The Gun Thread

ArmaLite famously sold weapons to some pretty sketchy customers. IIRC after the IRA got their hands on the AR-18 they were so pleased with it several songs extolling its virtues were written, and ArmaLite bought copies for their salesmen to distribute.

Edited by archonspeaks on Mar 5th 2020 at 10:17:00 AM

They pretty much adopted the AR-18 as the closest thing to an actual service rifle they had. 'Armalite and ballot box' I believe was the saying on how the IRA did things at the height of the Troubles.

Also, Pakistan apparently likes selling off excess G3A4s because those keeping popping up all throughout Afghanistan.

Pyro: Newer Aim points being light is a motivation to use them more but on average are still around a half lb of optic. Better than some of the chunky Eo Tech optics though. The sum total weight of all the attachments we put on the M-16A4 and the M-4 carbine these days is up to around 3-4 pounds worth of gear including all the batteries for the powered items. It is why they want smaller, lighter, better batteries, and/or all in one systems. Grunts and armorers alike would rejoice. Lighter overall helps a lot.

Archon: Again I will point out your picture is still backing my point. Said picture is not just one item mounted on the rifle. The stock is part of what keeps the COG back towards the receiver. That is also an adjustable buttstock and they tend to be lightened internally with hollow parts or use cut-outs to reduce their weight where possible. It's adjusted for shooter requirements and you still have to be aware of what you're attaching to the rest of the weapon. He has a fairly heavy ACOG, about a full lb of weight for the scope alone, right over the receiver. Again the US military almost never mounts something that far forward alone without adding other attachments including a grip or other item. Except for lights but those have gotten amazingly light and are only good for short-range shooting to begin with.

But in that picture that mounting would have and impact. Again I will reiterate the same points. How far out and how much precision is he trying to shoot for? The more of either you are aiming for literally and figuratively the more it matters. The more you shift the balance around the more it is going to impact the overall accuracy. It changes how recoil affects the weapon and shooter, affects its balance when held and fired, affects how it rests when held in various positions, and even affects how quickly fatigue from holding it up in various positions sets in. All of that impacts your shooting.

I get you to see some hunters in the local area consistently using it but there are way more hunters in the US overall that don't. I can see where it would be useful for some types of hunting where you are on the move and might come up on your game suddenly but most hunting is from static positions. The popularity of weapons and scopes and other equipment is largely dictated by what people are most commonly doing. If people spent more time wandering looking for their game then I could see things shifting to forward mount being more popular.

I would honestly be tempted to try it out and see if I liked it better than most scope mounts as I hate the loss of peripheral vision when using most scopes.

Again with the Cuban Example, it is literally butted upright against the front of the receiver for its mounting with the optic pushed back over the receiver. The Fire Arm blog has a pretty good view of it and a commenter who has ID it. Apparently it is some sort of red dot sight complete with some batteries. Which makes some sense if they put it where some of the iron sights would normally sit.

As for the Russian Special forces picture, you have one guy out of how many using it? The other two with optics are using traditional mounting and the rest none. Doing a casual gander around at Russian troops be they special forces or normal army out and about not posing for pictures shows pretty much all of them using standard mounting. A number of different optics but pretty much all of them mounted in typical fashion. I saw some examples of Bull Pup weapons where they forward mount but that falls under the kind of have a little choice category. Even my personal favorite Bull Pup, the P-90, uses forward-mounted optics.

I’m using that picture as an example from a more academic point of view, not “put an optic on the front of this exact rifle”. There are plenty of examples all around the internet of people using lasers and lights on rifles with irons. Moreover, since you mentioned the stock, what’s stopping you from using a heavier stock or placing weight in the compartment back there to balance out your rifle however you want? That’s also a fairly stripped-down rifle, what about one with an ACOG over the receiver and then a PEQ, foregrip, and a light/switch? That weight difference should achieve the same effect as just a scope out front, but you see people shooting with rifles set up like that with very little trouble all the time.

I genuinely don’t think a scope can affect a rifle’s center of gravity enough to create a noticeable change in function, excepting perhaps at extremely long ranges which isn’t particularly relevant anyways given you’d only mount a scope forward like that with the expectation of more mobile short-range shooting. Given the weights involved the change to the weapon’s center of gravity is too incremental to realistically be noticed by the user.

I’ll also point out that if you can easily think of that many examples of similar scope placement I don’t think it’s as uncommon as you’re saying. Here’s a few more examples. USMC MPs: [1]◊ Estonian Army: [2]◊ [3]◊ IDF: [4]◊ [5]◊ and more civilian shooters than I can reasonably link here. That’s just from a cursory image search. It seems to be especially common on lever actions, which is what I usually see it on.

Edited by archonspeaks on Mar 6th 2020 at 5:59:08 AM

Checked out a forum discussing front mounted scopes on the Scout rifle, and one really big advantage is that you don't get scope bite.

Almost all optics have a few inches of eye relief. Scope bite is really an issue with your grip on the weapon, which is why you typically see it with new shooters.

I'd like to pause the debate to ask both parties as a curious civilian: during your service, what did accessories did you usually put on your issued weapon? Was there anything considered remotely mandatory other than the rail?

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Mar 6th 2020 at 8:02:17 AM

The Marine MP one is kind of odd. They have the rails under the old carrying handle and sights. The only reason I could see for them to do that is to make sure they have iron sights for back up. Also USMC MP's with optics and all of them with traditionally mounted. So I am not entirely sure they are using that layout other than the backup option.

An optic most definitely can impact your shooting when pushed forward enough. A full half-pound of weight for the lighter optics is not something to sneeze at. You attach it then spend time adjusting your sights and getting used to the changed balance to help offset

When adding things like the full bells and whistles loadout with the PEQ, grips, flashlight, optic package it is usually decently balanced but you're going to notice some effect on your shooting as the whole weapons weight is up and the balance is going to be shifted. Felt recoil will be a bit different as well.

The grip is usually a nice add on because it helps you handle the rifle a bit more easily. Barebones M-16's have their best accuracy up to 200 meters. At 300 meters you start to see some shot deviation. The Long-range for the bulk of assault rifles is 500 meters. The very long range would be 800 meters which is why the M-16 is only recommended for area targets at that range. 500 meters and out is where even minor deviations really start to negatively impact your accuracy. Pull the trigger even a little unevenly, don't balance your breathing, have some instability in your stance, or even fatigue while holding it are rather very small and minor things and have minimal impact at 200 meters and only small but noticeable impact at 300 meters. But at 500 meters they pretty consistently produce large changes inaccuracy. It takes a reasonably skilled shot to consistently hit out to 500 meters with assault rifles. Optics help you see the target more easily but they won't fix the other impactors of accuracy at that range.

I would also point this is likely one of the reasons you suggested the US military is considering the 6mm cartridges. Better accuracy and performance out of an AR platform at those ranges.

I did forget one exception. Suppressors almost always improve accuracy. The offsets are typically countered by the benefit of gas stripping reducing gas turbulence at the muzzle, helps reduce perceived recoil and natural reactions to it, and the barrel is slightly longer. I've even seen a few suggestions it can help out at least a little bit with barrel harmonics as well.

I will give you the Estonian one but the Israeli one is mounted to the carrying handle not the handguard with the sight floating. Which is a strange way to attach it and I have a hard time seeing how that sight doesn't judder when fired. I know they have access to the compact M-4 variant with receiver top mounting rails rather than the older fixed sight older upper receiver.

Lever action guns do seem to be popular as scout guns but I also know some of the variants of lever guns can be a bit annoying to mount a scope on because of the hammers on some of them stick up a surprising amount. It might just be more generally practical for the Lever Actions in general which are also popular as brush guns. There a forward optic would be a pretty handy set up as a brush gun or dense woods. I want to give a forward mount scope a try and see if I tolerate it better than I do traditional scope mounts.

Actually Tuffy not to change the subject but I was curious if you knew about whatever happened to one Marine battalion who gave literally everyone a suppressor as an experiment.

I heard they had some really unexpected positive results, I was just wondering if there was a nice writeup on that somewhere.

As per the caption those are USMC MPs assigned to a Special Reaction Team, and some googling shows that mounting being at least somewhat common there. I don’t know too much about SRT so I can’t speak as to why.

The Israelis seem to have a thing for a carry handle with a forward rail, in a lot of pictures of IDF personnel carrying M4s you can see that style of rail. My guess is that it’s to increase compatibility with the Tavor, since optics are generally mounted pretty far forward on that rifle too, though that’s only my speculation.

The Estonians seem to use the forward mount almost universally on their Galils, and I found a few pictures of Galils in other services with similar mounts so it’s possible that’s something unique to the platform.

Either way, my point here is that a forward optic is perfectly serviceable. The majority of optics don’t seem to affect balance to any noticeable degree, and in the cases where they do it’s easily compensated for, whether by the shooter or by rebalancing the weapon. From personal experience shooting an AK with an optic mounted in that position I can say the only difference I really noticed was that it required more of a “heads up” style to get on the reticle.

I’d be interested to hear the results you get with a forward mount, when you get the chance I hope you share them here.

Suppressors definitely play around with barrel harmonics but it seems to be a little random sometimes. Certain combinations seem to either vastly improve your accuracy or totally fuck it up. I’ve had some bad experiences with cheaper cans, especially on barrels with a thinner profile.

Edited by archonspeaks on Mar 6th 2020 at 7:38:19 AM

I'd like to ask Teufel and Archon as a curious civilian: during your service, what did accessories did you usually put on your issued weapon? Was there anything considered remotely mandatory other than the rail?

For me, attachments weren’t really a thing. Rifles with pic rails were bleeding edge and things like electronic sights and lasers really weren’t common. Infantry team leaders were issued lasers, PAQ-4s I believe, but most everyone just had plain A2s. I was in a noncombat unit so we had old stuff.

Edited by archonspeaks on Mar 6th 2020 at 9:28:00 AM

Garcon: There was a unit deploying to Norway with everyone packing a can. And the Corps is currently looking for contracts for suppressors for pretty much all infantry issued rifles. A contract is expected to be awarded by the end of 2020.

As for most attached that depends. For the M-16 it was swapping out the handguard set for pre-rails M-203. It was a bit of a pain because it didn't fit neatly.

The M-16's that got rails before they put in the big push for more widespread adoption of the M-16A4 didn't have a lot of attachments put on them just yet. The Corps had been dragging its feet on fully introducing the A4 pre-911. For that rifle, it was a vertical grip and usually some sort of optic it varied depending on the unit the rifle was from. We had PEQ units but they have become a lot more common than they used to be. If troops mounted a PEQ pre-rail it used this janky ass strap system in most examples. Not the best attachment. Only the SOPMOD M-4 Kits had a huge variety of parts and it was the job of 2112 gunsmith to set those up.

For machineguns of all varieties, it was almost always some form of ACOG or similar capability optic.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Mar 6th 2020 at 11:12:43 AM

I’ve got a feeling with the way things are going that future rifles are either going to be integrally suppressed or come with barrel-life suppressors like the Brevis II General Dynamics is pushing. The advantages are just too pronounced.

The Honey Badger is still a beautiful example of that.

<_< Still hate that name. It's a ratel, dammit! They're called that because of their constant stream of cantankerous grumbling as they roll along the landscape with that distinctive gait.

Which fits ordinance better, frankly.

Edited by Euodiachloris on Mar 7th 2020 at 10:52:03 AM

....HONEY BADGER ! :P

There was some rumblings of finding integrated suppressor options. No idea how that will pan out. From a maintenance perspective, they can be a bit labour intensive unless they have a good long-shot life.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Mar 7th 2020 at 8:17:19 AM

I’m thinking barrel-life suppressors are the more likely choice currently.

The Honey Badger was undeniably cool, but other companies do the .300BLK PDW concept way better now. Maxim Defense and SIG both come to mind.

Huh. The Marines are interested in the Army's Next-Gen Squad Weapon. Also, they will do the modern equivalent of moonlight requisitioning on it if need be.

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Mar 9th 2020 at 8:14:34 AM

Never change, Marines.

Edited by archonspeaks on Mar 9th 2020 at 8:56:55 AM

'Course, I imagine its a lot cheaper to piggyback off the army and get the discount prices that go with larger orders.

Not to mention all the ones in the running use a non-5.56 ammo, and well... you don't really want to be using a diffrent ammo type then every one else.

I am not surprised. The LSAT program had two separate weapon goals. One was the CTA kit the other a caseless one. The CTA obviously panned out and the caseless variant is dead in the water. It's frankly smarter to jump on board with the example they know is working.

Among DMRs, the Mk 12 SPR is interesting as it's chambered in 5.56mm rather than 7.62mm NATO, and was in service with spec ops units until around 2017.

I'm not sure what conclusion to reach regarding it; some say it wasn't all that good, others say that operators raved about the Mk 12 and heaped praise on it.

Since most of you here are far more experienced than I am regarding actually handling and studying firearms, what do you think of it?

Edited by TheWildWestPyro on Mar 11th 2020 at 12:35:49 PM

They fired the M262 Open Tipped Match rounds from the rifle. From what little I can find, they liked the rifle in general, but they wanted more range so it is basically being replaced or has been replaced by 7.62mm rifles.