A squad automatic weapon shouldn't have a QCB
You can get away with not having one by having a nicely thick and fluted/finned barrel, and open bolt helps, if you want to bother, forced air cooling can also help out. This is all kind of looking past the part where these barrels are going to be hurriedly eroded into oblivion because this abortion is intended to blast these 85000psi loads in full auto salvos.
There's improvements which can be made to the M249, sure, but I am of the opinion that it will remain superior to the inevitable keyhole machine which is the XM250. Remember, this isn't a proper intermediate cartridge light support weapon, this stupid thing blasts a retardedly roided 6.8mm full sized cartridge, it would make infinitely more sense to adapt M240Ls to the new cartridge instead because it'll at least be able to better accommodate the inevitable problems.
Aren't helical magazines incredibly unreliable?
They're like drums, they can work really well if they are designed and manufactured well, and if you bother learning how to handle them.
It's a delicate balance, which is why during the great Russo-Finnish disagreement the Russians just stole the Suomi drum magazine to use in their own SMG and took credit for it.
Basically. They figured out the drum design pretty well with the PPD guns, eventually, but that production wasn't fast or economical enough, thus the PPSh-41. That one isn't flawless, the drums can be troublesome, but they'll work fine if you keep the right drums paired with the right guns.
Russian soldiers had a fucking bitter time with this before the PPSh-41 got going, getting to experience the same disregard for volume of fire from leadership.
Imagine having to go up against Finns or Germans able to put out a storm of lead, while you and your pals only have Nagant rifles (or MAYBE Tokarev rifles), because Stalin thought this goofy fuckhead had the right ideas.
Thank you dearly for these.
