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Personally I believe that the reason that the AR15 is so popular (at least in the civilian world) is more that it's lego for adults who like guns, and less beca

Personally I believe that the reason that the AR15 is so popular (at least in the civilian world) is more that it's lego for adults who like guns, and less because of its utility as a platform. That's not to say it's not a good rifle though, but I don't think that in a military context it's fundamentally better or worse than any of its peers, such as the H&K G36, the Steyr AUG, or the SA80.

noir_lord 8y ago
It was way better than early marks of the SA80, it took decades for that to become reliable and HK essentially rebuilding it from scratch.
qball 8y ago
>Personally I believe that the reason that the AR15 is so popular (at least in the civilian world) is more that it's lego for adults who like guns, and less because of its utility as a platform. At least in the US and Canada, the primary driver is cost. The AR-15 is extremely cheap to make because the receiver is not a pressure-bearing component, and because you need very few machines to make the most important parts (of which there are fewer than most other guns due to the design). It doesn't help that import restrictions in the US make everything that's not an AR artificially expensive (complying with them has parts/labor overhead if it's even possible in the first place). The other guns you mentioned are not only more expensive to produce, but they also perform much worse (the SA80 had problems with literally every single part breaking or warping, the G36 melts because its barrel is cast into plastic, the AUG fires when it shouldn't and doesn't handle as well as an AR) to the point where nearly every country that currently uses these weapons are replacing them with some variety of AR15. The original design (gas piston behind bolt = no rotational forces against the carrier = no reinforcement needed in receiver) really is that good.
- PhantomGremlin 8y ago
  Do you consider the M27[1] to be an AR15 variant? Apparently the US Marines want everyone to use it? The "direct impingement gas system" has been changed to a "short stroke piston". At which point is one weapon merely a variant of another? Isn't this change in the action a significant improvement? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M27_Infantry_Automatic_Rifle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M27_Infantry_Automatic_Rifle
  - jki275 8y ago
    It's an AR-15 variant just like the HK-416 it's based on. Yes, it has a piston, but technically the DI system has a piston too -- it's just configured differently.
  - PeanutNore 8y ago
    The M27 upper is 100% compatible with a standard AR15 lower. The main advantage to the short stroke piston is that the gas tapped off the barrel that operates the system has less distance to travel before it hits the piston compared with the standard system, and so it works more reliably with short barrels than direct impingement. The "direct impingement" system of the M16 / AR15 isn't really true direct impingement, as the bolt itself works as a gas piston within the bolt carrier. But the gas has to travel much further to reach it than with a conventional piston.
    - potta_coffee 8y ago
      The reason it's more reliable, in my experience, is that direct impingement system introduces a shit load of fouling into your chamber and all the moving parts. After about 1k rounds, that bolt starts to move slowly from all the fouling, then you'll start to experience inconsistent feeding / ejecting. It's a shitty system and it's about time they've done something about it. The traditional fix is to dump a load of CLP into the rifle...which attracts sand and dust.
  - electrograv 8y ago
    The M27 / HK 417 is an AR15 with a gas piston retrofit. There is an advantage to piston operating systems for really short barrels, where DI systems do not excel. In fact, many such piston AR retrofits exist in the US civilian AR market, but they’re generally thought to be of “unproven” longevity, at least. The advantages of the retrofit piston being slim and light is that the recoil increase is small. The disadvantage is that durability is questionable, as those pistons experience a lot of violent force and most guns designed from scratch to be piston operated have significantly heavier duty pistons, for good reason. You can read online of Marine armorers lamenting how their M27s are breaking down at a rate much faster than their M4s. This is of course anecdotal, but it is also not entirely worthless data.
baud147258 8y ago
> such as the H&K G36, the Steyr AUG, or the SA80. Or the FAMAS (or maybe it's just my Gallic pride talking ;))
simonh 8y ago
I think there are advantages over much of the competition. The SA80 was unreliable and ridiculously heavy. The Steyr Aug isn't modular enough - it's a big hunk of plastic and doesn't have enough space on the front to add accessories. The G36 is also a bit heavy, but has been canned due to persistent heat problems affecting firing accuracy. The polymer construction just isn't up to it. Also both bullpups suffer from horrible triggers, it's a problem with mechanically transferring the trigger action to the back of the gun. The AR 15 platform has benefited hugely from a lot of refinement and investment over a very long time. That's certainly true, but Stoner's concept for it is just really, really good and the fact that the design issues were all tractable and the further refinements have been largely successful is testament to that fundamental soundness.

noir_lord 8y ago

It was way better than early marks of the SA80, it took decades for that to become reliable and HK essentially rebuilding it from scratch.

qball 8y ago

>Personally I believe that the reason that the AR15 is so popular (at least in the civilian world) is more that it's lego for adults who like guns, and less because of its utility as a platform. At least in the US and Canada, the primary driver is cost. The AR-15 is extremely cheap to make because the receiver is not a pressure-bearing component, and because you need very few machines to make the most important parts (of which there are fewer than most other guns due to the design). It doesn't help that import restrictions in the US make everything that's not an AR artificially expensive (complying with them has parts/labor overhead if it's even possible in the first place). The other guns you mentioned are not only more expensive to produce, but they also perform much worse (the SA80 had problems with literally every single part breaking or warping, the G36 melts because its barrel is cast into plastic, the AUG fires when it shouldn't and doesn't handle as well as an AR) to the point where nearly every country that currently uses these weapons are replacing them with some variety of AR15. The original design (gas piston behind bolt = no rotational forces against the carrier = no reinforcement needed in receiver) really is that good.

PhantomGremlin 8y ago
Do you consider the M27[1] to be an AR15 variant? Apparently the US Marines want everyone to use it? The "direct impingement gas system" has been changed to a "short stroke piston". At which point is one weapon merely a variant of another? Isn't this change in the action a significant improvement? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M27_Infantry_Automatic_Rifle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M27_Infantry_Automatic_Rifle
- jki275 8y ago
  It's an AR-15 variant just like the HK-416 it's based on. Yes, it has a piston, but technically the DI system has a piston too -- it's just configured differently.
- PeanutNore 8y ago
  The M27 upper is 100% compatible with a standard AR15 lower. The main advantage to the short stroke piston is that the gas tapped off the barrel that operates the system has less distance to travel before it hits the piston compared with the standard system, and so it works more reliably with short barrels than direct impingement. The "direct impingement" system of the M16 / AR15 isn't really true direct impingement, as the bolt itself works as a gas piston within the bolt carrier. But the gas has to travel much further to reach it than with a conventional piston.
  - potta_coffee 8y ago
    The reason it's more reliable, in my experience, is that direct impingement system introduces a shit load of fouling into your chamber and all the moving parts. After about 1k rounds, that bolt starts to move slowly from all the fouling, then you'll start to experience inconsistent feeding / ejecting. It's a shitty system and it's about time they've done something about it. The traditional fix is to dump a load of CLP into the rifle...which attracts sand and dust.
- electrograv 8y ago
  The M27 / HK 417 is an AR15 with a gas piston retrofit. There is an advantage to piston operating systems for really short barrels, where DI systems do not excel. In fact, many such piston AR retrofits exist in the US civilian AR market, but they’re generally thought to be of “unproven” longevity, at least. The advantages of the retrofit piston being slim and light is that the recoil increase is small. The disadvantage is that durability is questionable, as those pistons experience a lot of violent force and most guns designed from scratch to be piston operated have significantly heavier duty pistons, for good reason. You can read online of Marine armorers lamenting how their M27s are breaking down at a rate much faster than their M4s. This is of course anecdotal, but it is also not entirely worthless data.

baud147258 8y ago

> such as the H&K G36, the Steyr AUG, or the SA80. Or the FAMAS (or maybe it's just my Gallic pride talking ;))

simonh 8y ago

I think there are advantages over much of the competition. The SA80 was unreliable and ridiculously heavy. The Steyr Aug isn't modular enough - it's a big hunk of plastic and doesn't have enough space on the front to add accessories. The G36 is also a bit heavy, but has been canned due to persistent heat problems affecting firing accuracy. The polymer construction just isn't up to it. Also both bullpups suffer from horrible triggers, it's a problem with mechanically transferring the trigger action to the back of the gun. The AR 15 platform has benefited hugely from a lot of refinement and investment over a very long time. That's certainly true, but Stoner's concept for it is just really, really good and the fact that the design issues were all tractable and the further refinements have been largely successful is testament to that fundamental soundness.