What about recoil control?
QBZ-191 service rifle family
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
"Big GPMG", sounds hilarious.
Firing 50 rounds 7.62x51 from bipod will leave you with a big bruise.
I imagine firing 12.7mm will look like getting into a bar fight with Mike Tyson.
I don't even know where to begin with your comment....
I'll start with these 2 videos, one is type 89 HMG, the other is the export variant of the same gun. Do you see a lot of recoil in these videos?
First, I want to ask, are you speaking from experience when you say firing 50 rounds of 308 hurts your shoulder? Or did you get that impression from failed shooting compilation videos on Youtube? If you are not shouldering your gun properly, recoil from full rifle cartridges (7mm and above) can hurt your shoulder a bit. But as long as you are not shouldering the rifle like a 13-year-old girl, you are not gonna feel a thing. I've shot hundreds of rounds of 7.62x54r in the range in one sitting and my shoulder never felt anything at all. So, my first point, as long as you are shouldering your rifle properly, 308 rounds will not hurt no matter how you shoot it. 50 rounds is a walk in the park, it will be extremely unlikely to leave a bruise on any normal sized solider expected to fight wars.
Second, 12.7 HMGs are typically used with tripods, which provide stability and mitigates recoil. Sometimes the tripods are even bolted to the ground. So there is basically zero felt recoil. If, for some extremely weird reason, you decide to shoulder fire a 50 cal HMG, you can still fire it like the video shown above, and the recoil isn't really that bad tbh. The hardest part is holding that gun in a non-awkward position. Handling the recoil is doable, after all, people shoot 50 cal semi-auto rifles all the time and none gets hurt from the recoil. Go look up videos of people shooting 50 cal semi auto rifles, it really doesn't kick that much. I've not seen anyone shooting a 12.7mm gun to be knocked out by recoil like you imagined, maybe a 2 year old baby would. In fact, people fire 40mm grenades from should all the time, and that is pretty doable as well. So why do you think 12.7mm guns kick that much, especially when the gun has a tripod?
Third, the "big GPMG" point is about the mobility of the new HMG, not about how you can shoulder it. GPMGs are highly mobile, one person can run and gun it, as long as someone else is carrying ammo for him. But HMGs are typically not movable. Once you set up a HMG, you better pray the enemies are coming the direction you have it set up to see. But if you have a HMG that weights less than 30kg in total, that is a very movable gun in the field. Moving that thing 100 meter will be a piece of cake from one side of your defensive line to the other if you have 2 people carrying it, and it can provide massive boost in firepower to locations where there are enemies advancing ( in fact, 1 person can move it too, I've seen people carrying a type 89 by themselves and running around in the field, it is just not encouraged, but absolutely doable in emergency situations). I'm not saying you can shoulder a light HMG like a M240B or PKM, that is never the point of a HMG, but it can be made highly mobile in the field, which is a huge advantage and boost in firepower.
Firing 50 rounds of 7.62 on a bipod is not gonna give a big bruise, if you're having bruise then you're not pulling the buttstock to your shoulder tightly enough. I've fired the FN MAG derived gmpg during my service days and I can do it all day, the only weird thing about it is I get sore hands after shooting due to the thick pistol grip, or maybe I've small hands.
Now I've also handled 50cal HMGs, I don't see the recoil as the biggest issue, but even if you can make it light enough for a one man operation, it's still gonna be really long, and it's the lack of leverage that an average human has that makes it feel heavier and more unwieldy than it actually is. HMG should still exist as a crew served weapon on a tripod, but any weight reduction is always welcomed by the boots on the ground.
Early Type 89s had a few issues with accuracy, but it was mainly caused by the tripod vibrating too much when firing. Later variants of the gun had the issue fixed. If Type 89 is satisfactory for the PLA in terms of accuracy, I don't see how the new gun will be worse.
For sure, the gun will jump quite a bit due to its low mass, which decreases accuracy at longer ranges, but you can always take a few mins to bolt the tripod into the ground, that will fix it up for ya.
We now know very little about the new HMG, but I seriously doubt the accuracy/recoil issue is overlooked by the designers and the makers of such weapons. I like guns, I shoot guns, I like to believe I know a lot about guns, but in reality it is just a hobby of mine. My level of knowledge about firearm design and performance is not comparable to someone who designs guns for a professional career. If the recoil problem is obvious to you and I, it should be a priority to the designers of the gun. Hopefully we will get to see how the gun performs soon and have our worries addressed.
I know where to start. First, my comment was a little tongue in cheek. Logically speaking, firing HMG from the shoulder would be supoptimal. Why is that firing from the hip video on YouTube for example, because it's silly.
My only experience was also firing MAG-type. It's not something I had to do regularly, so I can accept if I was doing it wrong. No one told me, and the infrequency meant it was not a big deal to me. I hit the target area, that's all that was expected. I haven't fired a single round of anything in about 10 years.
Honestly, I am super impressed by Type-89 as it is. Videos of two-man team moving and firing 50 cal class weapon, as you said, is a huge boost in terms of firepower.
Nice 3D models...
Does anyone know how the bolt looks like? My guess would be a slightly modified AK bolt with the charging handle located in a separate port(?) instead of on the ejection port like in AKs. Also, does it have a bolt hold-open function? I do see a button near the mag well on the left side, but I'm not sure what it is for.
p.s. My second question is if this CG is representative of the real rifle. If it isn't then forget that part.
by78
General
It has bolt hold-open. The button for it is on the left. As for the CG, it's a fan project, not something official.