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

[Sturgeon]

Fun little scifi ammo concept that I've been thinking about recently. Imagining a world with substantial colonization of the solar system with mostly conventional propulsion systems, weight would be at a premium, while combat distances would be short; the only time they'd ever occur over 50m or so would be in airless zero-g. Therefore, only nominal performance is needed, and virtually no range, but the round must be as light as possible.

Immediately PDW rounds like the 5.7x28mm are brought to mind, but even those aren't light enough, and not sci-fi enough, dammit! So let's throw in caseless. In our universe, caseless has significant problems that will probably prevent it from ever being practical, but in this universe weight is at such a premium due to the costs of intra-system shipping that those downsides are acceptable given the savings. These two concepts combined end up pretty ludicrous looking:

(Round on the right is your standard 34gr shipboard low-ricochet frangible, round on the left is your 31gr "oh shit" steel/aluminum AP round that would perforate soft body armor and most ship hulls alike)

 

5.56mm for scale:

 

What good is a little buzzgun round without some sort of high-capacity feed device? I like to imagine that these rounds would be basically taped together into a belt at the factory with one long strip of reinforced adhesive material. You'd take your "magazine" (really just a receptacle) and throw in the tape-belt, wrapping it over some sort of feed wheel or something - probably integral to the magazine - in the process. The "tape" would help protect the caseless rounds from damage, while allowing the lightest and cheapest possible belt configuration for feeding a hundred or more rounds at a time. As the rounds are fed into the gun, the tape would be cut somehow, and whatever made it into the chamber would burn up along with the propellant.

Oh, and how did we do for weight? Well, the RRLP weighs in at 2.92 grams, while the AP weighs 2.74 grams. For reference, a round of 5.56mm is about 12 grams, while a round of 9mm is about 12.8 grams. Yeehaw!

[Sturgeon]

Yet another overweight "improved" AK is on the market, joining the Joshua Mk5, M+M M10X, and Arex AKB15:

 

 

Apparently, this abortion has been out for at least a year.

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

Why in the hell does it have two charging handles. 

 

Why in the hell does it look like a junior Mech. Engineering student got bored on solidworks.

 

Why in the hell does it weigh 7.5 pounds. 

 

Why is "flared magwell" a feature? Fast reloads? Either pander to the 3-gun crowd or make something not stupid.

[Sturgeon]

Why in the hell does it have two charging handles.

Why in the hell does it look like a junior Mech. Engineering student got bored on solidworks.

Why in the hell does it weigh 7.5 pounds.

Why is "flared magwell" a feature? Fast reloads? Either pander to the 3-gun crowd or make something not stupid.

I am certain that "7.5lbs" figure is complete BS. That gun certainly does not weigh less than 8.5lbs.

[LostCosmonaut]

Aren't the ballistics of 7.62x39 not that great? I'm guessing they just made the rifle in that calibre because it's widely available.

[Sturgeon]

Aren't the ballistics of 7.62x39 not that great? I'm guessing they just made the rifle in that calibre because it's widely available.

 

Depends what you need them for. For zapping deer at 50m, 7.62x39 is just about ideal.

 

Yes, I think they designed that rifle in 7.62x39 just because they have no imagination and didn't want to do something in 5.45 or another piddly caliber. Also, some people believe 7.62x39mm is a kind of magic doom bullet that kills instantly on contact (you might laugh, but the guy who invented 6.8 SPC believed this, too). Judging by the fact that they are citing a ludicrously optimistic* 1400 yard effective range for this gun, I am guessing they fall into that camp, too. 

Keep in mind, developing a good magazine is just about as hard as developing the gun, so if you're lazy and uncreative, you basically get to choose from the magazines that exist for the AK platform. That means mags in 7.62x39, 5.45x39, and 5.56x45. Besides the fact that many people believe 5.56mm mags don't work for what are basically circumstantial reasons (because 5.56mm was never adopted by the Soviets, there isn't really one standard for 5.56mm AK magazines, so this casts a voodoo cloud of "unreliability" over the round in that gun), this company seems like the kind of retards who think .22 caliber is too pathetic and .30 cal is da best.

*Ludicrously optimistic? Even AK rear leafs only go up to 1,000 meters (1,093 yd), and the max range settings on rear sights are generally deliberately very optimistic as a "just in case" measure. The Russians (and everyone else) consider 7.62x39 to be a 300-400m round at best.

[LostCosmonaut]

 Also, some people believe 7.62x39mm is a kind of magic doom bullet that kills instantly on contact

Haha, this is true (there's people on other sites (ah dot com) that unironically believe 7.62x39 was the best round ever created because AK)

[Sturgeon]

Haha, this is true (there's people on other sites (ah dot com) that unironically believe 7.62x39 was the best round ever created because AK)

 

It's way worse than that. Many actual gun experts believe this, even though it's patently false. For example, Pierangelo Tendas, a European gun writer who is quite reputable, believes 7.62x39 is the best round ever made. No kidding.

Like I said, 6.8 SPC was designed to ape 7.62x39's ballistics while improving on its trajectory, because the guy who designed it was convinced the caliber had the optimum terminal ballistics characteristics.

 

[Sturgeon]

Since this can't be copypasta'd enough, here's what Martin Fackler had to say about the standard 7.62x39 M43 load (this does not apply to things like 7.62x39 softpoints, for the record):
 

"The Soviet AK-47 Kalashnikov fires a full-metal-jacketed, boat-tail bullet that has a copper-plated steel jacket, a large steel core, and some lead between the two. In tissue, this bullet typically travels for about 26cm point-forward before beginning significant yaw. This author observed, on many occasions, the damage pattern shown in Fig 2 while treating battle casualties in Da Nang Vietnam (1968). The typical path through the abdomen caused minimal disruption; holes in organs were similar to those caused by a non-hollow-point handgun bullet. The average uncomplicated thigh wound was about what one would expect from a low-powered handgun: a small, punctate entrance and exit wound with minimal intervening muscle disruption."

[D.E. Watters]

I seem to remember Pierangelo Tendas claiming that the Ruger Mini-30 was developed for the US Navy SEALs.  So, he does need to be taken with a large grain of salt.
 

It's way worse than that. Many actual gun experts believe this, even though it's patently false. For example, Pierangelo Tendas, a European gun writer who is quite reputable, believes 7.62x39 is the best round ever made. No kidding.

 

[Sturgeon]

I seem to remember Pierangelo Tendas claiming that the Ruger Mini-30 was developed for the US Navy SEALs.  So, he does need to be taken with a large grain of salt.

 

 

I'm not saying he's a reliable source, but he has a very good reputation among gunwriters. The idea that 7.62x39mm is some kind of "kill 'em not wound 'em" round is very widespread. It's not just idiots on AH.com, a lot of people believe it.

[Khand-e]

Depends what you need them for. For zapping deer at 50m, 7.62x39 is just about ideal.

 

Yes, I think they designed that rifle in 7.62x39 just because they have no imagination and didn't want to do something in 5.45 or another piddly caliber. Also, some people believe 7.62x39mm is a kind of magic doom bullet that kills instantly on contact (you might laugh, but the guy who invented 6.8 SPC believed this, too). Judging by the fact that they are citing a ludicrously optimistic* 1400 yard effective range for this gun, I am guessing they fall into that camp, too. 

Keep in mind, developing a good magazine is just about as hard as developing the gun, so if you're lazy and uncreative, you basically get to choose from the magazines that exist for the AK platform. That means mags in 7.62x39, 5.45x39, and 5.56x45. Besides the fact that many people believe 5.56mm mags don't work for what are basically circumstantial reasons (because 5.56mm was never adopted by the Soviets, there isn't really one standard for 5.56mm AK magazines, so this casts a voodoo cloud of "unreliability" over the round in that gun), this company seems like the kind of retards who think .22 caliber is too pathetic and .30 cal is da best.

*Ludicrously optimistic? Even AK rear leafs only go up to 1,000 meters (1,093 yd), and the max range settings on rear sights are generally deliberately very optimistic as a "just in case" measure. The Russians (and everyone else) consider 7.62x39 to be a 300-400m round at best.

 

 

No, it only has this power when fired at dirty borugeoisie capitalists you see.

[LoooSeR]

5.45 AK-12 6P70

 

 

 

 

7.62x39 AK-15 6P71

 

 

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

I don't believe midgets. Especially dirty Italian midgets. Can't trust them. 

I'm not saying he's a reliable source, but he has a very good reputation among gunwriters. The idea that 7.62x39mm is some kind of "kill 'em not wound 'em" round is very widespread. It's not just idiots on AH.com, a lot of people believe it.

[Sturgeon]

YES:

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

CZ TO IMPORT BRNO FIELD PISTOL?

 

MY YEAR IS MADE.

 

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/10/05/fk-brno-announces-immediate-importation-usa-7-5-field-pistol/

[Sturgeon]

Prepare to pay over $2K.

[Khand-e]

Prepare to pay over $2K.

Ready to go.

[Oedipus Wreckx-n-Effect]

You can't put a price on class.

Prepare to pay over $2K.

[Belesarius]

CZ TO IMPORT BRNO FIELD PISTOL?

 

MY YEAR IS MADE.

 

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/10/05/fk-brno-announces-immediate-importation-usa-7-5-field-pistol/

That is a sexy piece of firearms tech.

[LoooSeR]

 

[Collimatrix]

At first I was mystified that more people hadn't tried to copy the AN-94's high-speed burst mechanism.  After all, there was the Stechkin bullpup design that also had a high-speed, recoiling mechanism burst, but achieved it differently than the AN-94 does.

 

But now I'm beginning to wonder if people just don't understand it.

[Collimatrix]

[Sturgeon]

Here is a good example of misusing gel tests:

I don't think MAC was deliberately trying to deceive the audience here, just that he doesn't really understand what gel tests are telling him. He also does not seem to really understand the difference between the permanent and temporary wound channels. He sort of just holds a tape measure up to the block and guesses based on the stretch marks in the gel, which is not how he should be doing that. Instead, he should be slicing the gel crosswise, and measuring the dimensions of the actual channel itself.

[Khand-e]

So yeah, today I learned that brass cased,copper jacketed Remington-UMC performs significantly worse then the regular nickel plated, brass jacketed I usually see from them.

 

The UMC factory didn't change locations or go through any major changes (at least, unrelated to Remington main) in the past few years did it?