The US Army has invited gun makers to submit candidates for the next US primary long arm, which they intend to be a carbine.
The Army has given gun makers that want to build your next carbine 90 days to throw their hats in the ring. The message is clear: The Army isn’t looking for the lowest bidder, it’s looking for the most accurate, efficient, quiet, lethal and reliable weapon available.
Service leaders detailed what they want — and how they plan to get it — in a June 30 request for proposal. It seeks “an assault weapon that will provide accuracy, lethality, minimized visual and aural signature and survivability enhancements to all Army formations. … This weapon will possess the capability, in offensive and defensive operations, to destroy or neutralize the adversary and their capabilities, at any time and in any place.â€
The RfP allows competitors to submit only one weapon for consideration. There are no caliber restrictions. Although many modern carbines are multicaliber weapons, they will compete with one caliber. And if a weapon’s caliber is not 5.56mm or 7.62mm, the manufacturer must provide 234,000 rounds to cover all tests.
Top performers will be identified by way of two down-select phases that will start this fall. Phase I will grade the weapons in three key areas:
• Technical aspects, such as the ability to mount existing weapons, optics and suppressor kits;
• The company’s ability to produce 2,000 and a surge of 4,200 carbines per month;
• Cost. The Army says performance factors are more important than price.
It is interesting to note that the Army specifies that they want a carbine.
Carbines are shorter, characteristically somewhat less accurate, versions of a rifle, used traditionally by mounted cavalry which would find carrying a full-length rifle awkward and inconvenient. Infantry are normally armed with rifles. Besides being more accurate, the full-length rifle is superior to the carbine in some other crucial respects. Inevitably in war, there are occasions when hand-to-hand combat occurs in which the infantryman’s rifle is required to be used in the capacity of a spear or a club. The rifle is more suitable for use with the bayonet, and being heavier than the carbine is more effective as a blunt weapon.
The current US Army does not expect any longer to march to battle on foot, and instead functions as motorized or air mobile infantry. The modern infantryman has, thus, become the equivalent of the 19th century dragoon who rode to battle on horseback, but dismounted and fought with carbine on foot.
Experience in the Middle East has demonstrated the inadequacy of the 5.56mm service round. Let’s hope that the Army comes to its senses this time and opts for a more serious cartridge.
Thanks to commenter T.C. Carney (I have the best commenters!), we now know that Derek “Tex’ Grebner shot himself in the leg in the video I posted on July 7th, not with a pistol featuring a Glock-style trigger safety.
He was using a Kimber Pro Carry II, a premium adaptation, incorporating some of the features commonly found in customized upgrades, of the classic Colt Model 1911 chambered in .45 ACP.
Mr. Grebner experienced a “negligent discharge” (personally, I think there is a very strong association between these kind of f**kups and the mentality which emphasizes and places overreliance on pretentious jargon) while attempting to draw and fire his Kimber from “defensive retention” out of a 5.11 ThumbDrive Holster.
It was one of those “tactical,” black, kydex, ultra-macho-military klunky holsters that grips the gun, and has a button catch you have to push to release it.
The unfortunate Mr. Grebner was clearly a bit distracted, and was trying to perform a fast draw involving pushing on a holster retention button as well. It just might be that the 5.11 ThumbDrive Holster is not the optimal choice for many conventional automatic pistols, because that retention button happens to be located on the left side of the pistol right next to the safety on the Model 1911 (and many other pistols). So the hurrying Mr. Grebner apparently failed to release his Kimber from the holster, instead he clicked off the pistol’s side safety when he fumbled for the holster button.
The gun failed to release, and Mr. Grebner tells us that, as he pushed that button again, his finger “curled into the trigger guard, and [he] ripped a bullet into [his] leg.”
Ouch!
It must have hurt like hell, and Mr. Grebner was actually very lucky that the bullet penetrated at such an angle that it missed his femur and major blood vessels and then exited without causing a lot graver injury.
Accidents happen, of course. Mr. Grebner’s experience provides a warning to us all that guns are dangerous and we need to be alert and scrupulously careful in shooting at all times.
I personally do not like synthetic materials like kydex. I think kydex knife sheaths and holsters are both tacky and clunky, and I wouldn’t ever own one.
Tex Grebner explicitly declined to blame the holster, but obviously if you are going to try to draw fast, I’d say choosing a holster with a button release you have to push to get the gun out is a suboptimal choice. A retention button placed where it has some probability of being confused with the gun’s safety is also not a desirable feature.
The holster, of course, didn’t shoot Tex Grebner in the leg. He did it himself. Whatever problem one has getting the gun out of the holster, you still have to pay attention and be conscious of where your trigger finger is and what it’s doing. If your fast draw technique results in your finger inadvertently “curling into the trigger guard” and doing things you don’t know about, you are definitely doing something wrong, and can expect exactly this kind of thing to happen.
I would also say, that though it may be fun to develop a fast draw, who draws faster matters in general in Western movies and not in real life. In real life, it is far, far more common for anyone who ever needs to use a gun to have all the time in the world to draw carefully and take deliberate aim.
Tex Grebner, I think, deserves a lot of credit, though, for his forthrightness and considerable courage in releasing both videos, openly exposing a extremely embarrassing mishap, in the cause of making the rest of us think twice about gun safety. Best wishes to him for a quick recovery.
Katie Thompson, blogging at Cornell Law Prof Bill Jacobson’s site, makes the case for Rick Perry.
I think myself that Perry seems to be acceptably conservative, and he strikes me as a potentially stronger candidate than Romney, Pawlenty, and the others currently in the race. Perry has available as a powerful argument the fact of Texas enjoying spectacular growth in jobs, at a time when the only other place in the country that is in the same situation is Washington, D.C.
My first choice for GOP nominee would be Paul Ryan. Ryan has done more to address the key economic issues which are going to be the focus of the 2012 race than anyone else. But Ryan (so far) isn’t running. The governor of the state excelling the rest of the country, by a wide margin, in economic growth is a very plausible second choice.
Katie Thompson makes also the telling point: Rick Perry is everything Barack Obama is not. And that’s exactly what voters want.
On the symbolic front, Thompson points out that Governor Perry stands out among GOP possible contenders in having a handgun named in his honor.
Apparently, while jogging in February of 2010, Perry drew a .380 Ruger he carries and dropped with one shot a coyote that was menacing the labrador retriever that accompanied him on his run.
On the box it comes in it says “For Sale to Texans Only.†It says “Coyote Special†on one side of the barrel and “A True Texan†on the other side of the barrel. The top of the barrel has a Texas star and a Coyote howling to a full moon.
US News has the story via two military equipment blogs. It was the HK 416 which delivered a double dose of “77gr. of justice.”
The biggest secret in the special operations community—what gun did SEALs from “DevGru” kill Osama bin Laden with—has been revealed. Two military gear blogs, citing multiple insider sources, credit the highly reliable HK416 rifle, an M-16 type weapon, with the “double tap” of 5.56 mm bullets to bin Laden’s head.
While the military isn’t talking about what SEALs from United States Naval Special Warfare Development Group, formerly SEAL Team Six, carried in, two sites—Military Times Gear Scout and Soldier Systems—said the gun used was the German made, Delta Force designed Heckler & Koch rifle used by several militaries.
“I’ve just heard from a SOCOM vet,” says Military Times “He tells me the stack of SEAL assaulters from Red team that went through Osama bin Laden’s bedroom door were running HK416s.”
If you’ve been reading the standard firearms magazines in recent months, you’re read all about how terrific all the improvements made in the new Generation 4 Glock pistol are.
The great thing about the Internet is that the opinions expressed are typically considerably less influenced by advertising revenue. This little video has a very different perspective on the new Glock Gen4.
In 1857, Muslim and Hindu sepoys mutinied in India because cartridges for the Pattern 1853 Enfield Rifle were greased with tallow which was believed to be composed of a mixture of beef and pork fat, contact with which would cause the Hindus to lose caste and the Muslims to forfeit their access to Paradise.
The Daily Mail reports that a small American firm producing special gun lubricants is claiming that Osama bin Laden will not be entering the Mussulman’s Paradise or receiving any 72 virgins.
Was Osama bin Laden shot with a bullet soaked in pork fat, denying him a place in paradise?
Yes, if one rather shady website, that peddles gun oil containing liquefied pig fat, is to be believed.
The makers of Silver Bullet Gun Oil claim it contains 13 per cent USDA liquefied pig fat thus making the product ‘a highly effective counter-Islamic terrorist force multiplier.’
The apparent owner of the gun oil site, who goes by the name ‘The Midnight Rider,’ explains how the pig fat will transfer onto anything the bullet strikes.
This ‘effectively denies entry to Allah’s paradise to an Islamo-fascist terrorist,’ Rider adds.
The oil, which costs $8.95 for 4oz, apparently puts the ‘fear of death into them (terrorists)’.
In Islam consumption of pork is forbidden, but the Quran also states that if one is forced to consume the meat then they are guiltless and therefore not disqualified from paradise.
The website also notes its customers include members of the U.S. military.
I wish I owned shares in Silver Bullet Gun Oil, because sales are definitely going to skyrocket as the word of the availability of this useful product gets around.
Things are certainly different in Switzerland. Can you imagine trying to get these federally-licensed in the USA?
The photo shows a pair of Glock pistols attached at their receivers, and set up to be fired full-auto… sideways.
Not one, but two, full-auto Glocks! (No safety, remember? Just that trigger lever.) And sideways, to boot. This has got to be the greatest firearms idea since the duck foot pistol.
Just the thing if the crew of your ship happens to take a sudden notion to mutiny, but otherwise completely useless and more than a little dangerous.
The Doppel-Glock-Pistole was produced by the Swiss arms manufacturer H.P. Sigg and featured in an article in Schweizer Waffen Magazin, in the issue of December 1997..
Someone recently sold a previous prototype using two CZ-52 chambered in 7.62 Tokarev on Egun . The bidding ended at 136,00 EUR ($18984.24)
The Glock set is comprised of more contemporary pieces, so it would probably bring more at auction, but the CZ-52s actually have safeties. They are kind of neat guns, but were crudely finished during the the Communist era.
My experience is that the Glock pistol is surprisingly easy to shoot, but it also has—in my opinion—some very objectionable features and can be dangerous to an unskilled user. A lot of police are accidentally shooting themselves in the leg with Glocks these days.
Crack DEA agent Lee Paige tried suing the government over that video. The Smoking Gun:
A Drug Enforcement Administration agent who stars in a popular online video that shows him shooting himself in the foot during a weapons demonstration for Florida children is suing over the tape’s release, claiming that his career has been crippled and he’s become a laughingstock due to the embarrassing clip’s distribution. …
According to the lawsuit, Paige was making a “drug education presentation” in April 2004 to a Florida youth group when his firearm (a Glock .40) accidentally discharged. The shooting occurred moments after Paige told the children that he was the only person in the room professional enough to carry the weapon.
The accident was filmed by an audience member, and the tape, Paige claims, was turned over to the DEA. The drug agency, he charges, subsequently “improperly, illegally, willfully and/or intentionally” allowed the tape to be disseminated.
As a result, Paige–pictured at left in a still from the video–has been the “target of jokes, derision, ridicule, and disparaging comments” directed at him in restaurants, grocery stores, and airports. Paige, who writes that he was “once regarded as one of the best undercover agents, if not the best, in the DEA,” points to the clip’s recent airing on popular television shows and via the Internet as the reason he can no longer work undercover. He also notes that he is no longer “permitted or able to give educational motivational speeches and presentations.”
Alas! Mr. Paige shot himself in the foot again, Lowering the Bar reports the case was dismissed. Getting back into the news means, of course, that more people will see the video.
[T]he judge granted summary judgment on the grounds that (even after many depositions) Paige could not prove how the video clip had gotten out, and even if he could have, the leaked information was not “private” because the incident took place in front of 50 parents and children (who at least did learn an excellent lesson in gun safety). Case dismissed.
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There is no “Glock 40,” by the way. Mr. Paige shot himself with a Glock Model 22 or 23 chambered in the .40 Smith & Wesson cartridge.
The article illustrates a Glock 17, while the Wall Street Journal reported, January 12th, that Loughner used a Glock 19 with a 33-round magazine. This shooter is emptying the magazine as rapidly as possible without much care in aiming.
Two Gun Enthusiasts attempt to explain Jared Lee Loughner’s choice of weapon.
Ex-Serviceman thinks Glocks are more reliable and better made. “My guess is that, per Occam’s razor, the cops, gangbangers, and psychos of the world just figured they might as well use a high quality handgun.”
Texas Gun Enthusiast is less sure, but thinks it must be the brand-name.
I don’t especially agree with either of them. I was discussing the same subject a few days ago on my class email list. A liberal classmate immediately assumed that Glocks (and semi-automaic pistols in general) are innovative and intrinsically deadlier types of ordinance, which ought to be strictly regulated. I replied assuring him that Glocks are not super-weapons.
I wrote, and have slightly re-edited:
Glocks are ordinary pistols. Semi-automatic pistols are flat and somewhat easier to carry concealed, they have magazines typically containing more rounds, and they are slightly faster to reload, but lots of shooters still think revolvers are preferable and superior.
Semi-automatics are certainly not intrinsically more accurate than revolvers. Loughner’s performance suggests that he was a competent shot. A revolver can be reloaded very quickly using a speedloader, and compared to a normal magazine a competent shot could fire not all that many fewer rounds with equivalent accuracy in the same space of time. Loughner did use an unconventional 33-round magazine which definitely gave him a firepower advantage over a revolver, but which also diminished his weapon’s concealability and significantly increased the possibility of a malfunction.
If this incident proves anything, it proves that, in a country of 300 million people, there exists a real percentage of crazy and malevolent individuals bent on mayhem. Ordinary people need Glocks and other handguns as portable tools for self defense and the defense of the helpless and unarmed.
Guns have lots of purposes. Hundreds of millions of them exist in private hands in this country. Only an infinitesimal number of guns are ever used in crime and only a still more microscopic percentage are ever actually fired with intent at anybody. God only knows how many Glocks are out there. I expect there are probably hundreds of thousands of them. (The WSJ noted that 70,000 were sold in the USA in 2008.) I would not be surprised if the real figure was more than half a million. If a Glock’s only purpose was to kill or maim human beings, there would be one hell of a lot larger body count nationwide, wouldn’t there?
A Glock pistol is not an assault weapon. It is an ordinary semi-automatic pistol. Semi-automatic pistols have been in common use since the 1890s. The German Army adopted the Luger in 1908. The US military adopted the .45 Colt Automatic in 1911.
American police used to be skilled shooters and overwhelmingly preferred to carry revolvers chambered in .38 Special or .357 Magnum until a few decades ago, when a new fashion emphasizing semi-auto pistols and big magazines came along as part of a general nationwide militarization of American police, in my view representing one more evidence of a sissified nation’s increasing timidity and paranoia.
My experience is that the Glock pistol is surprisingly easy to shoot, but it also has –in my opinion– some very objectionable features and can be dangerous to an unskilled user. A lot of police are accidentally shooting themselves in the leg with Glocks these days.
Glocks are made in part of synthetic material and are in no way aesthetically appealing.
Glocks have long, rather heavy trigger pulls, and they have no real safety. There is a little lever on the front of the trigger, which must be depressed for the trigger to move. That is it for a safety on a Glock. If you are pulling the trigger, I would say, you are inevitably depressing that little lever, too. Essentially, the Glock is designed to operate like a double-action revolver that can only be fired double-action.
Nobody expects a revolver to have a safety, Glock argues, so why do you want one on your semi-automatic pistol? Just treat it like a revolver.
I do not own a Glock, but if I did, I would carry it with an empty chamber, in lieu of a safety, and be content to rack the slide if I intended to use it. The Glock’s long, heavy trigger pull, I will grant, is smooth, and with practice you can tell when it is about to fire, so you can aim accurately. The mechanism is quite good at absorbing recoil, so it is easy to stay on target with a second shot. I would rate the Glock’s ability to stay on target with multiple shots its most attractive feature.
Beyond that, my impression is that Glocks are so popular because they are comparatively inexpensive. A Glock is a Toyota of handguns, not a Mercedes. When people all over the country take mandatory gun safety courses these days, the center-fire pistol they are going to get to shoot will, overwhelmingly most commonly, be a Glock.
So, I’d say, Loughner used a Glock because the 9mm Glock has become today what the .38 Smith & Wesson Model 10 Military & Police revolver used to be, what the Colt Model 1873 Peacemaker was a long time ago, the conventional choice of personal sidearm, most police department’s choice of issue weapon.
