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Drone vs Human Held is definitely a question.

My non-professional argument is that, being there in-person grants a better, probably clearer perspective of what’s going on.

If the person threatening you flees at the sign of an in-person firearm, pursuing them isn’t a good option, as who knows what might happen. But….with a Drone? You aren’t in direct danger, which would surely change your internal considerations.

There’s also the risk of someone netting or otherwise downing the drone, and making off with the firearm. So even moralistic what-ifs may not be the main concern.

I’d also question civilian gun drone accuracy. How do you aim it? How do you calibrate that? Do drones automatically compensate for wind and that?

Arguably the better use of the Drone is with a speaker to confirm “look, I’ve seen you. You can see I’ve seen you. I am aware of you, I am armed. I have warned you” type stuff.

Now that won’t dissuade a methed up nutter or even common or garden variety nutter, sure. Because they’re nutters, regardless of why they’re a nutter in that moment. But for burglaries and vehicle theft? Are they gonna risk it further once they know they’ve been rumbled?

I don’t know for sure, I’m not exactly well read on such matter. But from a legal point of view I’d reckon you’re better off with the speaker drone.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:The "why" is to spend money. It is a bureaucratic turf battle.

If we're still engaging in creative fiction, I think the purpose of the M7 is actually to make Soldiers carry more weight so they get swole again. Big Army is finally recognizing that the adoption of the AR platform has been catastrophic for gains, and we need a big beefy battle rifle so our pin-up calendars can compete with firemen's.

Trust me bro.

Flinty wrote:

 Grey Templar wrote:
Pretty much every shotgun that's actually been adopted by the military is just a basic pump action shotgun you can get anywhere. The AA12 does exist, but its not really ever been more than a weird fancy toy. And if they dont want to carry a full extra gun they have a couple guys with the underslung single shot master key shotguns.

What with Drones becoming a thing we will probably see some actual interest in shotgun innovation, but it might take a few years to see what actually happens. I imagine some sort of shotgun firing Proximity airburst shells would have some potential.

Could this pull the OICW or similar capabilities out of the past? Bolters with mass reactive seeker shells ahoy

I looked into this a while back, and found that most successful engagements of drones (at the tactical level) in Ukraine were occurring at very short range, basically a hail mary against a drone on terminal approach. A shotgun gives you a directional spray with minimal fratricide concerns. An airbursting munition could be pretty hazardous to friendlies or the shooter if it's going off below treetop level inside of 50yds.

Even with some kind of directional airburst, there's also the question of whether it's useful enough to be worth bringing a computerized grenade launcher rather than a much lighter shotgun. Part of why the XM25 (the grenade launcher component of the OICW) didn't get much traction is because it added another 15lbs of launcher alone; 75th RR did not feel it was valuable/flexible enough to be worth sacrificing other elements of the combat load. Drone defense is even more specialized than the roles envisioned for the XM25, whereas a simple pump shotgun as a secondary weapon is already tolerated for breaching roles.

While the KAC Masterkey wasn't all that successful- Soldiers and Marines tended to prefer carrying a separate breacher on a sling, rather than weighing down their carbine- I could see something like it coming back for a doctrinally-specified drone defense squad role, similar to how underbarrel grenade launchers are employed by grenadiers.

 catbarf wrote:
If we're still engaging in creative fiction, I think the purpose of the M7 is actually to make Soldiers carry more weight so they get swole again. Big Army is finally recognizing that the adoption of the AR platform has been catastrophic for gains, and we need a big beefy battle rifle so our pin-up calendars can compete with firemen's.

Trust me bro.

It is not creative fiction to understand that the stated purpose is often not the actual purpose. Spending most of my career working in higher headquarters was a true eye-opener. I've seen things you would not believe...

I actually agree with you that the massive weight was a backdoor method to get women out of the combat arms, something that become moot when Hegseth changed the fitness program to a single, universal standard based on career field rather than gender-normed.

The specific point is that the US leadership lives in a fantasy world where logistics don't exist and airlift is infinite. In a true peer conflict, super-special rifles will not move the needle. This isn't 1939 where the US having a semi-auto rifle gave a decisive advantage against turn-bolt armed adversaries.

I will leave it at that, because the failures of US procurement aren't really on topic.

Given that drones are very fragile you can get away with very small warheads that would minimize the risk to friendlies from close in detonations. And if a suicide drone is incoming to your position, I think soldiers will be willing to risk some minor friendly shrapnel from their airburst shotgun shells vs whatever warhead the drone is carrying.

You can always set a minimal engagement distance on the airburst shells so they travel a certain amount before they can detonate as well.

I wouldn't be surprised to see something like the following get developed.

A 12 Gauge shell which can be fired from any shotgun. It contains a programmable warhead with a proximity fuse. The warhead can be programmed with a handheld RFID device which you simply punch in the data you want and then pass it over the shells to program them, either for set detonation distance or for proximity. There is also a minimal safe distance of 5 meters. The warhead is small and has an effective blast radius of only 1.5 to 2 meters with a shrapnel load made up of steel bearings(similar to #4 Birdshot). The bearings would pretty quickly lose lethality beyond a few meters from the explosion so would be relatively safe above friendly troops.

It would probably be developed alongside a high-capacity shotgun of some kind, but with the flexibility to be deployed with any 12-gauge system. So while you could issue out the special shotgun if necessary, you could also just give the shells to guys who have master keys or regular pumps as well. The special shotgun would be more of a specialty item. Troops in fixed or high value areas get them to augment their firepower.

Doctrinally, this will probably eventually lead to some new specialization in US squads. The very short range air defense guy. He's gotta carry a shotgun and a stinger missile. Or maybe its just a DARPA robot dog with the gatling shotgun airburst cannon and a mini-radar set(your cancer is not service related)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Drone vs Human Held is definitely a question.

My non-professional argument is that, being there in-person grants a better, probably clearer perspective of what’s going on.

If the person threatening you flees at the sign of an in-person firearm, pursuing them isn’t a good option, as who knows what might happen. But….with a Drone? You aren’t in direct danger, which would surely change your internal considerations.

There’s also the risk of someone netting or otherwise downing the drone, and making off with the firearm. So even moralistic what-ifs may not be the main concern.

I’d also question civilian gun drone accuracy. How do you aim it? How do you calibrate that? Do drones automatically compensate for wind and that?

Arguably the better use of the Drone is with a speaker to confirm “look, I’ve seen you. You can see I’ve seen you. I am aware of you, I am armed. I have warned you” type stuff.

Now that won’t dissuade a methed up nutter or even common or garden variety nutter, sure. Because they’re nutters, regardless of why they’re a nutter in that moment. But for burglaries and vehicle theft? Are they gonna risk it further once they know they’ve been rumbled?

I don’t know for sure, I’m not exactly well read on such matter. But from a legal point of view I’d reckon you’re better off with the speaker drone.

Legally speaking, it would be pretty hard to justify self-defense hiding behind a drone precisely because you are out of harms way.

As for aiming, the Ukrainians have not been doing too bad with just winging it. I saw some with full on AKs on drones to suppress some trenches. The shotgun ones also have cameras pointed in the general direction of the barrel. Given that they seem to be intended to sneak up on an unaware enemy drone you only need 1-2 shots because thats all you'll get. The drone will either be dead or it will notice you shooting at it.

Depending on the state and what kind/size of drone it is. Putting a gun on a drone in the US is playing with fire, but probably not strictly illegal in most places. That said, outside of target practice and the shiggles it has no practical use other than training for combat. That said, thats going to be quite a dangerous thing to be playing around with. A gun that you have minimal control over where and what it is pointing at is not good for your or anyone else's safety.

If I had the inkling, I would stick to ground drones or emplaced turrets rather than the flying ones for remote controlled gun activities.

Here's a little bit of firearms news from the US of A.

The Civilian Marksmanship Program - an actual government entity whose purpose is to sell guns to the American people - has announced that it has managed to figure out a method to restore deactivated M1903A3s used for parade rifles. Apparently these simply had the bolt welded to the receiver and a method has been found to remove the weld without damage. A bunch of rifles were tested at double proof loads and did just fine.

Not available yet, but soon. Apparently a new cache of M1911A1 pistols has also been found, so they have a few years of those left. The M1917s are running low, and the Krags are now all gone :(

https://thecmp.org/

There is a persistent rumor that South Korea is holding onto more than a million M1 Carbines that could be repatriated. I will be all over that if it happens.

I got a really nice M1 Garand at their Ohio store about a year ago and now I'm getting emails, so I thought I'd share.

Is it a government company trying to make a profit or a civil servant staffed body?

Its basically a government company whose purpose is to sell off military surplus weapons to the civilian market, there are also limits to how many items an individual can buy from them so everybody has a fair shot to get something.

It is unfortunately largely useless till we get rid of the NFA but they sometimes have some nice antiques available.

The_Real_Chris wrote:
Is it a government company trying to make a profit or a civil servant staffed body?

A little bit of both. I believe the employees are civil servants and they are set up on military installations.

However, they pay for themselves based on the sales of surplus weapons. As the stock of surplus has dwindled, their fate was becoming uncertain.

The new management has been more aggressive on the commercial side, pushing new options for purchase, such as ammunition as well as CMP "branded" replicas, such as of the Tisas 1911A1. They are also looking at custom new production M1 Garands.

The big announcement that they were able to convert deactivated parade versions of the M1903A3 and Garand offers huge new stocks for future sales, and a recent windfall of 1911A1s offers further financial stability, and, per Grey Templar, they are looking at ways to sell more recent weapons (M14) albeit in a semi-auto configuration. They also do training and competitions, but the weapons sales keep the light on.

The one in Ohio is next door to the PX, so one can load up on guns and discount liquor all in the same trip.

CvT wrote: The one in Ohio is next door to the PX, so one can load up on guns and discount liquor all in the same trip.

My inner Beavis is now extremely excited!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


My inner Beavis is now extremely excited!

I don't think there is anything more American than rolling onto an Army post. Buying a rifle, and - while it's being packaged - loading up on discount liquor.

And paying for it all with a credit card.

The Garands they sell come in custom cases and include a certificate attesting to its provenance as a genuine US Army issue rifle. Some collectors like that sort of thing and you'll resales identified as such.

Setting aside the collector aspect, the CMP stuff is nice because it's all sorted by condition and function-tested, which is nice. Even the low-graded bores are really good, because they do parts replacement as part of the refurbishment. I had no idea it existed until a friend told me about it, but now I follow their news closely.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


My inner Beavis is now extremely excited!

I don't think there is anything more American than rolling onto an Army post. Buying a rifle, and - while it's being packaged - loading up on discount liquor.

And paying for it all with a credit card.

The Garands they sell come in custom cases and include a certificate attesting to its provenance as a genuine US Army issue rifle. Some collectors like that sort of thing and you'll resales identified as such.

Setting aside the collector aspect, the CMP stuff is nice because it's all sorted by condition and function-tested, which is nice. Even the low-graded bores are really good, because they do parts replacement as part of the refurbishment. I had no idea it existed until a friend told me about it, but now I follow their news closely.

Hence the saying, "Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms should be a convience store, not a government agency."

William

It's time for Labor Day sales so bought the cheapest Glock clone I could find lol.

Seriously, someone I know through a friend was selling a Derya DY9 for $200 and I couldn't resist. Yeah, it's a Turkish pistol, but the reviews have been pretty good.

 ScarletRose wrote:
It's time for Labor Day sales so bought the cheapest Glock clone I could find lol.

Seriously, someone I know through a friend was selling a Derya DY9 for $200 and I couldn't resist. Yeah, it's a Turkish pistol, but the reviews have been pretty good.

Turkish stuff can be quite good, but the one I bought was a lemon. It was a CZ-75 clone and it felt great in the hand, but on the range it had some really strong trigger slap. I'd heard of it but never experienced it. Unless your finger was on the exact sweet spot, the trigger snapped at you.

So I sold it and bought a Walther PPQ instead, because at the time there were $100 rebates and Gander Mountain was going out of business and discounted everything. Heck of a deal.

Traded the Walther for an Ishapore .410 SMLE, which is a hoot to shoot. Bolt-action shotguns are cool.

Turkish guns are coin flip. You either get a cheap garbage gun or a cheap really nice gun. Either way, at least it was cheap.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Turkish guns are coin flip. You either get a cheap garbage gun or a cheap really nice gun. Either way, at least it was cheap.

Yeah, my understanding on the real cut rate firearms is that what suffers is quality control first and foremost. At least with something like this where it's a proven design.

I'm not worried about this particular pistol because the owner bought it to do a youtube review. So he put about 500 rounds through it, made a review saying it worked fine and now is trying to move it since he doesn't want it taking up room in his safe.

Yeah. One of my coworkers bought some turkish semi-auto shotgun and it is a bit finicky with what ammo it likes. Its supposed to work with anything, but it only works with high pressure ammo. Not surprising but it does show that you should have a grain of salt with these things.

I’m oddly fascinated by the discussion of cheaply made guns.

Every time I read a post about them, my mind jumps to knock-off toys. Which is pretty much my only, completely rubbish, point of comparison.

The ones where they’ve clearly remoulded a popular toy line, but done the casting in cheap monkey plastic, and had the paint job applied by what seems to be a vision challenged goat that’s forgotten its classes, using a stunned hedgehog as a brush.

As if a cheaper gun will only be good for a couple of shots before a two part barrel is falling apart.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
As if a cheaper gun will only be good for a couple of shots before a two part barrel is falling apart.

There are two categories of cheap guns. One is the Chinese Warlord/Khyber Pass kind of stuff. All sorts of workshop products floating around that might get one round off before it disintegrates in a spectacular (if not dangerous) fashion.

I actually spotted a Warlord Mauser, and it was really cool because it was just a little off. From a distance, it looked pretty good. But the metal was really thin, and upon chambering the bolt would likely have simply broken.

Outside of that, there are lots of very cheap weapons on the secondary market that work just fine. I'm not even talking Hi Points, but old Harrington and Richardson revolvers, or Iver Johnson top-breaks. These will cost you less than a GW starter set, yet the run just fine.

If you want do dig deeper into the weeds, old service weapons are another place for inexpensive and reliable weapons. There are IMI Jericho 941 - that's Israel's take on a CZ75 - out there for $250 or so.

The US market prices seem to be in retreat, which is why I'm generally holding off to see where we hit bottom. Same with ammo.

If some of our European (British in particular because they seem to have things really locked down) friends hop over the pond in the vicinity of Michigan, I could show y'all some things.

I'd say you've got 3 categories of "cheap" guns.

1) Cheaply manufactured production guns. High Point, Turkish guns, and other similar guns. Made in actual factories to actual standards. While certainly low brow, I wouldn't say they are inherently dangerous.

2) Sketchy production guns. This is stuff like Kyber Pass or the Chinese Warlord guns. Some of them are alright, maybe up to the first category at least functionally. Most are at least functional, but some might be sketchy. Made by unskilled smiths copying a real gun without knowing what stuff necessarily does, but at least made with actual tools. A Kyber Pass AK might be smoothbore and have no finish on it, but it'll probably at least work.

3) Zip guns, pipe guns, and other guns made by those with no access to proper tools and just kludging something together that'll go bang at least once.

There's also the "Ring Of Fire" pistol manufacturers. Davis Industries is the first that comes to mind, and I've personally owned 2 of their firearms. Neither exploded on me, but they also never got a 500 round day at the range because that's totally unnecessary for what those guns were used for. The .38 derringer was a great varmint gun if you could get close enough, and the .32 auto was fairly accurate for being stock. The only malfunctions I saw with them were a firing pin issue with the derringer that had it misfire the lower barrel once in a while, and a round that didn't extract from the auto when I tried to clear it. The extraction could easily have been a brass issue and not a chamber issue.