WARRIOR TALK NEWS

Bullpup shooters are welcome at Suarez International rifle training classes. Any rifle classes.

Bullpups don't suck, only ignorant people do. And you will not find any of "those people" in OUR organization.

We like bullpups and want you to bring them to class. At SI you will be treated with respect, and it will be clear that we are glad to see you - and your bullpup rifle there.

And whats more - nobody will borrow your rifle only to bad mouth it after they have shot up all your ammo, nor ridicule you because you brought an AUG or FS2000. So bring it and we will show you how to run it like a pirate!

Bullpup Wars - FN FS2000 vs AUG

Life has certainly become busier since we closed the door on trying to update the AK and began looking at new platforms. In the corporate armory we see SCARs (Light & Heavy), all the SIG line from 556Rs to 516s and 716s, the FS2000, the new AUGs, and a few others.

A life of quality is made up of the quality of choices we have available to us and these days, a rifle student has a very nice life. In this article, I will discuss two rifles I have spent some time with lately...the FS2000, and the Steyr AUG. I will discuss the goods and the bads and arrive at what is best in my view.

First the bullpup. Some guys hate it. The more I work with them, the more I like them. Now I am referring to quality bullpups, and not some cobbled together AK conversion bullpup. Today, the only quality bullpups are the FN P90, the FS2000, and the Steyr AUG. I know all about the Tavor, but right now, its vaporware. I will ommit the P90 as that is a niche weapon, and limit things to the two 5.56x45 guns.

Both are exquisitely made and truly examples of European quality. No, they are not cheap, but that is not the point of the discussion here. I am not going to go into histories, propellerhead engineering concepts, or such things as there is no point in restating what has been around for everyone to read. Rather, my simple impressions.

The AUG is a thin gun, and handy. The new models are far better than the older pre-bans as you can use whatever optics you wish. The field of optics has changed a great deal since 1994 and being stuck with the Austrian doughnut is not a good thing. This one can take anything from an Aimpoint to an ACOG and from a Valdada to a Nightforce. In contrast, the FS2000 is a thicker gun, but not objectionable. It also has a full length rail to add any optic you wish.

Trigger is fine on both, but I noticed the FS2000 has a far better trigger than the AUG. The more I shot the FS, the more the trigger smoothed out. Operation is very similar on both rifles. Charging handles are very similar and magazine changes are very similar. Both systems encourage magazine retention which is a breath of fresh air to me.

On the magazines. The AUG uses proprietary magazines while the FS2000 uses metal GI M4 magazines. That is a big deal. I understand that Steyr has a model that will take M4 magazines but nobody seems to have one so I suspect they are waiting to see if the USA re-elects Mugabe before committing. If they do bring it on board, that would increase desirability for the AUG. Any 223 sold in the USA must accept M4 magazines to be economically viable.

The AUG has no handguard, per se, but rather a VFG attached to the barrel. I did not like this at all and is one of the two failings of the AUG. The VFG on the AUG must be held with a locked thumb grip rather than the more popular, and preferred by me, thumb forward grip. A locked down grip does not provide the same weapon index that a thumb forward grip does. Try a thumb forward grip on the AUG and you will probably burn your thumbprint off.




The FS2000 has a strange handguard system, but an effective one that allows any sort of grip the user wants. Most guys who run these will opt for the FN handguard system. I did, and added a MagPul VFG. That gives the FS a whole new pointability and allows the shooter to run the gun better in my opinion. It also provides for attachment of lights which are a good idea on any CQB gun.

The FS has an innovative and ingenious ejection system. Brass cases are ejected forward into a tube coaxial with the barrel and dribble out through the ejection gate just forward of the handguards. Range rats don't see the value in this, but load up a Jeep with three guys and workk on some mobile firing drills and NOT having your buddy's brass ejected into your eyes or face is a very nice thing. The FS beats the AUG hands down for firing in confined spaces like a motor vehicle.

While on the subject of motor vehicles, the ability to fire the weapon from either shoulder comes up. We are very ambidextrous in our approach to rifle work and that is where the AUG leaves us cold. With the AUG you cannot fire the weapon easily with your left cheek on the rifle using the mirror image of the right side cheekweld unless you pre-emptively turn the rifle into a lefty version. Try the shoulder switch exercise without running your face all the way back to the butt of the AUG and you will likely be pegged in the face with ejected brass. Yes, I know you can modify your shooting position....or add some sort of case deflector, or whatever. In my view, these are all less than optimal answers.

The FS however, is truly ambidextrous...in every way and action.

Given the magazine issue (proprietary magazine versus metal GI M4 mags), VFG issues, and absolute need to be truly "mirror image" ambidextrous, my vote has to go with the FN FS2000.

If you have been looking for a good CQB gun. A gun that is an SBR size without any needed tax stamps. A gun that is as modern as tomorrow, take good look at the FS2000. It is an excellent weapon with answers to questions everyone has been trying to find. Until a better bullpup comes around, the FS2000 is the best one there is.

 

The Complainer - And Why You Should Purge Him From Your Life

We have all had a "friend" like that. On a bright shining morning, he'll say, "Yeah...but the sun will give you skin cancer". On a clear star lit night, he will complain its too cold. He will tell you that your new car eats too much gas and that the french press Kona will raise your blood pressure.

He is not happy unless he is miserable about something, has been screwed by someone, or is facing some horrible fate. And you'd better watch out because his fate will also be yours.

He is the "critic" that Theodore Roselvelt spoke of in that speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910. The complainer is one of "those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat".

Funny...the internet is filled with them too. In those often uncontrolled places, they have what they crave more than sex with a supermodel - the attention and the pity of others.

Go to any other forum out there (other than ours of course), and you will see the complainer in his natural habitat. They love internet forums so they can login and complain about anything from the gun company that screwed them, to the gun company whose prices will screw him, to the ammo company whose advertising will screw him too.

And don't even ask him about politics of he will drop "trou" and show you where he was screwed last time as he giggles in glee over his miserable life of getting screwed. The complainer is a life-drainer...a vampire of initiative.

The complainer typifies the 47% that Romney described so eloquently. The complainer is not an underachiever...he is a non-achiever, whose sole life purpose is to point out his non-achievement, blame it on others who do achieve, demand they pay for his ineptitude, and then happily complain he still got screwed.

Listen carefully young entrepreneurs, business people, or anyone else - as soon as you identify the complainer, be he an employee, a customer, or a relative, your life will not be happy until you purge him and his influence from your life.

Of course...you can also do as I do and use them as "useful idiots" to advertise for you on other forums....but that takes some skill.

Gabe Suarez

Warrior Talk Blog
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The Ultimate Development Of The Piston M4 Rifle

The SIG 556 is the epitome of development of the AK Platform, and the 516 is the same for the Stoner Platform. There!  That should be worth at least ten pages of Gabe-hate at one of those wannabe forums.  (I hope they, at least, spell the name right this time).

This is what SIG's ad says, "The Sig 516 is the fullfilled potential of the AR15 / M16 platform. One of the most tested and proven weapons systems in the world achieves ultimate refinement with the introduction of the SIG516 rifle. With its ambidextrous selector switch, chrome-lined, nitride-finished, military grade barrel and adjustable, three-position gas regulator, the SIG516 incorporates all of the most desirable mechanical improvements. Add to these a free-floating quad rail forend and barrel, and you have the most advanced, versatile AR-based rifle available."

OK...we got a SIG 516 and began working with it.  Some guys will say that I am not an AR guy, since I have been the main mover of the AK system here in the USA.  Well, I would point them to the book - Tactical Rifle from Paladin Press, which dates back to the previous century.  I am not an M4 guy, but not an AK, or FAL, or FS2000, or anything else "guy".  I look for quality and efficiency and results.  If a platform provides that, we look at it seriously.  Moving on.

The SIG 516 is so good that it would make an AK-centric man want to use an M4.  Funny how it takes a Swiss company to make the AK more accurate by making it more M4-like and the M4 more reliable by making it more AK-like.  Wonderful!

SIG has partcipated in a recent test that will be revealed soon.  An undisclosed government group wanted to  update its rifles and the SIG SAUER 516 soundly beat several "big name" American AR systems, as well as the HK416 rifles, and decisively in all areas. You heard it here first.

The SIG 516 is so good that one large M4 maker even sued (and lost in court) SIG for making a better rifle than theirs...for less. The funniest thing is that there was all manner of news spread on the internet about "this company" suing those evil SIG people, yet not a single word about them losing the suit. 

SIG 516 Features:

Gas piston operating system, three-position gas regulator, 5.56 x 45mm NATO, free-floating military grade chrome lined barrel, M1913 picatinny flat top upper, 7075-T6 Aircraft grade aluminum upper & lower receiver with hard coat anodize finish, Overall Length: 39.5 in, Weight: 7.6lbs, Barrel Length: 16.0 in, Rifling:1 in 7in - Number of Grooves: 6, Features: Advanced pushrod gas system.

This from an industry insider.  The 516 is a shameless and improved copy of the HK416.  It was designed and built by the same people...some of them anyways...that designed and built the HK416.  These guys were hired away from HK -  paid more, and told to make the best rifle they could with all their experience, and without the working environment they came from.  The result is in my opinion, the pinnacle of M4 development.

Some videos of the SIG516 in tests with the Royal Thai Military -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EV-Zh...feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDqy5...feature=relmfu

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-N_KEhIw74

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-sswkxNp3k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y32fEQlGqL4

In my opinion, mo matter how good someone says a DI M4 is, the piston system makes it more like an AK.  And with quality magazines, the reliability issues are virtually eliminated.  Our studies and research have shown to us that the pinnacle of the M4 Piston development is the HK 416 (that rifle is so far advanced over anything the various M4 companies make, that it is laughable that they want to argue the point). And the SIG516, is an improved version of the 416, developed by the same people that designed the 416 for HK, but in an environment bereft of the HK politics....and for about 1/2 the price.

Our top choice for the M4 platform

Read More On What We Are Doing With SIG Rifles 

Hands on with the PTR91GI

By Chris Upchurch, Director of Marketing

I've been eying the PTR91 ever since I came to work at S.I. I've always had an interest in the HK roller-delayed blowback guns and a good semi-auto .308 to fill the universal rifle/DMR/GSR role has been on my list for a long time. After handling a couple of them in-house here at OST, I decided to take the plunge.

First Impressions

The first thing you notice with these rifles is that the fit and finish is just impeccable. Everything fits together very nicely, there are no blemishes or rough spots. This is a very nicely made rifle.

Picking it up, its heft is about normal for a .308 battle rifle. Like the AK, the whole rifle is essentially one solid unit. This is definitely a gun you could beat someone to death with. It balances very well, thanks to the HK profile barrel, which is a bit thinner than the bull barrel PTR puts on some of their other models. The balance point is right at the magazine, so it points very nicely and is easy to transfer from shoulder to shoudler. The long handguard works great with the floating support hand technique that SI teaches.

The barrel is 18", which is about right for the universal rifle. It's not a gun that's made for CQB, though it's handy enough to fill that role if necessary. Nor is it a long, unwieldy, dedicated long range shooter. This really fits the bill as a 'do it all' gun, the essence of the universal rifle.

First Shots

When I got this rifle we'd been getting a lot of rain here in Prescott, so it took a while before I was able to take it out and shoot it. When I finally did, it was worth the wait. The rifle shoots beautifully. It's hard to do a true test of accuracy without an optic (at least with my eyes) but when I was zeroing it I got small, consistent groups at 30 yards with the irons.

The HK diopter sights are just marvelous. They work great with our long gun point shooting continuum. If you need a quick torso shot at close range, just put the front sight ring on the target and press. At slightly longer distances, the wide notch on the rear drum works like an express sight or for more precision you can nestle the globe down into the inner notch. Rotate the drum to the longer range settings and you get a peep sight adjusted for the appropriate drop.

The PTR has been absolutely reliable with all ammo that I've shot through it, both brass and steel case. Ejection is vigorous, to say the least. The HK manual of arms is a bit different from what I'm used to, but some dry practice should take care of that.

Final thoughts

The PTR has been great so far; I'm very happy with it. Compared to the other semi-auto .308s on the market the PTR91GI is an incredibly good deal (particularly if you get the package deal with 10 mags that we offer at OST). The lack of a semi-auto .308 has been a hole in my arsenal for a while now and this will fill it quite nicely. The rifle will soon be heading out to Investment Grade Firearms to have a paddle mag release installed and a picatinny rail welded to the top of the receiver. Then I'll put a good optic on it and it should make a great DMR/GSR.

The TSD Universal Fighting Knife Video

 

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If It Ain't Broke - Don't Fix It?: A Discussion Of The Piston AR

We have all heard that old phrase haven't we? But in my opinion, it is a motto of the underachiever...the change hater who wants things to stay as they are and never change due to the inconvenience it would create for him...or his company. Change is disruptive and disruption in an industry requires rethinking, retooling and remarketing. All inconvenient and expensive. But change is often progress, and it is a powerful concept...to make things better.

Can you imagine an airline company using, "If it ain't broke - don't fix it?" Who would fly in such a machine? Advancements are brought about by preemptively "fixing" things. That mindset is what brought us smartphones, laser surgery, and other advances. Had these innovators taken the "Don't Fix" approach, we would still be using rotary dial landlines and cutting open an entire arm just to get to the carpal tunnel.

But on to the point!

Nothing is perfect, and in seeking to make it perfect, we do in fact make it better. Those who are invested in doing this one way will resist any deviation from that path...even though subsequent paths will be faster, and well...better.

The AR/M4, like it or not, has a reputation for being unreliable. Whether one particular AR has gone 150,000 rounds (like Chuck Taylor's Glock) is not relevant to the discussion. The reputation remains as much as that of the AK not being accurate.

Just as attempts to make the AK more accurate are warranted, so are attempts to make the AR more reliable. One of those attempts has been the use of a Piston in lieu of the Direct Impingement.

Go to any forum where there are a higher number of DI makers advertising and the Piston AR is reviled as if it were the product of Lucifer himself. And of course, the only DI guns worthy of consideration are those sold by the advertising companies....who also happen to be on some arbitrary list. Yet go to a forum where Piston guns advertise more and DI is seen as some backward rifle akin to a crossbow. With the guns sold by the companies in question being the only choice.

Business is business and nobody can blame them. But I must say...after studying the matter thoroughly, the piston AR is an improvement over the Direct Impingement concept. Argue if you will but that is the conclusion I arrived at on the matter. I suspect this will create at least twelve pages of excoriation at one of those wannabe AR-15 forums.  Well, I hope at least the get the URL correct.

In subsequent discussion we will discuss which guns are the best value and why (HK416 vs. LWRC vs. SIG516....for examples), as well as answer the detractions of the piston concept.

DI Gun Advantages -

1). It will cost the buyer less money. I do not use the "C" word (cheap). That can be good or bad depending on what you get. A WASR 10 will also cost less money, but it is hardly anyone's first choice. A rotary dial phone will still work, but it hardly the best choice today.   DI gun can be very good...but it is still a DI gun.

2). Lighter recoil than Piston Guns (are we realy comparing the recoil of a 5.56!!??)

3). One thing you commonly hear is that it has commonly available parts. Well we need to qualify that. If you have the parts in your possession that is fine. if not, you will have to order them. Not being in a military role, that is what you will need to do anyway. So if you simply buy what you need beforehand, and have it available, it is really as much a non-issue as AK-magazine availability.

Piston Gun Advantages -

1). Avoids the fouling and carbon build up common in DI guns. Fouling is the main cause of the AR's unreliable rep. Fix that and you have a new animal altogether.

2). Did you know that an M4 in service is intended to be rebuilt every few thousand rounds? The parts wear out. That is directly from a US Army M16 Armorer. A Piston gun, OTOH, does not heat the internals of the gun as much as DI guns. That means that the various small internal pieces and springs will not get subjected to the heat in a DI platform. That translates into far longer service life and enhanced reliability.

3). In our in house testing, I have found the piston guns to cycle faster than the DI guns. Not a conclusive, split-time examining test, just a feel. On the DI guns you can feel the action working between shots. On a piston gun, it is press trigger, shot out. Perhaps we need to dwell in this area a bit more.

4). Ease of maintenance is only overshadowed by ease of replacement. Carrying a spare anything with you is as easy as it is with a DI gun, but only easier to replace.

5). Finally, the piston gun keeps the blowback out of your face and nose and lungs. We hear all manner of dram from "second hand smoke" yet we hear nothing about the lung-full of gas the DI shooter gets everytime he touches off a shot.  I wonder if the Piston Guns are..."healthier".

One cannot have a discussion of the Piston M4 without the HK416 dropping in. I am not certain if it was first, but it certainly was the most marketed, and of course...it is a top choice among US Special Ops. Using an HK416 to kill Bin Ladin was a telling rebuttal to "piston dtractors". These guys...the Special Ops guys tasked with the mission could have anything they want as money is no object. Yet the gun they used, and use, is not a Direct Impingement Rifle.

Ernst Mauch, at HK, was tasked with an improvement program for the M4 as far back as 2001 and one of the primary issues faced was the DI gas system. Rather than build a "faster horse", Mauch went with the proven successful piston system as is seen in the G36. In less than two years, including time wasted fighting a lawsuit by Colt. I find it amazing how often American companies, resting on their laurels, fail to innovate, and get legally upset when a disruptive company does what they should have done all along.

The advantages of the 416 over standard DI M4 are well documented in the various tests conducted. Those advantages are of course said to be inconsequential by HK's competitors. What would anyone expect them to say....that yes, the HK is better? Unlikely.

The issue with the HK is simply that Heckler & Koch was damaged in 1994 when the AWB took place and, rightly so, they saw the US Civilian market as too unstable to mess with. This has changed of course, and many companies came back after 2004, but not HK. Their standing in the civilian market is poor. But one has to mention the 416 in any discussion like this as it is the gun that other try to emulate.

PART TWO FOLLOWS -

SIG 556R Update -Magazines

 

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SIG 556 in Action!

 

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The AUG Bullpup Revisited

John Chambers

Suarez International/TSD Combat Systems Staff Instructor

There are many shooters who feel that they can ignore bullpup rifles.  This is, quite simply, a mistake because there are many advantages to the design and more rifles of this type being released every year.   

A short list of available bullpup rifles would include:

AUG (including the MSAR) – Austria/USA

FN2000 - Belgium

FN P90 - Belgium

Tavor TAR 21 - Israel

FAMAS (Hate this rifle!  Yuck.) -  France

KelTec RFB - USA

L85 (POS!!) – Great Britain

VHS (I'd LOVE it if Springfield Armory could bring these in with the XD!) - Croatia

QBZ 95 - China

AK Bullpups – USA, by way of the drunken monkeys that convert WASRs.

Vektor – South Africa

As one can see, there are many rifles available, but I want to concentrate on the rifle that I feel is the best bullpup, and certainly the most proven bullpup available:  the AUG pattern rifle.

The AUG was adopted by the Austrian army in 1977, as the STG77.  It has also been adopted by other militaries as well, i.e. Ireland and Australia.  It is a very proven design that has seen combat around the world and yet many still do not understand the many advantages of a rifle of this type over a conventionally configured rifle.

Number one is, of course, COMPACTNESS!  With a single point sling, you can hide a bullpup under a 3/4 length coat.   An AUG pattern rifle with a 16.5 inch barrel is only about an inch longer than a 16 inch barreled upper from an AR.  Try working out of a vehicle with a conventionally stocked rifle and then run the same drills with a bullpup.  It is no contest.  As a driver or passenger you can have the bullpup rifle pointed muzzle down between your legs, with the muzzle resting on the seat cushion.  Responding to a threat is not hard at all.  Yes, you can use a folding stocked weapon, like an AK or Para FAL, but you still have to deploy the stock in order to fight effectively with that rifle. 

Movement inside of structures is much easier, similar to the advantage a SMG like the UZI or MP5 gives you, without the terminal ballistic penalty.  It is also very easy to use a bullpup with one hand since the center of gravity is farther back, so if you have to open a door, move an obstacle, etc.  

With an AUG, you can remove the barrel and then things get REALLY stealthy.  I can take a standard size book bag/day pack and it can carry the rifle, the dismounted barrel, 4+ magazines, binos, range finder, etc.  And NOBODY is the wiser.  Consider this scenario:  a police officer or soldier in an urban setting needs to move stealthily to a hide site or OP in order to gather intel.  With the day pack on his shoulder, he can move into a position to observe, and provide accurate fire from his position of over watch.  Quite simply it is an SBR without the paperwork and it has lower muzzle blast!                     

In the CQB arena there are things you can do with a bullpup that are impossible to do with a standard rifle.   Consider the EQCB techniques we teach with the pistol, one of which is to wrap up the opponents head/neck with your non-firing hand and arm and then fire into their lower abdomen.  You can perform this with a bullpup!  Because the bullpup is so easy to use with one hand, you are effectively treating it like a big pistol.

Gun grabs?  There is only about 6 inches of barrel protruding past the forward handgrip of the AUG pattern rifle.  Who do you think has the leverage advantage in a struggle?  There is no contest.  If someone tries to grab the barrel, you just blow them off your muzzle.

Training Considerations

Number one is the same as any other rifle; you have to know how to run your gun.  Make its use reflexive.  Learn to shoot on the move, from both shoulders as necessary.  The movement matrix we teach at SI is used across platforms and an important part of it is to use the rifle from both shoulders.  You CAN do this with a bullpup, but each one has its own challenges.  When I developed the material I showed in the Bullpup Rifle Gun Fighting DVD, I did a TON of dry practice with my rifle before I went live fire.  This also falls into the realm of learning to run your gun.

If someone does not feel comfortable shooting the AUG pattern cross dominantly, my advice is to just get the FN2000 so you do not have to worry about the brass.  That being said, I prefer the AUG pattern rifles.  They handle better, reloads are easier, and it is a more mature design. 

The SI long gun methodology is very much concepts driven.   The concepts that we use to run the AK/M4/shotgun, etc. transfer to the bullpup without issue.  Are there specific manipulations that must be used with specific weapons?  Of course there are!  But the concepts are identical. Mag changes are unaffected, especially if you reload with retention.  If you are using a gamer’s speed load, you might be fractionally slower, but in the real world, the time difference is a non-issue.  Besides, the fastest reload is to transition to your handgun. 

If I am shooting around the right side barricade, I'll shoot off my right shoulder.  The opposite is also true.  With the FN bullpups, there are not any issues, since they are ambidextrous rifles.  With the AUG pattern rifle I will also do the same, but it is mandatory that your head rides farther back on the stock or you will eat brass.  Using an electronic optic, there is no eye relief to worry about so shooter accuracy is unaffected.  The best way I have found to ensure that your head does not get over the ejection port is to aim with the left eye, even though a right eye dominant shooter will want to rotate the head to use the dominant eye.  If you check what I was doing on the video you will see that I was running the rifle with partial and full shoulder transfers, and I did not bleed!

Potential disadvantages

Trigger pull:  Not going to lie and say that the trigger pull on a bullpup rifle will EVER be as good as a match trigger on an AR.  That being said, the trigger pull on my MSAR is MUCH better than the trigger pull of the brand new M16A4 I was issued in the service.  With first time firers I tell them to treat it like a Glock trigger or that of a DA revolver.  Don't try to stage it, just work it smoothly and you can easily make the precision shot. 

Sighting also can have some challenges.  The nature of the design makes for a significant difference between the line of sight, and the bore.  This of course results in significant offset at close range, similar to what you have with the M16/M4 pattern rifles.  How do you deal with it?  I always tell my students that if you want to put rounds in the cranial-ocular cavity to aim just under the hairline at 7 yards or less.  The straight-line design pretty much makes optics mandatory, but that is not a bad thing.  It is much easier to hit the bad guys using optical sights.

The days of only needing to know how to run a FAL, G3, M14, M16, and an AK are over.  Bullpups are a reality on the modern battlefield and if you do not know how to use a rifle of this design, you are putting yourself at a disadvantage.  More to the point, the very real tactical advantages of the AUG design and other quality bullpups can be a real game changer in the combative use of the rifle.

 

Click Here: Bullpup Rifle Gunfighting DVD

To Train with John Chambers: CLICK HERE
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