It's kinda tough to compare cars and guns. A new 6920 is really no different than a first generation. A 1988 5.0 F150 made 185HP and 275TQ. A new one makes 385HP and 387TQ.Originally Posted by txdpd
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It's kinda tough to compare cars and guns. A new 6920 is really no different than a first generation. A 1988 5.0 F150 made 185HP and 275TQ. A new one makes 385HP and 387TQ.
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For HUNDREDS of years if you wanted to use a firearm you shoved loose powder down a barrel, topped it off with a chunk of lead and ignited it with an external spark source. From the invention of self contained cartridges to about fifty years ago firearms technology grew on a revolutionary basis. Current technology has plateaued. There's only so many ways to launch a bullet and use its energy to eject a casing and load another round and we've pretty much got them all figured out. The market doesn't support the cost benefit ratio of incremental, improvements as noted by several other posters.
I think the revolutionary technology we'll see next will be related to sighting systems. The US military's use of IR lasers and night vision in the last twenty years is one such revolutionary technology. The tracking point scope I think is the beginning of another. Just imagine if a person never has to learn anything more about shooting out to the ballistic limits of his cartridge other than put dot on target and squeeze trigger until the shot is fired. These are the areas that will make far more of a difference than a new bolt coating that gives a 5,000 rds longer service life or a gas system that tames stout 5.56 recoil.
Last edited by Caballoflaco; 07-03-2017 at 10:44 PM.
Not to mention NAV, mpg, safety, and a ton of other issues. Cars have evolved like a BOSS! Firearms? Not so much.
"Lead, copper, steel"
"Wheels, A to B, fun".
I'm not seeing it.
Looking back at things, I think politics and market forces have a lot to do with things. We now have barrels capable of thousands and thousands of rounds of service life, even with M855A1, etc. Evolution is happening, it it's a lot slower than any other industry.
Many of your posts on this forum seem to indicate, or are designed to indicated, that you have some secret insight into the inner workings of the firearms industry. If that was true, then you would already know all of the answers to your questions.
Pretty much all of this. I have been involved in improving technology, techniques, and efficiency in the commercial construction business for the last decade plus. I also, for a time, wrote for a few gun magazines which got me a limited glimpse into the workings of the firearms industry. What ST911 posted above are spot on in my industry, and the gun bidness as well. I think the first item, "Because so little of what is perceived as innovation, actually is." is probably the most important, especially in the age of the millenials hitting the workforce and starting to have some discretionay income to burn on hobbies like shooting. The generation that has gotten everything NOW can't understand why everything doesn't move at the speed of their uncrustable in the microwave, but also doesn't understand that just because the uncrustable is ready NOW doesn't mean it's the best option.
Frankly, I think that the fact that nothing has really change in the firearms market, and especially the AR market (speaking strictly of the guns themselves, not the various attachments) is a pretty good testament to the original design. People keep trying external pistons, fiiddle fucking with gas port sizes and locations, spring tensions, weights of this part or that... Yet the fact remains that the basic commercial AR configurations from 25 years ago still work just fine.
It's a matter of perspective. If you've only been shooting or aware of guns for 10 years, and have no context or sense of the history that's gone before, it's easy to think "why hasn't everything changed more fasterer!"
Politics and market forces are pressures. They are NOT the core of development - the development god you seek.
The core of development is pluripotent leadership, vision and follow through.
Large organizations are almost always developmentally hamstrung by their own size. Especially if that organization has been around for a long time. (As an aside, one of their survival tactics is to hamstring competing developmental timelines and ideas by any means possible.)
Magpul, LaRue, LMT, Geissele and others are arguably the Samsungs and Apples of the firearms world of the last few decades. Not perfect, but they have leadership, vision and follow though. Time will tell if it's passed on to their next corporate generation or they also fall into leadership malaise.
Colt, Bushmaster, etc. are examples of poor leadership, vision and follow through in the faster-paced civilian markets. Their leadership focuses elsewhere.
Then there are others such as Glock that started with a shattering innovation--and then kind of sat on it. Again, leadership and vision.
If true innovation is matchlock to flint or black powder to smokeless, not gas or piston in an AR; we're waiting for plasma rifles and not gas vs. piston.
Last edited by Hambo; 07-04-2017 at 10:37 AM.
"Gunfighting is a thinking man's game. So we might want to bring thinking back into it."-MDFA
Beware of my temper, and the dog that I've found...
We will likely see Gauss rifles / rail guns before plasma but I agree. Pretty much everything in the last 100 years or so has been incremental engineering improvement.
Last edited by HCM; 07-04-2017 at 11:34 AM.
@Unobtanium
Check out www.forgottenweapons.com
A huge assortment of videos on a multitude of guns )he has a lot of videos on developmental semi-autos from WWI-WWII) is available. Understanding the entirety of modern weapons development will give you a far better context of where we are now in the history of firearms design.
Last edited by Caballoflaco; 07-04-2017 at 11:52 AM.
I see the most innovation is coming from the competitive disciplines.
If you haven't had the pleasure of shooting a lightweight 3-gun tuned AR with a competiton trigger, red dot or 1-8 optics, low mass BCG, stupid-easy-to-clean coatings, adjustable gas block, tuned buffer system/springs, adjustable compensator, tooned ammo, etc., try it. The amount of recoil and dot movement is impressively low.
All this is is running on the edge for sure, but there is no reason that 'duty worthy' features couldn't and shouldn't make their way into the broader marketplace.
Same thing for precision rifle, pistol and other disciplines. Add military innovation, adjust for economics and market forces, and I think things are movign along just fine. You can go on the internet and buy/build pretty much anything your heart desires, less some pesky state and NFA constraints.
Are you now, or have you ever been a member of the Doodie Project?
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