Tag Archives: news

Suppressor Vindication

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A couple years ago, I wrote an article talking about how suppressors should be general issue for the modern infantryman. At the time, I thought this idea was good but a little out there, since it was the only one of my force multipliers not adopted by a major military. A little while later, I discovered that someone at the US Marine Corps had a similar idea, and they were putting it to the test.

Now, it appears this testing has produced some results, and these results have been analyzed. The United States Marine Corps has announced that they’ll be issuing suppressors to every infantryman. Check out the full story here, courtesy of Task & Purpose.

I think that’s awesome. Better communication. Hearing protection works better. More effective infantry. Fewer hearing issues for the soldier after he musters out. But you already gathered that. It’s nice to see the Corps coming to the same conclusions.

Let’s talk a little bit about how they plan to implement that in the short term. They’ve got a contract with Knight’s Armament for NT4 suppressors. The NT4 is an older suppressor, with the design dating back to 1998.

This is not a state of the art suppressor, but it’s a known one. It’s in the system already. It’s pretty durable as far as suppressors go. And the mounting is super cheap: the NT4 just requires replacing the crush washer behind a standard A2-type flash hider with a shim kit. So an existing rifle is ready to get quieter for less than $5. And all M27s already have a venting gas block to bleed off excess gas from the suppressor. It’s not the suppressor I would choose if I had to buy a new general issue setup right now, but given the system as it is, the choice is a reasonable one.

It’s great to see this idea get some serious traction. Bravo Zulu, Devil Dogs!

On the OMFV

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We’ve had some recent news on the OMFV program, with Rheinmetall being disqualified for not showing up for the Engineering & Manufacturing Design (EMD) phase, so let’s dig in.

First, let’s laugh a bit at the “competition” now with a single entrant. Even though, technically, someone else could enter a bid in 2023. If the program stays around that long. Those competitors wouldn’t get US Army funding and feedback from the EMD portion of the program, so they’d be at a significant financial disadvantage.

Okay, now that we’ve gotten our snark out of the way, let’s get serious. Yet again, we’re trying to replace the Bradley. What are the problems with the Bradley? So far, I’ve found the following three commonly cited (in no particular order):

1) Insufficient protection against current and near future threats, even with existing up-armor kits installed.
2) Insufficient power capacity for all current systems, let alone future upgrades.
3) Insufficient dismount capacity.

That said, OMFV only seems to worry about (1) and (2), since it does not require entrants to carry a full, nine-man dismount squad. And the one entrant from General Dynamics (which I believe is called Griffin IV), has capacity for the minimum required dismounts only. I think we’re still waiting on the DTIC or RAND corp. study on “Why Six Dismounts is Sufficient”, after they so kindly wrote a bit on why it’s so important for the GCV to carry nine dismounts.1

Anyway, the current requirements are tough enough. The following three are probably going to be extremely tough to meet:

  • Entrants must provide excellent protection (details are sparse, but presumably superior to that of the Bradley)
  • Entrants must have a 20% growth capacity
  • Two (2) entrants must be transportable in a C-17

I’m not entirely sure that this is doable. BAE didn’t think so, which is why they didn’t bother to enter anything into this phase. But GDLS seems to think they can do it.

I would have liked to have seen the Puma entered into the EMD to compete with the Griffin, but since its made by a collaboration between Rheinmetall and KMW, there’s little reason for Rheinmetall to enter it when they had their (now disqualified) KF41.

Of course, Puma was a GCV alternative that the GAO looked at, and was recommended over developing the higher-risk GCV prototype vehicles, despite holding fewer dismounts. Two can fit in a C-17 in the stripped-down configuration that is used to get it into an A400m. And the protection is pretty fantastic.

Obvious problems include that it’s very expensive, I have no idea how much growth capacity is in the design right now, the turret would have to be redone to carry the US-Army preferred 50mm XM913 autocannon, it’s expensive, there’s no provision at present for a hard-kill active protection system, the coax gun is still 5.56mm, the MELLS ATGM launcher isn’t done and did I mention it’s expensive? At a minimum, competitors are required to demonstrate an upgrade path to the 50mm gun. Oh, and the US Army would have to be okay with having to transport and install the rest of the armor before they used their air-transported Pumas.

As it is, we’ll see how the program goes. I’m not going to hold my breath.

  1. You may find the Rand GCV paper to be a good read. ↩

LAND 400 Downselect

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Australia has announced the downselect results for the LAND 400 IFV competition. They chose Rheinmetall’s KF41 Lynx and Hanwha’s AS21 Redback to proceed to the next phase of competition. This means of course that the General Dynamics ASCOD 2/Ajax derivative and BAE’s CV90 are out.

This means that the two proposals derived from vehicles that are in service somewhere are out. While the LAND 400 requirements wanted something relatively ‘low risk’ it seems that new designs that share components with in service vehicles suffices. It also helps that the Lynx and the Redback were both designed with what the Australian army actually wanted in mind. Funny how that works. I’m glad they prioritized capabilities.

I’m not surprised the CV90 didn’t make the cut, since that’s an older design and it wasn’t very cutting edge when new. The ASCOD 2/Ajax proposal rejection was a little more surprising, as the Australians tend to have a lot of commonality with the UK. Anyway, it should be good to see how the two newer designs shake out.

On the XM913 50mm autocannon

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With a public, successful test firing, now is a good time to talk about the XM913 50mm autocannon, a modern application of the 50mm Supershot (sort of). The rounds are the same overall dimensions as the 50mm Supershot rounds, i.e. a straight-walled version of the 35x228mm cartridge. Since it’s building on an existing cartridge, the XM913 is actually a rather boring gun. It’s just a Bushmaster III with a different barrel. Same feed system, same great electrically-driven “chain-gun” design. The Bushmaster design has proven to be very reliable and scalable, since it’s externally-powered action doesn’t have to be recalibrated to function correctly with a different amount of recoil or gas. Rate of fire is also easy to adjust.

The ammunition in question is rather more interesting. While it has the same overall cartridge dimensions as 50mm Supershot, the new case is 100 mm shorter, at 230mm length instead of 330. Where 50mm Supershot was designed to give more KE power for armor penetration, the new rounds are designed to launch a larger volume projectile, for better airburst and guided options. Current design is for a command-guided airburst round for C-RAM and anti-UAV work. And it should still work with the previous rounds, if more armor penetration is desired.

Ammunition is the same base diameter and overall length as 35x228mm, so we’d expect the same ammunition capacity. It’s about half what you can get with 30x173mm, give or take depending on details.

On to what we think. I’ve always liked the notion of 50mm Supershot. I’m pretty skeptical of some sort of command-guided C-RAM munition, but bigger airburst is better airburst. We’ll see how tests shake out.

Vignettes from the 2019 USCCA Concealed Carry Expo

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This past weekend I got to attend the USCCA Concealed Carry Expo. I had a great time! I got to talk to lots of vendor reps, handle things, attend lectures, and even test fire some guns!

Lectures

I attended talks from John Correia (Active Self Protection), Chris Cerino (Cerino Consulting and Training Group), and John Lovell (Warrior Poet Society). These talks were all 90 minutes or so and were pretty densely packed with information. I went away happy with all of the talks and wanting to spend more time with the speakers. So I’d call this a success. Plenty of takeaways, possibly for future articles here. Also, Lovell looks eerily like my brother from another mother.

Product Floor: What Stood Out

Shadow Arms MR918
This is sort of a factory customized Glock. It’s got a lot of popular tweaks to the Glock design already applied. I expect this to be successful, as Kimber used the same business model to establish their bona fides back when the 1911 market consisted of GI-style Colts and GI-style Springfields. This one had a good texture, grip reduction, trigger tweaks, and a milled slide. The milled slide had all the serrations people like up front, plus an RMR cut. What stands out there is that the RMR cut is low enough that standard height sights will cowitness with an installed RMR, which is pretty cool. The grip felt much shorter than a usual Glock grip, but more blocky because it still has to fit around the Glock magazine. I’ve never had a problem with trigger reach on a Glock, but it’s not an uncommon issue, and this might be worth a look for you if you have small hands. Unfortunately there were no MR918s to test at the Demo Range. More on that in a bit.

Ameriglo FBI Contract Sights
The Ameriglo booth had a ton of dummy “slides” mounted on plates so you could play around and compare sight pictures. This meant I got to take a look at the FBI contract sights, which was pretty cool. These are three-dot tritium sights with a high-visibility front sight and a U-notch rear, with nothing around the rear tritium vials. I rather like them. If you’re looking for some excellent iron sights, these deserve a look. And really, more places should have demo plates like these.

Crimson Trace LS-250 LaserSaddle
At the Mossberg booth, they had a shotgun set up with the Lasersaddle. It’s a saddle-looking laser sight that goes over the receiver of a 500/590 series shotgun. This gives you a laser that’s really close to the bore and some super convenient switchology. I like laser sights and I like aiming my shotguns. This is a neat product.

Ruger Super GP100
This is new, and I know Fishbreath is always looking at speedy revolvers. Anyway, I thought the grips were very comfortable, and the trigger was nice and smooth. Unfortunately, S&W didn’t have a booth for me to compare things to, so I can only say that it was the nicest revolver trigger by far in the Ruger booth. Sights looked really precise and excellent. I’m kinda lukewarm on the styling, but if the cuts on the barrel shroud get the balance right (and I couldn’t really swing a tethered booth model around much to check this) then they’re worth it.

SIG Tango6 1-6×24 Scope
I love low power variables. SIG’s offering got picked by SOCOM and the US Army. Taking a look at this guy, I thought they did a really good job on the reticle. It was actually pretty useful on 1x, 3x, and 6x. The show model had the horseshoe-dot reticle with BDC in it. Comparing with others in the 1-6x space, it’s still kind of a pig of a scope, and it did not have the forgiving eyebox that I’ve come to love on my Vortex Razor Gen 2-E. I can’t comment on glass clarity without something known for comparison.

Cabot Guns: Everything
Cabot makes some absolutely beautiful custom 1911s. If you’re in the market, you should go talk to them. Be prepared to drop real coin. They also have a more affordable offshoot called Alchemy Custom Weaponry, which makes some slick 1911s that look good, are a whole lot less custom, and cost a lot less.

Stumping the Sales Reps: Asking the Unanswerable

To Mossberg: “Are you aware of any plans to put the new detachable box magazines on the 930 or another semi-automatic shotgun design?”
Rep: “I’m aware of no such plans, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re not working on it. Just that I don’t have a product to tell you about.”

To SIG: “Do you have a release date for the Romeo3Max or Romeo3XL red dots?”
Rep: “I do not. Sorry. I wish we (SIG) were better at timely release dates after new product announcements.”

The Demo Range

At the expo, there was a Range-In-A-Trailer, which was a pretty nice pistol range inside a large trailer. Sound proofing, ventilation, and cooling were pretty good for an indoor range. Definitely up there with some of the nicer indoor ranges I’ve been to. Attendees could fire any of a number of ready demo pistols for free. You only got five shots, but that’s a decent way to give something a try, especially a hard to find or weird something. Here’s my report on what I got to shoot.

Walther Q5 SF
I really, really like this thing. It’s got that great Walther trigger, plus a relatively heavy steel frame to soak up recoil. It was an absolute joy to shoot. I’m sold on it, and I’m not surprised Walther is having trouble keeping these in stock.

Walther Q5 (And comparison!)
I also wanted to give this a try, since this is a decent test of the steel frame in the SF. No, it’s not perfect, it’s an indoor range, and I can’t run these through a match or get great timed drills. For what it’s worth, the triggers seemed extremely similar and easy to run, but the steel frame model seemed a lot easier to control. If you asked me which I’d want, I’d go for the SF model.

Walther PPK/S (.380 ACP)
It’s not technically James Bond’s gun (he shoots the 7.65mm PPK), but what the heck, right? It’s iconic, even if it’s no longer the best small gun choice for a master spy. The PPK/S has a longer grip, so this one actually sort of fit my hand. The controls are still weird, the sights are still tiny, and it’s kind of jumpy. Fun to shoot a few rounds through, but there was another small gun that really, really stood out.

SIG P365
This little gun has been a great seller for SIG. It also seems to have had some early troubles, but those appear to be worked out now. It’s a very small gun, narrow like a single stack, but having ten rounds in the staggered-column magazine. For a small gun, it shot remarkably well. Still not quite as nice as a service size polymer gun, but definitely nicer than you would expect given how small it is. This was probably the biggest surprise. I expected to love the Q5 SF, but the P365 being shootable and fun was a shock. Congratulations on being an exception to the “I hate small guns” rule, P365.

FN 509 Tactical
FN has had a devil of a time breaking into the pistol market in any serious way. The FN 509 has a reduced grip circumference compared to their previous FNS, and it has nice texture that goes all the way up the side of the grip. You know, where I actually want to grab the gun. The 509 handled pretty well in the demo. The tactical model also comes with a number of optional extras installed, including suppressor-height sights, an optic cutout, and a threaded barrel. The trigger was good but nothing to write home about.

SIG P320 X-Carry
Another solid gun with some desirable improvements built in from the factory. Alas, I didn’t have a regular P320 Carry to take to the Demo Trailer, so I can’t do a mini-comparison for you. I do prefer the “feel” of the X-Carry grip over the regular grip, and I much prefer the flat trigger that they’ve put in it.

Of the above pistols, I’m sold on the Walther Q5 SF and the SIG P365.

Best-in-Show, SHOT 2019

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Here, you’ll find our selections for most interesting things from SHOT 2019.

Parvusimperator’s Picks

Best Optic: Aimpoint Acro P-1

I like more options for my pistol optics, and Aimpoint has a great red dot sight track record. Seeing as there have been several revisions to the current sights targeted at the market, this late entry might still make a strong showing.

Best Pistol We’ve Been Wanting For Years: Glock 48

Seems a no-brainer to put ten rounds in something that’s Glock 19 sized, but thinner. For those who prefer carrying a slimmer pistol, are happy with (or legally restricted to) ten rounds, and want something to just work. Fortunately, Glock has finally delivered. I hope they put the time into getting this to work without issues.

Best Knife: Ka-Bar TDI Flipper Folder

Previous knives from the Ka-Bar/TDI partnership have been fixed blade. They’re generally well thought out and come in at a reasonable price. This one is also well thought out, also at a good price point. And it folds.

Best In Show: Walther Q5 Match SF

This had a soft launch before SHOT, but was there and was a star of range day. For more on this pistol, look at my write-up. This is also the product on this list that’s most likely to be purchased by me. I’m happy to see the best striker-fired handgun trigger get a cool steel frame for competition.

Fishbreath’s Picks

Best Glock In Disguise: Faxon Firearms FX-19

Building a polymer-framed striker-fired pistol is basically trivial nowadays. Start with a box of Glock parts and some calipers, and soon after, voila. Faxon Firearms gets bonus points for very aggressive styling and being known less as a gunmaker and more as a barrel manufacturer.

Best Video Game-Inspired Accessory: Radetec Glock Slide Shot Counter

Already known for round counters in smart grips, Radetec has gone further and made a smart slide which indicates whether there is a round in the chamber, how many are left in the magazine, and whether a magazine is inserted at all. Straight from the pages of your favorite dystopian fiction or the in-universe UI of your favorite sci-fi game.

Best Kel-Tec Vaporware: CP-33

Alternate heading: Most Innovative Magazine Design. The CP-33’s magazine is a double-double-stack design, which holds 33 rounds of .22LR out of the box, or 50 with an extended magazine. If only I could get one with a giggle switch.

Best MP5 Clone: Palmetto State Armory

It’s a true, roller-delayed MP5 clone, with nice Magpul furniture and a price tag HK would scoff at: $1100. I won’t be buying one, but it’s nice to see someone in America making a reasonably priced replica gun. I wonder if I could get them to do a Mauser C96 clone…

Best In Show: Franklin Armory’s Providence

A magazine-fed, manually-operated rifle where all you have to do is pull the trigger. By using a long pull and presumably a lot of leverage, the Providence trigger cycles the bolt and fires the next round all in one motion. A delightfully clever poke in the eye to jurisdictions with bad firearms law.

Extra: Hudson in Trouble

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Original (Jan 24, 1249)

From SHOT Show:

This is the space reserved for the Hudson booth. It’s curiously empty.

If we dig, we can see why:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/7754152/cambridge-valley-machining-inc-v-hudson-mfg-llc/

Hudson’s parts supplier alleges that they have not been paid. Hudson alleges that the parts were not to spec. It’s ugly, and the court filing goes back to September. I suspect that the parts supplier is too small to take the hit, and Hudson lacks the cash flow/line of credit to simply get parts elsewhere.

Regrettably, setting up a manufacturing business in the United States is very hard.

Update (Jan 24, 1308) (Fishbreath)

As it turns out, the first $15/quarter of PACER access is free, so I went ahead and registered, installed the RECAP extension to upload anything I view to the Free Law Project, and scored Hudson’s counterclaim. Here you go.

Journalism-ing.

EAPS: The US Army’s New 50mm Cannon?

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Over at AUSA 2018, General Dynamics showed off their Griffin III demonstrator vehicle, which was armed with, among other things, a new 50mm cannon. At first, I thought this was simply someone actually executing on the old 50mm Supershot idea, but this is only half true.

What’s carried over from the Supershot program is the basic cartridge shape1, i.e. that of a 35x228mm cartridge ‘necked out’ into a straight-walled case. The gun, which is basically a Bushmaster III with a new barrel and slightly revised feed system, is still externally driven. Nothing super new there. What is new is the goal.

50mm Supershot was designed to have a way to get a more powerful APFSDS round out of the 35mm cannon. A quick barrel change, add new rounds, and you could smash up a tougher Soviet IFV, since 50mm Supershot got you about as much propellant as a 40mm Bofors round, but in a smaller package. Of course, the Soviet Union is no more, and now they have much smaller armored forces. What they do have are precision guided munitions, UAVs, and the traditional giant artillery park.

The new Extended Area Protection System (EAPS–yeah, it’s a stupid name) worked to adapt modern technology and the capacious 50mm round to attack the problem of C-RAM (Counter Rockets, Artillery, and Mortars) as well as countering larger UAVs. What they’ve settled on is a Course Corrected Projectile, fired out of the 50mm gun, equipped with command guidance and a fragmentation warhead.

EAPS and its guided projectiles have passed some basic proof-of-concept testing. It remains to be seen how well the system will shake out. I kinda like the idea, and it’s a better reason than most to increase the autocannon caliber. I’m skeptical that it will work all that well in practice, but it’s at least a new idea.

As for the gun, we can extrapolate a little from the Bushmaster III. Still no word on the capacity of a mounted one yet.

  1. Though the devil lurks in the details. I have no idea if the old rounds would also fit in the chamber for the new gun. ↩

Errata: URG-I updates

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Earlier this year I wrote a post on the URG-I upgrade kit for USASOC’s M4s. This is a pretty simple set of drop-in parts to improve the functionality of the M4 by using a low-profile gas block, barrel with a midlength gas system, improved flash hider that can also mount a suppressor, and a new, longer, free-float handguard with mlok slots instead of picatinny rails.

When I first wrote the article, I compared it to a “stock” M4 upper. To do so I had to make some guesses as to the weights of the new parts. I have since been able to find the correct weights, and the article has been updated with those.

If you just want the correct weights without re-reading the article, they are as follows:
Geissele Mk 16 13″ handguard, 14.7 oz.
Surefire SF4P flash hider, 4.48 oz.
Daniel Defense 14.5″ CHF Midlength, Gov’t profile barrel, 24 oz.

US Army Mortar Improvement Request

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The US army has finally decided to improve it’s mobile mortars. They have announced their goals to develop a turreted mortar system for their vehicles, with a completion target of 2021. Let’s break down what they’re looking at:

  • Caliber: 120mm
  • A manned or unmanned turret
  • Autoloading system must accomplish loading rounds from ready rack into the breach.
  • Ideally all ammunition handling would be automated
  • Vehicle should be able to stop moving and fire within one minute of getting a fire mission
  • Project will investigate being able to shoot on the move
  • Maximum rate of fire (sustainable for one minute): 16 rounds/minute required, 24 rounds/minute ideal
  • Sustained rate of fire: 6 rounds/minute required, 12 rounds/minute ideal
  • System should have a direct-fire capability
  • System should be compatible with all existing 120mm mortar ammunition
  • Maximum range should be at least 5 miles
  • Minimum range should be 220 yards (direct fire)

Patria’s NEMO system comes close to meeting the above requirements, but would need some work to meet the short-term maximum rate of fire requirements. AMOS should be able to do the rate of fire goals given its twin barrels. My one worry is that the perfect would be the enemy of the good enough. Big Army should just pick an off the shelf system (probably the reasonably priced NEMO) and start slapping them on Strykers and AMPVs and call it a day. Have a couple beers and some wings in Alexandria. Any such turreted system is going to be a significant improvement in survivability for the mortar crews, and should also provide improvements in effectiveness. Don’t overcomplicate this.