Old Small Arms Revived...... With Some Tweaks

[icchan]

A rough and certainly not as good as it should be photoshopping; it's hard to find a good SMLE Mk IV and PPSH at the exact same angle...let alone bayonets...

[Maverick]

Looks the part Icchan and quite well done to boot.

Regards,

Mav

[pyro-manic]

It looks great, I know that much.

[rickshaw]

I suspect a lot of those same issues are being revisited currently with the ongoing research on caseless ammo.

Caseless ammunition brings those plus a whole raft of other problems with it.  Cased small arms ammunition is an extremely convenient way of moving ammunition around.   It provides an excellent storage medium which is sealed against most weathers and it prevents the ammunition going off, except when you want it to.  Removing the casing removes those protections.   As the G11 experience showed, it wasn't as easy as it appeared to create a functioning small arms round designed to withstand the rigours of military use.

Personally, I think they should be looking much more at polymer cased ammunition and leaving the caseless until the technology matures more.  The Americans have a sort of two-step/parallel development path for polymer cased ammunition and caseless ammunition.   I suspect though, they'd prefer to just jump to caseless immediately.  And for what?  A tiny fractional decrease in the weight the soldier carries which will be immediately lost for something else.

[Maverick]

I have to agree with Brian.  Casings don't weigh that much in comparison to the whole round and the military has a habit of loading the troopies with other kit rather than being happy about a lighter load.  The transition from 7.62mm to 5.56mm was supposedly heralding a new era of lighter loads, but instead ended up with more ammo along with other sundries.  Great if you're going out into a situation, notso if you're just patrolling.

Given the issues with caseless rounds, I'm surprised plastics aren't the 'in thing', since they've served shotguns well enough for quite a while.  But then, there are those metal-cased shotgun rounds that have special applications, so one wonders if plastics become the way of the future, will there be some time beyond that, when metal cases will be revisited again as these things tend to be circular at times?

Regards,

Mav

[ChernayaAkula]

Another thing going for metal casings is that, when they're ejected after firing, they also take with them a lot of the heat generated by the charge going off.

On the topic of old-style stuff, I was fooling around with the weird child of a PPSH-41 and a Smelly, with an M1 Carbine.

Way cool! 
We definitely need more of that! 

[Maverick]

True that Moritz, I had the unpleasant experience of having a .357 Magnum case dropping down my shirtfront after ejection which was a decidedly unpleasant experience to say the very least and quite indicative of the heat the case held.

Regards,

Mav

[rickshaw]

My brother who is left-eye dominant but right-hand dominant, fires from the left shoulder.  He used to come back from the range with quite a few small burns down his chest where his L1a1 used to throw rounds down his shirt front.  He always claimed only the first few hurt, after that you tended not to notice.   Everybody has a round or two go down their front (less now with the F88 but still happens) and it stings!  Worse for the females though! 

[icchan]

Pssh, rounds down your shirt ain't nothing.  Tuck up nice and tight on a tripodded M1919 and run off about half a belt before you realize that you're not supposed to snuggle up to something ejecting hot brass down and back at 600rpm...the sad part is that I didn't notice it at first, because I thought it was me!   

[Maverick]

Lol Icchan.  Gotta love full auto for getting excited!

Regards,

Mav

[icchan]

The operator of that little SMG, and yes she is a short one.  And a couple other ideas, just to kick around, nothing particularly special insofar as a really wonderful gun but a few silly/odd ideas.

Semiauto shotgun based loosely on the question "what if you made one top-feeding from a box like a Bren LMG, with bottom eject to make it workable in tight quarters for ambi use?"  The first idea was to put sights on either side, just a pop-out tab with a matching one up front.  I stole the folding stock from the Lynch Gun above, and figured what the heck with the bayonet - but I did always like the look of the HK rollerlocks with the overbarrel pigsticker...  Five round (or ten?) box mag on top, nice big shell ejection window in the bottom, and though I didn't draw it in it's got a charging handle on the left - up front, not very big, again in the HK style.  Keep your hand on the grip and finger by the trigger while you're cycling rounds in case you need it quick, no need to shift hands around all over the place.  I'm gonna make another one, I just threw this one together on a dare.  "Can it be dumb but functional" is the concept.


This one's a bit more functional.  Circa late '50s, stealing heavily from an Aussie rifle I saw that struck me something fierce.  Not going the way of plastics like the Americans, sticking with Proper Wood And Steel, and taking the idea of a DMR in each squad for some light fire support for the longer barreled sightless scoped version.  I guess it looks a bit like a MAC-10 design on some really bad drugs, with the way the reciever is so squared off and L-shaped like that, but...I dunno, I like it kinda.  Certainly breaks down in an obvious manner.  Carbine version just because, though I didn't put a folding stock in for paratroopers.  I should, I guess.  Only I PROMISE it won't be a wireframe folder like the Lynch!

Scale on all this is 20 pixels:inch, and yes I did steal a lot of bits from Shipbucket; credit where credit is due.  That and SMLE stocks are sexy.

[Maverick]

Looks the schnizzle Icchan.  I'm guessing the Leader was the Aussie AR for inspiration?

Love the look of both shottie & rifle, got that early post WW2 thing going on.  Very nice indeed.

Definitely need a pistol grip & folding stock for the carbine.  Gotta give the paras something to play with!

Regards,

Mav

[icchan]

Looks the schnizzle Icchan.  I'm guessing the Leader was the Aussie AR for inspiration?

Yeah, that's the one.  Had to go look it back up after you mentioned it.  I swear I saw something similar once, with a wood forend, that just struck me right and so I kinda dredged around and got it in my head.

Definitely need a pistol grip & folding stock for the carbine.  Gotta give the paras something to play with!

Well, how about an HK-style sliding-collapsing stock?  Add a sort of M-14 EBR-style stock and cheekrest on top, and move the sights forward for the shorter barrel.  Gonna be a bit sore with really sustained fire, but it'll shoot shortened and compacts up well enough for the heavier rifle and big bullet it is.  Geez, what cartridge is that anyway?  About an 8.5x61mm...yikes, that's a lot of juice in a round.  Bigger than I thought it was, but certainly worthy of a heavier rifle I guess.  Seems my little army didn't buy into the Assault Rifle concept yet...guess I should develop that 9x30 I have floating around.

[sotoolslinger]

Very nice stuff Icchan
Even in sci fi plastic rounds cause problems. The weapons in David Drake's Hammers Slammers books use plastic cased ammo. The rounds each carry a small gas charge for cooling and ejection. In enclosed spaces the burning cases outgas and fill the compartment with fumes and the pistols don't really carry enough gas to function reliably

[pyro-manic]

Nice stuff. What about a Sterling-style folding stock, that folds underneath forwards?