Teh Worst Firearmz EVAR

As the title says, your pick for worst firearms ever made.

Here's my pick:

CSRG Chauchant in 30-06. WWI, we took a French LMG and rechambered it for our 30-06 cartridge. It was teh suk. The magazine had little cutouts so you could see the bullets in it and the spring too, so dirt found a nice easy path into the action. The design itself was simple, but the manufacturing work that went into producing it was second-rate. Finally, it was produced by a committee, hence the initials CSRG, the initials of the head people on said committee. Plus, the French had some interesting concepts on how to employ it - fire a burst with every right step the gunner took, from the hip. They were trying ot lay down waling fire as a line of infantrymen left the trenches for the assault. Later on during the war, some design problems were ironed out, so it ended up becoming a workable design, but near the end of the war, we introduced the Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR. MUCH better weapon.

Counterpoint: The market for easily portable LMG's during WWI anyway, was nonexistent. When everyone fielded bolt-action rifles of some kind, anything automatic was viewed as a plus.

Anyone got any unfavorite firearms?

BAR Is a superb weapon besides the point that The recoil is crazY. another unfavorite is the m1919a4 .30 caliber.

Heh, trying to find a weapon that Browning himself developed that ended up doing horribly is pretty hard to do.

The M1919 was merely an air-cooled M1917 - in and of itself not a bad thing, as the A4 was tripod mounted and has served in two world wars, and even is in use today, commonly in 7.62x51mm NATO caliber. The M1917 and M1919, when scaled up, turns into the M2 .50 caliber that we all know and love today. But this thread isn't about good guns, so no more on the M2 here.

The bad variant of the M1919 is the A6, which grafted a bipod and a butt stock to the receiver and tried to make it into an LMG. Due to the weight of the weapon, which was MORE then the A4 (additional weight due to butt stock and bipod) when not mounted in a tripod mount, so it would've been a total pain to lug around in the attack, but when employed in the defense, very effective. Rumor has it that a lot of units ended up removing the butt stock and sticking the weapons onto tripods, essentially making them A4 variants again. The BAR really couldn't provide the sustained automatic fire that the M1917 and M1919 could, as the latter two were belt-fed, and the BAR was fed from dinky 20-round magazines. Then again, the BAR wasn't designed for sustained fire anyway, so moot point. More like automatic rifle for squad-level tactics.

The M1919's did pretty well when mounted in vehicles, and it did give infantry commanders nice volumes of fire. Very important for the defense, when you have to lay intersecting fields of fire to cover known or suspected avenues of approach - bringing a machine-gun into the equation greatly multiplies the firepower a platoon or company can bring to bear on an approaching threat. More so when the weapons that typical line infantryman had were semiautomatic rifles with an eight-shot en bloc clip, or going further back into time, a five-shot bolt-action.

All of those were done away with when the M60 came about, taking some lessons learned from the MG-42 and FG-42, although the FM MAG (FN Herstal in Belgium makes GOOD stuff), or M240, as we call it, seems to be the better machine-gun. Keep the M60 kinda dirty, but oiled up, and it seems to work - or so swore one of my NCO's in my unit - he hated trying to fire one of them when they were all clean and 'inspection ready'.

Any more? I have one picked out, but I'll save it.

I got one but i told you on tuesay its the m16 duri g vietnam the marines detested the weapon for one because it jammed and because when they sot a charlie he just got back up the point is round to small. look up on google Barret M468 assult rifle and the xm8.

But you cant go wrong with the M249 saw.

num 11 check vid card topic gt reply for ya.

Heh, another not worst gun ever, but the AR-15 isn't my favorite, either.

My thoughts and feelings on the AR-15 aren't overwhelmingly favorable. My biggest gripe is that it uses the direct inpingment system of operation; hot gas is tapped off of the barrel and shoved into the bolt and bolt carrier. The bolt operates as the piston you would find in a typical gas-operated setup. All this hot gas and combustion byproducts then condenses all over the insides of the receiver.

The Vietnam problem was poweder choice for the cartridges, not really a problem with the weapon itself, but the design of the weapon didn't help, either. The bad powder left far too much residue behind, and put it in the worst possible place ever; directly into the receiver which is stuffed with precision machined parts, most of which are fairly small in size and sensitive to dirt.

Okay, big deal. Just clean it often enough, like I was told to do when I was in, and it'll be fine. Not so; the soldiers were issued weapons but no cleaning kits, amd insufficient instructions on how to maintain them.

When the situation goes south, you will not rise to the occasion, you will fall. You will fall to the highest level of training you have received.

They were not trained properly, so they failed to keep their weapons clean and operating properly. Once these deficiencies were identified and corrected - different powder and training - the situation for the AR-15 and variants improved greatly, so much that it is still in use today by our military and it has a devoted following behind it. When well-maintained and cared for, it has outstanding accuracy, and its flexibility in design has led it to being in service for fifty-odd years.

My biggest gripe, as mentioned above, is that the powder residue blows right into the bolt and bolt carrier, which chamber fresh rounds - and that it is a complete and total nightmare to clean. It shouldn't take a trained individual hours to clean his rifle after putting fifty rounds through it. They get absolutely filthy inside after a short amount of time, and it takes cleaners, chemicals, Q-tips, pipe cleaning swabs, brute force and in some cases some choice words to get all the crud out. That's all fine in garrison, or if you own one as a personal weapon, and have the time, resources and clean environment to do all of that stuff. But all of that might not be readily available in a field situation. Converting the weapon to a conventional piston and operating rod arrangement, and you fix probably the liggest inherent weakness of the whole weapon.

My second biggest gripe? The cheap magazines. The feed lips (heck, the entire magazine) are merely stamped metal and they are very prone to bending, which will result in failures to feed, or the dreaded double-feed. Nice new magazines only need to be dropped lips first onto the ground a few times to render them worthless. So, if you buy one, get some decent magazines that have stronger feed lips. The life you save may be your own.

...In fact, Ruger makes a weapon that is essentially those two problems eliminated, the SR-556. it looks like an AR-15, feels like one, so training those familiar to it wouldn't be hard, and it had better magazines and it's a more traditional gas operated setup, and it's even adjustable if you need to have it cycle more gas to operate the weapon. Built like an M-4 Carbine. I like it, hopefully the US militayr takes notice and JUST MAYBE they can graft the upper receivers of these things onto existing AR-15 lower receivers. It's pretty recent. If I wanted a 5.56x45mm chambered rifle, that might be the one, as Ruger seems to make good decent firearms.

ar-15 is a good weapon and is better than the m-4 but the fal is a .303 round british made and is better than the m-16, m-4 ,and the ar-15 but the p-90 eventhouh its made for spec forces its a good assult rifle.

Negative. The FN FAL fires a 7.52x51mm NATO round. Britain was trying to get some odd-ball caliber adopted in a bulpup configuration. We almost adopted the FAL, but decided for various reasons, about turning the M1 into the M14. Would've been perfect until they made it selective fire, it's as bad as the BAR on full automatic. Other then that, the M14 is a superb weapon. For that matter, most 7.62x51mm battle rifles are pretty wild on full automatic - they just aren't hefty enough to help keep the muzzle down, like a GPMG would. The G3 was Gernamy's battle rifle design. Both the FAL and the prototype M-14 fared equally on testing and trials. A lot of post WWII small arms redesigning went on, as everyone got the time to evaluate how their older weapons really worked in battle conditions. However, the first combat instance for our M-14 was the jungles of Vietnam, and it didnt like it there. Too big, the wood stocks swelled and affected accuracy, and the combat load was less then the enemy's, who was using AK-47's. But it makes a fine marksman's rifle.

Another negative. The P-90 is classified as a Personal Defensive Weapon (PDW), which falls into that little gray area between a carbine and a sub-machinegun. Similiar in size to a real SMG, PDW's tend to fire a unique cartridge that has better armor penetration ability then mere pistol rounds, while still being very controllable under full auto. One could view a PDW as an SMG on steroids, almost, but the MP5K-PDW only fires a 9x19mm round, instead of something unique, but unlike standard MP5K's, ha a side-folding stock - the MP5K's do not have a stock at all.

In the P-90 case, it's that oddball 5.7x28mm round, and can be had in a pistol, the FN Five-seveN, (yes, it's spelled right.) as the companion sidearm, so if you have a P-90 issued to you, chances are you'll be packing the Five-seveN as well. FN Herstal did their homework with both guns, but the P-90 is soely provided to the military an dlaw enforcement. You can buy a civilian semi-automatic version, the PS-90; it has a much longer barrel to meet federal restruction on minimum barrel length.

As far as firepower, range and overall size are concerned, it goes a little bit like this...

Pistol<SMG<PDW<Carbine<Rifle

The .303 round is old. The British were trying to push to have this wierd caliber picked, the .280, as the .303 has a mean kick. The .280 has half of the .303's. FN was ready to use it, and Canada was too. But we were adamant about using a cartridge with similiar ballistics to the 30-06, so we said no. Shortnening hte 30-06 case a bit, and using better powders, we get the 7.62x51mm, and the rest is history, after we shoved it down NATO's throat. So, the British were trying ot develop an intermediate cartridge before it was fashionable to do so. We ended up developing the 5.56x45mm round, in essence doing exactly what the British were trying to do years before, and that ws to make a smaller round that would allow full-automatic fire in an assault rifle. If we had accepted it, history might have been far different today - we would have had an FN FAL in .280 caliber in the early fifties, and we wouldn't have had the troubles with the AR-15 in Vietnam a decade later!

However, the AR-15 isn't all bad, quite the contrary.

The AR-15's tremendous adaptability is demonstrated by the fact that by taking two pins out, you can separate the lower and upper receivers, and mix-n-match them almost at will. Say you like the full length heavy barrel of the M16HB (military didn't buy it - the M203 wouldn't fit properly around the thicker barrel), but you want a collapsible stock. Grab the lower receiver of an M-4, and stick the M16HB upper onto it. Bam, you now have a hybrid. As long as you don't mix calibers - a 7.62x51mm magazine well in a lower will be incompatible with a 5.56x45mm-chambered upper, the receivers are of different lengths (I think) and the 5.56mm magazine wouldn't fit even if you could get the receivers to mate together.

In this way, you can buy whatever upper receiver you want for barrel length, and swap them out with your xisting lower receiver, which holds the trigger, magazine, stock, safety and fire-selection switch. Upper has the barrel, sights (or top rails to mount your sights) and bolt. Trash your lower receiver? Just use another while the shop fixes your old one, and you have a working weapon again.

The Knight Industries SR-25 is almost a modernized version of the AR-10. The AR-10 could be made belt-fed and was designed to be used by an automatic rifleman. The -10 was the 7.62x51mm precursor to the AR-15, the two look very similiar, and a lot of the design philosophy that went into the AR-10 was re-used in the development of the AR-15, like having the bolt locking lugs engage slots in the barrel extension, allowing the usage of aluminum alloys for the receivers - the receiver is no longer used to lock the bolt closed, so it doesn't have to be made as strong. Saves weight. I think it had the lower and upper receiver thing going on as well. Pretty forward thinking way back in the 1950's.

Which is why I like the SR-556 concept even more, all you really need to buy is the upper receiver of the SR-556 and stick it onto an existing AR-15 lower receiver, and bam, you've eliminated the direct gas inpingment problem I detest so much.

Man, I type a lot. But at 47 words per minute, it's not an issue...

my classmate said he can 87 wpm. but any way waht we said last night i think in 2020 the assult rifle will be for US is the scar h. we will need firepower against are russian counter parts or chinese eventhoughthe reds have a massive army.

whats your avatar about dragaon ball z or something heh heh

but, the ak israli version is sweet the pictures are awwwwsome.

It's from Zero Wing. Video game from WAY before your time, like, 1991.

I'm sort of 'meh' on if/when we ever decide to update our rifles and get something a bit more modern. The OICW died, and so did the XM8 - plastic hand guards bursting into flames are not very impressive to Ordnance Officers, and neither are grenades that go kB! inside their chambers. Maybe we'll get lucky and get the SCAR L and H, they both have their place. The AK-100 series rifles are, in essence, Ak-47's that have been modernized over the decades. Anything with a gas piston and operating rod would be good, as countless successful weapon designs today use that system of operation. A plus would be if it uses an existing caliber we already use. Bonus points if it's easy to maintain, accurate and durable, all at once. It also has to be easy to manufacture, so we can mass-produce thousands of them quickly.

It will have to pass teh military's torture test, which I can't recall the specifics of, but something about being able to fire X-number of rounds without jamming, and after all that, being able to fire a high-pressure test round without blowing up.

The AR-10 ALMOST won out in the fifties, but the aluminum barrel split during the torture test, so we told them to take their rifle elsewhere, and went on to retool the Garand into the M-14. Armalite switched for steel barrels, but it was too late, and we ended up not using it. Angola ended up using it for a time, and loved it., but production was limited, and they ended up having to use something else after a time.

true but the best assult rifle is m-1 garand is very accurate and good firepower.

Okay, some definition reinforcement is in order here. Even the media gets it wrong.

An assault rifle is defined by
1. being selective fire (semi or auto) and
2. chambering an intermediate rifle cartridge, such as the British .280, 5.56x45mm, 7.62x39mm, or something like that.

Thus, the Garand is neither.

The M-14, which is in essence a Garand with a 20-shot magazine (the eight-shot en bloc clip was the one thing about it that sucked) and selective-fire capability, in 7.62x51mm, isn't either, as the 7.62x51mm is a full-power rifle cartridge, although it is still a really good Battle Rifle (outstanding accuracy), which is what the old-school semi and selective-fire rifles are called today, to differentiate them from a true assault rifle.

Giving someone a G3, M-14, SR-25, AR-10, Galil ARM, CETME, or the SCAR-H, all of which are chambered for 7.62x51mm, is giving them a Battle Rifle, not an assault rifle. Sure, I'll take the M-14, personally, but I will refrain from going full-auto with it, it already kicks like a mule.

The assault rifle concept is actually a very old concept, dating back to before WWII, but it had no real support behind it so it didn't see anythign besides prototype concepts and ideas in weapons designer's heads.

It was Germany, which studied the outcomes of urban and short-ranged rural battles that led some to believe that giving a soldier a full-powered rifle was a waste of firepower. Most engagements between opposing ground troops were taking place under three hundred meters, so giving every soldier a rifle that coudl accurately say "hi!" out past 800 meters, was not being very smart in using resources. Sure, you need some soldiers, snipers and designated marksmen, to have such weapons, but the everyday run-of-the-mill infantryman didn't need it. They tried sub-machine guns, which sort of worked, and sort of didn't. An SMG is defined by being selective-fire and chambering a pistol-caliber round. This means you can give a soldier lots of ammunition, and it works great for short-ranged combat, but a pistol bullet loses velocity and accuracy (generally-speaking) past fifty meters. This leaves a gap from fifty to three hundred meters that needs to be filled.

Enter the intermediate cartridge.

By taking a full-sized rifle cartridge, like the 7.62x51mm, just for educational purposes, we can cut the cartridge case down to 39mm and neck teh throat so it once again accepts a 7.62mm-sized bullet, but shorter then before. Now you have a lighter bullet, with less powder behind it, so it has less recoil, weighs less over all, and still packs decent accuracy out past 300 meters. It's not long-ranged like before, but we have those older rifles given out to marksmen now. It can still be controlled on full automatic fire, which is actually important when conducting an ambush or when you need to overwhelm an enemy force with massed fires, like when repelling an assault on your position, suppressive fire, that sort of thing.

Now you can give your soldier a weapon the can fill the role of a traditional rifle, to a degree, and that can be used like an SMG, to a degree. That was why it was developed, and as long as we have short-ranged engagements where you need more stopping power then an SMG and more bullet hose action than a semiautomatic, you will need an assault rifle, such as the AR-15, AK-47 and clones, and the whole host of others similarly intermediate cartridge chambered designs.

Really, you should watch the "History of the Gun". That and read some fine books by Ian V. Hogg, who is a leading small arms historian. I recommend Small Arms of the World, if you can scrounge a modern edition.

thanks going to go to boarders when i can is it in history section.

Yeah, you can usually find some historical reference books or you might try the Military section, if it has one. That and the library, your school might even have something fairly up to date. The book I have now is dated from the late seventies, but the older history stuff is still extremely informative.

The History Of The Gun covers everything from the first uses of fireworks in warfare (Chinese) all the way up to modern infantry small arms. It excludes talking about artillery, despite being similiar in many respects.

Really, when you think about the weapons of war and the tactics derived from them, you could devote a lifetime to study to the subject and you couldn't possibly dent it.

Okay, here's another one, although it's not a firearm.

During WWI, when the Germans were already fielding the Maxim machinegun with muderous results in the utter hell that was called Trench Warfare, teh French Army decided that they needed a new sword for their troops. The only problem with such short-sighted thinking is that a sword is a melee weapon of limited reach, while a machinegun on a solid mount and traversing and elevation mechanism, is accurate out past a thousand meters.

In fact, one American machinegun team had their water-cooled .30-cals set up to take advantage of the fact that bullets follow a ballistic trajectory, and fired them at a shallow up-angle so that they would impact around a road intersection where the German Army would like to set up their field kitchens. Come meal time, the American guns would open up and the heavy 30-06 round would plunge into the field kitchen area, hitting it and any troops feeding for that particular meal.

Almost like artillery.

Machineguns are perhaps the deadliest small arm ever invented, as far as casualty numbers are concerned, over their 130-year history. Early Maxims could cycle 500 rounds a minute, or teh equivalent of ONE HUNDRED bolt-action or single-shot rifles of the day. Thus, a single gunner could substitute the firepower of an entire dismounted company of troops. Pretty effective force multipilier, yes? That partly explains why Germany fielded Mauser 98K's alongside MG-34's and MG-42's, as they felt that the machinegun made up for the fact that they were using bolt-actions, as late as WWII, when we decided to field a semi-automatic rifle instead. I bet those old Maxims, if you could feed them cooling water, oil and a few belts of ammunition, would still be deadly today. I'd bet some good money that there's a few of them seeing action today.

The desire to give everyone an assault rifle is a desire to give everyone teh rapid-fire capability of a submachinegun, so that everyone with an assault rifle is in essence, fielding a distant high-tech descendant of a machinegun.

the m249 is GREAT!!!! i swa it in action and it is superb the m240 bravo is good 2.

Yes, I enjoyed the M249. Fun to shoot, simple to take apart, clean and reassemble, and it only jammed when firing from the built-in magazine well. Helpful hint: use the newest magazines you can find, if you ever need to. The springs in them are stiffer and able to feed the rounds fast enough, sot that the bolt can strip them off. I got to the point where, on a night training mission (with no NVG's), I was able to rip out my bolt and op-rod, give them a real quick wipedown with a rag, apply a real thin sheen of oil, slap the stuff back in, all in only a minute or two. I was also good enough of a shot iwth one to hit targets out at the 400-meter mark. Nice heavy barrel, bipod and a comfortable shooting position go a long way.

My only gripe is that they were a pain to sling over your back (sharp stuff to jab you) and it was fairly heavy for a guy like me to lug around. Bigger people need not worry about it. Oh, and my unit NEVER issued me the ammunition pouches that are supposed to go with it.

The M249 is basically a miniature version of the M240, minus the magazine well, so yeah. Good design overall.

is the m240 gulf the same or does it have a different bullet?

look up premier infantry atuomatic weapon. it is a BEAST.

M240 in it's various permutations is always a 7.62x51mm. Tim hated it, he had to lug the tripod and extra ammunition around. The tripod is pretty heavy, and although I've never dealt with 7.62mm ammunition ever, I can imagine that a few belts of that and a tripod can be a total pain, as you still have to carry your own gear around, too.

M249 is 5.56x45mm, essentially a baby M240, plus the addition of an emergency magazine well so it can fire from STANAG magazines. It works, sort of. Did a live-fire at the Army's live-fire range past Waianae, had to shove in a few mags after my 100-round belt (cheapskates didn't want to give me a full belt) ran out. Mostly worked, although I burned through the rounds in almost no time at all. Machineguns take a lot of ammunition to keep them fed.

I was technically an Automatic Rifleman, as I never was issued a tripod or anything. I don't think I even saw my spare barrel, as the armorer did the whole head-space check and sighted the front sight of my weapon prior to issuing it to me. Had we deployed somewhere, I'm sure a lot of the cool nifty toys we had for the M249's would've been issued to us, like AMMUNITION POUCHES FOR THE BELTS... All I had was M-16 magazine pouches.

One of my buudies was a Mortarman, and he said that being mortars sucked, too. He liked the 60mm Mortar much more than the 81mm, as it was lighter, more reliable, and it had a smaller baseplate. Woe to the guy that had to carry the baseplate, and everyone in the fireteam had to carry a few mortar rounds. He said that they got a special M113 APC with a big roof cut-out, and it has an 81mm or something stuck into the back of the APC, so you pretty much fired right out of the roof. This had the advantage of hiding the fireteam from small arms fire, and the biggest advantage I can think of, is after chucking some rounds downrage, the whole setup simply went into Drive and off they went to another fire location, before any counter-battery fire would seek them out.

Counter-battery fire is the science of tracking artillery shells in their trajectory by Radar or other means, and determining where they're coming from. Then you chuck some rounds in that direction to silence their guns. So, self-proplled artillery has the advantage of being able to fire a quick fire-mission, uproot and move away, prior to death raining back down on them.

Patton wrote:is the m240 gulf the same or does it have a different bullet?

look up premier infantry atuomatic weapon. it is a BEAST.

I think the difference between the 240 and the 240 gulf was the marines used it and it didn't have a heat shield.

I recall that the M249 had a similiar thing. M249's without heatshields are the earlier ones, the Army did a PIP back sometime to fix a few things they felt needed tweaking. I've stripped mine down to a pretty light weapon by removing the stock, handguards (both of them) and bipod. Could only be carried by the sling and carrying handle, probably not safe to fire without the buffer (front part of the stock), but it looked totally cool. They actually make a 7.62mm version of the Minimi, but I bet it's a handful to keep under control, even if it normally weighs around 18 pounds. Still, for those who want a reliable and effective 30-caliber bullet hose that isn't a total pain to carry, this will do. I bet it kicks like a mule, though - felt recoil with 5.56 was negligable, I totally loved to shoot mine.

Isn't it the M240 Golf, as in "G"?

More stuff on the M249, but it's a dated article almost thirty years old. http://www.remtek.com/arms/fn/minimi/

Some SOF guy wrote it.

EDIT: Some Iraq soldiers were quizzed on any weapon and equipment issues, and the universal M249 gripe was the platic 200-round box. Crummy design, and the rounds shift around in it with a lot of noise. The 100-round cloth ammo pouches were well-liked, though. I was not a fan of the plastic disposable box, either; I had a tough time getting an empty one OFF my weapon. Didn't help that it was dark and that we were getting shot at with MILES gear.

I think we should go to 30-06 round better stoping piwer viet vets are saying they shot some chrlie with a 5.56 round and they turned around and looked at them like nothing happened.

still 7.62x51 is great

Using that same logic, we were stupid to move from the M1911A1 and use the M9. Rather, I think we were smart for retiring the M1911 and going for something more modern. Beretta makes nice weapons, having hundreds of years worth of history of doing so. Teh Sig Sauer almost won the trials, and they make their stuff in bigger calibers. I'll have to find the reason why 9mm was mushed as the round of choice, as I'd be only speculating why they did so.

.45ACP versus 9mm Parabellum? I'd pick the 9mm, if those were my only two choices. Reason: If it comes down to it, I want my wife to be able to use it. She has small hands, and I wouldn't want something like, say, a Desert Eagle as a home defense weapon. As far as the military is concerned, I think something beefier than 9mm would be fine, like 10mm. That extra millimeter, and the 10 becomes a real potent pistol cartridge.

Here's a fact: In the heat of personal combat, when you're seriously pumped up and running on overload, you can get shot, break a limb, or whatever, and not notice it. That's why you hear lots of talk about stopping power. One reason why you're hearing troops want to go back to the 7.62mm round, it stops you. The 5.56 doesn't do this as well. I'd argue that a Central Nervous System hit will stop you deader than a box of rocks, even if it's some wussy caliber round, and so will a center mass hit that messes up your circulatory system, although not as quickly. Of course, giving a soldier a pistol is a last-ditch effort anyway. I'd feel better with an MP5K, but that weighs more, and we want to stay at that 60-pound load out, remember?