sixgunner455
Member
- Joined
- Aug 25, 2006
- Messages
- 3,052
Carried an AR too long to want to give it up now.
I would suggest John Moses Browning needs to vacate his seat at the right hand and let Eugene Stoner take his anointed place.
"how about a vz-58? has anybody mentioned that one yet?"
Probably not, it always seems to be forgotten. The VZ is pretty much the zenith of what we've achieved on the machined steel receiver front, in my opinion. It's shorter, lighter, simpler, and easier to service than an AK, while maintaining superior ergonomics (if not grip size ). The belt fed version, the UK59, is still chugging strong where it is in use.
"The Armed Forces of America hasn't seen a better rifle yet, and they've spent a lot of money looking for it. So far, new battle rifles all plainly copy most of the features of the AR. They add some older retro tech to appeal to old schoolers, and don't do anything better. That's because it's really just a bullet launcher, and after centuries of development, we finally got it right despite all wrong things it's been accused."
1) If you look at the autoloading service arms the world over for the last 100 years, the AR stands out as one of the funkier designs --not saying that's bad, just that rotating, tilting, or delayed blowback designs are far, far more common in more places over greater time spans. Most of that time span has been spent by us once more re-perfecting --again-- the AR platform (once and for all)
2) The AR bolt head concept has certainly swept the world with its brilliant design, allowing for modularity and compactitude simultaneously. But the gas system is rapidly being abandoned in new designs for gas piston setups, short and long stroke, which eliminate the buffer tube nonsense, and plastic clamshell-style monolithic receivers with swappable barrels rather than uppers/lowers which offer (mostly) false economy when it comes to modularity. The ARX160, BREN 805, SCAR, G36, and I think a few others seem to be coalescing around a very similar theme (that theme being the G36 ). I'm not familiar with those enough to speak to whether the AR15/M16 FCG is gaining or losing popularity in this next generation
3) In the end, it doesn't really matter since we/the world at large are in no mood for paying for new kit these days
TCB
"I would suggest John Moses Browning needs to vacate his seat at the right hand and let Eugene Stoner take his anointed place."
HA! Maybe when he wakes up and designs 1.5 world-dominating pistol designs used for a solid century, a leading shotgun layout used for a century, a pump shotgun design that is used to this day, several of our heavy weapons platforms used to this day, and collaborated with foreign and domestic interests to spread his genius worldwide and elevate other talent the likes of Saive and Pedersen. Stoner was brilliant, but he had one fantastic idea, that being the barrel extension concept, and a good head for applying it to all sorts of manufacturing processes the Feds wanted it tailored to (aerospace, automotive, etc). He hardly created entire genres of firearms from whole cloth (granted, that was easier to do in Browning's day since precision machinery had just come into its maturity). I'd rank him with Martini or Peabody, who each designed very successful service rifle actions that remained in triumphant use for many years and provided the inspiration for further improvement of tilting/falling block actions like the Madsen LMG
I wouldn't argue the AR design is evolving by 'leaps and bounds' these days either, but then again, no one is . I also don't happen to see the AR as being nearly as modular as many make it out to be, which may color my perception of its ongoing 'development' differently (i.e. a 50cal, 5.7x28, pistol blowback, or piston upper are not outgrowths of the AR design in my eyes, but rather independent ideas shoehorned to fit an existing form for better marketing)