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The Following 4 Members Say Thank You to butcher41mag For This Useful Post:
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01-16-2020 11:05 PM
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Senior Member
If you reload, roll your own. It's not difficult.
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Contributing Member
I personally make my own GP-90 pressure cartridge. Those rifles are tons of fun, with the 12rd magazine it feels like your shooting forever before you reload. I can see why the Swiss
went to a 6rd magazine, the 12 was just not necessary.
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Question: Do you know how many people have said my rifle has too many bullets in it, when they are getting shot at?
Answer: None.
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Really Senior Member
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Thank You to RCS For This Useful Post:
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Originally Posted by
Mike2336
Question: Do you know how many people have said my rifle has too many bullets in it, when they are getting shot at?
Answer: None.
Actually many people have, there is a reason why trench mags for Mausers and Lee Enfield didn't go particularly far.
Our obsession with magazine capacity is a semi-auto and automatic thing. Larger magazine capacities in manual action rifles with quick loading systems doesn't add up to any more firepower, just makes the gun heavier and often exposes the magazine to more potential damage. For example the Swiss
1889 rifle has a 12rd capacity which was loaded with 2x 6rd chargers. A Swiss 1911 has a 6rd capacity loaded with 1x 6rd charger. To fire 12rds you still have to work the bolt 12 times and load two chargers in the gun. Same overall speed but now your rifle is better balanced and the magazine isn't as exposed.
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Really Senior Member
You will note that the Brits decided to keep the ten-round mag system (fed by 5 rd charger clips) to the bitter end. If all your "battle" ammo is delivered in fifty-round bandoliers full of ammo in chargers, it's a lot better than cardboard packets of loose rounds.
Detachable magazine design and technology got a serious boost via LMG development. Even then, if you look at all of the early mag-fed LMGs, The magazines were usually the "weakest link"; think "Chauchat", for starters., Even BAR mags are flimsy compared to what was developed with, say the ZB 26 and 30 series, and then the very robust mags of the German
StG family The mag on a G-43 seems to be derived from the MG13 magazine.
Charger clips still haven't gone away. In Australia
, particularly in the 1990's, a lot of 5.56 NATO ammo was packaged in nifty FIFTEEN round, plastic chargers (two refills per 30 rd mag) that would work with AUG and M-16 type mags. NOBODY goes outside the wire with loose rounds in their pockets, Multiple pouches packed with filled 30 rounders, with nary a charger clip in sight, except maybe in an air-dropped resupply.
If the Lee Metford had been set up with a magazine built like an AK mag, things might have been different. They certainly learned a few lessons from their contact with stripper recharged, 7mm Mausers in South Africa. Nobody else developed a bolt-action rifle with a standard ten round, double-stack mag system, fed by five-round chargers holding rimmed cartridges.
Charger-loaded Mosin Nagants only hold five. Lots of five and six round, rimmed and rimless en-bloc Mannlicher type systems, but none achieved the slickness of operation of a Lee Enfield
Last edited by Bruce_in_Oz; 01-18-2021 at 07:43 AM.
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Advisory Panel

Originally Posted by
Bruce_in_Oz
clips still haven't gone away
We still issue 100 rd bandoleers for the 5.56 ammo. Packed in tens with a mag charger included, it makes for faster reloads. I don't think anyone carries anything but loaded mags outside either. Same plastic clips and chargers, cloth bandoleers.
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Really Senior Member
Same overall speed but now your rifle is better balanced and the magazine isn't as exposed.
Actually its not, changing a magzine slows you down. In the case of a bolt action tht is sort of, hmm, but it does slow you down.
The Brits were into rapid fire and a well trained Infantryman prior to WWII could shoot a SMLE in the low end area of an M1
(realistically no - factually as your well trained Infantryman was taken out of action and replaced by a conscription that ability went by the wayside)
Still, the SMLE put out an amazing amount of fire for a bolt action. Slickest bolt of any gun I ever handled.
But it correct that there is a balance. Lots of stores out of Nam about being out gunned. But that 30 round mag on an AK-47 also meant you had to be raised up higher to shoot (along with the rim issue making it longer still).
The Bren was a good answer to the keep it low issue. The BAR would have benefited with that setup greatly and with a larger magazine.
A conscript army gets round envy. WWII infantry would have laughed (they went up against MG-42 with M1, but everyone had an M1, fire was spread out, a German
squad with rifles was there to support the MG-42 gunner carrying extra ammo in belts for it and side support to avoid a flanking).
Now, the troops are trained to fire semi auto unless there is a reason for full auto, save ammo. The Mk-27 is an example of a change in though process back to a heavier barrel with sustained longer range accuracy and spread the fire around a squad better.
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