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.
No email address required.
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.
I don't know much more than the bare bones of the controversy, so I certainly don't know enough to judge.
Normally, I'll side with reports from soldiers in the field over the politically connected defense contractor any time.
But it's also a thing where trained soldiers go to shit in the field and blame the hardware for their own induced problems.
Or real but relatively minor technical glitches get ironed out, but not before the tales of the glitch permanently attach themselves to a weapon system. The M16 had this, where its opponents in the Army forced changes to the design that fucked it up, the guns ran shitty in combat during limited field testing, so they changed things back and mostly the weapon performed at or above standard. But during that "limited field testing" a whole lot of joes got in firefights with unreliable guns, and the legend never died.
And no, I don't think Ian is taking money from HK to lie about his testing. He might be wrong. He might be biased toward HK for some unknown and unprovable reason. But I don't think he's on the payroll.
This wasn't really a minor glitch, it was range training staff complaining the rifles lose zero if left out in the sun, and also some report of unacceptable dispersion from Afghanistan engagement.
Which people dismissed because soldiers always fire too quickly and melt their guns.
However, the range guys weren't doing it, Fraunhofer institute testing found it was .. bad, but H&K won in court because the contract, as agreed on, stipulated gun had to stay accurate only with an extremely low rate of fire, e.g. bolt-action.
If you carefully read their statement here, they never say the guns are accurate if left out in the sun, just that they fulfilled the contract.
I believe the guns are probably sound, if they use a suitable polymer for the reciever. The guns Ian tested had some really fancy stuff polymer filled with fiberglass or something like that.
He didn't test any of the original guns, or any original type recievers, so his opinion, based on the test, was IMO mostly irrelevant, but he didn't say so.
Probably not 'sold out' , more likely didn't want to get into shit with H&K reps or something. That's when I lost a lot of faith I had in him. Guy seemed so knowledgeable.
You're very invested in a pretty minor dispute between parts of the german government. Are you upset because you dislike HK, or because you want to like them?
I was upset because I liked watching McCollum's videos and then when he got into a subject I've encountered before at some US gun blog, he seemed really to be in the wrong and unwilling to even consider he's wrong (my impression, I may be wrong).
You think you can trust someone on guns and then find they're only too human.
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