Gotta make sure the peasants don't get any funny ideas. Colt really goes out of their way to remind the unwashed masses that they are not the almighty government. Even when Colt is the only one supplying castrated parts anymore (which were never required and were solely of Colt's own initiative to begin with). And people talk shit about H&K...Quote:
Originally Posted by Sumppi
I must say I quite agree. I love the Colt parts in my ARs, but Colt is the spitting image of the FUDD company. They define those who are fine with the restriction or elimination of civilian rights to effective defensive arms, and only are about the bottom line with the government. Their stuff is excellent, but so are the mil-spec parts sold by a dozen-or-so vendors with their own label (only a few places actually make all the parts, including Colt's, which even used Anderson Manufacturing as their receiver OEM for a while). I consider Stag, which sells mil-spec CMT parts as the most underpriced sources of parts in the industry.Quote:
Originally Posted by stascom
What a lot of people forget about H&K, is that they were ROYALLY screwed by the import bans of the late '80s and early '90s, before which they were offering lots of tactical rifle choices to the American public. Their knees were cut out from under them with the import bans and they lost a ton of money on their investments, so it was wise for them to be very skittish about getting back into the U.S. consumer market. Colt never had that excuse, as all their stuff was produced domestically and there was never a danger of an import ban for them, but they still gleefully supported and played into the gun ban agenda.
Of course, I still recognize that we suck and HK hates us, but my gripes with them are not that they are in bed with the fascist gun-grabbers, but that their stuff, while good and usually serviceable is so MASSIVELY overrated and overpriced as to defy comprehension. The G36 is just a barely-modified ArmaLite AR-18 made on better tooling with better materials. The G3 was a carbon copy of a VERY rudimentary Spanish battle rifle, for which the Spaniards (albeit with some freelance German engineers helping them) did essentially all the product development, and HK simply stamped their name on them. The CETME/G3 was so cheap and crudely made that the Spanish were offering them in competition to the FAL and AR-10 in the late '50s in weapons trials to prospective militaries for $45, while the FN FAL was going for $125 and the Dutch AR-10 for $110. All their handguns are less reliable versions of Glocks that are heavier, have lower magazine capacities, for which parts are much harder to find, and that are around double the price. The MP5 is simply a shrunk-down CETME that carries all of the crudeness and heavy weight of its big brother. Worst of all, however, is that blasted HK 416. Its mere existence is due to a bad batch of M4s from Colt that were giving the military troubles for a few months and were the reason behind the fluke of a reliability test where the 416 won. Every objective test done since has shown that the 416 is less reliable, has far shorter parts life, and fails at pitifully-low round counts next to even low-end ARs like PSAs in endurance testing. If you don't believe me, look up the disastrous experience Battlefield Las Vegas had with their 416s and MR556s. Even if the "increased reliablity" claims of the 416 had panned out, the system still is heavier, considerably less accurate, lacking in the ability to free-float a barrel, essentially impossible to effectively suppress, and utterly lacking in available spare parts.
Basically, I see everything HK has ever made as being like the Springfield XD; a basically serviceable but inferior product that, by some sublime mysticism or accident of history, is actually more sought-after and expensive than any of the weapons that considerably outclass it in every respect.
^ lol
I don't disagree with any of that, but I would love to hear the responses that would generate on a few other forums.
Once upon a time, full auto carriers were considered machinegun parts by the BATF.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sumppi
The reasons behind Colt changing the AR is much more involved than "gleefully supporting gun bans".Quote:
Originally Posted by AR-Tenner
When Colt took steps to stop people from converting ARs to full auto, the political machine was pushing hard for strong gun control measures. The country was still reeling form the tragic shooting that took place in the Stockton schoolyard and the anti-gunners were rallied behind Sara Brady, Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi and Maxine Waters who lead the charge to ban self loading rifles altogether. Part of the hue and cry was "It's too easy to convert these guns into machineguns". During that time, Colt was controlled by the company that owned Holley Carburetors who was strongly anti-gun. The boss of the Colt bosses.
Everybody was scrambling to slow the bleeding. The entire gun industry and the NRA were on the defensive. The Colt bosses were caught between their evil carbureted overlords and gun owners. To complicate matters further, many gun owners were willing to throw "assault weapons" to the wolves in hopes they'd leave us our hunting guns. In the middle of all this chaos, Colt made changes to its AR. It was said by our SMEs of the time (although we didn't call them Subject Matter Experts) that Colt made these changes hoping it would placate lawmakers enough to stave off more gun legislation. It didn't work. They passed the "assault weapon" ban in California which became the template for the following federal ban.
The HK roller block is actually pretty ingenious, even if it is very Teutonic in nature. In many ways, the system is very simple but at the same time, features rather sophisticated engineering. The HK91 did evolve from the CETME which HK licensed from CETME. Ludwig Vorgrimler developed the CETME for Spain based on the roller lock system of the StG 45 which Vorgrimler developed while working for Mauser. HK did more than just stamping their name on the CETME rifle. They licensed the design from CETME and refined it over time. It proved to be a rugged battlerifle.
This thread has gotten me gleeful.
Grinning ear to ear while at work being edumacated more on firearms and firearms development history.
Thanks to you all for the great civil rapport on this topic.
As the AWB was before my time, it's very interesting hearing about it. I certainly can say that I feel very VERY lucky to be part of the generation that came into legal gun ownership after 2004.