Comments by "" (@neutronalchemist3241) on "AMELI: Spain's Not-Mini-MG42 in 5.56mm" video.

It's an exceptionally well thought-out gun that ended up being exceptionally poorly built. The problem was that the Santa Barbara Arsenal had not mass produced anything for decades before the AMELI (the problem with state-owned arsenals, that made so they went out of fashion, except for maintenance. You can’t really stop and resume, at years distance, making firearms, and expect acceptable quality standards, or to iron-out all the industrialization problems). Something happened between the industrialization and the production phases, that made so the guns literally self-dismantled in the hands of the operators. It’s a shame a proper weapon manufacturer had not put its hands on the design.
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@studentaviator3756 It's an exceptionally well thought-out gun that ended up being exceptionally poorly built. The problem was that the Santa Barbara Arsenal had not mass produced anything for decades before the AMELI (the problem with state-owned arsenals, that made so they went out of fashion, except for maintenance. You can’t really stop and resume, at years distance, making firearms, and expect acceptable quality standards, or to iron-out all the industrialization problems). Something happened between the industrialization and the production phases, that made so the production guns were flimsy and out of specs. Yeah. Had a proper gun manufacturer put its hands on the design, it could have ended up differently. In an alternate world, Beretta, instead of acquiring the production licence for the Minimi, could have acquired that for the AMELI.
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@flip849 Because Spain had a state owned arsenal. The previous CETME rifle had not manufacturing problems, so there weren't apparent reasons to not have the AMELI manufactured in the same arsenal. Fact is that you can’t really stop and resume, at years distance, making firearms, and expect acceptable quality standards, or to iron-out all the industrialization problems. But it's not easy to recognize there IS this problem. As said, look at the SA80. Equally made at a state-owned arsenal, that had similar problems. Is Britain a Mediterranean country?
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@flip849 Not necessarily. Think of the British SA80 (in that case the rifle was also poorly designed). There are many bits, a lot of know-how, in manufacturing firearms, that you know only if you manufacture firearms. Problems (of thicknesses, materials, welding...) that are absolutely obvious, without any calculation needed, for who is in the business, and that pass completely over the head of those that haven't that experience.
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@davidgoodnow269 It's a shame a proper gun manufacturer didn't put his hands on the AMELI design, ironing out the industrialization problems. U.S. Ordnance did that for the quite disastrous M60, and the M60e6 ended up seemingly being a good MG. In an alternate world IE, instead of acquiring the licence to produce the Minimi, Beretta could have acquired that for the AMELI.
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@lince18 Santa Barbara had been acquired by General Dynamics by then. It was no more a state owned arsenal.
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It's an exceptionally well thought-out gun that ended up being exceptionally poorly built. The problem was that the Santa Barbara Arsenal had not mass produced anything for decades before the AMELI (the problem with state-owned arsenals, that made so they went out of fashion, except for maintenance. You can’t really stop and resume, at years distance, making firearms, and expect acceptable quality standards, or to iron-out all the industrialization problems). Something happened between the industrialization and the production phases, that made so the guns literally self-dismantled in the hands of the operators. It’s a shame a proper weapon manufacturer had not put its hands on the design.
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Free floating barrels ARE fixed. Free floating means they are in contact with the receiver only at the base. Where they are usually screwed to it.
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Top tier design, terrible execution. Motivations vary. On one side, the Santa Barbara Arsenal had not mass produced anything for decades before the AMELI (the problem with state-owned arsenals, that made so they went out of fashion, except for maintenance. You can’t really stop and resume, at years distance, making firearms, and expect acceptable quality standards, or to iron-out all the industrialization problems). See similar problems for the British SA80 rifle (but there the design was flawed also). On the other, by some account, CETME deceived the government. To make the weapons up to spec with the (by any account) exceptional prototypes they would have costed much more than the government wanted to spend. They had to reduce the costs of the individual weapon in production by 40%, and so the disaster was served.
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