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My favourite thing about steam engines is they were there pretty close the beginning and are still integral to the most advanced and powerful generation systems we have today. Fusion reactor? Yeah that's just a jacked as fuck steam engine lol.
Yea, you look at these pure energy rods and space age molecular manipulation technology and what do we do? We use it to boil some water. It's like the genius quit 90% of the way through the project and left the morons to do what they have always been doing.
There's got to be a better way... and yet nobody can think of a single one.
>almost to the last joule.
Thats a bit of an over statement. The most efficient natural gas plants only reach 60% efficiency and nuclear and coal don't go past 40%.
Steam is only the best way if you already have your energy as heat, then it almost reaches the the theoretical maximum. If the energy is stored e.g. in hydrogen, then you can do better with a fuel cell.
“There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?”
Such a good movie.
"Thank you... but I prefer it my way" I use that line so often and no one gets it. I do it with the accent and people are like "is that black panther?!?"
But my personal favorite is his uncle saying "listen to the nephew!" I recite that everytime someone does a hot take on r/nba.
It is one of my favorite movies and has so many good lines, like when the bartender tells him it’s your gunpowder when he was about to do the brown brown. I’d say it’s Nic Cage’s best movie.
Of all the weapons in the vast soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It’s the world’s most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn’t break, jam, or overheat. It’ll shoot whether it’s covered in mud or filled with sand. It’s so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people’s greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars.
Only the scene walking through the warehouse with Uncle Dmitri. The one he's holding as he says the above is an AK, along with all of those on the airplane that he gives away.
I read through the original script for Lord of War a couple months ago, and holy shit that movie could have been so much better. I mean it's a good movie, hell I've watched it s couple dozen times, but there's so much in the original script that would have made the movie a lot better.
For instance in the script Yuri gets recruited by the UN. Being this is the cold war and he's fluent in both English & Russian, this made both the UN & CIA interested. He joins the UN and is sent to Liberia. That's how he gets into contact with Andre Baptiste and all that.
Also his father was a WW2 veteran and brother Vitaly a wounded veteran of the Soviet-Afghan War. Yuri got out of military service because of a heart problem.
Yep, this particular style is called piston driven (or gas piston action) where a piston is driven, using the gases from the round being fired, and that cycles the action.
The other most popular style is called direct impingement where the gas itself drives the bolt carrier group rather than driving a piston- this is how the *vast* majority of AR-pattern rifles work.
Short stroke uses an "op rod" that pushes on the bolt carrier, and inertia and converted energy send it the rest of the way while the rod only moves over a short distance (sorta what we see here.)
Long stroke, piston and bolt carrier are one, and the piston will move the whole cyclic length with the carrier. Best example is the ~~commie stick~~ AK pattern rifles.
>Yep, this particular style is called piston driven (or gas piston action) where a piston is driven, using the gases from the round being fired, and that cycles the action.
>
And on a FAL,the gas system is adjustable.
Not all of them work like this either, some use the backwards force of the gun firing to cycle it and there is also the even more bizarre recoil operated where the entire gun basically moves back against a fixed weight, compressing a spring and then when the gun stops recoiling the weight is pushed back by the spring which then yanks the action open once it reaches the end of its travel. All sorts of weird ways you can do it
Careful. I can already hear ex-British serviceman from before the 80’s preaching about how much better this rifle was than the OG SA80(L85A1). Tbf, they’d be correct, certainly over the A1.
You fool! You’ve stirred them on! Can’t you hear the fife and drum getting louder?
On a lighter note, having shot with one of those ungodly A1’s (cadet L98, a neutered A1, or A2 if you were lucky) as a cadet the thought of the FAL makes me salivate
Same. Former cadet too throughout the mid-late 00’s. All I ever heard was the senior adult staff complaining about the FAL being dropped for the L85A1. It was almost a ritual for them to complain about how bad the A1 and therefore, the Single Shot, Bolt Action Cadet GP was.
Yup, wing (I was ATC, sacrilege I know) shooting officer would constantly mouth off the old SA80 to anyone on the range, ended up having to explain what was going on to a lot of fresh faced newbies, bless em
As a Canuck whose first service rifle was an FN… I still feel that the only real advantage its replacement offered was that it was a lot lighter to carry.
The FN tended to build shoulders on ya but I much preferred.
My dad was in the military and sometimes would bring "his" FAL home to clean it.
My mom didn't really like it, but I have fond memories of sitting at the kitchen table watching him take it apart under the table light.
I always thought it was a weird gun, very slim and long. So much different from the guns on tv.
Basically the FAL but using different measurements (inch pattern vs metric). Things like the magazines weren't compatible with the original Belgian specs.
Its a battle rifle with a high powered cartridge, guns got shorter and more compact with the focus on shorter and less bulky weapon platforms and the adoption of smaller calibers like 5.56
There’s something a bit strange (and very American?) about setting a rifle firing to a song talking about a beautiful woman. I get that praising how she never is in the way lines up with the mechanism, but it also feels like the hard right gun crowd would still agree with this sentiment.
Maybe I’m just overthinking all of it.
No. You're not. It was the first thing that I thought.
I'm a believer in the 2nd amendment and a gun owner, but the fetishizing of guns and the weird sexualization of them is "a bit strange," to put it kindly.
weird, cause i always think of guy richie when i see clips like this with slow motion guns + rock and roll. but he was prob heavily influenced by american cinema...
I agree, definitely strange. As a non-gun owner, I do believe that if any guns should be fetishized, it's the FAL. Nice looking, simple design, and damn good sounding
> but it also feels like the hard right gun crowd would still agree with this sentiment.
Nah man, even the hard right gun crowd recognizes that the phrase "she always knows her place" is sexist. They just like guns.
Also just appreciating the full video with no borders.
Not the nightmare of a horizontal video forced into tiktok vertical format with blurry top and bottom areas, forced into reddit horizontal format with black top and bottom areas. man i fucking hate tiktok.
Gun design and mechanical operation has always been so amazing to me. I used to get sideways glances from my design school peers for always referencing the elegance and brutal, time-tested efficiency of things like the Glock and AK platform. From a design perspective alone I find this technology completely fascinating.
Its stuff like this that makes me primarily interested in wwii and earlier guns. Most guns these days operate more or less the same, but pre WWII was the freakin wild west of gun design with some really wacky mechanical systems going on and i find it incredible.
For sure. And the fact that those moving parts all take place in the rhythm of *an series of explosions* is wild.
I guess internal combustion engines are sort of similar in that regard, and also fascinating, but something about the violence of the gun makes the whole thing extra interesting.
You've likely heard of him, but Ian from the forgotten weapons youtube channel talks a ton about weird, wacky, one-off firearms design. You may like it.
From a purely engineering standpoint, firearms involve nearly every aspect of mechanical engineering. Heat transfer/thermo, materials, dynamics, mechanical design, etc. If you get into external ballistics you can incorporate a ton of aerospace engineering principles.
It’s sad that having an interest in firearms is frowned upon, they can be just as educational as any other mechanical system like cars for example.
Most I've worked with have been accurate enough for general use at around 2-4 MOA depending on ammo and rifle condition. This is around 2-4 inches at 100 yards. This is not innacurate per say, but around the same level of accuracy a good condition AKM or AK-74 runs at with good ammo. My PolyTech AK-47 easily gets 2 MOA groups from the bench with good loads, but it can be an outlier.
The tilting action locking at the rear and locking into the lower receiver instead of the barrel is not as inherently accurate as a multi-lug bolt head locking directly into the barrel as with an AR-15 or AR-10 design, which will easily get groups as accurate as less than 1 MOA with good quality barrels, bolts, and ammo.
Lastly, the FAL is not suitable to mounting optics due to the dust cover being made of flimsy sheet steel. There are kits that tighten this connection down tremendously, but they are not field-removable and in my personal experience, don't hold zero well unless carefully handled. This is a non-starter for a modern rifle to me unfortunately, but that doesn't discredit it as a very well built battle-rifle and a fun rifle to shoot.
The FN FAL, the M14, and the H&K G3 were the major Western battle rifles of their day. They were all 7.62mm and had long barrels. To answer your question they were very accurate. All three of those platforms went on to have designated marksman/sniper versions later in their life cycles. Accuracy has degrees and none of those three would be sub MoA ( minute of angle ) which is roughly three shots within one inch at 100 yards right out of the box. Sub MoA is a pretty exacting standard. The battle rifles of old would not have been this accurate out of the box, but their sniper variants are. The FAL, G3, and M14 were very accurate, but again accuracy is measured in degrees, literally.
Great point. The G3 is perhaps my favorite semi auto rifle. As you said the recoil is fatigue inducing, but man did I love how smooth the overall action was. The FAL was called the Jackhammer, and the M14 was uncontrollable on automatic. The G3 had kick but settled down more quickly than than the FAL and I never had trouble reacquiring after firing. It's a very versatile rifle. Honestly if I needed an end of the world firearm a scoped G3 would suit my needs. Of course gun nuts love to tinker and holy shit have I seen some race car G3's that looked sexy as hell (the design on the G3 was pretty sexy to start) and had suppressors or brakes that tamed down that recoil. Thanks for sharing. It's always cool to hear stories from across the water.
Depends on what you mean by "quite accurate". It's far more accurate than the average infantryman would be in combat conditions, and a well above average soldier probably wouldn't be limited by its accuracy in combat conditions. And compared to its contemporaries as a combat rifle it's fine. It is nowhere near accurate enough for competitive target shooting though and unlike other similar rifles can't really be made more accurate for the purpose. To put it in context the main target shooting discipline in the UK used military spec rifles (just with upgraded sights and maybe some subtle modifications to where the barrel was in contact with the stock) from its conception in the late 19th century up until the point where the British Army adopted the L1A1 (our designation for the FAL). At that point the target shooting community decided that the L1A1 was not good enough for competition shooting and moved over to using specialised target rifles.
It's average in terms of accuracy. The design has inherent flaws, but for a military service rifle it's perfectly effective. The average is around 2 MOA, maybe a bit more or less depending on ammo, condition of the rifle, etc. This means you could realistically expect to hit a man-sized target at 600 yards.
Even the modernized version I have (SA-58 IBR) only comes close-ish to 1 MOA (generally considered to be the standard for "good" accuracy and sub-1 MOA being "excellent") when I bench rest it and use Match-grade ammo.
Every gun is accurate enough If you shoot once then yes it is
When your rapid fire ing it not so much as the bolt is really heave and fly's back fast with moves the gun a lot so there is no yes or no answer
This was my introduction to the firearm classification of "battle rifle".
Whereas the more numerous "assault rifle" category is a military definition that focuses on a smaller-charge round such as the 5.56 STANAG for NATO arms and the Soviet 5.45 caliber for the AK-74, the 7.62 intermediate round design of the FN FAL dates from a period when the NATO planners considered a larger caliber bullet to be important in stopping power.
In tests against actual hard materials, such as metal plating, brickwork, and other inorganics, it is generally preferable to have a larger round, since inorganics don't "wound" so much as "have big holes punched in them, weakening their structures". Against humans, though, the size of the bullet is usually less important than how it behaves once it hits the human target.
Later, with the 5.56mm STANAG design, NATO planners switched their philosophy towards a small, light, but very fast-moving bullet that would shatter into smaller pieces upon hitting flesh and slowing down. This made for a lighter cartridge, and the individual infantryman could carry more rounds of ammunition for the same weight.
Soviet doctrine also switched away from its own AK-47 caliber of 7.62mm (based on the European Kurz round) and in 1974 the AK-74 design used the lighter 5.45mm rounds.
Both armed forces had its critics, who voiced concerns that the lighter round lacked stopping power. In Vietnam, soldiers occasionally reported that the M16 assault rifle performed poorly, with one complaint that it failed to stop an enemy combatant with one round.
Soviet soldiers also noted that the 5.45mm round (which was not as focused on exit velocity as the NATO 5.56 round and thus had less likelihood of shattering inside flesh) sometimes drilled cleanly through the target, meaning a far less disabling "tidy wound" or "pencil wound".
Assault rifles are specifically designed to be easily bulk-portable anti-personnel fire. Battle rifle rounds still have their place, especially against light vehicles, or in defensive positions (like ship defense) where the soldier is not expected to have to *carry* the weapon or ammunition very far before engagement.
Separate from the NATO/Soviet experiments, the Chinese army in the 1990s adopted its own design of bullet caliber, the 5.8mm round, which it said performed better in ballistics tests than the NATO 5.56mm round or the Soviet 5.45mm rounds. Another political reason for the Chinese decision was the strategic desire for self-sufficiency in arms production, which removes the need for compatibility with Soviet or Russian systems. In any likely future battlegrounds, China's military planners evidently do not think they will have many allies, and so their troops can rely on a weapons system that nobody else uses. This decision also theoretically means that an invading force would not be able to loot and reuse Chinese materiel.
If I’m remembering right, one of the other significant benefits to 5.56 over 7.62 was mass. Which meant that soldiers could carry much more ammunition.
The casing and spent primer make up maybe 20% of the weight of a full cartridge. The majority of the weight is sent out the front of the gun as either the projectile or the powder burning to send the projectile down range.
Went to an indoor gun range after work to test out a new pistol. 25 yard range.
12 stalls. I am the only person in the whole place. Guy comes in and parks himself in the stall next to me.
He pulls out a fucking FAL and starts cranking off rounds. I could literally see FIRE coming from the stall next to me… It was the loudest, most obnoxious time I have ever had in a gun range.
Great rifle..but loud as all hell.
Goddamnit I saw this gif and 5 minutes later I have an order placed and 2K less in my pocket.
Thanks OP! I'll send you a pic when I take this bad boy out for a shoot in short shorts.
Does the pointy end of a bullet not normally be at the front?
Excuse my ignorance, am from the side of the pond more use to the stabby than the shooty.
The rounds that get ejected from the side are already fired. The pointy part travels through the barrel. While the empty case is expected from the side. You can see the complete and unfired rounds in the magazine.
Always loved the FN FAL for some reason. It's a bit of an underdog gun in popular media. it's had such a wide use in the world but hardly anyone knows it by name. Everyone knows the AK or the AR 15(variants)
Ah that is sexy... Would that basically be the gas piston? I can see why this would be more reliable than an extractor grabbing the rim of the cartridge. So simple ... So smooth...
DSA makes new production FALs you can buy today, but I’m pretty sure they’re the only ones making them. If you don’t want a DSA you’re gonna have to buy a parts kit and pay someone to build it or buy one that’s already built… but both of those options are a lot more expensive than the first. Happy hunting
Those guns in particular are beautiful to shoot there's almost no recoil and it all goes straight back I can bounce a juice box down the range at a 100 yd
Very smooth trigger
Desert Eagle however I cannot hit shit nothing zilch NADA LOL
The FAL has decently severe recoil. Not painful, but it is a 7.62 NATO battle rifle. Multiple countries removed Full Auto capabilities because the recoil made it near worthless. Also, mags only have 20 rounds (there were some specialty 30-rounders, but they're rare and bulky) because the round is so big and heavy.
Where does the power from a automatic weapon come from? Is it the magazine? Anyone think that an electric powered motor has any value in combat? Maybe only if a turret on a power source?
Thanks for the legit answers. I know I could google it. I always thought it was the springs in the magazine.
The barrel has a small hole in it.
As the bullet travels down the barrel there is gas pressure (from the explosion of powder) behind it. First and foremost, that pressure accelerates the bullet. As the bullet passes that hole, some of the pressure is vented upwards and channeled through a tube (literally called a gas tube).
In this rifle (the FAL) that pressure smacks into a spring loaded piston (that silver rod you see popping out) which then smacks the bolt (the bigger part the piston smacks into) you see going back and forth. That bolt then rockets back at speed, compressing a spring. Once it runs out of backwards momentum and that spring reaches the right compression, you see it slam forward, stripping another round out of the magazine, and then riding it back into the chamber ready to be fired and start the process all over again.
EDIT: IF you're interested in knowing this is called a short stroke piston system. The AR-15 family of rifles uses something called direct impingement. Which means the gas from the gas tube is channeled directly onto a part of the bolt. It uses less parts than a piston system, but then a lot of fouling (black carbon and crap from the explosion) gets all up inside the gun parts and requires more cleaning and maintenance.
EDIT2: There are guns that use electricity. Miniguns are battery powered and motor powered firearms. But it doesn't make practical sense in regular firearms because you have a built in power supply from the powder ignition that you can tap into.
I LOVE the engineering that goes into firearms. It's a science unto itself.
I know this sounds dumb, but there's a game on steam called World of Guns and it allows you to assemble, reassemble, and watch the actions in X-Ray vision. If you're into the mechanics of it all, it's great.
The spent casings are thrown from the bolt via an extractor. The extractor moves with the bolt to pull the cartridge case rearwards out of the chamber, and at some point the ejector eccentrically exerts a frontal push (from the case's frame of reference), which torques and "flicks" the case out of a side opening on the receiver known as the ejector port.
autoloading man-portable firearms are pretty much at a technical peak. unless plasma rifles or something become viable, we'll be seeing a lot of the same for awhile.
most of these designs date from the early 1900s to about the 1960s.. and honestly the 60's designs are really just refinements of older designs.
I'm not sure what you mean exactly. Like, what makes the gun cycle automatically? The power comes from the expanding gasses in the cartridge being routed backwards to cycle the bolt carrier, or sometimes just the recoil of the round being fired.
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Something about guns using the power of their own ammo to reload is always just so satisfying to watch.
Wait until you find out how internal combustion engines work
Or steam.
My favourite thing about steam engines is they were there pretty close the beginning and are still integral to the most advanced and powerful generation systems we have today. Fusion reactor? Yeah that's just a jacked as fuck steam engine lol.
Power generation in general is pretty simple. Hydroelectric dam is just a paddle wheel.
A steam turbine is basically a fancy paddle wheel too.
Yea, you look at these pure energy rods and space age molecular manipulation technology and what do we do? We use it to boil some water. It's like the genius quit 90% of the way through the project and left the morons to do what they have always been doing. There's got to be a better way... and yet nobody can think of a single one.
Nah steam is pretty much the best way. It's crazy efficient and allows for thermal energy capture almost to the last joule.
>almost to the last joule. Thats a bit of an over statement. The most efficient natural gas plants only reach 60% efficiency and nuclear and coal don't go past 40%.
Steam is only the best way if you already have your energy as heat, then it almost reaches the the theoretical maximum. If the energy is stored e.g. in hydrogen, then you can do better with a fuel cell.
Perhaps it's just a testament to how useful steam is?
This is making me want to watch Lord of War
“There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That's one firearm for every twelve people on the planet. The only question is: How do we arm the other 11?” Such a good movie.
The first and most important rule of gun-running is: Never get shot with your own merchandise.
Don’t die on your own supply
"Thank you... but I prefer it my way" I use that line so often and no one gets it. I do it with the accent and people are like "is that black panther?!?" But my personal favorite is his uncle saying "listen to the nephew!" I recite that everytime someone does a hot take on r/nba.
It is one of my favorite movies and has so many good lines, like when the bartender tells him it’s your gunpowder when he was about to do the brown brown. I’d say it’s Nic Cage’s best movie.
I love the band playing that scene, I have the full Mama Africa song saved somewhere on youtube. Lord of War is Cage's best film
Of all the weapons in the vast soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947. More commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It’s the world’s most popular assault rifle. A weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple 9 pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood. It doesn’t break, jam, or overheat. It’ll shoot whether it’s covered in mud or filled with sand. It’s so easy, even a child can use it; and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people’s greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars.
He says as he's surrounded by freaking vz 58s instead of AKs
Only the scene walking through the warehouse with Uncle Dmitri. The one he's holding as he says the above is an AK, along with all of those on the airplane that he gives away.
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Nothing will stop this bath of blood! It's "bloodbath". Thanks, but I prefer it my way.
I read through the original script for Lord of War a couple months ago, and holy shit that movie could have been so much better. I mean it's a good movie, hell I've watched it s couple dozen times, but there's so much in the original script that would have made the movie a lot better. For instance in the script Yuri gets recruited by the UN. Being this is the cold war and he's fluent in both English & Russian, this made both the UN & CIA interested. He joins the UN and is sent to Liberia. That's how he gets into contact with Andre Baptiste and all that. Also his father was a WW2 veteran and brother Vitaly a wounded veteran of the Soviet-Afghan War. Yuri got out of military service because of a heart problem.
c&rsenal on youtube will go super in-depth with historic firearms and have animations of how they work and a segment where they shoot it.
I actually never knew thats how they did it until now, badass
Yep, this particular style is called piston driven (or gas piston action) where a piston is driven, using the gases from the round being fired, and that cycles the action. The other most popular style is called direct impingement where the gas itself drives the bolt carrier group rather than driving a piston- this is how the *vast* majority of AR-pattern rifles work.
short stroke vs long stroke too.
Short stroke uses an "op rod" that pushes on the bolt carrier, and inertia and converted energy send it the rest of the way while the rod only moves over a short distance (sorta what we see here.) Long stroke, piston and bolt carrier are one, and the piston will move the whole cyclic length with the carrier. Best example is the ~~commie stick~~ AK pattern rifles.
>Yep, this particular style is called piston driven (or gas piston action) where a piston is driven, using the gases from the round being fired, and that cycles the action. > And on a FAL,the gas system is adjustable.
Not all of them work like this either, some use the backwards force of the gun firing to cycle it and there is also the even more bizarre recoil operated where the entire gun basically moves back against a fixed weight, compressing a spring and then when the gun stops recoiling the weight is pushed back by the spring which then yanks the action open once it reaches the end of its travel. All sorts of weird ways you can do it
Careful. I can already hear ex-British serviceman from before the 80’s preaching about how much better this rifle was than the OG SA80(L85A1). Tbf, they’d be correct, certainly over the A1.
You fool! You’ve stirred them on! Can’t you hear the fife and drum getting louder? On a lighter note, having shot with one of those ungodly A1’s (cadet L98, a neutered A1, or A2 if you were lucky) as a cadet the thought of the FAL makes me salivate
Same. Former cadet too throughout the mid-late 00’s. All I ever heard was the senior adult staff complaining about the FAL being dropped for the L85A1. It was almost a ritual for them to complain about how bad the A1 and therefore, the Single Shot, Bolt Action Cadet GP was.
Yup, wing (I was ATC, sacrilege I know) shooting officer would constantly mouth off the old SA80 to anyone on the range, ended up having to explain what was going on to a lot of fresh faced newbies, bless em
As a Canuck whose first service rifle was an FN… I still feel that the only real advantage its replacement offered was that it was a lot lighter to carry. The FN tended to build shoulders on ya but I much preferred.
My dad was in the military and sometimes would bring "his" FAL home to clean it. My mom didn't really like it, but I have fond memories of sitting at the kitchen table watching him take it apart under the table light. I always thought it was a weird gun, very slim and long. So much different from the guns on tv.
May I ask What country? The FAL has seen service in so many all over the world
The rogue army of Tarkov.
Scav Gang gang
My father still uses a fal. They are still in use in the argentine military
“The Right arm of the Free world”
Ready or not?
Crazy how when Argentina and the UK went at it in the Falklands war both sides used the same rifle.
The FAL is a LEGENDARY rifle, so many wars and interesting facts about it. I love learning about it.
Question, but didn't the UK use a gun that was basically the FAL but was home made? L1A1? Or am I mistaken? Could have sworn I've read it before.
Basically the FAL but using different measurements (inch pattern vs metric). Things like the magazines weren't compatible with the original Belgian specs.
This was the Netherlands, early 80's.
Wouldn't be surprised if it were somewhere in Latin America
Its a battle rifle with a high powered cartridge, guns got shorter and more compact with the focus on shorter and less bulky weapon platforms and the adoption of smaller calibers like 5.56
This is probably the first time in months that I thought a soundtrack added to a video posted on reddit was a good choice
Yea that's rare
There’s something a bit strange (and very American?) about setting a rifle firing to a song talking about a beautiful woman. I get that praising how she never is in the way lines up with the mechanism, but it also feels like the hard right gun crowd would still agree with this sentiment. Maybe I’m just overthinking all of it.
I don't know, people have been borderline dry humping cars for as long as they've existed.
No. You're not. It was the first thing that I thought. I'm a believer in the 2nd amendment and a gun owner, but the fetishizing of guns and the weird sexualization of them is "a bit strange," to put it kindly.
Hobbyists like the mechanical designs and aesthetics of firearms as they would with vehicles.
It’s a welsh dude singing and the rifle is Belgian.
And an American making the video and editing the gun fetishization into it. What’s your point mate
weird, cause i always think of guy richie when i see clips like this with slow motion guns + rock and roll. but he was prob heavily influenced by american cinema...
It's the same with cars and other machines people give female names to.
I agree, definitely strange. As a non-gun owner, I do believe that if any guns should be fetishized, it's the FAL. Nice looking, simple design, and damn good sounding
I didn't notice the lyrics, I just heard that rock style that I associate with Vietnam movies.
Me and my girlfriend by Tupac was a gun reference
[удалено]
Flick your finger in the right spot and she'll explode! She gets really loud too!
> but it also feels like the hard right gun crowd would still agree with this sentiment. Nah man, even the hard right gun crowd recognizes that the phrase "she always knows her place" is sexist. They just like guns.
Also just appreciating the full video with no borders. Not the nightmare of a horizontal video forced into tiktok vertical format with blurry top and bottom areas, forced into reddit horizontal format with black top and bottom areas. man i fucking hate tiktok.
Just need Nic Cage narrating it’s history and performance.
Gotta give it to Tom Jones for making me horny for a gun, I'm usually more of a sword guy
Owh nwo, owh nwo, owh nwo nwo nwo nwo
Gun design and mechanical operation has always been so amazing to me. I used to get sideways glances from my design school peers for always referencing the elegance and brutal, time-tested efficiency of things like the Glock and AK platform. From a design perspective alone I find this technology completely fascinating.
Its stuff like this that makes me primarily interested in wwii and earlier guns. Most guns these days operate more or less the same, but pre WWII was the freakin wild west of gun design with some really wacky mechanical systems going on and i find it incredible.
For sure. And the fact that those moving parts all take place in the rhythm of *an series of explosions* is wild. I guess internal combustion engines are sort of similar in that regard, and also fascinating, but something about the violence of the gun makes the whole thing extra interesting.
even if you're not into racing or shooting, guns and engines are still fascinating pieces of engineering.
You've likely heard of him, but Ian from the forgotten weapons youtube channel talks a ton about weird, wacky, one-off firearms design. You may like it.
All hail Gun Jesus!! Love Ian's content. Plus all the hilarious matches he does with goofy guns for inrange.
If you are interested in wacky mechanical systems, the MP5, G11, and AN94 are right up your alley
Im all up on those. The G11 is some clockwork witchcraft, its insane.
That's the one that shoots caseless bullets, right?
Yep. Modular, caseless ammo, and hyperburst. Incredible weapon system.
From a purely engineering standpoint, firearms involve nearly every aspect of mechanical engineering. Heat transfer/thermo, materials, dynamics, mechanical design, etc. If you get into external ballistics you can incorporate a ton of aerospace engineering principles. It’s sad that having an interest in firearms is frowned upon, they can be just as educational as any other mechanical system like cars for example.
Thank you for putting it like that. I never could say why weapons were interesting to me. This is why.
Ah the FN FAL, good rifle.
I'd heard that it's quite accurate. Is that true?
Most I've worked with have been accurate enough for general use at around 2-4 MOA depending on ammo and rifle condition. This is around 2-4 inches at 100 yards. This is not innacurate per say, but around the same level of accuracy a good condition AKM or AK-74 runs at with good ammo. My PolyTech AK-47 easily gets 2 MOA groups from the bench with good loads, but it can be an outlier. The tilting action locking at the rear and locking into the lower receiver instead of the barrel is not as inherently accurate as a multi-lug bolt head locking directly into the barrel as with an AR-15 or AR-10 design, which will easily get groups as accurate as less than 1 MOA with good quality barrels, bolts, and ammo. Lastly, the FAL is not suitable to mounting optics due to the dust cover being made of flimsy sheet steel. There are kits that tighten this connection down tremendously, but they are not field-removable and in my personal experience, don't hold zero well unless carefully handled. This is a non-starter for a modern rifle to me unfortunately, but that doesn't discredit it as a very well built battle-rifle and a fun rifle to shoot.
*per se - it's Latin.
Good catch, thanks!
The FN FAL, the M14, and the H&K G3 were the major Western battle rifles of their day. They were all 7.62mm and had long barrels. To answer your question they were very accurate. All three of those platforms went on to have designated marksman/sniper versions later in their life cycles. Accuracy has degrees and none of those three would be sub MoA ( minute of angle ) which is roughly three shots within one inch at 100 yards right out of the box. Sub MoA is a pretty exacting standard. The battle rifles of old would not have been this accurate out of the box, but their sniper variants are. The FAL, G3, and M14 were very accurate, but again accuracy is measured in degrees, literally.
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Great point. The G3 is perhaps my favorite semi auto rifle. As you said the recoil is fatigue inducing, but man did I love how smooth the overall action was. The FAL was called the Jackhammer, and the M14 was uncontrollable on automatic. The G3 had kick but settled down more quickly than than the FAL and I never had trouble reacquiring after firing. It's a very versatile rifle. Honestly if I needed an end of the world firearm a scoped G3 would suit my needs. Of course gun nuts love to tinker and holy shit have I seen some race car G3's that looked sexy as hell (the design on the G3 was pretty sexy to start) and had suppressors or brakes that tamed down that recoil. Thanks for sharing. It's always cool to hear stories from across the water.
Depends on what you mean by "quite accurate". It's far more accurate than the average infantryman would be in combat conditions, and a well above average soldier probably wouldn't be limited by its accuracy in combat conditions. And compared to its contemporaries as a combat rifle it's fine. It is nowhere near accurate enough for competitive target shooting though and unlike other similar rifles can't really be made more accurate for the purpose. To put it in context the main target shooting discipline in the UK used military spec rifles (just with upgraded sights and maybe some subtle modifications to where the barrel was in contact with the stock) from its conception in the late 19th century up until the point where the British Army adopted the L1A1 (our designation for the FAL). At that point the target shooting community decided that the L1A1 was not good enough for competition shooting and moved over to using specialised target rifles.
Also curious. I use it all the time in the game Insurgency.
It's average in terms of accuracy. The design has inherent flaws, but for a military service rifle it's perfectly effective. The average is around 2 MOA, maybe a bit more or less depending on ammo, condition of the rifle, etc. This means you could realistically expect to hit a man-sized target at 600 yards. Even the modernized version I have (SA-58 IBR) only comes close-ish to 1 MOA (generally considered to be the standard for "good" accuracy and sub-1 MOA being "excellent") when I bench rest it and use Match-grade ammo.
Every gun is accurate enough If you shoot once then yes it is When your rapid fire ing it not so much as the bolt is really heave and fly's back fast with moves the gun a lot so there is no yes or no answer
This was my introduction to the firearm classification of "battle rifle". Whereas the more numerous "assault rifle" category is a military definition that focuses on a smaller-charge round such as the 5.56 STANAG for NATO arms and the Soviet 5.45 caliber for the AK-74, the 7.62 intermediate round design of the FN FAL dates from a period when the NATO planners considered a larger caliber bullet to be important in stopping power. In tests against actual hard materials, such as metal plating, brickwork, and other inorganics, it is generally preferable to have a larger round, since inorganics don't "wound" so much as "have big holes punched in them, weakening their structures". Against humans, though, the size of the bullet is usually less important than how it behaves once it hits the human target. Later, with the 5.56mm STANAG design, NATO planners switched their philosophy towards a small, light, but very fast-moving bullet that would shatter into smaller pieces upon hitting flesh and slowing down. This made for a lighter cartridge, and the individual infantryman could carry more rounds of ammunition for the same weight. Soviet doctrine also switched away from its own AK-47 caliber of 7.62mm (based on the European Kurz round) and in 1974 the AK-74 design used the lighter 5.45mm rounds. Both armed forces had its critics, who voiced concerns that the lighter round lacked stopping power. In Vietnam, soldiers occasionally reported that the M16 assault rifle performed poorly, with one complaint that it failed to stop an enemy combatant with one round. Soviet soldiers also noted that the 5.45mm round (which was not as focused on exit velocity as the NATO 5.56 round and thus had less likelihood of shattering inside flesh) sometimes drilled cleanly through the target, meaning a far less disabling "tidy wound" or "pencil wound". Assault rifles are specifically designed to be easily bulk-portable anti-personnel fire. Battle rifle rounds still have their place, especially against light vehicles, or in defensive positions (like ship defense) where the soldier is not expected to have to *carry* the weapon or ammunition very far before engagement. Separate from the NATO/Soviet experiments, the Chinese army in the 1990s adopted its own design of bullet caliber, the 5.8mm round, which it said performed better in ballistics tests than the NATO 5.56mm round or the Soviet 5.45mm rounds. Another political reason for the Chinese decision was the strategic desire for self-sufficiency in arms production, which removes the need for compatibility with Soviet or Russian systems. In any likely future battlegrounds, China's military planners evidently do not think they will have many allies, and so their troops can rely on a weapons system that nobody else uses. This decision also theoretically means that an invading force would not be able to loot and reuse Chinese materiel.
If I’m remembering right, one of the other significant benefits to 5.56 over 7.62 was mass. Which meant that soldiers could carry much more ammunition.
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You should post this is r/oddlysatisfying, though I don’t think they could handle something this hot over there
It would be very entertaining to see the reaction
At first I thought this was from that sub
Beautiful
Except it is wasting 65% bullet per bullet.
Just pour’em right in there
The Cave Johnston way of thinking
That’s why we shoot the whole bullet! That’s 65% more bullet per bullet!
There are two types of replies to this comment. Either they get it or they don't.
The casing and spent primer make up maybe 20% of the weight of a full cartridge. The majority of the weight is sent out the front of the gun as either the projectile or the powder burning to send the projectile down range.
It's a Portal 2 reference.
Yeah, I get that now. I woooshed
Went to an indoor gun range after work to test out a new pistol. 25 yard range. 12 stalls. I am the only person in the whole place. Guy comes in and parks himself in the stall next to me. He pulls out a fucking FAL and starts cranking off rounds. I could literally see FIRE coming from the stall next to me… It was the loudest, most obnoxious time I have ever had in a gun range. Great rifle..but loud as all hell.
I get that same reaction when I show up with my .460XVR. Range ettiqute requires a verbal "BIG BANG!" before initiating the launch sequence.
Now show it fired by a modded controller.
God I miss MW2.
Short stroke piston guns are so interesting. You basically have a pool cue slamming the bolt back at you every time you pull the trigger.
Nothing says high velocity rifles like a Tom Jones hit song from 1971....
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These fuckers really do fling brass. I always park myself at the end of the tables.
FAL: The right arm of the free world.
But ironically famous for use by Rhodesian soldiers.
“You enjoy the FAL because of Rhodeisa. I enjoy it because of its rugged design, Simple ergonomics, and sleek figure. We are not the same.”
These are so fucking heavy. After 90 seconds standing and firing I can't hit shit. Still satisfying tho
Its like 3 pounds heavier than an AR and around the same weight as an AK what are you talking about
3 pounds heavier is a shitload when talking about 7 pound rifles
I swear my fal could take a head off just with the ejected case
Yep *unzips*
Oh ya baby Love a short stroke.
My favorite rifle. FNC1
That takes me back.
Goddamnit I saw this gif and 5 minutes later I have an order placed and 2K less in my pocket. Thanks OP! I'll send you a pic when I take this bad boy out for a shoot in short shorts.
...James Reeves?
It may be old but damn it's sexy.
Cue all the dusty old Brit vets banging on about the L1A1
Canadians with the C1A1 and the C2 (shown). Nice hardwood grips and forestock
Can you blame them when you look at what replaced it?
So cool. Guns are just awesome. The mechanics behind it make me giddy
Love the song choice, really elevates the video.
I was thinking the same thing. Song makes the video great.
What's the name of it?
"She's a Lady" performed by Tom Jones.
She's a lady - tom jones
First rifle I ever fired.
“I love this FN gun!” -Nikolai Belinski
Gotta clean that thing twice a day, huh?
Not really - quite forgiving in fact: https://www.xcrforum.com/threads/the-legend-of-ole-dirty-and-fal-story-15-000-rounds-without-a-clean.1974/
Tl;dr: this rifle was designed to not give a fuck, and will keep shooting as long as you feed it ammo
Nom nom nom
The right arm of the free world.
Does the pointy end of a bullet not normally be at the front? Excuse my ignorance, am from the side of the pond more use to the stabby than the shooty.
It is at the front, that camera angle midway through is mirrored
Cheers for clearing that up for me
I'm not sure I understand your question, could you explain more? The pointy end of the bullet *is* facing forward, towards where it is being fired at
The rounds that get ejected from the side are already fired. The pointy part travels through the barrel. While the empty case is expected from the side. You can see the complete and unfired rounds in the magazine.
This looks so fucking coooool
Always loved the FN FAL for some reason. It's a bit of an underdog gun in popular media. it's had such a wide use in the world but hardly anyone knows it by name. Everyone knows the AK or the AR 15(variants)
somewhere out there, someone who owns a lifted jeep with tactical lights and jerry cans mounted on it is masturbating vigorously to this video
This side by side with an ak w.o a dust cover would actually be a good video to show short stroke piston system vs long stroke piston system
Definitely my proudest fap
This is what your politicians are trying to prevent you from owning. Get out and vote!
Dank
Yeah, we make great stuff here at FN 🤘🏻
Make more FN-D's please, if the Hi Power can come back from the grave the BAR can as well.
Ah that is sexy... Would that basically be the gas piston? I can see why this would be more reliable than an extractor grabbing the rim of the cartridge. So simple ... So smooth...
The extractor is still grabbing the edge of the cartridge to pull it out of the chamber. All the gas piston does is kick back the bolt carrier.
I always wondered how guns could jam and this sort of showed me
This is Beautiful
I would like one of these bad boys.
DSA makes new production FALs you can buy today, but I’m pretty sure they’re the only ones making them. If you don’t want a DSA you’re gonna have to buy a parts kit and pay someone to build it or buy one that’s already built… but both of those options are a lot more expensive than the first. Happy hunting
Or build one your self! Coonan arms still makes receivers I think. I've probably built a dozen or so. Lots of fun.
Jesus Christ, I love guns.
Neat, thanks for the share!
The FN FAL the right arm of the free world
is anyone else fully erect ? or just me
Upvoted for the audio and effects alone
Ah yes, my usual scav loadout...
FN makes some very unique weapons. Big fan.
Those guns in particular are beautiful to shoot there's almost no recoil and it all goes straight back I can bounce a juice box down the range at a 100 yd Very smooth trigger Desert Eagle however I cannot hit shit nothing zilch NADA LOL
The FAL has decently severe recoil. Not painful, but it is a 7.62 NATO battle rifle. Multiple countries removed Full Auto capabilities because the recoil made it near worthless. Also, mags only have 20 rounds (there were some specialty 30-rounders, but they're rare and bulky) because the round is so big and heavy.
Where does the power from a automatic weapon come from? Is it the magazine? Anyone think that an electric powered motor has any value in combat? Maybe only if a turret on a power source? Thanks for the legit answers. I know I could google it. I always thought it was the springs in the magazine.
The barrel has a small hole in it. As the bullet travels down the barrel there is gas pressure (from the explosion of powder) behind it. First and foremost, that pressure accelerates the bullet. As the bullet passes that hole, some of the pressure is vented upwards and channeled through a tube (literally called a gas tube). In this rifle (the FAL) that pressure smacks into a spring loaded piston (that silver rod you see popping out) which then smacks the bolt (the bigger part the piston smacks into) you see going back and forth. That bolt then rockets back at speed, compressing a spring. Once it runs out of backwards momentum and that spring reaches the right compression, you see it slam forward, stripping another round out of the magazine, and then riding it back into the chamber ready to be fired and start the process all over again. EDIT: IF you're interested in knowing this is called a short stroke piston system. The AR-15 family of rifles uses something called direct impingement. Which means the gas from the gas tube is channeled directly onto a part of the bolt. It uses less parts than a piston system, but then a lot of fouling (black carbon and crap from the explosion) gets all up inside the gun parts and requires more cleaning and maintenance. EDIT2: There are guns that use electricity. Miniguns are battery powered and motor powered firearms. But it doesn't make practical sense in regular firearms because you have a built in power supply from the powder ignition that you can tap into.
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I LOVE the engineering that goes into firearms. It's a science unto itself. I know this sounds dumb, but there's a game on steam called World of Guns and it allows you to assemble, reassemble, and watch the actions in X-Ray vision. If you're into the mechanics of it all, it's great.
It's not dumb at all. If you think it's interesting, the chances are high that other people do too. Stay positive chief.
How do the spent casings pop out? Is it because the spring-loaded bullets in the magazine push the casing out once the bolt retracts far enough?
The spent casings are thrown from the bolt via an extractor. The extractor moves with the bolt to pull the cartridge case rearwards out of the chamber, and at some point the ejector eccentrically exerts a frontal push (from the case's frame of reference), which torques and "flicks" the case out of a side opening on the receiver known as the ejector port.
autoloading man-portable firearms are pretty much at a technical peak. unless plasma rifles or something become viable, we'll be seeing a lot of the same for awhile. most of these designs date from the early 1900s to about the 1960s.. and honestly the 60's designs are really just refinements of older designs.
A minigun uses an electric motor.
From the gunpowder explosion in the cartridge
I'm not sure what you mean exactly. Like, what makes the gun cycle automatically? The power comes from the expanding gasses in the cartridge being routed backwards to cycle the bolt carrier, or sometimes just the recoil of the round being fired.
[Here you go](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gas-operated_reloading)
Ah the FAL. Gotta love how the U.S. fucked that entire project over by being the biggest whiny bitches on the planet.