Selective Fire or Fully Automatic Fire

You have a combat weapon with semi auto. Would you prefer Burst Fire or Full Auto

  • Full Auto all the way!!! Rock and Roll!

    Votes: 33 54.1%

  • Burst Fire!!! 3 to the Chest

    Votes: 18 29.5%

  • Neither. Gimme back my M-14.

    Votes: 10 16.4%
  • Total voters
    61
F

Falcon5NZ

New member
I was having a disscussion with a mate and decided to start this poll.
Our disscussion: Does 3 round burst fire 3 rounds with every pull or does it have to be held for the time it takes to fire three rounds?
But the poll question: Which would you prefer on a combat weapon?
 
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That's a good question, should be interesting.

But as for FA vs SF, depends on the weapon I suppose. Something with heavy recoil would just walk up vertically the first few shots on FA. I'd prefer single, 3-rd burst and FA myself.
 
I could always control a M16/M16A1 as good as an M16A2 and the fully auto was needed sometimes. I believe the burst was to save ammo instead of training people on fire control. The M16A2 was one pull for 3 round burst.
 
Selective fire Full Auto for CQB and semi-auto for longer engagements. remember each is a tool with it's own specific job to perform. In a CQB situation, house to house, I would want a bullpup of some kind, actually maybe an SMG for crying out loud (FN P90 would be best probably) but for long range battle rifle conditions I would take a single shot M14 any day. However I don't intend to get into any long range skirmishes anytime soon so FA all the way baby! Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition! i think watching the gunny on mail call waste a watermelon with an STG-44 is what really makes me want one.
 
I just thought it would be interesting to get peoples opinion on it. The idea behind 3 round burst was for control wasn't it? E.g. people jerking the trigger would have a better chance of hitting a target with 3 rounds, and to fire multipule rounds at a target to give a better chance of a hit without people "spraying and praying".
WeedWacker- I see your point. When I posted I was thinking of a longer engagement rather than CQB.
 
I think it's really a matter of economics... and saving ammo

in a firefight when you run out of bullets, you are screwed.
 
It actually depends on the specific model you're talking about; the M16A2 has 3-round burst, but the way it operates depends on a rotating cam. This means you can have it SET on "burst", but release the trigger early, and the rifle will fire only one or two rounds out of that burst. Then, when you go to fire the NEXT burst, you will squeeze the trigger expecting a full three rounds, but you'll only get the remaining 1 or 2 rounds from the previous burst. Different designs have different methods of achieving a burst, though.
 
Fire discipline

3rb is a replacement for training one's finger. Fire discipline is a learned skill, to correctly turn off what you have turned on. 3rb triggers is a cost saving, man hour device, it is not an effective skill set.
 
On a full auto M1 Carbine, 3 rounds was the least you could fire, even with just a light trigger pull. They are much more controllable shooting in that way...
 
Falcon5NZ said:
I just thought it would be interesting to get peoples opinion on it. The idea behind 3 round burst was for control wasn't it? E.g. people jerking the trigger would have a better chance of hitting a target with 3 rounds, and to fire multipule rounds at a target to give a better chance of a hit without people "spraying and praying".
Click to expand...
The M16A2 'burst' mechanism was/is for ammo savings.

The cyclic rate is slow enough that when you aim center mass and shoot on 'burst', the 2nd and 3d round will be much north of the mark at the end of the 'burst' (if your rifle is even ready to shoot 3 rounds [see above]).

This feature should more accurately be called a 'limiter'.

The folks at Heckler & Koch have a battle rifle that shoots @ 2000rpm when in burst mode.
You pull the trigger once.
Your hear one "shot".
You feel one recoil.
Your 3 rounds all hit very close to each other on target.
 
Burst fire entails a more complicated trigger mechanism. Keep it simple, less troublesome and fewer trips to see the armorer by going full-automatic. The key is to master trigger control such that you can get a two or three shot burst. I can because I practiced.
 
4V50 Gary

Gary,

"fewer trips to see the armorer", you are very correct in that regard. The 3rb spinner in H&K mp5 trigger group is a gray hair creating, 3 handed reassembly, dirty word creating, puzzle that I truly hated to work on. Why a beautifully simple weapon was ever saddled with that level of complexity astounds me.

Good Luck & Be Safe
 
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learn to shoot

There was a compelling reason why M4A1 did not have 3 burst option like its predesessor M4 Carbine.

As much as I enjoy the cool three burst thing, I also believe its for beginer with little training so that the cost of ammo is kept low, and control is tighter on shots fired.

I can count my bullets if FA mode, as would many marines here can, and I am sure some one will come along and confirm that. With practice, you can do two burst, 3 or just a single shot while gun is switched on to FA mode.

If you can't, then you must pracrice more.
 
When I went to HK's armorer's school, one of our classmates repaired clocks and he said the 3 shot burst mechanism of the HK was very similar to a clock with the hammer being the pendulum. The regular full auto trigger group was very simple. Our instructor would not even touch the set-trigger group for the HK PSG-1.
 
When the price of ammo started on up, I installed a 3 round burst on my M16 for machine gun shoots. I thought giving the public a burst would satisfy their latent Rambo tedencies. Didn't work. Pull the trigger six times and they'd dump the 18 I loaded. To answer the original question...on burst, snap the trigger for one round, the next time you fire, two will go off. Snap off two, your next pull one goes off. Its a ratchet set up. Real #!@%^ to install. You can still lay down a field of fire if you got rythm.:rolleyes:
 
The folks at Heckler & Koch have a battle rifle that shoots @ 2000rpm when in burst mode.
Click to expand...

They had one is more accurate. The G11 died when the Berlin Wall fell.

The Russian AN-94 has a similar capability. On burst fire, it fires at (if memory serves) around 1800 rpm.
 
Of the people I know who installed the burst trigger on their M16's, each one took it out immediately. I can do a burst of 3 all day long with trigger discipline on mine. With my .22 conversion the ROF is between 1000 and 1200 and I can still get bursts any time. I just don't care for the burst feature of the '16.
 
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