I purchased the 18” barrel with the regular stock. I would have gotten the collapsible stock version if it had been on sale. It would have been nice to have a very compact 308.
I am so surprised by the outright hostility towards the G3 design. In my opinion, the ergonomics are inferior to my M1a’s and FN/FAL, the safety is harder to reach, the cocking lever is a stretch and takes one heck of a pull. But the system works.
This rifle was designed to a different priority of requirements than what a consumer might desire. Some day, write down the top ten things that are important to you when you buy a truck for yourself. Then sit down, pretend you are the boss, and write down what is important when you are supplying a truck to your employees. The creature comforts that were important to you as a consumer won't make the top five when you are supplying the thing to some one else.
In military weapon design cost will always trump ergonomics. As long as the weapon functions to “minimal” requirements, that is all that is going to be funded.
When you look at the G3 design what is obvious is that it is a weapon that is cheap to make and easy to maintain. I do not think it was meant to be rebuilt. I believe the designers, having experienced the loss of total Armies on the Russian front, decided to design a weapon that could be built faster than the ones in the field were used up.
If there aren’t enough rifles to go around, what do you issue to your new troops? Broomsticks?
As a consumer item, maybe there are better. As a military rifle, well it was an interesting approach.
I still prefer my M1a over all, the FN/FAL next. The G3 was issued as a front line rifle, and it still is on use somewhere. So it is not like it is a total failure.
