A great reminder to keep your firearm maintenance at the top of your “to do” List because you never know when you might need it to save your ass. -SF
Last week I wrote an article about how I was incapacitated after surgery and needed to change the gun I normally carry. I chose to carry my S&W 351C revolver. I had been carrying it for about a week when I went to shoot it.
The cylinder wouldn’t open.
This is a revolver. They never malfunction, right? Wrong. The cylinder wouldn’t open until I put a generous amount of oil on it.
Everything else seemed to be working fine. I removed the cylinder and found this:
The cylinder crane was completely coated with rust. That’s why the cylinder wouldn’t open up.
Soldiers should not hold their breath on any of these, some of this tech has been “in the pipeline” for years.-SF
1. M4A1
What does it do? Long-distance hole-punch. (It’s the latest version of your M4 carbine rifle.)
How heavy is it? Unloaded and without accessories: 7.74 pounds
When might you have one? You might already. The upgrade of M4s (and replacement of M16s) is around a quarter complete and will continue until roughly 2020.
Why should you care?The upgrade offers a heavier barrel; some soldiers reported M4s overheating, becoming warped and then jamming during extended use, particularly in Afghanistan. It also adds ambidextrous safety controls and converts the weapon’s three-round burst option into fully-automatic.
Will this actually happen? Yes. Here’s what won’t happen, however: The Army also ran a market survey in March 2015 for additional M4 upgrades dubbed M4A1+. Ideas included: an extended Picatinny rail, a floating barrel for enhanced accuracy, and an optional sniper-style single-stage trigger for marksmen, flash suppressor, removable sights, and more neutral colors, among a variety of other enhancements. But the “plus” died with the survey; there’s currently no formal requirements, program of record nor funding.
2. XM17 (Modular Handgun System)
What does it do? This will replace the Beretta M9 as the Army’s sidearm.
How heavy is it? The 351-page requirement document does not specify a weight, but presumably similar weight to a standard striker-style handgun, between 1.5 and 2 pounds.
When might you have one? The Army plans for full-rate production in 2018.
Why should you care? The Army has used an iteration of the M9 as its standard sidearm since 1985. The new pistol will feature better modularity, ergonomics, and accuracy. The requirements require a striker-style firing mechanism. The modular aspect will include ability to adjust grip size, and to add accessories via a Picatinny rail. The competition is open caliber, so the 9mm NATO standard round could be upsized to a .40 or a .45 caliber weapon. In addition the Army, which has stuck with full metal jackets for decades, has not ruled out hollow-point or fragmenting ammunition.
Will this actually happen? Probably. But not definitely. Companies (the Army won’t say how many) have submitted their candidates for the contract for the Army to evaluate, so the wheels are in motion. But that was also true of the Individual Carbine program canceled in 2013, and soldiers still carry M4s with no replacement plans in sight. Complaints of cost/waste have already emerged: Army Chief Gen. Mark Milleyquipped he could find a new pistol with $17 million and a trip to Cabela’s, and Sen. John McCain slammed the MHS program in his series of “Americas Most Wasted” reports. If such complaints intensify in a tight budget environment, the Army could pull the plug.
3. Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System
What does it do? It shoots people from far away. The Army has selected a variant of Heckler & Koch’s G28 for the role, replacing the M110.
How heavy is it? Roughly 12.7 pounds, or 3 pounds lighter than the M110.
Why should you care? Because you like your marksmen to have sniper rifles as good or better than their current ones, but smaller and lighter. The Army wanted a rifle that was easier to use in close quarters that also offered better ergonomics, accuracy and reliability.
Will this actually happen? Almost certainly. The contract’s been awarded, so if the 30 rifles H&K provide for testing prove as effective as the ones tested, the Army will buy up to 3,643.
4. XM25
What does it do? The XM25 grenade launcher and its five-25mm grenade magazine offers a programmable round and fire control.
How heavy is it? Roughly 14 pounds, unloaded.
When might you have one? Perhaps as soon as 2017. Assuming funding (which the Army has requested for the coming fiscal year) and testing stay on track.
Why should you care?This stand-alone weapon offers the ability to set a laser on a target, gauge distance automatically, program a grenade to go that distance (with manual adjustments) and fire the grenade. Fire control takes into account various ballistics and environmental factors to aid accuracy, as do magnified optical and thermal sights. In short, aim at a wall, push a button to program the point you want the grenade to explode. From there, aim fire. The 25mm grenade is designed to explode right where you told it to, from up to 500-600 meters away.
Will this actually happen? More likely than not. It’s been in the pipeline for years; it was pulled from the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2013 due to injury-causing malfunctions. The company and Army hope the kinks are worked out: it’s a program of record recently named in the 2017 budget as a priority that meets a critical capability gap, so this isn’t far out.
5. IRAP (Increase Range Anti-Personnel)
What does it do? Along with the separate XM25 weapon, the Army is pursuing a new 40mm grenade cartridge that can be fired by the M320, one with better range and accuracy as well as advanced fuze functionality (when and why it explodes).
How heavy is it? Roughly the same as an M433 grenade round.
When might you have one? It is planned to start as a program of record (a funded weapons program) in 2017.
Why should you care? The IRAP rolled in the technology from the Small Arms Grenade Munition smart grenade, which can sense a wall or building or obstacle and then automatically explode just after passing it. SAGM required no pre-programming; just point your standard grenade launcher and shoot. The requirements from a December market survey indicate the Army wants increased range, lethality and accuracy as well as increased fuze functionality and versatility compared to the M433. The survey asked vendors what would trigger an airburst or explosion, and whether any other equipment like fire control would be needed for a demonstration.
Will this actually happen? With plans to become a program of record next year: very likely. The Army says the round is not competing against the XM25 — although every defense dollar is competing against every other defense dollar, especially in at least a relatively similar functionality. Unlike the XM25, SAGM doesn’t require the Army to buy new guns. If the price-tag doesn’t vary too much from standard grenades, it’d be easy to imagine this supplementing or supplanting those purchases. Even if not, the Army still sounds like it’s fairly committed, though no solicitation has been issued.
Read About The Remaining 13 Improvements at Army Times
A suppressed .22-caliber “Wetwork” weapon that never needed replacing
When the United States entered World War II, the Pentagon quickly bought up all the stocks it could find of .22LR target pistols — a .22-caliber handgun that fires a rifle-style cartridge—for training purposes.
But the British Special Operations Executive was already using suppressed versions of similar weapons in combat. The United States soon followed suit. And today there are probably still some of those 1940s-vintage guns in the CIA arsenal.
The British SOE’s favorite model of .22LR was the High Standard. Carl Swebilius established the The High Standard Manufacturing Company in Houston, Texas in 1932. At the same time, Swebilius also worked for Marlin and Winchester.
When war broke out in 1939, High Standard began exporting Model B pistols to Great Britain under the Lend-Lease program. These were among the first pistols ever to feature suppressors.
In 1942, the U.S. War Department purchased High Standard’s entire inventory, regardless of model. In order to meet skyrocketing demand, High Standard developed new gun that was simpler and faster to produce. The Model H-D became the most numerous — 34,000 had rolled out of factories by the end of the war in 1945.
What if I told you that all of the mass and school shootings over the past 20 years or so could have been done, to equal effect, by a murderer using a 150-year old lever action rifle?
You know, the same kind that was commonly used in the Civil War?
Or, what if I told you that the majority of mass shootings could have been done, again to the same effect, with a 170-year old single-shot Sharps-type rifle? That rifle was invented 13 years before the Civil War began.
In the collective rush to “fix” the problem of these types of unspeakable crimes, we tend to get collectively stupid by grasping at straws in a desperate race for a solution. You know exactly what I am talking about. When something bad happens, there’s an immediate call to ban something. So-called “high-capacity” magazines are almost always blamed for tragic results of mass shootings. The thinking goes that if you reduce magazine capacity, then vicious and heartless murderers wouldn’t be able to hurt and kill as many people. You’ve probably heard all the quotes in the news like this one:
“If only we didn’t have these high-capacity magazines on the market, the shooter would never have been able to inflict that level of harm…”
To the uninformed and intellectually lazy, these types of statements sound perfectly rational. When challenged with the fallacy of their logic, you might hear those same folks shift gears and offer up statements like, “Well, of course, it won’t completely prevent another mass murder, but it will probably help.” I get it. It’s hard to admit the existence of true evil and even harder to try to solve the root problems that cause humans to do unspeakable things. As a result, we cry for quick and easy solutions that feel good.
I recently sat in what was perhaps the most enlightening presentation I’ve seen in decades. At the recent United States Concealed Carry Association Expo, Chief USCCA Instructor Michael Martin presented a veritable mountain of data that he had painstakingly compiled about mass shootings. Deciding to look at actual facts as a basis for formulating meaningful, realistic, and effective response strategies, he evaluated what actually happened during mass shooting events. Were magazines a factor? What about police response time? Did it make a difference when unarmed people fought back against the killer? How about security, like simple door locks? Did simple and inexpensive deterrents like that make any difference?
The results of Martin’s data compilation are nothing short of stunning. I don’t have the space to go through all of the angles here, so I’ll stick with the magazine capacity angle as an example of the study. Since the perception of the uninformed is that magazine capacity allows an increased rate of fire, and therefore more killing in less time, Martin took a close look at that factor in dozens of shootings. Here are the actual rates of fire based on the number of minutes the murderer had compared to the number of shots fired. I’m naming the locations only as I refuse to print the names of the despicable slime that perpetrate these heinous crimes.
Sometimes the simplest things make a world of difference. -SF
When the legendary American-born inventor Hiram Maxim designed the first modern machine gun at the end of the 19th century, he completely changedthe face of war. But after more than a century of development, one thing still limits these deadly weapons — their weight.
In early May 2016, the Australian Army said it was looking at a piece of American kit that, it believed, might finally ease the burden on its light machine-gunners. Aussie troops will experiment with what is essentially a curved metal pole that they can wear like a backpack — and which could help support their machine guns.
“It’s a funny-looking contraption,” Australian Army warrant officer Nicolas Crosbie, one of the soldiers taking part in the test, commented in an official video. “I’m interested to see … when we trial it with the soldiers, what they think of it and that sort of thing.”
Advanced Accuracy Solutions makes this novel “weapon support” that it calls the Reaper. Extending up over the shooter’s shoulder, the Reaper keeps the gun steady and reduces the strain necessary to keep the weapon at the ready.
A soldier would then attach their rifle or machine gun to the end using a length of cord and a strap. Running down the length of the pole, the line extends and retracts as the user moves their gun — sort of like a retractable dog leash.
