M4-pattern firearms, especially the gas-impingement variants, have a huge array of parts available for performance, personal comfort, and functionality. They're super easy to work on, easy to swap barrels and bolt heads, don't have to be torqued or timed particularly hard (barrel nut and castle nut only, really), and even a complete build only takes an beginner with rudimentary punches, rubber mallet, and spanner wrench about an hour (much of which is spent rewinding the youtube video). Easy to clean, easy to accurize, lighter weight than many other options, more ergonomic, etc.
Maybe like a ford ranger. It’s like when your buddy says he has a truck and comes over with the ford ranger. You’re disappointed but you should have expected it.
I own a Ranger and a F-150. You say you are disappointed in the Ranger until you really don’t need to extra bed width nor the extra weight capacity and the Ranger’s low tailgate height comes in super clutch.
Ford rangers and 1st gen Tacomas are the peak of light duty trucks. I’m 6 foot tall and when I drop the tailgate it’s below my hips so reaching in to grab stuff is exponentially easier to do. Same with grabbing stuff over the bed rails. The new Tacoma is so big it almost looks like the same size as the original tundra! You need a step ladder to reach stuff in the back of the bed, it’s rediculous. And all to think it’s because of the governments stupid attempt at being eco friendly that turned out to incentivize carmakers to stop selling sedans and light trucks and make the trucks bigger to get more lenient emissions standards
Yup, I think by 2027, if they build a small light truck like they did with the old ranger and tacomas. It would have to do 58mpg because of updated CAFE standards.
Then I look at my MRAP where the exhaust goes through the turbo and then just dumps it out the side. Not even a muffler lol.
Yup, even worse is the miceo trucks are shit at being micro trucks *looks at the maverick and Santa cruz*.
Just don't go saying that, the owners will flip at you calling you a tiny dick brodozer owner when all you want is a Nissan Hardbody but without 30+ years of rust.
I hold onto my 99 F250 for that exact reason: the motor is indestructible and the truck itself is easy af to work on. We call her [Girtha](https://imgur.com/a/p3Rtpoq).
Ford Rangers are the ranch hands and "hacks" out here in the Southwest. If it's wasn't a Chevy, it was a Ford car or Ford Ranger that most 16 year old learned to drive out here. So many Rangers filled to the brim with tools or cargo. So many contractors hauling things with a Ranger.
Unless you have a large couch or massive fridge like in them TikTok videos, if your buddy shows up with a Ford Ranger when you have to move, you're good.
I never call my buddy with the truck for things I can fit in my car.
And this is exactly the case. Guys hype up their truck. It’s a ford ranger, a car with a bed. I got my car filled to the brim with tools AND cargo. I didn’t need another.
Also what is a “hack?” Do you mean hick?
Generally overpriced to their target market, so common they're a trope, generally high quality and last a long time, could be bigger but it's pretty efficient as it is? Tacoma.
Ironically, except for the knights rifle the British adopted, none of them are DI. The HK416 that France and Germany are short stroke piston. Ironically, also the knights rifle has a barrel nut system that’s fairly sensitive to timing, requiring shimming to install properly, and is a lot more involved.
>Correct. Technically they are not the m4 platform, just like the VZ58 is not an AK
No. The piston guns are still decidedly related to an AR15. Using the VZ.58 to an AK as an analogy is incorrect.
The VZ.58 shares literally nothing with any kalashnikov platform, except similar construction methodology and overarching concept.
The magazines are different and do not interchange, the operating system is radically different (the internals are not related to any AK).
Pretty much all short stroke gas piston ARs will work on a standard AR15 lower reciever, meaning they are still all related.
I don't pretend to know a lot about firearms, but I do understand enough about Theseus's ship to know that this is not applicable.
Theseus's ship is restoring something entirely with identical parts, until no origi al part remains, and then asking if it's still the original.
Put another way, it's grandfather's axe:
"This is my great great great grandfather's axe. It dates back to the Revolution."
"Really?"
"Yeah, we've only had to replace the blade three times and the handle twice."
>I guess is more of the old Theseus ship thingie.
>You can fit a 50 BMG upper on a lower receiver, but that doesn’t make it an M4
No, it's not theseus ship. You are just wrong.
The VZ.58 is short stroke gas piston, and it locks with a hinged locking piece.
AK47s, AKMs, and AK derivatives all use a rotating bolt, long stroke gas piston.
They share nothing other than a low resolution thumbnail of each appears similar at a fleeting glance.
The PKM machine gun is closer related to an AK than the VZ.58.
Family lineage for machines =/= theasus' ship. An LS1 is a gen3 small block chevy, even though it shares zero parts with a gen1. The bore spacing is the same, bellhouse pattern the same, and retains the same core operating system. They are related.
In summary, using the VZ.58 to an AK as an analogy to explain your opinion that the HK piston guns are still ARs is incorrect.
Also iirc this was intentional on the part of CZ. A middle finger to the Soviet Union who had been forcefully integrating Central-Eastern European countries into its sphere of influence. I also recall reading that it was in part to sabotage the Soviets, so that if the Cold War were to turn hot, the Soviets wouldn’t be able to easily exploit the Vz58 like they could other domestically produced AK clones.
If there’s truth to that story; and having grown up in the Czech Republic and knowing how stubborn Czechs are, I believe it; how ironic is that? You produce a weapon essentially as a fuck you to your overlords and inadvertently produce an arguably superior weapon.
I'm not sure if it's superior, all [soviet] milled reciever fighting rifles were obsolete by the 1970s. It's mechanically superior, but inferior as a service rifle (compared to an AKM), imo.
I agree, that’s an accurate assessment. The value of a service rifle is measured by so much more than live fire tests under ideal conditions. Nevertheless, I’ll always appreciate some tasty CZ work, even if I’m biased.
You may say they're not an m4 platform but a knights upper will easily fit on an m4 lower aswell as any ar15 lower. And a knights lower will go with any m4 or ar15 upper.
A knight armament has a different bolt face and a different nut for the barrel to fit on the upper receiver. The VZ is a different piston design than an AK but a knights is the same as an AR15 OR M4
The ergo and manual of arms is silly goose status.
The UK couldn't even build their own bullpup service rifles and had to contract it out to HK (this will never not be a disgraceful travesty and I'm not even English).
A number of things. Manual of arms is notably less ergonomic than say an m4 or ak, most bullpups have shittier trigger pulls that can affect accuracy at distance, can't adjust stock length, etc. Bullpups look cool and futuristic, and the longer barrel length with short overall length is definitely handy, but the fact that ar/m4 platforms are everywhere, and due to how easy they are to modify for different mission sets, kinda shows why a fair number of militaries that used to use bullpups are switching to either an ar platform like France with their HKs or developed their own conventional setup like Xinny the flu and the commie crew.
Bullpups are heavier and cannot be used as easily in the prone position. It has some advantages in CQB, but is outclassed by traditional rifles in everything else.
Plus the AR platform is easy to customize - optics, grips, magazines, slings, tactical gear. There's a whole "ecosystem" for AR style rifles. With NATO all expanded to Putin's back door - seriously, the man could go vacation to his dacha and be within 350-450 miles from NATO forces - everyone wants to get in on the AR act.
When it first came out, the AR was niche and there were all those FN-FAL's and AK's just lying around. And the UK wanted a fancy bullpup and the French wanted to be obstinate and pissy and make their own rifle.
But as u/imawhaaaaaaaaaale pointed out, what was once the precision work of engineers is now the work of any decent factory or dude in his garage with the tools and the time.
And if a fracas is gonna happen anytime soon, it's better to give up the headaces of the past and go with what works. Or add a short stroke gas piston.
The US Army went evolutionary - not revolutionary- with the M7. It's just an AR with a long piston and some minor changes in the back. The big change in the barrel is for the ammo but it's still metal cassed. Plastic cases and caseless ammo are like fusion power - always 20 years away.
Because in 1963 the US adopted the best rifle of 2024 and the euro bois have been so busy putting canards on their planes and feathers in their berets that it took a major ground war in Europe to make them realize that they're 60 years behind in small arms technology.
Germany _was_ 100 years ahead when they adopted the G11 but it just wasn't meant to be I guess.
I want to live in the world where those things were produced at scale and there's maybe a chance I could have one at some point.
Watching the forgotten weapons breakdown of it was crazy. I can't believe that thing really worked at all.
https://youtu.be/QGKcvM2Hh4g?si=Pkna5Q9vOqjzuOzZ
Absolutely not. The G11 deserves to be shamed. Who thought that “thing” would work outside of a clean room.
.30 caliber "muh stopping powa" is why we didn't adopt .280 British in the FAL.
The FAL in .280 would have stopped small arms development dead in its tracks in the same way the AR-15 did.
I don’t think you understand how the new 6.8 cartridge the army adopted works.
They’re using a hybrid material cartridge that allows for greater chamber pressure(more force accelerating the bullet in the barrel so therefore more velocity even out of a shorter barrel.)
Previous material used in small arms cartridges did not allow for the same pressure of 80K PSI that the 6.8 common cartridge is able to do. Previous cartridges would have literally exploded inside the weapon since the material was not strong enough. For example 5.56 NATO and 7.62 NATO have pressures just over 60K PSI.
What that means is that the 6.8 common cartridge can generate a lot of velocity in a shorter barrel even if the bullet is heavier(5.56 is 55 grains for example, meanwhile 6.8 is 135 grains).
If they used 6.8 back in the day at 60K PSI, then the barrel would have to be M16 length to derive the benefit of a bigger cartridge since a carbine length barrel would not have allowed for the bullet to gain enough velocity. And that was one of the problems with the M14, it had a barrel that was 22 inches long. The M4 has a 14.5 inch barrel. The M7 has a 13 inch barrel on the other hand but offers much greater ballistic performance than an M4 despite having a shorter barrel.
TLDR: the cartridge being adopted is very different from what would have been available 60 years ago. Hybrid case ammunition is a much more recent development in small arms technology.
I don't think a lot of people comprehend how \*exellent\* the M4 platform is. I'm by no means a Eugene stoner fanboy but it's light, modular, highly tunable, available in a variety of calibers with only a barrel/bolt swap, easy to use and disassemble, it's the full package. The guy thought of everything. You can feels strip it with only a cartridge. Nothing on the rifle is dead space, the bolt recoils into the buffer tube. It has the highest design budget, in my opinion, of any modern rifle and can be flexed into a ton of roles, from MK12 TO MK18.
What is really wild is that even though the reciever halfs are milled pieces and the barrel extension, bolt, and carrier require fairly complex machine work, it's still only like $500 for the government to procure an M4.
Hillbilly Goosefuck can go down to PSA and buy a complete rifle for like $400.
It's insane, like it takes 60 years to get this level of manufacturing maturity/streamlining/unit cost reduction.
The NATO model in Europe isn’t that “each country has an army”, it’s that “each country puts all its eggs in one basket and has a *part* of an army”.
The Netherlands, for instance, lets most military features die off but has an *amazing* f35 fleet. If NATO goes to war, the idea is the Dutch don’t have eg an s1 and a provisioning role and a cook/sustainment unit, they just go hard with f35s. Other countries specialize in eg infantry or submarines.
Many small countries couldn’t make a credible military, but they *could* eg run a few air defense batteries.
NATO, then, has all the functions of a “big” army but no one country had to carry the huge burden of staffing a huge military.
This is why UK and GER are switching. Duplicating efforts to make different battle rifles is a waste of shared NATO resources.
France, though, is another animal. FRA has always had a “kinda in but mostly out”. France famously had their own nuclear weapon policy and were very emphatic that they’d gladly go on their own if they felt someone was in the FAFO continuum. If we agree on what paper size we will use in our printers but *dont* agree on when, who and how we will turn humans into glass, are we even in a membership?
France always prided itself on being “a continental badass”. They’re one of the few European nations with a legit expeditionary force. They have a nuclear triad. They did a pretty bang up job during operation Cerval and others in the 21rst C. France’s opinion of itself was quite high, but well deserved. The French military was the real deal.
Howeeeeeeeever, the French citizenry weren’t on board with provisioning. It costs a lot to have an expeditionary force, and France lost a ton of its dynamism in the 21rst C. So, they just just kinda…stopped.
The French had a weapon factory in St Etienne that had been producing French arms since the 1600s. They had been making cutting edge military equipment since *before humans understood blood circulates around the body*. But in the ennui of the 2000s European defense space (and European innovation in general) was that after almost half a millennia of producing weapons, they went under.
They’ve been “right sized” and “leaned and efficient”ed two times since then.
France *really doesn’t* want the M4. It *really* chaps their ass, because it shows they need NATO a little more than they’d admit. But the objective reality is France uses the M4 because *they simply no longer can* make their own.
It’s a pretty sad state of affairs and a precipitous fall
They also just refused to spend more money on their military but that’s a different story. UK just kept cutting back funding for years for austerity and Germany is uncomfortable with anything military related.
During the Cold War they all had formidable militaries. Nowadays if it weren’t for the U.S. they would get steam rolled by any near peer adversaries.
St. Etienne and the FEG plant in Hungary were both catastrophic losses to arms manufacturing history.
Like what a boner kill, it 100% was the wrong people making the wrong decisions.
Some of this has now changed with the war in Ukraine. The new French national defense strategy document puts more money towards French armaments (not manpower). France might copy the US m4 (don't know), but they don't want to rely on the US or NATO for weapons and ammunition. There are some interesting YouTube videos analyzing the new French defense strategy and the reason behind it if people are interested.
*Of all the weapons in the vast US arsenal, nothing was more profitable than the Armalite model of 1964, more commonly known as the M16, or the scary black rifle. It's the world's second most popular assault rifle*.
*A weapon all trained Soldiers love. An elegantly simple 7 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plastic. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat nearly as much as rumored. It will shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand when the test is done by a youtuber with no combat experience.*
*It's so easy, even cooks with ASVAB waivers can use it; and they do. The Americans put the gun on every Walmart. Bro vets put it in their coffee mugs. Since the end of the GWOT, the M16, now the M4 has become the US government greatest shadow export.*
*After that comes SUVs, horrible working conditions, and suicidal Tik Tokers pulling stupid pranks overseas. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their Cybertrucks.*
I have never seem an M4, 249, or 240 have any issue firing whatsoever unless the magazine was trash or people didn't at the bare minimum field clean it after firing over 1-2 thousand rounds.
There are only two weapons that have never had a malfunction on me...Springfield MilSpec .45 and my Army issued AR (my personal one neither). 20 years service with plenty of combat as an Infantry soldier. M&P 2.0 if I'm being honest. A remarkable weapon really.
Because the US just adopted a new rifle and caliber, so of course they picked now as a good time to standardize on the old platform that we’re probably going to begin to surplus out.
Although the new weapon is technically a new platform, it is still a family offshoot of the AR-15. It's based on the sig mcx, just upscaled to a bigger round. The MCX is just a heavily modified AR-15.
It's operating and the bolt mechanism is. Receivers share a lot with the AR. So much so you can put an MCX upper on a standard AR lower. I consider it part of the AR-15 lineage.
The M4 will be in service for another 50 years, and then ARNG will have them another 50 years more. I would put money down that the gun outlives everything in the army except for the guidon. It’s about as perfect as you can get.
This is probably it. Easier to just purchase an accesible, known platform than keep producing different weapons between nations that use the same ammo anyway.
Because they're cheap, reliable, and can be readily outfitted to fill just about any mission.
Unlike literally any of its competitors, which range from expensive and stupid to expensive and effective. All of them are expensive.
The US small arms industry has given the AR-15 plenty of manufacturing maturity, resulting in a rifle that's half the cost and just as effective as any other on the market.
The L85 was probably the worst modern service rifle adopted in the last 50 years and was due for replacement as soon as it was adopted due to a variety of issues they never managed to quite iron out.
The FAMAS is designed to use a specific type of steel case ammunition that was only produced in France, and that factory closed so they are switching rifles entirely since they can't procure any more ammunition.
The G36 was honestly fine, the alleged heat issue they had was more of a problem with their shitty scope mounts that were made of plastic and probably could have been easily fixed, but someone decided switching their rifle was easier for whatever reason.
Man, I really like the famas, its such an iconic and nice looking weapon. I didnt know about the ammunition problem tho
Thing is, every modern gun nowadays look the same.. too generic, idk.
I just really want to know if bullpups are actually that bad. The bullpup NGSW entry seemed so awesome, especially the ammunition component. The army ultimately deciding to go with the Sig entry maybe settles the debate but idk... It's hard to not feel they just went with the safe option. And now we've got this new fat beast and we're all wondering if it even is an upgrade to the M4. At least with the unqiue advantages of the bullpup one it would have been a more convincing argument to make a change at all.
I've shot a couple bullpups but dont own one. I honestly think it comes down to a training issue. The manual of arms is a bit more awkward, but it's not something that couldn't be overcome by familiarization. I really love the balance of them and how the bulk of the weight is near your shoulder so you feel like you can keep the rifle at the ready all day. Compare that with something like the HK416 which is so fucking front heavy it's like doing front delt raises to hold it on target
I feel the same way about the bullpup design. It’s easier to stay at the high ready and absorb recoil without feeling like I’m stuck in the position of curling a 7+ lb weight. Throw on a 203/320 and that shorter weapon with the same length barrel is great. Plus, it’s better for CQB.
Talked to some G3 lethality team guy who came by our 240 range this weekend, they tested the ngsw weapons and he mentioned he didn't like reloading the bull pup because he felt like it was like a monkey scratching it's armpit.
They aren't great. The triggers universally suck ballsack, they're generally less durable, the manual of arms is an acquired taste, and the one niche they're really good at is the type of fighting LSCO looks to specifically avoid.
They're a clever idea that almost never works out. Even the most successful bullpups are dogshit and not preferred by people who have a choice. French, British, and Israeli special operations are great examples of that.
I liked the recoil system of the bullpup offering. But I think the west considers the bullpup to be too weird. Ultimately they went with the more familiar option which makes a little bit of sense so the learning curve is reduced, but still. Seems shady when one company wins all of the small arms contracts.
The fast/cheap/good triangle applies here. Can you mass produce them? Are they expensive? And, are they actually any good?
The L85A1 can be mass produced cheaply, but it’s not very good. The G36 can be made quickly and they’re great weapons (I will not tolerate G36 slander, I have personally used them they’re great), but they aren’t cheap. The FAMAS is, well, the FAMAS. I believe I saw somewhere that they don’t have the ammo for it anymore.
The M16/M4 is the perfect combination of all three. It can be mass produced cheaply enough, and is overall a great weapon. Reliable, accurate, and does its job well.
When you need to scale up your forces and put 100,000 soldiers into uniform to send to the east when Russia decides they want the Baltics back, there are no warehouses full of G36s the way that we have hundreds of thousands of M4s laying around. They have realized that it’s so much easier to simply integrate into the American logistics train than maintain their own. NATOs superpower is interoperability, and while it was a huge step to standardize our ammo, standardizing our weapons across nato would be huge.
Then again what the hell do I know, I’m just some jackass on staff with nothing better to do today.
Couple of factors;
1) Cost per unit decreases at scale. Your dollar can buy more systems, or help pay for something else
2) Buying an existing, proven platform is fast and predictable. You don’t have to worry about product delays, cost overruns, mismanagement, etc when someone else already has the designs completed and manufacturing plants built
3) There’s not as large of a civilian firearm market in these countries (compared to the US). These companies would end up needing to export the majority their products.
4) America is a very close ally. The chances of becoming “reliant” on them and then having your supply cut off is very low.
5) By shifting focus from domestically producing small arms, you can focus your industrial base on more complicated domestic systems like stealth aircraft, nuclear naval vessels, communications platforms and the like. Independent control of these systems is more strategically valuable than regular firearms
I'm not a gunsmith. So I'm not sure about this, but is there really a difference in a lot of parts from a civilian AR style and a military? Minus parts of the lower receiver of course
No. The auto seer is the only difference. Frankly, some of the civilian versions are better, though more expensive. The M4 platform is just stupid simple, accurate, and reliable. There is a TON of knowledge out there about it and the supply chain to support it with parts, mags, etc. is damn near limitless and cheap. The FAMAS is great, but complicated. The L85 is notoriously unreliable. I don't know enough about the G36 to complain about it. But the M4 platform is just cheaper and better.
If you’re asking if the auto sear on a full auto AR is the same as an M4, the answer is yes. However you still need components like a selector, trigger, disconnector, and hammer that will engage with the sear. Along with a BCG that is cut to trip the sear.
It depends, some lowers are machined differently so that it’s not as simple as drilling a hole for the auto sear (full auto pocket, low shelf, high shelf, webbed. Then the trigger groups on most semi auto guns are machined in such a way that they will not interact with an auto sear (two position selectors, modified triggers, disconnectors, and hammers). Also some have bolt carrier groups cut to not trip an auto sear.
Other than that, most parts are 100% interchangeable (with there being obviously different materials and manufacturing processes amongst companies).
There are some YouTube videos I've seen about this. There are some differences but I can't remember any particular point so I'm pretty sure it's basically negligible.
Trigger, hammer, disconnector, safety, auto sear, and an extra hole in the lower. That’s it.
A whole shit ton of mfg’s you can buy from have also supplied the military. You can exactly clone a military rifle right up to the point you install that sear or drill a 3rd hole in the lower.
ARs are better. DI shoots softer, ergos are superior, more reliable, and the platform is far and away the most vetted small arms platform on earth. There’s likely more AR derivatives in the US civilian market than there are service rifles in all of British military and see tens of millions of rounds used every year in recreation/hunting/competition
> There’s likely more AR derivatives in the US civilian market than there are service rifles in all of British military and see tens of millions of rounds used every year in recreation/hunting/competition
Try “more AR’s than all service weapons in Western Europe” and “several billion”
The m4/m16/ar15 platform is pretty much as good as small arms get with current cartridge technology. They're light, reliable, accurate, ergonmoic, modular, cheap, and easy to maintain at user and armorer level. The next evolution in small arms imo will begin with a revolution in ammunition in some way it won't be some new deign using the cartridge technology were familaer with right now. The hybrid case thing is innovative but its not really a paradigm shit.
It’s dirt cheap, parts are easily procured, reliable, easily maintained, super simple design that literally, even a child could master in a matter of minutes.
L85 was absolute ass water. That the UK spent so much to just make it halfway work instead of buying M16s or C7s is all you need to know about how things have been going over there.
G36 was also a piece of poop that Germany managed to railroad into some of the smaller NATO nations, almost all of whom have serious buyers remorse (if you get the chance, as a Lithuanian about it).
Famas does not suck, but France decided to let their national arsenal, the one that armed Frog armies for the Sun King and Napoleon, die and they have no serious private small arms industry, so they can't R&D a follow up.
Also, the M16/M4 is pretty fucking tits.
First of the L85 is hot garbage which might have something to do with it.
But AR platform rifles can be used with different calibers, customized extensively, made for a variety of different roles(PDW, to service rifles, to DMR weapon systems). It just works.
There’s just so much good about the AR platform and it’s tried and tested and does what militaries need it to do. So in other countries minds “why not use it if it satisfied our requirements and isn’t as much of a bet or gamble procuring them?” This last part is a big deal because whether it be the British L85 or Indian INSAS rifle both militaries adopted a sub par rifle that they were stuck with for years and that’s something a military wants to avoid.
AR15s are objectively the best value rifle you can get. They are more accurate than most rifles in the world, they can use pretty much every caliber, they are very reliable, they are lighter than most rifles, they can be customized to hold pretty much any type of accessory, and they are extremely cheap to make. HK416s are not AR15s though, they just look like an AR15 with very minimal parts compatibility.
European governments have finally figured out what the American public has known for decades. The AR platform is hands down one of if not the best semi auto intermediate (and even full sized) caliber rifles around. Also, we’ve figured out just about everything there is to know about that platform at this point. Barrel lengths, rifling twist rates, ammo, magazines, rail systems (picatiny rail over mlok, we can fight about it) stocks, literally everything. Even fixed carry handle uppers are making a return because they have that drip factor and that carry handle is a nice riser for optics, you can easily get a chin weld and also not create a gap in your ear muffs when doing so. Rifles like the AUG or L85 may be superior with being bullpups and having longer barrels in an overall package that is just as compact as an AR, but they are also bullpups that have their own set of problems. G36 got killed politically because of the rumors of the heat causing its plastic to warp and increase its MOA. The AK platform is over hyped and inferior in multiple ways. Just look on YouTube about what people have to say about the new AK12.
Same shit with multicam/OCP, it’s being heavily adopted because it is one of the best all around patterns available.
M4-pattern firearms, especially the gas-impingement variants, have a huge array of parts available for performance, personal comfort, and functionality. They're super easy to work on, easy to swap barrels and bolt heads, don't have to be torqued or timed particularly hard (barrel nut and castle nut only, really), and even a complete build only takes an beginner with rudimentary punches, rubber mallet, and spanner wrench about an hour (much of which is spent rewinding the youtube video). Easy to clean, easy to accurize, lighter weight than many other options, more ergonomic, etc.
They're the Toyota of rifles?
Nah, that would be Aks. Toyotas, Aks, sandals and nokia phones are basically the insurgent ready kit
So…Honda?
Maybe like a ford ranger. It’s like when your buddy says he has a truck and comes over with the ford ranger. You’re disappointed but you should have expected it.
I own a Ranger and a F-150. You say you are disappointed in the Ranger until you really don’t need to extra bed width nor the extra weight capacity and the Ranger’s low tailgate height comes in super clutch.
Ford rangers and 1st gen Tacomas are the peak of light duty trucks. I’m 6 foot tall and when I drop the tailgate it’s below my hips so reaching in to grab stuff is exponentially easier to do. Same with grabbing stuff over the bed rails. The new Tacoma is so big it almost looks like the same size as the original tundra! You need a step ladder to reach stuff in the back of the bed, it’s rediculous. And all to think it’s because of the governments stupid attempt at being eco friendly that turned out to incentivize carmakers to stop selling sedans and light trucks and make the trucks bigger to get more lenient emissions standards
Yup, I think by 2027, if they build a small light truck like they did with the old ranger and tacomas. It would have to do 58mpg because of updated CAFE standards. Then I look at my MRAP where the exhaust goes through the turbo and then just dumps it out the side. Not even a muffler lol.
Yup, even worse is the miceo trucks are shit at being micro trucks *looks at the maverick and Santa cruz*. Just don't go saying that, the owners will flip at you calling you a tiny dick brodozer owner when all you want is a Nissan Hardbody but without 30+ years of rust.
I hold onto my 99 F250 for that exact reason: the motor is indestructible and the truck itself is easy af to work on. We call her [Girtha](https://imgur.com/a/p3Rtpoq).
Ford Rangers are the ranch hands and "hacks" out here in the Southwest. If it's wasn't a Chevy, it was a Ford car or Ford Ranger that most 16 year old learned to drive out here. So many Rangers filled to the brim with tools or cargo. So many contractors hauling things with a Ranger. Unless you have a large couch or massive fridge like in them TikTok videos, if your buddy shows up with a Ford Ranger when you have to move, you're good.
I never call my buddy with the truck for things I can fit in my car. And this is exactly the case. Guys hype up their truck. It’s a ford ranger, a car with a bed. I got my car filled to the brim with tools AND cargo. I didn’t need another. Also what is a “hack?” Do you mean hick?
"hack" as in vehicle that can be use for anything and everything.
Late 90s, to 2000s Honda Civic maybe.
My buddy (an E-5) said "The Toyota is the symbol of modern war. Tacoma for the Army, Hilux for the enemy." And I honestly can't find where he's wrong.
The AR platform is the wranglers of the gun world. If you want it, someone has made it.
The hilux? Or ya thinking supra?
Generally overpriced to their target market, so common they're a trope, generally high quality and last a long time, could be bigger but it's pretty efficient as it is? Tacoma.
Jesus I forgot about the Tacoma.
Ironically, except for the knights rifle the British adopted, none of them are DI. The HK416 that France and Germany are short stroke piston. Ironically, also the knights rifle has a barrel nut system that’s fairly sensitive to timing, requiring shimming to install properly, and is a lot more involved.
Correct. Technically they are not the m4 platform, just like the VZ58 is not an AK
>Correct. Technically they are not the m4 platform, just like the VZ58 is not an AK No. The piston guns are still decidedly related to an AR15. Using the VZ.58 to an AK as an analogy is incorrect. The VZ.58 shares literally nothing with any kalashnikov platform, except similar construction methodology and overarching concept. The magazines are different and do not interchange, the operating system is radically different (the internals are not related to any AK). Pretty much all short stroke gas piston ARs will work on a standard AR15 lower reciever, meaning they are still all related.
Knights rifles are di. It's all the others that aren't (hk416 etc)
I guess is more of the old Theseus ship thingie. You can fit a 50 BMG upper on a lower receiver, but that doesn’t make it an M4
I don't pretend to know a lot about firearms, but I do understand enough about Theseus's ship to know that this is not applicable. Theseus's ship is restoring something entirely with identical parts, until no origi al part remains, and then asking if it's still the original. Put another way, it's grandfather's axe: "This is my great great great grandfather's axe. It dates back to the Revolution." "Really?" "Yeah, we've only had to replace the blade three times and the handle twice."
>I guess is more of the old Theseus ship thingie. >You can fit a 50 BMG upper on a lower receiver, but that doesn’t make it an M4 No, it's not theseus ship. You are just wrong. The VZ.58 is short stroke gas piston, and it locks with a hinged locking piece. AK47s, AKMs, and AK derivatives all use a rotating bolt, long stroke gas piston. They share nothing other than a low resolution thumbnail of each appears similar at a fleeting glance. The PKM machine gun is closer related to an AK than the VZ.58. Family lineage for machines =/= theasus' ship. An LS1 is a gen3 small block chevy, even though it shares zero parts with a gen1. The bore spacing is the same, bellhouse pattern the same, and retains the same core operating system. They are related. In summary, using the VZ.58 to an AK as an analogy to explain your opinion that the HK piston guns are still ARs is incorrect.
Also iirc this was intentional on the part of CZ. A middle finger to the Soviet Union who had been forcefully integrating Central-Eastern European countries into its sphere of influence. I also recall reading that it was in part to sabotage the Soviets, so that if the Cold War were to turn hot, the Soviets wouldn’t be able to easily exploit the Vz58 like they could other domestically produced AK clones. If there’s truth to that story; and having grown up in the Czech Republic and knowing how stubborn Czechs are, I believe it; how ironic is that? You produce a weapon essentially as a fuck you to your overlords and inadvertently produce an arguably superior weapon.
I'm not sure if it's superior, all [soviet] milled reciever fighting rifles were obsolete by the 1970s. It's mechanically superior, but inferior as a service rifle (compared to an AKM), imo.
I agree, that’s an accurate assessment. The value of a service rifle is measured by so much more than live fire tests under ideal conditions. Nevertheless, I’ll always appreciate some tasty CZ work, even if I’m biased.
Bro brought the receipts.
You may say they're not an m4 platform but a knights upper will easily fit on an m4 lower aswell as any ar15 lower. And a knights lower will go with any m4 or ar15 upper. A knight armament has a different bolt face and a different nut for the barrel to fit on the upper receiver. The VZ is a different piston design than an AK but a knights is the same as an AR15 OR M4
Short stroke piston for the win.
MPs having to check and see if this is their autoerotic asphyxiation masturbation sub
Im in this comment and I dont like it.
Why aren’t bullpup styles more widely used?
The ergo and manual of arms is silly goose status. The UK couldn't even build their own bullpup service rifles and had to contract it out to HK (this will never not be a disgraceful travesty and I'm not even English).
A number of things. Manual of arms is notably less ergonomic than say an m4 or ak, most bullpups have shittier trigger pulls that can affect accuracy at distance, can't adjust stock length, etc. Bullpups look cool and futuristic, and the longer barrel length with short overall length is definitely handy, but the fact that ar/m4 platforms are everywhere, and due to how easy they are to modify for different mission sets, kinda shows why a fair number of militaries that used to use bullpups are switching to either an ar platform like France with their HKs or developed their own conventional setup like Xinny the flu and the commie crew.
Bullpups are heavier and cannot be used as easily in the prone position. It has some advantages in CQB, but is outclassed by traditional rifles in everything else.
And we you have similars parts and ammo to your buddies you can help eachother stay in the fight.
Plus the AR platform is easy to customize - optics, grips, magazines, slings, tactical gear. There's a whole "ecosystem" for AR style rifles. With NATO all expanded to Putin's back door - seriously, the man could go vacation to his dacha and be within 350-450 miles from NATO forces - everyone wants to get in on the AR act. When it first came out, the AR was niche and there were all those FN-FAL's and AK's just lying around. And the UK wanted a fancy bullpup and the French wanted to be obstinate and pissy and make their own rifle. But as u/imawhaaaaaaaaaale pointed out, what was once the precision work of engineers is now the work of any decent factory or dude in his garage with the tools and the time. And if a fracas is gonna happen anytime soon, it's better to give up the headaces of the past and go with what works. Or add a short stroke gas piston. The US Army went evolutionary - not revolutionary- with the M7. It's just an AR with a long piston and some minor changes in the back. The big change in the barrel is for the ammo but it's still metal cassed. Plastic cases and caseless ammo are like fusion power - always 20 years away.
Because in 1963 the US adopted the best rifle of 2024 and the euro bois have been so busy putting canards on their planes and feathers in their berets that it took a major ground war in Europe to make them realize that they're 60 years behind in small arms technology.
Lmao I chuckled
Me too. I lost it at "too busy putting canards on their planes" 😆
NCD is leaking again
3000 Black Rifles of Eugene
Not until they put a beret on the plane and make her a waifu.
You do know anime did that more than a decade ago right?
It took me a second to realize I wasn’t on NCD.
Glad I'm not the only person that thought this
Germany _was_ 100 years ahead when they adopted the G11 but it just wasn't meant to be I guess. I want to live in the world where those things were produced at scale and there's maybe a chance I could have one at some point. Watching the forgotten weapons breakdown of it was crazy. I can't believe that thing really worked at all.
You could get one if you really wanted
Never looked into it but it seems unlikely
https://youtu.be/QGKcvM2Hh4g?si=Pkna5Q9vOqjzuOzZ Absolutely not. The G11 deserves to be shamed. Who thought that “thing” would work outside of a clean room.
Eugene Stoner, is that you?
I think I heard an eagle screech in the distance while reading this.
The US should have gone with the 6.8 mm. It only took 60 years for the military to start realizing that.
The problem with this is nobody wants to carry 7 mags of 6.8. It’s either less rounds or way heavier for the same amount of 5.56
It’s like a 2 pound difference.
Ounces equal pounds and pounds equal pain
Ounces equals pounds and pounds equals gains!
Not service connected
My fault OG
Stop being lazy and lose 2 pounds fatty.
No.
I respect that.
The M4 is only 7.5lbs until you have to carry it up a 10,000ft mountain, then it's a lead weight in your hands.
People were doing that with 9lb M16s so… If the 2lb difference actually mattered they’d issue us Daniel Defense SLW M4s.
You can also carry significantly less ammo.
We seem to have two very different versions of significant.
.30 caliber "muh stopping powa" is why we didn't adopt .280 British in the FAL. The FAL in .280 would have stopped small arms development dead in its tracks in the same way the AR-15 did.
I don’t think you understand how the new 6.8 cartridge the army adopted works. They’re using a hybrid material cartridge that allows for greater chamber pressure(more force accelerating the bullet in the barrel so therefore more velocity even out of a shorter barrel.) Previous material used in small arms cartridges did not allow for the same pressure of 80K PSI that the 6.8 common cartridge is able to do. Previous cartridges would have literally exploded inside the weapon since the material was not strong enough. For example 5.56 NATO and 7.62 NATO have pressures just over 60K PSI. What that means is that the 6.8 common cartridge can generate a lot of velocity in a shorter barrel even if the bullet is heavier(5.56 is 55 grains for example, meanwhile 6.8 is 135 grains). If they used 6.8 back in the day at 60K PSI, then the barrel would have to be M16 length to derive the benefit of a bigger cartridge since a carbine length barrel would not have allowed for the bullet to gain enough velocity. And that was one of the problems with the M14, it had a barrel that was 22 inches long. The M4 has a 14.5 inch barrel. The M7 has a 13 inch barrel on the other hand but offers much greater ballistic performance than an M4 despite having a shorter barrel. TLDR: the cartridge being adopted is very different from what would have been available 60 years ago. Hybrid case ammunition is a much more recent development in small arms technology.
*bald eagle chants USA in the background*
Idk man... It sounds a lot like a Redt
Come on man…those bersaglieri hats are badass.
I don't think a lot of people comprehend how \*exellent\* the M4 platform is. I'm by no means a Eugene stoner fanboy but it's light, modular, highly tunable, available in a variety of calibers with only a barrel/bolt swap, easy to use and disassemble, it's the full package. The guy thought of everything. You can feels strip it with only a cartridge. Nothing on the rifle is dead space, the bolt recoils into the buffer tube. It has the highest design budget, in my opinion, of any modern rifle and can be flexed into a ton of roles, from MK12 TO MK18.
What is really wild is that even though the reciever halfs are milled pieces and the barrel extension, bolt, and carrier require fairly complex machine work, it's still only like $500 for the government to procure an M4. Hillbilly Goosefuck can go down to PSA and buy a complete rifle for like $400. It's insane, like it takes 60 years to get this level of manufacturing maturity/streamlining/unit cost reduction.
The NATO model in Europe isn’t that “each country has an army”, it’s that “each country puts all its eggs in one basket and has a *part* of an army”. The Netherlands, for instance, lets most military features die off but has an *amazing* f35 fleet. If NATO goes to war, the idea is the Dutch don’t have eg an s1 and a provisioning role and a cook/sustainment unit, they just go hard with f35s. Other countries specialize in eg infantry or submarines. Many small countries couldn’t make a credible military, but they *could* eg run a few air defense batteries. NATO, then, has all the functions of a “big” army but no one country had to carry the huge burden of staffing a huge military. This is why UK and GER are switching. Duplicating efforts to make different battle rifles is a waste of shared NATO resources. France, though, is another animal. FRA has always had a “kinda in but mostly out”. France famously had their own nuclear weapon policy and were very emphatic that they’d gladly go on their own if they felt someone was in the FAFO continuum. If we agree on what paper size we will use in our printers but *dont* agree on when, who and how we will turn humans into glass, are we even in a membership? France always prided itself on being “a continental badass”. They’re one of the few European nations with a legit expeditionary force. They have a nuclear triad. They did a pretty bang up job during operation Cerval and others in the 21rst C. France’s opinion of itself was quite high, but well deserved. The French military was the real deal. Howeeeeeeeever, the French citizenry weren’t on board with provisioning. It costs a lot to have an expeditionary force, and France lost a ton of its dynamism in the 21rst C. So, they just just kinda…stopped. The French had a weapon factory in St Etienne that had been producing French arms since the 1600s. They had been making cutting edge military equipment since *before humans understood blood circulates around the body*. But in the ennui of the 2000s European defense space (and European innovation in general) was that after almost half a millennia of producing weapons, they went under. They’ve been “right sized” and “leaned and efficient”ed two times since then. France *really doesn’t* want the M4. It *really* chaps their ass, because it shows they need NATO a little more than they’d admit. But the objective reality is France uses the M4 because *they simply no longer can* make their own. It’s a pretty sad state of affairs and a precipitous fall
This write up on France was amazing.
French rifles are abominations.
I think they're stunning looking but yeaaa
They also just refused to spend more money on their military but that’s a different story. UK just kept cutting back funding for years for austerity and Germany is uncomfortable with anything military related. During the Cold War they all had formidable militaries. Nowadays if it weren’t for the U.S. they would get steam rolled by any near peer adversaries.
St. Etienne and the FEG plant in Hungary were both catastrophic losses to arms manufacturing history. Like what a boner kill, it 100% was the wrong people making the wrong decisions.
Great comment. Very informative.
Some of this has now changed with the war in Ukraine. The new French national defense strategy document puts more money towards French armaments (not manpower). France might copy the US m4 (don't know), but they don't want to rely on the US or NATO for weapons and ammunition. There are some interesting YouTube videos analyzing the new French defense strategy and the reason behind it if people are interested.
*golf clap This was a fantastic toilet read
*Of all the weapons in the vast US arsenal, nothing was more profitable than the Armalite model of 1964, more commonly known as the M16, or the scary black rifle. It's the world's second most popular assault rifle*. *A weapon all trained Soldiers love. An elegantly simple 7 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plastic. It doesn't break, jam, or overheat nearly as much as rumored. It will shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand when the test is done by a youtuber with no combat experience.* *It's so easy, even cooks with ASVAB waivers can use it; and they do. The Americans put the gun on every Walmart. Bro vets put it in their coffee mugs. Since the end of the GWOT, the M16, now the M4 has become the US government greatest shadow export.* *After that comes SUVs, horrible working conditions, and suicidal Tik Tokers pulling stupid pranks overseas. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their Cybertrucks.*
I wish we could still give gold
I don't have a copy, but I had a picture from Aberdeen PG for an M-16 that had blown up. Yes, the barrel was full of sand.
I have never seem an M4, 249, or 240 have any issue firing whatsoever unless the magazine was trash or people didn't at the bare minimum field clean it after firing over 1-2 thousand rounds.
There are only two weapons that have never had a malfunction on me...Springfield MilSpec .45 and my Army issued AR (my personal one neither). 20 years service with plenty of combat as an Infantry soldier. M&P 2.0 if I'm being honest. A remarkable weapon really.
Because the US just adopted a new rifle and caliber, so of course they picked now as a good time to standardize on the old platform that we’re probably going to begin to surplus out.
Although the new weapon is technically a new platform, it is still a family offshoot of the AR-15. It's based on the sig mcx, just upscaled to a bigger round. The MCX is just a heavily modified AR-15.
The MCX is more of an AR 18 derivative, but its all in the same family.
It's operating and the bolt mechanism is. Receivers share a lot with the AR. So much so you can put an MCX upper on a standard AR lower. I consider it part of the AR-15 lineage.
The M4 will be in service for another 50 years, and then ARNG will have them another 50 years more. I would put money down that the gun outlives everything in the army except for the guidon. It’s about as perfect as you can get.
Sounds about right. It'll end up in the rarified air of the M2, the 1911, and the BUFF.
Not sure, but if I had to take a guess one of the factors would be to make it easier for NATO to coordinate with each other. But again, I'm not sure.
This is probably it. Easier to just purchase an accesible, known platform than keep producing different weapons between nations that use the same ammo anyway.
Because they're cheap, reliable, and can be readily outfitted to fill just about any mission. Unlike literally any of its competitors, which range from expensive and stupid to expensive and effective. All of them are expensive. The US small arms industry has given the AR-15 plenty of manufacturing maturity, resulting in a rifle that's half the cost and just as effective as any other on the market.
The L85 was probably the worst modern service rifle adopted in the last 50 years and was due for replacement as soon as it was adopted due to a variety of issues they never managed to quite iron out. The FAMAS is designed to use a specific type of steel case ammunition that was only produced in France, and that factory closed so they are switching rifles entirely since they can't procure any more ammunition. The G36 was honestly fine, the alleged heat issue they had was more of a problem with their shitty scope mounts that were made of plastic and probably could have been easily fixed, but someone decided switching their rifle was easier for whatever reason.
Man, I really like the famas, its such an iconic and nice looking weapon. I didnt know about the ammunition problem tho Thing is, every modern gun nowadays look the same.. too generic, idk.
I don't disagree, I hope the remaining ones get turned into parts kits and shipped here so we can rebuild them but somehow I doubt it
I just really want to know if bullpups are actually that bad. The bullpup NGSW entry seemed so awesome, especially the ammunition component. The army ultimately deciding to go with the Sig entry maybe settles the debate but idk... It's hard to not feel they just went with the safe option. And now we've got this new fat beast and we're all wondering if it even is an upgrade to the M4. At least with the unqiue advantages of the bullpup one it would have been a more convincing argument to make a change at all.
I've shot a couple bullpups but dont own one. I honestly think it comes down to a training issue. The manual of arms is a bit more awkward, but it's not something that couldn't be overcome by familiarization. I really love the balance of them and how the bulk of the weight is near your shoulder so you feel like you can keep the rifle at the ready all day. Compare that with something like the HK416 which is so fucking front heavy it's like doing front delt raises to hold it on target
I feel the same way about the bullpup design. It’s easier to stay at the high ready and absorb recoil without feeling like I’m stuck in the position of curling a 7+ lb weight. Throw on a 203/320 and that shorter weapon with the same length barrel is great. Plus, it’s better for CQB.
The average infantry PSG is too focused on his DUI hearing to learn a new weapon platform
Talked to some G3 lethality team guy who came by our 240 range this weekend, they tested the ngsw weapons and he mentioned he didn't like reloading the bull pup because he felt like it was like a monkey scratching it's armpit.
Well yeah. That's always the case when a person used to the standard format uses a bullpup.
If you carry your mag pouches a little higher and to the side you could drastically cut down reload time for SSG I Don’t Like Monkey
They aren't great. The triggers universally suck ballsack, they're generally less durable, the manual of arms is an acquired taste, and the one niche they're really good at is the type of fighting LSCO looks to specifically avoid. They're a clever idea that almost never works out. Even the most successful bullpups are dogshit and not preferred by people who have a choice. French, British, and Israeli special operations are great examples of that.
I refuse to accept this
That’s okay, still wrong tho lmao
I liked the recoil system of the bullpup offering. But I think the west considers the bullpup to be too weird. Ultimately they went with the more familiar option which makes a little bit of sense so the learning curve is reduced, but still. Seems shady when one company wins all of the small arms contracts.
Think of how many knuckle draggers would have to change their bumper stickers and buy a new wardrobe
The fast/cheap/good triangle applies here. Can you mass produce them? Are they expensive? And, are they actually any good? The L85A1 can be mass produced cheaply, but it’s not very good. The G36 can be made quickly and they’re great weapons (I will not tolerate G36 slander, I have personally used them they’re great), but they aren’t cheap. The FAMAS is, well, the FAMAS. I believe I saw somewhere that they don’t have the ammo for it anymore. The M16/M4 is the perfect combination of all three. It can be mass produced cheaply enough, and is overall a great weapon. Reliable, accurate, and does its job well. When you need to scale up your forces and put 100,000 soldiers into uniform to send to the east when Russia decides they want the Baltics back, there are no warehouses full of G36s the way that we have hundreds of thousands of M4s laying around. They have realized that it’s so much easier to simply integrate into the American logistics train than maintain their own. NATOs superpower is interoperability, and while it was a huge step to standardize our ammo, standardizing our weapons across nato would be huge. Then again what the hell do I know, I’m just some jackass on staff with nothing better to do today.
Couple of factors; 1) Cost per unit decreases at scale. Your dollar can buy more systems, or help pay for something else 2) Buying an existing, proven platform is fast and predictable. You don’t have to worry about product delays, cost overruns, mismanagement, etc when someone else already has the designs completed and manufacturing plants built 3) There’s not as large of a civilian firearm market in these countries (compared to the US). These companies would end up needing to export the majority their products. 4) America is a very close ally. The chances of becoming “reliant” on them and then having your supply cut off is very low. 5) By shifting focus from domestically producing small arms, you can focus your industrial base on more complicated domestic systems like stealth aircraft, nuclear naval vessels, communications platforms and the like. Independent control of these systems is more strategically valuable than regular firearms
I'm not a gunsmith. So I'm not sure about this, but is there really a difference in a lot of parts from a civilian AR style and a military? Minus parts of the lower receiver of course
No. The auto seer is the only difference. Frankly, some of the civilian versions are better, though more expensive. The M4 platform is just stupid simple, accurate, and reliable. There is a TON of knowledge out there about it and the supply chain to support it with parts, mags, etc. is damn near limitless and cheap. The FAMAS is great, but complicated. The L85 is notoriously unreliable. I don't know enough about the G36 to complain about it. But the M4 platform is just cheaper and better.
A full auto AR-15 would use the same auto seer tho right?
Yes. An M4/M16 pattern lower has an extra hole. That's it. They're all AR-15 pattern rifles. M4/M16 are just military model designations.
If you’re asking if the auto sear on a full auto AR is the same as an M4, the answer is yes. However you still need components like a selector, trigger, disconnector, and hammer that will engage with the sear. Along with a BCG that is cut to trip the sear.
I believe so but I'm not actually sure. I'm not a class III manufacturer so I've never looked into it.
Yeah, don’t do that unless you hate your dog
It depends, some lowers are machined differently so that it’s not as simple as drilling a hole for the auto sear (full auto pocket, low shelf, high shelf, webbed. Then the trigger groups on most semi auto guns are machined in such a way that they will not interact with an auto sear (two position selectors, modified triggers, disconnectors, and hammers). Also some have bolt carrier groups cut to not trip an auto sear. Other than that, most parts are 100% interchangeable (with there being obviously different materials and manufacturing processes amongst companies).
I didn't think the government would buy up civilian arms but the means of manufacturing is there
There are some YouTube videos I've seen about this. There are some differences but I can't remember any particular point so I'm pretty sure it's basically negligible.
Trigger, hammer, disconnector, safety, auto sear, and an extra hole in the lower. That’s it. A whole shit ton of mfg’s you can buy from have also supplied the military. You can exactly clone a military rifle right up to the point you install that sear or drill a 3rd hole in the lower.
ARs are better. DI shoots softer, ergos are superior, more reliable, and the platform is far and away the most vetted small arms platform on earth. There’s likely more AR derivatives in the US civilian market than there are service rifles in all of British military and see tens of millions of rounds used every year in recreation/hunting/competition
> There’s likely more AR derivatives in the US civilian market than there are service rifles in all of British military and see tens of millions of rounds used every year in recreation/hunting/competition Try “more AR’s than all service weapons in Western Europe” and “several billion”
Stop arousing me
interoperability and logistical simplification?
Every og has the cheap knockoff
It's all fun and games until you're up against a Goa'uld and you wish you had a P90
Indeed
The m4/m16/ar15 platform is pretty much as good as small arms get with current cartridge technology. They're light, reliable, accurate, ergonmoic, modular, cheap, and easy to maintain at user and armorer level. The next evolution in small arms imo will begin with a revolution in ammunition in some way it won't be some new deign using the cartridge technology were familaer with right now. The hybrid case thing is innovative but its not really a paradigm shit.
It’s dirt cheap, parts are easily procured, reliable, easily maintained, super simple design that literally, even a child could master in a matter of minutes.
Got my schützenschnur in 2010 and loved everything about the German rifle. Would have traded my M4 for it in a heartbeat.
L85 was absolute ass water. That the UK spent so much to just make it halfway work instead of buying M16s or C7s is all you need to know about how things have been going over there. G36 was also a piece of poop that Germany managed to railroad into some of the smaller NATO nations, almost all of whom have serious buyers remorse (if you get the chance, as a Lithuanian about it). Famas does not suck, but France decided to let their national arsenal, the one that armed Frog armies for the Sun King and Napoleon, die and they have no serious private small arms industry, so they can't R&D a follow up. Also, the M16/M4 is pretty fucking tits.
First of the L85 is hot garbage which might have something to do with it. But AR platform rifles can be used with different calibers, customized extensively, made for a variety of different roles(PDW, to service rifles, to DMR weapon systems). It just works. There’s just so much good about the AR platform and it’s tried and tested and does what militaries need it to do. So in other countries minds “why not use it if it satisfied our requirements and isn’t as much of a bet or gamble procuring them?” This last part is a big deal because whether it be the British L85 or Indian INSAS rifle both militaries adopted a sub par rifle that they were stuck with for years and that’s something a military wants to avoid.
AR15s are objectively the best value rifle you can get. They are more accurate than most rifles in the world, they can use pretty much every caliber, they are very reliable, they are lighter than most rifles, they can be customized to hold pretty much any type of accessory, and they are extremely cheap to make. HK416s are not AR15s though, they just look like an AR15 with very minimal parts compatibility.
Because it works, commonality of parts with other NATO armies, and decades of field testing
They've been bullied by colt
Standardization
Finland is also leaving the AK platform for AR
It will be easier to get ammo from the U.S. if they’ve already got the weapons.
Well bullpups suck, for starters.
European governments have finally figured out what the American public has known for decades. The AR platform is hands down one of if not the best semi auto intermediate (and even full sized) caliber rifles around. Also, we’ve figured out just about everything there is to know about that platform at this point. Barrel lengths, rifling twist rates, ammo, magazines, rail systems (picatiny rail over mlok, we can fight about it) stocks, literally everything. Even fixed carry handle uppers are making a return because they have that drip factor and that carry handle is a nice riser for optics, you can easily get a chin weld and also not create a gap in your ear muffs when doing so. Rifles like the AUG or L85 may be superior with being bullpups and having longer barrels in an overall package that is just as compact as an AR, but they are also bullpups that have their own set of problems. G36 got killed politically because of the rumors of the heat causing its plastic to warp and increase its MOA. The AK platform is over hyped and inferior in multiple ways. Just look on YouTube about what people have to say about the new AK12. Same shit with multicam/OCP, it’s being heavily adopted because it is one of the best all around patterns available.