setsneedtofeed

Update: A G3 just caught my eye and that's essentially an MP5.

'History That Doesn't Suck' by Prof. Greg Jackson. It is a history of the U.S., told in a flowing narrative type format that's easy to listen to. I like it because it counteracts my biggest peeve in the presentation of history where it is taught as discreet chunks that are seemingly disconnected. In this podcast, it follows the flow of historical figures and events as they naturally lead to new things rather than talking about each section in a vacuum.

'HP Lovecraft Literary Podcast'/'Strange Studies of Strange Stories'. A podcast with two hosts and normally a guest reader. The hosts talk about the relevant real life history of the story, as well as talking about the story itself, edited in between a reading of some or all of the story (depending on story length). It gives a good overview of the works and is tightly edited so that the host banter never rambles off topic. The podcast changed names when they ran out of HPL stories and fully branched out into other authors.

The charging handle? Not necessary for every magazine change. Just loading the first magazine on an empty rifle, and on malfunctions.

For you.

According to HK forums, the manual lists the scope and lamp together at a combined weight of 5.8 pounds. G3A4 is 10 pounds flat. A loaded magazine is right about 2.25 pounds.

A hair over 18 pounds for a loaded rifle with scope and lamp.

Accumulating water

Is there a condition that accumulates water like that where weight goes up consistently over a long period of time?

Little known fact, James Workshop invented the idea of bulky scifi armor. Every time somebody puts some in a movie or game, they've got to give James a cut. That's why there wasn't any power armor in the Starship Troopers movie- they just couldn't afford paying for the rights.

The M14 program was a misguided, expensive mistake where the flaws in the supposed "cost savings" that ended up being more expensive and time consuming to fix should have been obvious. The concept of the M14 as a do all family in a full power cartridge was misguided, and even more annoying as some grogs in procurement at the time pretended 7.62x51mm was an "intermediate" caliber because it wasn't as hot as .30-06.

The fact that it continues to scrape by as a DMR is not a win for something primarily meant to be a service rifle with branching other uses. Much of it's use as a DMR rather than something else is based on sunk cost. Once a weapon is in inventory it sticks around like a dug in tick and gets pushed into alternate uses. It wasn't uncommon for GWOT M14s used as DMRs to actually just be M14s that were in storage with scopes slapped on instead of M21s. That's not meant to be interpreted as stock M14s being good DMRs. That's a stopgap move that only happened because it's what happened to be in storage. The Mk14 is slapping a bunch of erector set crap on an M14 and pretending it isn't mogged by any military AR-10 setup. The SR-25 and M110 SASS blow any M14 based platform out of the water.

Speaking of AR-10s, even back in the 1950s testing they were better than M14s in service rifle testing. M14s won because one (1) AR-10 with a previously untested composition barrel had the barrel banana. That one malfunction was apparently enough to take the AR-10 out of the running and gave us the problematic M14 program that couldn't even get reliable or "accurate" (M14 service rifle accuracy acceptance standards were pathetic and most rifles still didn't pass) rifles produced on schedule.

As DMR it is a rifle that has to be properly rebedded every single time to take it apart for cleaning. I hope you don't mess it up! Meanwhile the FAL, G3, and AR-10 all don't have to worry about that. People defended the M14's rebedding issue as "oh but it's meant to be a service rifle so a small shift doesn't matter" but now that it's primarily a DMR this is embarrassing.

Notice how countries that adopted FALs as their service rifles kept them as service rifles for way longer? Because the FAL while not up to amazing modularity and recoil control as an AR-10 at least has something resembling a modern (post-1920s design) mindset. It has a pistol grip as standard look at that!

Oh but M14s are still in on sale for the private market that means they are good right? Yeah sure, you can pair it with your Hi-Point and BSD VSS, WHAT COULD GO WRONG?

All the M14 is best at is being a fancy polished wood turd that ROTC weirdos can throw around while doing rifle spinning tricks that have absolutely no practical application.

The best thing the M14 ever did was suck so bad that it fast tracked the adoption of intermediate rifles for the U.S.

It's a Bass Pro Shop. So, yes.

You like the mp5 platform just for nostalgia or ??? Only reason I ask is cause there are a lot of newer platforms out there that are…newer…better?

Nostalgia reasons, past hands on with MPs which lets me know I like the ergonomics and am comfortable with the reload, and because it is mechanically interesting as a roller gun. I like a variety of operating mechanisms to round out a collection.

I can put a CCO, light, and maybe suppressor (with new rollers) on it and 9mm will fly out the front. I'm well aware of all the other PCCs on the market. Really what they offer is less hassle in the initial setup of accessories and slightly faster reloads on empty. I don't really factor either of those into owning for practice or even as self defense. Most everything else is squeezing some infinitesimal perceived advantage in some factor or purporting ergonomic improvements

If I get a 22 bolt action, I’ll likely need a scope. Most of the models I’m looking at don’t have iron sights. I’ve done some research, but the variety of options for scopes is incredibly broad. Would be happy to hear any advice on how I might go about narrowing down the field of candidates. For context, I’d likely be shooting the 22 exclusively on a range, almost certainly 100 meters or less.

For a nice, but relatively cheap scope I can vouch for the Redfield brand. The 3-9x 40mm scope is about $130 in the US. If you can find that sort of price where you are, I'd take it. In any case, a variable optic is going to work well in allowing you to shoot closer in for beginning practice/zero and further out. There are certainly different brand but I think any 3-9x is a good sweet spot to give you reasonable 100 yard magnification while still being usable closer. You could alternatively get 1-6x which would be more suited to the closer side of things.

Speaking of iron sights, do you think there’s value in learning to shoot with them? I’ve been mostly focused on scoped rifles as I don’t see much value in iron sights for target shooting and hunting. I could see iron sights being of much greater value for home defense, but legally speaking, home defense isn’t really a tenable thing here in Canada. Let me know if you think I’d be missing valuable knowledge / skill by omitting iron sights. As long as with the scope you are being mindful of getting good placement while looking at the reticle.

Learning irons and being comfortable does give you more versatility, but if are only ever going to shoot with limited selection of scoped rifles, I don't think it matters too much. I'll say that for any intermediate caliber or smaller where you might be putting a red dot on (which you could on your .22lr setup though doing that doesn't seem like your intention), in that case there's almost no downside to adding backup iron sights that can look through the red dot's housing.

Awesome to see Blender art, and especially cool to see thought put into the triangle count for a video game. Is this going to ramp up to getting a rig?