When you think your FallOut 4 inspired rifle will be the next combat rifle of the US Military

I saw this and was kind of gobsmacked this looks like a half baked ACR Competition entrant with a FallOut 4 type styling, in my opinion weapons systems like the G11 were much more fleshed out and more practical than this Mickey Mouse rifle. This reminds me of a high tech nordenfelt gun more than a 21st century firearm design. Four fixed barrel fed from semi complicated breach blocks that look like they take away all the advantages of caseless rounds. Caseless and electrical impulse firing may be the future but not in this rifle IMO, I hope I’m not the only one who thinks this thing is a half baked pipe dream that will never make it into service.

Gazett e Article

They might have found it in Martin Grier’s Colorado Springs garage. Grier, a self-described inventor who has worked at a local bed and breakfast, built the new “ribbon gun” with a hobbyist’s tools. It looks like a space-age toy drawn by a fifth-grader. But goofy origins and cartoon-looks aside, this could be the gun of the future. The Army is studying Grier’s gun and has ordered a military-grade prototype.
The specifications are incredible, four 6 mm barrels cut side by side within one steel block. New ammunition blocks fired by electromagnetic actuators that could theoretically give the weapon a firing rate of 250 rounds per second.

goo.gl...

Some problems my admittedly armature eyes are:
Caseless rounds that need to be transported in breach make no sense the advantage of caseless is weight, space, and no ejection, the breach block negates all the advantages.

You may get 2,500rpm for 4 rounds but after those 1st 4 you have to worry about feeding more blocks from the looks.

Doesn’t look any lighter or more robust than your run of the mill M4/M16

3 more barrels to worry about, them talking about a sniper mode is pretty laughable with the change in point of impact

Caseless ammo even in breach blocks are not ready for the prime time IMO

What says y’all fellow weapon nerds?

The future? A mighty Fail?

Good god could you imagine how much extra ammo you would have to carry in a combat situation? I really wouldnt want to have to drop a mag that often while im being shot at.

I mean its a cool concept but its a novelty, and I have always the personal view that the more complex a system is the more there is for there to fail in combat....

Cool thought, def not practical..........

originally posted by: ManBehindTheMask
Good god could you imagine how much extra ammo you would have to carry in a combat situation? I really wouldnt want to have to drop a mag that often while im being shot at.

I mean its a cool concept but its a novelty, and I have always the personal view that the more complex a system is the more there is for there to fail in combat....

Cool thought, def not practical..........

Agreed I see zero advantages to this and far too much to go wrong, I don’t think this will even begin to be taken seriously, this is just a mash up of half baked ideas of old thrown into a goofy looking rifle....

a reply to: BigDave-AR

Nope. The simplicity of guns has a purpose, robustness.

Electric actuators mean extra points of failure. The bullets in the cartridges have to be aligned exactly with the barrels. This sounds expensive to produce and not very durable.

originally posted by: moebius
a reply to: BigDave-AR

Nope. The simplicity of guns has a purpose, robustness.

Electric actuators mean extra points of failure. The bullets in the cartridges have to be aligned exactly with the barrels. This sounds expensive to produce and not very durable.

It’s been done even commercially with Remington Etronix built off the 700 series bolt action but really had no advantage and was a gimmick that faded very fast. The only advantage to electronic ignition is in theory you can have a trigger with only ounces of pull weight but how often is that actually a factor? A nice light trigger is nice but resistance has its place as well. This thing is a real mixed bag IMO it takes steps forward in some small places but huge leaps backwards in others. I think ammo weight size and complexity are the main downfalls of this design, having preloaded chambers is not the future that’s the past for example like me comparing it to the nordenfelt multi barrel “machine guns” that competed with the Gatling gun with the same premise more or less only fully mechanical and back when preloaded chambers were decent as metallic cartridges were still in their infancy.

Ian from Forgotten Weapons on the Etronix and Nordenfelts for context
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Looks like they might be trying to build gun control into the gun.

Would an emp attack render them useless?

originally posted by: Raggedyman
Would an emp attack render them useless?

Probably unless it has a backup simple piezoelectric electronic triggering mechanism but from the description it sounds like the firing system is more complex due to the differing “modes” of Fire.

Another think that chafes me about the article is them talking about it utilizing EDM CNC machining and acting like it’s a novel approach for a firearm, acting like traditional CNC machining is so much worse, every tool has its use EDM and laser CNCs are awesome and all but so are traditional rotary machining techniques (I come from a machinist family so this one irks me).

I had come up with a rifle design far more impressive than this one. I'd rather not supply it to world militaries though. It was capable of holding hundreds of rounds far more compact and cheaper than current modern weapons. Round accelerations were a magnitude more powerful. It was truly a frightening machine of death.

No chance I would let that monster out there.

IF that is what they are picking.

IMO it's stupid as hell.

KISS.

Keep it simple Stupid.

Too complicated.

originally posted by: neo96
IF that is what they are picking.

IMO it's stupid as hell.

KISS.

Keep it simple Stupid.

Too complicated.

It won’t make it guaranteed, just a pipe dream of some dude who fancies himself a revolutionary firearms designer. Too much new technologies thrown together in the wrong way as to completely negate the advantages of each idea incorporated into it. There’s no way a warfighter would be able to hump enough ammo for this thing, you’ve got heavy awkward profiles chambers that are going to be heavier than cassed ammo, more expensive, bulkier, just all around bad news on top of trying to push a new round way too much too soon. I’d be interested to know the ballistics of whatever 6mm loading this guy has in mind just out of morbid curiosity but I doubt it’s enough better than the 5.56 to justify all of the risk and logistical burden.

Honest question here:
Why don't we just use the new AKs? The original AK-47 stormed the planet due to its cheap cost and absolute reliability in practically any conditions. Now the more recent AK-12/AK-15 versions are basically modern, perfected versions of the old design. Is there any actual reason we don't just use those?

originally posted by: trollz
Honest question here:
Why don't we just use the new AKs? The original AK-47 stormed the planet due to its cheap cost and absolute reliability in practically any conditions. Now the more recent AK-12/AK-15 versions are basically modern, perfected versions of the old design. Is there any actual reason we don't just use those?

Well that might have a lot to do with politics and the fact that even the Ruskies are realizing the AKs are getting long in the tooth, if we considered adopting any AK platform based assault rifle it would be IWI Galils, that are essentially tuned up AKs with much better ergonomics and chambered in 5.56nato but I still don’t see it happening.

ETA:goo.gl...



Part of the reason why we wouldn’t go AK is the magazines, why mess with an AK when you can have a Galil that accepts STANAG mags and requires far less logistical issues, not to mention sidesteps the much touchier politics with adopting the Russian pattern rifles.

a reply to: BigDave-AR

I question how field stripping this weapon will go? I mean clean 4 barrels, plus 4 barrels dumping carbon all over the receiver and bolt?

Simple is best, when it comes to the field in my experience.

originally posted by: BlueJacket
a reply to: BigDave-AR

I question how field stripping this weapon will go? I mean clean 4 barrels, plus 4 barrels dumping carbon all over the receiver and bolt?

Simple is best, when it comes to the field in my experience.

Yeah I already brought up the pain of having to worry about 3 more barrels to keep cleaned and if one barrel goes bad the whole 4 barrel assembly would need to be replaced, not good for logistics. As far as the receiver and bolt well there’s no bolt just breachblocks preloaded that are fed in so a lot of fouling will be ejected along with the the breach block, cleaning the receiver looks like it’d be easy as the thing is so open from the ridiculous design but I still think it’s way more trouble than it’s worth.

"I want to give them a Clint Eastwood kind of edge"

Says it all really.

Nothing but Hollywood romanticism driving this industry.

originally posted by: SlowNail
"I want to give them a Clint Eastwood kind of edge"

Says it all really.

Nothing but Hollywood romanticism driving this industry.

Who wants a Clint Eastwood edge when you could have a Chuck Norris edge? Seriously though I was like uhm okay.... when I read that part overall the article is terrible just a puff piece with no understanding that this thing isn’t going to go anywhere, it was written more like an advirtisement than anything IMO and I have a feeling the military is going to be laughing pretty hard if they did indeed order a weapon for some trials. He doesn’t have the resources to make this a viable option for the military IMO it’s just a silly project the guy took out a few too many mortgages to sink $500k into.

a reply to: BigDave-AR

Lets forget about ammo requirements for a moment, and think about the modern and the future battlespace for a moment.

Why involve electrical components in the matter, when its perfectly possible that some war, some time, will be fought under the effects of an electromagnetic pulse, or after a CME event from the sun? We KNOW anything with a battery pack, wires, or carrying or requiring current will be absolutely useless in the worst case, but a regular old gun will not be effected in the slightest by electromagnetic circumstances being different than normal.

this was in the 4 too? i had thought it was in the 1st maybe.

originally posted by: TrueBrit
a reply to: BigDave-AR

Lets forget about ammo requirements for a moment, and think about the modern and the future battlespace for a moment.

Why involve electrical components in the matter, when its perfectly possible that some war, some time, will be fought under the effects of an electromagnetic pulse, or after a CME event from the sun? We KNOW anything with a battery pack, wires, or carrying or requiring current will be absolutely useless in the worst case, but a regular old gun will not be effected in the slightest by electromagnetic circumstances being different than normal.

A valid point that Raggedy man brought up and I agreed with it’d be fairly difficult to get it robust enough to stand a chance of surviving an EMP or the likes. Our military is already too dependent on computers and satellites the last thing we need is the infantry’s main weapon being susceptible to EMP and not just taking out weapon acsesories and powered optics systems but instead becoming a complete paper weight.

Damla- The song or the fun? I was just making fun of it’s ridiculous appearance with my FallOut reference which IMO it looks like it’d fit in nicely in fallout 4, the armed forces, not so much...