If you want to just watch some guys get a bunch of guns dirty, go nuts. Let's not pretend it's testing anything of value though.
The problem is when a guy is trying to choose his first pistol, and he sees Mac say that the VP9 failed his nonsense torture test, then the guy thinks it's a shitty gun, tells his buddies, then we're back on the forum here explaining to them how that's not the case, etc, etc.
Spreading bad info puts everyone at a disadvantage.
AKs don't stop for no mud or sand.
Oh, wait.
" Nil desperandum - Never Despair. That is a motto for you and me. All are not dead; and where there is a spark of patriotic fire, we will rekindle it. "
- Samuel Adams -
Notice the difference, the Inrange test gets mud in front of the AK bolt carrier not allowing it to close because it's not a closed system. The AR and SCAR being sealed systems never get compromised- unless there's a significant amount of water, which is what the swamp test shows. On the AK, the bolt has to be able to close fully and the hammer fully reset for it to function. The swamp test video shows it runs fine compromised with water and sand as does dumping the sanding directly in the receiver after verifying the hammer can reset. The Scar may pass the swamp test which the AR nor Tavor can't, so I'd be interested in seeing that.
Exactly. You don't just throw a gun in dirty water and shoot it because since you aren't controlling the conditions, you don't know what caused the gun to fail. Was it gun related or environmental?
You need an array of several of the same model of weapon to ensure any malfunctions aren't assembly or manufacturing related, then you need uniform test media, like dust or mud that is uniformly prepared to ensure you don't get one random rock that skews your results. You need to control everything you can and have a large enough sample size to yield meaningful data. That way when the gun fails, you can compare the results to the rest of the samples and narrow down the cause. 9 out of 10 guns ran fine but one choked? Ok, well the sand we used in the test chamber was the same for every test, we used the same ammo, so let's examine the weapon itself. Oh, look the chamber wasn't cut properly, there's your problem.
Now compare that to a Youtube bubba-test, the AK failed in the mud, but why? You have no idea because you're not controlling the conditions, so you announce that AKs are shit and they're unreliable in mud and then thousands of your subscribers parrot that on every message board for years and argue with you when you tell them that's not the case.
The gas tube is the weakest link, perhaps it didn't have enough time to drain? I don't know. My thoughts are, since the SCAR passed the Inrange shovel mud test, then it may also pass the Regular Guy swamp test and may even run filled with sand. If it does, then it may surpass the AK but it will still need to be made more durable perhaps in the next generation. Now obviously the filled with sand thing isn't that important but I think it's somewhat important that weapons are designed with room for debris internally. I've always felt the next generation of rifles will be AR 18 based but haven't seen that many tests involved with SCAR rifles other than the Peruvian drop test- which it failed miserably.
First, that AK video with it being filled with sand is impressive, there's like half a cup of sand in there. Obviously these aren't scientific tests and obviously small nuances can change with just the angle it lands in the water or the type of sand from one area to another. However the real world isn't made up of perfectly sifted sand nor controlled environments either. So there's a little there that maybe can give a glimpse into what could possibly improve performance or design.
Last edited by RetroRevolver77; 06-14-18 at 19:08.
So here's the thing, supposedly the AR, Tavor, and AK have all already gone through those controlled testing procedures you talk about sponsored by whatever their respective governments require. However once introduced to a real world uncontrollable variable such as chucking them into a little pond and rolling them around in a little dirt- only one came out functioning. MAC did the same test on his youtube video and the exact same thing happened, that's not by accident. I've found the same things true myself with rifles I've owned. Which is why I welcome some more real world testing of these newer weapon systems be it SCAR's, B&T's, maybe some new model AUG's, or HK 416's etc.
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