scenarios, hunting and recreational shooting. Not sure on the first, flushing game on the second, and showing off on the third?
Really though I want to see one of those US TV series on biker gangs or similar using cannon to target the opposing gangs club!
The_Real_Chris wrote: I have seen some great content online about black powder weapons. So would that extend to black powder revolvers? Is it the design or the year they were made?
It's three separate exemptions.
Firearms manufactured before 1898 are automatically considered antiques and legally unregulated at a federal level. That's date of manufacture, not design. Modern replicas of antiques are also exempted, provided they do not accept modern (still-in-production) ammunition. And lastly, muzzle-loading rifles, shotguns, or handguns that cannot be converted to centerfire ammunition are exempted.
So: Mosin-Nagant made in 1897, antique, can be shipped to your door with no background check. Mosin-Nagant made in 1899, modern firearm, follows all the normal rules. Modern replica of a Colt Dragoon, doesn't use cartridges, antique. Modern replica of an obscure pinfire revolver, uses obsolete ammunition, antique. Modern replica of a Colt 1873 in .45 Long Colt, not an antique. Original Colt 1873 in .45 Long Colt, antique. Modern replica of a Colt Dragoon with a centerfire conversion cylinder, not an antique- but neither the Dragoon itself (antique) nor the conversion cylinder (part) are legally regulated until you combine them.
Then states have their own laws enforced separately from federal law, so for instance, in New York you can purchase a black powder revolver since it is considered an antique, but if you also possess ammunition for it, then it's considered a handgun and requires a pistol permit.
I am currently trying to work out how smoothbore cannon can be used in home defence scenarios, hunting and recreational shooting. Not sure on the first, flushing game on the second, and showing off on the third?
Serial numbers help, many times a year will be stamped, plus certain characteristics can help you guess around what year it might have been manufactured. Tracking precisely years according to serial numbers and gun types is a level of gun nerdism I am actually jealous of and wholeheartedly amazed at.
So what happens if you bought what you believed to be an 1897 in good faith, but it turns out it’s an 1899 somebody had tampered with? I’m hoping in such specific cases there’s room for benefit of the doubt?
Well, assuming you indeed got the wool pulled over your eyes then yeah probably nothing. But the mere fact that its been found out likely means that someone is in trouble for something else already.
This is one of those laws that people only get in trouble for if they're doing something else illegal as well.
I would not be surprised if nobody has ever done this so it remains a purely hypothetical scenario.
In France I'd probably say you're fine, if the gun is registered as a 1880 one but it is not, then for all intents and purposes from that point on it will be treated as such.
That doesn't mean that, as laws change regularly, its new category cannot be up or down graded to a more or less restrictive regime. Shooting ranges are normally (not always) notified and will let you know, if not, gunsmiths should when selling the gun over to someone else.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So what happens if you bought what you believed to be an 1897 in good faith, but it turns out it’s an 1899 somebody had tampered with? I’m hoping in such specific cases there’s room for benefit of the doubt?
Unless something substantial changed between years, if both the date stamp and serial is changed, then most of the time, the police can't tell the difference either.
I knew Dick Vandal down in Pittsburgh. Those who know, know.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So what happens if you bought what you believed to be an 1897 in good faith, but it turns out it’s an 1899 somebody had tampered with? I’m hoping in such specific cases there’s room for benefit of the doubt?
At that point the buyer would have been the victim of fraud, because saying something is older than it is can have pretty big commercial implications. Duping someone into believing their 1937 Mauser C96 is from 1897 has some serious criminal liabilities, irrespective of firearms laws.
The thing is, how would one prove it wasn't from 1897? Some weapons don't have reliable serial number ranges, nor are they date stamped, so "best guess" is what applies.
And the more archaic, the better. The truth is that someone buying an antique, ludicrously long rifle isn't going to invite much government scrutiny unless they're doing something else with it that they shouldn't.
On another topic...
I've been offline for a few days, and I saw a reference to one of my posts and nomenclature. Here in the US, "battle rifle" is generally shorthand for: military surplus, 7.62x51mm caliber (or greater). That is, a rifle likely used "in battle" before the days of 5.56mm and other more modern cartridges. It also also usually semi-automatic (either by design, or required by law).
The descriptor thus applies to rifles like the M14 (or civilian M1A), CETME, G3, and FAL (and their variants). Think of it as "early Cold War vintage," which is a somewhat distinct class of firearms.
It's like wanting a bolt-action rifle from WW I and WW II - yes, there are some hard lines, but also a lot of overlap. The Commonwealth countries that didn't switch to the No. 4 - are those WW I or WWII rifles?
On such details firearms collectors waste endless hours.
I have also seen battle rifle widely used for the earlier M1 Garand, Soviet SVT rifles, and German G40/41/43 rifles. Essentially the same concept of semi-automatic with full powered rifle cartridge.
I think it would be incorrect to apply the term backwards to WW2 era guns. Battle Rifle is a post-war term referring to rifle caliber self-loading infantry rifles, sometimes select fire, sometimes semi only, with detachable magazines.
I would say that true Battle Rifles, like the M14, Fal, etc... are definitely an extension of the WW2 semi-auto full caliber rifles like the M1 Garand, SVT, etc... But none of those weapons had all of the characteristics of the true Battle Rifles. They were what everyone eventually worked all the kinks out of and then they became Battle Rifles.
Honestly the only one which I think would check all the boxes would be the FG42. Full rifle caliber, box magazine fed, meant to be a primary weapon for the grunts and not a support weapon, etc... But it gets its own special place because it never got made in sufficient numbers.
I really hope someone eventually comes out with reproduction FG42s, because they really were excellent and I would love to have one.
Grey Templar wrote: I think it would be incorrect to apply the term backwards to WW2 era guns. Battle Rifle is a post-war term referring to rifle caliber self-loading infantry rifles, sometimes select fire, sometimes semi only, with detachable magazines.
I would say that true Battle Rifles, like the M14, Fal, etc... are definitely an extension of the WW2 semi-auto full caliber rifles like the M1 Garand, SVT, etc... But none of those weapons had all of the characteristics of the true Battle Rifles. They were what everyone eventually worked all the kinks out of and then they became Battle Rifles.
Honestly the only one which I think would check all the boxes would be the FG42. Full rifle caliber, box magazine fed, meant to be a primary weapon for the grunts and not a support weapon, etc... But it gets its own special place because it never got made in sufficient numbers.
I really hope someone eventually comes out with reproduction FG42s, because they really were excellent and I would love to have one.
Seems a bit odd to me that under that definition you would exclude an SVT40 because it doesn't have selective fire, but would include the AVT variant which did. Especially as this had the same fate as the later NATO battle rifles in being limited back to semi-auto only as soon as everyone released how hard it is to make a useful full-auto battle rifle (I think pretty much only the FG42 pulled it off).
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Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:I thought I saw a FG42 replica ages ago fired by TFBTV show. Had got no full auto mode unfortunately.
Plus a friend of mine fond one in Germany for some 7000 euros (no seriously), but I haven't checked back if it's still being sold.
Grey Templar wrote:Yes, there is someone who is/was working on replicas, but I dont think they are doing anything anymore.
I have encountered the opinion that the FG42 is not a gun that could be made today with modern safety tolerances- it slews too close to just strong enough. The designers got it just right. That may make it difficult to produce realistic replicas that are functional and safe to an acceptable degree for liability purposes.
Grey Templar wrote: I think it would be incorrect to apply the term backwards to WW2 era guns. Battle Rifle is a post-war term referring to rifle caliber self-loading infantry rifles, sometimes select fire, sometimes semi only, with detachable magazines.
I would say that true Battle Rifles, like the M14, Fal, etc... are definitely an extension of the WW2 semi-auto full caliber rifles like the M1 Garand, SVT, etc... But none of those weapons had all of the characteristics of the true Battle Rifles. They were what everyone eventually worked all the kinks out of and then they became Battle Rifles.
Honestly the only one which I think would check all the boxes would be the FG42. Full rifle caliber, box magazine fed, meant to be a primary weapon for the grunts and not a support weapon, etc... But it gets its own special place because it never got made in sufficient numbers.
I really hope someone eventually comes out with reproduction FG42s, because they really were excellent and I would love to have one.
Seems a bit odd to me that under that definition you would exclude an SVT40 because it doesn't have selective fire, but would include the AVT variant which did. Especially as this had the same fate as the later NATO battle rifles in being limited back to semi-auto only as soon as everyone released how hard it is to make a useful full-auto battle rifle (I think pretty much only the FG42 pulled it off).
I never said I was including the AVT over the SVT. Though I guess it would actually kinda fit the definition too. Though again I don't think being select fire is a requirement to be a battle rifle.
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Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:I thought I saw a FG42 replica ages ago fired by TFBTV show. Had got no full auto mode unfortunately.
Plus a friend of mine fond one in Germany for some 7000 euros (no seriously), but I haven't checked back if it's still being sold.
Grey Templar wrote:Yes, there is someone who is/was working on replicas, but I dont think they are doing anything anymore.
I have encountered the opinion that the FG42 is not a gun that could be made today with modern safety tolerances- it slews too close to just strong enough. The designers got it just right. That may make it difficult to produce realistic replicas that are functional and safe to an acceptable degree for liability purposes.
I have never heard anything about the poor quality of FG42s. If anything I have heard the opposite. That they were made quite durably, if expensively which was the main drawback.
The main issue with replicating the FG42 is that the sheet metal stamping is expensive to set up, and the demand for reproductions might be too low to justify it. Though with PSA making their STG44 replicas maybe they'll try out the FG42 eventually.
Grey Templar wrote: I think it would be incorrect to apply the term backwards to WW2 era guns. Battle Rifle is a post-war term referring to rifle caliber self-loading infantry rifles, sometimes select fire, sometimes semi only, with detachable magazines.
I would say that true Battle Rifles, like the M14, Fal, etc... are definitely an extension of the WW2 semi-auto full caliber rifles like the M1 Garand, SVT, etc... But none of those weapons had all of the characteristics of the true Battle Rifles. They were what everyone eventually worked all the kinks out of and then they became Battle Rifles.
Honestly the only one which I think would check all the boxes would be the FG42. Full rifle caliber, box magazine fed, meant to be a primary weapon for the grunts and not a support weapon, etc... But it gets its own special place because it never got made in sufficient numbers.
I really hope someone eventually comes out with reproduction FG42s, because they really were excellent and I would love to have one.
Seems a bit odd to me that under that definition you would exclude an SVT40 because it doesn't have selective fire, but would include the AVT variant which did. Especially as this had the same fate as the later NATO battle rifles in being limited back to semi-auto only as soon as everyone released how hard it is to make a useful full-auto battle rifle (I think pretty much only the FG42 pulled it off).
I never said I was including the AVT over the SVT. Though I guess it would actually kinda fit the definition too. Though again I don't think being select fire is a requirement to be a battle rifle.
You didn't, I was extrapolating from what you'd listed as criteria. If select fire isn't a requirement then the G43 would also fit the bill.
I agree these are inferior weapons though, they were definitely working out kinks.
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Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote:I thought I saw a FG42 replica ages ago fired by TFBTV show. Had got no full auto mode unfortunately.
Plus a friend of mine fond one in Germany for some 7000 euros (no seriously), but I haven't checked back if it's still being sold.
Grey Templar wrote:Yes, there is someone who is/was working on replicas, but I dont think they are doing anything anymore.
I have encountered the opinion that the FG42 is not a gun that could be made today with modern safety tolerances- it slews too close to just strong enough. The designers got it just right. That may make it difficult to produce realistic replicas that are functional and safe to an acceptable degree for liability purposes.
I have never heard anything about the poor quality of FG42s. If anything I have heard the opposite. That they were made quite durably, if expensively which was the main drawback.
The main issue with replicating the FG42 is that the sheet metal stamping is expensive to set up, and the demand for reproductions might be too low to justify it. Though with PSA making their STG44 replicas maybe they'll try out the FG42 eventually.
Oh, I wasn't saying FG42s are poor quality, only that they are built close to the limit. The fact they are safe is a testament to their excellent engineering (by the final versions, the initial runs were prone to breaking under automatic fire and the design was continually tinkered with). However, the tolerances accepted in rolling them out were fine for a military in the 1940's (who would sue the Nazi goverment if their rifle blew up...?) but a modern company has to be pretty sure their replica doesn't cross that limit and be unsafe. It would add expense to setting up manufacturing that would make it less attractive to do.
They are essentially a light machine gun that is light enough to use as a standard rifle, yet still reasonably controllable with automatic fire. No one else seems to have managed to thread that needle.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Actually, looking at the issues the initial rifles had, there may be something of a survivorship bias in that the good examples have survived WWII with the ones built beyond tolerances failing early.
Right at the beginning he talks about their being replicas available, and I think Ian even featured them on a different video.
The durability of surplus firearms is something of an interesting topic. In discussing the Lahti pistols, people usually offer cautions about their alleged fragility, but if you think about it, they're actually remarkably durable.
The famous incident where one of them suffered a catastrophic failure in is very much overblown. Those weapons had been in service for decades, and the Swedes were putting +P+ SMG rounds through them. Contrast that with the M9 (Beretta 92), which was having slides crack in a matter of months when using SMG loaded ammo.
Most of the Lahti's in the US are Swedish M40s that were issued to exiled Danes, then sold on the surplus market as soon as liberated Denmark could get their hands on the FN GP 35, so they're hardly at the end of their service life. But people insist the design is flawed, so everyone uses 9mm light loads.
Yeah, the FG42 is definitely an engineering marvel. It somehow being both easily controllable and light is somewhat miraculous.
I think Ian does mention it in that video or the main video on the FG42 but it is somewhat of an oddity that nobody adopted the FG42 after the war considering how good it really was. Even a derived gun making some improvements or using another caliber would have made a lot of sense.
Grey Templar wrote: Yeah, the FG42 is definitely an engineering marvel. It somehow being both easily controllable and light is somewhat miraculous.
I think Ian does mention it in that video or the main video on the FG42 but it is somewhat of an oddity that nobody adopted the FG42 after the war considering how good it really was. Even a derived gun making some improvements or using another caliber would have made a lot of sense.
Apparently the M60 is derived from it.
Again though I reckon this is a case of survivorship bias. If an FG42 is still floating around in working condition today, it was probably one of the good ones, and not one where the receiver cracked after using it for automatic fire in WWII which got replaced with an MP40.
Again though I reckon this is a case of survivorship bias. If an FG42 is still floating around in working condition today, it was probably one of the good ones, and not one where the receiver cracked after using it for automatic fire in WWII which got replaced with an MP40.
It's also being fed the finest, premium ammunition and being meticulously maintained. No one is firing it to the point of overheating in a panicked skirmish.
The problem with the FG42 is that same as so many other German designs - complex, difficult to produce and therefore unsuitable to make by the million (or even half-million).
Post-war Allied arms experts saw it for what it was: a boutique weapon built by an eccentric regime obsessed with miracle gadgets.
I'm going to add that while I've enjoyed Ian's videos over the years, it's very clear that he doesn't really understand how the military works on an individual level. His weird effort to rehabilitate the Chauchat speaks volumes in this respect.
The M60 machine gun began development in the late 1940s as a program for a new, lighter 7.62 mm machine gun. It was partly derived from German guns of World War II (most notably the FG 42 and the MG 42)
Do you have anything to back up your assertion that the above is wrong?
Edit: not saying I necessarily agree with Wikipedia, but they cite a couple of books and it seems like a reasonable claim for the furniture and stamping procedure to be derived from the FG42.
I'm going to add that while I've enjoyed Ian's videos over the years, it's very clear that he doesn't really understand how the military works on an individual level. His weird effort to rehabilitate the Chauchat speaks volumes in this respect.
244000 in French service in WWI also speaks volumes? They were pretty effective in French use and better than only having Lebel and Berthier bolt-actions.
The poor 30-06 conversion does seem to be gak though.
Grey Templar wrote: I have never heard anything about the poor quality of FG42s. If anything I have heard the opposite. That they were made quite durably, if expensively which was the main drawback.
The main issue with replicating the FG42 is that the sheet metal stamping is expensive to set up, and the demand for reproductions might be too low to justify it. Though with PSA making their STG44 replicas maybe they'll try out the FG42 eventually.
I wonder if additive 3D printing using something like laser sintering can be used to resurrect these old firearms.
I'm going to add that while I've enjoyed Ian's videos over the years, it's very clear that he doesn't really understand how the military works on an individual level. His weird effort to rehabilitate the Chauchat speaks volumes in this respect.
I think very few commentators, and even entire gun cultures don't understand the role of an infantryman within a complex military system.
Rifles though are even harder given how much militaries have changed. A limited run 250,000 bespoke complex high performing rifles are now I think more doable given the small size of many armies compared to the high points of large conscript and volunteer armies. You just need (ha, as is we all have serious ones) a plan on how to do that mass if required. Probably today for a NATO nation that means something like an M4 given the large potential production capacity from all the different suppliers.
Haighus wrote: 244000 in French service in WWI also speaks volumes? They were pretty effective in French use and better than only having Lebel and Berthier bolt-actions.
Yeah, it says the French were completely unprepared for the kind of war they got and lacked the industry to produce anything else.
See also Ruby pistols. Or, for that matter, Sten guns.
The poor 30-06 conversion does seem to be gak though.
The measure of the Chauchat's awfulness is how it was dumped on dirt-poor militaries and saw no evolutionary development. The Sten actually got some product improvement because the design had potential, and in due time became the Sterling.
Compare a Chauchat against any other LMG and it sucks. I recall a video when Ian was in the throes of his trying to prove it was somehow better at things than the BAR or Lewis gun, and when he switched from the Chauchat to the Lewis he unconsciously grinned at the superior experience and then tried to walk it back. Well yeah, Lewis guns didn't suck. BARs didn't suck. Chauchats did, and I think in his first experience of shooting one, he had all manner of problems and the owner grinned and said "Yeah, it's a piece of junk."
Small Arms of the World (9th edition) says that the M60 has the belt feed of the MG42 and the operating system of the FG42, but notes that the FG42 borrowed heavily from the Lewis gun.
I can think of a bunch of weapons that were successful within their niche but didn't see further development. The Madsen light machine gun was a highly effective design, but was not iterated upon after the war. The FAL was one of FN's most successful products, but none of their subsequent designs reused its tilting-bolt action. The Mauser C96 was a commercial success with many imitators and zero derivatives. The Maxim was the most successful machine gun ever but its short-stroke recoil operation was an evolutionary dead end. Even the Sten didn't last more than a few years; it was little more than a last-ditch simplification of the obsolescent MP28/Lanchester, while the Sterling was a ground-up redesign that only maintained the basic concept of an open-bolt 9mm tubegun.
Lack of further iteration can be for a number of reasons, be it expense of manufacture, complexity of design, unsuitability of the action for other cartridges, obsolescence due to competition or technological advances, easing of wartime pressure, loss of doctrinal relevance, or sheer political circumstances. Just saying, that's not a good litmus test for design quality.
In any case, the Chauchat is still not a good gun from a pure performance standpoint, but I don't think I've ever heard it described as such. It's merely the one that could be manufactured in staggering numbers with minimal tooling under foreign occupation and, more importantly, was praised by men who used it in combat in stark contrast to its modern reputation, and frankly I think it's worth rehabilitating (to some degree) on that basis alone. How a gun stacks up against its peers in a head-to-head comparison on a flat range is the sort of trivia that has little to do with what makes a gun successful in the real world.
Grey Templar wrote:but it is somewhat of an oddity that nobody adopted the FG42 after the war considering how good it really was.
The fire control mechanism of the FG42 to enable both closed-bolt semi-auto and open-bolt full-auto is an extraordinarily overcomplicated design, and despite the heavy use of stampings it has a lot of fiddly machined parts and complex geometries. They're also relatively fragile, and Haighus is spot-on about survivorship bias among extant examples.
It's a technological marvel that meets the highly specific and arbitrary criteria it was subject to. It's not an ideal infantry rifle, for many of the same reasons as the MP44.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:The 60 is derived from the MG34. Not the FG42. At All.
The T44 prototype that evolved into the M60 was essentially an FG42 fed by an MG42 feed tray turned sideways. The end product carries little from the FG42 (the gas system was redesigned into a self-regulating piston and the FCG was ditched entirely), but there was never any MG34 pedigree in the design.
You wouldn't have to adopt it unchanged. It could definitely have had a few tweaks to make it better, like no switching between open and closed bolt operation and strengthening a few components.
catbarf wrote: In any case, the Chauchat is still not a good gun from a pure performance standpoint, but I don't think I've ever heard it described as such. It's merely the one that could be manufactured in staggering numbers with minimal tooling under foreign occupation and, more importantly, was praised by men who used it in combat in stark contrast to its modern reputation, and frankly I think it's worth rehabilitating (to some degree) on that basis alone. How a gun stacks up against its peers in a head-to-head comparison on a flat range is the sort of trivia that has little to do with what makes a gun successful in the real world.
It met a need. It was a last-ditch weapon and pretty much the only option the French had, just like the Ruby.
No one disputes that, my point was that Ian's efforts to rehabilitate it involved actively denigrating competing contemporary designs. It was silly and there is a point where affectation starts to encroach upon intellectual dishonesty.
I think looking at subsequent service as well as development are fair ways to judge the success (or failure) of a design. The C96, by contrast, also was very much of its time, yet it somehow had a 40-year production run and spawned countless imitators. One sees it's design impact on the Lahti/M40 as well. Total production numbers of its derivatives are impossible to know, but clearly more than a million units were produced. Is that Browning Hi Power level success? No, but it's pretty good.
As for the FG 42, something we have to keep in mind is that wartime weapons aren't built to last. That's a "nice to have," but when you're losing 100,000 weapons a month to attrition, you aren't really concerned about a 50 year service life. That concept also justifies the Chauchat's existence - at a time when weapons were being consumed as fast as they could be built, longevity was besides the point.
In peacetime, however, longevity matters, so weapons need to be durable enough to train with and also have something left over for "the day" when the real fighting starts. Sometimes, a design seems sustained by sheer inertia. I've read lots of criticisms about the BAR, but it just kept trundling along until they finally found something that filled its niche.
The Bren gun was like that - lurking in armories long after its official replacement.
I find that kind of longevity fascinating. Consider the German Gewehr 88, the Commission Rifle. Almost immediately superseded by the Mauser, the Germans were stuck with tons of rifles and useless tooling. Happily, Imperial China was looking to 'get modern,' and that was just the thing for them.
And so was created the famous Hanyang rifle, which eventually was rechambered for 8mm Mauser and remained in production until 1943 (yes the Commission was also 8mm Mauser, but it was a different cartridge). The ultimate example of "good enough." I mean, we can say the same of the Mauser rifles, improved, modified, and cranked out by the millions and during WW II, the armies of Germany, Japan, America and China were all using them. Crazy stuff.
And yeah, I have a hankering for one of the Chinese rifles. Also a Spanish Mosin (Franco emptied out his closet before import stamps were a thing, you see).
Well, one of the two main contemporaries to the Chauchat was the MG08/15, which weighed about twice as much at a whopping 18kg. I think it is fair to say the Chauchat was more useful than that as a light machine gun. Especially as the French military produced about two Chauchats for every MG08/15.
I'd argue the BAR was a weapon far past its use-by date in WWII and it shouldn't have been kept going for so long. I think the US army would have been better served by replacing the BAR with a (then) modern light machine gun instead of replacing Springfields with M1 Garands.
Everybody having a semi-auto rifle is far far better than slightly improving your LMG choice and keeping bolt actions. While the BAR was certainly outdated in its original concept, it was still perfectly acceptable as an LMG. And having the overall firepower increase that semiauto gives you when everybody else is using bolt actions is huge.
Everybody having a semi-auto rifle is far far better than slightly improving your LMG choice and keeping bolt actions. While the BAR was certainly outdated in its original concept, it was still perfectly acceptable as an LMG. And having the overall firepower increase that semiauto gives you when everybody else is using bolt actions is huge.
The BAR was not a good light machine gun by WWII, and most squad firepower was from the LMG. BARs had small magazines and no quick-change barrel, so they couldn't put out the sustained fire of a gun like the Bren or MG34 (in LMG configuration). I am confident that a squad of bolt-action riflemen with a single LMG puts out more firepower than a squad of US soldiers with M1 Garands and a single BAR.
The US also came to this conclusion, because they started increasing the number of BARs per squad, starting with 1 and ending up with 3 by the end of the war. Given that the BAR was nearly as heavy as a Bren, carrying 3 around to get adequate firepower is a big weight penalty on the squad.
Obviously, semi-auto rifles and a good LMG is better than both, but if you had to focus on one first (which most nations did coming into WWII) I think upgrading the LMG before the rifles is the smarter choice.
The BAR was great in 1918, where it was the perfection of the walking fire concept. That concept was obsolete by WWII. Incidentally, referring back to the earlier conversation, that makes the BAR doctrinally heavily inspired by the Chauchat, although not mechanically.
Everybody having a semi-auto rifle is far far better than slightly improving your LMG choice and keeping bolt actions. While the BAR was certainly outdated in its original concept, it was still perfectly acceptable as an LMG. And having the overall firepower increase that semiauto gives you when everybody else is using bolt actions is huge.
The BAR was not a good light machine gun by WWII, and most squad firepower was from the LMG. BARs had small magazines and no quick-change barrel, so they couldn't put out the sustained fire of a gun like the Bren or MG34 (in LMG configuration). I am confident that a squad of bolt-action riflemen with a single LMG puts out more firepower than a squad of US soldiers with M1 Garands and a single BAR.
The US also came to this conclusion, because they started increasing the number of BARs per squad, starting with 1 and ending up with 3 by the end of the war. Given that the BAR was nearly as heavy as a Bren, carrying 3 around to get adequate firepower is a big weight penalty on the squad.
Obviously, semi-auto rifles and a good LMG is better than both, but if you had to focus on one first (which most nations did coming into WWII) I think upgrading the LMG before the rifles is the smarter choice.
The BAR was great in 1918, where it was the perfection of the walking fire concept. That concept was obsolete by WWII. Incidentally, referring back to the earlier conversation, that makes the BAR doctrinally heavily inspired by the Chauchat, although not mechanically.
Not sure where you're getting your facts, but the Bren was hot doo doo, underpowered, prone to being a finicky princess, and barely maintained a level of accuracy worthy of a shotgun, let alone an LMG. The BAR was accurate, had higher power than most other squad based LMGs, and was generally more effective in every catagory. Not even hating here, or nostalga teaming here. I hated most of the US WW2 arsenal, but the BAR was not a bad design.
I have seen the Bren called the "best LMG of WW2" many, many times.
How would the BAR have higher "power" than other LMGs when they are all using roughly comparable full-power rifle cartridges?
The BAR is different to the Bren, definitely, and certainly had its niche, but a 20 round bottom-feeding mag has to be inferior to a 30-round top-feeding mag in most LMG scenarios, particularly with a #2 on the gun to change the mags.
Wow... Manufacturing of the Bren stopped in India in 2012! Thats quite a long time... Is it only beaten by the MG42/MG3 that still appears to be in production in various places.
To be clear, I'm not saying the BAR is a bad design. I think it was a very good design for its role. The problem is that it was not designed as a squad LMG, which is what it got shoehorned into in WWII. The role of walking fire was obsolete and the BAR with it.
Haighus wrote: Well, one of the two main contemporaries to the Chauchat was the MG08/15, which weighed about twice as much at a whopping 18kg. I think it is fair to say the Chauchat was more useful than that as a light machine gun. Especially as the French military produced about two Chauchats for every MG08/15.
Given the fragility of Chauchat's construction, I'm pretty sure that at any given moment, more MG08/15s were in service than Chauchats. Less mobility, but much better reliability and a higher and more sustained rate of fire.
Maybe in open hillsides the Chauchat had the edge, but in positional warfare, the MG08/15 was unquestionably superior. Remember, if the Chauchat was any good, the Germans could have copied it.
Everybody having a semi-auto rifle is far far better than slightly improving your LMG choice and keeping bolt actions. While the BAR was certainly outdated in its original concept, it was still perfectly acceptable as an LMG. And having the overall firepower increase that semiauto gives you when everybody else is using bolt actions is huge.
This was proven in Korea. Decisively. Commonwealth troops using turnbolts were at a severe disadvantage against massed Chinese infantry attacks. Americans could put down much more fire much faster.
Haighus wrote: Well, one of the two main contemporaries to the Chauchat was the MG08/15, which weighed about twice as much at a whopping 18kg. I think it is fair to say the Chauchat was more useful than that as a light machine gun. Especially as the French military produced about two Chauchats for every MG08/15.
Given the fragility of Chauchat's construction, I'm pretty sure that at any given moment, more MG08/15s were in service than Chauchats. Less mobility, but much better reliability and a higher and more sustained rate of fire.
Maybe in open hillsides the Chauchat had the edge, but in positional warfare, the MG08/15 was unquestionably superior. Remember, if the Chauchat was any good, the Germans could have copied it.
Less mobility is a pretty big deal for a squad support weapon. No major WWI army had trouble in defensive fire with heavy machine guns. The MG08/15 was a whopping 18kg/40Ib, so it was not easy to lug in support of assaults.
I don't think copying weapons is a good metric of anything in most wars of the 20th century. It is incredibly rare to see weapons copied in wartime, even for obviously good and feared designs like the MG42. This is especially true if factoring in cartridge changes, such as from 8mm Lebel to 7.92mm Mauser. You can see the challenges in switching between cartridges by looking at the mess that is the Chauchat in .30-06!
Everybody having a semi-auto rifle is far far better than slightly improving your LMG choice and keeping bolt actions. While the BAR was certainly outdated in its original concept, it was still perfectly acceptable as an LMG. And having the overall firepower increase that semiauto gives you when everybody else is using bolt actions is huge.
This was proven in Korea. Decisively. Commonwealth troops using turnbolts were at a severe disadvantage against massed Chinese infantry attacks. Americans could put down much more fire much faster.
From my understanding of that conflict, Commonwealth forces performed very well in defensive operations against Chinese attacks, and were frequently deployed to rearguard positions when the 8th Army was falling back from the Yalu river (Commonwealth troops often being frustrated with adjacent US units not holding their ground in this period, probably largely due to doctrinal differences). They also performed well in defensive actions against massively-greater numbers in the battles of Imjin River and Kapyong. Commonwealth units alsohad a lower rate of casualties as a proportion of total soldiers deployed than the US forces. None of this suggests a lack of infantry firepower in comparison to their US counterparts. Indeed, the Glosters were overwhelmed at Imjin only once they ran out of ammunition.
The thing with the BAR is that it should really be viewed as "its a garand with more ammo and very controllable full auto" rather than "this is an old walking fire MG which we are desperately using as an LMG".
You can quite easily use a BAR just like you'd use a garand, but you have the option of full auto too. In that sense, its more of a "we will compensate for not having a true LMG by having 3 of our soldiers use this select-fire rifle"
I would say that in a 12 man squad, having 3 BARs, 2-3 Thompsons, and 6-7 garands is far far more effective firepower than this theoretical 1 LMG, 2-3 Thompsons, and 9-10 M1903s.
You also have the advantage of spreading out your squads automatic firepower. Instead of 1 dude carrying it its divided over 3. Making you more resilient to combat losses and if one guy is reloading the other 2 can still be ready to go rather than your entire squad being without LMG cover for the duration. And the BAR can be comfortably run by 1 dude if necessary, you don't need to have assistant gunners.
In terms of firepower, going from semi-auto to select fire is a small jump. Jumping from bolt action to semi-auto is massive. I would actually say that 12 men with Garands would be better than 11 men with bolt actions and 1 dude with an LMG.
Here's the thing about the Bren being in existence for the last 30 years. The entire military budget of the UK (68.5B) is roughly the cost of one of America's smaller state's budgets for Roads and bridges. That's why it's been in use for so long. I mean be honest. We're talking about a country that has been at best, the laughing stock of World Military technological advancement in the last 50 years. Their last great advance was WW2. And most of that was a spit polish of stuff they had from the last WW.
No, the BAR was not a piece of crap, and yes, the 30-06 was pushing a heavier bullet with more powder, than the .303 British standard round. Also, again, 90% of all ammo the British had wasn't "Fresh off the factory line", and wasn't prone to perfect performance, where on the other hand, literally everything the US used in WW2, was fresh off the line, because it was built specifically for that war.
I don't know where you get this mad-on for the BAR, but seriously. Take a step back. The Bren was a good weapon, the BAR was a good weapon. We don't need to get into a measuring contest over this.
Different armies have/had different doctrines and use different tactics. Most armies had LMGs at the squad level, some had MMGs at the platoon level in a designated weapons squad, and some had both.
I would argue that the use of the Browning Automatic Rifle at the squad level was deliberate, and that the M1919A6 variant with stock and bipod was really the "stopgap" LMG solution for units that needed that capability at a squad level such as Army Rangers and Airborne.
And that same line of thinking continues to this day. For instance, late WWII US Marine squads had 3 fireteams each with an Automatic Rifleman (BAR). Modern USMC squads still have 3 fireteams each with an Automatic Rifleman who now carries the same gun as everyone else (HK 416) and just carries more ammo and has a different role.
On that note, probably no one has a $300k FG-42 or transferable Chauchat/Bren/BAR/MG-08. If you do, I'd love to see pics. Does anyone have/use a piston AR-15 such as an HK416 or Sig MCX? How about the 60 rd quad stack AR mags they were testing for those "Automatic Riflemen"? I'm also curious if anyone uses the medium weight 5.56 ammo with bonded bullets such as Critical Defense, Gold Dot, Ranger, even Fusion, and how those perform at extended ranges. I'd like to replace my crappy battle rifle with something else and after shopping around a second "heavy" AR is a real possibility.
Haighus wrote: Less mobility is a pretty big deal for a squad support weapon. No major WWI army had trouble in defensive fire with heavy machine guns. The MG08/15 was a whopping 18kg/40Ib, so it was not easy to lug in support of assaults.
I don't think copying weapons is a good metric of anything in most wars of the 20th century. It is incredibly rare to see weapons copied in wartime, even for obviously good and feared designs like the MG42. This is especially true if factoring in cartridge changes, such as from 8mm Lebel to 7.92mm Mauser. You can see the challenges in switching between cartridges by looking at the mess that is the Chauchat in .30-06!
Was the Chauchat an offensive juggernaut? Did French offensives benefit from its lighter weight?
If having an agile, light-weight squad support weapon was so useful, where was this shown on the battlefield? The Chauchat's advantages were (and are) largely hypothetical.
Copying weapons is one metric; length of service is another. The Chauchat fails on both counts.
As for Korea, it is inarguable that a unit armed with bolt-action rifles is going to be at a disadvantage vs units using self-loading rifles. There's a reason why bolt rifles went out of fashion.
It is also known that - especially during the early phases of the conflict - American infantry had gotten lax in terms of individual marksmanship, relying instead on air, armor and artillery to support them. To their credit, the Commonwealth forces had maintained that proficiency.
My father, who served in the shadow of Korea, noted that an entire week of his Army training focused on close assault and hand-to-hand combat. Thus proving, once again, that armies always prepare to fight the last war.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Given the fragility of Chauchat's construction, I'm pretty sure that at any given moment, more MG08/15s were in service than Chauchats. Less mobility, but much better reliability and a higher and more sustained rate of fire.
Maybe in open hillsides the Chauchat had the edge, but in positional warfare, the MG08/15 was unquestionably superior. Remember, if the Chauchat was any good, the Germans could have copied it.
Commissar, you're veering into 'source: I made it up' territory here. By the end of the war the Chauchat was being issued at a fireteam level, and there is no evidence that any inability to keep the guns in operation led to proportionally lower rates of issue.
As for the Germans copying it: they did. Here's a photo of one of the prototypes:
I couldn't tell you exactly why it wasn't put into full production- it's entirely possible that making it work with the differing feed geometry of 8mm, lest they run into similar issues as the US .30-06 conversion, would have required too much R&D- but the German military did see enough merit in them (used, alongside small numbers of Madsens, by 'musketen' teams to counter breakthroughs) to pursue reverse-engineering.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Was the Chauchat an offensive juggernaut? Did French offensives benefit from its lighter weight?
If having an agile, light-weight squad support weapon was so useful, where was this shown on the battlefield? The Chauchat's advantages were (and are) largely hypothetical.
This thread has some translated comments from Pétain's survey (conducted across the French army) in May of 1917, a few of which praise the use of the Chauchat for walking fire and for defending against counter-attack in newly-taken lines. As mentioned above, the Germans also made use of captured Chauchats for certain mobility-oriented roles (rapid counter-attack).
As far as lightweight magazine-fed machine guns in general, you will also find much more glowing praise in primary sources for the Madsen light machine gun in this role, which was similarly lightweight but without all the problems.
Edit: Also, if we're comparing to the MG08/15 specifically- I have to point out that most of the major belligerents fielded Maxim guns, and all of them identified a need for light machine guns that could keep up with the infantry, but only Germany decided the ideal solution was to put a stock and bipod on a Maxim. If you really insist on evaluating guns on the basis of 'who copied it' and 'how long did it stick around' (to be clear, neither are actually useful metrics), the MG08/15 that was copied by nobody and replaced as soon as treaty limitations allowed was certainly no better than the Chauchat.
Again, not saying the Chauchat was a good weapon, but there is an awful lot more praise for it in primary sources than in National Interest 'Worst Guns of WW1' articles and the like, and the automatic rifle concept was clearly valid and had many (better) designs along similar lines. The nullachtfünfzehn wasn't just a dead-end design, the idea of a water-cooled 50lb (loaded) LMG was complete dead-end as a small arms concept altogether. It's a low bar for comparison.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: and yes, the 30-06 was pushing a heavier bullet with more powder, than the .303 British standard round.
Fezzik I dunno where you're getting your info but you should find better sources.
M2 .30-06 is a 152gr projectile going 2800fps.
MkVII .303 is 174gr projectile going 2440fps. Heavier round, lower velocity. About 7/8 the kinetic energy, but better terminal effect due to bullet design.
catbarf wrote: Commissar, you're veering into 'source: I made it up' territory here. By the end of the war the Chauchat was being issued at a fireteam level, and there is no evidence that any inability to keep the guns in operation led to proportionally lower rates of issue.
As for the Germans copying it: they did. Here's a photo of one of the prototypes:
I couldn't tell you exactly why it wasn't put into full production- it's entirely possible that making it work with the differing feed geometry of 8mm, lest they run into similar issues as the US .30-06 conversion, would have required too much R&D- but the German military did see enough merit in them (used, alongside small numbers of Madsens, by 'musketen' teams to counter breakthroughs) to pursue reverse-engineering.
My sources are small arms guides, particularly Smith and Smith (and later Ezell), plus numerous videos of the things not functioning well.
I'll allow for age, but more robust designs show no such problems.
This thread[/url] has some translated comments from Pétain's survey (conducted across the French army) in May of 1917, a few of which praise the use of the Chauchat for walking fire and for defending against counter-attack in newly-taken lines. As mentioned above, the Germans also made use of captured Chauchats for certain mobility-oriented roles (rapid counter-attack).
People complimented the M3 Lee/Grant as well because at the time of its introduction, it was better than a Crusader or (chuckle) Covenanter. But it's time in front-line service was short.
As far as lightweight magazine-fed machine guns in general, you will also find much more glowing praise in primary sources for the Madsen light machine gun in this role, which was similarly lightweight but without all the problems.
Absolute agreement, and the long service life of the Madsen, and its many users speak to its quality. Which is my point.
Edit: Also, if we're comparing to the MG08/15 specifically- I have to point out that most of the major belligerents fielded Maxim guns, and all of them identified a need for light machine guns that could keep up with the infantry, but only Germany decided the ideal solution was to put a stock and bipod on a Maxim. If you really insist on evaluating guns on the basis of 'who copied it' and 'how long did it stick around' (to be clear, neither are actually useful metrics), the MG08/15 that was copied by nobody and replaced as soon as treaty limitations allowed was certainly no better than the Chauchat.
My contention is that the MG08/15 was bad and the Chauchat was worse.
And I'm not sure what other metric one can use to measure the quality of a weapon. If the world copies it, it probably is good. If it remains in service for decades across multiple countries, that is a measure of quality.
Lots of weapons are developed in wartime conditions and typically they either get refined in some way (once the crisis is past) or dropped like a hot rock. France's "last ditch" came in 1915, when everything they could find was thrown into the war effort. The Chauchat was part of that, and it was (literally) better than nothing. The Ruby pistols were a similar expedient, and - strange to say - got the French Army hooked on .32 caliber pistols for some reason.
Again, not saying the Chauchat was a good weapon, but there is an awful lot more praise for it in primary sources than in National Interest 'Worst Guns of WW1' articles and the like, and the automatic rifle concept was clearly valid and had many (better) designs along similar lines. The nullachtfünfzehn wasn't just a dead-end design, the idea of a water-cooled 50lb (loaded) LMG was complete dead-end as a small arms concept altogether. It's a low bar for comparison.
My original point was that the efforts to rehabilitate it use a lot of special pleading. Objectively setting it against other LMGs, it was terrible. Comparing it to sledge-towed weapons demonstrates why it was made, but efforts to somehow say it was superior to the Browning, the Lewis - or as you point out, the Madsen - is so absurd as to border on dishonesty.
Grey Templar wrote:The thing with the BAR is that it should really be viewed as "its a garand with more ammo and very controllable full auto" rather than "this is an old walking fire MG which we are desperately using as an LMG".
You can quite easily use a BAR just like you'd use a garand, but you have the option of full auto too. In that sense, its more of a "we will compensate for not having a true LMG by having 3 of our soldiers use this select-fire rifle"
I would say that in a 12 man squad, having 3 BARs, 2-3 Thompsons, and 6-7 garands is far far more effective firepower than this theoretical 1 LMG, 2-3 Thompsons, and 9-10 M1903s.
You also have the advantage of spreading out your squads automatic firepower. Instead of 1 dude carrying it its divided over 3. Making you more resilient to combat losses and if one guy is reloading the other 2 can still be ready to go rather than your entire squad being without LMG cover for the duration. And the BAR can be comfortably run by 1 dude if necessary, you don't need to have assistant gunners.
In terms of firepower, going from semi-auto to select fire is a small jump. Jumping from bolt action to semi-auto is massive. I would actually say that 12 men with Garands would be better than 11 men with bolt actions and 1 dude with an LMG.
I think to suggest that an LMG is just a select-fire rifle with full auto capability is hugely mistaken. An LMG or a GPMG in a squad support role is capable of far greater sustained fire than an automatic rifle. Given the fact that squad machine guns have persisted into the assault rifle era and are still part of the default squad organisation today highlights how useful they are.
If you take a British rifle section of the era, the LMG effectively is the squad. Everyone else is there to support the gun, and if the section had a single member left, they were expected to be carrying the Bren. All members received more training on the Bren than they did on their own rifle, and carried more ammo for the Bren than their own rifle. There was about 20x more ammo carried for the LMG than there was for each rifle, to demonstrate how much more firepower it carried. In addition, whilst a Bren could be comfortably reloaded by the gunner, with an assistant this was quick enough that there was no noticeable loss of downrange firepower. Beltfed guns can be a little slower on the reload but reload less often. German squads carried a similar ratio of ~20:1 MG ammo to rifle ammo.
Interestingly, the US military agreed with this approach on some troops- US paratroopers used the M1919A6* later in the war and carried a similar ~20:1 ratio of MG ammo vs rifle ammo, and they used semi-auto rifles. The MG was still the majority of the squad firepower. In comparison, both the US army and US marines loadouts had a much smaller ammo allocation to a BAR in comparison to the riflemen (~7x for army BARs and ~4x for marine BARs). It just wasn't as suited to sustained firepower.
The above is with the caveat that the exact loads vary somewhat by non-standard loads and due to the number of subguns or M1 carbines carried.
I do think there is something to the US marine approach of 3 BARs for very aggressive troops in the assault, especially as it can be fired effectively from the shoulder. However, the BAR doesn't have huge weight savings over contemporary LMGs so I think it is a relatively marginal benefit in that niche. On the defensive the issues with sustained firepower come into play more heavily. The modern US marines have adopted a similar approach again today with the M27 IAR so clearly the concept does have merits in some contexts.
Again, I think the BAR is a great design in 1918, one of the best in the world. I just think it was obsolescent in WWII.
*Still a very heavy stopgap design modified from a medium machinegun.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote:
Haighus wrote: Less mobility is a pretty big deal for a squad support weapon. No major WWI army had trouble in defensive fire with heavy machine guns. The MG08/15 was a whopping 18kg/40Ib, so it was not easy to lug in support of assaults.
I don't think copying weapons is a good metric of anything in most wars of the 20th century. It is incredibly rare to see weapons copied in wartime, even for obviously good and feared designs like the MG42. This is especially true if factoring in cartridge changes, such as from 8mm Lebel to 7.92mm Mauser. You can see the challenges in switching between cartridges by looking at the mess that is the Chauchat in .30-06!
Was the Chauchat an offensive juggernaut? Did French offensives benefit from its lighter weight?
If having an agile, light-weight squad support weapon was so useful, where was this shown on the battlefield? The Chauchat's advantages were (and are) largely hypothetical.
Copying weapons is one metric; length of service is another. The Chauchat fails on both counts.
In addition to Catbarf's point, I think it is a bold claim that manouevre warfare was not critical in the First World War. The very concept of small unit fire and manoeuvre used today was born in WWI (albeit at squad and platoon level rather than fireteam level as seen later). The 100 days offensive would not have been as successful without that hard-won knowledge.
As for Korea, it is inarguable that a unit armed with bolt-action rifles is going to be at a disadvantage vs units using self-loading rifles. There's a reason why bolt rifles went out of fashion.
Sure. I'm not disputing that a unit equipped with bolt actions has less firepower to a unit equipped with semi-auto rifles.
But we are not discussing such units. We are talking about a squad equipped with a proper portable MG supported by bolt actions vs a squad equipped with semi-auto rifles and a heavy automatic rifle (which is not an MG) or two or three automatic rifles. Firepower in infantry sections does not seem to have been an issue for Commonwealth troops in Korea.
It is also known that - especially during the early phases of the conflict - American infantry had gotten lax in terms of individual marksmanship, relying instead on air, armor and artillery to support them. To their credit, the Commonwealth forces had maintained that proficiency.
My father, who served in the shadow of Korea, noted that an entire week of his Army training focused on close assault and hand-to-hand combat. Thus proving, once again, that armies always prepare to fight the last war.
So you are suggesting that US troops performed poorly because they couldn't hit, rather than lacking firepower? Surely that highlights the importance of suppressive weaponry providing a beaten zone of fire?
Haighus wrote: So you are suggesting that US troops performed poorly because they couldn't hit, rather than lacking firepower? Surely that highlights the importance of suppressive weaponry providing a beaten zone of fire?
My point was that US infantry doctrine and training were found deficient during the opening months of the conflict, which could account for discrepancies in casualty rates. The Commonwealth had better infantry doctrine, which compensated for less firepower.
Anyway, arcane LMG debates aside, last weekend I took my new deer rifle out to the range and sighted it in. This is a CVA Scout, a single-shot, break-action weapon, chambered in .44 magnum. I went out to the DNR range (that is, state-funded), and got a sense for its feel and got a reasonable group at 25 yards. The next step is to lock it in at 50 yards, which is the expected range of next fall's hunt.
It's a very basic, affordable rifle, complies with local hunting regulations, and the recoil is quite reasonable. I've shot .44 mag through a revolver and it can be...punishing. Through a rifle it still has some oomph, but isn't bad at all. The trigger was very nice.
Alas, I decided to take a canoe home, and it (and all my other guns) were drowned deep.
There are several bodies of water that should - according to local claims - be lined with layers of steel because of all the weapons that have vanished into their rather shallow depths.
Anyhow, the CVA Scout has lived up to my expectations of being handy, easy to use, inexpensive and accurate.
There are several bodies of water that should - according to local claims - be lined with layers of steel because of all the weapons that have vanished into their rather shallow depths.
Lake Erie would have more metal under the waves than Iron Bottom Sound.
(I mean, it *does*, because it's one of the Great fething Lakes and an epic ship eater on the scale of the Bermuda Triangle, but they're ships, not guns)
There are several bodies of water that should - according to local claims - be lined with layers of steel because of all the weapons that have vanished into their rather shallow depths.
Lake Erie would have more metal under the waves than Iron Bottom Sound.
(I mean, it *does*, because it's one of the Great fething Lakes and an epic ship eater on the scale of the Bermuda Triangle, but they're ships, not guns)
It is for Lake Superior but applies to all the Great Lakes, in the words of Gordon Lightfoot:
"Superior, they said, never gives up her dead
When the gales of November come early."
On that? How easy/advisable is it to try to restore a shooter that’s been in a lake for a decade or more?
I appreciate I’m gonna end up on a list somewhere from this question. But the power that be will just need to appreciate the only person in danger of me being near a shooter, is me.
Hard to say. Depends on shoota, state of said shoota, availability of spare parts, what parts need replacement ( as in, do you need special tools or does it require a particular treatment?)... Really can't say
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: On that? How easy/advisable is it to try to restore a shooter that’s been in a lake for a decade or more?
I appreciate I’m gonna end up on a list somewhere from this question. But the power that be will just need to appreciate the only person in danger of me being near a shooter, is me.
There are multiple factors at work. One is the water - fresh or salt? Another is depth.
The Great Lakes - as the saying goes - are sometimes frozen, but always fresh. One reason why we have so many shipwrecks is that fresh water is less dense than saltwater. This (apparently) throws people off when determining the maximum safe load for freighters. I'm told that swimming in salt water is easier for this reason. All you Brits can laugh, but I've never gone swimming in salt water. Why would I? My home is almost entirely surrounded by fresh water.
I've seen some firearms restoration channels on youtube, and the very term "restoration" is fairly elastic because if you swap out enough parts, it's a rebuild, not a restoration.
That being said, steel is pretty easy to evaluate. If there is no visible corrosion, no rust, if the parts work, it's likely not a problem. Firearms are typically blued to resist corrosion, and conscientious owners also regularly oil and lubricate them, creating another barrier. The most important parts - the frame and barrel - are likely to be the most resistant, and the fragile ones (springs) can be replaced without much trouble.
Salt water absolutely destroys anything made of steel, bluing or not, so restoring something that has been in that for any amount of time is basically hopeless. Unless the gun was made of brass or had a titanium nitride coating its gone. Even a few drops of sweat will cause rust within a few hours.
Freshwater is much kinder and it'll boil down to how oxygenated the water is along with the temperature. A lox oxygen environment(like being buried in mud at the bottom of a lake) could keep a gun in fairly decent condition. And if the barrel is chromed it could potentially be undamaged, though any springs are unlikely to be as lucky as those are usually untreated steel.
If you're going to be pedantic and only consider the receiver, guns like glocks or ARs with polymer receivers will technically not care about any kind of water(nor would any aluminum receivers). Just replace the metal parts and good as new.
As an anecdote to this, salt being too aggressive to firearms, the FAMAS F2 designed for the Navy actually swapped a lot of metal parts for plastic ones to better resist salt induced corrosion.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: As an anecdote to this, salt being too aggressive to firearms, the FAMAS F2 designed for the Navy actually swapped a lot of metal parts for plastic ones to better resist salt induced corrosion.
Presumably the plastic parts were more fragile?
Corrosion works in strange ways, and it is dependent on local conditions. There are in fact functional firearms that have been salvaged of salt water, with the rifles of the U.S.S. Maine being an example. It just depends where and when.
The salt/fresh water thing works in weird ways. I've read that fresh water rots wood while salt water preserves it, and that sailing ships had to be 'rinsed' with salt water after rainfall. But at the same time, wood in fresh water can be remarkably well preserved. Many years ago Michigan passed a revised salvage law specifically because technology had reached a point where it was possible to salve logs from shipwrecks and river floats that happened a century ago. This was old growth timber, it had been packed down into the bottom, and was worth a fortune because of how rare such things are today.
The finish will also matter - "in the white" guns will suffer more quickly than ones that have been parkerized.
When I was a kid, I went on a tour of the salt mines beneath Detroit. Lots of perfectly preserved (but broken) equipment down there. I mean, salt is everywhere, but there's no moisture. They left the equipment where it was because it wasn't worth disassembling it and bringing it to the surface, so there was this museum of sorts.
I'm no expert in navy stuff, so I unfortunately can't delve in too much details, but fact remains that they did decided to swap as many metal parts as possible on the navy FAMAS. If somebody has got any experience in the navy and would like to give me more insight or why the french navy made a dumb move if it is useless, I'll be glad to listen.
I mean, swapping parts out for plastic isn't dumb if your goal is to increase resistance to hostile environments. Its only dumb if you also compromise the integrity of the gun, and then its not the idea that is the problem.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I'm no expert in navy stuff, so I unfortunately can't delve in too much details, but fact remains that they did decided to swap as many metal parts as possible on the navy FAMAS. If somebody has got any experience in the navy and would like to give me more insight or why the french navy made a dumb move if it is useless, I'll be glad to listen.
My assumption is that the plastic resisted corrosion better but had some downside, such as a short service life. On or near a ship swapping them out frequently would not be a problem and their corrosion resistance would actually make them more reliable than otherwise longer-lived metal components.
Knowing a bit of France's position on the geopolitical stage, a desert deployment would not have the same risk profile - dust intrusion rather than rust is the main hazard, so plastic parts (which also might get soft in the heat) would not work.
Corrosive ammo creates salts as residue, and they have to be "boiled out" - flushed with hot water. It's a tribute to the discipline of British (and Commonwealth) troops that they were still using corrosive ammo in WW II and yet finding an Enfield with a shiny, nice bore is a non-event.
The bores on Mosins and Mausers, by contrast, are of more varying quality.
And the same is true of salt water, sweat, etc. It's not just exposure, it's the extent, duration and then other environmental factors. I think one of the reasons why people obsess about it is that safes, locked cases, etc. tend to be moisture traps. Unless you have some form of dessicant, they can be rust incubators.
I had a shotgun that I kept for years without any rust issues. I wiped it down after handling, but a bigger factor was the fact that it was in a very climate-controlled environment.
When it was in a 'natural' setting (no A/C), the same countermeasures failed because we had days where everything was dripping with humidity. Preserving its (damaged) finish then became a minor obsession, with frequent inspections and applications of rust inhibitors.
Another environmental change (A/C in the house) and it was a non-factor. I live in a fairly wet state, but have a whole house dehumidifier and if any of my guns lasted beyond their first outing (talk about an expensive hobby!), the chief issue is that the lubricant/protectant dries on them, so I need to be sure to give them fresh lubrication prior to use.
I've had the issue with my mosin locked in the safe 3 weeks while I was partaking in manoeuvres. Nobody home took it out of the same and it had been pouring the better part of these last 2 weeks. When I came and checked the barrel, I swear I could have fainted. Repetead cleaning, shooting, cleaning, finally helped, but seeing the cases after being shot, the chamber definitely took some damage. Fortunately, it is located at the top of the cartridge neck so no overpressure.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I've had the issue with my mosin locked in the safe 3 weeks while I was partaking in manoeuvres. Nobody home took it out of the same and it had been pouring the better part of these last 2 weeks. When I came and checked the barrel, I swear I could have fainted. Repetead cleaning, shooting, cleaning, finally helped, but seeing the cases after being shot, the chamber definitely took some damage. Fortunately, it is located at the top of the cartridge neck so no overpressure.
Yikes! That's awful!
There are dessicant packs you can buy that are reusable. It changes color when it is saturated and you put it in your oven on low heat for a few minutes to dry it back out. I have one and I've only had to cycle it once because the dehumidifier and air movement in the house are so effective. I also save all the packs I get in packaging and throw them in the safe.
Another element is to store guns "wet." This went against my Army training, when we were told to clean them until they were shiny and not load them up with oil before returning them to the armory. I do the opposite - before putting them away, they get a final wipe down (especially including the bore) to give extra protection.
Oiling steel to prevent rust is standard in blade collecting.
I guess it could trap dust and grit in the moving parts of a firearm though that could need to be cleaned before using the gun. Most swords don't have actions. So in the context of military weapons, I can see why they'd opt for clean, ready-to-use firearms and control the storage environment instead.
Putting weapons away dry in a military context is also soldiers avoiding future cleaning, when the oil bleeds carbon from some unaccessible nook or cranny, that a gleeful SNCO will use as a reason to keep the detachment late scrubbing perfectly clean weapons 🙃
We had one who liked to use dental picks for his inspections.
To be fair, being a gun owner besides the army myself, I never did this and didn't endorse cleaning more than needed.
@Commissar I've got a set of such bags, I must say, that is awesome. Unfortunately as I was away no one dried them, which cause my mosin this much suffering :/. But I've now taken up the habit of oiling guns good and proper before putting locking them in the safe to ensure double factor protection.
hen I'm home, I usually have the guns take a bit of fresh air outside the safes as well.
Farseer Anath'lan wrote: Putting weapons away dry in a military context is also soldiers avoiding future cleaning, when the oil bleeds carbon from some unaccessible nook or cranny, that a gleeful SNCO will use as a reason to keep the detachment late scrubbing perfectly clean weapons 🙃
We had one who liked to use dental picks for his inspections.
Absolutely! We were told that if we put them away wet, the carbon they pulled out would result in a black sump. Not something you want the brigade sergeant major to see!
I got to be very good at rifle cleaning, and to this day, I recall with pride how the CSM held up his white-gloved finger after swiping the chamber of my weapon and said "That is a clean rifle!" to the complete satisfaction of my NCOs, who gazed at me with strange new respect.
In civilian life, such considerations are irrelevant. I know I'm never going to return a perfectly clean patch on weapons that saw action a generation before I was born. My keeping them well lubricated, I protect them from corrosion and excess wear.
I do not understand people who see how long you can fire an unlubricated weapon until it locks up. Who does this?
I always bring oil to the range and I can't count the times that I solved someone's weapon malfunctions by simply squirting CLP into the moving parts.
I always bring oil to the range and I can't count the times that I solved someone's weapon malfunctions by simply squirting CLP into the moving parts.
I used to keep a squirt bottle of CLP hanging behind my seat on my tank. Used it very liberally on my .50 and that thing never jammed, even in some pretty crappy conditions. Always take a bottle to the range to this day.
Oh God you are right, 50. Cal really needed to be generously oiled to function correctly. The very one time I hadn't time to do that properly, the ammo belt got stuck.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: The salt/fresh water thing works in weird ways. I've read that fresh water rots wood while salt water preserves it, and that sailing ships had to be 'rinsed' with salt water after rainfall. But at the same time, wood in fresh water can be remarkably well preserved. Many years ago Michigan passed a revised salvage law specifically because technology had reached a point where it was possible to salve logs from shipwrecks and river floats that happened a century ago. This was old growth timber, it had been packed down into the bottom, and was worth a fortune because of how rare such things are today.
It is a feature of foundations for some buildings (e.g. the Taj Mahal in India). Big oak columns hammered into the wet ground as foundations. Now the water table to drying up and receding the columns are starting to fail.
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Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Another element is to store guns "wet." This went against my Army training, when we were told to clean them until they were shiny and not load them up with oil before returning them to the armory. I do the opposite - before putting them away, they get a final wipe down (especially including the bore) to give extra protection.
Presumably the armourer would slather them in grease (oil, lard, sticky sugared drinks, etc.) if they were going in for longer term storage? Certainly until the 70's it was possible to find functioning small arms being washed ashore in France which well slathered in lubricant and well wrapped. I know the last time I was handed a L85 (SA80) A1 what awkward metal parts it had were treated for longer term storage.
For long term storage it is definitely better to absolutely slather a gun in cosmoline or something like it. Especially if you can't/don't want to climate control the storage location. It of course means the gun will take some labor to clean it out before it can be used again, which I suspect is why the US doesn't seem to do that for long term storage currently. We can afford to climate control the storage facilities and don't want to bother having to do deep cleans when the guns need to be used.
If you look up damage to tanks, there are often outward splashes of the armour. Especially in WW2 tanks considering the more conventional metal used back then. Just the physics of the situation does that effect.
Damage vs metal does tend to look roughly like that. It'll almost look like the round "melted" its way through the metal. Metal acts somewhat like a liquid in high speed impacts.
If you look ahead in this video you can see the impacts that bullets leave through steel. Roughly the 10 minute mark.
Rounds the have deformed are really hot afterwards, which is part of why those early WW II 40mm anti-tank rounds were effective - when they came through the other side, you'd get all kinds of messiness, not just a clean round hole. On the range, if you pick up a bullet right after it hits something and deforms, it's too hot to handle.
So much physics going on!
On another note, Steinel Ammo has a quantity of ammo for "shaved" Webley revolvers. This is .45 ACP that has been downloaded to safe pressures so you can use it with the moon clips. From time to time one sees adapters to permit the use of rimmed .455 (I fabricated my own), but this is cheaper than any .455 I've come across (probably because it uses standard .45 ACP casings, which are plentiful). Stock up while you can!
I have to say that while all of the publications I've read refer to .455 as a powerful cartridge with considerable recoil, it really isn't, especially fired from such a large frame revolver. The contemporary 1917 American revolvers chambered for .45 ACP are a lot snappier. I particularly covet the Colt model - as do a lot of people, which is why they are so pricey.
In other news, I've noticed that .32 revolver ammo is becoming both cheaper and more available. This is good news because I don't think any class of weapon is more affordable right now than .32 revolvers. Yes, some are suitable only for use as paperweights, but I think these have gotten something of a raw deal because of the American obsession with large calibers.
I've said this before, but shot placement is king. If you can fill the 10-ring with .32 S&W Long, that's much effective than a peripheral hit with .45 ACP.
Plus, in an urban setting, .32 Long is unlikely to go farther than the room.
I'm also experimenting with .32 S&W, aka .32 short. Dinky little cartridge for dinky little guns, but it's rated as similar to .22 LR or .25 ACP. I'm hoping to shoot some jugs in the near future and see what it does.
According to Wikipedia, .32 caliber pistols have made a huge dent in the ranks of emperors, presidents, and other important figures so they're clearly effective in certain circumstances.
According to Wikipedia, .32 caliber pistols have made a huge dent in the ranks of emperors, presidents, and other important figures so they're clearly effective in certain circumstances.
I wouldn't take that as evidence of its effectiveness over other firearms. I think its more of a commentary on the availability of .32 caliber revolvers.
I've said this before, but shot placement is king. If you can fill the 10-ring with .32 S&W Long, that's much effective than a peripheral hit with .45 ACP.
Plus, in an urban setting, .32 Long is unlikely to go farther than the room.
I mean, I don't think the overpenetration of .45 ACP is going to be much more than .32 long. Both are going to start tumbling once they hit stuff and lose their energy fast.
But if someone can't shoot straight with .45 I have doubts that they would shoot straight with .32 purely based on the caliber. It probably has more to do with the ergonomics of the gun than what caliber its actually shooting.
Comes down to what I've said before. Get the largest caliber that is comfortable for you to shoot. Which really has more to do with properly sizing the pistol to your own paws than what the gun actually shoots.
Grey Templar wrote: I wouldn't take that as evidence of its effectiveness over other firearms. I think its more of a commentary on the availability of .32 caliber revolvers.
The point I was trying to make is that is an effective round.
But if someone can't shoot straight with .45 I have doubts that they would shoot straight with .32 purely based on the caliber.
Man, you must run with a burly crowd.
Lots of people find .45 ACP too much to handle. Ken Hackathorn has said that the arthritis in his hands means that he cannot shoot full-power .45 ACP anymore. His max is 9mm, which he finds ironic because back in the day he as a .45 ACP superfan. Lots of people have grip issues or small hands, and happily there are options for them.
Comes down to what I've said before. Get the largest caliber that is comfortable for you to shoot. Which really has more to do with properly sizing the pistol to your own paws than what the gun actually shoots.
I guess my response is: what does it matter what caliber they use? Shouldn't people just go for what feels best? Something they enjoy shooting and are naturally better with? Some guys like to push themselves, put in the hours to dominate a heavier pistol, but most people just aren't that dedicated, and because they don't enjoy the heavier caliber, they go to the range less often.
Honestly, the only caliber I will argue against is .22 LR because rimmed ammo is inherently less reliable.
To put it another way, the problem you're trying to solve is people who were able employ their weapon, got good shot placement and had the ammo's ballistics let them down.
That group is vastly smaller than people who were less practiced at employing the weapon or missed the target.
Well yeah, you need to have a gun that is comfortable in your own hands. Which yes will be different for everybody. But, once you have found a gun that is comfortable if you have options for what caliber to get for that type of pistol I would always choose the larger one.
I think the main reason that a lot of people have issues with .45 is not because the round has a lot of kick. IMO it really doesn't. It has more to do with most .45 auto pistols being too big for those individual's hands so they can't get a good grip(which will cause issues no matter what caliber you are shooting). If someone has issues with a .45 1911, they're going to have issues with a 9mm 1911 because the grip size is what is the issue and not the round.
On the other hand, if they could find a pistol in .45 which fit their hands nicely then they would do better.
Naturally shot placement is important, but I think it is important to put as much advantage in your corner as possible. So if you can get a round which has a bigger margin of error its only going to help you, assuming stepping up doesn't cause you to lose control. But I doubt anybody who can put tight groups of 9mm or .32 is going to be dangerously off with .45.
Grey Templar wrote: Naturally shot placement is important, but I think it is important to put as much advantage in your corner as possible. So if you can get a round which has a bigger margin of error its only going to help you, assuming stepping up doesn't cause you to lose control. But I doubt anybody who can put tight groups of 9mm or .32 is going to be dangerously off with .45.
We run in very different circles. I know quite a few people - generally small-framed women - for whom .45 is too much. Remember, the superior energy that makes .45 acceptable to you has to come from somewhere. The slide can soften it, a robust frame can dampen it, but it's going to be felt.
I generally agree with you, and while it may seem like I'm extolling "mouse guns," I understand the advantage of accuracy AND power. I'm willing to put in the range time (and spend the money on ammo) to build that skill level, but a lot of people who are only interested in basic self-defense are not. For them, something simple and easy to use is the best option and I want to reduce the stigma (and there is one) on people who choose lighter calibers.
Over time, having built up skill and confidence, they may move up, but it should be at their pace.
Not gonna lie, unless you are literally fighting people dosed up on slaught, or rigged to the gills on some other bath salts type drug, a 9mm will knock most people down just as fast as a .45. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess very few people here have been shot with either. Being shot with anything sucks. Doesn't matter if it's a .454 casulle or a .9mm Kurz.
Yes, but Adrenalin is a hell of a drug and everybody gets it for free. This is of course splitting hairs here when it comes to caliber argumentation.
There is nothing wrong with 9mm, its perfectly acceptable. Some of the smaller stuff is where I am leery for people to be using. And IMO it is mostly down to the guns themselves for a lot of those smaller calibers just suck.
Reading up on Chinese small arms of the Second Sino-Japanese War, I came across funny little vignette that some here will appreciate.
In involves our favorite LMG, the CSRG 1915, aka the beloved Chauchat.
During the 1920s, the nascent Nationalist government was seeking arms from abroad but also attempting to build domestic manufacturing capability. To this end, they got the license and tech package to build the ZB-26, precursor to the Bren. The problem was that these were expensive and time-consuming to make, so the Chinese decided to try something easier and cheaper, which is where the Chauchat comes in. The Jinglin Arsenal apparently set up a line to make these chambered in 7.92x57mm, which was the standard in China at the time (they ran it through Gewehr 88s made in Hanyang).
After a 100 units were produced, they subjected them to trials, were horrified with the results, and abandoned the project.
Interestingly, they liked the Madsen a lot, bought 3,000 of them and then in the late 1930s bought a set of tooling to set up their own production. Alas, it was destroyed en route in June 1940 by a Japanese air raid on the Burma Road. Kind of a game-changing raid.
Clearly they recoiled in fear and terror when they beheld with loathing the thing that they had made.
There are photos, and it's about what you would expect.
Before it found an aquatic grave, I briefly owned a Chinese Kar98k, and it told a fascinating story. Totally non-matching serial numbers. Barrel and receiver built in 1945 at the 21st Arsenal. This pattern was known as a "Zhong Zheng Rifle" (named after the generalissimo) but his name has been struck out.
The stock was of German manufacture. Mostly illegible stampings on both sides of the butt, but the clearest indicates "Peoples' Militia."
Perhaps because it was a rebuild, the barrel isn't bad with rifling clearly visible.
No import stamp, so how did it get here?
My surmise: It was built by the Nationalists and was captured during the Civil War. Afterwards, the PRC did an overhaul and that's where it acquired a German stock (the Soviets had lots of spare parts to share).
They defaced the production stamp, issued it to militia, but pulled it out of storage during Korea and sent it to the PVA units there, which were largely made up of ex-Nationalist soldiers. It got captured by a GI, brought home and thrown in a closet until the estate sale.
The ones with the import stamp are easier - kept with the militia, saw "service" during the Cultural Revolution, sold off in the 1980s because they were so obsolete and more modern weapons were available in quantity.
But the unstamped ones must have been bring-backs because there was no way for an outfit like Interarms to sweep them up as they did in Spain and elsewhere. For a while I wondered if Taiwan sold them, but doing some research I leared that they hoard their weapons, even the old ones.
Which 28mm GW tanks could, due to the size of their gun (main or not) feasibly, against all sense and probably legality, have a real shooter mounted in its place?
Which 28mm GW tanks could, due to the size of their gun (main or not) feasibly, against all sense and probably legality, have a real shooter mounted in its place?
Probably the Leman Russ- canonically the gun is a 125mm cannon with the bulk due to a liquid-cooled barrel shroud.
...oh I see you mean mounting a small firearm in the actual model, not scaling up the model to full size.
Any of the assault gun vehicles should be relatively easy- Vindicator, Thunderer, Laser Destroyer (bonus points for laser pointer) etc.
Which 28mm GW tanks could, due to the size of their gun (main or not) feasibly, against all sense and probably legality, have a real shooter mounted in its place?
I used to have a 1:24 scale remote control M1A2 tank that fired airsoft pellets. I think mounting even a .22 in a plastic model would have issues with the rest of the model not withstanding the forces of the gun firing. But a Co2 or electric motor pellet gun would be doable...
Which 28mm GW tanks could, due to the size of their gun (main or not) feasibly, against all sense and probably legality, have a real shooter mounted in its place?
The problem is twofold: fitting the action into the model and also withstanding the recoil.
An obvious choice would be simply going with a rocket - no recoil and if heat-shielded (by foil), damage to the model would be minimal (the board surface is an entirely different matter).
I'm going to guess that the old "parlour guns" that fired pellets with nothing more than a primer would be okay. The only modern cartridge that I would trust would be .22 short.
To put it another way, one could conceivably encase an action within a plastic model, but the model might not stand up to it.
There's also the question of where the round goes when you fire it on the tabletop...
Plenty of real pistols would fit within various GW tanks and theoretically be capable of firing if you modified the gun, but would shatter the model with the recoil unless you strengthened and made them heavier.
Found it, it is actually referenced on Lexicanum. Chapter Approved (2004) has a schematic with the Mars-pattern turret listing it as a 120mm smoothbore cannon (I misremembered 125mm above). Battle cannon is a catch-all term for many similar weapons so other calibres probably do exist.
I too thought IA at first.
Edit: only 36 rounds for a water-cooled cannon? If that level of cooling is required for a weapon that can't put out that much sustained fire, it suggests the propellant is impressively energetic per shot.
Probably, because if not, a 120mm cannon 40 000 years in the future doesn't sound that impressive. And in a universe of space magic, pretty sure it would be fitting to imagine they found some bs ore to make retardedly powerfull shells/propellants
36 rounds may not sound like a lot, but its not unreasonable. Russian MBTs carry 40-42 rounds depending on the model. Leopard 2s and Abrams can carry 42ish depending on the model.
So its a little on the low side, but similar enough to modern/cold war design tanks.
Water cooling is of course completely unnecessary. However, maybe the cannon on the LRBT was originally designed for some sort of autoloading system, possibly on a different vehicle, where it would be potentially useful. The cannon was later incorporated into other designs including what would become the LRBT. The water cooling was kept because that is what the design for the cannon specified. And in the technological dark ages nobody understood the reason for the watercooling was no longer present and thought to remove it, they just followed the design to the letter.
Water cooling isn't going to necessarily harm the effectiveness of the tank either, other than adding a few hundred unnecessary kilos to the weight of the vehicle, so it isn't really a problem persay.
Grey Templar wrote: 36 rounds may not sound like a lot, but its not unreasonable. Russian MBTs carry 40-42 rounds depending on the model. Leopard 2s and Abrams can carry 42ish depending on the model.
So its a little on the low side, but similar enough to modern/cold war design tanks.
Water cooling is of course completely unnecessary. However, maybe the cannon on the LRBT was originally designed for some sort of autoloading system, possibly on a different vehicle, where it would be potentially useful. The cannon was later incorporated into other designs including what would become the LRBT. The water cooling was kept because that is what the design for the cannon specified. And in the technological dark ages nobody understood the reason for the watercooling was no longer present and thought to remove it, they just followed the design to the letter.
Water cooling isn't going to necessarily harm the effectiveness of the tank either, other than adding a few hundred unnecessary kilos to the weight of the vehicle, so it isn't really a problem persay.
I agree with this- I didn't think 36 rounds was a silly number, only that it would be difficult to get a conventional modern barrel to fail with 36 rounds, let alone super-durable far-future Imperial tank barrels, so why water cool it?
I did consider that they do water cooling because the STC says to water cool and to do otherwise would be tech-heresy, but I think it is much more interesting to consider that the water cooling is necessary because battle cannon shells have very spicy propellant loads
It’s not necessarily operating in earth-normal conditions. Cooling/heating jacket would be extremely useful in extreme temperature conditions even without sustained fire. Also one of the things about tank barrels is that any amount of differential heating along the barrel will affect accuracy. Challenger 2 has a thermal shroud to help with this, but a liquid cooling jacket would do the same thing.
Flinty wrote: It’s not necessarily operating in earth-normal conditions. Cooling/heating jacket would be extremely useful in extreme temperature conditions even without sustained fire. Also one of the things about tank barrels is that any amount of differential heating along the barrel will affect accuracy. Challenger 2 has a thermal shroud to help with this, but a liquid cooling jacket would do the same thing.
Flinty wrote: It’s not necessarily operating in earth-normal conditions. Cooling/heating jacket would be extremely useful in extreme temperature conditions even without sustained fire. Also one of the things about tank barrels is that any amount of differential heating along the barrel will affect accuracy. Challenger 2 has a thermal shroud to help with this, but a liquid cooling jacket would do the same thing.
Fair point. Solar Auxilia Russes operate in void environments, cooling shrouds would be very helpful there due to the lack of convectional cooling.
Haighus wrote: Fair point. Solar Auxilia Russes operate in void environments, cooling shrouds would be very helpful there due to the lack of convectional cooling.
I don't think heat buildup is a problem in the vacuum of space.
I think the answer is with the STC template, insofar as there were vehicles that could use them in rapid-fire mode, and so that jacket is included in all production models.
This is kind of like how the Lewis and Vickers were designed with jackets, but then lost them in aircraft mode. Now imagine Imperium's approach to this: "No, you can't take of the jacket because it's part of the template. What are you, some sort of heretic?"
I mean, the Imperium does a lot of stuff without knowing why. it's their way of life.
Grey Templar wrote:Well yeah, you need to have a gun that is comfortable in your own hands. Which yes will be different for everybody. But, once you have found a gun that is comfortable if you have options for what caliber to get for that type of pistol I would always choose the larger one.
I think the main reason that a lot of people have issues with .45 is not because the round has a lot of kick. IMO it really doesn't. It has more to do with most .45 auto pistols being too big for those individual's hands so they can't get a good grip(which will cause issues no matter what caliber you are shooting). If someone has issues with a .45 1911, they're going to have issues with a 9mm 1911 because the grip size is what is the issue and not the round.
On the other hand, if they could find a pistol in .45 which fit their hands nicely then they would do better.
Naturally shot placement is important, but I think it is important to put as much advantage in your corner as possible. So if you can get a round which has a bigger margin of error its only going to help you, assuming stepping up doesn't cause you to lose control. But I doubt anybody who can put tight groups of 9mm or .32 is going to be dangerously off with .45.
Interesting. I was always told that the advantage of the 1911 platform was the "slimness" afforded by the single stack magazine.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:Not gonna lie, unless you are literally fighting people dosed up on slaught, or rigged to the gills on some other bath salts type drug, a 9mm will knock most people down just as fast as a .45. I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess very few people here have been shot with either. Being shot with anything sucks. Doesn't matter if it's a .454 casulle or a .9mm Kurz.
This,I can agree with. The best self defense handgun is the one that you can hit with.
1911s are very slim side to side, but thats really only relevant to its concealability.
The grips are longer front to back compared to something like a Glock or other 9mm pistols which can impede people with small hands from operating them well(the total circumference of the grips is bigger than most 9mm pistols). Though usually only in terms of running the mag release. If you're using a proper two handed shooting grip anybody should be able to use one. The recoil isn't going to be bad unless you have extremely tiny hands and can't get a good grip at all.
Haighus wrote: Fair point. Solar Auxilia Russes operate in void environments, cooling shrouds would be very helpful there due to the lack of convectional cooling.
I don't think heat buildup is a problem in the vacuum of space.
I think the answer is with the STC template, insofar as there were vehicles that could use them in rapid-fire mode, and so that jacket is included in all production models.
This is kind of like how the Lewis and Vickers were designed with jackets, but then lost them in aircraft mode. Now imagine Imperium's approach to this: "No, you can't take of the jacket because it's part of the template. What are you, some sort of heretic?"
I mean, the Imperium does a lot of stuff without knowing why. it's their way of life.
Actually, heat buildup is a huge problem in a vacuum. Objects can only lose heat via radiation in a vacuum, which takes a long time. Convection is the most efficient way to cool an object down, and obviously liquid/solid contact is better than a gas at convection. There would be a hard limit to that though, a water shroud is going to help but its only going to prolong the issue of operating the gun in a vacuum. You'd probably need to replace the water after a half dozen rounds as its not going to cool fast at all or you'd risk bursting the container as it boils.
Guns work fine in a vacuum as modern propellent has its own oxidizer. But the heat build-up is going to be a problem. Here on Earth we have the luxury of a nice atmosphere to cool guns down naturally. That would definitely be an issue in space or in other less conductive atmospheres.
But yeah, I really like the idea of it being a by-product of the STC template.
Well, as said by commissar, could be both: a useful countermeasure to ensure the gun's operability in all condition, with the imperium keeping doing it because "if you don't add it to the gun then the gun's machine spirit will be upset and become to lazy to work under void circumstances plus you're a heretic PUT THIS BACK ON IMMEDIATLY IN THE NAME OF THE OMNISSIAH"
Grey Templar wrote: 1911s are very slim side to side, but thats really only relevant to its concealability.
The grips are longer front to back compared to something like a Glock or other 9mm pistols which can impede people with small hands from operating them well(the total circumference of the grips is bigger than most 9mm pistols). Though usually only in terms of running the mag release. If you're using a proper two handed shooting grip anybody should be able to use one. The recoil isn't going to be bad unless you have extremely tiny hands and can't get a good grip at all.
An added complication is the grip safety. It's not enough to hold it in your hands, one must hold it with positive front-back pressure.
Another issue is that people with slender frames tend to "limp wrist" auto-loaders. These actually require a firm grip to function correctly. If someone is unable to control that recoil, the weapon will move in their hands, resulting in stoppages and/or jams. I've seen otherwise fit guys limp wrist guns simply because they aren't maintaining a firm enough grip.
I like 1911s, but they aren't for everyone. It's a lot easier to teach someone to shoot a .22 LR revolver than a 1911, and it is likewise easier to move them up the revolver ladder until they feel comfortable with something like .38 special than push them into trying a .45 ACP.
I start new shooters with an M4 type rifle in .22. No felt recoil, very fun to shoot. Handguns I start with one of the 9mm, as I don't have anything smaller except a .38 revolver but it serves anti-snake duty and I rarely have other than snake shot for it. Never had problems teaching new shooters.
When teaching new people, do you prefer to start with what platform? I have zero experience of this, only ever had to fire rifles of whatever type. But is their an advantage/disadvantage in starting with a pistol (revolver/automatic), rifle (bolt/semi auto) or shotgun?
My random thoughts: 2 things to consider: handguns are generally harder to shoot correctly in my opinion, and while this is intendant to make the rest of us laugh when we hand the biggest caliber we can to a beginner, we acknowledge that this has subzero educational value. Not too much recoil at once. Ease of use (as in pushing the right buttons and racking to correct lever) seems irrelevant to me as anyone with enough braincells left to walk should figure it out with an explanation.
On a serious note I'd actually let someone shoot a gun with moderate recoil as my ak for the feel and to lose fear of the recoil. For actually learning to shoot straight, 22 is the real deal: affordable and smotth to let you train in shooting fundamentals.
If someone is brand new to guns entirely, I would always recommend a rifle.
Seen too many videos of people getting handed a pistol or revolver that is way too large for them and they end up shooting it, it recoils back and they end up bump firing a second round somewhere other than downrange. Also why its a good idea to pull a Barney Fife and only give them 1 round when they are doing a pistol.
Shotguns are also something to wait till they're a little more comfortable. Too many videos of people getting laid out on their butts or having the gun smack them in the face.
The_Real_Chris wrote: When teaching new people, do you prefer to start with what platform? I have zero experience of this, only ever had to fire rifles of whatever type. But is their an advantage/disadvantage in starting with a pistol (revolver/automatic), rifle (bolt/semi auto) or shotgun?
For either handgun or rifle, .22 LR is hard to beat.
For shotgun, .410 or 20 gauge are reasonable loads. With long weapons, one has to consider the size of the stock vs the size of the person. Even if the recoil is mild, having your arm at maximum extension is not exactly comfortable.
One of my (adult) daughters is so petite that she will need a "youth model" shotgun to use it comfortably.
Among handguns, revolvers are the way to go. They are simplicity itself. No weird buttons, levers, chambering, magazine, etc. to worry about. Put the rounds in the cylinder, close it and then pull the trigger. Double action is a bit much? Then thumb the hammer back.
I have a friend who struggles mightily with auto-loaders, but with a revolver he feels entirely at home.
Part of the reason I favor calibers like .32 is that they are so comfortable for novices to use, yet they are more reliable than rimfire, and pack enough punch to be useful.
The_Real_Chris wrote: When teaching new people, do you prefer to start with what platform? I have zero experience of this, only ever had to fire rifles of whatever type. But is there an advantage/disadvantage in starting with a pistol (revolver/automatic), rifle (bolt/semi auto) or shotgun?
I almost always start with the .22 M4 I mentioned.
Shotguns are also something to wait till they're a little more comfortable. Too many videos of people getting laid out on their butts or having the gun smack them in the face.
By smaller, do you mean smaller gauge or smaller physically?
A 20-gauge or .410 kicks a lot less than a 12-gauge. A sawed off 12-gauge kicks like a mule, though it is dependent on what load you have.
Buddy of mine has a 20-gauge break action which I can comfortably one hand arm extended like a pistol. I wouldn't dream of doing the same if it was in 12-gauge.
The_Real_Chris wrote: When teaching new people, do you prefer to start with what platform? I have zero experience of this, only ever had to fire rifles of whatever type. But is there an advantage/disadvantage in starting with a pistol (revolver/automatic), rifle (bolt/semi auto) or shotgun?
I almost always start with the .22 M4 I mentioned.
Is that cost? I have only ever fired the demo 5.56 with no gadgets and bling from the small arms room at Shriv and the recoil didn't seem to be a problem - but that was only a dozen or so rounds as it was part of a serial trying to get us to understand doctrine differences with the US. Is next to no recoil better for getting people to ease in? How long before you have them learning to deal with heavier recoil?
Some people can have a real fear of recoil but it usually goes away pretty quickly. I wouldn't see any issue in starting with 5.56 but starting with .22 won't harm anything. But it could depend on the person in question. They might be extra nervous with 5.56 from a mental standpoint so smaller could be better for them. Preconceived notions do surround that caliber.
Grey Templar wrote: Some people can have a real fear of recoil but it usually goes away pretty quickly. I wouldn't see any issue in starting with 5.56 but starting with .22 won't harm anything. But it could depend on the person in question. They might be extra nervous with 5.56 from a mental standpoint so smaller could be better for them. Preconceived notions do surround that caliber.
People are also sensitive to noise, and even with protection, 5.56 can be pretty loud if one is not used to it.
AR platforms also have the "ka-ching" of the bolt cycling, which some people find disturbing.
A Ruger 10-22, on the other hand is small, light and fairly quiet, with minimal recoil. It's a reasonable choice as a training aid and also fun for small game and target work.
AR platforms also have the "ka-ching" of the bolt cycling, which some people find disturbing.
Well, actually, when I first shot the HK416 for a couple of time, that sound was making me mad as it rattled in my ears with the pitch of cray on a schoolboard.
Hopefully I unheard it after a few session. But did I hate that noise from the bottom of my heart.
The_Real_Chris wrote: When teaching new people, do you prefer to start with what platform? I have zero experience of this, only ever had to fire rifles of whatever type. But is there an advantage/disadvantage in starting with a pistol (revolver/automatic), rifle (bolt/semi auto) or shotgun?
I almost always start with the .22 M4 I mentioned.
Is that cost? I have only ever fired the demo 5.56 with no gadgets and bling from the small arms room at Shriv and the recoil didn't seem to be a problem - but that was only a dozen or so rounds as it was part of a serial trying to get us to understand doctrine differences with the US. Is next to no recoil better for getting people to ease in? How long before you have them learning to deal with heavier recoil?
I have a Walther/Umarex M4 made to fire .22. I have a red dot sight on it, and it is co-witnessed with the iron sights. New shooters get some instruction, and then I give them the gun with a 30 round magazine. I stand slightly behind and to the left so I can see safety clearly and see how they are aligning sights/aiming and see how rifle is being held/trigger is being squeezed. The no recoil put them at ease, and the almost guaranteed hits as long as they get the 'how to aim' concept (it is zeroed to drive nails...) makes it fun. We shoot at steel targets (some pictures of my range in this topic) so there is a satisfying feeling as the targets move when hit, and actual round placement doesn't need to be perfect to move the plates.
After that magazine is done, depending on their level of comfort I'll move them on to a 5.56 version. After a couple mags of that I typically pull out the M1A SOCOM 7.62 with a 16 inch barrel. The muzzle device on it really lessens felt recoil to close to what the 5.56 feels like but it is LOUDER and knocks the crap outta the targets that the .22 barely moved and the 5.56 hit nicely. Then we get to handguns most of the time.
Bottom line, we're running through .22 to 5.56 to (sometimes 7.62 NATO) to 9mm in an hour or two of range time. I have a 9mm SIG MPX that serves as a good transition from the rifles to pistols too. A lot less recoil than 5.56 and get them into the pistol calibers. "Okay, now this (Glock/Taurus/Springfield/etc) is also 9mm, just like you just shot."
CptJake wrote: Bottom line, we're running through .22 to 5.56 to (sometimes 7.62 NATO) to 9mm in an hour or two of range time. I have a 9mm SIG MPX that serves as a good transition from the rifles to pistols too. A lot less recoil than 5.56 and get them into the pistol calibers. "Okay, now this (Glock/Taurus/Springfield/etc) is also 9mm, just like you just shot."
On "first gun shot". Mine was a single action 22 mag revolver, before kindergarten (so, 3 to 4?). I still remember the ear ringing crack. Hillbilly stuff.
Probably an Air Rifle for me too, the joys of parents massively involved in Scouting, and their Pack Holidays being my family holidays.
Came to be a pretty decent shot. Whilst I couldn’t tell you the distance, at Scout Camp I was the only one able to hit a 20p piece on the range. And did so consistently.
But outside of Laserquest and my LARP crossbow (bungeeeeeeeee power!) I’ve not shot anything for the thick end of 30 years.
Haighus wrote: I shot an air rifle first. Pretty typical in the UK, air rifles below a certain threshold don't require a license to own.
Same in France. Airguns below 20 Joules are category D, so no licence required. Anything higher counts as Category C, which requires a hunting license.
Funnily enough, black powder weapons are also D, so you can, in theory, own a musket for home defense with no needed paperwork.
I too started with .22LR. While vacationing with a buddy we stopped at a small store/range really not knowing much about firearms besides what looked cool in the latest Arnold film, Counterstrike, etc. We were respectful with the two older guys behind the counter and they took a liking to us then gave us some shooting lessons.
We started with a .22LR revolver and a toylike pump action rifle but were eager to move on after a box of ammo. We shot every gun in the rental case and then as we were leaving one asked if we wanted to have some fun and brought out two NFA subguns from the back room, an Uzi and ,45 M3. I'm sure they were happy to have the business as we were the only customers and were there for hours, they showed us a great time and I began buying guns of my own shortly after. I think its helpful if not necessary to start with .22LR, and that all those .22 versions of "real" semi autos are great training tools, with the lower reliability of rimfire/rimfire mags being a feature rather than a bug when used that way.
Regarding "fear" of recoil, you don't have to fear it to anticipate it, and many/most new shooters will flinch in anticipation of recoil, spoiling their accuracy. Practicing with a revolver is a good way of identifying and correcting this (don't load all the chambers and spin the cylinder before firing). You can mix some snap caps in with your ammo and blind load semi auto pistol mags for the same effect, but revolvers are a lot easier. On the flip side, its a lot easier to do most other shooting drills with a semi auto, and tbh you might not want to be trying to put those drills into your muscle memory if a revolver is going to be your go to gun.
From real life and teevee and films? I notice that whilst Shotgun shells are typically red, the shells themselves also come in white and green. And possibly other colours.
I’m guessing those are coded colours? If so, what do they code to?
CptJake wrote: Don't know the answer, but have black, blue and yellow ones in addition to red and green. Don't know I've seen white.
In the old days, it was was brown for 10ga, red or black for 12ga, purple for 16ga, yellow for 20ga, green for 28ga, then back to red for .410 bore, but that standard stopped back in the 1970s.
White might be Federal, since I remember they made shotgun shells in Red, White, and Blue, but white I've also seen it mean the shell was loaded with Willy Pete, but that might just be something the local mayor does.
I assume this could be brand based: brands differentiate their different ammo by various shell colours, however I don't think it follows any actual guideline.
The one I use are the blue Solognac shotgun shells I buy at Decathlon sports store. They are way less expensive but do the trick perfectly for most uses. Only drawback is that they're not as powerful so I believe it as sometimes happened that semi auto shotguns would struggle, but that 's a rare occurence anyway.
Mine being a Browning auto 5, has got zero problem shooting that.
Shotshell color doesn't really mean anything these days. Most do red, but some do white, black, clear, yellow, etc... Within a single manufacturer it might mean something, but its not going to hold across different ones.
Shot shells specific color is a marketing thing these days. Nothing to do with actual load or anything. Unless it's got the dreaded White band on a Red/gold striped shell, then you've found the MUCHOGRANDE shell, can only be fired from EL JEFFE GIGIJANTES. /s
Selling my Wilson Combat CQB this weekend, made me think of a comment for starters here. Many 1911's can easily be swapped for a .22 slide, barrel, and magazine. They make a .22 conversion kit that goes on any 1911. Seriously cuts down on Range costs, and makes it easier to break in new shooters to good habits. Usually about $150-300 depending on brand.
From real life and teevee and films? I notice that whilst Shotgun shells are typically red, the shells themselves also come in white and green. And possibly other colours.
I’m guessing those are coded colours? If so, what do they code to?
20 gauge shells are always yellow as a safety precaution. It is possible to put a 20 gauge in a larger bore weapon and have it jam.
I shoot a fair amount of 20 gauge and it is always yellow.
Speaking of shotgun myths, I remember being in a Vampire game in 1990s and they treated incendiary ammo ("Dragonsbreath") shotgun shells as being super-rare and hard to find (they caused fire damage to vampires, very scary).
Of course, I knew otherwise, so I called a local shop, got a price quote and in the next session told the referee that my character had a case of them, and if he didn't believe me, he could go there and see it for himself.
While I absolutely hate the Taurus Judge for what it did to .410 ammo production, I do relish the notion of a vampire hunter having one loaded with "Dragonsbreath."
I’m still getting my head round that “exotic” shotgun shells like Dragonsbreath and that bolos one actually exist!
But building on my ignorance, and because I’ve been playing Fallout 4, where you only get “Shotgun Shells”? If, for whatever reason, you came across a box of random Shotgun Shells, of the same gauge…could you out which is which? Like, birdshot, regular, diet, cherry etc?
Well, if its the original package they usually say what they are. But a lot of shot shells go a step further and have some info on the side of the shell itself. It might just be the shell length, but often it also has the shot weight and size too.
Failing that, you could pry open the front of the shell and see whats inside and then put it back together without making it unusable.
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: I’m still getting my head round that “exotic” shotgun shells like Dragonsbreath and that bolos one actually exist!
But building on my ignorance, and because I’ve been playing Fallout 4, where you only get “Shotgun Shells”? If, for whatever reason, you came across a box of random Shotgun Shells, of the same gauge…could you out which is which? Like, birdshot, regular, diet, cherry etc?
As mentioned, boxes are labeled, but let's say your eccentric uncle gifts you a box of random shotgun shells. All seem to be in good order, but which ones can you use with your vintage single-shot 12-guage?
I would say you could use a four-step process. The first is (as mentioned) the color (or should that be "colour?") Anyways, as noted, 20 gauge shells are always yellow. Set them aside. The next step is to sort them accoring to width, which is a proxy for their gauge. Once you've done that, you can examine the headstamps. Lots of info there. Finally, (because they are plastic) look at how the casing is formed. Slugs are clearly visible from outside. Bird shot feels differently than buckshot, which is often visible.
Note that shells also often have various things written on them and there's also the difference between 2 3/4 inch and 3 inch.
Since no one asked, I have an eccentric uncle that matches this description. While visiting with him, he casually mentioned that he had come into possession of some ammunition and reloading components. Could I help him dispose of it? Why certainly!
When I prepared to leave the next day, I found that this was no casual assortment, but rather an entire table full of lead, brass, primers and finished rounds. My feeble vehicle groaned under the weight, which completely filled the "boot."
Sorting it took several days and I followed the same process outlined - sort by size, then by length, then headstamp (color didn't matter). When all was said and done, there was about a thousand dollars worth of what looked like junk, and my uncle offered me a handsome commission for my work.
So the thing can be done, and done well.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: Right, buying a Manufrance Falcor in a poor condition, I'll try to patch it up for the fun of it.
This will be my first attempt at renovating a gun, wish me luck!
I'm not sure if I should. I successfully rebuilt a Mauser c96 and from then on it was all downhill.
Now I'm one of those dudes who prowls gun shows rummaging through the scrap metal bins and parts kits.
Comparing notes with a friend, he remarked the challenge of storing all the cases of his firearms, and I cut him off short. "See, that's your problem. You buy new firearms with shiny plastic cases. Walk with me into the world of guns sold in a sock."
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: CvT, thank you for and informative and amusing response, which answered the questions of an idiot.
Double thank you for at least acknowledging the correct spelling of colour, and accept car boot.
Given where you are, you questions are quite valid. The next time you visit the States, swing through Michigan and I'll showcase my 2nd ed. 40k armies and give you some hands-on firearms instruction.
Despite recurring canoe accidents, I might be able to find something useful.
Then you can come home and offer your take on the finer points of .44 Magnum vs .44 Special or why you think Glocks are rubbish (which they are).
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: Right, buying a Manufrance Falcor in a poor condition, I'll try to patch it up for the fun of it.
This will be my first attempt at renovating a gun, wish me luck!
I'm not sure if I should. I successfully rebuilt a Mauser c96 and from then on it was all downhill.
Now I'm one of those dudes who prowls gun shows rummaging through the scrap metal bins and parts kits.
Comparing notes with a friend, he remarked the challenge of storing all the cases of his firearms, and I cut him off short. "See, that's your problem. You buy new firearms with shiny plastic cases. Walk with me into the world of guns sold in a sock."
I did get one that came in a shirt sleeve.
Well, that's a hill I'm willing to go down
Tinkering with guns is really something I've always wanted to do, but finding cheap guns that you don't mind messing up while learning via trial and error is another kettle of fishes. But I've got one, and no one shall stand in my way now!!!
By the way, I've also re-welded the lever of my Brother's Reina, no idea how long that'll hold, I could only really do strong points, but I still added metal.
Tinkering with guns is really something I've always wanted to do, but finding cheap guns that you don't mind messing up while learning via trial and error is another kettle of fishes. But I've got one, and no one shall stand in my way now!!!
By the way, I've also re-welded the lever of my Brother's Reina, no idea how long that'll hold, I could only really do strong points, but I still added metal.
There is something deeply satisfying in improving the function of a vintage firearm. I've not done any welding, but cleaning, lubrication, swapping out springs can have a remarkable effect. Let us know how it works out!
My first, and most ambitious was building a Mauser c96 "Broomhandle" out of a parts gun. There is a a robust market for used and new-production parts for these and the whole thing goes together like a steel jigsaw puzzle. I even got the bore relined. Sadly, it went into a creek before I could have it reblued.
As long as people are talking about shotgun shells and their color, I have to say that if you ever come across full-brass shells (no plastic) they are a hoot. They simply make this incredible pinging sound when racking a round into a pump action shotgun. I know, I'm such a child.
I found about 200 full brass casings in my late father's reloading area. Totally virgin casings, never filled. I'm thinking about reloading them, but on the other hand, could they be with some money now?
Grey Templar wrote: I would use them yourself. They'll basically last forever. Full brass shotshells are hilariously durable and long lived for reloading.
Luxury! Our shotshells were made of damp toilet paper which had to be dried out by a fire, even after filled with powder and they'd ignite in your hand, and so there we all were, getting beaten by dad for wasting powder with our hands burned off.
I'm going to go with the usual answer: it depends on the jurisdiction. There are laws against creating ammunition to create undue suffering.
That being said, while Americans love them some wild and wacky ammo, using this in a self-defense capacity carries some serious legal risk. Not being a lawyer, I've consulted various authorities and there seems to be a uniform sentiment that if you do use a firearm in self-defense and it is loaded with your custom, hand-built, DeathPain MurderBolts 3.0, a prosecutor will likely be able to convince a jury that you went out looking for trouble.
A lot of these youtubers are all about "Hey, y'all watch THIS!" whilst someone else is holding their beer. It's not to be taken seriously.
Right, so, I got the gun, and checked it out. From the outside, but I can't tell yet of it actually work since I'll have to go dig the pieces of the handguard.
I'm trying to confirm that 16 caliber Falcor parts in the handguard are the same as those found in a 12 caliber handguard. If that is the case or likely to be, I will probably give it a go, buy the complete handguard, strip it bare, and screw all of this back into a 12 cal handguard.
Though that'll be costly, 150 for the full one and yet some 60-75 for the cal 12 wooden part.
I know nothing about that particular firearm, but when designers make different versions of the same gun in different calibers they often have parts interchangeability in as many areas as possible, and the handguard would probably be one of those more likely areas.
That'd apparently be the gist of it, but strangely enough with tighter handguard in .16 caliber... Which is what I find strange. But that could entirely be
Grey Templar wrote: I know nothing about that particular firearm, but when designers make different versions of the same gun in different calibers they often have parts interchangeability in as many areas as possible, and the handguard would probably be one of those more likely areas.
John Browning spoiled us with all his dual-caliber weapons with near-total parts interchangeability.
I'm not sure how 12 gauge relates to 16 gauge in terms of dimensions. For example, one of the virtues of .32 magnum from a production standpoint was that it used .38 blanks for barrels and cylinder; one just drilled them to a different diameter. I don't know if the barrel blanks (and therefore external dimensions for the shotguns would be the same because the walls are so thin.
I'm seeing a shooting range pal this afternoon, he's a seasonned tinkerer when it comes to gun, maybe he'll know better.He's the one who taught me reloading, so he'll be very glad to help me out with this if he can.
Also trying out to see if the reina breaks immediatly. I've sanded it until it fitted back in place, and will try to shoot it this afternoon as well. I've yet to find out why it won't eject properly most of the time even lubricated and using mini mag ammo that kick. Swapping out the mag with a friend's reina helped somewhat, but it still occured. Unfortunalty I couldn't take out the spring, it seems you need some special tools for this. Thought about compressing the springs for a few days or a week on end to loosen it, but I hav'nt done it yet.
And finally, checking my speed timer works. I've bought one to use when I go as a shooting instructor at reserve activities, but the first one I got was defective and it took nearly a year before I got it exchanged and back. Bringing my auto 5 to fire some lead into the wild and see if it works.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I'm seeing a shooting range pal this afternoon, he's a seasonned tinkerer when it comes to gun, maybe he'll know better.He's the one who taught me reloading, so he'll be very glad to help me out with this if he can.
Also trying out to see if the reina breaks immediatly. I've sanded it until it fitted back in place, and will try to shoot it this afternoon as well. I've yet to find out why it won't eject properly most of the time even lubricated and using mini mag ammo that kick. Swapping out the mag with a friend's reina helped somewhat, but it still occured. Unfortunalty I couldn't take out the spring, it seems you need some special tools for this. Thought about compressing the springs for a few days or a week on end to loosen it, but I hav'nt done it yet.
And finally, checking my speed timer works. I've bought one to use when I go as a shooting instructor at reserve activities, but the first one I got was defective and it took nearly a year before I got it exchanged and back. Bringing my auto 5 to fire some lead into the wild and see if it works.
Let us know how it goes! My inbox has been getting slammed of late with ammo sales notification, so yesterday I decided to place an order
Here again I will express my hatred for the Taurus Judge and its clones. Before these things came out, .410 ammo was super-cheap, and it's ludicrous that these tiny shells coast 2-4 times as much as 20 gauge ones. Even finding non-handgun loads is a chore, which is why I had to go online.
Heavy rain has delayed the opening of our private range, but I may go to the state one if circumstances permit. Lots of chores to do before then, though.
Right, so far, the Reina's fine (well, with usual problems, but I've finally searched for parts and I should be able to try and swap some and see if things get better), the speed timer works as intended, and I've got the information that I needed: the 16 gauge parts won't go onto the 12 gauge rifles, apparently.
Seems like they didn't take the same direction as browning when making these.
I'll just need to be patient and find all the needed pieces, this may be long, but that's fine. The cleaning, varnishing, and bluing can still be done meanwhile.
Automatically Appended Next Post: Just tryharded a list of all falcor types' schematics to try and find the correct one for my rifle, hoepfully it seems there is one, buying it. Next up, when it arrives, i'll check if it seems to fit and then buy the wooden foregrip. I'll just need to get around making or fining some missing screws. Fingers crossed.
His is a percussion model with black powder. He helped me find a replica of Tuco's gun from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and it is chambered in .45. Haven't bought it because my son is in the hospital for long-term and money is extremely tight, but it is on my shortlist once my finances bounce back.
Just Tony wrote: His is a percussion model with black powder. He helped me find a replica of Tuco's gun from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and it is chambered in .45. Haven't bought it because my son is in the hospital for long-term and money is extremely tight, but it is on my shortlist once my finances bounce back.
I hope things turn around for you. Having a kid in the hospital sucks.
Just Tony wrote: His is a percussion model with black powder. He helped me find a replica of Tuco's gun from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and it is chambered in .45. Haven't bought it because my son is in the hospital for long-term and money is extremely tight, but it is on my shortlist once my finances bounce back.
I thought Tuco's gun was a mishmash of other guns in the movie? He had a Cylinder off of what looks like an Remington Army 1858 as the base, but then throws in a cylinder and parts from two other guns. Which was literally impossible for the time. You couldn't throw a Colt Navy 1851 cylinder into an Army 1858, and expect it to just work. Point was, this was a silly gimmick in the film, and tuco's gun is something of an impossibility.
Just Tony wrote: His is a percussion model with black powder. He helped me find a replica of Tuco's gun from The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly and it is chambered in .45. Haven't bought it because my son is in the hospital for long-term and money is extremely tight, but it is on my shortlist once my finances bounce back.
I thought Tuco's gun was a mishmash of other guns in the movie? He had a Cylinder off of what looks like an Remington Army 1858 as the base, but then throws in a cylinder and parts from two other guns. Which was literally impossible for the time. You couldn't throw a Colt Navy 1851 cylinder into an Army 1858, and expect it to just work. Point was, this was a silly gimmick in the film, and tuco's gun is something of an impossibility.
Correct to all of the above, but a replica firearms company made a firearm that is essentially a copy of what he used in the film, so it is a. 45 firing revolver that's essentially built off a Navy platform.
Just Tony wrote: Correct to all of the above, but a replica firearms company made a firearm that is essentially a copy of what he used in the film, so it is a. 45 firing revolver that's essentially built off a Navy platform.
While certain discussions are taboo, I did include your family in my morning devotionals. I've had a kid hospitalized for weeks, and the house just isn't the same.
As for the revolver, it's a great scene, and would likely have been plausible if he was just high-grading parts guns for the best of the best.
That being said, real-life versions of prop guns are cool. I think the 99.9% of the people who buy the S&W Model 29 do so because of Dirty Harry. There are simply cheaper and better hunting handguns out there, but they don't come with cool bits of dialog, do they?
Okay, digression time. At work today I was in training for most of the day. When it was done and I was catching up on emails, a co-worker came into my office on an urgent mission. "Thank God, you're still in, I have a question and I can't think of anyone but you who can answer it."
"Go ahead," I said uneasily.
"It's about old ammo. A friend inherited something in .32 Win Special. How hard is that to find? Have you heard of it?"
I smiled. "Yeah, I can help you with that."
What is the weirdest, rarest caliber you have or have shot?
I'll just need to be patient and find all the needed pieces, this may be long, but that's fine. The cleaning, varnishing, and bluing can still be done meanwhile.
Commissar von Toussaint wrote: Okay, digression time. At work today I was in training for most of the day. When it was done and I was catching up on emails, a co-worker came into my office on an urgent mission. "Thank God, you're still in, I have a question and I can't think of anyone but you who can answer it."
"Go ahead," I said uneasily.
"It's about old ammo. A friend inherited something in .32 Win Special. How hard is that to find? Have you heard of it?"
I smiled. "Yeah, I can help you with that."
What is the weirdest, rarest caliber you have or have shot?
I think the weirdest caliber I ever shot was .357 Remington Max, which was basically the .357 Mag with some extra junk in the trunk. They made it for Center-fire single shot rifles, but being America, someone made a revolver capable of actually loading 6 of them. Man did it have a lot of ouch on it. It was basically like firing a Magnum +P+. Just too much.
4.6x30 is vanishingly rare in the US too. Guns that shoot it are unicorns and the ammo is just as much so.
5.7 definitely won the "smol zippy caliber" war for the market share as you're starting to see guns getting released that are not P90s or FN57s. Until we start to see some similar releases I doubt 4.6 will make much traction.
I'll just need to be patient and find all the needed pieces, this may be long, but that's fine. The cleaning, varnishing, and bluing can still be done meanwhile.
Did you solve the ejection problem?
Unfortunately, the ejection problem I have got on my brother's Reina I could not solve. Even less so when thanks to his goldfish tier memory he forgot were he had put his minimal rounds, so I couldn't really take the chances to see what actually happens.
But from what I remember, it had the double issues of often times eating the ejected cartridge - so I suspect either the magazine that does ejector to maybe be to short, or the recoil/hammer spring to vigorous) and sometimes rounds would get stuck in the ramp and fail to feed. Correct lubrification only slightly improved things, and swapping magazines wouldn't suppress the issue to satisfying levels neither...
So I'll probably have got to buy another spring group and swap them. In the meantime, I might try the silly method they sometimes apparently used for pistols recoil springs when the eat the cases, and strap it to the vice for a ridiculous time to "soften" the spring of. I thought about cutting a ring or two but to this day I can't figure out how you're supposed to take it apart. French guns often have got... Weird designs.
As for the Falcor, I've received the parts I ordered for the foregrip, I'll now have to check and hope I bought the right ones, but I can't do that right now as I'm again away on construction site.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: But from what I remember, it had the double issues of often times eating the ejected cartridge - so I suspect either the magazine that does ejector to maybe be to short, or the recoil/hammer spring to vigorous) and sometimes rounds would get stuck in the ramp and fail to feed. Correct lubrification only slightly improved things, and swapping magazines wouldn't suppress the issue to satisfying levels neither...
So I'll probably have got to buy another spring group and swap them. In the meantime, I might try the silly method they sometimes apparently used for pistols recoil springs when the eat the cases, and strap it to the vice for a ridiculous time to "soften" the spring of. I thought about cutting a ring or two but to this day I can't figure out how you're supposed to take it apart. French guns often have got... Weird designs.
Yeah, we know all about the Chauchat.
I'm not clear on what you mean by needing to "soften" a spring. In my experience, weak springs are more of an issue than strong ones. Indeed, before I even think about buying surplus, I check to see if replacement springs are available because in older firearms, these are almost always worn out.
As for weird cartridges, even without my aquatic misadventures, I don't really have "exotic" calibers so much as ones that simply have fallen out of favor. For example, 9mm Largo is really hard to find now but it was once reasonably plentiful and finding weapons chambered in it is pretty easy. Similarly, ammo for Japanese WW II arms is awful scarce at the moment, but arms that need them are not. I recall getting an alert that 8x22mm Nambu was back in stock, but it sold out before I could order it.
Right, I recieved the parts I ordered, made a quick test... an percussion occurs! Of course, it'll still need the foregrip and to be tested with rounds, but so far, all good.
usmcmidn wrote: Nice try ATF. I lost all my firearms in a horrible boating accident in the middle of the ocean within US territory. Sadly, I own no more guns.
While I am generally not fussed about firing stuff and far more prefer the engineering/culture/procurement stuff around firearms, I would love to fire a Neopup PAW-20. That would also I think involve an ammo that simply doesn't exist in the UK!
Right, so, after the cleaning, I'm now trying to find a tube to soak the barrel in vinegar prior to re bluing, while I tried to take out the stock... to find out the screw's head it rounded!!! For now, i'm pondering really hard to find some way to go around this, without cutting the stock to remove it.
Is the screw head flush with the substrate, or protruding up?
If it's protruding up, easiest, you can file the sides flat and use a wrench.
Flush, it's a bit harder - you can drill it out and use a bolt extractor - left handed drill bit works best (no, not a joke), might need to go to a specialty shop.
You can also try using a rotary engraver to cut a channel for a screwdriver.
The trickiest part is actually that it really at the bottom of the stock, (unfortunately can't make a photo as I'm not home). So having the tools reach down there will be hard, unless I cut the stock then and there to be able to go fix that.
However, if I've got a file of correct dimensions and some measure of patience, I suppose that I could technically file the sides to give it it's octogonal shape back. It would be possible, I suppose, to also widen the channel leading down to said screw.
(Btw, I do not know the English terms perfectly in terms of screws, but in fact the head is more akin to a bolt)
usmcmidn wrote: Nice try ATF. I lost all my firearms in a horrible boating accident in the middle of the ocean within US territory. Sadly, I own no more guns.
I've never understood whether the 'boating accident' gimmick is just a sort of weird virtue-signaling to other gun owners, or if the people who post it actually think it's a legal or procedural shield against hypothetical government investigation.
usmcmidn wrote: Nice try ATF. I lost all my firearms in a horrible boating accident in the middle of the ocean within US territory. Sadly, I own no more guns.
I've never understood whether the 'boating accident' gimmick is just a sort of weird virtue-signaling to other gun owners, or if the people who post it actually think it's a legal or procedural shield against hypothetical government investigation.
Further options - if the stock is wood, you can get bores, take the screw and surrounding wood out, pour resin to plug the hole, and use that as the new substrate.
Or, if you have good welding gear available - tack weld a rod to the screw/bolt, and use that to turn it. Needs superfine gear - sounds like you probably don't have the room.
The_Real_Chris wrote: While I am generally not fussed about firing stuff and far more prefer the engineering/culture/procurement stuff around firearms, I would love to fire a Neopup PAW-20. That would also I think involve an ammo that simply doesn't exist in the UK!
I have actually got my hands on a real PAW-20. I was lucky enough to visit the PMP factory in Pretoria in . That's the same time I got to pull the trigger (well push the button) on a 25mm Chaingun, something being developed to rival the M242.
They weren't the cool-guy rounds, because this was at an indoor range where they tested functionality, but it was still cool as all heck. Sort of like a very very stout shotgun.
Unfortunately I have lost my Photobucket account and the hard drive the stuff I had was on, but that didn't really matter as I wasn't allowed to use my camera inside PMP anyway. I do still have a handful of pictures of the early model PAW-20 from the AAD 2010 trade day. I had more and better pics of the 2nd generation one but the Lord alone know where they ended up.
In order of unavailability I'd have to day the prototype 25mm cannon, if pushing a button can be considered firing something, because that was using electronic ignition. I don't think that went anywhere and was a test gun of 1 or 2 IIRC.
The PAW-20
The NTW-20 in 14.5 and 20x82mm
Thats also the day I got most of my full auto experience. Most of those were bolted to a table and I just got to pull the trigger on them, but one or two I got to actually handle. But that was all "boring" stuff like a Mag 58, R4, and Uzi, an AKM that they swore they didn't make ammo for, being an "enemy" gun and all (so why were we running mags through it?)
Grey Templar wrote: I mean, I don't think its terrible. At least for what it is.
Right, and that highlights the problem of a dedicated grenade launcher vs an add-on system. If paired with adequate support, it's slick and you get a lot of bangs downrange, but the tradeoff is personal defense. If you find yourself alone, using a 20mm grenade may not be the best solution to a close target. That's why rifle grenades and underslung launchers have their place.
On the other hand, I've only ever used the M203 and my primary accomplishment with it was to avoid turning myself into an orange smurf, so my expertise is admittedly limited.
Right, after using the tightest nut I could find, strapping it to this monster of a mount to reach far enough, and using my drill to full force, the screw finally gave up and started to loosen. On closer inspection it did keep part of its edges sharp so it worked.
I filed the screw back to a better shape.
I've also received the handguard, it'll need minor adjustments to fit in perfectly and I'll have to make screws to hold the mechanism to it, but I now mostly have got everything I need to actually rebuilt that gun.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: I've also received the handguard, it'll need minor adjustments to fit in perfectly and I'll have to make screws to hold the mechanism to it, but I now mostly have got everything I need to actually rebuilt that gun.
Well done!
I've found that the interchangeability of firearms parts is greatly overstated. One of the reason why matching serial numbers are so important to collectors is that even high-volume production weapons involved a measure of hand-fitting at the end. It may just be a single pass of a file, but it is necessary for proper fit and function.
And that's assuming you have access to original parts. Things like screws and various minor pieces can be devilish to get right. Keep it up!
Right, handguard correctly fitted, I tested with 2 rounds that everything works as intended, making sure I don't shoot myself accidentally, and so far all good. Just need to find the screws, but the cleaning of the mechanism, and adjusting of the handguard actually took me like 3 hours, filing my way cautiously.
Making progresses.
Plus I've assembled a PVC tube my grand father found in his mess that'll serve to drip the barrels in vinegar to degrease prior to bluing.
Update: ordered the screws I need, 40 euros for the pair, hope it'll fit but it should as all Falcor models shared those anyway.
I also shuffle through a fair few stores to find wood oils I need. Well, not really oil, as I already have got some, but some cleaner and a bottle of turpentine to dilute the oil, and eventually managed to sieze the last bottle of a local store. With my reserve call being.possibly cancelled this week end, I might try to give it a go and start working.on the woods. Wish me luck.
Maréchal des Logis Walter wrote: Update: ordered the screws I need, 40 euros for the pair, hope it'll fit but it should as all Falcor models shared those anyway.
I also shuffle through a fair few stores to find wood oils I need. Well, not really oil, as I already have got some, but some cleaner and a bottle of turpentine to dilute the oil, and eventually managed to sieze the last bottle of a local store. With my reserve call being.possibly cancelled this week end, I might try to give it a go and start working.on the woods. Wish me luck.
Good luck!
Over the weekend I had an opportunity to put some rounds through a "shaved" Webley Mk VI. Not only that, but I had two types of ammo to play with: Fiocchi .455 LRN and some downloaded .45 ACP from Steinel.
Both required some sort of adapter or full-moon clip.
I tried the .455 first, mostly to re-familiarize myself with it. I've shot it before, and it was exactly as I remembered - quite mild, almost shoving the bullet out of the barrel. The .45 ACP was much crisper, both in recoil and the sound of firing, more of a pop than the deeper near-black-powder boom of .455. But it was discernably weaker than full-powered .45 ACP. At some point, I'd love to have a 1911 platform and a Webley on hand at the same time - maybe even trying that downloaded .45 in the 1911. We can only hope.
There was no difference in accuracy - the pattern was consistent with both varieties and tended to pull to the left, about an inch off at 10 yards.
For fun, I decided to hit a couple of gallon water jugs, and the results were disappointing - just a large hole through each one. It's interesting to contrast this with a .32 magnum snubbie, which not only split the jug, it threw it back a foot. To be fair, the .32 was jacketed hollow point vs jacketed ball or lead round nose. On the other hand, the bullet weight of those monsters was 2.5 times that of the .32 magnum.
General history question, posed as a daft Time Travel scenario.
Let’s say that, for whatever reason, you have a working Time Machine and want to go back and fiddle with history. Specifically by taking something like a Lee Enfield rifle, and the gubbins and plans to make the gubbins, to make that pattern of rifle.
In terms of necessary metallurgy and quality of materials? How far back do you think you could go with just those gubbins, and have the locals be able to successfully reproduce said rifles.
As in no introducing advanced smelting or steel making. No providing the recipe(?) for modern alloys. Just the machinery as an example, and information on how to make those machines, casts, dies, drills and wotnots.
The furthest you could take any kind of modern-ish firearm schematics back would be 1884. At least to have it be useful.
Why? that is when Smokeless powder was invented which is pretty much required for any modern firearm to function. Primarily because the alternative, black powder, is far too dirty to properly allow a modern gun to work.
Sure, you could replicate a Lee Enfield or indeed most modern firearms with the technology further back, but unless you can make smokeless powder for the cartridges it isn't much use. The black powder will gunk up any self-loading action you try to recreate and even manually operated actions will still have issues with the rifling in the barrels getting gummed up too fast to take advantage of the rate of fire increase. Being able to fire dozens of rounds a minute isn't as much use as it could be if you have to clean the gun every 2 minutes of sustained fire.
That isn't to say bringing a bolt action back would be totally useless, but it wouldn't be as game changing as you might think. The actual mechanics of firearm design were always being held back by black powder being absolutely filthy and not the actual gun itself. This is why repeating guns do show up as far back as the 1400s on occasion, but they are always impractical one-offs done more for the lulz than any practical use.
Bringing smokeless powder back would be far far more impactful than bringing any specific gun design. Its actually easy to make if you know how, requires components which are far easier to find than for black powder, the issue is waiting for the RNG to grace your chemists with the inspiration.
Honestly, who knows how far you could move firearms technology forward if you sent smokeless powder back. 1-200 years potentially.
Grey Templar wrote: Sure, you could replicate a Lee Enfield or indeed most modern firearms with the technology further back, but unless you can make smokeless powder for the cartridges it isn't much use.
I'd add to this that while I'd bet any metalsmith even as far back as the bronze age might be able to replicate all the parts of a gun and cartridge, it's highly unlikely you could produce enough bullets, or bullets that wouldn't jam, absent the advent of machining. Working entirely by hand is not very precise, and you can't really get interchangeable parts sufficiently without machine tooling, which would be very difficult to get running absent steam engines or electricity.
I could see being able to at least kinda mass produce metallic cartridges in the 1700s. You could use hand presses and hand drills to make crude cartridges out of cast blanks. At least enough to make a functional bolt action rifle because then you only need it to fit in the chamber.
For anything self-loading you would need to be in the 1800s so you could get the casings consistent enough with the machining at the time. Sure it would all be made by hand, but at least the efficiency would be better than the norm.
Honestly, a precise lathe and some precision measuring tools would revolutionize everything, not just guns. Sure, you'd need to hand make new precision tools, but that alone would help everybody out a lot.
Grey Templar wrote: Sure, you could replicate a Lee Enfield or indeed most modern firearms with the technology further back, but unless you can make smokeless powder for the cartridges it isn't much use.
I'd add to this that while I'd bet any metalsmith even as far back as the bronze age might be able to replicate all the parts of a gun and cartridge, it's highly unlikely you could produce enough bullets, or bullets that wouldn't jam, absent the advent of machining. Working entirely by hand is not very precise, and you can't really get interchangeable parts sufficiently without machine tooling, which would be very difficult to get running absent steam engines or electricity.
Earliest machine tooling was water powered, water powered tools still being competitive up to about 1900. Much more constrained by geography though.
Anyway, probably you would just see something more akin to repeating shotguns to accommodate undersized shot. A shotgun is essentially a modern musket. Repeating rifles would be the preserve of rich hunters or the odd elite troops who can hand-cast all their own ammo to fit their own specific gun
Henry Big Boy .357 Magnum, Lever Action, my favorite. Varmits, target practice.
Colt 1911 .45 small frame. Personal Carry, target shooting.
M-4 Carbine with x3 power red dot. Just In case rifle.
20 Gauge Remington 870. Home Defense
I am trying to find a Coonan .357 Auto. Prices are little crazy on those right now.
Starting with the woods. The stock has been washed with hum. Soda lye? No idea how its called in English.
As for the handguard, it was sanded, warmed, and got a first generous layer of a mix of turpentine and linen oil that i also warmed a little. Now, I'm waiting for both the stock and this to dry correctly.
As I am not at all experienced with wood working, I'm trying to follow a tutorial I found, for once, on french speaking internet!
Let’s say that, for whatever reason, you have a working
When Harry Turtledove's "Guns of the South" came out, there was some discussion about whether AKs (or any other modern firearm) could turn the tide of a war.
I think an argument can be made that without the right tactics, communication, and the aforementioned logistics, it wouldn't do much. A more practical thing would be to carry back some antibiotics or germ theory since losses from disease were greater than those in battle for the vast majority of human history. Having your army stay healthy while the other one was wracked with fever would be huge.
Gott the screws, the head of one of them was larger however, so it needed some rapid handcrafted adjustment
Nonetheless, the screw itself is long enough and fits where it is supposed to. So far so good. Waiting for the handguard to dry after the second coat was applied to it, two coats have been applied to the stock as well, waiting for it to dry as well now.
Gott the screws, the head of one of them was larger however, so it needed some rapid handcrafted adjustment
A few passes with a file are often necessary to get even factory-spec parts to fit in a particular situation. That whole business of collectors wanting all-matching serial numbers isn't affectation - the all-match ones run better.
Grey Templar wrote: The furthest you could take any kind of modern-ish firearm schematics back would be 1884. At least to have it be useful.
Why? that is when Smokeless powder was invented which is pretty much required for any modern firearm to function.
A black powder Lee Enfield would more or less be a Lee Metford.
As others have said though, there's myriad reasons why guns developed when and where they did. You'd have to take back more than just the physical gun, some ammo and possibly the TDP.
As fun as individual weapons are you'd probably be better off taking back bronze cannon tech. It still requires industrial machines to bore them out but they work with black powders, they can be used on enemy formations, until the enemy get them they will be game changers.
Bronze cannons are typically cast, no boring out the barrel. Iron cannons were made out of bands of iron, much in the same way you would make a wooden barrel. This is also why gun barrels are called barrels. That is why there was basically no ability to standardize shot weights till precision tooling would allow for you to bore out a barrel to the same size each time.
Bronze cannons have also been around basically as long as blackpowder has. They were of course very very expensive, which is why they weren't always used. Iron cannons were far cheaper to make, but more prone to rapid deconstruction.
Again, if you brought back tools which could enable you to make precision measurements(and recreate those tools) then you could do so much more. You could actually have standardized gun calibers if you could bore the same barrel dimensions reliably instead of casting or forge welding strips together.
Grey Templar wrote: Bronze cannons are typically cast, no boring out the barrel.
I thought the cast void would then be bored smoother?
Yeah I know they've been around forever, for exactly those reasons. I was thinking taking the knowledge off gunpowder and cannons back further. Working bronze went back 5000 years...
Let’s say that, for whatever reason, you have a working Time Machine and want to go back and fiddle with history. Specifically by taking something like a Lee Enfield rifle, and the gubbins and plans to make the gubbins, to make that pattern of rifle.
In terms of necessary metallurgy and quality of materials? How far back do you think you could go with just those gubbins, and have the locals be able to successfully reproduce said rifles.
As in no introducing advanced smelting or steel making. No providing the recipe(?) for modern alloys. Just the machinery as an example, and information on how to make those machines, casts, dies, drills and wotnots.
There's references to the 1903 Springfield being improperly heat treated (they used the colour of the metal, and whether it was cloudy or sunny impacted the colour), and exploding when fired because of it, so even only a hundred-ish years ago, with quite modern tools and tolerances, it wasn't fool proof.
Which makes me think not that long ago? If you bring the smokeless powder formula with you, you now have a gun liable to explode, and if you use black powder, you can't really get a repeating weapon anyways.
Gott the screws, the head of one of them was larger however, so it needed some rapid handcrafted adjustment
A few passes with a file are often necessary to get even factory-spec parts to fit in a particular situation. That whole business of collectors wanting all-matching serial numbers isn't affectation - the all-match ones run better.
True that! Actually, while dimensions are correct on both screws, there patterns are somewhat different. I've yet to find out if this was another gun's screw, another piece's screw, that by luck fits, or if there exists several versions of those. But I'd err on the former.
Problem with the neopup, despite being a heretical Bullpup, it's firing a round waaaay too powerful for it's purpose. IT has a "sight" that can be replaced with an Optic, which is basically rendered useless after the 2nd shot, because it's been knocked way off alignment. And if you think that's a dubious claim, the M1A sniper/DMR variant, says it's sight needs to be re-adjusted/re-confirmed after 50-100 rounds. And that's a .308 Win. This is a 20mm, about a metric Fethton more booty on that round.
Look, we all know to take down Decepticons, you need something more akin to Willie Pete rounds out of a grenade launcher, hopefully a Mk. 19 or in a pinch, the M203. Pour on some of Satan's Chilli Powder and watch them turn into slag.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Problem with the neopup, despite being a heretical Bullpup, it's firing a round waaaay too powerful for it's purpose. IT has a "sight" that can be replaced with an Optic, which is basically rendered useless after the 2nd shot, because it's been knocked way off alignment. And if you think that's a dubious claim, the M1A sniper/DMR variant, says it's sight needs to be re-adjusted/re-confirmed after 50-100 rounds. And that's a .308 Win. This is a 20mm, about a metric Fethton more booty on that round.
The M1A has problems holding zero because it's a crap platform for a DMR that was never intended to be accurized. It's also, in that role, expected to maintain sufficient accuracy to engage point targets at 500+yds, as opposed to an area-effect system like a grenade launcher. Apples and oranges. Still, if you're having to re-zero every 50-100 rounds, there is something wrong with your gun.
Given that comparable loads were extensively tested in the CDTE system as derived from the XM29 program and subsequent XM307 ACSW- and that the recoil impulse on something as humble as a manually-operated 12ga shotgun is much sharper than any high/low grenade design- I'd be curious to see any evidence of the PAW-20 losing zero beyond 'trust me bro'.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Problem with the neopup, despite being a heretical Bullpup, it's firing a round waaaay too powerful for it's purpose. IT has a "sight" that can be replaced with an Optic, which is basically rendered useless after the 2nd shot, because it's been knocked way off alignment. And if you think that's a dubious claim, the M1A sniper/DMR variant, says it's sight needs to be re-adjusted/re-confirmed after 50-100 rounds. And that's a .308 Win. This is a 20mm, about a metric Fethton more booty on that round.
The M1A has problems holding zero because it's a crap platform for a DMR that was never intended to be accurized. It's also, in that role, expected to maintain sufficient accuracy to engage point targets at 500+yds, as opposed to an area-effect system like a grenade launcher. Apples and oranges. Still, if you're having to re-zero every 50-100 rounds, there is something wrong with your gun.
Given that comparable loads were extensively tested in the CDTE system as derived from the XM29 program and subsequent XM307 ACSW- and that the recoil impulse on something as humble as a manually-operated 12ga shotgun is much sharper than any high/low grenade design- I'd be curious to see any evidence of the PAW-20 losing zero beyond 'trust me bro'.
Ever meet an actual sniper certified soldier/marine/sailor? (Airforce doesn't have snipers) They re-adjust their weapons every 100 rounds anyway. Just to be on the safe side.
Yes, the M1A was a badly designed system to put an accurized sniper system on, but Eugene Stoner's blowback action was not a "crap system". It's just a large heavy chunk of metal slamming back into a larger chunk of metal, at a high rate of speed, is a bad shock absorber for a scope. Remember, the ghost ring sights dont drift, and those are good out to 400m.
The best sniper system ever employed in a DMR fashion was the SR-25. Or as a civilian would call it, a heavily chopped up AR-10 with two thousand bucks of glass on it, and a free floating match grade barrel. The SR25 holds it's zero, has none of the problems of it's predecessor, and can mount all sorts of Cans, without getting pissy about it.
SR-25 is the best SWS the US Military ever created, but I must admit, I've never seen the new SWS in 6.7 they're fielding now. Reports say it's basically the F22 Raptor, meeting the SR-25 as an F15. Both are great, but one is MUCH better.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: [Ever meet an actual sniper certified soldier/marine/sailor? (Airforce doesn't have snipers) They re-adjust their weapons every 100 rounds anyway. Just to be on the safe side.
Choosing to check one's zero is quite different from knowing it's not going to hold beyond a relatively low round count. I think the problems of relying on a such a weapon in an austere/contested environment are pretty self-evident.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: Problem with the neopup, despite being a heretical Bullpup, it's firing a round waaaay too powerful for it's purpose. IT has a "sight" that can be replaced with an Optic, which is basically rendered useless after the 2nd shot, because it's been knocked way off alignment. And if you think that's a dubious claim, the M1A sniper/DMR variant, says it's sight needs to be re-adjusted/re-confirmed after 50-100 rounds. And that's a .308 Win. This is a 20mm, about a metric Fethton more booty on that round.
The first one I saw has an Aimpoint Comp M4 on it, and the one I shot had a Eotech 552. There was talk of using a XPS2, but I didn't see that. I've never heard anyone complain about it losing zero.
Sure a sight can lose zero. I suspect a DMR with a scope is more susceptible to it than an area weapon. I mean an Aimpoint or Eotech isn't a precision sight in the first place.
Let’s say that, for whatever reason, you have a working
When Harry Turtledove's "Guns of the South" came out, there was some discussion about whether AKs (or any other modern firearm) could turn the tide of a war.
I think an argument can be made that without the right tactics, communication, and the aforementioned logistics, it wouldn't do much. A more practical thing would be to carry back some antibiotics or germ theory since losses from disease were greater than those in battle for the vast majority of human history. Having your army stay healthy while the other one was wracked with fever would be huge.
I'm,not entirely sure about that. Looking at the performance difference between units with repeating rifles at the time, and ones without, and it's pretty stark (See Wilder's Lightening Brigade). Remember, the reason that Repeating Rifles weren't common had nothing to do with their preformance in the field, but rather concerns about logistics.
Yeah, it was the penny pinchers in the budget office who didn't want to pay for the extra ammo cost of repeaters. Which is why the US almost made it into the 20th century with a single shot breachloader being standard issue. Plus the rifles themselves were way more expensive too.
Nobody doubted their effectiveness, and those who had the money would buy their own if they could. And many regiments that were privately funded were equipped with them. But for standard government issue you would get the cheapest possible thing. Brown besses were still being issued in the US civil war for this reason.
Just Tony wrote: As a fan of Clint Eastwood movies, particularly Pale Rider, my little brother was champing at the bit to get this and he finally got it.
Follow up to this one: My brother picked up the alternate cylinder for this pistol, which allows it to fire forty five long colt instead of the precussion cap cylinder that it came with. He already took the new cylinder on a test drive in the gun and was surprised that how accurate it is.
BaronIveagh wrote: Remember, the reason that Repeating Rifles weren't common had nothing to do with their preformance in the field, but rather concerns about logistics.
There's also difficulty of mass production, and maintenance in the field (this is long before the era of interchangeable parts), but yeah, money and ammunition were massive concerns for both sides. Plus when you start looking at systems like the Henry, metallic-cased ammunition was a cutting-edge technology that was difficult to provide in large quantities. A soldier given loose powder, paper, and lead could (with his own bullet mold) assemble cartridges in the field for whatever caliber weapon he was issued. Percussion caps were more sophisticated, but also easy to transport. In contrast the rimfire .44 cartridge used on the Henry (let alone the sealed 'rocket ball' of its Volcanic predecessor) was complicated to manufacture, heavy to move, and could not be produced anywhere near the front lines.
It wasn't just a matter of the guns, too; lack of live-fire training meant most infantry fought well below its theoretical capability despite the advances in small arms technology. Paddy Griffith's Battle Tactics of the Civil War disagrees with the typical framing of the American Civil War as the first 'modern' war and instead presents it as the last Napoleonic war, and contains several firsthand accounts of infantry battalions opening fire at 50-150yds from the enemy and expending all their ammunition without resolution. It also makes the case that the average soldier must have sustained a very low rate of fire- much slower than the 15-20 second reloads usually described for percussion cap muzzle-loaders- as these units could remain in contact for hours without resupply or resolution despite standard ammunition loads only being 40-80 rounds. A repeating rifle could be a decisive firepower advantage, but only for as long as ammunition held out.
Just Tony wrote: As a fan of Clint Eastwood movies, particularly Pale Rider, my little brother was champing at the bit to get this and he finally got it.
Follow up to this one: My brother picked up the alternate cylinder for this pistol, which allows it to fire forty five long colt instead of the precussion cap cylinder that it came with. He already took the new cylinder on a test drive in the gun and was surprised that how accurate it is.
Very nice- can those 1858 repros handle full-power .45LC? I know with the Colts that lack a top strap, you're supposed to stick to cowboy loads.
Can't think of any modernisation beyond strapping an optic on it somehow, and I guess that wouldn't change anything. At least as far as french law is concerned.
BaronIveagh wrote: Remember, the reason that Repeating Rifles weren't common had nothing to do with their preformance in the field, but rather concerns about logistics.
There's also difficulty of mass production, and maintenance in the field (this is long before the era of interchangeable parts), but yeah, money and ammunition were massive concerns for both sides. Plus when you start looking at systems like the Henry, metallic-cased ammunition was a cutting-edge technology that was difficult to provide in large quantities. A soldier given loose powder, paper, and lead could (with his own bullet mold) assemble cartridges in the field for whatever caliber weapon he was issued. Percussion caps were more sophisticated, but also easy to transport. In contrast the rimfire .44 cartridge used on the Henry (let alone the sealed 'rocket ball' of its Volcanic predecessor) was complicated to manufacture, heavy to move, and could not be produced anywhere near the front lines.
It wasn't just a matter of the guns, too; lack of live-fire training meant most infantry fought well below its theoretical capability despite the advances in small arms technology. Paddy Griffith's Battle Tactics of the Civil War disagrees with the typical framing of the American Civil War as the first 'modern' war and instead presents it as the last Napoleonic war, and contains several firsthand accounts of infantry battalions opening fire at 50-150yds from the enemy and expending all their ammunition without resolution. It also makes the case that the average soldier must have sustained a very low rate of fire- much slower than the 15-20 second reloads usually described for percussion cap muzzle-loaders- as these units could remain in contact for hours without resupply or resolution despite standard ammunition loads only being 40-80 rounds. A repeating rifle could be a decisive firepower advantage, but only for as long as ammunition held out.
Just Tony wrote: As a fan of Clint Eastwood movies, particularly Pale Rider, my little brother was champing at the bit to get this and he finally got it.
Follow up to this one: My brother picked up the alternate cylinder for this pistol, which allows it to fire forty five long colt instead of the precussion cap cylinder that it came with. He already took the new cylinder on a test drive in the gun and was surprised that how accurate it is.
Very nice- can those 1858 repros handle full-power .45LC? I know with the Colts that lack a top strap, you're supposed to stick to cowboy loads.
I'll voice your concerns to him and see if he's researched it. To be continued...
Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote: So on antique guns? The type you can buy and sell without worrying about licenses?
What happens if you modernise it in anyway? Is that even possible?
From a practical standpoint this isn't really possible.
Sure, you could take a pre-1886(?) gun and rechamber it in a modern cartridge. I don't think that would technically change its legal status, however doing that would likely result in an unsafe gun. Modern ammunition is operating at much higher pressures than older guns and the breach may not be strong enough.
Now, for a lot of black powder revolvers in the late 1800s there were conversion kits made to convert those revolvers to modern cased ammunition. And you could theoretically do the same thing to a modern reproduction of any of those revolvers. But then that revolver would no longer be a black powder(and unregulated) item. That isn't illegal in the US, you will have to register it if you live in an un-fun state of course.
I remember a talk I had to attend at the War College, about how a company of trained Longbow archers would have defeated a regiment of trained Musket/rifle wielding troops, based of volume of fire alone. A trained longbowman could shoot 5 arrows to ever 1 musket shot, and at double the range.
Depends on the musket in question. Rifle armed troops, even muzzle loading rifles, would be an issue for the longbows.
Early muskets would be outranged by longbows, but not the later ones. Certainly not at any range where accuracy is expected. Rifled muskets would absolutely outrange longbows in terms of accurate ranges and they would rip the longbows apart. Rate of fire does go to the longbows of course.
One thing to remember is that when rifled muskets started to appear, they were usually given to elite irregular troops. Soldiers who didn't fight in formation and took cover while fighting, and also aimed specifically for officers.
A unit of irregulars armed with rifled muskets would disperse and quickly annihilate a unit of longbowmen. The fight would last longer if the longbowmen also dispersed, but the edge would still go to the rifles.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: I remember a talk I had to attend at the War College, about how a company of trained Longbow archers would have defeated a regiment of trained Musket/rifle wielding troops, based of volume of fire alone. A trained longbowman could shoot 5 arrows to ever 1 musket shot, and at double the range.
I can speak to that! At a certain point, yes, a trained bowman was equal or greater than a firearm user. The primary difference was the time to train one. A longbowman who can sustain that firing pace, range and accuracy, took years, if not a lifetime to develop. Many medieval skeletons can be identified as longbowman purely by the skeletal deformations caused by those sustained efforts.
Conversely, you can teach a conscript to handle a musket in formation in a month's time, and probably to fire from a fixed position in a week.
Grey Templar wrote: Depends on the musket in question. Rifle armed troops, even muzzle loading rifles, would be an issue for the longbows.
Early muskets would be outranged by longbows, but not the later ones. Certainly not at any range where accuracy is expected. Rifled muskets would absolutely outrange longbows in terms of accurate ranges and they would rip the longbows apart. Rate of fire does go to the longbows of course.
One thing to remember is that when rifled muskets started to appear, they were usually given to elite irregular troops. Soldiers who didn't fight in formation and took cover while fighting, and also aimed specifically for officers.
A unit of irregulars armed with rifled muskets would disperse and quickly annihilate a unit of longbowmen. The fight would last longer if the longbowmen also dispersed, but the edge would still go to the rifles.
Actually earlier muskets tended to be longer ranged than later muskets (not counting rifles). They had bigger charges and longer barrels. The more elite operators also had the skill to use them better for longer effective ranges, cast their own shot to eliminate windage etc.
Longbowmen also suffered from the socioeconomic factor of needing a long training period to ge t the required musculature and an extensive logistics system for replacement yew staves and arrows. Most of Europe was drained of old growth yew by England in that period. So losses were much harder to replace.
We've talked about this earlier in the thread, it's a bugbear of mine. There's a lot of sheer bs attached to the longbow that downplays the effectiveness of early modern firearms in comparison. Much of it comes from late-19th/early-20th century romanticism over the 'old ways'- the longbow was a symbol of the English national spirit, while the crude and ineffective firearm allegedly represented the rise of industrialized warfare.
In reality, it is no coincidence that arquebusiers and musketeers came about at the same time that warfare came to be dominated not by peasant levies (those are your bowmen), but by professional mercenaries and eventually standing armies. Early modern firearms were expensive, complicated, and downright dangerous to operate in battle (handling loose powder simultaneously with a length of rope burning from both ends while crammed shoulder-to-shoulder), but they were adopted en masse because the sheer effectiveness was worth the cost of hiring professionals. Not the decades-of-practice-producing-bone-spurs level of training associated with the English longbow, but no contemporary sources portray arquebusiers as easy to train, and on the contrary there are many accounts that describe firearms as effective but requiring far more extensive training in their use than crossbowmen or pikemen.
When you see comparisons that show bows as having three times the range or whatever, it's usually comparing the maximum travel range of a flight arrow (not a war arrow) fired by an English longbow by an experienced and physically fresh archer, against the direct-fire range of a typical arquebusier. Basically, about as disingenuous a comparison as you can get- the overwhelming consensus of first-hand accounts from the 16th century is that bows had significantly lesser range and this was a military liability, to say nothing of the terminal effect on target. Rate of fire might be a credible advantage for bows, but there's no evidence to suggest that this was considered militarily relevant, particularly with the difficulty of maintaining a high rate of fire along with the sheer inaccuracy of plunging fire due to lesser direct-fire range.
It's worth observing that A. by the time of the English Civil War, longbowmen were still available and did participate in the conflict but were relegated to second-rate assignments, while musketeers were better-paid and part of the regular army, and B. virtually every historical example of bow-wielding forces facing gun-wielding ones resulted in a victory for the latter and subsequent adoption of the gun by the former as soon as possible. There are basically no historical incidents that bear out the notion of trained bowmen being superior combatants, and a lot of accounts of people who did take bows up against matchlock firearms (native Americans vs European colonists, Koreans vs Japanese, Royalist militias vs Roundheads) lamenting how outclassed they were.
I am happy to dive into my literature to provide sources for any of the above claims, but tl;dr: No, longbows did not outclass early firearms, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. It's a hoary old myth that needs to be buried alongside the Victorians who made it up.
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Haighus wrote: Actually earlier muskets tended to be longer ranged than later muskets (not counting rifles). They had bigger charges and longer barrels.
This is partially a terminology thing. The 18th-century musket represented a convergence of what had previously been two different weapons during the 15th-17th centuries, the musket (big, heavy, usually fired from a forked rest) and the arquebus (light, man-portable, could be fired from the shoulder). Most forces that made heavy use of firearms during the 1500s-1600s maintained some balance of the two within the shot elements, usually 5-20% musketeers. The heavier weapons required greater physical stature to employ and were less suited to retiring by rank, but were capable of killing armored cavalry in formation at as much as 500yds, and were well-paid. Improvements in metallurgy gradually reduced the weight of the musket while increasing the power of the arquebus until they became a single weapon type, while the role of the larger, longer-ranged gun was subsumed by swivel guns and other light artillery pieces.
Here's a quick article that compares the performance of the two types, and also dives into the significance of the operator to poor battlefield performance.
One caveat for the longbow is that it was favoured by many over handguns in a naval context until the late 16th century. That may be to do with difficulties keeping powder dry and managing matches on ships.
Also, longbowmen weren't good just because of the bows in their heyday (14th-15th century)- they were also highly effective light infantry and could frequently hold their own in a melee if push came to shove. This skill doesn't come from nowhere though and doesn't seem to have been there in later periods.
While the Welsh Longbow was doubtlessly an effective weapon, the more important factor was that Englishmen from the relevant time period were all required to attend weekly training in its use along with drill instruction. Which basically meant that the vast majority of English peasants were actually trained soldiers as opposed to the typical European peasant who might be handed a crossbow or a spear and at best be given a few days of training when called to war.
You could have gotten very good results out of this system no matter what weapon was chosen.
I don't think it was regarding "Range" as the winning factor, it was about how 50 trained men shooting 5 arrows a minute would completely ruin the day of 500 men firing 1-2 rounds per minute. Also, given that again, civil war military docterine was to get as close as possible before wasting shot, 200-300 meters, this meant the Archers would be shooting all while the riflemen would be advancing. That was the point. How "Doctrine" had lagged behind technology. And how we had this powerful new military tool, that was being used in the same way as they did in by-gone eras.
The speakers were using it as an analogous argument for how the asymmetric warfare model had died, and the new form of war was out-striping the current technology, and we needed to stop relying on the previous model when designing weapons/FM-11s. "React to Ambush" in the Army Manual is still used today, even though it's been basically made irrelevant by the I E D and the mode of warfare from behind Civilians.
What good is the A-10 when no one drives tanks on a battlefield? What good is the Linebacker when you opponent doesn't have planes?
Basically, stop relying on tactics designed around old Equipment/thought.
Warfare was very different by the Napoleonic wars or US civil wars though. Sure, a unit of highly trained, veteran longbowmen from 1415 might have been able to defeat a similarly-sized typical unit of conscripted musketeers from 1805, but there would be a hell of a lot more musketeers, and you could replace conscript musketeers much easier. Plus, artillery was far more advanced and any infantryman dies just as easily to the roundshot fired from the hill a mile away.
The socioeconomics of infantry that took a lifetime to train wasn't there when they still die to cannon fire or get swamped by 30 conscripts, or there would be a greater proportion of elite musketeers than there were by that point. As Catbarf's article points out, it isn't that longbows are better than muskets (they generally are not), it is that elite infantry is better than poorly trained rabble.
Haighus wrote: Warfare was very different by the Napoleonic wars or US civil wars though. Sure, a unit of highly trained, veteran longbowmen from 1415 might have been able to defeat a similarly-sized typical unit of conscripted musketeers from 1805, but there would be a hell of a lot more musketeers, and you could replace conscript musketeers much easier. Plus, artillery was far more advanced and any infantryman dies just as easily to the roundshot fired from the hill a mile away.
The socioeconomics of infantry that took a lifetime to train wasn't there when they still die to cannon fire or get swamped by 30 conscripts, or there would be a greater proportion of elite musketeers than there were by that point. As Catbarf's article points out, it isn't that longbows are better than muskets (they generally are not), it is that elite infantry is better than poorly trained rabble.
What good is the A-10 when no one drives tanks on a battlefield?
The same thing it is good for when there are enemy tanks present, morale booster for the infantry and recruitment ad back home
Tell that to the British troops that were slaughtered in the first wave of the 2003 Iraqi Invasion. The A-10 has killed more friendlies than Hostiles in it's lifespan, because it lacked the ability to tell a friendly tank from an hostile. Only in the last 5 years did they upgrade it with BFT/FOF targeting computers. But there were still Blue on blue casualties. The A-10 is just a silly gimmick trotted out by the Ameraboos because they like it go BRRRRT. It's a completely stupid designed system. For all CAS, I'd rather Apaches or F16s. The A-10 can't even SEED because it's too damn slow.
Speaking of silly older systems that we keep pushing updates onto. The BUFF. That thing's immortal. We just gave it new Rolls Royce Engines, AWACs grade radar, and Hypersonic Missiles. For a platform that was literally designed to end the world.
Haighus wrote: Warfare was very different by the Napoleonic wars or US civil wars though. Sure, a unit of highly trained, veteran longbowmen from 1415 might have been able to defeat a similarly-sized typical unit of conscripted musketeers from 1805, but there would be a hell of a lot more musketeers, and you could replace conscript musketeers much easier. Plus, artillery was far more advanced and any infantryman dies just as easily to the roundshot fired from the hill a mile away.
The socioeconomics of infantry that took a lifetime to train wasn't there when they still die to cannon fire or get swamped by 30 conscripts, or there would be a greater proportion of elite musketeers than there were by that point. As Catbarf's article points out, it isn't that longbows are better than muskets (they generally are not), it is that elite infantry is better than poorly trained rabble.
What good is the A-10 when no one drives tanks on a battlefield?
The same thing it is good for when there are enemy tanks present, morale booster for the infantry and recruitment ad back home
Tell that to the British troops that were slaughtered in the first wave of the 2003 Iraqi Invasion. The A-10 has killed more friendlies than Hostiles in it's lifespan, because it lacked the ability to tell a friendly tank from an hostile. Only in the last 5 years did they upgrade it with BFT/FOF targeting computers. But there were still Blue on blue casualties. The A-10 is just a silly gimmick trotted out by the Ameraboos because they like it go BRRRRT. It's a completely stupid designed system. For all CAS, I'd rather Apaches or F16s. The A-10 can't even SEED because it's too damn slow.
Speaking of silly older systems that we keep pushing updates onto. The BUFF. That thing's immortal. We just gave it new Rolls Royce Engines, AWACs grade radar, and Hypersonic Missiles. For a platform that was literally designed to end the world.
Not sure how you got the impression that I am a supporter of the A-10? I'm saying it is only really good as a morale booster (cool plane visibly goes brrrrt at the insurgents) and as a recruitment ad back home. The recruiters are one of the groups that lobbied to keep it in service when they tried to retire it.
BaronIveagh wrote: Remember, the reason that Repeating Rifles weren't common had nothing to do with their preformance in the field, but rather concerns about logistics.
There's also difficulty of mass production, and maintenance in the field (this is long before the era of interchangeable parts), but yeah, money and ammunition were massive concerns for both sides. Plus when you start looking at systems like the Henry, metallic-cased ammunition was a cutting-edge technology that was difficult to provide in large quantities. A soldier given loose powder, paper, and lead could (with his own bullet mold) assemble cartridges in the field for whatever caliber weapon he was issued. Percussion caps were more sophisticated, but also easy to transport. In contrast the rimfire .44 cartridge used on the Henry (let alone the sealed 'rocket ball' of its Volcanic predecessor) was complicated to manufacture, heavy to move, and could not be produced anywhere near the front lines.
It wasn't just a matter of the guns, too; lack of live-fire training meant most infantry fought well below its theoretical capability despite the advances in small arms technology. Paddy Griffith's Battle Tactics of the Civil War disagrees with the typical framing of the American Civil War as the first 'modern' war and instead presents it as the last Napoleonic war, and contains several firsthand accounts of infantry battalions opening fire at 50-150yds from the enemy and expending all their ammunition without resolution. It also makes the case that the average soldier must have sustained a very low rate of fire- much slower than the 15-20 second reloads usually described for percussion cap muzzle-loaders- as these units could remain in contact for hours without resupply or resolution despite standard ammunition loads only being 40-80 rounds. A repeating rifle could be a decisive firepower advantage, but only for as long as ammunition held out.
Just Tony wrote: As a fan of Clint Eastwood movies, particularly Pale Rider, my little brother was champing at the bit to get this and he finally got it.
Follow up to this one: My brother picked up the alternate cylinder for this pistol, which allows it to fire forty five long colt instead of the precussion cap cylinder that it came with. He already took the new cylinder on a test drive in the gun and was surprised that how accurate it is.
Very nice- can those 1858 repros handle full-power .45LC? I know with the Colts that lack a top strap, you're supposed to stick to cowboy loads.
My brother did his research on this and it is the brass frame weapons that cannot handle .45 Long Colt. His is a steel frame and he has no issues with it.
Yeah I'd like to know where Fezzik is getting his knowledge from because most of his non sequiturs have been nonsense. Like, 'the A-10 has killed more friendlies than hostiles' is spectacularly bs- if someone at NWC is saying that, I want their name.
In any case, short engagement ranges with musketry were not due to technical incapability or doctrinal lag, I already gave a link that explains why this was the case, and there are tons of historical examples of trained bowmen going up against early firearms and losing badly, from the Englishmen who Blaise de Montluc fought to the Koreans who fought the Japanese during the Imjin War to the Russian militias who opposed Napoleon's army. We don't need to speculate.
Just Tony wrote: My brother did his research on this and it is the brass frame weapons that cannot handle .45 Long Colt. His is a steel frame and he has no issues with it.
Ah okay, that makes sense. In theory then those steel-frame 1851 Navy conversions ought to be usable with .45LC; might be worth looking into.
Also worth noting that historically, a lot of those older cartridge revolvers were converted to centerfire and used with full-power .45LC whether they could 'handle' it or not. It might not be strictly advisable in the long term, but the greatest risk is the guns loosening up to the point of mechanical malfunction rather than catastrophic failure, so I imagine you can catch that early if you're paying attention.
I've found that military schools and shotting ranges are two abundant sources of fudd lore, that is passes from instructor to pupil or from shooter to shooter to look smart, but few people ever actually bother checking or taking a deeper look at the subject.
That's also technically true, as in, when it comes to handling weapons or hobby gunsmithing. It's not really an absolutely widespread hobby I believe, tools and stuff are not easy to come across or really expensive often times, so you end up relyong either on the internet or that half crazed tinker next door that lanahes it with not totally adequate tools nonetheless but hope not to blow yourself in the process ! (Edit: talking about it not being that widespread in France, obviously!)
My "Lore" comes from being an intelligence analyst for 10+ years, and working in planning groups trying to predict the next military need.
No one, not even Pierre Spray thought the A-10 was a needed asset. I'm not a traditionalist, but I do think the point of the anecdote concerning longbows and muskets is indicative of a trend by world power militaries. (UK/US/CHINA/GERMANY, etc)
"Modern" weapon systems are designed to meet needs that have never been found. The Musket was designed to defeat the metal armors, breast plate, etc. It needed to be stronger than an arrow. Now look at the civil war. Except for the early cases of tank warfare, no one was even wearing helmets. The standard garb was loose hand made cloth or denim clothing, with a like made hat. The purpose of the Musket was completely lost in the Civil War.
Hmm, I don't necessarily agree with Muskets being designed to defeat breastplates. Namely because at anything other than very close range they actually couldn't. They were more so adopted because they are relatively cheap and easy to train loads of unskilled conscripts with. And a man in armor on a horse might be immune to a single musket ball, but you're not just shooting him once and his horse definitely isn't immune.
Breastplates, and armor in general, went away not because they were useless vs guns at the time but because they were expensive to make. So armor slowly faded to disuse while guns became more powerful, mostly as a side effect of attempts to increase range and accuracy.
A flintlock musket, compared to a crossbow is cheaper. The gearing and springs are comparable, but the crossbow also requires very specific wood to make the arm and you need to manufacture the bolts. Bows require specially grown wood as well as craftsmen to make, meaning long lead times to make bows. A musket of course also requires an artisan to make, but its much more conducive to cranking out a lot of them. Ammo is also cheaper and easier to make for a musket than bolts or arrows. Bows also require years of training to make a soldier proficient.
So really the reason muskets rose to dominance was for logistical reasons more than specific mechanical advantages over the alternatives. Them being better than the alternatives arose after they had already replaced them.
FezzikDaBullgryn wrote: My "Lore" comes from being an intelligence analyst for 10+ years, and working in planning groups trying to predict the next military need.
That's nice and all, but that doesn't make you an historian, though.
Grey Templar wrote: So really the reason muskets rose to dominance was for logistical reasons more than specific mechanical advantages over the alternatives. Them being better than the alternatives arose after they had already replaced them.
For more history stuff;
If you go digging around, you'll find people as late as the 1700s arguing for the usefulness of bows in warfare. John Smith (for the Disney historical epic Pocahontas! /sarcasm) even wrote a book about it.
The rise of the gun really does have a lot to do with logistics and economics. While arguments would opine that trained archers could fire more accurately and more rapidly than gunners, gunners were so much quicker and easier to train to proficiency, and their weapons were much much cheaper to produce. There's a stacking effect here in the age before the true emergence of proper standing and professional armies as well. Guns being faster/cheaper to manufacture and easier to hand to your troops to ready them for battle is a big plus for guns as Europe transitioned from feudal era levies to early modern era where extremely long wars with on again/off again fighting seasons stressed logistics and economics, driving the European war makers toward the economic and logistical advantages of guns.
There is some counter evidence to this (Japan being a notable example where many battles swung on the backs of a relatively small number of gunners*) but it's the advent of rifling that probably put guns overly up and over the bow in terms of battlefield dominance on a technical level. Before the advent of rifling, a big thing that saw the rise of the gun (especially in Europe) was the economics of firearms and the kinds of armies European states/kingdoms were devising at the time. Plus the European concern with the threat of the Ottoman Empire who fully embraced using firearms early and kind of set into motion a rapid response in Christendom that also saw the rapid adoption of the gun.
*this is an interesting case that maybe hinges on our limited understanding of how Sengoku era Japanese armies really fought. Whole battles seemed to swing on as few as 500 men armed with guns, where the proper deployment of these soldiers could turn the battle in their side's favor. Archeological excavation and records of the famous battle of Nagashino reveals that both sides had about the same number of firearms, but it's Nobunaga's use of them that is legendary. The only qualitative physical evidence on the field though is interesting; Nobunaga seems to have had a lot more ammunition than his opponent and his gunners fired a disproportionately huge number of rounds. Combined with terrain advantage and tricking his enemy into thinking his force was smaller than it was, Nobunaga used 1500 gunners to deliver a fatal blow to his enemy, an outcome disproportionate to their numbers in his army.
Don't know if this is actually what happened, but I wonder if the reason Nobunaga's opponents took so much less ammo was because they were expecting that melee combat would be more of a factor. No sense lugging extra ammo to a battle if you're only going to get 2-3 volleys off. I could easily see someone thinking that "we're going to get stuck in after a short time, so no sense taking excessive ammo"
Grey Templar wrote: Don't know if this is actually what happened, but I wonder if the reason Nobunaga's opponents took so much less ammo was because they were expecting that melee combat would be more of a factor. No sense lugging extra ammo to a battle if you're only going to get 2-3 volleys off. I could easily see someone thinking that "we're going to get stuck in after a short time, so no sense taking excessive ammo"
I think I read somewhere that the Takeda had less faith in gun, so while they had about as many firearms as Nobunaga's force, they were not as prepared to build an entire battle plan around these weapons.
We can actually analyze their musketballs from the field. The Takeda force mostly had ammo manufactured in China that they presumably bought via Korea (at this time, China was refusing direct trade with Japan because things) so the Takeda were probably buying less ammo at higher cost. Nobunaga's force had ammo from China, Japan itself as Nobunaga had built up a domestic industry in his domain, and he was buying ammo from the Portuguese that has been traced to Portugal, Spain, and Italy. It seems probably that he straight up just had a lot more bullets than his enemy and was ready and willing to shoot to win.
It also rained before Nagashino, and it's possible the Takeda were not as careful about keeping their powder dry, while Nobunaga is noted to have taken special care to ensure his powder wasn't wet.
