New Zealand's New Rifle

[pardus]

Personally I think the Piston vs DI debate is a big non event and more based on creative marketing. Our 7.62 LMTs run quite cleanly even when suppressed and I've used them side by side with H&K 417's and would take the LMT and day of the week. If its a quality made rifle in the hands of a trained soldier, wether its DI or piston is largely irrelevant. By all accounts the 416 was at the back of the pack compared to the rest of the AR's at the trials.

Very interesting about the 416 & 417's, I was surprised to read that.
I just dont like hot, dirty gas fouling and heating my BCG. I'm also biased being brought up on the Steyr, and having owned SLR's for many years.

About the only real advantage of piston over DI is when using suppressors (can affect cycling and dumps a lot more gas in the BCG), IMO. However, I've countlessly seen DI gun shoot more accurate then Piston guns. I've had it explained a bunch a different ways, but however its explained, it seems to be a common factor, when judging accuracy.

Cleaning is obviously a plus in the piston department, but being my DI carbine hasn't been cleaned in about 4 years and several thousand rounds, and that it still runs like a raped date, I'm thinking the argument on cleaning is not so much a big issue.

My $.02

Yeah I've always heard DI guns are more accurate. But for for a rifle that isn't much good past 300m, how much does the minute amount of accuracy matter?
I prefer my gun to work everytime (i.e. be cleaner) and be as cool as is possible, hence my preference for a piston gun.
That said, DI guns are obviously fine.

 

[gafkiwi]

The rifles in the trials were put through our Manouver Forces (combat trade/unit) weapons qual, so they went back as far as 600m. Accuracy apparently didn't seem to be an issue more the energy they retained at that range.
The H&K's are a victim of their own PR tidal wave. A solid platform but with a large following mainly due to media exposure of users and computer games as opposed to actual users. In my experiance its been a big build up based on this rep and then the realisation once its used against other platforms (DI and Piston AR's) that it isn't a "silver bullet" or doesn't do any thing markedly better than any other good quality AR.

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

Very interesting about the 416 & 417's, I was surprised to read that.
I just dont like hot, dirty gas fouling and heating my BCG. I'm also biased being brought up on the Steyr, and having owned SLR's for many years.



Yeah I've always heard DI guns are more accurate. But for for a rifle that isn't much good past 300m, how much does the minute amount of accuracy matter?
I prefer my gun to work everytime (i.e. be cleaner) and be as cool as is possible, hence my preference for a piston gun.
That said, DI guns are obviously fine.

As for not much good past 300m, I would say 450-500m kill capability is more correct, depending on barrel length. But in theory, having a 1-2moa capability at 300m vs a 3-4moa is the difference between 5-10" cone of fire vs 15-20" cone of fire at 300m.

 

[pardus]

As for not much good past 300m, I would say 450-500m kill capability is more correct, depending on barrel length. But in theory, having a 1-2moa capability at 300m vs a 3-4moa is the difference between 5-10" cone of fire vs 15-20" cone of fire at 300m.

IIRC @Mac_NZ posted about a study done in NZ on the 5.56 which concluded that the round was ineffective at killing beyond roughly 400m, and that included using the best (77 grain etc...) rounds available as well as standard issue.
The standard issue rounds and rifle in the US Army make the M4 platform a 3 ish MOA weapon system IIRC.

 

[Mac_NZ]

There was a DTA paper kicking around the intranet from the DMR trials when they were pushing for a juiced up Steyr that showed the 5.56 Mk262 (?) was lacking the energy to kill past 400 odd meters. I talked with Maj B about it back then and he said 7.62 was the winner in that department and sent us a 417 to play with, I liked it but hated the ridiculous mags. It was not long after he said they were going to tap into the LMT as it was proven by the Brits and had all the test data there to back it up as opposed to reinventing the wheel. When I saw Fish last he said that it was LMT or 416 for the win, might have just been his personal opinion.

Did they do the trials with suppressors on? The last gig I did with ISWRUP testing the TA31NZ Acog we were using Surefire cans and they were pretty nice, fouled up the chamber a lot and all the rounds in the mag were covered in carbon though. There was a few other odd ball suppressors there too but I preferred the Surefire, apart from the release mech jamming up on mine.

 

[Diamondback 2/2]

Interesting, can someone give a link, I would like yo read about it.

 

[Mac_NZ]

I just tried looking for it on publications at the DTA website but can't find it there, I can find the one for sound pressure level of the Steyr AUG though. Maybe @gafkiwi knows where it is now but I no longer have access to the intranet, its a bit like AKO.

 

[gafkiwi]

A requirement was the rifles had to have a QD suppressor set up. All the rifles can take suppressors but they will only be issued to specific roles or requirements. In another forum I've seen the Surefire WARCOMP mentioned as the flash suppressor/comp the LMT had. The DMW's have surefire can's, I'm guessing LMT use them as a standard. It would make sense to stick with the one supplier and range.

Don't really know much about the testing or reports etc. But there is alot of discussion about barrel lengths and whether we'll have 1 or a range of lengths to pick from as the barrel change is done in a minute or 2 by the user. Main thing being getting the best mix of range and accuracy vs flexibility of the platform. I don't see the range as being such a big thing in a rifle section as the already have 2 x 7.62 guns and the 7.62 DMW with a 4.5-18X Leupold.

On a side note the LMT can be converted to or from piston in under 5 mins

 

[Poccington]

How are you guys getting on using Acogs with the height difference between the A3's receiver and an M4s? I remember our weapons team having issues trying to get around it culminating correctingly and we just had to use different holds.

When I first fired with the new Acog mounted it certainly seemed like it was slightly higher than the old optical sight, it wasn't a major drama though.

The new VTAC 2 point slings we have are pretty nice as well.

 

[gafkiwi]

When I first fired with the new Acog mounted it certainly seemed like it was slightly higher than the old optical sight, it wasn't a major drama though.

The new VTAC 2 point slings we have are pretty nice as well.

As Mac_NZ said some of our guys did have issues with ACOG's on the rails, some didn't. Guys would either have to retrain themselves on a slightly different cheek weld position or make up a cheek piece if it was that much of an issue