Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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dbt1949
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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You know why the military preferred bolt action rifles over lever action rifles? With bolt action you could keep your sights on the target while you put another round in the chamber. With lever action you can't.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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It's kinda sad that modern shooters just want bigger and bigger magazines. A long time ago gun education was all about "mag dump is stupid" or "one shot one kill". Sure you can mag swap in a second if you got fast hands but it takes no skill to walk into a "target rich environment" and just point and shoot "something". If you want maximum carnage you can always go for doubles or triples with limited ammo.

I've always held the opinion: the only reason individuals would want hi-cap mags is for "more cojones" and "keeping up with the Jones's". It has no application otherwise. They can *say* they are trying to match the military in power, but they can never do that when military has tanks and planes and artillery and mortars and whatnot.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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Kasey Chang wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 6:33 am It's kinda sad that modern shooters just want bigger and bigger magazines. A long time ago gun education was all about "mag dump is stupid" or "one shot one kill". Sure you can mag swap in a second if you got fast hands but it takes no skill to walk into a "target rich environment" and just point and shoot "something". If you want maximum carnage you can always go for doubles or triples with limited ammo.

I've always held the opinion: the only reason individuals would want hi-cap mags is for "more cojones" and "keeping up with the Jones's". It has no application otherwise. They can *say* they are trying to match the military in power, but they can never do that when military has tanks and planes and artillery and mortars and whatnot.
Not to mention standardized training to work in groups. It's never going to be a 1v1 matchup against the military, it's 1 v squad or 1 v platoon. Even if you're part of an organized militia, the moment the dudes you train with start dying you'll start to lose unit cohesion, and I don't think militia training is standardized enough that you can just add new people and be up to snuff again.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

Post by LawBeefaroni »

I have a few handguns that come with 15 round mags. They come with 15 round mags because that's what fits in a mag that sits flush with the grip. They make 10 round mags for these firearms come MA and CA compliance but they are just 15 round mags with spacers blocking more than 10 rounds.

Do I need 15 round mags? Probably not. But if 15 rounds sit flush with the hand-sized grip, why wouldn't I put 15 rounds in? FWIW, I carry either 6+1 or 10+1 because I carry smaller pistols.



With rifles with external mags it's a bit of a different story. 30 rounds is standard in an AR15 because someone decided that was optimal for troops.

I have a bolt action rifle with a 5-round mag and a semi auto .22 with 10 round mags. Anything bigger isn't flush with the receiver. Works for me.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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Kasey Chang wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 6:33 am It's kinda sad that modern shooters just want bigger and bigger magazines. A long time ago gun education was all about "mag dump is stupid" or "one shot one kill". Sure you can mag swap in a second if you got fast hands but it takes no skill to walk into a "target rich environment" and just point and shoot "something". If you want maximum carnage you can always go for doubles or triples with limited ammo.

The M16 was designed on the thinking that spray and pray was favorable to discrete shot selection. The US army found that troops with BARs were more likely to fire in the enemy. Soldiers with semi-auto M1s were not, except when they were in close proximity to someone shooting a full auto BAR. So they made the M1 auto full auto with the M14. The M14a turned out to be uncontrollable on full auto so the M16 was born.

A decent history:
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/ar ... ry/545153/
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:59 am The M16 was designed on the thinking that spray and pray was favorable to discrete shot selection. The US army found that troops with BARs were more likely to fire in the enemy. Soldiers with semi-auto M1s were not, except when they were in close proximity to someone shooting a full auto BAR. So they made the M1 auto full auto with the M14. The M14a turned out to be uncontrollable on full auto so the M16 was born.
M16 is a completely parallel evolution by Eugene Stoner that happened to get noticed at the right time. it uses a much smaller cartridge than the 7.62, known as the .223 (which later got standardized into the 5.56mmx45 in 1980). He invented the AR-10 back in 1955 shooting the same cart as M-14 (i.e. NATO 7.62) but it was rejected because it was "too new" (the rifle that was accepted became the M-14). The .223 was a new caliber invented to be smaller yet still achieve 3300 ft/s and thus the necessary energy to achieve kills at 500 yards, i.e. scaled down 7.62. The .223 turned out to be much easier to shoot. At a trial in 1961, the AR-15 and M-14 went head to head with a bunch of shooters... twice as many shooters on AR-15 qualified as expert. The round and rifle was soon adopted in 2-3 years for the US Army.

Army never wanted spray-and-pray. It worsens their supply situation. Having lighter bullets like AR-15/M-16 helped, but they still wanted infantry man to get marksmanship badges if they can.

The evolution of firearms was also interesting as other militaries, like the German, went to an intermediate cartridge (between rifle and pistol) if they needed volume of fire. Germans had the Sturmgewehr Stg-44 which fires 8mm Kurz (7.92x33) which is a shorter version of their more popular "Mauser" 7.92x57mm rifle rounds fired by just about everything else. Other solutions include the submachinegun, which fires pistol carts, like the Soviet PPSh (Papasha) which fires the 7.62x25 Tokarev or the 7.63x25 Mauser. Germans also have the MP-40, which fires the 9mm Parabellum rounds popular in their Lugers. Americans previously had solved the close-quarters high-volume fire problem with trench shotguns in WW1. But somehow, in WW2, they decided to stick with the BAR, which is basically a larger rifle with a 20-round mag, that is supposed to be hip-fired, making it horrible as a suppression weapon and for closer quarters.

The US simply made do with the Garand, which is semi-auto with 8-round clip when it comes to volume of fire, and the Thompson SMG and later, the "Grease gun", which fires the .45 Colt, but those are kinda rare among the regular grunts.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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Kasey Chang wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 12:39 pm
LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 9:59 am The M16 was designed on the thinking that spray and pray was favorable to discrete shot selection. The US army found that troops with BARs were more likely to fire in the enemy. Soldiers with semi-auto M1s were not, except when they were in close proximity to someone shooting a full auto BAR. So they made the M1 auto full auto with the M14. The M14a turned out to be uncontrollable on full auto so the M16 was born.
M16 is a completely parallel evolution by Eugene Stoner that happened to get noticed at the right time. it uses a much smaller cartridge than the 7.62, known as the .223 (which later got standardized into the 5.56mmx45 in 1980). He invented the AR-10 back in 1955 shooting the same cart as M-14 (i.e. NATO 7.62) but it was rejected because it was "too new" (the rifle that was accepted became the M-14). The .223 was a new caliber invented to be smaller yet still achieve 3300 ft/s and thus the necessary energy to achieve kills at 500 yards, i.e. scaled down 7.62. The .223 turned out to be much easier to shoot. At a trial in 1961, the AR-15 and M-14 went head to head with a bunch of shooters... twice as many shooters on AR-15 qualified as expert. The round and rifle was soon adopted in 2-3 years for the US Army.

Army never wanted spray-and-pray. It worsens their supply situation. Having lighter bullets like AR-15/M-16 helped, but they still wanted infantry man to get marksmanship badges if they can.

The evolution of firearms was also interesting as other militaries, like the German, went to an intermediate cartridge (between rifle and pistol) if they needed volume of fire. Germans had the Sturmgewehr Stg-44 which fires 8mm Kurz (7.92x33) which is a shorter version of their more popular "Mauser" 7.92x57mm rifle rounds fired by just about everything else. Other solutions include the submachinegun, which fires pistol carts, like the Soviet PPSh (Papasha) which fires the 7.62x25 Tokarev or the 7.63x25 Mauser. Germans also have the MP-40, which fires the 9mm Parabellum rounds popular in their Lugers. Americans previously had solved the close-quarters high-volume fire problem with trench shotguns in WW1. But somehow, in WW2, they decided to stick with the BAR, which is basically a larger rifle with a 20-round mag, that is supposed to be hip-fired, making it horrible as a suppression weapon and for closer quarters.

The US simply made do with the Garand, which is semi-auto with 8-round clip when it comes to volume of fire.

Seriously, take a look at the article:
A second discovery about weaponry lay behind the design of Eugene Stoner’s AR-15. In studies of combat units during World War II, S. L. A. Marshall found that nearly four fifths of combat soldiers never fired their weapons during battle.This finding prompted the Army to take a closer look at the weapons the soldiers used. It turned out that one group of soldiers was an exception to this rule: those who carried the Browning automatic rifles (BARs). These were essentially portable machine guns, which could spray out bursts of continuous fire. (the rifles that the other soldiers carried, M-1s, were “semiautomatic,” requiring a separate trigger squeeze for each round.) Within a combat group, firing would begin with the BAR man and spread out from him. The nearer a soldier with an M-1 stood to the BAR man, the more
likely he was to fire. e explanation most often suggested was that the infantryman carrying a normal rifle felt that his actions were ultimately futile. John Keegan said in The Face of Battle, “Infantrymen, however well-trained an well-armed, however resolute, however ready to kill, remain erratic agents of death. Unless centrally directed, they will choose, perhaps badly, their own targets, will open and cease fire individually, will be put off their aim by the enemy’s return of fire, will be distracted
by the wounding of those near them, will yield to fear or excitement, will fire high, low, or wide.” The normal infantryman could not see the enemy clearly or have any sense of whether he had made a hit. The BAR man, by contrast, had the sense that he could dominate a certain area—“hose it down,” in the military slang—and destroy anyone who happens to be there.

...

These emphases [larger caliber and range of designs like the M14] had little to do with the experience of jungle combat, in which most fire fights took place at ranges of no more than thirty to fifty yards, and in which speed and surprise were so important that it might often cost a soldier his life to take the time to aim his rifle instead of simply pointing it in the right direction and opening up on automatic.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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And for the purposes of the thread, it illustrates pretty clearly how and why the AR-15 was designed.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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The BAR is generally considered the WORST squad weapon of WW2, and pretty miserable to shoot even in semiauto. It's basically a way-too-heavy assault rifle because it insists on firing the rifle cartridge. It is incapable of sustained fire and has little suppressive value. The Thompson was more effective in that role if you just want to "hose".

(BONUS factoid: WW1 BAR was LIGHTER and faster shooting. WW2 and Korean War BAR was deliberately SLOWED DOWN to reduce ammo consumption, and addition of the hydraulic buffer, along with bipod and other additions lead to a 25% increase in weight, leading to something that can't suppress and was too heavy to carry.)

The fact that US Army pulled the M16 with full auto and replaced them with M16A2 with 3-round burst should tell you that US army NEVER wanted spray-and-pray. That theory just does NOT hold water.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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Going back to a more even keel, part of the problem, IMHO, is a pervasive sense of American exceptionalism that lasted a hundred years in small unit tactics.

You're probably going to go... WTF? Hear me out.

US had neglected to consider small unit tactics since even BEFORE WW1, despite inventing some of the best weapons of each era, such as the Henry repeating rifle back during the "Western days", and the Gatling gun which is considered small artillery piece.

The point is US had neglected LMG since WW1, then in every conflict, and it can be argued, until late 20th century and early 21st, and maybe not even nowadays. Part of it could be hanging on to old beliefs in long engagement distance, or failure to understand typical engagement distances.

Fact: US did not adopt the Lewis Gun, which was INVENTED by an American but made popular by the British. Instead, we got the BAR.

Fact: Things didn't get any better in WW2. We didn't get anything like the German MG34 or the MG42, which doesn't weigh much more than the BAR (24-27 lb vs 21 lb) yet capable of a TON more fire. We did get the semi-auto Garand as partial compensation, and with the entire squad or platoon laying down fire it's respectable volume of fire. But not quite comparable to say, a MG42.

Fact: Things didn't get any better in Korea either, where we KEEP using the BAR.

Instead of admitting the screw up, and they need a squad automatic weapon for suppression, the army instead tried to increase every grunt's firepower much like the Garand did in WW2 (nobody else fielded a semi-auto infantry rifle en masse) from WW1's Springfield bolt-action rifle.

That's why we got the AR-15 / M16. Then the ammo screw-up (switching to a different powder formula than specified) and maintainence and training screwup made M-16 "The Mattel Rifle" joke and Army had to revise it to M16-A2 with 3-round burst as well as chromed barrel to cut down on cleaning and fix the ammo issue. But we STILL don't have a good LMG (the Stoner 63 system was only used by SEAL teams)

US Army didn't get a true LMG until SAW was borrowed from the Belgian FN Minimi and became the M249 in 1984. But it's basically a belt-fed version of M-16 (vast oversimplification).

Why did I say it's American exceptionalism? Try to play up the mistake as if it's a strength. Empowering the individual infantryman, something like that. is it more "democratic"? Are we just designing things in a different way? I guess you can say that too. But the truth is tactics are designed around weapons, and our weapons suck, until the M-16 came along.

But M-16 was never meant to be a spray-and-pray weapon. You'll empty the 20 (and later 30) round magazine in seconds if you go full-auto. Then the chamber will foul due to the ammo mess and there's no time to clean the rifle in a battle. The fact that army changed M16A2 to 3-round burst means they know that spray and pray was a problem, not a solution.

But giving every grunt an assault rifle means not the civilians wanted one too, esp. when they went back after a deployment. Thus the magazine size problem we have today. We sort of invented the "assault weapon problem" by giving one to every grunt, and the problem is back to bite us in the ass because we didn't bother with a LMG for generations.

And now I'll get off my soapbox.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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Kasey Chang wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 2:40 pm
The fact that US Army pulled the M16 with full auto and replaced them with M16A2 with 3-round burst should tell you that US army NEVER wanted spray-and-pray. That theory just does NOT hold water.
I would argue that the fact that they made the M16 full auto in the first place tells you what they were thinking. Yes, they changed that thinking but it doesn't alter that facts of the time.

Also, the A2 had a whole host of improvements besides the burst fire select. They didn't make the change solely to remove full auto.


The point of all this is that the AR-15 wasn't designed as some kind of long distance precision rifle. It is effective at mid distances, yes, but it is also highly effective at killing a lot of people at short range. It was never about "one shot one kill" and they came with 30rd mags in order to put a lot of fire out quickly.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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In Vietnam the M-60 was very common. Every platoon had one. Everyone carried extra ammo for it. The reason the German M-42 wasn't copied was it shot too fast and was highly inaccurate plus the barrel had to be changed more often.
I personally liked and carried the M-14 as opposed to the M-16. It had more of a kick, hence not being as accurate of fully automatic compared to the M-16. But it was more accurate (or at least I was better with it) on semi auto. Of course ammo weighed more and that was a downer.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:32 pm The point of all this is that the AR-15 wasn't designed as some kind of long distance precision rifle. It is effective at mid distances, yes, but it is also highly effective at killing a lot of people at short range. It was never about "one shot one kill" and they came with 30rd mags in order to put a lot of fire out quickly.
Agree with that. M-16 has a 300m effective range, and the spinning bullet gave it a unique characteristic: shoot a target, and once it goes into a body, that kinetic change causes the bullet tumble, making a HUGE hole coming out the other side. I believe demonstrations were made at the time using watermelons. Everybody expects the bullet to make 2 small holes. Instead, it smashed the melon into tiny chunks. Great sales pitch. But it only works at less than a few hundred yards. Farther than that, it starts to tumble. And they had a hard time making the M-4 to do the same with the shorter barrel, even if they increased the spin rate. While M-16 was never meant as a marksmanship rifle, it's NOT a spray-and-pray weapon either. We can argue back and forth about the "intentions" as evidence is contradictory, like why did they release the rifle with 20-round magazine if they meant for spraying/hosing a target, and so on. :D I believe the 30 round mags didn't get issued until 1971. I read that Son Tay raid was done with 20-round mags.
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Re: Firearm Policy - Magazine size

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dbt1949 wrote: Thu Jun 09, 2022 4:33 pm In Vietnam the M-60 was very common. Every platoon had one. Everyone carried extra ammo for it. The reason the German M-42 wasn't copied was it shot too fast and was highly inaccurate plus the barrel had to be changed more often.
That's sorta the point. US organization in Vietnam has 1 M-60 at Platoon level, as that was the GPMG, with the rifles firing the same 7.62 NATO round, while NATO went with FN MAG / MG3. So the platoon was basically 1 x M-60 plus a bunch of guys with M-14s, and M-2 carbines. And M-14's and M-2s are outclassed by AK-47s. M-60s are cumbersome and are better used in defensive positions, not offense. VC used all sorts of LMGs from old German stock of MG34 to French leftovers to Soviet handmedowns like the RPs, DPs, and Chinese copies like the RPD, but they need these at squad level because most grunts are still using Chinese carbines or SKS rifles, unlike American semi-autos like M-14s or better. In other words, because individual soldiers are better armed, American squads are getting by with less MG. Does that work? Debatable.
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