Windburnt, sunburnt and rugburnt; with lots of detail on guns

[pecunium]

Ok, the rugburn is poetic license. I spent the weekend (Thurs., to Sat.) working a rifle range in San Luis Obispo. Not only do I not wear an LBE (web gear) every day, the new uniforms have a stiff collar, so I am more than a little chafed.




The range was dull, mostly. I was the armorer, responsible for checking out alleged malfunctions, and clearing jams which aren't fixable with immediate action (those drills the soldier is expected to perform when the weapon doesn't work).

Which makes it a NASCAR sort of job. I get to wait around, until something breaks. I can't do anything else. If I'm acting as a line safety, and someone has a problem, I have to leave that stretch of the line.

Thursday we issued rifles, grabbed some gear from the supply room, climbed on a bus and headed off. Got to Cp. SLO, drew ranges, zeroed the company, and got a string qualified; or not. Seems the new standards meant the grading of the targets was done wrong, and we had to re-shoot those guys on Fri. Since the first part of the rest of the Bn wasn't supposed to arrive until 1300, we had time. We even got to sleep in. So at 0730 we were on the range, and the company was done before noon.

I didn't do as well as I'd like. I injured my shoulder before I went to BCNCOC, and it seems to have moved my unsupported, and kneeling, point of aim. So the zero wasn't accurate for the second 20 rounds. At least the rain had ended, so I wasn't wet, merely chill.

I didn't, however, bolo. Had it been on the pop-up, not paper, range, I'd have managed to shoot at least five more hits, because there would have been visual feedback. C'est la guerre.



There was a fun jam. A bolt under-ride. The cartridge managed pop out of the magazine (technically a clip, but the nomenclature is changing; and the Army/Marines/Air Force, insist it's a magazine. For the M-14 it is, for the M-16 family, it isn't), and got out of line, so that the base was jammed between the top of the receiver, and the bolt-face.

It's not dangerous (more on danger later; there were some moments of excitment, which might have bordered on fear, if I wasn't working hard on analysing what was going on), just a nuisance. Because the upper-receiver isn't designed to have a casing above the bolt, there's not much room. A bit of brute force, to drag the whole thing back to where a tool (Gerber Multi-tool, don't work a range without one) can be used to pry it loose.

Brass doesn't spark, so even in the worst of outcomes (the case splits, and powder spills all over the lower receiver/into the magazine) not much is going to happen.

Saturday was more of the same, but we were running the range for another unit (we were supposed to be at Cp. Roberts, but other units needed it more than we did, so we convinced this other unit to let us have the range, in exchange for our running it, which meant they didn't have to provide safeties, draw the range, get the training, find an armorer, combat life saver, etc. It saved them man-days of work. Since they do nice things for us... month in, month out, it seemed a reasonable trade).

The weather was better (Fri. had been cold, drizzle [to a level that seemed non-existent to me, a veteran of Ft. Lewis, where falling mist is, "dry" weather] the usual breeze/wind of the central coast, and occasional sun. It was a beautiful day, if one wasn't standing still, running a cleaning rod down the barrel of every rifle that went on, or off the range; waiting for something to go wrong).

When Q called me over, saying a double-feed (where two rounds try to enter the chamber at once. It's usually caused by bent lips on the magazine. As the bolt comes to full-recoil a round pops out; resting above the magazine. When the bolt comes forward, it strips a round out of the clip, and they are both forced into the chamber), had led to a failure to extract (the cartridge fails to come out of the chamber).

I pulled the charging handle, and it moved back maybe a quarter inch. So I moved down to the empty part of the range. This is where thinking about things could lead to being scared.

The trigger had been pulled. Nothing had happened. Q insisted there was a live round in the chamber.

When a round fails to fire, there's a drill.

1: Hammer falls, nothing happens.
1.1: Freeze
1.2 Wait.
2. If possible, drop the hammer on the cartridge again.
3: If the cartridge fails to go off, repeat part 1.
4: Remove the cartridge.

Removing the cartridge is semi-dangerous. If it's not contained, the powder will force the bullet free, and then just vent into space. It's loud, and burns/cuts, and perhaps a broken finger are about the worst that can happen. If, however, the round goes off when it's half out of the chamber, bits of brass can fly away with a fair bit of speed. It's why one wears eye-protection. The blast can also rip away flesh, but it's not common.

But the M-16 can't be cocked, onto a loaded chamber. The act of cocking it extracts the round. There is a way to do it, but it's not as safe as I'd like.

The weapon can be opened, like a break action shotgun, and the hammer moved down. While that's going on, there's nothing keeping the bolt carrier (about 1 lb of milled steel) from leaving the weapon. If the round goes off... that piece of steel is going to fly backwards, at a fair rate of speed (For every action there is an equal, and opposite, reaction: 67 grain bullet doing 3,000 fps = 7,000 grain bolt carrier, you do the math).

So I cocked it, aimed at a convenient piece of dirt, and fired. Nothing happened.

I waited, and did it again.

At this point I was pretty sure the round in the chamber had been fired. My best guess was something kept the cartridge from clearing the chamber, and it was returned to battery. When that happened, a new round tried to feed.

Had the soldier, or Q, pulled the proper immdiate action, it would never have come to my being involved.

Since they didn't, and assumed it was a normal double-feed, they put an expended (and expanded) case into the chamber, and it froze.

Having decided all of this, I still had a problem. The cartridge was still jammed in the chamber. I laid the rifle down on a piece of wood (the lane marker, firmly attached to the ground), and slammed it with the heel of my hand. pop I have an empty cartridge.

The rifle was, apart from some lube slopping around the ejection port, bone dry. So I lube it, and gave it back. It did the same trick about 30 rounds later. Proper sports prevented it from jamming again.

Later in the afternoon, that was the real excitement.

Rifles are very simple things. They may be put together in complicated ways (the M-16 has some of that), but the basic function is straightforward. Despite this lots of shooters blame the weapon for missing the target.

Usually it's operator error, even when the rifle is missing the target. The last is usually because some aspect of the sights have been grossly misaligned.

But I got called over because a rifle was reportly firing more than one round at a time, even though it was impossible to place it on burst.

I had it left behind when we cleared the range, and loaded up 20 rounds.

Aimed at a chunk of dirt.

Pow.

Pow.

Pow,pow.

Pow

Pow..pow.

p-pow

About one time in three it went off more than once. Worse, it didn't do this with regularity, nor yet with any clear time lag between shots.

The only consistent thing was that it didn't happen if I was quick off the trigger. If I held the trigger back (which is proper practice) it might go off. It didn't ever go off three times, but....

When a semi-automatic weapon is fired the sear (the binding faces on the hammer and trigger; to be oversimple) is engaged by a spur. The spur arrests the bolt, preventing the rifle from going off again) That spur was worn.

I told the sodier the weapon was deadlined; and wrote up a note to hand her supply sergeant (or armorer, if they have one; most units don't). Then Joe came up and told me the rifle was known to be deadlined when it was issued.

To say I was annoyed to find this out... understates the case.

There were at least four failures here.

1: The rifle wasn't tagged.
2: It was stored with good weapons (this isn't, ispso facto a failure... I keep deadlined weapons in the rack with good ones... but the are tagged; a big read tag, right on the front sight assembly).
3) When the weapons were being issued no one mentioned the deadline.
4: When the weapon was issued out, no one reclaimed it.
5: No one told the soldier the weapon was unsafe.

The spur might have failed completly. At that point the weapon could have runaway, i.e. fired until it was out of ammo.

It probably wouldn't, releasing the trigger ought to have caused the sear proper to engage; but the sear on the M-16A2 has some defects in design (mostly related to the burst function, which has a stepped sear; which clicks across three steps. If the trigger is released before the burst is completed, the spring which holds the sear closed is held by a reduced pressure. It can be as little as 2 lbs.).

If I were to make that many failures (esp. the last), I'd count myself lucky to only lose a 1/2 months pay, and keep my rank. It's gross negligence; and it put the lives of every soldier on the range at risk.




But we got 93 percent of the Bn qualified, as well as about 2/3rds of the other unit, and no one got hurt. There was one heat casualty (minor dehydration. Claimed to have been drinking all day. I believe that, but said troop was also drinking all night, draw your own conclusion.

Comments

[michael-b-lee.livejournal.com]

What causes a round to go off when removing it? I thought it took a directed impact (the firing pin against the primer) to cause one to fire.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It's called hangfire.

What happens is the primer gets dented (an ember lands in the pan), and it doesn't go off immediately. There are lots (for certain values of lots) of reasons this can happen. Mostly it's from a misplaced/aligned anvil (the structure in the case/primer which pinches the lead azide (the normal compound for primers, these days; replacing fulminate of mercury), which pinches the compound, but doesn't have enough between it, and the cup, to cause immediate detonation.

The other reason for it is a round which has a large space in the cartridge, and a small amount of powder (this isn't uncommon with 30-06, because modern powders have a lot more oomph. It's really a concern with things like 45-70, 30-50 and the like, because black powder [the source of the second number is how many grains of black powder the cartridge was designed to contain) is much larger, for effect, than modern smokeless powders.

When that happens (large space, small quantity of powder) the amount of powder the primer ignites can be small, or against just the surface (primers have a lot of energy, they will shoot sparks 8-18 inches past the muzzle) of the powder. That causes a delay in pressure build up.

I've had a few hangfires, none were longer than 1/3rd of a second.

It was a long third of a second.

TK

[quercus.livejournal.com]

'Scuse the ignorant Brit, but what's this about an M-16 using a clip rather than a magazine? Isn't the whole box a removable unit, replaced (with contents) during reloading? And isn't that usually what's called a magazine?

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

It is, as you say, usually called a magazine, but it isn't.

Any more than a cartridge, which is commonly so miscalled, is a bullet.

The difference between a magazine and a clip has to do with the ability to add to it.

A magazine can be added to, without removing it from the weapon.

A clip cannot.

So the SA-80 (a decent weapon, though I kept getting bitten by the cover when charging it, as well as when locking the bolt to the rear. It needs to have the handle moved to the other side, but I digress), the M-16, the AK series, and all the semi-autos which have a closed upper reciever, have clips.

The M-14 has an open topped receiver, so it can be loaded from above, without removing the magazine.

The confusion actually stems from SMLE, and the M-14, both of which had removable box magazines.

The interesting thing is that this nomenclatural shift hasn't, really, moved to pistols.

TK

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

So the correct nomenclature depends on the design of the weapon?

OK, there might be some detail of the magazine lips that matters for loading, but I don't see any obvious reason why that M-16 box couldn't be used on a weapon with an open-topped receiver.

Anyway, I have the feeling the nomenclature has changed a few times, from bolt-action Mauser-style battle rifles through the M-1, M-14, and now the M-16.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Yes, the nomenclature depends on the weapon. Mostly, it hasn't changed.

The Mauser has a magazine (one can top it off). The Krag did too (meant to be loaded from the side, in an attempt to make it possible to load it while prone).

The BAR, and Bren gun had clips. In the M-16 family (which include the SA-80, and the Canadian C4) the bolt design makes it impossible to load with a magazine style.

The M1 has an open-topped receiver (the same design as the M-14 family of rifles) but the mechanism of the system made it impossible to top up, so it has clips (and annoying they are, as is the way they load. M1 thumb is really painful.

TK

[antonia-tiger.livejournal.com]

I have a PDF of the 1939 Small Arms training, Valume 1, Pamphlet No. 4, Light Machine Gun.

The Bren has a magazine.

But that is the British Army.

(And what some people would call a clip, originally for loading the SMLE-family, is named a "charger".)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

We call it a stripper clip, but the guide which makes it useful, is a "charging guide".

The Mauser, the M-14 and the SMLE have cut outs, designed to make the stripper clip stay in line when the magazine is being loaded.

TK

[qp4.livejournal.com]

I was taught that a "clip" is the little metal thingie that holds rounds.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

You were taught wrong. :)

That is a stripper clip, and is used to load magazines, and, for want of a better term (in this context) "clips"

TK

[trebor1415.livejournal.com]

You were taught right. See my post below.

[pindar.livejournal.com]

The SA-80 a decent weapon? Are you on drugs?

Even the A2 is still a pig of a weapon to use, difficult to clan and maintain, the flippy-over cover thing for the working parts arrangement is forever breaking off and allowing grit into the springs, and the pin still breaks every chance it gets. The gas parts are also a pig, and it has terrible balance. The LSW is a piss-poor section level weapon and is now used out of role as a sort of sniping weapon, otherwise we've gone back to the GPMG.

On a procedural note, don't you personal-issue weapons? All of ours are and it means if a weapon goes US then there's no chance it could be handed on at the armoury to someone else who is unaware that the weapon has been "teched" even if it hasn't been tagged before going back for repair.

Also, our SOPs require an issue log to be kept (as I'm sure yours does), and an officer to be present in the armoury as weapons are drawn who then signs the log and again on receipt. If any wepons are declared US by either the soldier to whom the weapon has been issued or the range DS then it is immediately logged on return and the officer signs off on the report. The officer is the personally responsible when the RQMS assumes responsibility for unit weapons once the armourer has signed over the armoury. The RQMS will usually have the armourer do a routine service of the weapons that will (should) pick up wear and tear - so god help the officer that didn't report a problem back that is recorded in the log.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

We do, but there are lazy twits, who aren't willing to either do the work of properly assigning, or the record keeping of properly issuing.

I keep the log. When we get new soldiers, and are issuing out weapons, my Supply Sergeant re-works the assignment page, so that each soldier is properly indexed to their own weapon.

But weapons are assinged by duty position (the XO gets rifle no. 1, the 1SG gets no. 2, and so on down the line. So as people move around, they get new weapons. It's quite possible for a soldier to not know that a weapon was previously deadlined. In the 15 years I've been with my unit, I've had six different weapons assigned.

And I know the TA is willing to not worry about it. When I was up at Cameron last summer, it was first come, first served, so I got three different rifles in the course of time (though we kept the same weapon for all the ranges). I'd say it was just because I was extra, but it was across the board.

As for the SA-80 being hard to clean, you've never had to clean (or really maintain, which is a bitch) an M-16. Tha balance does stink on ice. Carrying it around for five days was a right pain in the ass, because it can't be carried, and having it slung, constantly, made getting at gear a pain.

The trade off is the way it handles, without having to shorten the barrel (the M-4, as well as the tanker Garand both suffer from problems related to 8this; they have a shorter barrel, and use the same ammunition, which decreases the muzzle velocity, which (because F=MA) reduces the energy, and then wind causes a larger decrease in retained energy at impact.

This isn't a real problem with the tanker Garand (or it's offspring, the M1A-S, though I had my ammo for that made to counteract that. Faster burning. A little more recoil, but in a semi-auto it's not a problem. With the 5.56 ammo the M-16 uses, it becomes a problem if someone is wearing body armor, and standing more the 150m away, but I digress).

I think the cover is silly, but having a piston, instead of dumping the gas directly into the chamber is so much better.

I'm responsible for the maintainence logs, and if a weapon is deadlined, I'm the first on the block for it should something go wrong later. The CO can re-issue certain types of malfunction; so long as it doesn't really affect safety, dinged sights, damaged buffer spring, etc.

At that, if I say it's dead, the CO won't question it, and I'll tag it, order parts (if it's a unit level fix, or send it to Depot if it can't be repaired on site. I can take it apart, all the way down, but am not allowed to do it at a unit level. If I were at a depot, I could. That prevents things, like burst/automatic sears from going missing, as well as people replacing bolts, without taking the wear and tear which creates the timing into account. It also makes sure soldiers don't try to fix things they don't really know how to mess with).

TK

[trebor1415.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to disagree on the, "it's a magazine if it can be topped off without removing it from the weapon" and "it's a clip if it can NOT be topped off without removing it from the weapon" defination.

I have *never* heard that used as the defination of the difference between a magazine and a clip. Not only have I not heard that defination, it contradicts the commonly accepted defination of the difference between a clip and a magazine.

The commonly accepted defination for the difference between a "clip" and a "magazine" is this:

A "clip" does NOT contain a spring to feed the cartridges into the chamber. A "magazine" DOES contain a spring to feed the cartridges into the chamber.

An easy way to tell the difference is this: "A clip is used to load the magazine of a rifle. The rifle's magazine may be permamently fixed (non-detachable) or detachable. The rifle's magazine holds the rounds and feeds them into the chamber."

A clip is a piece of sheetmetal used to hold cartridges together for easier insertion into the magazine. One example would be the "stripper clips" used to load (with a charger guide/spoon)M-16 magazines. These types of "stripper clips" are also often called "chargers."

There are also stripper clips/chargers available to load M-14 rifle magazines. These can be used if the magazine is in the rifle, by using the charger guide on the receiver or can be used to load the magazines when they are separated from the rifle. In that case they have a separate "stripper clip guide" (or "charger guide" or "spoon" - all the same thing) that is attached to the magazine so the stripper clips can be used to load the magazine.

Another example is the WWII U.S. M-1 Garand. The Garand uses a sheet metal "en bloc" clip that holds 8 cartridges. It is called an "en bloc" clip instead of a "stripper clip" because instead of "stripping" the rounds off the clip into the magazine, the whole unit of clip and 8 cartridges is inserted into the (internal) magazine of the rifle. The clip fits INTO the internal, non-detachable magazine of the Garand. The rounds are held by the clip in the magazine, but the follower spring built into the internal magazine feeds the rounds into the chamber.

The M-1 Garand is probably the reason for the confusion between "clip" and "magazine." In WWII the U.S. had weapons with a detachable magazine, such as the B.A.R, the M-1 Carbine, and the 1911 pistol and we had the M-1 Garand with it's "en bloc" clips. Since the U.S. soldiers were used to refering to the "clips" that were used to load the M-1 Garand, they took to calling the "magazines" for the Carbine, B.A.R, 1911 pistol, etc, "clips" as well. The technical distinction between "clip" and "magazine" was lost on them. The misuse of "clip" for "magazine" has now entered popular usage, althought it's still incorrect.

If you think about it, determing if something is a "clip" or a "magazine" based on the rifle design doesn't make a lot of sense either. For example, the FN FAL has two variants. In one variant, the "metric pattern" version, the magazine can NOT be reloaded when it is in the rifle. That means by your defination it would be a "clip." Yet there is another variant of the FN FAL, the so-called inch version, that has a stripper clip guide in the top of the dust cover so that the magazine can be loaded with stripper clips while the magazine is in the rifle. That means that if we take two identical magazines, whether it is a magazine or a clip would be dependant on which rifle we use that magazine with.

Here's a couple of Wiki links that talk about the difference. I could dig up non-wiki references if I had to as well, but these cover the info.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clip_(ammunition)

The "Dean Speir" article linked at the bottom of the Wiki "clip" article is a good article to read as well.

Here's the Wiki article on Magazines:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_(firearm)

[quercus.livejournal.com]

In a quaint old English phrase, 'Bollocks'.

All repeating single-chamber non-belt-fed firearms(*) have a magazine. It's a box, tube, drum, Calico helix or whatever and it stops the rounds falling on the floor. Some of these magazines are fixed in place, some are replaceable for rapid loading (Bren, SLR, M-16, AK), others are generally issued as one-offs attached to a specific weapon but they're removable for either cleaning or (slow) re-loading.

(*) Exceptions to this are few. The crazy WW2 French LMG with the horizontal feed tray had no magazine (and suffered because). There were also crazy open hopper-fed LMGs (Japanese and I think French). Some heavy calibre repeaters and semi-autos (Bofors, Rarden) use a robust clip that needs no additional magazine. A horizontal drum / pan magazine (Lewis, Vickers K or various Soviet LMGs) has some possible claim to being a "clip with a lid" instead of a magazine.

There are also clips. Not all weapons use these. Some are (as you term it) en bloc and the rounds are fed from this clip. Others are stripper clips that are only used for re-loading into another magazine.

Inside a magazine is a mechanism for moving the rounds around (this is a crucial distinction from most clips other than strippers). The next round to be fired feeds from only one position in the magazine and the rest of them are shuffled up behind it. Clips retain their rounds in position and the clip moves relative to the feed mechanism.

I've never seen a clip that had springs or feed lips. There are retainer springs etc. but nothing like a magazine's follower spring or lips for feeding the next round axially. Every clip I've ever seen or heard of either doesn't feed (the round comes straight out of the clip from whatever position in the clip it was loaded into), or it feeds radially. Even the original Mannlicher design pops the round upwards out of the clip, then starts to move it forwards as a separate action.

As to the distinction that magazines are toppable, clips aren't, then that's just arbitrary and irrelevant. A clip-loaded weapon is unlikely to be toppable, but then so are the majority of magazine loaders too. Historical ideas of squad infantryman contributing the odd round to keep the LMG firing turned out to be very bad ideas in practice (I think the Japanese and the Italians both got bitten by this). It's fine to say "Any round is better than a clean round you don't have" when it's you in the foxhole, but the big picture turned out to be the other way round. Keeping rounds clean matters, and that's why pretty much everything these days uses dry rounds stored in well-sealed magazines (do issue M-16 magazines still come in snap-open plastic bags?). No-one cares about topping-off when the resultant consequence is stoppages.

[qp4.livejournal.com]

I wish ANY QUAL of my life had been in suspenders and pistol belt. That would've been worth the A2s and the runaway weapon that I could have still grabbed a thirty on.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

If we had vests, we'd wear them, but we don't.

TK