[judcargile]

Originally Posted by Buckles

Ok first off, you are trying way to hard to prove you are legit.

Second point providing any technical data to any person or company outside the US (US citizen or not) is a violation of ITAR as well as export regulations, and even providing something as armorer training can be considered a volition. Working at SIG on the international sales group I have experience with this, we are even required to get an export license to share technical data with our German and Swiss companies.

Now more to the matter, an open bolt AR platform. Okay I can understand the desire to have the weapon blend in with the rest of the squad and such. However here are some errors of thought on this.

reliable feeding - the rate of fire on a AR is limited by the strength of magazine springs, in full auto fire the bolt can potentially cycle faster than the springs can feed the round, this could cause failure to feed. this is not an issue for belt fed
Also pertaining to the magazine, if something goes wrong with the mag, bad feed lips, gets dented or such, the ammo in it is unusable until you download it, with an ammo belt you break off the link and by pass the issue

ammo reloads - on a belt fed weapons system you can see your ammo and better id when you will need to reload, you also have the ability to link the next belt to the ammo belt currently in the gun. When your magazine runs dry, you don't know until the bolt locks back.

Barrel change - when in a support by fire, you are going to putting a lot of rounds down range, you are going to need to change barrels, not happening with an AR platform, even the weapon systems that are capable of a barrel change at the user level cannot do it while in a fire fight.

There are other issues with being able to sustain rates of fire, and being able to carry ammo, as well a disturbing ammo across a team or squad, no one wants to give up his mags. This has been looked at by a few different companies LWRC, FN and a few others and the biggest drawback is that you cannot keep this gun fed to be effective.

All that being said I have taken a look at the Thor Global Defense Group website and can see that you guys assemble guns and your posts here are a fishing trip to steer you in a direction to develop an open bolt AR platform

TR I respectfully request this gets put in the hall

Excellent points made; However, the point about THOR having anything to do with an open-bolt AR is absolutely not true. THOR's sales are mostly civilian and open-bolts are not permitted in civilian, semi model only, it makes no difference We have a belt-fed upper that we distribute and it is made to do a barrel swap, quick changed on the spot. I will be sure and get approval from DOS before I present anything here on the volcano. If you guys will give me 24 to post the text of the ITAR before you throw this out in the hall, I would appreciate it. I would like to confirm or disprove the theories to whichever end it leads.