If you had to pick one, would you take a G1 (FAL) or a G3 (H&K)? Both are 7.62mm NATO rifles adopted by Germany. The G1 has more features and capabilities, like the carry handle, bipod, multiple muzzle devices, and adjustable gas system. The G3, on the other hand, is simpler, without things to change for better or worse. So which would you take?
Medium MGs
Vintage Saturday: Join the Army, See the World
German soldier carrying a captured DS-39 machine gun and tripod over a pretty bleak steppe.
Semiauto pistol
Menz Liliput Pocket Pistols: 4.25mm and 6.35mm
Lot 517 (5.25mm) and lot 444 (6.35mm) in the September 2019 RIA auction. The Liliput was made by the August Menz Company in Germany during the 1920s, in several variations. It was introduced in both […]
Commentary
Lugers and Mausers and Suppressors (oh my!)
Back when I reviewed Geoffrey Sturgess’ recently released Luger compendium, I had mentioned that it came with a neat documentary on the development of the Luger. The film is 74 minutes long, and is geared […]
The FAL is more reliable and accurate than the HK91, does not ruin its brass, and does not a have a stock which is an instrument of torture for the user.
To be fair, the HK91 is essentially a crowbar that shoots. It is nearly indestructible under field conditions and will survive inadequate or even nonexistent maintenance. It is probably the only self-loading rifle other than the AK that is suitable for issue to Third World troops who still regard the telephone as evil magic.
That said, I would prefer an AR-10 to either one of them, or better yet a modern AR in 7.62x51mm.
clear ether
eon
Everyone hates G3 ergonomy, but it’s advantage is the ability to survive abuse.
That really sums it up.
Cheap gun, crap ergonomics, but tough and built to take abuse by conscripts in the armies of Norway, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Iran, Portugal, and the armies of Bangladesh, Bolivia, Colombia back in the day, Chile back in the day, El Salvador back in the day, Mexico, Greece, Kenya, Malaysia, Morocco, Myanmar/ ex-Burma, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, Saudi, Somalia under Siad Barre, Sudan, Turkey, UAE, and a handful of other places near and far.
Going by todays prices, I’m not too sure I would call it cheap, but I do agree with the rest.
Cheaply made: pressed steel. Like Chinese kalashnikovs, the Germans at least used pretty thick sheet metal for the folded/ pressed steel parts. Presumably the plastics are state of the art and sturdy, but they are plastic. It was, after all, the StG45 (M) to make a StG44 even cheaper… Then it went to Spain, and then returned to Germany. I’m not sure if even a raconteur like Mr. M’Collum can get his hands on enough of a foreign manufactured sample of G3s: Portugal, Iran, Greece, Turkey, France (although he has examined those), Germany (again, he’s looked at those plenty), Norway, Sweden (yes?), Mexico, Pakistan, etc. to let us know if these all conform to the original West German Oberndorf a. Neckar standard pattern? Certainly the guns themselves cost civilian consumers an arm and a leg, and long have. The welds are tastefully done and not too extreme looking, I’d say.
@Dave,
See, here’s the thing: The G3 wasn’t a cheap weapon to build, necessarily.
The main difference was in where the money went. In the FN FAL, the money went into the conventional machining of the actual weapon; in the G3, the money went into the precision production machinery instead. Also, the labor and expertise; you’ll note that absent the well-known “Gnomes of Oberndorf” (who all retired…), HK has gone to other modes of manufacture…
I would speculate that the majority of overseas production for HK weapons relied on regular injections of Oberndorf talent and expertise; without that ecosystem backing it all up, it became difficult to manufacture things affordably. It isn’t a “one and done” sort of affair; the stamping dies have to be remanufactured from time to time, and you have to be paying careful attention to what the hell you’re doing while stamping, or your reject rate is going to go through the roof, increasing the cost immeasurably. Ask Spain; the CETME Modelo “L” failed as an issue weapon largely because they couldn’t do precise repeatable manufacture affordably enough, cut corners, and thus… Failure out in the field.
Think of it as a balloon sort of affair; you have to have quality and precision somewhere, and if you’re going to avoid putting it into the actual weapons, then you have to put it into the production machinery. Or, have your armorers doing bespoke fitting out in the field, as we used to do back in the bad old days before mass production came in.
People really underestimate what the costs are on those production lines, and where the money gets spent. I talked this over, once upon a time, with a guy who did production engineering for similar products. The way he put it, you could either have a bunch of guys working on the production machinery or a bunch of guys churning out the parts… Either way, you’re going to have to pay the piper. In some respects, the HK path produces more affordable weapons, but in others…? They’re way more expensive; if you don’t have that requisite expertise and experience backing up the production machinery, you’re going to have problems the same way that the FN path would have trying to do all that fussy machining for its parts…
And, yes… There’s mass production machining involved for both, but the stamping techniques were/are more esoteric and less available outside of a metal-stamping ecosystem. Witness the issues that the Soviets had with the first model of AK…
@ Kirk
To me, the problem with roller delay is a finicky little round known as .223 Rem. / 5.56 NATO.
Other than H&K, also SIG roller delayed everything until they tried to adapt the system to an AR in 5.56, and failed. H&K managed to do it, but they had to adapt it to the load of the country that used it. 5.56 is a pain in the ass to blowback delay, as is a pain in the ass to stabilize.
But H&K MG5 in 7.62 NATO is gas operated either.
Yeah. Because it’s a scaled-up MG4. If you already manufacture a modern MG in 5.56, and want to make a modern MG in 7.62, it’s easier to scale-up that one than start from a clean sheet, only knowing the relative inclination of the locking surfaces of your previous roller delayed products. Also the armies that already adopted the first are more likely to adopt the second.
G1 FAL
Given the choice of which one of these to have in my safe, as a collector’s item? G1, all the way. Due to the rarity of them, more than anything else.
Take either one to war? LOL… Oh, hell no.
Both are too big, too heavy to serve as really usable individual weapons, and neither are accurate enough to really fit into the DMR role for so very many reasons. I mean, I love the FAL, I respect the HK roller-delay system, but… These are fundamentally flawed weapons that only saw the light of day because the US military forced 7.62X51 on NATO. Which should have been classed as a war crime.
Also demonstrates that the political is often sadly far more important than actual technical merit or the virtues of the systems being adopted. Just like with how the G3 even came about… Were it not for certain arrogant German parties at a party, the story went, the Belgians might well have licensed production to Germany, and the G3 would have never been a “thing” in the first place.
My take on the whole thing? A pox on all their houses; we should have gone with the .270/.280 British cartridge and kept the .30-06 or something slightly bigger for the crew-served MG role. Had they done that, we’d still be issuing the same cartridges and weapons, likely with improved sighting systems.
I do not like the way the whole ecosystem of small arms was warped by delusional US military figures, who were all proven wrong during the early days of Vietnam. Who also never paid a price for forcing 7.62X51 on NATO, and should have.
If only as a cautionary tale to future idjit types, like the ones who just recapitulated the entire fraudulent folly with NGSW.
A program, I will point out yet again, that was supposed to provide the foot soldier with a lighter weapon and loadout. Instead, we got unnecessary heavier cartridges that are overpowered and which like to ruin barrels in short order, along with smaller magazines and fewer rounds on the individual riflemen in combat.
5.56X45 is not the ideal individual weapons cartridge, but it’s good enough and the stupids forced it to be adopted and issued enough such that it’s now an international standard. It works; nobody in Ukraine is complaining that it isn’t effective against the supposedly “heavily armored” Russian soldier, soooo… Do the math, which should equate to “NGSW unnecessary; also, stupid.”
I really want some forensic accounting done, on all the involved decision-makers. Because, they’re either on the take, or abysmally stupid. Maybe both.
Given a choice of FN and HK’s wares back then, I think I’d have preferred the Venezuelan Army contract SAFN 1949 in 7x57mm. Although I do wonder if it had the same tendency to go full-auto due to firing-pin jamming as the Egyptian version in 7.9x57mm.
cheers
eon
I’ve a great deal of respect for the 7X57. Mauser knew what they were doing, and it’s just too bad that more people didn’t listen to them.
That said… SAFN in that caliber is preferable to what was on the market, but still not ideal. If you said “The FAL in 7mm Liviano…”? Oh, yeah… All day long, and twice on Sunday.
Friend of a friend was actually issued one of those in his days as a Venezuelan Army member; he described it as the “Very best in world…”, and I believe him. That’s the rifle we should have had, rather than the M14 or T48.
I daydream that Rene Studler is being spit-roasted somewhere in hell, along with the people who approved the M60 for issue before actually fixing all of its many flaws…
“(…)FAL in 7mm (…)”
How about FAL in 6,5 mm Scandinavian, as made for Swedish trials?
now there’s an idea.
@Daweo,
I’ve never fired 6.5 Swedish on fully automatic out of an individual weapon-class platform. My impression of it out of a bolt-action rifle is that it’s probably not all that much more controllable than 7.62X51 NATO, and I’d strongly suggest that the ideal individual weapon caliber ought to be somewhat less “oomphy”, to coin a term. I think I’d start with a 6.5 Swedish case, dial back the powder charge until I found the sweet spot where it could be managed by someone well within the standards of normal humanity, and then redesign the case to fit that charge, maybe “modernizing” it a bit along the way. I think that would be the true path towards the ideal individual weapon cartridge, and that simultaneously, they ought to be looking at the old Swedish HMG caliber as the support weapon cartridge, while also modernizing it.
The real problem with all of this is that the people actually making the decisions about what to buy aren’t actually qualified to be making them; Douglas MacArthur, who famously shit-canned the .276 Pedersen, was neither a ballistician nor a logistician; he did that strictly on his gut feelings, and he was wrong. The stock of .30-06 ammo he was worried about “going to waste” mostly wound up used as training ammo and being remanufactured, because the stuff needed to feed the Garand had to be a different specification entirely for both quality and ballistics. I saw a breakdown of just what happened to all that ammo he was worried about “going to waste” after WWI, and it mostly didn’t get used at all for WWII. A lot of it had to be basically used as raw materials, and while a bunch did go into training the Army for the war, they’d have done much better to have just gone with all-new ammo for just about everything.
Something that a lot of the logistics guys could have told him…
The U.S. literally sold 1/4 of the reserve post-WWI .30-06 cartridges to the UK during the post-Dunkirk/ post “Dynamo” rifle crisis in the UK. This was before Lend Lease. The army transferred everything over to U.S. Steel in Raritan, NJ to get around the various laws of a chary, war weary, and as called at the time “isolationist” U.S. public that was not enthusiastic about another European War. Were some of these people pro-Nazi bundists? Yes. But by no means all of them, or even a majority… Still, the ammo went to feed all of the Lewis guns, mostly ex-aircraft armament, and machine guns and BARs and M1917s and even a few M1903s and other .30-06 arms to equip the former LDV–“look, duck, vanish” and “parashots” armed with fowling pieces and old revolvers and sundry coshes, sword canes, maces, knobkerries, trench knives, feather dusters, and foul language prepared to take on Jerry during his “big push” into the green and pleasant land. Henceforth, the Home Guard would be pretty heavily armed with ex-U.S. service weapons while all the various .303″ weapons went to the regular army and territorials for training while additional Lee Enfields, Brens, and things like the Sten machine carbine were churned out…
As for a more efficient 6.5x55mm cartridge, it is called 6.5 Creedmore.
@Dave,
How controllable is the 6.5 Creedmore on fully-automatic fire out of a typical individual weapon-class select fire weapon?
I have no idea; neither does anyone else. My suspicion would be that looking at the numbers shows you’d likely have little to choose from 6.5 Swedish, in terms of “too big for full-auto from individual weapon platform”.
Kirk:
I have come to the conclusion that the M60’s main flaw is inherent to the design, namely that it is too lightly built, and hence shakes itself to death after a few thousand rounds, which is nothing in the life of a machine gun. The MAG is heavy, but it tends to last forever. I think the M60 should have been treated as a disposable item, like a Bic razor, and scrapped after 10,000 rounds.
@JohnK,
If you’ve been around here, you’ve no doubt seen me expound on the many and sundry flaws of the M60. And, I agree wholeheartedly with you that that weapon is in effect something that should have been issued as a disposable item like the M72 LAW; put one on a pallet of 10,000 rounds, and when that’s gone? Set a thermite grenade on top of the receiver and it’s all good.
There’s nothing inherently really bad about the design elements of the M60; the problem is in how they were executed. All the various bits and bobs of the design were taken from other, more successful weapons; it was that the designers didn’t know what they were doing when they tried to combine them, and that the manufacturing wasn’t up to making the chosen design features work in the context of the weapon.
Probably first and foremost was the receiver design: Being built up out of a bunch of different parts riveted together, that made for light weight but lousy lifespan and a predilection towards self-destruction when combined with everything else they mis-copied. Had they gone the route of doing a SIG 710 sort of machined receiver out of a monolithic block of stock, then they’d have precluded a bunch of issues. Had they done a PK-like design, with one single sheet of folded metal forming the majority of the receiver body? That, too, would have worked.
However, building a receiver up out of a bunch of lightweight pieces of metal that were held together by some very flimsy blind rivets? I have to wonder at the sheer audacity of it… And, they went to the effort of even milling some of those rivets flat with the surface. Can you guess which ones were the most likely to fail?
The M60 is a design that I look at and just have to shudder; it’s even worse than many people can wrap their heads around, but when you were forced to keep a bunch of them running for years and years, you got to know all the ways in which that design was prone to failure. It is a gun that simply doesn’t want to be a gun; it would rather shake itself to death and end the pain. An armorer with M60s in his fleet is like a farmer with a flock of turkeys he’s trying to raise for market; the goddamn things exist to try and kill themselves, which they’ll do in the most alarming and unlikely ways.
If the M60 were a bird, it’d be a particularly stupid variety of North American domesticated turkey, one of the ones that drive people in the agricultural industry to drink. Those guns are literally lemming-like in the determined way they seek to destroy themselves, and it’s about all you can do to keep them from running off of figurative cliffs…
Usually, with the inept assistance of those assigned to their care and feeding, most of whom are beyond hope when it comes to teaching the very basics of “How to keep your M60 alive and running…”
That’s true, with the caveat that it’s absolutely possible to design a MG that weights less than the M60 (that, at 10.5kg, was not even that lightweight) and can fire 7.62×51 NATO rounds forever.
The Poles did with the UKM2000, simply converting the PK in 7.62 NATO. Before that, as said, had it been presented a little earlier, the SIG MG 710-3 would have probably been the ideal western GPMG.
One of the many faults of the M60 is to have condemned the US Army to use, as a replacement, a MG that’s durable, but that’s too heavy for GPMG role.
Kirk:
I wonder if the flimsy nature of the M60 is anything to do with the time it was developed? In the 1950s it was expected that any future war would go nuclear within days if not hours. Why bother with a heavy gun when you can have a light one which lasts as long as needed before the big one gets dropped?
@JohnK;
The same reasoning was behind the Darne aircraft flexible MG of the 1920s. Since aircraft weren’t expected to last more than one or two missions (based on the attrition rate 1915-18), the French Air Force saw little point in a machine gun built with durability in mind.
Ironically, the belt-fed Darne could have been the first true GPMG if they’d followed through with an Army “ground gun” version. But as usual, those two parts of the French military were feuding just as the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy did.
clear ether
eon
@JohnK, Dogwalker,
I think you’re on to something, in regards to the lack of emphasis on the MG. The post-WWII era in the US Army was full of delusional thinking about how the atomic bomb was going to make the Army obsolete as a combat force, and because of that, they pretty much ignored the lessons of WWII in terms of what was going on in actual combat.
Thus, the lack of emphasis on the machinegun, and why they adopted the half-assed M60. They didn’t think they needed it, really… So, why put effort into it?
I think it was also a function of “If you let your fighting be done by fools, and your thinking done by cowards…”, you’re going to experience failure. The majority of the “really good” combat officers came out of WWII, saw the atomic bomb, and said “Yeah; f*ck this… I want to live it up a little before we all die…”, and proceeded to return to civilian life. Who was left in the forces? The also-served (usually in the rear…) types like Rene Studler, whose contribution to the war effort mostly consisted of being in the rear with the services of supply, and precisely zero exposure to actual combat. If there’d been a bit of realism on the part of the public in general, they’d have generated quite a different zeitgeist than they did, and more of the “really good at combat” types would have remained in the Army to serve as opponents to the idjit classes.
If you read This Kind of War by Fehrenbach, you can get a feel for what happened after WWII; everybody pretty much packed up and went home, leaving the institution of the Army to the idjit types.
One way you can tell this? Observe how far S.L.A. Marshall got with his febrile line of bullshit. The guys who knew? They all got out, right after the war; none of them were still in uniform to counter his self-serving self-promoting line of lies that he was never called on, during his lifetime. You only saw criticisms come in when guys like David Hackworth started telling the world what they observed about Marshall’s so-called “after-action research”.
The M60 came out of that milieu; I have to blame all the assholes that stood by and let it happen. I mean, for the love of God, the fielding process identified that they would have to safety-wire the gas system together, and they still fielded it. WTF? How do you, as an actual Army officer, who has experience with troops and training them to crew such weapons, let that go by without saying “Yeah; this isn’t right, take it back, re-design it so that gas system doesn’t spontaneously self-disassemble under normal use…”?
The M60 was a product of a failed culture, more than it was a product of failed engineering and lazy thinking: It never should have been fielded without significant redesign and improvements, but there ya go… It wasn’t important to the leadership, who were more focused on big-ticket crap like fancy uniforms to replace the WWII styles that we’re now going back to, yet again…
Military failure begins in the culture of the military; you can figure out what’s important to that culture by what works and what they emphasize. The US Army is clearly not too concerned with small arms-centric combat, and that’s why the machineguns it issues are still on top of what are functionally identical to that which we mounted the Browning M1919 on top of for WWII…
And, of course, we have such spiffy uniforms to wear while being unable to answer routine machinegun fire from easily countered ranges.
In their original configuration they were both not very accurate (nor it was the M14), but they can be, and had been, quite easily converted to be DMR. The G3 more easily (a floating barrel with a roller delay system is a no-brainer).
“(…)Also demonstrates that the political is often sadly far more important than actual technical merit or the virtues of the systems being adopted.(…)”
In fact neither started their evolution at 7,62 x 51 NATO.
FN FAL before becoming one was using .280 cartridge.
G3 progenitor https://modernfirearms.net/en/assault-rifles/spain-assault-rifles/cetme-mod-a-b-58-c-eng/ used 7.62×51 mm reduced power load
It used the ballistic marvel that was the 7.92X40mm CETME.
“FN FAL before becoming one was using .280 cartridge”
The first prototype, serial number 1, was designed for the German 7.9 mm Kurzpatrone.
See, for example, The Metric FAL, Toronto, Canada, 1981, p. 23. This gun was also shown in FN’s display room.
that is a foolish take; are you really saying you can’t carry 9 pounds in your arms when you have 50 pounds on your back? if a soldier isn’t strong enough to carry his own weapon he shouldn’t be in the armed forces of any nation. and you cannot say they’re flawed without saying why, and that the adoption of an excellent cartridge is a war crime? (like what the hell dude!) and militaries chose cartridges they need, what does 30-06, .303 and 7.62x54R do that 7.62×51 cannot? there is a good reason that the only one of the full powered cartridges mentioned above is still in service, and that’s because Russia is not adopting a NATO standard. if .280 was so good, why wasn’t it adopted by the US (who did trials with it and the prototype 7.62; t65) who, found that the ballistics and accuracy of .280 were significantly worse than 7.62: 7.62 was also comparable in Pmax to 30-06 and a velocity in fps only ~100 less with a 150g projectile while being lighter and smaller as well as more suitable for automatic weapons ((BAR is 16 pounds while m14 is 8.7 while both fulfilling a similar purpose)hence the whole point of the m14 program), you say the whole project was to decrease weight on a soldier but ended up increasing it? the cartridge is still smaller and slightly weaker than the ones it replaced (bar .303) but we fit more rounds into a gun now with similar power, I agree that NGSW is a pot of boiling sewage but the role that is trying to fill was filled 70 years ago and forgotten. and if you’ve never seen combat footage or even mass shootings, first off, don’t, second, 5.56 usually takes a few rounds to kill, while 7.62 tends to kill in one shot; even just hitting a guy will probably make him stop fighting. and you cannot claim baselessly that the US military was the only reason for a directly superior cartridge to be selected for STANAG. and your claim of “neither are accurate enough to really fit into the DMR role for so very many reasons” then why are there models of both rifles that are DMR’s? the point of a DMR is to have improved accuracy over the other members of a squad without losing firepower like with an accurate bolt action rifle, you have to keep in mind too that precision isn’t prioritized in the military, just general accuracy. why is having less ammo on a single soldier so important when there’s a vehicle loaded with 10,000 rounds actively resupplying you, Vietnam was a unique war in that, you would be on patrol for weeks at a time with no resupply, even with 5.56 that’s still a problem, keep in mind you’d most likely be using full auto with an m16 anyways so then consuming more ammo. talking to Vietnam veterans who swapped with other units for m14s it’s clear they liked its power, shooting through cover that other guns couldn’t penetrate except for the m60 which fires the same round. based on what you’ve said it’s clear you think there’s more to the story, but you make it sound like conspiracy AND you have no evidence or sources nor reasons; have you even SHOT 7.62×51/.308?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.280_British#NATO_Competition
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/02/28/the-return-of-weekly-dtic/
Punctuation, paragraphs, and line spacing might help you make coherent arguments. As is, nobody can tell what you’re arguing or who you’re addressing with all that.
On the off chance you’re trying to address me, I’ve got some 25 years of active military service in combat arms, and served as armorer/maintainer/supervisor for just about every unit I was assigned to. I’ve got rather more trigger time than average, and I’m here to tell you that you’ve no clue whatsoever about the merits of the 7.62 NATO cartridge in either the individual weapon or crew served roles. For the first, it’s too damn heavy and entirely unnecessary for realistic combat use, and for the second, it’s barely adequate because the idjits designing it weighted what should have been a support cartridge too much towards the individual weapon. What they got was a compromise that sucked in both roles; had they kept the .30-06 for support and then chosen something an actual average soldier could fire on full-auto for the individual weapon, they’d have been on to something. As it was, they were incredibly foolish, and tried squaring a circle yet again, which did not work. We still live with the effects of this, in that the 7.62 NATO is at a slight disadvantage to the 7.62X54R cartridges fielded by the Soviets and then Russia.
We could have done better, but the feckless idjits we put in charge of all this failed in their obligations to the troops and nation. We got a barely adequate individual weapon and cartridge for it through a comedy of errors that wouldn’t pass muster if you tried selling it as a musical song-and-dance routine a la “The Producers”. Nobody would buy it; an “interim solution” that’s lasted longer than any other issued platform in the entire history of the US military? The idea that such a thing might wind up rivaling the Brown Bess for longevity? Ridiculous.
Why are you ignoring any facts and sticking to your own word? 7.62x54R is NOT better and is in NO SIMILAR ROLE to 7.62×51 in any regard, nor is 30-06 better with its marginal improvements in velocity being its only advantage; otherwise, they are basically the same with 7.62×51 being MORE ACCURATE AT RANGE AND MORE SUITED FOR FULL AUTO than a massive cartridge designed for bolt-action rifles over 100 years ago.
No one has to believe that you served 25 years in any armed service: you could’ve served in the coast guard for all I know, and at that how many units is every unit you’ve been supposedly assigned to (it could be just one for all I know, and you were in a laundry detachment too!). “And I’m here to tell you that you’ve no clue whatsoever about the merits of the 7.62 NATO cartridge” well you only mentioned 2 and the first one assumes you want LARGER, HEAVIER cartridges in military service once more, and what is it not useful for in modern combat, the round goes through material pretty well but you seem to be confusing range time with combat experience; a man who menstruates such as yourself would also like a smaller personal infantry weapon that they can hold in their prinny arms without breaking a bone. The second one has no supporting claim at all,you already recommended .280 British as a suitable infantry weapon cartridge without realizing it’s worse than 5.56 in most regards (especially accuracy, and when i don’t hit the enemy, he doesn’t die) .and 7.62 was used in both roles just the same as your beloved 30-06, but you have no complaints about that cartridge, do ya, WELL DO YA?
And who can’t tell what I said, you? the one who can’t tell what a fairly comprehensive comment says is the same person going making bold claims with no base, scolding a man who wrote an essay length comment in less than an hour and you can’t even pronounce “idiots” without making a typo. my questions raised in the first comment still stand as you just said more of the same without giving a single reason why you may think this way and ranting on how a perfectly adequate cartridge is somehow worse than the ones which came before it AND the one that came after while still shining no praise on that “replacement” cartridge with a conspiratorial undertone on why NATO adopted it, you think you’re supposed to be comfortable in the military? Go to war and you’ll see how important a little thing called “supply line” and his friend “logistics” is.
Finally, I think it’s obvious who I’m addressing douchebag, as the comment was on YOUR POST! And next time you criticize someone’s writing, just realize you didn’t put a single statistic, reference, reason, in-depth explanation, or source for any of your information while sounding like a trump-humping conspiracy theorist the whole time. And don’t compare anything to a Brown Bess, there were no other suitable options for over a hundred years!
I would choose the G3. Lighter, more rugged, simpler, and easier to scope for DM rifle. Much easier to maintain in the field than the G1.
Sweden was also faced with similar question during looking for new fire-arm https://www.gotavapen.se/gota/ak/ak4_5/ak5_history.htm which due to G3 and FAL fulfilled all the test. The FAL had a little edge to the G3 in most cases except for two points. The G3 was not worn out easily, but above all it was cheaper to build, due to new production techniques like stamped steel and plastic. lead to choice of H&K design, although it was improved G3 dubbed Ak 4, rather than G3 without changes.
I’d take both. I actually do have an FN FAL heavy barrel and an HK 91 (not quite a G3) with Hensoldt scope in a claw mount. Both are great shooters, with the 91 being a lot easier to handle off hand and carry in the field.
Comparing an FN FAL with heavy barrel to the HK91 and then saying that the “HK91 is easier to handle off hand and carry…” is a bit on the side of saying that an apple is a lousy citrus fruit.
The actual comparison ought to be made on the two weapons configured for the same role. Like “Base FAL to base HK91” or “FAL Heavy to HK21” or “FAL Para to HK91 with retracting stock”.
As well, horses for courses. You can stick an HK21 on a tripod, making it a reasonable substitute for a GPMG; this, you cannot do with a FAL Heavy.
I’m not arguing that you’re wrong, but I do think you ought to be comparing like-to-like.
The cartridges you are looking for is 6.5 Grendel. For controllability you need a muzzle energy less than 2500J(1844pound/ft). The 123 grain Grendel is slightly above it, but obviously you can slightly down load it. Because it fires a bullet of better BC it out perform 7.62X51 at long ranges. The weight of Grendel cartridges is +-17.1 g. For the 7.62×51 mm it is 25.4 g. For the 5.56×45 mm it is 11.8 g. As I stated before some one need to carry the 7.62×51 mm ammo. For load of 210 of 5.56×45 mm and 200 of 7.62×51 mm jou can carry 442 round of 6.5 Grendal. There jou have more for more. There is no free lunch, but in case of die Grendal thise is not so.
With regards to the 6.5 Grendel and all the rest of the “What can we shove into the AR-15 platform” cartridges out there…?
It’s my opinion that doing that sort of “engineering” is the same sort of mistake that the French made when they did the bare minimum to come up with the Lebel and its cartridge. You should not be designing the cartridge to fit a particular platform, not if you want to make it work for the long haul. Design to fulfill the mission; make the cartridge fit that, first, then worry about the rest of the question in terms of the actual platform. It all has to work together, and if you compromise your design to “make it fit”, then you’re going to eventually have issues when your compromises inevitably catch up with you.
I feel like insufficient attention gets paid to the actual internal ballistics of these cartridges; anyone can tell you that the sort of powder used, the actual interior of the case, and the primer chosen all interplay in order to produce the net end effect. If you have a short, stubby sort of cartridge, then you have to have a propellant designed to make that work, and if it isn’t affordable to produce…? You don’t want that cartridge design. Observe the effect of Ordnance making “minor changes” to the IMR propellant cartridges for the M16, and where that went…
Ideally, you need to start with a fresh, clean sheet and design from there. Saying “Oh, it’s gotta fit into the M16 action/receiver…” is a path towards eventual and inevitable failure.
It’s what the US Army Marksmanship Unit and the Irregular Warfare Technology Support Directorate did with the 6.5 LICC. They estabilished the charateristics they wanted from a 6.5mm bullet, and left the manufacturer (FN) to design the cartridge and the rifle.
What FN came up with in the end is dimensionally a shortened .308 (same base, but 43mm case lenght) with slightly reduced pressure (55.000 psi instead of 62.000). Nothing fancy, even if then FN chose a two-piece steel case, to save 20% weight over a single piece brass case.
My apologies for poor handling comparison with the two I own. I have also handled a friends Base FAL, and still feel the HK was easier to handle. That being said I still consider both to be some of the best “battle rifles” out there. And I do possess others including, Garand, G43, K98, AR15, AUG, SVT40, FN49, 1903Sprinfield, SKS and a few others I’ve collected over the years. Regrettably I did sell one of the few AKs I consider worthwhile. (Bulgarian with a milled receiver)
But it’s H&K, which means it’s perfect. Right?
Damn nearly true in my book, but I’d rather not carry it around. A good old M16 will just have to do.
CG
If I’m going to carry it, the ergonomics of any FAL beat those of a G3. But if I’m expected to actually hit stuff with my rifle, G3 all day. This is the correct opinion, and the final word.
Golly. With Mr. M’Collum on the scene…
Answer C:
FSA Mle. 1949-56 7,5x54mm
As for the BRD:
In 1955? For 7.62x51mm Nato, then G-1 FAL to replace the .30-06 Garand, .30 M1 and M2 carbines, 7.92x57mm Kar98k und so weiter. Also the Erma MP60 9mm SMG (admittedly, still under development then).
In 1959? Probably stick with the G-1, perhaps with some cheapening solutions added here and there if necessary and the FAL was too expensive. Also the Erma MP60 SMG.
In 1990-91? 5.56x45mm Wieger 942 but with STANAG magazines like the G-41. Bessere Zielfernrohre später…
G3 is easily fitted with a carry handel .
Have both an others, G3 for me , more so if I can find away to make that retractable stock less of a torture device. On my 16″ G3 .
Well.
This certainly put it in the dunny.
The 6.5x55mm is an excellent rifle caliber. As I’ve stated here before, due to superior bullet design (boat-tail vs. flat-base) it matches the downrange performance of .270 Winchester while starting out up to 200 F/S slower at the muzzle.
It also makes a decent HMG round, surprisingly. As the Swedish and Norwegian armies showed with Browning HMGs in that caliber.
But as an automatic rifle round? No. Just….no.
The only semi-successful AR in 6.5x55mm was the Ljungman AG42 series. Which was literally designed around that cartridge from a clean sheet of paper. Every attempt to modify the AG42 to use any other cartridge (Egyptian Hakim 7.9x57mm, Rashid 7.62x39mm) failed. The action and cartridge were simply too carefully matched to each other.
Also, the 6.5x55mm is arguably neither a medium-length cartridge like 7.62x51mm or a full-length cartridge like 7.9x57mm or .30-06, or .270 Winchester for that matter. It’s a rather strange round with an odd profile. (Look at one next to any of the others mentioned, you’ll see what I mean.)
According to Barnes in Cartridges of the World (any edition), to this day no one is even too sure who designed it. It’s not a typical Mauser case, that’s for sure. If I had to SWAG, I’d say Karl Gustaf State Rifle Factory in Sweden, which had a very good and highly “independent”-minded design staff.
And it was designed for bolt-action rifles, not self-loading ones.
I suspect that getting it to work in MGs was mainly a matter of choosing a design with “sufficient power in the system”. Like a Browning, for instance. It might even work in an MG34 or MG42 type. I suspect feed geometry would have a lot to do with success or failure, plus how sturdily the gun was built to handle the round’s odd pressure curve.
I would most assuredly not want to see anyone try to shoehorn it into an M60. I suspect what the British used to call with precision “catastrophic self-disassembly” would be entirely possible.
In short, the 6.5x55mm Swedish Mauser “is what it is”. An excellent medium-range (400-600m) rifle cartridge. Trying to make it do other jobs is likely to cause disappointment- or worse.
If you want an “all-around” cartridge, you probably need to start with a 7mm bore size. As for case length, 48 to 50mm is probably about right, making sure you have enough neck to securely hold the bullet, which will almost certainly have a higher fineness ratio than “usual”.
So yes, you’re going to end up with something like 7x49mm Liviano or .280 British. (Which may or may not be the same cartridge case; Barnes has no entry on the Venezuelan round.)
In fact, a good “modern” starting point might be the 7mm Remington Bench Rest silhouette pistol round. Loaded with a 120 to 140 grain bullet, it develops its best velocities and energy (around 2400 F/s and 1400 FPE) in 16 to 18-inch barrels.
And yes, it began life as a shortened and necked-down .308 Winchester. So any bolt-head designed for 7.62x51mm should be able to cope with it. (There’s Kirk’s “installed base”, again.)
We need to stop re-inventing the wheel. But we also need to stop trying to force-fit things that just aren’t going to “taste great together”.
But what do I know? I don’t like S’Mores or Reece’s Pieces, either.
clear ether
eon
Practically all the 6.5mm round users decided to adopt a specialized cartridge for HMG before WWII. Italy (8mm Breda), Netherlands (8mm Mauser), Sweden (8×63mm m/32), Norway (7.92x61mm Norwegian).
“(…)Netherlands (8mm Mauser)(…)”
They used own cartridge, not typical Mauser cartridge, namely Scherpe Patroon No. 23 https://www.cartridgecollector.net/cartridge/792-x-57r-dutch-schwarzlose/ adopted in 1925. This new caliber retained the base and rim diameter of the M.95 Mannlicher cartridge but with the German length (57mm) and a German “S” (Pointed) projectile. This cartridge was only used by the Dutch.
Yes, and best guess is that it all happened after they tried-and failed- to get the HMG performance and reliability they needed from the HMG/6.5x55mm combination.
IMPO, the 8x59mm Breda came close to being the perfect HMG round, with 8x63mm M/32 and 7.9x61mm Norske tied for second.
Today, my choice for an OTS HMG round would be something like .300 Dakota or 8mm JDJ. Similar in dimensions and profile to 8x59mm but performing more like .338 Lapua in ranging and power with less bore erosion.
For a really serious, really heavy MG, as in “Ma Deuce Fifty Replacement”, .408 CheyTac (10.6x77mm) stands alone as the great overlooked candidate. Downrange performance exceeding 12.7x99mm BMG, with a smaller, lighter round, lower recoil, better accuracy and higher velocity giving reduced ToF to the recipient. Meaning, less time to duck.
OT, if someone is looking for a ROWP weapon for whacking serious drones (the delta-winged ones the size of hang-gliders), a Gatling in .408 CT would neatly fill the bill.
cheers
eon
The Italians extensively used the 6.5 Carcano in HMG role (FIAT Revelli 1914,and some other), and ultimately decided it was not worth it. Problem was the 6.5 ball ammo did not penetrate enough against even light armors, while 8mm class could overmatch the 4-6mm armors that were common in the ’30s for armored cars and light tanks, even without special bullets.
Probably that was the conclusion of all the others.
“(…)only semi-successful AR in 6.5x55mm was the Ljungman AG42(…)”
With 6,5 x 55 mm sole military users being Norway and Sweden there was not much demand in first place.
“(…)designed for bolt-action rifles, not self-loading ones.(…)”
This apply also to other European military rifle cartridges of that era. Which is not surprising considering that main consumer for such cartridge would be said rifles. Yet that did not prevented SAFN-49 https://modernfirearms.net/en/military-rifles/self-loading-rifles/belgium-self-loading-rifles/fn-safn-49-eng/ from appearing in 7×57 mm, 7.65×57 mm, 7.92x57mm, .30-06 (7.62x63mm)
“(…)getting it to work in MGs was mainly a matter of choosing a design(…)Browning(…)”
According to https://sadefensejournal.com/swedish-medium-machine-guns-kulspruta-m36-lv-dbl/ The m/95 Maxim, the m/99 Nordenfeldt (Konstruction Bergman-Nordenfeldt) and m/00 Hotchkiss all found a home at one time or another in the Swedish army from 1895 to 1914. From 1914 the m/14 Schwarzlose was adopted and widely used. and looked at Browning design when they needed synchronized aerial machine gun, but being filling that niche they found that In 1930, the director of Carl Gustafs Stads Gevärsfaktori noted that they could produce 50 water-cooled M1917A1-type Brownings for the same price as 30 Schwarzlose machine guns, which were still in production at GF.
So said cartridge was actually mated with various design of machine guns and used for years before displacement by cheaper-to-make Browning design.
6.5 Swedish was not that strange of a round for late 19th century.
https://content.osgnetworks.tv/shootingtimes/content/photos/HandloadersCaliber-770.jpg
Here you have, left to right: 6.5 Grendel, 6.5 Arisaka, 6.5 Carcano, 6.5 Dutch Mannlicher, 6.5×54 Mannlicher-Schönauer, 6.5×55 Swedish, 6.5 Portuguese, 6.5 Creedmoor
The three “Carcano derived” (Carcano, Dutch Mannlicher and Mannlicher-Schönauer) are the tree less tapered ones, while Arisaka, Swedish and Portuguese are more tapered. Also the performances were very close. Modern loadings brought 6.5X55 performances to 6.5 Creedmoor level, but military loading performances were practically on par with 6.5 Carcano.
I have carried and shot both. In the South African Marines 1980, I had a Belgian FN in basic training, then a G3 when going into the Marines. When stationed at an army base that did not have replacemnts, the R1 (SA made FAL) was issued. During this time the R4 (Galil copy) started to be issued and we shot and carried these as they became available. I also shot a Lee Enfield .303 with a sniper scope (from EOD team) and AK family. Have since shot M16 clones and LM5. Of them all I chose the G3 first. All are good weapons. All need TLC. All will do the job. Agree about the plastic bits, the G3a3 we originally had were fitted with the original slim handguard and butt. Handguard got HOT when doing fire and movement. Later SA manufactured the heavier handguard and R1 style buttstock which added a little weight but were easier to shoot and sturdier. Of them all, the G3 was the hardest to clean (no dust cover), but on the plus side, no gas piston and gas tube. Trigger mechanism was a breeze to clean. Preferred the sights on the G3 and shot my best with it. Oh and we had the crappy aluminium mags. Three issued with the rifle. Supposed to be disposable, but we used them over and over, till we had feeding problems. Give me a G3 anyday.