Gun Porn!

M9 pistol also gets an underbarrel grenade launcher.

Get your popcorn folks. Some of the Sandy Hook Victims families are trying to sue the gun maker of the AR-15.

This tactic didn't work for handguns in the 90's I don't know what they are hoping achieve here.

edited 16th Dec '14 5:02:17 PM by TuefelHundenIV

It's an ASSAULT WEAPONZ R BADZ Gib MONEYZ PLOX thing. Move along, nothing new to see here.

Given the history of such attempts not fairing well in court and recent legislation put in during Bush's time that protects them from it, I don't expect these cases to last long and for them to be torpedoed quickly.

Expect Barry O to get right behind it.

It would be out of character for him not to, after all.

Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement applies to anything else I may say about the esteemed Nobel Prize Laureate.

Nah, I don't really expect that. He knows better than to stir shit with GOPlins reigning supreme in the Congress.

Gun politics in the US are very much a state as opposed to federal issue right now. Without opening that can of worms too wide, it looks like the fighting in Washington will be on a bevy of other issues for now.

How a 1911 works animation.

So this is a thing. (Thanks to Garcon over at The Gun Thread.)

So much smexy it hurts. Quad stack 60 round magazine, F2000 ROF (850 rpm unless the new AK toned it down) with reduced recoil and vertical climb, and a smexy new Holo sight that aint EO Tech or one of the PK-A, PK-AS, Kobra series. Among other things.

Suddenly Western weapons are looking very antiquated. Also rumors of the AK-12's death seem to have been greatly exaggerated. (AEK-971 too? Is Russia about to do WW3?)

And then I saw this in the first article's pictures. SV-98, eat your heart out.

Reviving the AK-12 and AEK-971 along with doubling down on their R&D and modernization efforts? And on top of that they're supposedly trying to start their rail delivered ICBM program again. I think they're doing everything they can to get their military back up to par before their economy truly gives out.

Sounds like they also want to do a full scale modernization of the Russian military too. No more Soviet stereotypes. With export possibilities so they can diversify their economy away from reliance on oil and gas.

Especially considering the Armata project is all but imminent as well.

edited 29th Dec '14 9:44:01 AM by MajorTom

More armament factories isn't really diversifying Russia's economy - indeed, aside from their viperous financial sector, Russia's economy has changed very little since Brezhnev's day. Hydrocarbons, then guns, then butter.

Still, worth consideration for them. Makes sound strategic sense too.

edited 29th Dec '14 3:20:53 PM by Achaemenid

Question is is what does the Bear want to do once it's armed forces are fully modernized? Or rather, who does it want to do?

Possibly keep it's population in line once their economy finally gives?

Or maybe get big enough that nobody would dare try to sanction them again.

Garcon: The first is the more likely answer. The Second not really going to happen. Globalization and global economy have seen to that for pretty much everyone. Too big to be sanctioned is a lot like too big to fail.

You know what they say about global economies. It leads to global wars. Economic wars often lead to shooting wars and right now over the shit going on in Ukraine, there's an economic war going on against Russia. Whether it leads to a shooting war is uncertain. But given the Russians are not going back to the poverty and weakness of the Yeltsin days, I'd be wary of saying we're in for some long term peace over it.

On the flipside, maybe the Russians getting some new shiny toys will finally get the US military's collective head out of their arses and get some good shit themselves. No more unreliable M4's and M16's. (Especially M4's.) Cuz there's gonna be an assault rifle gap before too long and the West is falling behind.

On the one hand, economic links haven't stopped wars before—see WWI. On the other hand, the Cold War balance of nuclear power is still there. Russia doesn't need to worry about being seriously because it's still got a huge nuclear arsenal; NATO is still covered by the same nuclear umbrella that covered it in the Cold War. And nukes act as a conflict limiter. Ukraine is probably going to fester for some time, and large-scale military operations by Russia isn't out of the question, but that's about the worst that I see happening.

Disagree on the "assault rifle gap" thing. Sure the Russian weapons look shiny, but so do a lot of the latest offerings coming out of FN Herstal, or H&K (which for all the flak it gets from this thread remains a major player in the arms market), or even the minor players like CZ. To offset the real quantitative and qualitative gap the Russian Army faces against any of its rivals, a new AR is just not going to cut it.

Russia's proving it still "has it" when it comes to weapons, and they clearly do still have the ability to do world-class things. But Sabres Edge is right; this isn't what's wrong with Russia or its armed forces.

I dunno, if Russia was sticking to just improving the AK-74M I might agree about a lack of an AR gap but with the AK-12 back in the picture I'm not so sure. Nobody in the West has anything like that in development and our procurement system is pretty shit. Doubly so with small arms.

It really is not AR gap. They are not doing anything magical or special with the guns. You guys are assigning way too much credence to them.

It would take a notable technological and capability leap to create a gap. Nothing in any of these weapons does that. They are certainly improvements but they are overall still using designs they have had hands on for some time now.

An example would be say the US adapting not only the tracking point into a compact device but successfully mated it with the guided bullet and done in such a way that it could do that for every bullet fired from the gun whether in single rounds, burst, or automatic fire.

Casket Mags are pretty neat but there is a downside I think we ignore a bit too much. Increased magazine weight and notably increased loaded weapon weight. Sadly the magazines are also a lot bigger then their smaller box mag cousins making them a bit awkward to move around. Remember anyone shooting it would have to hold that sucker up when they are shooting it. How much your arms and hands support the weapon depends on your shooting position. The more you have to support it the more of a burden that will be. What Casket Mags will be really good for is supplanting drums. They are high capacity enough to do the job and by comparison feed a lot more reliably.

Telescopic semi-caseless and caseless ammo are much bigger game changers ammo wise then the casket magazines. The technology has already demonstrated an astounding ability to create a lighter weight weapon with notably lighter ammo. By all early reports the weapons are more reliable and accurate then the M-249 they are meant to replace. The same groups had already moved on to doing the same with AR's.

That isn't to say Casket mags are a bad idea but enthusiasm is starting to out pace reason and honest examination a bit too much.

There is now a much more powerful argument that economics plays a very important role in limiting war. Chief among them is that it is rather very expensive to mount a modern war and the supposed "spoils of war" simply do not cover the expense any more.

More importantly Russia's means to have sanctions lifted giving them breathing room is notably cheaper by a long shot then taking on the rest of the world. Not cheap for Putin in a number of ways but cheaper for Russia as a nation. Ultimately though it is not the sanctions that is Russia's big kick to their economy. It is their over reliance on oil for money. The longer oil prices stay down the worse it is for Russia.

Something else to consider is even the Russians put weapons programs and acquisition projects on hold when the economy takes a notable hit. All it would take is for this economic downturn to last longer then they want. With forces deployed at borders and any future military actions that would just be more money flowing rather quickly out of Russia's pockets.

Except the latest "shiny" stuff coming out of the West isn't innovative. It's all AR-15 and G-36 clones and mashups with the occasional bullpup like the TAR-21 series. There's no balance-action recoil systems reducing muzzle climb, no new intergrated holographic sights, no variable fire rate systems like on the AK-12/AN-94, and certainly no desire to implement casket mags despite their advantages.

Pretty much.

I'd be wary of thinking the things are overrated Tueful. The Russians don't do bad guns very often and we might be making the same mistake as when the AK-47 and AKM first came out. That is, severely underestimating just how effective it is while overestimating how effective our stuff is.

The A545 and AK-107 actually work to actively counteract recoil forces and weapon drift. A function no standard issue rifle in the West ever really does. The BARS on those weapons is more effective than just a bog standard muzzle brake. Meanwhile the West has been doing the same in-line stock plus minorly effective flash suppressor on the muzzle for 50 years with no real change or improvement. (Or even thinking of improvement. Collective heads up their arses and all that.)

I think the difference will be pretty negligible in terms of effectiveness. Last I checked the AK-12 60 rounders don't have much weight difference compared to a standard AK-74 30 rounder when both mags have no bullets in them. Plus the added weight translates into more rock and roll and less time reloading when you do need to shoot. The Russians learned the hard way and very painfully just how detrimental low magazine capacities and constant reloading can be in Afghanistan and Chechnya. (It's one of the reasons why the RPK-74 has fallen out of favor.)

And I think it might actually lower overall weight. For the same weight in bullets (for example 240 rounds) you'd have less magazine metal and plastic to worry about with casket mags. Four mags worth of metal to worry about as opposed to eight. Admittedly, the difference between the platforms at that scale is probably close to negligible.

The main and perhaps only real drawback I see to casket mags is it encourages stupid troopers to waste ammo for longer in full auto.

So why not combine both? There you go again acting like certain technologies are mutually exclusive. You can have a casket mag with semi-caseless or caseless ammo. For possibly greater capacity or less weight compared to traditional standard mags. I'd love to see the LSAT's bullets be able to be put into a 60+ round casket mag and see how it'd pan out.

That same argument was made...in 1912. Guess what started up a couple years later.

Something to bear in mind is that the Russian system of military procurement differs from the Western one in two rather key respects: there is no legislative and little journalistic oversight, and secondly the Russian philosophy is to get a system in production before the design is finalized and to iron out the kinks through upgrade cycles. Hence, for example, the T-64 needing a costly upgrade program and an engine redesign.

They have good guns yes but they are not creating any gaps they are all pretty much another AR design with the exact same bells and whistles. Their over vaunted bar recoil adds weight and maintenance and doesn't make it close to a wonder weapon. The technology is not new and doesn't create any seriously notable improvements. This is not going to create any AR gaps and neither will an old magazine tech.

The casket mags will have notably more weight and physical size. You have physically more magazine alone with either one large spring to push up the ammo stack all the way up or multiple springs that operate the casket mag. Then here is simple weight of the ammo. No it is not negligible it will be noticeable especially to anyone who uses the 30 round mags more. You want to see a notable improvement mate lighter ammo tech with a casket mag.

Rock and roll is great for support weapons and lmgs not so great for most AR's. Persistent training can keep joe idiot from blowing his wad in a gout of sloppy full auto spray or they could just use burst fire instead.

The RPK had a host of issues that brought it down not just the magazine. Especially since the commonly used ammo drums were available for both versions. It wasn't just small magazine capacity. This falls into one of those not so well made Russian weapons categories.

It would be great to mate the new light ammo tech with high cap magazine tech.

No the same argument about economics was not made in 1912 about economics at all. 1912 was still an era of Empires levying their fortunes for war and believing said spoils would pay for themselves and then some. Nations made a fair bit off of their colonial holdings for a time.

True but the AK-12 and the casket mags aren't going to be some new toy for the Spetsnaz like the AS VAL or the AN-94. They're going to be standard issue.

It's one thing if a couple Ivans have rifles better than anything we can make but when everyone has one it turns into a gap. Little improvements matter big time if everyone is benefiting from them.

edited 31st Dec '14 2:50:28 PM by LeGarcon

Again those rifles are not going to create a gap. They are not shooting magical super bullets that drive through body armor and chase you around corners. They are a weapon that has some improved recoil and accuracy charactersistics nothing new under the sun for any number of weapon systems and higher capacity magazine. That is not a gap maker at all.

If the Russians could say put in a bullet in an AR caliber that would blow through even hard insert armor with crazy "hyper burst" and near pin point accuracy at half a mile with said rifle you might have something. Thing is nothing like that is happening.

edited 31st Dec '14 4:48:28 PM by TuefelHundenIV