Worthless without full auto?

[rickyrick]

People tend to spray and pray in stressful moments, that's for sure.

Most soldiers are not spec ops or whatever term pops up.

That's why the military moved away from automatic battle rifles, as a whole it's just wasteful. For a brief moment in human history, there was full auto, full powered battle rifles. Now that brief moment has passed.. For good reason.

[Dragline45]

From the comments of most vets Ive talked to, most said they got little, if any training in that respect, and seeing them shoot, or I should say, try to shoot, even pistol caliber guns, its pretty obvious the military really does not teach the majority to shoot them properly.

That should say a whole lot right there. If full auto was really that useful don't you think they would spend some time training them to properly use it?

[AK103K]

People tend to spray and pray in stressful moments, that's for sure.

No doubt, but especially the untrained. Training tends to alleviate that.

That should say a whole lot right there. If full auto was really that useful don't you think they would spend some time training them to properly use it?

I think they selectively train who they deem worthy, or needy. Everyone else seems to barely get and/or maintain the basics.

If youre not going to teach your people how to use their weapons, why do the guns need to have a selector, or the capability at all? They seem to think there is some use for it, else it wouldnt be there. Then again, that may just be the contrary thinking and actions of the government/military.

It really doenst take much to teach the tecnique, but like anything else, it does take a little practice now and then to stay proficient and/or excel. Although, once learned, its normally not forgotten and quickly reacquired. At least thats been my experience with people Ive taught and who shot again with me years later, and with no other experience in between.

I think for most of us, its probably more of a toy or fun thing, than something serious. Although personally, Id take a small select fire rifle or a SMG any day, over a shotgun for home or general defensive use.

[henschman]

To answer the earlier question, if I were going up against guys with FA G3s, I would hope that they are full auto, and hope that they will be used on that setting. Shoot one some time and you'll see why.

[Model12Win]

Thanks guys, you are all making me feel better that my PTR-91 will be every bit as effective in the real world as real G3.

[Skans]

I'm not a big fan of light-weight .308 full-autos with a 20 round magazine. Too much recoil to control effectively and by the time you get a handle on it, you are out of ammo! Add a bipod and one of those 50 round drums and I might see the value, but then again, if that's what you want, just buy an Israeli FAL.

I think the PTR-91 makes a much better semi-auto rifle than it does a light machinegun. And, I like machineguns. I have an AC556 - it's fun as heck to shoot. It's not that hard to keep it on target at close ranges with short bursts. Still, I'm using 40 round magazines filled with .223. Twice the ammo and a lot less punch than a .308.

[mavracer]

I wouldn't feel the least bit undergunned without select fire, I wouldn't mind a buddy with a 240 close by though.

[rickyrick]

I think the best compromise would be a double with each trigger pull for a shoulder fired weapon.

Mavracer, does your name imply ford maverick?
If so, I'm a maverick aficionado

[natman]

Full auto is great - if you're providing covering fire for a squadron and have a supply line behind you to keep providing ammo.

In any kind of realistic civilian scenario, semiauto is better. If you have to carry & pay for all your own ammo, remember only the hits count.

[leadcounsel]

Full auto tends to 1) require the most shooter exposure and 2) attracts the most fire from the enemy. No thanks.

Semi-auto conserves ammo and requires placed shots. Shoot and scoot to cover.

[Stevie-Ray]

I think full-auto should be available to anybody that can own a gun, without further restriction. That being said, I doubt I would own one in anything but maybe .22LR. When using my old SAR-48HB, I never wished it were a full-auto FAL. It could also be rapid-fired quite easily, should I have wanted that, and it's heavy weight kept it on target more easily than most. But again, rapid-fire was very seldom used, and for me had been only a scant few times.

[shaunpain]

While automatic fire is useful for suppression, I can't see too many other scenarios where it would be prudent. My guess is that armies of today and recent past rarely, if ever, flicked the switch to the third position in combat when they had belt feds on their team. While many of those battle rifles were made with auto sears and selectors, that is not what made them worthy or useful. The trend started in WWII by the Germans and was continued by the Russians shortly after to pare down to intermediate cartridges. It was really only a matter of time until the M-16 was issued. Even today I'm sure the full auto capabilities of M-16s and M4s are rarely used, and probably even less so by Tier One operators. I could be wrong, but I doubt it.

[Art Eatman]

For self-defense around one's home and home territory with a rifle, almost any semi-auto which is reliable will do just fine. Such issues as "over penetration" are for another discussion.

Group size is basically irrelevant, so long as the gun is capable of minute-of-cranium accuracy.

[dakota.potts]

Has there ever been a rifle so inaccurate that it couldn't hit a criminal sized target at 25-50 yards with even the most basic ammo? Even a smoothbore musket can do it out to 100 or so.

In that case, I feel like reliability, controllability/ergonomics etc. are the deciding factor over accuracy. Even 8 MOA is a 2-inch group at 25 yards, far beyond almost any conceivable home defense scenario.

[A pause for the COZ]

Cool topic.
My take:

For civilian use I dont have a problem with my AR 15's, AR 10's, and AK's being semi auto.

I can still do what I need them to do.

Now if we ever get to needing our fire arms. In relation to the Militia uses of fire arms in the 2nd Amendment.
Full auto may be useful to ether fix the enemy or as more likely to be the case, a means to break engagement.

So the use of the fire arms I presently have would be to get the ones I need should that need arise.

I once took an oath. To protect the Constitution of the United States of America from ALL enemy's. Foreign or domestic.
I have yet to be released from that Oath.( I read that on a T shirt. getting me one)

[Pond, James Pond]

Regardless of the opinions surrounding the principle of civilian-owned FA weapons, would there not be a legal aspect in a SD situation.

We often hear about whether a shooting is legally justified or not and how there is that cusp of when a person is still a threat and when they cease being a threat.

Shooting before that threshold and you are on fairly sound ground, legally speaking. Shooting after that point and you are now treading on risky ground in terms of your defence.

So surely lighting someone up with a FA weapon is likely to utterly pulverise that threshold. They could have been incapacitated after shot no. 2 but continued to be hit by shots 5, 8, 11 and 19 (note uncontrollable aim of FA mode!).

Would that not more readily land someone in do-do?

[wogpotter]

Its twuee, its twuee!
A center mass hit with a 165 Gr .30 doing 2850 FPS won't do diddly.
.
.
.
NOT!

[44 AMP]

So surely lighting someone up with a FA weapon is likely to utterly pulverise that threshold. They could have been incapacitated after shot no. 2 but continued to be hit by shots 5, 8, 11 and 19 (note uncontrollable aim of FA mode!).

Yes, and no...

FA will definitely have an emotional effect on the jury, one no prosecutor will abstain from working as hard as they can. Certainly it will be a major factor they will try to focus on.

BUT, the fact is that the same situation can obtain with a semi auto pistol. At what point are you no longer justified in shooting??

When YOU recognize that the immediate threat is ended. Generally, as long as the attacker is on his feet he is a credible threat. (They may be a threat after they go down, that is a separate judgment.) Rapid fire of a semi auto can result in a number of hits before the attacker goes down.

Another case is where the attacker spins around after being first hit, and is hit again before going down, leading to claims that you "shot him in the back", which, while technically true is entirely a misleading representation of the situation.

The emotional effect of using a machine gun for civilian self defense, on a non-shooter (and even some otherwise gun friendly people) is HUGE, and can easily outweigh the actual facts in the minds of jurors.

In the US, we have, since 1934, heavily restricted and taxed legal machine gun ownership. We now have over three quarters of a century of machine guns in private hands being demonized by the entertainment industry. ONLY the bad guys (and soldiers) have machine guns, and in recent years it seems like the video bad guys have little else. The public sees nothing else, and knows little else, and they are the ones who will sit in the jury box, and are seldom people who understand the reality of such things. BOTH sides lawyers work hard at seeing to that!

[johnelmore]

Full auto can be an advantage in certain applications such as the MP5. Its easy to fire a burst of 4-5 9mm rounds into the target. The burst of 9mm is going to be lethal most of the time. However, in rifles full auto is useless. In fact, I believe the US Army and many other armies of the world limit full auto in certain rifles. They want the soldier to hit their target and not run out of ammo. In Vietnam, there was a tedency for everyone to open up on full auto without hitting anything thus wasting ammo so in the M16A2 they dont have full auto but a 3 round burst function.

The original intent of full auto was to stop large concentrations of infantry from advancing forward. The idea was to halt the advance by scaring the soldiers. The soldiers would either retreat or dive to the ground. The riflemen could then focus their attention on stationary targets which halted as a result of the machine gun.

Today, I believe the purpose of heavy and medium machine guns is the same. To stop large targets like trucks or to halt the advance of a group. An M16 in full auto is useless as its not good at hitting a point target. In most any rifle with a barrel over 16 inches its useless. If its a purposeful built machine gun like the M60 it has value, but the garden variety long rifle no real value except for entertainment value.

For the civilian its useless and costly. While the first round is accurate, the rest of the following shots will probably be off target. You will spend a boatload on ammo. Its fun shooting it, but not fun on the wallet.

[wogpotter]

From the technical perspective of a shooter, perhaps. But based on the responses of my non shooting friends its way more nebulous (to them at least) as they seem to just not deal with technicalities.

A self-loading rifle is a "Machine Gun, Assault weapon", but a magazine fed bolt action isn't. In fact its identical to a single shot muzzle loader according to them.

When dealing with the viewpoint of the opposition its not wise to attribute our views to them as they see things very differently.

[johnelmore]

In the military it depends upon what unit you are in and the function you have within that unit in regards to training. It also depends upon your unit commander and the frequency of deployment. 75% of the military are non-combat arms or support units and they would not recieve the same type of training as a combat arms unit. However, even some combat arms unit the training is lacking because they do not deploy or do not deploy frequently or because of a bad unit commander. There are some "Special Forces" units which receive less ongoing training than regular infantry companies. For example, the 10th Moutain Division at Ft Drum seemed to receive a lot of training and deployed frequently whereas some other more specialized units didnt seem to train that much. If you are in the 10th Mountain they will push just as hard it not harder than the 82nd Airborne. So it all depends.

As for full auto, you are not going to find one Infantry soldier in the Army simply spraying a machine gun of any type relentlessly. Thats not their training and everyone knows its a wasteful and useless enterprise. In fact any basic training in the Army will cover the topic of full auto and they will teach how its a wasteful and useless exercise more for entertainment versus actual effect.

[Skans]

Well, try and eliminate full-auto from the Military and watch who comes out of the woodwork to defend the necessity of full-auto. That aught to tell you something. The bottom line - I'd rather have full-auto capability in each of my rifles (other than bolt guns, obviously) than not have it.

My ideal rifle would be easily switchable from: Single-shot locked action; semi-auto; 3-burst and full auto.

[Bart Noir]

With one exception.

Remember the Act of Valor movie of 3 years back? The one where real-deal SEALs started as advisers to the filming and ended up starring in it?

In the battle scenes those SEALs didn't fire bursts (except with the mini-guns!!! live ammo!!! I need to buy the movie just to watch those scenes again!!!).

They fired singles or doubles or triple taps, on semi-auto. That has got to be the real evidence of how well-trained troops can best use their weapons.

Bart Noir

[Pond, James Pond]

The one where real-deal SEALs started as advisers to the filming and ended up starring in it?

Great action, terrible acting!!

[Erno86]

The full auto AK was effective against U.S. forces during the Vietnam War, whereas a single VC or NVA Regular would pop-up out of the bush, and do a full auto mag dump on a surprised U.S. patrol before disappearing back into the bush.