Re: Government dissolves Ordnance Factory Board
Posted: Thu Oct 14, 2021 2:56 pm
When I was young, my older brother subscribed to "Scientific American" Magazine. There was an article in there, of which I wish I had a copy, of John Moses Browning's gun designs. Almost every one of them was planar: you could draw them on a sheet of paper and not miss an operating detail. Everything moved only in an X and y axis world. Many designs today also rotate: they have motion in the z axis. Very few of Browning's designs ever did. The Remington Model 8 rifle is one of those few that comes to mind.
(Before you think of the BAR, the rifle Browning sells today called the BAR is nothing like the one he designed for the US Army during WW1, other than that the two of them were both gas operated.)
Browning also paid a lot of attention to leverages and motions in his design. Compare a Marlin lever action with a Winchester M92 or M94, and you will instantly see why people love to operate Browning's designs -- they have a pleasant tactile feel. He paid attention to ergonomics before most.
Likewise, if you ask most folks who like shooting old military weapons about shooting an AK or an SKS, most will tell you that the SKS is a very fun gun to shoot. They are a tipping block action, like I said, which operate similarly to the Winchester Model 12 shotgun and the Savage 99 rifle. There is a pleasantness about the SKS that's missing in an AK-type action.
(I have both, and the SKS is much more pleasing to me, as well.)
The AK is a major design, and has a lot of advantages, don't get me wrong, especially for folks who don't have a lot of resources -- like asymmetrical warfare. Yes, the INSAS does have various refinements, especially those associated with the gas block. And these do owe something to the FN FAL.
But the large bolt carrier with its rotating bolt, the ~45* rotation of that bolt to disengage, and that sort of stuff -- the heart of the action that locks it up -- that's AK design.
(Before you think of the BAR, the rifle Browning sells today called the BAR is nothing like the one he designed for the US Army during WW1, other than that the two of them were both gas operated.)
Browning also paid a lot of attention to leverages and motions in his design. Compare a Marlin lever action with a Winchester M92 or M94, and you will instantly see why people love to operate Browning's designs -- they have a pleasant tactile feel. He paid attention to ergonomics before most.
Likewise, if you ask most folks who like shooting old military weapons about shooting an AK or an SKS, most will tell you that the SKS is a very fun gun to shoot. They are a tipping block action, like I said, which operate similarly to the Winchester Model 12 shotgun and the Savage 99 rifle. There is a pleasantness about the SKS that's missing in an AK-type action.
(I have both, and the SKS is much more pleasing to me, as well.)
The AK is a major design, and has a lot of advantages, don't get me wrong, especially for folks who don't have a lot of resources -- like asymmetrical warfare. Yes, the INSAS does have various refinements, especially those associated with the gas block. And these do owe something to the FN FAL.
But the large bolt carrier with its rotating bolt, the ~45* rotation of that bolt to disengage, and that sort of stuff -- the heart of the action that locks it up -- that's AK design.