A couple people had expressed interest in this topic, and I have a bit of extra time for a couple days, so here goes:
Bona fides: I am a former infantry NCO and sniper, hunter, competitive shooter, reloader, hobby gunsmith, sometimes firearms trainer and currently work in a gun shop, mostly on the paperwork/compliance side. Back in the day, was a qualified expert with every standard small arm in the US inventory circa 2003 (M2, 4, 9, 16, 19, 249, 240B, 21, 24, 82 etc.), and today hang around the 75th percentile of USPSA classifications. I've shot Cap-and-Ball, Trap and Sporting Clays badly; Bullseye and PRS somewhat better and IDPA/USPSA/UML/Two-gun with some local success. Been active in the 2A community since the mid-90s, got my first instructor cert in high school, and have held a CPL for almost twenty years now.
I certainly don't claim to be an expert in every aspect of firearms, there's huge areas that escape my knowledge base, but if you've got questions I'll do my best to answer.
Technical questions
Gun control proposals for feasibility
Industry
Training
Wacky opinions
General geekery
Some competition links (not my own) just for the interested.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=U5IhsWamaLY&t=173
https://youtube.com/watch?v=93nEEINflXE
https://youtube.com/watch?v=utcky0zq10E
Jump in the discussion.
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Notes -
Do you share my suspicion that Gun Jesus sold out to H&K ?
He's supposed to dig deep, but his coverage of the G36 controversy was absurd. Basically, after examining and firing newly made guns whose recievers were made out of entirely different polymer type than the guns that had problems, he concluded the whole thing was just internet bullshit based on acceptable deviation and some ammo problems.
Meanwhile, German scientific testing reports were fairly conclusive and ruled out it being ammo issues.
How about this video from InRange? Karl has even less incentive against being honest, and I remember he judged it to be lore.
ETA: For my own money, I'm aware the US Army were reportedly not happy with the melting on the XM8, which is basically a G36 with new furniture, but you would think that if melting problems were found on the original G36, the Bundeswehr would surely have found that out within months of getting the first guns before wide-scale adoption. Unless the Bundeswehr does not really test the stuff they buy.
Bundeswehr was the one who wrote the contract in such an absurd way in the first place. One may wonder about corruption in weapons procurement.
I'd be really interested to find out what the original series as delivered us as reciever material, because polyamide with fiberglass - what the newer guns Ian tested use, is a very high end material.
Actually, someone at another forum says he's translated the actual testing report:
https://thefiringline.com/forums/showthread.php?t=562681
quoting his post:
@FcFromSSC ^^
That's apparently the culprit, so I remembered correctly. It's not really a design issue, but the design requires very particular manufacturing, so perfectly plausible the rifles manufactured at other times aren't as affected which is why the problem wasn't discovered by foreign buyers.
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Wow, from Karl's video you'd think the G36 had slept with his wife. Or something else that made him love it.
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