Parvusimperator Reviews His Competition Kit

Posted by

Or at least, reviews the stuff he took to the two gun match. Most of this isn’t really “for competition”, but you run the match with the gear you have, which may or may not be the gear you want. It’s better that way: now I know what changes I want to make. Had I gone out and bought a bunch of stuff right before the match, it would probably still be wrong. Anyway, let’s get on with it.

Rifle Mag Holder: Tactical Tailor MAV chest rig
I’m kinda split on this one. On the one hand, I really didn’t need it for the competition. I went to my rifle reload all of once, because 30 rounds is actually a lot, even when you’re double tapping. So I didn’t need a giant chest rig that can hold twelve AR mags. That said, it didn’t drop magazines everywhere. Retention is good. On the other hand, it’s a really nice chest rig. I got the “Two piece complete MAV” kit, which comes with four magazine pouches, each ready to hold three 30-round magazines. It also comes with two large utility pouches and two small utility pouches. So there’s plenty of space to haul things. The ‘Two piece’ part refers to the fact that this chest rig has a front closure, which is a lot easier to get on and off. The small utility pouches are sized for two pairs of handcuffs, or a similarly sized load. The large utility pouches are sized for a canteen, water bottle, 1.5 L hydration bladder or a properly-sized sandwich. The large utility pouches are closed with adjustable buckles; everything else is closed with velcro. I had no problems losing rifle mags from my chest rig.

The MAV is reasonably comfortable loaded up, but if I did that for long periods, I might want to replace the standard straps with the padded kind. The MAV itself is covered in PALS webbing, so you can place the pouches where you like (or swap them out for other pouches).

And yes, the MAV is Berry-amendment compliant.1 Great for a carbine class, a bit excessive for competition. I might get a belt holder for a single 30-round magazine instead, since that should suffice. Especially if I’m also loading up the Surefire Mag-60.2

Pistol Mag Holders: Blackhawk Glock Mag holder, PerSec Kydex Glock Mag holder
I used these because they were the pistol mag holders that I had. They go on your belt. They worked great. I didn’t lose pistol mags, unlike other people. I also didn’t need more than the two on my belt (plus the one in the gun). That said, the PerSec Holder is paddle-style, and while this is great for concealment, it’s less ideal for competition, because it’s rather wide and eats lots of belt space. I’ll want to move that to concealed-carry only, and get more things like the Blackhawk holder for competition.

Eye Protection: Smith Aegis Echo
I got these because I wanted something that met MIL-PRF-31013 and ANSI Z87.1 standards for durability, because I’d rather not lose an eye like Paul von Mauser. I picked the Echos in particular because they’re big, so they fit someone with a large head (me) well, and because they have thin alloy temples, so they work well when worn in conjunction with over-the-ear hearing protection. I usually like that (sometimes doubled up), so I figured this was a good choice. One small complaint is that if you’re not wearing the over-the-ear hearing protection that these are designed to work with, and you tilt your head down, to load a mag, say, these will slide down your nose. Oh well. When worn with muffs, they fit great and are super comfortable. I got these in a kit which came with a clear protective lens, a grey polarized protective lens, and a yellow protective lens. So, all the lenses you could possibly want for high light, low light, and indoor uses. You can swap lenses pretty easily in just a few seconds, and I have to give Smith Optics big props for making an easy-to-use, secure, quick-detach lens system.

Plus, they’re very comfortable when worn with muff-style hearing protection. Very easy to wear through the whole match, or a long class, without discomfort. Strongly recommended if you like over-the-ear hearing protection of any type, or doubling up.

Hearing Protection: MSA Sordin Supreme Pro-X
Yes, these are over-the-ear hearing protection. These are active, or “noise-cancelling” hearing protection. They’re stupidly durable, have excellent battery life, and are beloved by operators everywhere. The whole thing is waterproof. I got these with the upgraded gel earcups. These are absolutely phenomenal. Very wearable all day. When other people take their earpro off during periods when the range is cold, I usually leave these on. They’re that comfortable. Battery life is at least 600 hours of use. These have the regular headband instead of the neckband. That’s less good if you’re wearing them with, say, a helmet, but it is nice in that you can flip them around so that the microphones point backwards, making it easier for you to hear an instructor or range officer. I have absolutely no complaints with these. If you do want to double-up on your earpro, these are still a great choice for the outer component, because you can turn up the volume on non-cancelled noises to compensate for the earplugs.

There are probably those of you out there who are wondering why I would spend about $300 on NRR 18db hearing protection. My first answer is, would so many hardcore operator types wear them if they sucked so bad? In all seriousness, and because I generally dislike being lazy and just appealing to authority, hearing protection works differently against different frequencies. Since MSA is a responsible company, and does not know what frequencies you are going to want protection from when you buy their product, they list the low number. You will get 18 decibels or more hearing protection, depending on the frequency.

So what’s the relevant frequencies for guns, and what noise reduction do we get there? Well, for guns, you probably want to look at the 1-2 kHz range, and go as high as 4 kHz if you’re shooting a bunch of compensators. In that range, the Sordins are going to give you about a 30 decibel noise reduction. 30. Suck it, haters. Maybe that’s why people who have the budget and are hardcore love these things. Also, they’re super comfortable.

If you’re a super-scientific type, and want the really long version, check out this post from Trevor on the Trigger.

1.) I.e. Made in the USA from American-sourced materials.
2.) Just in case you hadn’t gathered, it holds sixty (60) rounds of 5.56 in a nifty quad-stack configuration.

Parvusimperator Reviews the LMT MARS-L

Posted by

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of bullpups. I don’t think that shorter overall length is worth all of the other compromises you get with bullpups, like awkward reloading and godawful triggers and no place to put accessories. I am also a huge fan of the AR-15 platform, so when the New Zealand Defence Force picked a direct-impingement AR-15 in the LMT MARS-L to replace their Steyr Augs, I was thrilled. Ecstatic even. This is also a victory for direct impingement over op-rod systems. It was a very good day. Let’s take a closer look at the MARS and see what improvements LMT has made.

The MARS-L is an offshoot of the CQB16. The biggest changes to the stock CQB16 are in the lower, which is now totally ambidextrous. Ambi safeties are easy to do, you just add a lever on the right side. With a little bit of work with a lever and cam, you can get an ambi mag release without too much trouble. The ambi bolt release requires a bit of extra work to the receiver, and there are a handful of companies out there who will make one for you, including LMT, Knight’s Armament, and Mega Arms.1 The changes are relatively minor, and while they add a couple machining steps and small parts to complete final assembly of the lower, it doesn’t substantively change any of the interfacing parts, so you can add any old upper to the ‘ambified’ lower.

In terms of the rest of the lower, it’s pretty simple. It uses LMT’s SOPMOD-pattern stock, which is an excellent choice. Most pictures I’ve seen also come with an ‘ergo grip’ which is a much better choice than the lame A2-pattern pistol grip. I’m not sure if that’s what’s being delivered to New Zealand though, or if that’s just on the display models because that’s what LMT usually uses on the rifles they build for guys like me. The trigger group is safe/semi/full auto.

The upper has a few differences from a regular M4. The most obvious is LMT’s monolithic upper. The picatinny quadrail handguard and upper receiver are one piece of aluminum, which is clearly stronger than having two separate pieces. It also looks cool, and means you never have to worry about sights getting jacked up because your handguard got knocked around or sucks. The barrel is held in place by a pair of torx screws, which makes barrel changes easy. Not that this is a big deal for most troops, but it’s still pretty cool. It does lock you in a lot more to picatinny rail interfaces on your accessories, but that’s not a bad thing. That interface isn’t going anywhere for a while–it’s got a ton of momentum and lock-in from being around for a while. A lot like the 5.56 round. Note that the regular grunts get a CQB-length (9″) handguard, and the special forces guys get a longer (12″) one. The regular grunt version has a bayonet lug mounted on the right side of the barrel. This way, it doesn’t get in the way of a grenade launcher mounted under the barrel on the quadrail.

While in the civilian world, Picatinny rails aren’t the most popular thing, and quadrails are decidedly old-school, for the military they’re still the right choice. They have lots of picatinny-rail accessories in the system already. Many of these do not have Mlok or Keymod versions, so adapters would be required. Which gets you back a bunch of weight that you got rid of by going to Mlok/Keymod. Plus, you can’t get rid of picatinny rails entirely, because optics mount to *those*. Mlok and Keymod aren’t designed to let optics retain zero after mounting/dismounting. And you can’t get a receiver with those. Plus, you can get a 40 mm grenade launcher to attach to quadrails. No such luck for Keymod or Mlok. So why bother with a bunch of redundant attachment methods. Suck up a bit of weight, and stick to quadrails, if you’re an army.

Internally, it’s got the LMT improved bolt. The Special Ops one has the LMT improved bolt carrier. I’ve already talked about these2, so I’ll just summarize and say that they are redesigned a bit to improve the life of these small parts. I like the design. Anyway, you might be wondering why not an op-rod AR design? There are a lot of those out there, and lots of people seem to like them. And that’s basically what the HK 416 is. But it doesn’t really get you anything, and it has its own downsides. Most of the HK 416’s ability to take sustained fire longer is due to the heavy barrel profile. Colt can get you almost the same thing for less trouble on your AR-15 with the SOCOM-pattern barrel used on the M4A1. More barrel, more fire. And LMT does not use lightweight barrels on their builds.

The op-rod is a conversion, and it adds issues in that you’re applying forces in ways the bolt carrier wasn’t designed to take, so it can tilt and have issues with wear. Also, the op-rod adds weight. The direct impingement system puts the ‘piston’ bit inside the bolt carrier, so there’s no op-rod to deal with. Which means no op-rod weight. Even if you’re concerned about the gas tube melting, you can beef that up a bit and still come out way ahead in the weight department. Adding an op-rod to an AR is a solution in search of a problem. Not that op-rods are bad, just design the gun from the ground up around the operating system. Like you should. Or just crib from the AR-18 design like everyone else.

But enough about technical gun engineering discussions. What does this give the Kiwis that they don’t have with their AUGs. Well, it’s replacing the Aug A1, which had a fixed 1.5x optic. This was revolutionary in the 70s when the Aug was introduced, but it’s eclipsed now by much more capable optics. The MARS can accommodate the fancy optics of today and tomorrow with it’s rail interface for adding sights. It also can mount (and comes standard with) folding backup iron sights, which is piece of mind.

Further, the conventional layout means that in recent urban warfare engagements, you can switch shoulders to take opposite corners at will without eating brass. Plus, you get a better trigger, and although we’re not talking match triggers here, godawful triggers make for politically embarrassing hits on bystanders. Just look at the NYPD’s 12 lbs pull weight triggers on their Glocks.

One more thing comes to mind, and this one isn’t thought of a lot, probably because most people don’t shoot very much. If your gun hasn’t malfunctioned, you haven’t shot it enough. Fact. And, because of where the bullpup action is, and how sealed up it has to be to keep your face safe, when a bullpup malfunctions, clearing it is a massive pain. Tearing a weapon apart on the range sucks because you’re always losing things. Have fun doing it under fire.

It’s nice to have a real-world military agree with you. Go Kiwis! Say, the MARS-L looks an awful lot like the rifle I specced out for issue.

This is the best 5.56 service carbine around, bar none. Better than the SCAR, better than the G-36, better than a regular M4, better than any lame-ass bullpup, even better than the 416. Better than the XM-8 if that was still a thing. Sorry HK. We’d take them in a heartbeat. Specifically, the regular infantry version, with the bayonet lug and shorter handguard, but we’d specify that enhanced carrier.

1.) Check out my build notes here.
2.) See my Milspec Challenge article

Resurrected Weapons: XM-8

Posted by

And now time to examine another futuristic weapon, the XM-8. This was an offshoot of the failed XM-29 project, where some in the US Army tried to get a more direct replacement for the M-16.

The XM-8 was a carbine firing 5.56 mm rounds. No fancy caseless ammo, no airburst grenades, just bullets. The same bullets that cranky guy up the street shot in Vietnam, even. What was different here?

The XM-8 was designed to be lighter and more reliable than the M-16. Reliability would be improved in a number of ways. HK built the XM-8 around it’s highly successful short-stroke gas piston system that had been used in their G-36. The body of the weapon was entirely polymer, with easily swappable components, and design by the Udelhoven Design Studio.1 Plus, while there were a number of ergonomic and internal design improvements over the stock G-36, they used the G-36 magazine.

Let’s talk feed devices. Recall that the original AR-15/M-16 magazine was a 20 round box magazine with no curvature. The magwell was designed to accommodate this, and is also not curved. Army desires for a 30 round magazine required some amount of curvature to accommodate the taper of the 5.56mm cartridge. But the magazine had to be compatible with all M-16s, so the top had to be kept straight. So there’s a kink in the 30 round magazine where the curved section meets the non-curved section, and this can cause problems. The G-36 magazine has a continuous taper, and is made of translucent polymer, so you can see how many rounds are left.

The G-36 is pretty “European” with a paddle magazine release, and most bolt work being done with the charging handle, which is atop the gun under the raised sight rail. It can fold to either side for ambidextrous use, and can be locked to either side for use as a forward assist. The XM-8 made some improvements here too. A shoe, sort of like what’s on an HK pistol, was added to the mag release so you could press a lever on either side of the trigger guard with your trigger finger to release the mag. Bolt release was in the front of the trigger guard. The selector was the usual ambidextrous affair, with safe/semi/full auto on the trigger group.

The XM-8 also tried to improve accessory attachment methods. Picatinny rails are expensive to machine, and add weight to the weapon and height to the accessory mount. For the same reasons that we would see the development of Keymod and Mlok in the civilian world in 2014, HK and Picatinny came up with PCAP. Just like Keymod and Mlok, PCAP uses a bunch of negative attachment points2, but it was designed to totally replace Picatinny rails. Specifically, it was designed to be a superior sight attachment system. PCAP naturally mounts things in the same place each time, so sights naturally will hold zero when mounted and dismounted.

Further, the XM-8 had a new sight. The XM-8 had to be lighter than an M-16, so a sighting unit was designed to integrate a red dot sight and an infrared laser sight. This gives day/night capability in a single unit, with one battery, that’s lighter than the two separate units with two batteries and two sets of mounting hardware. Plus, the sight was synchronized so that sight adjustments to the red dot also adjusted the infrared laser sight. The military version was called the ISM-IR. If you’d like one with a visible laser sight, the civilian version is so equipped, and is the ISM-V.

Of course, then politics intervened. No army requirement was actually listed, so Congress started asking questions. HK’s competitors started asking why they hadn’t been given a shot to deliver something new if the army wanted that. Plus, some people had spent money earmarked for OICW on the XM-8, and that brought up more questions. In the end, the XM-8 was cancelled for being too expensive for what it was. At the end of the day, it was more reliable, but still fired 5.56 rounds downrange.

So what do we think? If you’re looking for a new carbine system, because you’re finally joining the 5.56 train or your previous issue carbine is old and busted and you want some new hotness, the XM-8 makes a good choice. Though, it does require new accessories because of the new attachment system.

Honestly, that might be one of the better parts of the XM-8. We really like PCAP, and we especially like the ISM-IR. That can be had in Picatinny railed form too if you want. Plus, at some point, you have to accept some development costs to get something better in the system. We’re seeing some forces go to Mlok3, and PCAP is better because it gives you a sight solution too. On the other hand, we’d really like to compare it to some of the more refined AR-15s and similar that have come out since the XM-8 program was cancelled.

Verdict: Funding Approved for program testing by the Borgundy War Department Ordnance Procurement Board

1.) They also do design work for Audi.
2.) Also known as holes. Precisely cut and aligned holes.
3.) Including Canada.

Resurrected Weapons: XM-29

Posted by

The saga of attempting to improve the effectiveness of the average infantryman continues today. Now it’s the turn of the Americans. In the late 1990s, the US Military wanted to try to replace the M-16. Again. And the conclusion of the experts was that bullet-launching technology had peaked with the M-16, and there weren’t any good ways to improve it further. So more lethality would have to come elsewhere.

Considering the problem of an enemy behind cover, the committee decided that the right answer was to have some kind of man-portable airburst munition. And this led to the design of the XM-29 OICW.1

The XM-29 had three components. The critical one was the grenade launcher. It was a bullpup-looking affair, firing 20mm grenades from a six-round detachable box magazine. These were quite a bit smaller than everyone’s favorite 40 mm grenades, so as to be workable in a magazine, but there still weren’t many of them. Which led to the second component–the “KE Module”, which was a 5.56 carbine made by HK. It had a conventional configuration, and only an 8″ barrel. Further complicating things, the one trigger on the carbine had to also work the grenade launcher, but you had to be able to separate the two modules and use them individually (after a trigger unit was added to the grenade launcher. Plus, there was a massive thermal sight/laser rangefinder/fire control computer unit on top to coordinate the airburst over the head of the enemy. The idea was that the operator would use the rangefinder to determine range, manually program in the distance for airburst, and then fire a grenade.

Unsurprisingly, the result was big, heavy, and very expensive. Fully loaded, the XM29 weighed 8.2 kg, or a hair over 18 pounds. That’s ridiculous. It was big and unwieldy. Oh, and did I mention the cost? The XM-29 was projected to costvover $10,000 per unit. Plus, airburst grenades are roughly ten times as expensive as regular, contact-fused grenades.

All this might be forgiven if it worked. It didn’t. Oh, the carbine bit fired ok. But there were tons of problems with the airburst mechanism. And when it worked, it was judged insufficiently lethal. The 20mm round created fragments that were too small, there was insufficient explosive for a very large kill radius, and a whole bunch of fragments and energy are going to be directed upwards, away from the target. I can’t imagine that it would have been all that combat effective to have to manually program in airburst distances when enemies were firing back either.

After dumping a whole bunch of money into the airburst 20mm rounds, it was finally decided that they were unworkable. The only way to get sufficient lethality was to up the caliber. 25mm was settled on, but this would mean an even bigger grenade launcher unit. Between the ballooning weight and rapidly escalating cost, the project was terminated, and split into the XM-25 (which I’ve talked about here) and the XM-8 carbine (which I’ll talk about later).

So that’s the overview. What do we think of this project? Well, the basic concept might be sound, since I’m all in favor of raining death upon my enemies, but the execution is terrible. It would be much better if the grenade module could attach to an existing rifle to reduce costs, like the Korean K11 program. This also uses a 20 mm grenade module though, and I share the US Army’s concerns about inadequate killing capability of the 20 mm grenades.2 The 25 mm grenades of the XM-25 are more effective, and a 25 mm launcher is far too big to mount on a rifle.

An even better solution would be to get airburst 40 mm grenades. There, the launchers and the grenades are already in the system. Lethality has already been proven, and there’s already cheap grenades in the system. You simply have to work out the guidance and fusing, but you’d have to do that anyway with an XM29-type weapon.

Verdict: Funding Denied by Borgundy War Department Ordnance Procurement Board

1.) Objective Individual Combat Weapon. They chose the stupidest name they could.
2.) I have no idea if the South Koreans are satisfied with the performance of the 20 mm, or if they’re banking on the enemy being unarmored, malnourished North Koreans who are also easily frightened or something.

The Crossbox Podcast: Episode 9 – Shooting the Breeze

Posted by

This month, radio gremlins do not replace our show with something straight from 1940, we talk about artillery through the ages in more ways than one, and we report on hitting the dusty competition circuit.

Further reading
Japanese license-built Krupp 12cm howitzer
7.7cm Krupp field howitzer, pre-hydraulic recoil, used by the Boers in the Second Boer War, still superior to British artillery in South Africa
Artillery causes 80% casualties in the Donbas war
Bridget
Three Kat articles
Intro to Glockblaster

Continue reading →

Resurrected Weapons: The HK G-11

Posted by

We’re going to look at some prototype rifles that never got off the ground. First is the most exotic, the HK G11.

Back in the 80s, the Bundeswehr issued the G3. They hadn’t yet gone over to 5.56mm yet. And they noticed the classic problem of soldier marksmanship: Most soldiers are very poor shots in combat. But what to do about this problem? Automatic fire is hard to control. It can be done with sufficient training, but we’re talking about the average grunt here. A burst of three or so rounds might sound like the ticket, but subsequent shots tend to miss high and right (or left) based on body mechanics and how they interact with recoil. Consistent high right missing isn’t super helpful for getting a higher hit percentage out of a weapon. What if the burst was out of the gun before the recoil impulse got to the shooter? Three superquick rounds. That might give you the spread you’re looking for.

A brief side note: the US Army, with their cool guy M16s noticed a similar problem, and would launch a search for a similar solution, the Advanced Combat Rifle program, based on similar reasoning to the above.

So we want a burst mode that’s super quick. 2,100-rounds-per-minute quick. That’s gonna be tough. And we’re going to want regular rates of automatic fire if we set the selector to full auto. Here comes the complexity. The engineers at HK considered the problem, and decided on an enabling technology: caseless ammo.

Without that pesky case, there’s no extract/eject portion of a normal operating cycle. Less to do means it’s easier to do it all quickly. Yay! Plus, caseless ammo is way lighter than cased ammo. A gain for the logistics geeks. Plus, this would be a SCHV round: 4.73×33 mm1. This worked to to being significantly lighter than M855 5.56. Rough back of the envelope calculations shows that for about the same weight as a G-3 and 100 rounds of 7.62×51 mm, a soldier could carry a G-11 and 500 rounds of ammunition.

Now let’s get back to America. To get adoption, the US Army wanted the ACR rifle to have a 100% higher hit probability than an M16A2. The G-11 was one of the entrants. Plus it had to be durable and reliable, etc.

A few other notes on the G-11, the rifle to fire these tiny caseless rounds. It weighed about 3.6 kg empty, had a Hensholdt unmagnified reflex sight, and a 45 round box magazine. The G-11 had integrated storage for two additional magazines for quicker reloading, sort of like the redi-mag system. It also had a bottom ejection port for ejection of misfires, or administrative clearing. You might imagine the mechanism to handle the 2,100 round per minute hyperburst plus regular full auto would be complicated and it was. And caseless made it worse. But it worked.

For the hyperburst, the barrel, firing chamber, and magazine assembly were all free floated and recoiled together. Picture a modern howitzer, except much smaller. And the nature of the mechanism meant that you’d get the three projectiles out before that recoiling assembly hit the back of the receiver, which is how they avoided transmitting the recoil for a little while.

Reloading was an interesting design too. Cartridges were in a box magazine above the rotating chamber, and were dropped in tail-first and then rotated 90 degrees into firing position. Turning a cocking lever further would dump a cartridge out the bottom if needed.

Now, let’s talk about the problems. You see, the cartridge case, that pesky bit that we deleted to cut weight and simplify the firing cycle, actually gives us a lot. For one, the cartridge case makes it easy to unload the gun. You can pull pretty easily on the rim of a cartridge case. You can’t pull easily on a compressed powder block. And you’ll want to unload it if a round fails to discharge and you need to get rid of it, or if you’re just done at the range and putting your weapon back.

The cartridge also protects all of your propellant. A cartridge case is relatively durable, and is insensitive to scratches and nicks that might arise from rough handling. It is also reasonably water resistant. No such luck for the caseless round. There were problems with damaged cases and extraction was a pain.

Further, the mechanism got weird because there’s no case to provide a seal at the back of the chamber where the firing pin is, or to seal off the barrel behind the fired bullet. Enter more complexity and a little plastic bit that went at the end of the caseless round to seal the barrel. Barrel sealing problems persisted, though.

Less obviously, the cartridge also provides a great way of getting rid of heat. A bunch of heat from firing the gun goes into heating the cartridge, not the chamber, and then the hot spent cartridge is ejected. Goodbye heat! HK had to contract with Dynamit Nobel for some special insensitive propellant that was then lacquered and used that for the rounds.

Lots of engineering and testing got these problems sorted, more or less. And here’s where the story gets vague. Depending on who you ask, there may or may not have been some thing that weren’t quite sorted. But they were sorted to the satisfaction of the Bundeswehr, who was about to adopt the G-11 in 1990, and there are plenty of documents to back that up. But then the cold war ended. Goodbye Soviet Union, goodbye scary threat, hello expensive reunification. And here the Germans decided against the G-11, which would be massively expensive. Remember, you’d have to set up new weapon and ammo production lines, and the ammo production lines would be entirely new methods. It’s not just a different size of brass/steel cased bullets. NATO wasn’t about to retool with the Soviet Union gone. So instead the Germans moved to (finally) adopt 5.56.

As for the ACR project, well, that was really more of an investigation than a serious replacement effort. And even though soldiers liked the compactness,2 reliability, and capability of the G-11, and even though the G-11 exhibited a significantly higher hit probability than the M-16 (or the G-3 for that matter), it did not meet the 100% higher hit probability, and was not adopted.

Where does that leave us, then? Well, it’s time to decide how we rule on this. And the G-11 has an advantage over some of the other weapons we’ll look at in that it’s doing some things that an M-16/SCAR/whatever-5.56-carbine-you-issue-now can’t do. Namely, that fancy hyperburst, and way more ammo for the weight. Plus, since the ammo in question is square, it packs more compactly too. So there’s a logistics win and a weight of fire win. Both of which I really like. Some of the G-11K2 prototypes even were fitted with picatinny rails to mount different optics, so I don’t even have to worry about having that done.

That said, there are some concerns we’d like to put to rest. Since it’s been a while, let’s get a few LRIP guns to make sure the manufacturing process is still good, and do some high round count testing. Plus, I’d like to do some gel tests and intermediate barrier3 tests. Even if that means some projectile design updates to make the terminal effects satisfactory, I can’t forsee any major problems left.

Verdict: Approved for LRIP and phased adoption by the Borgundy War Department Ordnance Procurement Board

1.) Or thereabouts. I’ve seen some variation betwen 4.7-4.9 mm or so.
2.) Despite looking like a space 2×4, troops even liked the ergonomics
3.) Usually sheet metal and tempered glass, i.e. car parts.

The Battle of Shilovo: 1942

Posted by

Welcome to Shilovo. It’s July 4th, 1942, and the Wehrmacht has embarked on yet another ambitious offensive: Fall Blau. This time, the plan focuses on the south, pushing from last year’s front (very roughly, a line from Kursk due south to Dnepropetrovsk, then southeast to Rostov, about 800 kilometers in total) to the Baku oilfields and the city of Stalingrad.

It’s only just begun, though, and we concern ourselves with the fighting around Voronezh, and more specifically, a work settlement a bit to the west called Shilovo. (It doesn’t exist anymore—it’s just part of Voronezh.) Shilovo sits on a hill overlooking the Don river, a strategically-important barrier keeping the Nazis out of Voronezh proper. Historically, the Germans took it on July 5th and 6th.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to hold them off a little better than that.

Notice a few features about this map: first, the UI I forgot how to hide. It’s covering the place name for ‘Trushkino’, the town at the bottom center controlled by the Germans. It faces Shilovo across a deep valley. Roads run northwest from Shilovo and northeast from Trushkino, then split to the north and northwest to meet one of the two crossroads objectives. Besides the valley between the two towns, and the hillside south of Shilovo, the map is more or less flat, which presents a problem: I know the Nazis have some armored vehicles, and I don’t have much in the way of anti-tank weaponry. The sum total of my force is as follows: two rifle companies, the battalion machine gun company (ten or so Maxim guns, all told), the battalion mortar company (same deal), and the battalion AT company (armed with anti-tank rifles, which may as well be rocks for all the good they do).

From the Russian side, this is almost entirely a defensive effort, and that’s reflected in my chosen deployment. (We won’t talk about my first mission in this campaign, a defense to the northwest. It didn’t go well.) One rifle company, under Homenko, is deployed at the northern crossroads, reinforced by most of Beda’s platoon. Drobotov’s platoon holds the central crossroads, while Churginov’s platoon serves as a reserve between the two. Bits and pieces of the machine gun company and the anti-tank company are detached to strengthen the two crossroads strongpoints.

The remainder of Beda’s platoon, along with the battalion mortars and the bulk of the machine guns, are deployed on the forward slope on the western approach to Shilovo, commanding the valley. With good, overlapping fields of fire, and tons of ammunition to boot, I suspect the machine guns will serve to hold the valley approach to Shilovo without issue. I’m more concerned about the central crossroads. If the Germans bring tanks down the west road, I’ll have a bad time of things. Hopefully, the northern crossroads strongpoint will be sufficiently distracting.

Anyway. Let’s get this show on the road. I had hoped to provide some extra screenshots here beyond the few I took during the battle, but alas, my VLC screenshot button isn’t working correctly, so you’ll just have to rely on your war correspondent, me.

The Germans begin their attack with a push, oddly enough, across the valley. The machine guns deliver a murderous hail of fire into the advancing Wehrmacht troops, and in large part, the advance stalls about halfway to my line. German forces will rally and push up the hill somewhat, but never in any organized manner, and never any closer than about one hundred meters to the guns.


Gunners on the northeastern outskirts of Shilovo engage German forces in the trees near the Trushkino road.

The northern crossroads, as I thought might be the case, turn out to be more interesting. It takes the Germans about ten minutes longer to make it down the road toward the strongpoint, but they arrive in greater force, and I have fewer heavy weapons to spare. It quickly becomes clear that the main German advance is coming from the west along the main road, so I shift some of the defenders facing north—a second machine gun team, and one of Beda’s squads—to meet the threat.

The fire on my position intensifies. The Germans clearly want this crossroads. Mortar fire begins to land in town, and the piddly 50mm mortars attached to each of my companies can’t even begin to fire in reply. They stick to shooting at the oncoming Germans, which is admittedly more scary than effective. (Your average 50mm mortar bomb has about 100 grams of explosive, which is less than some hand grenades of the time.)

The situation worsens about 20 minutes into the mission. A halftrack comes down the road, and while its mounted machine gun is keeping my anti-tank gunners’ heads firmly below trench level, a pair of Panzer IIs roll up the road. This is no good. Time to bring in the reserves.


A machine gun team shoots past Russian trenches (at frame left) toward advancing German infantry, while a Panzer approaches from the right.

One of the anti-tank gunners manages to get a shot off at the halftrack, which is enough to force its crew to bail out. By now, though, the Panzers have backed off, and are now working their way around to the north, where my defenses are lighter. One of them pushes into the town, about fifty yards behind the camera above, and begins shooting up my poor defenders. Fortunately, between the carnage west of Shilovo and the reserves arriving and bulking up the line south of the crossroads, the Germans realize they can’t hope to break through without further reinforcement. They call for a cease fire, and I gladly accept.

The casualty ratio favors me, as you might expect from a victory in a dug-in, defensive battle. I started with 400 men, of which about 250 were front-line combat troops, and lost 50, including a few machine guns lost and a few abandoned. (The abandoned ones will be recovered.) The Germans lost 150 out of 360, including one halftrack. I put some fire on both tanks, but neither appear to have been greatly inconvenienced by it, and undoubtedly, they’ll show up again.

Having survived this battle, I only had one more to play on the first turn, and it played out very similarly—the battle played out over Shilovo again, except shifted one grid square south. The same deployment, with machine guns covering open ground, served me well, and I’m into the second turn of the campaign now. I was able to bring some artillery up all along the line, along with anti-tank guns and air spotters. I expect the next few battles will feature much improved fireworks.

Reports From The Range: Light Rifle Trials

Posted by

When last we left Parvusimperator’s Rifle Works, we had a rifle built to a concept. Perhaps a somewhat vague and nebulous hodgepodge of a concept, but a concept nonetheless. So let’s get her to the range and talk Trials, see how she fared, and how we liked her.

But first, a name! Because the name seems to suit her, and for a bunch of personal reasons I won’t go into here, I’m going to call my light rifle Bridget. Say hello, Bridget.

Second, Bridget needs an optic. As built, she has no sights at all. So I needed an optic. I have a bunch of nice optics sitting around, but not one really suited to competition. Plus, I really like optics on my pistols. I usually carry one, and I almost always take a red dot equipped pistol with me to the range if I’m going to be shooting pistols. And a red dot puts me firmly into the Open1 division of any two- or three-gun competition. So, I shouldn’t really compromise on my optic in terms of close-in performance or performance at range. Which made my choice obvious: the SpecterDR 1.5x/6x.

Let’s look at this optic. It’s made by Elcan, a division of Raytheon. And it’s huge. It’s also unique in that it has a mechanically-operated prism system internally, giving it exactly two magnification levels. This is the bigger SpecterDR model, so those two levels are 1.5x and 6x. There is nothing in between, and switching between the magnifications is super fast. The conceit here is that for variable power optics, nearly all of the time is spent at either the lowest available or the highest available magnification. The SpecterDR gets rid of the others. It also features a massive 42mm objective lens, which is great for low light, or just getting a really clear sight picture. And if you’re a glass snob, the engineers at Elcan have you covered with some phenomenally clear European-grade glass. The reticle is a lot like a TA01 Acog: a big crosshair with bullet drop compensation markings for useful ranges. You can get a reticle calibrated for 5.56 or 7.62 as is your preference. Mine is calibrated for 5.56. The reticle also has a range estimator scale. You can illuminate either the center dot of the reticle or the entire reticle. If you’re illuminating the center dot only, you can get Aimpoint-grade brightness out of the Elcan. You won’t have an issue with that washing out. It’s rated for an average battery life of 3,000 hours, which is really good for a variable-power optic. Or, really, anything not made by Aimpoint. Plus, this thing is built like a brick shithouse. It’s not gonna break on me. It’s probably good for anything short of getting shot or having C4 strapped to it. It satisfies the MIL-STD-810F standards for durability, in case you like looking up technical descriptions.

Now for the downsides. Remember how this thing is built stupid tough? And it has a giant, Illuminati-approved, all-seeing objective lens? Well, it’s also a heavy beast of an optic, tipping the scales at 700 g (1.54 lbs.). This is a lot, but bear in mind that it includes a mount. So if you’re comparing it to a more conventional optic design, add in the weight of a mount and then get back to me. It’s a bit lighter than the super popular Vortex Razor HD Gen II 1-6x on it’s own, and rather lighter once you add a mount to the Vortex. Downside two is the price. MSRP is painful. And, downside number three is that Elcan is a division of Raytheon. They are a military contractor. This optic has an NSN. Having a super good warranty isn’t high on their features list. Nor is having a customer service department that can be there to hold your hand and reassure you that you are a special snowflake. They don’t care. If you object, feel free to take your business elsewhere. I don’t really care, so I ponied up the cash and bought one.2 Oh, the one other thing to be aware of is that the integral mount uses ARMS levers. Some people don’t like those because they’re not adjustable and don’t work if the rails on your upper aren’t in spec. There are better clamping designs now, but these work. Plus, I can’t change them out. Hardly a dealbreaker.

Enough of me babbling about the optic. Let’s mount it up! Even with the Elcan beast mounted on the rail, Bridget weights in at 7.53 lbs., which is lighter than Kat without her optic. It’s also about as much as Maryanne, my SCAR 16S, weighs without her optic.

Range trials proceeded without too much drama. That gas system runs great. No problems in rifle operation were found. Though, I didn’t run a ton of rounds through Bridget yet at this stage. In terms of handling though, I’m super impressed. Bridget isn’t front-heavy like most other ARs, and she’s not rear-heavy like a bullpup. The vast majority of the weight is concentrated right around the magwell, where your strong hand is. So she’s not tiring to hold up and maneuvers super easy. That long handguard is actually quite nice with the weight distributed this way. It makes transitions really easy.

What else did we notice? Bridget is loud. Very loud. And the blast is obnoxious. How obnoxious? Well, two lanes over, Fishbreath remarked “Holy cow that’s obnoxious!” And he’s not one given to profanity. Translating to something a bit more colloquial gives us “Fucking ow!” Fishbreath has also mentioned the sensation of getting blasted in the face with the particles that come out of the business end of a rifle is a lot like getting pepper sprayed.

That said, after understanding that Bridget is going to helpfully try to get you some extra shooting space so that you both can get comfortable, she’s a remarkably flat shooting gun. I’m no expert in recoil control, but that little M4-72 brake is amazing at keeping the muzzle where you pointed it. No jumping, no nonsense. Plus, even less recoil than you’d expect from a 5.56. Bridget feels like shooting a .22 that someone made heavy, but somehow is being magically supported. Oh, and you’re right behind a cannon that’s synchronized to you. Because roar.

In case it’s not obvious from the above, I like Bridget very much. She’s lots of fun to shoot. Having a light, well-balanced rifle is pretty awesome, and it’s a solid validation of my part selection. I’m quite happy with her as is. I was a little concerned that the heavy Elcan would ruin everything, but because of the balance, I don’t have any complaints. I might swap to something else in the future, but I’m happy with the Elcan for the time being. I’m also quite happy with my choice of stock and handguard. Thanks, BCM! I do need to remember a glove for sustained shooting, since the handguard heats up quick. The Geissele SSA-E is a good trigger, but I might like to try something different given my expected uses. We’ll see–I’ve got a match coming up on the 10th, and I’ll take note if any conclusions shake out of that match, other than I need more practice.

1.) Or “Un-Limit-ed” now, I guess. Name changes, ugh. Maybe I’ll call it Ultd. Anyway, same great nearly-no limits as Open, brand new name.
2.) I got mine from CS Tactical. They do have great customer service.

Parvusimperator’s Light Rifle

Posted by

As per usual, I wanted to do another AR-15 build, which of course, needed a concept. I decided to try for a Light-ish rifle. I’m gonna pick some parts on the lighter side of things and see how I like the result. There are some exceptions, which I’ll get into below. Also, if possible, I wanted to give one of those long handguard things a try, see why everybody likes them. And I’m going to make this a nice, generally high-end race-ish build. So let’s cue the music.

Receivers: Mega Arms NiB-coated billet set
Well, that ended quick. Just kidding. Really though, I bought these because they look freaking cool. NiB (Nickel Boron) finish is pretty, and Mega Arms makes nice receivers. Billet receivers are heavier than forged, in general. Oh darn. Let’s look at the receivers themselves in detail:

Upper Receiver:
Well, it’s NiB coated, which looks cool. Internally, this should be pretty slick. Otherwise, it’s mostly adding a bit of bling that we can pretend is something vaguely resembling practical. This is a pretty typical billet upper, with some details particular to the manufacturer to make it look cool, and provision for a forward assist and dust cover.

Lower Receiver:
It’s also NiB coated. Plus, matched billet set, so the design is supposed to flow nicely. Blending and all that. Woo. There are a couple other things of note here that are nonstandard. First, there’s a small setscrew at the back to control fit of the upper and the lower and remove any wobble. Not that the wobble matters, but it’s nice to be able to take it out, get that custom gun feel. We also have an extra bit on the right side–a southpaw bolt release! There’s a button on the right and a longer guide rod so that a southpaw shooter can release the bolt easily with his support hand when he reloads. Cool. Note that there’s no way for him to lock the bolt back with this particular gubbin, but that’s okay. Bolt lockback is nearly always an administrative thing; it doesn’t matter if it’s awkward. Also, the bolt catch is to be held in place with an included setscrew, not a roll pin. Great! Roll pins are of the devil anyway, especially that one, which is about the most awkward thing to install.

Barrel: Daniel Defense 16″ Lightweight Profile CL
That’s more like it. It even says lightweight in the name. Anyway, I went with Daniel Defense because they have a good history of making quality AR barrels, 16″ because I don’t want to bother with pinning the muzzle device or NFA paperwork, and chrome lining (“CL”) because duh, chrome line that barrel for best barrel life results. The lightweight profile is what was originally called for by Stoner in the basic AR-15/M-16A1 design, so we’re in good stead here. Plus, I’m not a benchrest shooter, so I don’t want a barrel that weighs as much as a Camaro. Light rifle, lightweight barrel profile. Perfect for the Run ‘n’ gun.

Handguard: BCM KMR 13″
Oughta make up for all those places I opted not to cut weight. Note that this is not the KMR-Alpha. This is Original KMR, made with BCM’s fancy, proprietary, and apparently hard-to-find aluminum-magnesium alloy. Just like a fancy racing engine block. And it’s laughably light. Holding the handguard in your hand is like holding nothing at all. It’s stupid light. There’s basically nothing to it given that it’s over a foot long. Why 13″? Because I wanted to have a long handguard to see what all the fuss was about. But I still wanted a bit of barrel at the end for the narrow firing port drills you sometimes see at matches. This fits the bill for both. Plus, it’s got the modular keymod interface. Is keymod better than Mlok? I have no idea. I just like this handguard design. I figure both will be around for a long time, because people hang on to guns for a while.

Muzzle Device: Precision Armaments M4-72
I could probably have gotten a lighter muzzle device. I don’t care.1 The M4-72 is universally acclaimed as a super effective muzzle device, coming in at or near the top in several effectiveness tests. It is also apparently horrifically loud. I do not care about this either. Ridiculous race gun comps are always something I’ve been interested in trying. So here it is. One of the baddest of the bad, if you can take the abuse. Or, I guess if people around you can take the abuse.

Gas Block: BCM low profile .625″
Not much to say here. It’s a gas block. It attaches via setscrew, mostly because I lack a drill press to pin it properly. Oh well. .625″ because that’s the diameter of my barrel at the gas port. It is not adjustable, because I don’t really want to fiddle with gas systems too much. I don’t tweak rifles to shoot as light as possible for some custom load. I like my rifle to run with any reasonable factory load.

Gas tube: BCM midlength
Yes, I bought a gas tube. No, there’s nothing special about it. Makes rifle do that autoloader thing.

Bolt Carrier Group: WMD Guns NiB-X coated M16 BCG
Here’s another place where I could have saved some weight, but didn’t. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of low-mass components in the operating system, because I like unfussy, reliable rifles. This is one of the few places where there is mass in an AR-15, so of course someone is gonna try to cut weight here. If you go with a reduced-mass BCG, you nearly always need to tune your gas system for correct functioning. Since I’m not the biggest fan of fiddle-farting around with the gas system, and I have no capacity to do so on this rifle as designed, I kept the stock-dimensioned BCG for reliability. I don’t like fussy, high maintenance guns. NiB coated because my upper is NiB coated, and NiB on NiB is going to give me maximum lubricity. Plus, it looks really cool.

Buffer system: BCM milspec buffer tube, castle nut, receiver end plate, carbine buffer, carbine buffer spring
Not much interesting here. I need a buffer system to make the rifle one correctly. So I got one. It’s all pretty standard stuff. Milspec buffer tube, though it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s consistent with your stock. Castle nut and receiver end plate are also needed, and stock parts, and boring. Nothing fancy here. The buffer is carbine weight, mostly because that’s what came in the kit. I may tinker with that a bit, but Obsessive Buffer Tweaking Syndrome has screwed up many perfectly good guns. So…maybe not.

Stock BCM Gunfighter FDE
This stock is a good balance between weight, comfort, and durability. It’s one of the lighter stocks on the market, among the strongest in abuse/drop tests, and is pretty comfortable as far as cheek weld goes. There’s a rubber pad on it too, not that a 5.56 AR is abusive at all. There are lighter stocks, but most of them are less comfortable. Or I could have just gotten a backplate for the buffer, but that wouldn’t be adjustable. And I refuse to be that silly. Plus I like having features that were on the ban list for the ’94 “assault weapons” ban. Makes me feel warm and fuzzy. Oh, and I picked Flat Dark Earth (FDE to the cool kids, tan to everyone else) because it looks cool, and I’ve got a sort of two-tone look going on.

Various Upper and Lower Parts:
I’m going to list these out, grouped by function, because a bunch are decidedly not standard parts. I rolled my own lower parts kit for this one.

Forward assist: BCM forward assist and spring
Well, the upper receiver has a slot for one, so I got one. It’s a stock part. Moving on.

Dust Cover: Strike Industries Enhanced Ultimate Dust Cover
I got this because installing a dust cover is really annoying. This one is much less so.

Charging handle: Mega Arms Grip Charging Handle
This one came with my upper. It’s got some more grippiness, and it’s a billet part, but otherwise it’s a stock design. I’m fine with that for now. I haven’t had one of my guns jam up real bad, so I haven’t had to really abuse a charging handle. Maybe in the future I’ll get a fancy one.

Mag Release: Colt mag release spring, colt mag button, Norgon ambi mag catch
I got the Norgon ambi mag catch because I figured it’d be pretty silly to have an ambi bolt release but no ambi mag release. I got the Norgon one because it’s well made, puts the mag release in the same place for southpaws and even has an NSN. Other small parts are Colt because I like Colt stuff. They make good small parts.

Bolt release: Colt spring, Seekins Bolt Release Catch
These are added to the already-supplied extended guide rod to enable the southpaw-friendly release functionality. Colt spring because I still like Colt. Seekins catch because it’s a little bigger, and I like the look. Plus bigger is easier to smack when you’re in a hurry.

Safety: Battle Arms Development Ambi Safety
Again, ambi makes more sense as an all-or-nothing thing. Plus, I like ambi safeties in general, and I’m not sacrificing anything. Battle arms makes a really nice one that lets you choose from several different shapes of lever that they make. They come with a safety detent and safety detent spring.

Grip: TangoDown BG-17 FDE
FDE because two-tone. TangoDown BG-17 because it’s a really comfortable grip. It’s my favorite from testing several. And no, I don’t like the ‘more verticaler’ grips they have now. TangoDown’s grip is also shaped to keep your hand high, and a high grip is a better grip. Also, TangoDown actually makes grips in sizes for people who have big, manly hands. The BG-17 is the larger size, the BG-16 is the smaller size. Same great comfortable shape. Since I have relatively large hands, I went BG-17. Interestingly, all the goofy vertical grips seem to be made tiny. No idea why, but it’s another reason for me to not like them

Buffer retainer: Colt buffer retainer detent, Colt buffer retainer spring
Really, there’s nothing to see here. These parts are required so your gun works right. There’s nothing special about them. I like Colt, so I got ones made by Colt.

Receiver Pins: Battle Arms Development Enhanced Pin Set
These hold your receivers together. You need some pins, and the corresponding pin retaining detents and pin retaining springs. I like the Battle Arms set because they shape the pins a bit more to make them easier to push and pull with your fingers. It’s the little things. They also include a little magnet to hold the detents while you install the pins. It’s the little things.

Trigger: Geissele SSA-E
If you thought I was going to put a stock trigger in this gun, you should go play in traffic. I like Bill Geissele’s triggers, and his SSA is pretty much my go-to trigger. I went with the SSA-E for a little bit of match-ness. I might go with a more competition trigger once I get a feel for this one and run it. That trigger might be the Geissele SD-E trigger, or maybe the Hiperfire 24C that I’ve heard so much about. I’ll keep you posted.

There she is, though she still needs a name and an optic. And then it’s off to the range! Watch this space for more details.

Oh, and in case your curious, she weighs 5.975 lbs unloaded, with no optic. A hair under six pounds is pretty good, I thought. Especially because I didn’t get too obsessive.

1.) Technically, I could also have gone with no muzzle device. But that’s just silly. If you seriously considered this, then you’re dumb. Or too weight obsessed. Possibly both.

OpenTafl v0.3.2.1b released

Posted by

A new version of OpenTafl is out. Happily, this one doesn’t break network compatibility! As usual, the README has full details, but here are the highlights.

First off, performance improvements! The micro-optimizations I wrote about are now in the release. This brings OpenTafl’s speed up to the standard set by v0.2.5.3b. You may also notice enhanced responsiveness from the UI, which comes from updates to the Lanterna UI library.

Speaking of which, updates to said library have also resolved issues with OpenTafl drawing in native terminals. Use the –fallback switch to run OpenTafl in pure ANSI terminal mode. Handy if you’re on a server or something. Changes in Lanterna also required a little bit of rewriting on the Swing front; the upshot is that font size is now configurable.

Finally, I took care of a few large-board issues: the row indices now print correctly for boards larger than 9×9. In the same vein, alea evangelii (19×19 tafl) is now available, and I can feel a 19×19 tafl theory post coming soon, I think.

Until then, happy gaming.