QBZ-191 service rifle family

tygyg1111 said:

Realistically it's mostly flashlights and foregrips that will be attached to the front handguard; and you're not going to see fancier stuff in widespread usage in the PLA regulars.

Where it does matter, like PAP / SWAT equivalents, there are aftermarket rail systems that were designed for running additional accessories.

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That's because they are not dumb fucks who give a shit about barbie dolling their firearms unlike the US Army who bought the MCX Spear that is absolutely good for nothing when a Modified M4A1 does the job just as good making it more costly ineffectively forcing them to swap out ammunition.

It already has flaws that has to be fixed, fixing those issues is going to get expensive when they realize how many of their soldiers received the gun. Wait that actually happened well there goes your tax money. Now they have to get another batch of improved models.

This is why prioritizing the next generation firearms and gear for Special Forces and CTU's etc.. is Smarter and Cheaper it allows them to trouble shoot the gun without having to replace them at mass scale if possible.

There's really no point in introducing a more highly modular and extravagant firearm if it's going to get replaced in the foreseen future.

I bet there's already a QBZ191 V2 in the making but that probably won't be disclosed after a few years.

totenchan said:

If the pictures available aren't enough to convince you, clearly nothing short of getting your physical hands on the rifle will.

I think there is no point in having a free floated barrel when you have a flexible polymer handguard that has a rail and the alternative is letting that rail flex freely. I think having a metal handguard that has minimal contact with the barrel would be preferable purely for performance, but there were clearly other considerations.

Pressure on the piston would put pressure on the barrel. A "true" free floated barrel has nothing on the barrel that contacts any other part of the rifle, but no one actually uses the term like that, hence why I said "strict" definition.

If they wanted that degree of accuracy out of the base QBZ-191, they would have used a metal handguard.

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You would not want a flexible polymer handguard just only giving more comfort and less weight over a free floating or metal handguard with minimal contact to the barrel.

Free floating barrel improves accuracy by reducing stress on the barrel allowing to move freely although the only downside you may need a free float tube.

While Metal Handguard with minimal contact to the barrel has high accuracy not as good as free floating due to the industrial precision to match or surpass free floating barrel design, it is the heaviest option as well.

totenchan said:

If the pictures available aren't enough to convince you, clearly nothing short of getting your physical hands on the rifle will.

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Right, so you don't have any photos which actually show contact. That's what I thought.

totenchan said:

I think there is no point in having a free floated barrel when you have a flexible polymer handguard that has a rail and the alternative is letting that rail flex freely. I think having a metal handguard that has minimal contact with the barrel would be preferable purely for performance, but there were clearly other considerations.

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This is correct in that there is no point in having a free-floating barrel with a polymer pic rail, hence the prior discussion about cheapness.

totenchan said:

Pressure on the piston would put pressure on the barrel. A "true" free floated barrel has nothing on the barrel that contacts any other part of the rifle, but no one actually uses the term like that, hence why I said "strict" definition.

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This is where you didn't do enough research on the SCAR's gas mechanism. The (short stroke) gas piston does not contact the gas piston assembly and start driving it backwards until after the bullet has left the barrel, i.e. it's a pure "true" "strict" free-floating barrel.

totenchan said:

If they wanted that degree of accuracy out of the base QBZ-191, they would have used a metal handguard.

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And yet they clearly DID want that degree of accuracy out of the DMR QBZ-191 which is nothing more than a baseline QBZ-191 with a longer barrel and a metal handguard; in other words, the rifle was designed with accuracy in mind from the outset but the execution was sloppy and/or some bean counter's concerns took precedence over the designer's.

Iron Man said:

This pic shows the QBZ-191's handguard reinforcement sleeve which has 3 attachment points in red for the polymer handguard surrounding it. I do not see any attachment points to the gas block itself, likely because the barrel is meant to be free-floating.

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If the handguard has any deformation problems I have no doubt the PLA would not share them with us. OTOH I don't know of any other modern military-grade assault rifle that uses polymer pic rails.

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from this picture of the handguard being removed the iron sight seem to be still attached on the handguard with screw in it maybe the barrel is actually free floated with one point of contact at the chamber but without the real thing one can never be sure