barnbwt
member
- Joined
- Aug 14, 2011
- Messages
- 7,340
I refer, of course, to the Freedom Ordnance upper that's apparently beginning to trickle out, to those brave few who put up pre-order earnest money.
The concept of a belt-fed SMG isn't new, though it's not like it's been explored much, either. The Russians, in their never-ending quest to throw money at literally every idea possible, put together a prototype LMG in 7.62x25 called the LAD
Sounds silly and/or pointless, until you realize the advantages of a squad of highly-mobile gunners with essentially limitless quantity of firepower (because belts are lighter than mags and pistol rounds much lighter than rifle rounds, linking several hundred rounds up is quite reasonable) that will still reach out to 200yds easily.
Has anyone had a chance to play around with one of the uppers, yet? From my perspective on the gun-building forums, there is --comically enough-- apparently much more demand for the links than for the uppers themselves, since everyone has a belt-fed subby idea they want to explore.* But I'm sure that the uppers themselves are not lacking for demand either, and now that they are shipping, some lucky folks should be able to give us the straight dope
TCB
PS-yes, I scored a handful of the links from a tremendously generous fellow, and will be using them to develop a miniature HK21-style sprocket type feed mechanism (made from a trashy 38spl cylinder/mechanism) at some point. Being designed for 9mm, the links can accommodate a huge array of cartridges (223, 300BO, 9x23, 7.62x25, 9x19, 9x18, 30 Luger, 22TCM) and being push-through disintegrating, they are suited for the simplest types of belt feed mechanisms (and if used in pull-out configuration, will accommodate 357mag and 38spl). The design is also clearly scalable, so I would expect links in 40SW and 45ACP sizes before long (well, unless they keep selling a hundred-thousand links a week like they have been so far)
The concept of a belt-fed SMG isn't new, though it's not like it's been explored much, either. The Russians, in their never-ending quest to throw money at literally every idea possible, put together a prototype LMG in 7.62x25 called the LAD
Sounds silly and/or pointless, until you realize the advantages of a squad of highly-mobile gunners with essentially limitless quantity of firepower (because belts are lighter than mags and pistol rounds much lighter than rifle rounds, linking several hundred rounds up is quite reasonable) that will still reach out to 200yds easily.
Has anyone had a chance to play around with one of the uppers, yet? From my perspective on the gun-building forums, there is --comically enough-- apparently much more demand for the links than for the uppers themselves, since everyone has a belt-fed subby idea they want to explore.* But I'm sure that the uppers themselves are not lacking for demand either, and now that they are shipping, some lucky folks should be able to give us the straight dope
TCB
PS-yes, I scored a handful of the links from a tremendously generous fellow, and will be using them to develop a miniature HK21-style sprocket type feed mechanism (made from a trashy 38spl cylinder/mechanism) at some point. Being designed for 9mm, the links can accommodate a huge array of cartridges (223, 300BO, 9x23, 7.62x25, 9x19, 9x18, 30 Luger, 22TCM) and being push-through disintegrating, they are suited for the simplest types of belt feed mechanisms (and if used in pull-out configuration, will accommodate 357mag and 38spl). The design is also clearly scalable, so I would expect links in 40SW and 45ACP sizes before long (well, unless they keep selling a hundred-thousand links a week like they have been so far)