Burst & Full Auto

Back when Beretta first came out with the Model 92, I read of a version for police/military use having a three-shot burst capability.

Has anybody here ever shot one? What was your impression?

Regards, Art
 
I think that it was called the Model 93 (?) It was a slightly beefed up version of the 92. It had a forward handle that folded down to help control muzzle flip with the support hand....and if I remember right, you could hook up a shoulder stock to it.....To answer your question...have I fired one? Well....no.....but I once saw one in a magazine. Does that count?
 
The Beretta 93 is a machine pistol. SGN has had two listed for sale for a couple of months. Post sample - $8500; fully transferable - $13,500.
 
Well spoken points all!

SLA Marshall's work I feel has been misused by those who feel it supports the make every soldier a machinegunner. Rather the lesson I get from the SLAM is that the gunners must be members of the 20% who will fire effectively.

I did not become an infantryman until after the brouhaha in RVN. When I did make the switch, I found that the gunner was usually a
"stuckee", this business is a very poor way to make assignments.

The assertion that greater lethality is not as desirable as greater probability of wounding is one I have heard many times but never actually read as a goal of the weapons change until well after the fact.

There are those who insist that the .30 caliber is superior to the .223. I will not engage in that debate here.

I will state with out equivocation that the M16A2 rifle IS the best rifle we have ever been armed with. Best period. Most accurate, most reliable, best!

The burst device is unimportant to me, three round burst will accomplish everything I need in automatic fire. Full auto fire, as Mike Spight aptly indicates is best suited to weapons with tripods/bipods. Better yet if they have a T and E!

The doctrine has never done anything but give lip service to the control of fires. We are not well trained in the use of the weapons you tax payers provide us with. Doctirne is almost always behind the weapons systems development. See Civil War, WWI and WWII and etc. Tactics and doctrine reflect what the ponderous mechanism of a large organization can bring itself to accept about its experiences. More.....

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Ni ellegimit carborundum esse!

Yours In Marksmanship
http://www.1bigred.com/distinguished

michael
 
The change in tactics dictated by the machinegun had to be learned several times before armies of the world discarded the "tried and true" tactics of frontal assault.

The current reliance on hardware and software reminds me of a story my good friend Tom Vickermann tells of the fielding of the Dragon.

Tom was in the first class trained with the new weapon system in the US. He went then to Europe to a unit that was one the first fielded.

In training run by the contractor he had used the tracking board and the LETS (launch effects trainer) and had scored all hits with this system as he graduated from AIT.

Couple months later he is in Germany, where the new weapon is going to allow the US to stop the Russian hordes. Training is not the highest speed nor even the highest priority, and tracking and LETS are not done anywhere near what he had just trained in the US.

Long story short only he scored hits, everybody in the Bn missed except him. CSM looks into this, goes through the proforma interview process, interviews all the soldiers. Vick tells the CSM, (remember this a guy who shot 100% talking to a CSM about the training)exactly how the training was deficient in comparson to the manufacturers' training he had just gotten stateside.

The CSM was not familiar with the training, did not research the SP4's complaint and evenutally said in his reports that the training was adequate, but the soldiers needed haircuts!

Mike Spight, I too have about 30 months till I can retire, I could stay several years beyond that. I can not, I am sick to death of bean counters, gee whiz weapons systems in lieu of real training.

Shortly, if we follow todays bombs with troops we will find out that every bullet we saved the tax payers will cost in BLOOD!

This is a harsh statement. If ground action follows the bombing we will soon learn that a man with a rifle, machinegun, and mortar, who can use them, is a formidable for indeed when we can not drive a 63 ton behemoth over his gnarly butt!



------------------
Ni ellegimit carborundum esse!

Yours In Marksmanship
http://www.1bigred.com/distinguished

michael
 
3 Shot Burst

I heard the 3 shot burst instead of full auto helps to keep the barrel cooler too. But yeah U R right. Better training for our troops is the need of the hour. Perhaps the NRA should take their shooting classes on base.
 
I met an old lady once who had been with the SOE in France in 1944. She had experience with the Sten and the MP40. She said that though the MP40 was clearly better made she preferred the Sten simply because of the semi automatic capability. I remember clearly what she said next.

"Rapid fire is tremendous fun on the range, but it does encourage you to squander an entire magazine on every opponent you deal with and when you are in contact with the enemy, nothing is as precious as ammunition. On Repetion you simply present the sights to the eye and solve the problem with two or three rounds."
 
While I bow my head with the general knowledge being thrown around this thread I got to ask, would 3 round burst be helpful in round counting. you have 10, 3 round burst in a 30 round magazine. 6 trigger squeezes on burst mode, you know you got 12 rounds left. Spraying and praying you know how many bullets you got left. Full auto should be for machine guns (SAW, M60, etc) and not for rifles.
 
I favor the abilty to go full auto as need comes. Having shot in full auto matches at ranges up to 200 yards it is very obvious that the second shot out of the barrel is wasted on one target. So of course semi is best.

A close encounter with people comming through the door would seem to warrent full auto just for the firepower to keep em at bay.

Just my 2 cents

25
 
Hard mil. spec. trigger, + fast cyclic rate, + lack of training+ adreniline dump =

3 round burst doohickey, as soldiers CAN"T pull the trigger HARD enough to start the cycle and ALSO release the trigger fast enough to interupt it again, to get less than 5 shot bursts with an M4A1...Gets even worse the shorter the gas tube gets, as the distance the gas travels to unlock the bolt and start the cycling of the bolt carrier is less, increasing the speed of the cycle...Just MHO and o.o2 cents...

Makes sense though, don't it...3 rnd burst=:barf:
 
To Burst Or Not To Burst

In 2000 We (hhc 1/75 Inf) Got Around 2000 Rounds Per Man To Train With In 2002 That Number Jumped To 4000 Things Are Getting Better The Army Is Realy Stressing Sport Shooting Now . The Idea Is The More You Shoot The Better. And If They Can Get You To Pay For It The Bean Counters Are Happy:d The Burst On Most M 16 Is Going By By With All The M4a1 Running Around. The Remfs Were Using To Much Ammo Its A Good Idea I The Stress Of A Fire Fight Saveing Ammo May Just Save Your Butt
 
Semi better

Being currently in the Army I have talked to Iraqi Freedom vets and they attest to the semi option, even in 5.56. We need a round 5.56 or otherwise that will put down with certainty the enemy. Automatic fire should be handled by the SAW. Automatic fire is great for suppressive fire. There should always be a SAW around is well as some sort of grenade or rocket launcher. Don't get me started on the 203.
 
The thing about automatic fire is that...it looks good, sounds good but doesn't hit a lot!

That said, it does have its place and our UK doctrine is that close quarters battle is done on automatic; which really means inside the building! We are trained to put in grenades then make entry hard and fast using high volumes of automatic fire to clear the room - naturally anyone in there is history, so one must make this distinction between clearing rooms and hostage rescue. The latter is the preserve of Special Forces who are trained for it.

The M16A2s we bought from the US for the British Army all had automatic rather than burst; even on the MP5 or anyother HK variant with the burst option on the trigger mechanism, we would skip it and go straight to automatic. If you have the discipline to use it properly, one can get a very controlled two or three round burst to a thirty round burst [which is a lot of fun!].

I hope the burst trend dies away.
 
ColonelRivers

Well I am going to toss in my two cents worth here.
I agree as to the rationale behind the burst fire. The mechanics did add more parts that can fail. also if you stop in mid burst you may have only 1 shot on the next go round as the cam may be on the last lobe.
Training is the answer but under the stress of combat the techno answer is about all thats going to work with certainty.
When I build one of our 502 Thunder Sabre's in select fire we usually go with simple Safe-Fire-Auto parts kit. on some we have done a 4 position kit but the customer (Dept) writes the order.
FYI
The Thunder Sabre is an AR type rifle in a short 50 cal like the Beowulf.

I agree 100% with the British Soldier. Definately the pervue of the highly trained pro.

Something for everyone Check out this little bad boy
tbossmp1.jpg

This is a 7-1/2" barrel 50 cal Thunder Boss.
Short entry gun with awesome firepower.
335 grain slugs at 1450 FPS comes with Eotech and CMT Laser
CR
 
IMO full auto/burst is great in certain circumstances, but personally, i would take semi any day.

Being a civ and not in the military i can say that the circumstances, besides at the range, of me needing full auto or burst are nil.

Also, one well placed round, will beat 30 poorly placed rounds.

The answer? Training and practice.

A soldier/leo/civ that can place each and every round on target is worth his/her weight in gold.
 
ColonelRivers

The burst fire mechanism was put in the M16 family of weapons simply to save ammo being wasted by the spray and pray mentality. I agree 100% that training is the only answer but that is not going to happen in the US Army with the numbers that go through. I battle hardened spec ops soldier is going to be able to do all these wonderful calculations under stress but the average grunt is going to grab a hand full of trigger and rock. Brains is always preferable to a mechanical device doing the thinking but sometimes you just have to work around some issues.
I personally hate the burst fire system on the M16 family the extra parts are just more stuff to fail and the 4 position fire control is even worse. They are all fine for some applications but for combat I would prefer on and off and more training.
 
First post

Some excellent points for and aggainst,but for use by all sorts of troops especially those who are not as well trained as they should be the 3 rd burst makes alot of sense.Those tthat are well trained should have enough trigger control to shoot 2-3 rd bursts w/trigger control alone.i was trained w/the A1
and as you all know it is Safe,Semi,and FA.Some soldiers didnt get it and may never,for them the 3rd burst makes agreat deal of sense,the 16 is not a SAW after all and the burst feature allows some sort of fire discipline.I agree w/the idea there is far to little emphasis on riflery at least when i was an infantryman and i doubt that has changed. Full auto or burst an infantrymans
primary weapon is his rifle and he should be trained to use it with as much emphasis as is placed on crew served weapons.I do believe that short bursts(3rds) are effective on point targets ,if aimed low center mass w/the bipod and tight hold of the sling all 3 rds will impact the target if the soldier ios well trained out to 300 meters,area targets the burst feature would be effective as well,but again assuming you have a rifleman well trained w/his weapon.
Fact is a mauser can be much more effective than the ,most modern assault rifle or MBR in the right hands. Hello All,My first post on what appears to be a fun ,well informed sight! grndpndr:D
 
Coming from experience (US Army, Ft. Bragg, 1993-2000), here are the reasons why fully automatic M16's are impractical:

1.) Anyone that has done any live fire exercise knows that you fly through the magazines with just 3 round burst. As much as you try to conserve ammo, it doesn't happen. Adrenaline, whatever, if my M16A2 was had full auto instead of burst, I would have run out of ammo quickly.

2.) The true purpose of full-auto - suppressive fire. This is why some unlucky sap (usually the shortest guy :) ) gets to hump the M60 (or M240G). There are other squad weapons designed to lay suppressive fire. As a matter of fact, in my last year I had soldiers get assigned a M249 SAW as their personal weapon instead of the M16A2. On a side note, I disagreed with this policy as I thought it was more difficult to qualify SS or expert with the SAW instead of the M16 or M4. This hurt several E-4's trying to rack up the promotion points.

3.) Weight - Weight is your enemy when rucking anywhere. More weight = slower, more weight = fatigue. Humping extra ammo on movements or jumping is not fun. For those that have shot fully automatic weapons (see point 1), you know that it's difficult to keep your rate of fire down. It's easy to rock that trigger and smoke everything in your lane of fire. This also wastes ammo. A lot of ammo. Shoot all of your ammo and you're a$$ed out. Maybe your buddy will hook you up, maybe not. Firing efficiently and accurately is difficult when firing on automatic. Efficiency and accuracy is paramount (even when laying suppressive fire).

There were some good points about weapons malfuntions. Malfunctions are par for the course with older automatic weapons (read: M60). Nothing better then a double feed when in the middle of a fire fight or in a live fire exercise. Game over unless your AG brought the extra barrel. I think full auto capabilities increase the chance for malfunction. I would rather have a few crew serve weapons go down in the platoon, then half of the personal M16's or M4's. No weapon = combat ineffective.


This is my .02
JOE
 
I'm a Navy Gunner's Mate, currently working as an Armorer onboard USS Tarawa. When issuing M16s, I make it very clear that the watchstander is NOT to go to full auto for any reason if SHTF - thanks to the Navy, these guys get little enough opportunity to shoot and I'd rather they didn't waste half their ammo in one 30 round burst and hit nothing. The same applies when I find myself having to issue M14s equipped with selector switches (actually moreso, since the mags on 14s hold ten fewer rounds and the felt recoil is no joke - if you've never experienced a full auto 14, you probably don't want to do it for the first time while SHTF).

The lack of training we are experencing is completely and utterly insane. Granted, there is plenty that can be done without actually firing live rounds - you can practice breath and trigger control, for instance - but we encounter quite a bit of difficulty in actually getting people to show up to training. Making it "mandatory" doesn't make Leading Petty Officers get their people to go, unfortunately.

However, our biggest problem is that most of the military's ammo is being sent to the middle east for use in combat, so those of us in the Gator Navy aren't receiving much to shoot (for training purposes, anyway), and once we burn through our "training" ammo we're not given anymore for the rest of the fiscal year. Because of this, we're limited to only a handful of live fire gun shoots a year - five or six, tops. :\
 
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