Need Assist, 18B?

[BryanK]

Originally Posted by judcargile

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The open bolt also will help to increase the rate of fire and with the safety of having the bolt held in the open position, this design in an M4 type rifle can actually be used with true high capacity magazines such as Surefire's 60 round and even 100 round design or you could use Beta drums and have a smaller and lighter squad automatic weapon for less money than the traditional FN designs of belt-fed SAW.

Just throw a front sight on this sucker: M231 Firing Port Weapon and call it a day (M231 info is about the 5th paragraph down)

From the article (snip):

The M231 has a much shorter barrel than the M16, and also doesn’t have a front sight. You’ll notice at the front, it is designed to screw into the ball joint of a firing port. In addition, because it is intended to be fired form the port, it has no buttstock, just the buffer tube to hold the action spring. But the most significant changes to the weapon are internal.

Whereas the M16 series rifles fire from a closed bolt, and are selective fire, the M231 fires from an open bolt, and is only capable of fully automatic fire. It also has a much, much higher cyclic rate of fire than the M16 series. Instead of firing at about 600 rounds per minute, the M231 fires at about 1,100 rounds per minute. That little 30 round magazine doesn’t last long.

Just a little background on me if you want it, I served 10 years (Army) as a small arms repairer/fire control systems repairer (45B/45G). I am curious as to the benefit to those who would be using an open bolt, full-auto only designed rifle as opposed to a shorty SAW. I am not and have not been in SOF, but are there that many problems in the field with SAW's jamming or having feeding issues that would constitute a very expensive change like this? I'm all for innovation, but I also believe "if it ain't broke don't fix it".