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

  1. In 1930 quick exchange barrels were pretty estabilished. To not have one in an air-cooled MG that even fires from a closed bolt is a pretty inexcusable mistake. Air-cooled, fires from a closed bolt, and it hasn't a quick exchange barrel = It's a magazine cook-off waiting to happen.
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  2.  @Jargolf86  The Breda 30 was surely slower reloading, had a more open shroud and a ridged barrel to aid cooling and, after the first battles, it was seen that its two spare barrel provision wasn't enought, and it had been increased to four. May be this barrel could resist a little more than that of the BAR (whose overheating was a common occurrence in WWII despite the open bolt that at least avoided the cook-off of an entire magazine), but it could surely overheat.
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  3. That was the MG15.
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  4. It's not easy to strip a gun of 2/3 of it's weight. It's easier to design a new one.
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  5.  @ineednochannelyoutube5384  It' hasn't. No barrel change that requires to open the receiver and extract the bolt is considered "quick".
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  6.  @nindger4270  Unfortunately, as said, the BAR stopping working in action due to overheating was a common occurrence in WWII. Maybe they didn't see the same people (see, for example, Robert R. Hodges Jr., Robert R. Hodge "The Browning Automatic rifle" p.42).
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  7.  @nindger4270  Yeah. And magazine-fed LMGs easily overheat if they don't have a quick exchange barrel and several spare barrels. That's why the ZB vz.26, the Bren, the FM 24/29, the Breda 30... all had a quick exchange barrel. That's why the BAR overheating was a common occurrence in WWII (but there the open bolt action at least avoided cooking-off an entire magazine) and that's why the Swedish added a quick exchange barrel to the BAR to make the M/37 LMG.
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  8. It's not exactly a competition between the best but, between this and the BAR, this is probably better.
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  9. While taking this monstrosity into serial production, Colt had the beautiful 1971 and SSP prototypes in some drawer.
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  10. Why the eagles are looking backward? It seems like they are laughing at the shooter.
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  11. The sad thing is that it didn't need any R&D really. It would have been enough to phone Bernardelli to ask them to manufacture a series of "more 1911 lookalike" P018 to market as Colt DA/SA pistols. Like IWI phoned Tanfoglio to manufacture a series of "more Desert Eagle lookalike" TA90 to market as Jericho 941. The gun already had all Colt wanted (Browning action, DA/SA, all steel construction, 1911-style safety, a built-in decocker in the last iterations...) and the manufacturer was obscure enough in the US to not make anyone say that Colt "copied" another gun (like for the Beretta-Vector-Colt Affair).
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  12. This was inadequate too. I can't figure out a DA/SA, metal framed, semiauto pistol that had some market success (and many that hadn't) in the '80s (and this one hit the market already in the '90s) that was worse than this. Worse takedown than any? Check. Low capacity? Check Heavy? Check. Fragile? Check. Crappy trigger? Check. ...
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  13. There are "better" 1911 around. This is not one. It's unnecessarily complicated, and fragile too.
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  14. It happens so often that "glock leg" (shooting himself while holstering or drawing the gun) had became a common term. Striker fired handguns are basically single action pistols with a cocked hammer, without safety and with a crappy trigger.
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  15.  @williepelzer384  Males didn't like the recoil too. An FBI Agent is not necessarily a gun enthusiast.
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  16. The Italian Variara SMG, that was an insurgent weapon used by the partisans, had cast aluminium grips, and the polish Błyskawica, another insurgent SMG, had cast aluminium buttstock. If an industrial production line had not been estabilished, to cast aluminium parts is easier than stamp or machine steel.
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  17. It’s rather questionable if an opening half way through the barrel, from where the spilled gas has to fill a relatively large space (like in the first pistol shown) can really act to delay the opening of the action until pressure drops to safe level. Probably it acts just like a buffer, preventing the slide to slam into the frame at a speed dangerous for the integrity of the gun (and detrimental for the comfort of the shooter), while the action is largely a pure blowback.
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  18.  @gloptron4408  The interrupted thread screw is a pain in the ass to make, but for the rest, yeah, the pieces are of a quite simple shape. Unfortunately, so many moving parts are a defect by itself. Too many things that can go wrong.
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  19. That's what happens when an inventor gets enamored of an idea. At a certain point, he realizes it's impractical in respect to other, established, solutions, but he wants to make it work.
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  20. How much overngineered do you want your gun?
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  21. The Thompson more or les worked, but the price to produce a SMG that simply worked was way too high, and it was very heavy for what it did (the M3 was an entire kg lighter).
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  22. It's actually quite surprising none noticed, during the development of the weapon, that the Blish lock was completely useless, and so, to leave it, would have added unnecessary complexity to the gun. However, that was not the last time. It had been only during WWII that someone bothered to see if the .30 Carbine round could be conveniently fired in a blowback sytem, and discovered that a 570 grams bolt was enough even for proofloads. All the M1 carbine manufactured, with their gas systems and rotating bolts, could have been replaced by much cheaper to produce, simpler to service, and even more reliable, blowback weapons.
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  23. That was not the last time. It had been only during WWII that someone bothered to see if the .30 Carbine round could be conveniently fired in a blowback sytem, and discovered that a 570 grams bolt was enough even for proofloads. All the M1 carbine manufactured, with their gas systems and rotating bolts, could have been replaced by much cheaper to produce, simpler to service, and even more reliable, blowback weapons.
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  24.  @wilsonj4705  The Glisenti was no more service cartridge in 1938 (there were still some Glisenti 1910 pistol used by officers, but it wasn't a problem to supply the few cartridges they needed with WWI leftovers) and the standard 9X19 Parabellum had never been adopted. The only 9x19 cartridge in the Italian inventory in WWII was the M38. Simply around the middle '30s Italians decided to separate the service handgun round (it'll be the .380ACP) from the service SMG round (it'll be the M38), so that they could have inexpensive blowback handguns and powerful SMGs. Germans nominally had the 9mm Parabellum for both handguns and SMGs, but in reality issued much more Walther PP and PPk, Mauser HSc and Sauer 38H in .32 ACP than Walther P38 (other than still fielding Mauser C96 in 7.63×25 Mauser).
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  25. Really the MAB38 was made to shoot the super-hot M38 cartridge, that's around 20% more powerful than a standard service 9X19 Parabellum.
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  26.  @_car5323  That same recoil spring would seem an overkill in a pistol firing the same caliber round.
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  27. Yeah. Standard MAB38 mags. They were very good (double feed) and there was plenty of them.
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  28. But the Beretta doesn't need to be disassembled to be field-stripped.
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  29. For 1934 It was VERY simple to make. The BAR, BREN, MG34 and Type99 (and both the BREN and MG1934 had been selected in 1938, the Type99 in 1939) had more complex machining. Among the most used LMGs of the time, Only the DP28 could be considered simpler to manufacture. Generally, though I like it, it seems like a promising prototype put in production before all the elements had been figured out throughly. Very good and simple operating mechanism, barrel change mechanism, general ergonomy, controls, gas settings… But three sets of lugs? That bipod (I’ve seen better in WWI)… no handle to grab a scorching hot barrel… And that magazine… It could have easily been so MUCH better.
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  30. It seems like a promising prototype put in production before all the elements had been figured out throughly. Very good and simple operating mechanism, barrel change mechanism, general ergonomy, controls, gas settings… But three sets of lugs? That bipod (I’ve seen better in WWI)… no handle to grab a scorching hot barrel… And that magazine… It could have easily been so MUCH better.
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  31. Googling "C.O.M. Westarm" or "Westarm fucile" you can see several images of the sample n.33, that has a far nicer "civilian" stock and a flash hider.
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  32. Spring strenght has practically no impact on opening time.
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  33. At that time the Somali government had good relations with Italy. It would have been surely possible.
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  34. Google "C.O.M. Westarm" or "Westarm fucile" and you'll easily find several images of the sample n.33, fully developed with a civilian/hunting stock, a flash hider and a scope. It was on sale some year ago in Italy.
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  35. No firearm (any single sample) can be sold by an Italian manufacturer without having been tested by a public proof house. The rifles obviously worked and cycled without signs of overpressure even when proofloaded. They had not been tested for field use, that requires different tolerancies than for range use. That was something that the designer should have taken into account when designing the rifle. Not something that the manufacturer could adjust by arbitrarily changing the given specs.
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  36. Still first gen. The entire bolt is behind the breech. That's why the magazine is so far from the trigger.
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  37. Not really. Like the Beretta Mab 38 it's only rational. The ejection port is on the left side because, when a right hander hold the rifle, it's easier to look into it that way.
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  38. Yes, and it has a lot of mass in the forward part of the bolt, that makes little sense since, for every weight you keep away from the front part, you have to add only a fraction of that weight to the rear part to have the same delay of opening. for a comparison, that's the bolt of a FNAB-43, a lever delayed SMG made in italy during WWII. https://www.traxarm.it/area/prod/img002727A.jpg In that case it's obvious the designer wanted the weight to be in the rear part.
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  39. The Italian FNAB-43 smg was lever delayed too (here the bolt https://www.traxarm.it/area/prod/img002727A.jpg ) but only 7000 had been made (during WWII).
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  40. Short recoil (the MG42 is even close to roller delayed blowback).
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  41. There is a double layer of safety. The decocker only decocks to half-cock and, even in case the sear fails, there's the firing-pin block.
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  42.  @alexm566  Most but not all.
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  43. It's not a question of grip angle. Italian pistols of the '70s were not made for HP, since armies don't use them, and expansive bullets were (as still are) banned for civilian use. If they worked well with HP it was only by chance. IE the Beretta 92, even the first series, work well with them because, due to the tilting lock design, it doesn't have a feed ramp. So there was no way to design it wrong for HP.
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  44. "Military" cartridges are not banned for civilians, where they are, because they are "dangerous". In Italy, when the 9x19 was banned for civilians, they could purchase plenty of more powerful rounds (.40 S&W, .45 ACP, 10mm Auto...). Those bans are made not to control the civilians, but the military. What the legislators wanted to avoid was, for the members of the armed forces, to privately purchase rounds for their service guns.
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  45. It would be great. Any patent for it expired ages ago (design patents last for 20 years), so anyone can make a perfect copy. However, it's an all forged steel gun. The tooling had been most likely scrapped. So to reintroduce the model would be quite expensive.
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  46.  @ihcfn  99% of semiauto pistol jams are magazine related.
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  47. Portugese.
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  48. Err... no.
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  49. The P018/P1 was an all forged steel gun. However casting is perfectly fine if done right. The CZ75 is notoriously casted, both frame and slide.
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  50. A swan. The Bernardelli Cigno (swan) is also their trademark semiauto shotgun.
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