Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "Forgotten Weapons" channel.

  1.  @drewberg1361  Maybe you didn't read, or understood, "rifle sized". Full blown cartridges being controllable in 10kg MGs is not exactly a wonder. Those are in active military service because, surprise, the ballistic marvel you described, the .223 Rem, is not that great of a cartridge in the MG role so, once adopted it, the 7.62 was still needed for MGs, demonstrating that all the need of the infantry rifle cartridge to be supersonic at ranges were no infantry rifle were used for was not that important in the end. Lessons that other learned before pretending to issue select-fire rifles in .308 win. But the US didn't listen. A demonstration is not a trial. The Winchester prototype was was publicly demonstrated in oct 1957, only five months after the first demonstration of the AR15, the Winchester prototypes with the modifications required arrived at Fort Benning in July 1958, were tested, and the report of the tests was released in september of the same year. The AR15 was praised for reliability and the Winchester rifle for accuracy, but both were deemed to be inferior to the M14 anyway. Wound ballistic was not even taken into account. Your opinion. Surely the Soviet didn't rush, in replacing the 7.62X39 since its still in service. But the .223 Rem was introduced as an answer to the 7.62x39 and the 5.45X39 as an answer to the .223 Rem. Had the US troops in Nam already had an intermediate cartridge when they encountred the 7.62X39,, they would have introduced the .223 Rem in response to... what exactly? Because of 2/3 the recoil of a .308 Win (or less in the early iterations) while at the same time exceeding all the ballistic nonsense you are obsessed with. The .280 Brit is controllable in full auto, the .308 Win is not. What round was better for a select-fire weapon was a no-brainer, but you are reasoning like Colonel Studler did " THE .308 HAS MORE POWAH! YEAH! GO WITH MORE POWAH!", with the result of adopting the shortest lived infantry rifle in US history. You are not even taking the weight of the rifle into acount.
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  2.  @drewberg1361  The 7.92X33 Kurz unable to mantain supersonic speed at 500 feet? And you want to pass ars an armorer? LOL! The 7.92X33mm kurz was supersonic up to 400m (not feet). The 7.92X41mm CETME, a direct derivate, was supersonic all the way to 1000m thus being controllable in full auto. The Brits were interested only in performances up to 600m, since infantry rifles were practically never used past 500m on the field, and even the early milder recoil versions were comfortably supersonic at that distance. Even in its more powerful iteration, the .280/30, the .280 provided 2/3 of the recoil of the .308 Win while at the same time being supersonic at 800m. What round was better for a select-fire weapon was a no-brainer, but you are reasoning like Colonel Studler did "IT HAS MORE POWAH! YEAH! WHO CARES ABOUT RECOIL? WE NEED MORE POWA!", with the result of adopting the shortest lived infantry rifle in US history. You (a supposed armorer, LOL!) are not even taking the weight of the weapon into account. They were nowere to be seen, because there had been no request like the one you are babbling about.
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  3.  @drewberg1361  Almost any rifle in 7.62 NATO can be acuratised to serve as a marksman/sniper rifle (and you pretend ot pass as an armorer? LOL!) . It had been done with the FAL and the G3 as well. The M14 are not particularly accurate, reliable or lightweitght. They are used for the limited use of battle rifles in today's US military only because they are already in the inventory.
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  4.  @drewberg1361  A mistake? You are pretty confused. In 1958 the US Ordnance Board was pushing the M14. They didn't believe it was a mistake. All the tests were done with the goal to demonstrate it was the right choice. You must go some year forward to find the "mistake". And still they didn't want to admit it, preferring to sabotage the M16 on the field. What you believe someone would have acted is inconsequential, sorry. In 1958 there had not been any open competition. "intermediate round" was not a priority and the chances of it being adopted appeared so small that Winchester preferred to give up, while Armalite believed so much in the adoption of the rifle that sold all the rights to Colt.
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  5.  @drewberg1361  You really shouldn't talk about things you don't know. In Europe the FAL had never been so widespread. Among the major European armies only the Brits (that would have gladly used their bullpup rifle in .280 instead) used it. BTW European economy was thriving in the '50s. Oh, a self-proclaimed expert on the net, how precious. LOL! Someone ever buyed it?
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  6.  @drewberg1361  No, sorry. It was a test where only Armalite and Winchester were invited to show the toys they were developing starting from the .222 Rem. None other could have entered. The Winchester prototype was ready and had been tested, but Winchester declined to develop it further due to the clear favour the US Ordnance Bureau had for the M14.
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  7.  @drewberg1361  The .280 provided 2/3 of the recoil of the .308 Win while at the same time exceeding all those non existing "NATO ballistics requirements" you are fabling about. What round was better for a select-fire weapon was a no-brainer. The "NATO ballistics requirements" you knows nothing about were only the ability to pierce a US WWII helmet ("NATO" ballistic requirement, LOL!) at a distance (expressed in yards, because they were "NATO" ballistic requirements, LOL!) that had been progressively and arbitrarily increased because the US Ordnance board only wanted the .308 Win. You are really asking why countries develop rounds? Everyone knew rifle-sized select-fire weapons required intermediate cartridges since the '20s. That's why the STG-44 used one. Was it the best possible? No, like the 7.62X39 or the .280 British, or .223 Win are not the best possible. Only the US believed full blown cartridges could be used instead. The only country in the NATO that could hope to impose a new round other than the US was GB, and they tried, along with the Belgians of FN. The others had to work with what was already available hoping it was adopted instead of the 7.62 folly (and yet the Spanish tried to propose the 7.92X41mm CETME). The Italians developed the Beretta Model 57 and the Franchi LF-58 in .30 Carbine.
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  8.  @drewberg1361  The M14 EBR are refurbished M14 in the inventory, that's why they are used. They are not particularly accurate, reliable or lightweitght. The Argentines made the same thing with the FAMTD. You are not made yourself any favour blabbering about economic problems you don't know or understand. The FAL had been tested by many countries along the AR10 and M14. The FAL usually prevailed, the AR10 won sometimes, the M14 was adopted only when it was provided for free as US military aid.
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  9.  @drewberg1361  The M14 tested better than the FAL only in US weapons tests. Later, Eugene Stoner had a taste of how those tests were performed. Even a turd, if favoured by the high brasses (and the M14 was) would have tested better than anything else. Canadians are still laughing at the M14 faring better than the FAL in arctic conditions. The M14 is still in service just because it's already there and, for the limited use of fifles in 7.62 is GOOD ENOUGH. The M14 is not particularly reliable, not particularly accurate, not particularly lightweight, and its burst is FAR less controllable than that of the FAL. It's only merit is to be already in the US inventory.
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  10.  @drewberg1361  The AR15 was adopted following a demonstration of that weapon alone and without any competition. At that time it didn't even met the Army construction standards and had to be modified later. The only comparable rifle it was tested with during its development and before its adoption was the wooden stocked Winchester LMR, that fired an almost identical round, in the late '50s. Those were NOT open tests, they were limited specifically to those two weapons and the M14 and there were NOT contracts involved. Those tests determined that BOTH the intermediate caliber rifles were not apt for infantry use and that the M14 had to be favoured, but that, among the two intermediate caliber rifles, the AR15 was slightly better than the LMR.
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  11.  @drewberg1361  The US, not the allies, determined the intermediate rounds availabe were "inadequate", because they wanted a full blown cartridge despite everyone else knew full blown cartridges, even the existing 6.5 ones, couldn't fire controllable bursts in rifle-sized weapons. They knew it since the '20s and already developed their AR accordingly. Once determined that nonsense, the US imposed the decision to the NATO allies, even triking FN, to which they offered the adoption of the FAL by US in exchange of supporting the 7.62 NATO. You said: "the US were the ones primarily testing it in actual combat rather than theory". That's false. The AVT 40 (full blown cartridge) was used operationally and the Soviets determined it was not viable WAY before the US used the M14 operationally. The STG44 (intermediate cartridge) was used massively, with almost half a million samples built, and it was impressive enough that the Soviets built the AK47 after it. If the US decided to ignore other's FIELD experiences, it's only their fault. Anyone can invent a ballistic goal an intermediate cartridge can't reach and estabilish it as a "minimum requirement". That's what the US did. The .223 Remington has nothing special, it was not adopted following ANY competition but only due to war needs. Actually ballistically is a quite inefficent round, with a poor sectional density that makes it loose speed faster than other intermediate rounds. "Supersonic at 500 feet"? Are we talking of a pistol round? It's a goal so low to be ridicolous other than being completely arbitrary. The .280 British was already consistently supersonic at 500m (not feet) even if fired by a short barrel, and faster than the .223 from 400m on. so it exceeded those "ballistic goals" before someone invented them.
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  12.  @drewberg1361  "enter a competitor better"? The M16 was not adopted following any competition. it was simply purchased as it was due to emergency needs after the failure of the M14 became evident.
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  13. Had the rifle the US troops were using in Vietnam been "good enough", the US would have probably never adopted the M16. Maybe they would have adopted an intermediate cartridge rifle much later, but it would have been a different rifle.
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  14. Actually the FN MAG, or other designs that were better than the M60, had never been considered. All that was considered in the adoption of the M60 was "it's better than the M1919?". In the design there were so many obvious mistakes (self unscrewing gas taps, parts that can be reassembled backwards, receiver damaged by just pulling the charging handle without a belt present) to make it doubt it had really been properly tested.
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  15.  @_malprivate2543  The Brits tried to do something similar with the Enfield X11, that was a belt-fed BREN. It fared well in comparative tests against the M60, AA-52, MG51, Madsen-Saetter, MG-3, and the FN MAG, loosing only to the latter.
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  16. Reality is that the M60 had never been compared with weapons other than the M1919 prior to adoption. It was so full of obvious defects to make doubt that it had been properly tested, or designed by people that had any previous experience in designing firearms. (self unscrewing gas taps, a issue any other firearm solved since 19th century; bipod attached to the barrel, making it impossible to change barrel while keeping the weapon in line, a issue any other LMG and GPMG solved since the '30s; self discarding trigger assembly; self unscrewing sight elevation screw; self damaging feed system if racked without a belt in it; parts that can be assembled backwards; not adjustable front sights; flimsy receiver that stretched beyond usability at 10.000 rounds count...). It seems more a test weapon for trainees at the "firearms design academy". "Now disassemble this, and then tell me all the mistakes that had been done in designing it."
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  17.  @Tirak117  The "heat extraction thru metal cases" had ALWAYS only meant "in respect to caseless ammos". Caseless ammos are ineherently hotter than brass ammos, because the burning powder is in direct contact with the chamber (that's physically part of the barrel obviously). Here's the opposite. Plastic shields the chamber from the heat of the burning powder MUCH better than brass. Heat remains in gasses (that expand more, that's why they need less powder for the same muzzle speed) and it's expelled from the barrel with them, because also gasses are very bad at heat transfer. Plastic cased ammos actually heat up the weapons MUCH LESS than brass ammos.
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  18. .25 Remington and .30 Remington were even better, since they were rimless. What lacked was a thechnology to make an AR reliable in thrench warfare. The same reason semiautos failed in WWI.
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  19. Infact. The heavier the bolt and the longer the bolt travel, the slower the fire rate. The spring tension has little importance (but it must be enough to reduce the speed of the bolt to values compatible with the survival of the receiver before the bolt impacts with it). Service SMGs (this one, the M3 Grease Gun, the STEN...) have fare heavier bolts than what's simply required to safely shoot their respective ammos, exactly to reduce the fire rate.
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  20. Here you go (in Italian, but the tables at the bottom are easily comprehensible). http://www.grurifrasca.net/Sito/Ricarica/pistole/9glisenti.html
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  21. "Corpo Forestale dello Stato". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Forestry_Corps
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  22. Sometimes inventors are simple guys. Sosso was probably fond of his work, and wanted to give samples of it to important personalities to make it known.
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  23. Although not a direct conversion, the Cei-Rigott bolt was clearly inspired by the Schmidt-rubin.
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  24. Only in 1977, altough many assault rifles had already been designed for it, since the parent cartridge was already in use by the US. The French, that had to replace the ageing MAS 49/56, adopted the FAMAS right after, in 1978. British and Italians adopted a 5.56 Assault rifle in 1985 (L85-A1 and Beretta AR 70/90), and the Germans waited until 1995 for the G36.
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  25. I can see a lot of stovepipes with that relatively small eject window so far from the actual chamber. Apart from that, it seems a well tought design, with a remarkably low bore-axis.
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  26. The Beretta MG42/59 reduces the fire-rate by reducing the pressure in the muzzle booster (infact its muzzle booster has small holes perforating its "dome"), however is a delicate balance since, by reducing the speed of the bolt without enhancing its weight, you reduce it's energy, that's required to pull the belt also.
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  27. The first samples were real rifles, in 6mm Flobert or .22 Short. Then it was deemed too dangerous, and they were made blanks. Germans simply had less time to evalute the incidents (Hitler came to power later), or cared less.
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  28. There were blanks, and firing ones, the laters in 6mm Flobert or in .22 Short.
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  29. 11.43mm is the diameter of the projectile. 11.25mm is probably the diameter between the lands of the barrel.
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  30. Rotating barrel, tilting barrel and tilting locking block are different ways to obtain the same thing, a short-recoil breechlock handgun. Every system has its pros and cons.
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  31. The PA-15 uses the same system of the Savage 1907.
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  32. The locking lugs all around the barrel are kind of an overkill. They are not really needed. By simply interrupting the ridges on top of the barrel of a standard 1911 (so that they lock-unlock by rotating the barrel) you would have had the same number of locking surfaces (three) mantaining the slim profile of the 1911. The Beretta Cougar / PX4 only have one locking surface.
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  33. Yeah. The magazine safety is a foolproof safety (for those that remove the magazine, but forget the round in the chamber) but, if you really need to fire the gun without a magazine...
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  34. It's a foolproof safety. For those that think to have unloaded the gun by removing the magazine, forgetting about the round in the chamber. It's the most common cause of unintentional discharges.
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  35. Patents on industrial designs last for 14 years, extendable to 21. So they expire pretty fast.
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  36.  @LunaDevaKitty  In WWI they used it, since the LMGs and HMGs the French gave them were in 8mm Lebel. They used .303 British too, since the rifles the US troops used the most in WWI were British-provided Lee-Enfields.
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  37. On the other hand, in respect to it's disadvantages, the advantage of bullpups desing compactness in tansport is often void if compared to standard designs with collapsible stock (that bullpups can't have). Comparing the FAMAS and the Steyr AUG with another 5.56 NATO European design of the same years (the Beretta SC70/90), we see that the SC70/90, with the stock collapsed, is 756mm long with a 450mm barrel. The FAMAS is 757mm long with 488mm barrel, The AUG is 790mm long with 508mm barrel. So, the lenght advantages of the FAMAS and AUG designs, for the same barrel lenght, are of mere 36mm (1.4 inches) and 24mm (1 inch) respectively. Hardly noticeable when the rifle is carried by a soldier in a truck. The French are leaving these not cause the project is faulty, but cause they have no more a state-owned small weapons manufacturer. To hire a foreign contractor to redesign the weapon to the most recent standards (large use of polymer in the receiver to contain weight and adding the rails, redesign of the action to reduce the ROF and provide a smoother extraction, redesign of the bolt to reduce the time required to switch the ejection to left/right) and produce it, will be more expensive than selecting a modern assault rifle already on the market.
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  38. It's not from the '80s, it's from the '50s. In the '80s Bernardelli produced the very good P0.18 ( https://www.gunstorebunker.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/BERNARDELLI-P018-MIL-1.jpg ).
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  39.  @Matt_The_Hugenot  Unfortunately the Italian competitor in the market was the Beretta M1951, a really good pistol. But in a small semi-artigianal company like Bernardelli at the time, there was simply A LOT of people that knew how to assemble an handgun, starting out of nothing but using existing solutions (nothing in that pistols is really new, they are assemblies of well estabilished ideas) without a blueprint. Probably someone simply said "why don't we try to produce a 9mm para pistol?" and the answer was "why not? Maybe something good can came out of it".
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  40. Unfortunately in Europe there was only a limited market for 9mm Para pistols at the time. Or you managed to get a public contract (army, police forces...) or the model was doomed, regardless of the quality.
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  41. 9mm Largo it's another name of the 9X23mm cartridge. 9mm Lungo is another name or the 9mm M38 cartridge, that's an extra-hot 9x19 mm Parabellum. They are not the same round, and are not compatible in any way.
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  42. The Finns actually worsened the sights, asking for them to be zeroed at 100m instead of 200m before the rifles being delivered. That way they were practicaly useless past 150m, well into combat distance. BTW the M16 had a two aperture sight, where the battle sight was zeroed at 250m and served 0 to 300m. The long range sight (300m to 400m) was practically never used (the US army didn't, and doesn't, train past 300m).
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  43.  @grrrexky  For that matter (no, the irony didn't pass over my head), tested by the Allies after the war, Italian shells proved to be more reliable than German ones. Not a big feat if you count that, of 4 hits of the Bismarck on the Prince Of Wales, only two shells exploded.
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  44.  @Jay22222  You referred to it in your comment, and I recalled that perfectly comparable sights became common after WWII.
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  45. The Finns actually worsened the sights, asking for them to be zeroed at 100m instead of 200m before the rifles being delivered. That way they were practicaly useless past 150m, well into combat distance.
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  46. The M16 had a 250m zeroed battlesight, used from 0 to 300m. The long range aperture was never really used.
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  47. A shame Drachinifel contributed to spread that bogus info. Infortunately he does not read Italian, so he has to rely on what he finds in English. Second hand sources, wartime propaganda, etc... A common problem between self-made historians. The only source for the problem with Italian naval shells was Adm. Iachino, that had to justify his fiasco at Gaudo / Cape Matapan, and had been debunked by other sources, IE Adm. Emilio Brenta. Reality is that in the conditions of the clash at Gaudo, no WWII battleship would have hit anything. As a matter of fact, the Italian 152mm and 203mm are the only Cruiser naval guns that obtained some +20km hits during WWII (even twice in the same battle, so it was not a fluke).
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  48. The Finns actually worsened the sights, asking for them to be zeroed at 100m instead of 200m before the rifles being delivered. That way they were practicaly useless past 150m, well into combat distance.
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  49. In reality much of the difference you see in respect to the STG 44 is given by the high bore axis of the Volkssturmgewehr and not by the action itself.
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  50. Infact that was the intended tactic. Any member of the squad is a LMG gunner if he's in the right position. First he covers the others, then someone else covers him.
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