That would surely decrease the needed maintenance and increase the weapon effectiveness in bad conditions (dust, ice, ect) and i'd love to have such a thing!
My dream job! I salute you! Where's that saluting smiley...
Ouch!!! That would explain the widely disparate accuracy between rifles of varying origin. Receivers made out of lesser quality steel or weakened would essentially make that AK a anti-aircraft gun
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I'd have to beleive that 60 years of continuous research, development and improvements over many wars would be enough to iron out the problems and improve on the design. The only thing that needs changing to my opinion is the caliber. I beleive the 6.5 grendel is the best round! The armor penetration and long-range effectiveness almost up to a 7.62 NATO with weight only 28% up from 5.56mm in the same weapon. Sure it's heavier, but who dosen't say that by the time a replacement is needed caseless technology will have improved.
What do you think of Caseless ammunition, and the HK 11 projects?
Continental Machine Co. (parent company of Stag Arms, I designed the left handed upper reciever) was sending quite a few firearms parts to Remington's design facility in Kentucky after they took the design contract for the 6.8mmSPC over from the Army Marksmanship Unit, and the fellows down there were kind enough to keep me informed of what happened down there.
They started with the .30 Remington case, as it was the biggest case that would function through the M-16 while maintaining double column feeding. The tried the basic case with 6mm, 6.5mm, 6.8mm, 7mm., and 7.62 millimeter projectiles. After many millions of shots fired, they decided the 6.8 had a better combination of lethality, accuracy, and energy retention at any reasonable range likely to be confronting the infantryman in today's world.
Basically, they wanted the chance of consistent one shot kills at 500 meters, and the ability to provide harrassing and area denial fire to 800 meters. Beyond that, it's the sniper's responsibility.
The 7mm projectile had a very slight edge in lethality, and the 6.5mm had a slight edge in trajectory, with the 6.8mm being the best compromise.
Caseless ammunition has it's virtues in an armored vehicle, where fired shells rolling around inside are a hazard, but they aren't robust enough to stand up to magazine feed and the friction/acceleration curve of belt feeds. The shavings and dust generated are dangerously explosive.
As for the H&K action, it's an abortion the Germans have been trying to sell since the 1960's, without any luck. Look at every kind of locked breech weapon in use 40 or 50 years ago. Now look at the weapons being built today by those same companies.
All feature a conventional rotating bolt with front locking lugs and gas operation. No more delayed blowback G-3/CETME's, no more tipping block FN/SLR's. The rotating bolt gives you maximum camming at lockup and extraction, and it also gives you the maximum bolt speed/feed energy exactly when it's needed, at the moment of chambering the round in the barrel.
While I think the ABAKAN is needlessly complicated, heavy, and expensive for what is essentially an analog of the M-16, it does have enough bolt mass to provide reliable feeding, and is a seminal departure for the Russians, signifying a return to American and British style active, aggressive infantry tactics. The day of the armored infantryman, dismounting only to overrun anti-tank weapons at close range while supported by vehicle based fire is drawing to a close.
Grozny taught the Russians that the only way to overcome skilled and desperate resistance in urban areas is with skilled, disciplined professional troops using fire and manuver. Armored vehicles are more of a liability in built up areas than an asset.
Even the American Abrams, when used as a fire support weapon by infantry who have trapped an enemy in a restricted area, is kept well back and only moves in areas that have been swept for IED's.
There are a few sad vestiges of the armored infantryman ethos still around, unfortunately. The only excuse for a bullpup weapon like the British and French use is for people crowded into an APC, and I say that after working on the Israeli TAVOR project for two years.
In prone, the magazine hits the ground, forcing the muzzle down. Where the M-16 comes to the face like a shotgun, with the sights automatically in line with the soldier's line of sight and it's weight balanced between the hands, all bullpups have the ergonomics of a railroad tie, and the muzzle blast is deafening. Not a class of rifle I would want to carry in battle.
Understandable perhaps for the Israelis, who have a tiny population, an aversion to large casualties, and an enemy who mostly uses smallarms, mortars, and grenades, but even the Israeli Special Forces page mentions that their elite units much prefer the M-16 to either the TAVOR or any of the more than a million captured AK47/AKM's they have in storage.
The issue of ergonomics is one that favors the M-16 more than almost any other rifle commonly issued. A faster first shot kill than almost any other weapon, barring the instance of shotguns in use by American troops. And no, it doesn't violate the international conventions, as they are only binding if you are a signatory, which America never has been.
Again, the ABAKAN has it's virtues that way, but the all steel construction makes it more than a kilo heavier than the M-16A4, and the A-4's weight is in the barrel where it does some good.
For a modular system, check out the MGI industries switch barrel unit, with the changeable magazine well. I did the development work on Mack Qwinn's basic idea, and I'm working on a plug-in belt feed to replace the magazine well.
