H&K G36: Is it really so great?

[Nightcrawler]

Lots of people on the board speak very highly of the Heckler & Koch G36 rifle. I guess it's the next big thing.

My question is, how many of us have actually handled a G36, muchless fired one? If you've never fired or handled one, and still love the rifle, what are you basing your opinions on?

I'm not saying it's a bad design; by all accounts it's a very reliable weapon. Though I'll say straight up that I do not like the sighting arrangement. Without actually having handled the weapon, I can say that the dual reticle system looks uncomfortable to me. I also consider reliance on a battery-powered sighting device to be a design flaw.

Now, the other version of the G36 has only one reticle, which features a 1.5x (I believe) scope (as opposed to the standard 3.5x) and no red dot sight. A crude set of pistol sights are molded into the carry handle (or whatever they call that thing) for emergency close-in sighting.

Personally, I'll take a quick-detach scope over a set of irons any day. Iron sights work perfectly well for shooting; there's no point in having a red-dot sight in addition to a scope on your weapon. If you have a scope, use the scope for long ranged shooting and the irons for close.

If you really want a dot-type sight (and they do have their merits) then it seems to me that the best choice are the tritium powered ones that don't rely on batteries, though those are more expensive.

Just some thoughts. I wonder, because while the G36's method of operation certainly looks sound, the weapon remains for all practical purposes untested. Has there been much in the way of feedback, good or bad, from soldiers who've carried the weapon in the field?

 

[Fed168]

I have limited experience with the G36. With that said, I am not too impressed mainly with the sight system and the grip.

The sights feel too high over the receiver and the grip angle feels funny. This is one shooter, though, I am sure it feels good to others. I had some problems with the zero between 25 and 100 yards, I expect a change, but not that much, enough to make me wonder what went wrong. Trigger wise, it could be cleaned up, and the grip angle makes the weapon feel awkard.

We have one with irons, but I have not shot it yet. What I don't like is the lack of irons on the gun with the scope/ red dot, where is the back up if the other two go out?

On the positive side, it is controllable in full auto. The construction of the weapon allows cleaning to be done after alot of shooting (I think somewhere around 1000 rounds if I heard right). The bipod is convienent- folds up and out of the way, but there when needed.

I'd rather have an AR or something like that given my choice.

 

[Kenneth Lew]

H&K has a good marketing team. Thats what most people based their opinions of the firearm on or via HKPro.com. I fired a post-86 dealer sample and sort of liked it (accurate, very controllable, but the handle sighting system is not my cup of tea).

Kenneth Lew

 

[Kaylee]

I've had the chance to get into the guts of one, and was given the opportunity to fire it once under good range conditions. no mud- dragging sand-dumping torture test from me.


the good --
simple, robust mechasism. Not much to go wrong, though given George's grumblings I'm thinking a fixed extractor might make a good improvement, presuming it could be done without compromising the integrity of that tiny little .223 bolt head.

VERY easy to take down for a basic field strip and clean. No little parts to lose in the dirt.
Decent ergonomics, though to my mind inferior to the AR's
good *solid* folding stock.


not good --
the one I handled had a low power optic -- not certain which type, but no reddot. Back up sights were atrocious (I've seen better on a water pistol), and the optic itself was murky indoors... across the dim warehouse interior of the shop floor it wouldn't have been easy to hit targets much past "point and pray" range. Outside though it was INCREDIBLE. ranging marks and just enough magnification to make 250 yard shots boringly easy.

The reciprocating bolt handle might freak out some.. having cut my teeth on first an SKS and then the Garand/M1A family of actions (watch the oprod!) it was no biggie. Personally I found it a little clumsy to get to, but again.. I'm used to big ol' "grab here" knobs flailing around on the side of a gun.

Same comment for the mag changes -- not as swift as an AR, but solid. About M1A feel -- smoother going in than an AK (at least the AKs I've handled, clumsy me), but still a rock-n-lock.

the magazines were to my mind overly bulky, and the clip-together ability of 'em was outweighed by the bulk. Nifty idea.. just don't like the execution.

grip is a little on the skimpy side to my mind, and I'd have prefered it be textured.



Summary --
Good rifle, not God's UberWeapon. For a drag-through-the-muck infantry rifle, I can see the advantage to the M16... though it don't offer much in that department a lot of other rifles of the past 20 years don't.
I personally don't think it offers enough new to warrant a wholesale changeover to the XM8,.. even with the redesign you're getting worse ergonomics with not much of an upside. I'd sooner let the polymer technologies develop a few more years and then take another stab at designing something more innovative.. Otherwise I see us being saddled with the whole AR15/AR18 "oh.. wait..... " situation again.

I'd not feel defenseless with one by any means though.

 

[Schuey2002]

Kaylee,

I've had the chance to get into the guts of one, and was given the opportunity to fire it once under good range conditions. no mud- dragging sand-dumping torture test from me.

Did you get a chance to fire it in 2 round burst mode or full auto?

the one I handled had a low power optic -- not certain which type, but no reddot. Back up sights were atrocious (I've seen better on a water pistol)

You're right. The factory sights ( which are made by Hensoldt Germany) suck. Both the 1.5x & 3x optical sights were poorly thought out. The field of view is absolutely horrible; whenever I shoot my SL8 (w/the 3x scope), I always get the sensation that I'm looking through a roll of toilet paper and not a quality German scope.

The reciprocating bolt handle might freak out some.

There should be a warning sticker (just below the forearm locking pin) on both the G36 and SL8-1 that reads..

Warning! Do not allow your thumb to rest here! Cocking handle will bite!
*with a little red arrow pointing to the space in front of the cocking handle*

the magazines were to my mind overly bulky, and the clip-together ability of 'em was outweighed by the bulk. Nifty idea.. just don't like the execution.

But. . . but, Kaylee. How else are you going to do this?

 

[Sven]

"...the Heckler & Koch G36... deadly in the right hands..."

-Johnny English

-

Would love to fire one. If only those with the most experience posted the most frequently - sadly, it seems the inverse is true.

 

[Marko Kloos]

The G36 came into service after my time, but my brother is currently serving, and he's had experience with the G36 since basic training. He says that "if you can't hit anything with this rifle, you're blind." He likes the stacked optics, having shot a 200-meter course of fire with the red dot once when he was supposed to use the scope, and still cleaning up all the targets. He did mention, however, that the optics are near useless when you use the rifle in rain and high moisture conditions, since the optics get fogged up or blurry with water.

Here's a pic of my little brother in basic training with the G36:

 

[Nightcrawler]

Hmm...okay, from what I've read, it seems that the weapon would be better served if it had a set of GOOD iron sights, with a higher quality, wider FOV scope (think Trilux or ELCAN) scope being issued standard, on some kind of a see-through scope mount. A cheek pad molded into the stock might help, too, as would probably changing the grip angle.

Of course, if you REALLY wanted to make it into a quality, Nightcrawler Tactical Approved(TM) weapon, you'd scale the whole thing up to .308....

But .223 (excuse me, 5.56mm Kinetic Energy Weapons, as they call it in the OICW literature) will do for the average grunt, I guess...

 

[techmike]

I Look at HK much the same as I look at Harley Davidson

They make a decent product and back it up with World Class Marketing. I like H&K's and I Like H-D's but they are not the end all that both the Brand Loyalists and the Marketing people would like you to believe.

Disclaimer - Not bashing, I CCW a USPc .45 every day and have a Tactical in my safe. Buying a Harley in the near future.

 

[Kaylee]

Schuey --

Did you get a chance to fire it in 2 round burst mode or full auto?

Both. But my experience with auto stuff is so limited I don't believe I could give a fair review -- I just don't have much of a basis of comparison. I do remember it being a little easier to handle than the CAR15 I was once given the opportunity to try, but a minute or so on two rifles does not a good statistical sample make.

Warning! Do not allow your thumb to rest here! Cocking handle will bite!
*with a little red arrow pointing to the space in front of the cocking handle*

*heh* like the little "no step" stickers from my brother's toy airplanes that got everywhere but the plane?

But. . . but, Kaylee. How else are you going to do this?

um... duct tape?

 

[El Tejon]

Poster-formerly-known-as-lend, fine looking young man. You must be be very proud of him.

The HK50 is not a new idea, but a product improvement via evolution. We shall see.

 

[Min]

Forget the G36, you can get the AR180B for $650. Similar steel reinforced polymer receiver, good reliability with gas piston design, light, and accurate.

 

[uglygun]

I got to handle a god's honest HK G36 at a local SWAT competion that I was invited to watch. The competition had several NFA/LEO distributors there, one of them being an HK rep that had just about the entire HK line.


Having read all the hype about the G36 which was just recently introduced at the time I went right up and drooled over the thing, until I picked it up. It was akward, not just typical HK akward but REALLY akward. First thing that struck me as odd was the sight arrangement, it had that blasted dual optic that has limited tube size diameter making for reduced field of view and then on top of that they have those stupid "buldges" for battery compartments on either side further restricting field of view. Plus there is the height of the optics that are bumped up thanks to the rediculous charging handle, I really didn't like that ambidextrous charging handle latch either.


I don't know, after a couple years of handling firearms I know precisely what I like. The AR15/M16 ergonomics are about the best I've found for a conventional rifle design.

Maybe if I was some greenhorn who didn't have any past firearms experience I could be trained to like the G36 and think it was the greatest rifle ever designed. But after getting accustomed to an AR15 with all it's glorious modularity and non-Wookie like HK Ergonomics, I just don't like the G36.

In general, I don't much like HK firearms with the exception of the HK P7 series and the HK 53.

 

[T.Stahl]

Last Oct/Nov I went to the German Army's NCO school in southern Germany and was issued a G36 for four weeks. Well,...

Pros:
- It's reliable. I didn't have any problems during the four weeks and couldn't see comrades having problems. Except firing blanks, then mine turned into a straight-pull bolt-action.
- After getting used to it, it's easy to field strip (at least as easy as a G3).
- It's very clean shooting and easy to clean.
- It's accurate (at the range!) with both red-dot and 3x sight. The trigger is significantly better than the G3's.
- The 3x sight can be used to ID objects if you don't have a bino.

Cons
- The sights and only the sights.
- As long as you're inside a building, they are fine. But as soon as you enter the German forrest in autumn and carry the rifle at the ready with the red-dot lined up in front of your (in my case left) eye, water from your breath will condense on the rear end of the receiver and likely fog up the lenses.
- The lenses themselves are very small (.5-.6") and give a rather restricted field of view. Compare the field of view to that of a Mepor 21!

Ergo:
As it is, it's a fine nice-weather rifle, but for most of the year I'd prefer even the crude open sights of my SL8. The most accurate rifle id useless if you can't aim it.

Solution:
Take the long sight rail from an SL8 and really good open sights like those on Swiss StG 90s...

 

[Cruiser]

I have extensive experience with the G-36 (our SWAT team has 6; one of them has been assigned to me for the past 3 years), and the comments about the sight system are right on. The rifle itself is an utterly reliable weapon- I've never seen any of ours malfunction or jam. Not the most accurate weapon, though. Four inches at 100 yards is about all they're good for.

We had problems with both the red dot & telescopic sights not holding zero from one training day to the next. We had HK put on new carry handle/sight assemblies & still had the same problem on all 6 guns. HK finally ponied up for the iron sight set-up with picatinny rail and HoloSights. Everybody's happy with the guns now & the quality red-dot sights maintain their zero. The iron sights are crap, but are only a back-up in case the HoloSight crashes or batteries die (that was the one good thing about the stock red-dot sight on the G-36: ambient light could be used to power the dot with no battery needed).

 

[Sven]

Four inches at 100 yards is about all they're good for.

Wow... that's M1 Carbine-level accuracy. Is that from a bench rest with iron sights?

 

[Schuey2002]

^^^ Which rifle are you getting that kind of accuracy with, the G36k, or the G36c?