The Small Arms Thread, Part 8: 2018; ICSR to be replaced by US Army with interim 15mm Revolver Cannon.

[Meplat]

Yeah, some advice: Don't get GPC people talking about suppression if you value the structural integrity of your forehead.

As in "silencers"?

There is a lot of pseudo-scientific derp in the can community itself, let alone the average knucklehead who has never made, nor seen, nor heard (duh, cause dey're ZILENT!) a competently made can.

 

I still hear about the "potato as a silencer" bit. All I say is "That's a great way to bulge your bore and make expensive french fries".

[Tied]

Yeah, some advice: Don't get GPC people talking about suppression if you value the structural integrity of your forehead.

 

are you telling me that those towelheads just arent scared to death at the idea of a 1.2mm larger cartrigde wizzing by them 

[Belesarius]

As in "silencers"?

There is a lot of pseudo-scientific derp in the can community itself, let alone the average knucklehead who has never made, nor seen, nor heard (duh, cause dey're ZILENT!) a competently made can.

 

I still hear about the "potato as a silencer" bit. All I say is "That's a great way to bulge your bore and make expensive french fries".

I think Sturgeon is talking about the current debate over at Tony's forum about 'suppresive' fire. It's somewhat... frustrating reading the thread.

[Sturgeon]

Suppressing fire, yes.

[Belesarius]

After reading Tony's forum, and some of the work that Sturgeon has done, I'm starting to think a 2 calibre system with the general infantry rifle being combat effective out to say 500m and a DMR/GPMG effective out to 1200-1400 m might be the way to go.

YMMV.

Also recent advances in guided munitions and possible platoon level drone recon/designation are freaking scary awesome.

[Sturgeon]

Small arms nerd response: It's way too early to be proposing anything deviating significantly from the current proven paradigm.

 

Military realist response: Small arms are about as relevant now as bayonets were in 1918. It probably doesn't matter what your caliber config is so long as it's reasonably light.

[Tied]

Also recent advances in guided munitions and possible platoon level drone recon/designation are freaking boring

 

fucking nerds

[D.E. Watters]

Doesn't the NRA ironically hate the shit out of Ruger as well memory serve me? (or perhaps they did in the past.)

Ruger essentially bribed his way back into the NRA's good graces with a huge donation.  That said, a lot of individual shooters still have not forgiven the company even though the old man is long dead.

Truth be told, most of the large gun companies have flirted with gun controllers at one time or another in hopes of insuring that they might remain in business longer than their competitors.

[D.E. Watters]

 But in exactly what circumstance is an infantryman with nothing but a carbine engaging a target that is obscured by cover that would reasonably be approximated by 3.5mm plate (at a standoff distance, not like body armor!) at 600m? It is difficult to spot a person unobscured by cover at 600m (heck, even bright orange silhouettes wash out to my hawk eyes at that distance), much less one behind cover, and it's even more difficult to actually hit someone behind cover at that distance.

It isn't so much that they expect an individual shooter to successfully engage a point target at long range, but rather they hope that multiple shooters engaging an area target may make a lucky hit.  If you get a lucky hit, wouldn't it be nice if it accomplished something other than bounce off ineffectively?

 

[Sturgeon]

It isn't so much that they expect an individual shooter to successfully engage a point target at long range, but rather they hope that multiple shooters engaging an area target may make a lucky hit.  If you get a lucky hit, wouldn't it be nice if it accomplished something other than bounce off ineffectively?

 

*begins typing huge response*

Wait. I do this all the time. That's why I have prepared responses.

Like this one.

[D.E. Watters]

I think you missed my point.  The area fire "lucky hit" is why they've long insisted upon metrics like helmet penetration at ranges beyond which the shooter can be expected to reliably hit an individual soldier, much less his helmet, on purpose.

It probably made more sense in the era of Maxim and Vickers water-cooled MG continuously hammering a beaten zone at long range for area denial.

[Sturgeon]

I think you missed my point.  The area fire "lucky hit" is why they've long insisted upon metrics like helmet penetration at ranges beyond which the shooter can be expected to reliably hit an individual soldier, much less his helmet, on purpose.

It probably made more sense in the era of Maxim and Vickers water-cooled MG continuously hammering a beaten zone at long range for area denial.

 

No... I got your point, Daniel, but pretty much any conceivable way I could have tackled it is handled in that blog post.

[D.E. Watters]

The area target of a mass formation also explains why older small arms had such optimistic sight settings.  Look at the dimensions of the original Palma targets. It is clear that they were depicting an approaching line of soldiers.

 

[Sturgeon]

Yes, that's right.

[Meplat]

Ruger essentially bribed his way back into the NRA's good graces with a huge donation.  That said, a lot of individual shooters still have not forgiven the company even though the old man is long dead.

Truth be told, most of the large gun companies have flirted with gun controllers at one time or another in hopes of insuring that they might remain in business longer than their competitors.

Ruger also makes (sometimes) a 1911 clone, and an AR-15 clone(of reasonable mediocrity). The company has changed quite a bit since Bill Sr. was at the helm.

[D.E. Watters]

Ruger also makes (sometimes) a 1911 clone, and an AR-15 clone(of reasonable mediocrity). The company has changed quite a bit since Bill Sr. was at the helm.

 

I agree.  Bill Sr. would have never agreed to sell the LCP or LC9 to the civilian market.  Snub nose revolvers were okay in his mind, but compact semi-autos were too icky and dangerous.

[Meplat]

I agree.  Bill Sr. would have never agreed to sell the LCP or LC9 to the civilian market.  Snub nose revolvers were okay in his mind, but compact semi-autos were too icky and dangerous.

I once suggested "we" make a snubby GP-100 (as in a 1.75" barrel and abbreviated grip) and was told "Ruger does not make saturday night specials".

[D.E. Watters]

I once suggested "we" make a snubby GP-100 (as in a 1.75" barrel and abbreviated grip) and was told "Ruger does not make saturday night specials".

Clearly that was before the SP101.

[Khand-e]

I once suggested "we" make a snubby GP-100 (as in a 1.75" barrel and abbreviated grip) and was told "Ruger does not make saturday night specials".

And this is when you then demonstrated Meplats famous Band Saw™ could cut through more gun parts then those on G36s.

[Meplat]

Clearly that was before the SP101.

That still had a ~2"+ tube. Maybe one of the distro specials was shorter, but not one I know of.

 

And this is when you then demonstrated Meplats famous Band Saw™ could cut through more gun parts then those on G36s.

This was when I worked for Ruger, pre G36 bandsaw hilarity.

[D.E. Watters]

That still had a ~2"+ tube. Maybe one of the distro specials was shorter, but not one I know of.

 

Heavens!  They were balking because of a half-inch shorter barrel?

[Sturgeon]

In case anyone wanted the straight dope on IC:

 

M855A1 was designed as a drop-in replacement for M855 in unmodified M4 Carbines. I can only see a complaint by a manufacturer that their weapon doesn't work as well with the standard US Army ammunition as frivolous, as that's a de-facto admission that the gun is not as well suited to Army needs as the M4.

 

The Army gave the manufacturers M855A1 ammunition with which to tweak their designs ahead of time, too. What should the Army have done instead, conducted the tests with M855, spend a ton of time and effort, and potentially adopt something that they don't even know works right with the ammunition they just spent $32 million developing? That's ridiculous.

 

Of course, manufacturers don't care about that as much as they care about winning, and M855A1 stood between them and beating the M4, or so they felt. That's why they howled so much about it.

 

The reality is that none of the manufacturers submitted a rifle that incorporated substantial mechanical improvements. Doing so would be very difficult, as the mechanics of select-fire infantry rifles are very well understood and defined.

 

I am absolutely unsurprised that no IC competitor came out substantially ahead of the M4, except for one, Rifle C. That one was probably the HK 416, because it's overgassed and oversprung, which is a way to "cheat" and get better momentary reliability at the cost of long term longevity, which is precisely what we saw with Rifle C. You could do the same to an M4, too, put in heavier springs and open up the port, but there's a reason they don't.

 

"Well, Rifle C incorporated changes that did improve reliability, but at the cost of other important factors, so we rejected it" is a much less attention getting headline than ARMY DROPS CARBINE COMPETITION IN EMBARRASSMENT AFTER RIFLE OUTPERFORMS M4 SHAME SHAME SHAME.

[Sturgeon]

I see Tony has updated his article on the GPC, after he shut down the thread about Emeric's paper. I would hope he's edited the article carefully, so as to make it easier to read (the article has been around since at least 2007, and he's edited it continuously, resulting in a sloggish mess of a read), but given the last several edits, I think that's unlikely.

[Toxn]

Anyone taking bets on whether advanced optics or improved support weapons will be mentioned?

[Sturgeon]

He has already mentioned them in previous edits.

Man, I wrote up a whole big rebuttal to his edits in a PM to you, but I accidentally closed the tab. Oh well, my primary reason for doing it was to stay up to date on Tony's arguments, anyway.