Post
by Flat_Black_Rat » Tue May 17, 2011 5:52 pm
I too do not consider myself a gun nut, but firearms have been my profession for the whole of my adult life (over a decade now, sounds weird to say). I look at them as a professional mechanically speaking, rarely am I dazzled by a slick outer shell. Just like motorcycles I tend to be drawn to examples that set a new standard or reflect a design ethic where the accountants have been kept at bay. Solid, beefy engineering, redundant mechanisms that keep the firearm functioning after mild failures, and an ease of maintenance that reflects both operator level and mechanic level knowledge are things that really draw me in. At the end of the day I see firearms as tools, tools where failure can cost the life of the operator. Not though the failure itself, rather the operator finding himself in a gunfight with just a club.
With that being said I am a bit confused by the equating a Sig P226 to a pair of wool socks. I am without doubt bias when it comes to this make, having worked for the company and having mild involvement in development (I ran 5,000 plus round the the P220 Carry years before it was released). The other side of the coin is I saw the insides of these pistols after many thousands of rounds and decades of daily use. I see the traditional Sig operating system as a thing of beauty, and standard even. A largely unchanged design now past 60yrs of age. One of the earliest automatic pistols as we currently know it. Beefy in all of the correct spots and with a utilitarian look. Nothing that it doesn't need to be there, rather a finely crafted and rugged tool.
The Browning M2HB is one of my favorite guns to have had the pleasure to shoot and work on. Large simple internals, stupid reliability, time tested design. A design that I saw first hand fail to be bested when put against the FN M3M in a test that was designed to make the M2HB's inherent shortcoming glare as weakness.
The Mauser K98 is another work of industrial art. The grand-daddy of most bolt action rifles and a design that still is in heavy used today. A design that changed the face of firearms.
The Glock. Most people that have talked firearms with me know this is not my first choice for handguns. But one cannot fail to give a nod to this design. Generally "good enough" is never something I like, but in this case I will give the combat tubberware props. Again, simple, no frills, easy to use, easy to work on, accurate enough.
Overall I find that most of the most interesting stuff came from the first half of the 1900's. That was a revolutionary time in firearms development, in the course of not many years technology leaped massively ahead. These first or second generation designs are almost always amazing to study and handle. Since then we have largely only seen refinement of earlier designs, and sadly a cheapening in quality in many cases. I currently have a pre 1913 L.C. Smith grade two shotgun on my bench I am working on. I am floored by the quality of the work. It is a simple robust mechanism that has a feel of quality many current firearms lack. This was done in an age before CNC machines and really with quality being the driving factor. I know it is worth close to two grand today, and to buy a shotgun of the same sort of quality new would run a bit north of that today as well. Even my 1950 .22LR Remington 511 Scoremaster seems crazy high end next to its modern counterparts.
I know I am rambling a bit now... It seems these days all to often a slick plastic shell around a rehashed, and converted to cheap stamped parts, firing group is what gets called "exotic" and "innovative." The FN PDW90 made waves not for its operating system rather the round, the ability to have a compact weapon that would defeat NATO body armor at 200m. The same was true for the H&K MP7 (a much slicker weapon IMHO). The Kal-Tec SU16 seems to be interesting largely because it is not an AR or AK platform, though it seems to be closely related in its operating system to a AR180, the first cousin of the AR15.
Maybe our grandfathers did the job too well with their manual milling machines and slide rules, or maybe we could say they did it right. Ammunition seems the be the area of heavy development these days. Attempts to make a better battle field rifle have proved fruitless, not through lack of trying, rather it seems we have hit the limit to what can be done currently.
"Our Country won't go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won't be any America because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our women and breed a hardier race!" Lt. Gen. Lewis B. Puller, USMC
2005.5 KTM 950 Adventure
1999 Honda CR250R
1978 Honda CT70 - Plated
