Mega Rad Gun Thread

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Techpriest said:
It's because they're newer weapons. A lot of the AK's in Afghanistan have been there for forty to fifty years.
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I didnt pal around with the Taliban or Afghanis; but at joint TCPs or chowhalls with Iraqis, idle conversations with English speaking hajis (police & national guard) invariably ended up on the subject of our rifles. Their universally stated desire was always to ditch the AK in favor of our ARs; and this was before optics & short carbines were ubiquitous, we were still carrying A2s at that point.
 
Pocket Dragoon said:
I didnt pal around with the Taliban or Afghanis; but at joint TCPs or chowhalls with Iraqis, idle conversations with English speaking hajis (police & national guard) invariably ended up on the subject of our rifles. Their universally stated desire was always to ditch the AK in favor of our ARs; and this was before optics & short carbines were ubiquitous, we were still carrying A2s at that point.
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Iraqi manufactured AK pattern rifles were not very good rifles - they had lots of QC issues. After the fall of the Warsaw Pact, a bunch of EE nations offloaded their older AKM's to the middle east, which also could be sometimes of very dubious quality. If these were police/national guard units, they weren't getting the new shit, they were getting the bottom of the armory back shelf shit, and I can only imagine how bad that could get.

The M16A2 is also lighter, which is always welcome among people who have to lug it around for a long time. Superiority is very much a perspective of the beholder and a subject of opinion.

Simply put though, for any force like the Taliban, standardizing rifles is not going to be a high priority for a while. We'll see how long the M4's last and how quickly they ditch them. Even with cleaning manuals in local languages, maintaining what they've got will be tricky and we're going to see cannibalizing of rifles and vehicles for spare parts sooner or later. Nobody nearby aside from the Chinese manufacture parts that'll be willing to provide them regular shipments, and the AK is fucking everywhere there from Soviet capture or Post-Invasion supplies handed to the Commie government, plus weapons smuggled through Pakistan into the country throughout the 80's and 90's. I don't think they'll be able to get an ammunition factory or rifle manufacturer going locally any time soon.
 
@Techpriest
The majority of AKs that the ING & police carried weren't indigenous manufacture, those became rare after the first Gulf War (and the '03 invasion) because of attrition.

Our armorer (along with contractors) serviced Iraqi small arms & weapon systems along with our own & was right next to my motorpool; along with an EOD detachment who had connexes & ISU 90 containers full of AKs (along with a cool little museum of nifty explosive shit they found).
Because I was a motherfucker humping a deuce (or 249), I spent a lot of time in their little compound. I saw a wide selection of AKs on their racks, and stopped really paying attention to them because they were all new(er) production from former combloc states, with a sprinkling of chicoms & such. Everything older had already been DX'd or sent to the canpoints.
 
Pocket Dragoon said:
@Techpriest
The majority of AKs that the ING & police carried weren't indigenous manufacture, those became rare after the first Gulf War because of attrition.

Our armorer (along with contractors) serviced Iraqi small arms & weapon systems along with our own & was right next to my motorpool; along with an EOD detachment who had connexes & ISU 90 containers full of AKs (along with a cool little museum of nifty explosive shit they found).
Because I was a motherfucker humping a deuce (or 249), I spent a lot of time in their little compound. I saw quite wide selection of AKs on their racks, and stopped really paying attention to them because they were all new(er) production from former combloc states, with a sprinkling of chicoms & such. Everything older had already been DX'd or sent to the canpoints.
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So they were mostly old combloc shit by that point for you? Interesting. I've heard mixed stuff about the amount of indigenous manufacture getting handed around, it might be region to region on the proportion of local production to foreign supplied. It's an absolute clusterfuck of small arms available in the region though - I wouldn't be surprised if you told me the armorer ran into STENs, PPSH-41's, MAT-49's, Egyptian FN-49's, SMLE's, Kar98's, various turk clones, AK's from every nation that's ever made them, G3's from Iran, G3's from Germany captured from Iranian armories, FN FAL's, and god knows what else. It's a SALW aficionado's dream job.
 
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US troops have even used wild Papashaws in Iraq:

originals.jpg 61e6e9109133056e7da63132cc77858d.jpg
 
Yeah, by the end of '05, the only place I saw old ex-regime stuff was up in Kirkuk, being used by the Kurdish militias. Even the local police got newer AKs first.

As for unusual/antique small arms that we gathered up (mostly from old, forgotten caches or tribal turn-ins), the best ended up on EOD's wall. They had at least 3 StG-44s at one point, along with Uzi's, Soviet & Nazi MGs, MP-5s, etc, until they all got taken down to make room for other shit. By the time I left EOD's ready-room display had vastly expanded, to include an outdoor area with demilled IEDs and VBIEDs as training aids.
 
Taliban isn't going to run out of 5.56mm. Russia is sitting on a shitload of 5.56mm ammo slated for export with nowhere to sell it now, and China's Norinco has been making 5.56mm for years now too. I'm sure they'll come to an understanding.

Another note, since the Taliban are huge fans of hitting people with the butt of a rifle, expect to see a lot of M4s with broken stocks and bent buffer tubes. AK definitely beats the M4 in that regard.

Edit to elaborate:
Same way as the Taliban managed to get a Blackhawk running, maintaining M4 rifles won't be a problem now that they got enough ex-ANA defectors who trained with those.

As to where they would get spare parts and replacement rifles if they happen to somehow run out of the massive stockpile ol' Joe left for them, there's always the Norinco CQ-A. These rifles always happen to "pop up" in various hot spots around the world for like, no reason at all. Totally not bought on the black market through third parties such as Pakistan from Chinese state-sanctioned gun runners.

nationalinterest.org

China Cloned the M16: Meet the Norinco CQ Rifle

But is it any good?
nationalinterest.org nationalinterest.org
 
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Thornforg said:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=pRIIXj_wdH8
Paul did a FK BRNO review. Sold me on it, honestly. Probably gonna get one in a few days if I can find one.
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He did a good job on reviewing a product given to him for free by the company that made it, so I'll give him that. However, whilst a good gun, I don't see anything that it does better than cheaper guns that would justify its expense.
 
Mr. Confederate Man said:
However, whilst a good gun, I don't see anything that it does better than cheaper guns that would justify its expense.
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I've been trying to think of anything cheaper that'd fulfill these design goals, and there really isn't anything else like it on the market; cheaper or otherwise.
• A handgun that could be concealed yet could provide accurate shots out to 100 meters with a flat trajectory.
• It's overall length must be small enough so that it can be loaded and shot in a standard civilian size and weight double-stack magazine-fed pistol.
• A barrel length otf 6 inches (152 mm); there must be enough room for the powder charge to propel the bullet to its maximum potential velocity.
• Recoil energy should not exceed that of a hot .45 ACP +P load.
• The bullet should have enough speed to consistently hit a 100×100 mm (3.93-sq.in.) target at 100 meters. • The bullet's terminal performance at 100 meters must be enough to take down a 330-lb. living target utilizing hydrostatic shock.
• The target's permanent wound cavity should measure a minimum of 35mm in diameter (roughly 1.38 inches wide) and 300mm in length (roughly 11.81 inches long).
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Although there are plenty of magnum semiauto pistols with the same level of terminal performance, I don't think anything in current (or past) production has a double-stack magazine with recoil energy no more than a .45+P, that can still do meaningful work at 100+ meters.

The closest I can come up with are wildcats in custom 1911s or Glocks, and none of those achieve the stated goals with factory ammunition.
 
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Mr. Confederate Man said:
He did a good job on reviewing a product given to him for free by the company that made it, so I'll give him that. However, whilst a good gun, I don't see anything that it does better than cheaper guns that would justify its expense.
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"Because it's neat and I want it" is all the justification I need.
 
Thornforg said:
"Because it's neat and I want it" is all the justification I need.
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That's why I have a Dreyse 1907 and a Remington New Army in 32-20

Also, for some reason it won't let me quote Pocket Dragoon's post, but I'll just reply here. It's great that the pistol can do all of that, but I still believe that it's outclassed. Worried about a bear attack? .357/.44 revolvers will do you well as a backup gun, otherwise get a rifle if you're hunting them. Body armor at 100 meters? That's awesome for a pistol and I'm not putting it down but again, outpaced by rifles which seems to me more likely to be used at the given distances. Regardless, it's a cool pistol, but to me it seems like a bit of a gimmick.


Then again, I carry a Colt 1860 replica in cap and ball when walking around on the property, so make of that what you will
 
Mr. Confederate Man said:
It's great that the pistol can do all of that, but I still believe that it's outclassed. Worried about a bear attack? .357/.44 revolvers will do you well as a backup gun, otherwise get a rifle if you're hunting them. Body armor at 100 meters? That's awesome for a pistol and I'm not putting it down but again, outpaced by rifles which seems to me more likely to be used at the given distances.
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For sure, but they're all revolvers or carbines; nothing that matched their design goals existed, as in a double-stack service pistol that shoots like a .45, so FK made it themselves. Of course it's a gimmick, but that's more due to the uniqueness of the cartridge than the pistol itself.

I see the Brno itself as doomed to being a 1-off; not because it's a gimmick, has limited application, or is just expensive, the timing was just incredibly unlucky due to political climates. Unless the cartridge starts showing up in other platforms, I highly doubt it'll be around for much longer.
Consider the 5.7mm; it's a niche yet proven round, but even without the bullshit ammo crises & bans, it took a major manufacturer (eventually Ruger) decades to design & market a pistol in 5.7. Outside of that, 5.7 has only shown up in small run custom ARs & bolt-actions. Had 7.5 Brno shown up ten years ago, there might've been some hope that at least the cartridge would soldier on. But now not so much, unless interest from the PCC communities keep it alive.
 
Don't be so grim about ammo. I'm willing to bet that 7.5 will always be around, just expensive. After all, think of all the old and obscure cartridges still available from factory loadings. 7.7 Jap is expensive, but available and only used in guns pushing 80 years old. Same thing with 7.92x33mm, .32 S&W, .32-20, etc.
 
i got the lynx 12! i'm still waiting on a bunch of slugs i ordered online to arrive before i can actually shoot it though. i'm looking around at sights, and i'm leaning towards something russian with that side mount on it. i'm down to either a PK-A or a kobra, leaning towards a kobra but from what i read anything i'll find is going to be a reproduction. has anyone fucked around with one? would they handle 12ga?
 
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