Fri Jan 09, 2004 2:29 pm by Tawakalna
having had a bash on quite a few of them in me time, I can tell you that the Armalite series are truly excellent weapons, reliable, accurate, decent size round, good rate of fire. The AK is reliable if its well made and can stand a lot of punishment, unf. it's so easy to copy that most of the ones knocked out in cr*ppy third world countries constantly jam or the barrels burst (which is bad) or the safteys dont work. The British SA-80 is a disaster; it's very accurate and has a very penetrative round, but its too easily damaged, dirt and sand get in it to easily, it's heavy, over-engineered and generally not reliable or durable enough for a combat weapon. The concept of the gun was great, but poorly executed and build quality is erratic. Most British servicemen detest it and would get rid of it if they could.
the old NATO 7.62mm Martini SLR which I was issued was a fine weapon, accurate and reliable, big and heavy though with a nasty recoil and a slow rate of fire, hey its a self loading rifle not an SMG! but you could knock that thing around, use guff ammo, get it wet and dirty and it still worked fine. problem as it was so dam long we used to bash each other with the barrels and they were b*ggers to maneouvre in cramped ship interiors, so we used to stash em on the bulkheads near the exterior exits so we wouldn't have bother with the things until we were ready to go outside. Also if you dropped one and it landed on your foot you knew about it, i broke several toenails badly until i learnt the knack of handling them on parade and stuff. Modern weapons are generally assault-rifles for CQB and are a lot shorter and lighter, incorparting Kevlar and ABS plastic so they are much easier to handle.
My own beautiful Heckler & Koch and SIG are wonderful, wonderful pieces of engineering and I could sit and admire them all day (and often do) the SIG especially is one of the finest products I've ever seen, it's design perfection is sublime.