Posted on 11/29/2017 10:27:20 AM PST by Simon Green
Thanks. I think I prefer an all metal pistol, except for the grips of plastic. just too old.....
I transitioned from the all-steel Browning High Power in 9mm to the Springfield XD in .45 ACP just fine. You lose pistol weight for a given caliber and capacity so it’s easier to carry, but if well designed you don’t get worse recoil due to the polymer frame eating the recoil. Sometimes you get a bigger round with the same or more capacity or you can get more capacity in the same caliber. I went from a 13+1 round 9mm in the BHP to a 13+1 round .45 ACP in the XD and I don’t regret it one bit. The XD even has a grip safety like a 1911.
Polymer pistols don’t have the frame rust because you sweat on them or have to go out in the wild and can’t clean your pistol every day.
I vaguely remember being told that the “plastic” M-16 was actually a high impact plastic and/or fiberglass. I’m guessing that polymer is a variant of either of these....
I spent my Army time with the venerable M-1911A1 as the pistol I carried as a tanker and after commissioning. The Beretta was just being introduced when I was in my last couple of years and assigned to a staff job and didn’t go to the field any more.
The polymer used in pistol frames is not very related to the furniture of the M16A0-A1. It’s definitely not conventional fiberglass (which is a glass fiber mesh that is covered with an epoxy mix to create parts); most use something like DuPont’s Zytel brand glass-reinforced (glass strands are in the molten polymer, not a mesh) polyamide 66. The M-16 and A1’s original furniture material was Fiberite (which combined fiberglass technology with plastics, unsuccessfully) and when they went to the M16A2, most fibrite parts were replaced with nylon or Zytel.
https://gundigest.com/reviews/the-ar-16m16-the-rifle-that-was-never-supposed-to-be
I purchased a Sig P320, and I’m very happy with it.
I'm considering getting the RX version with the factory installed electronic sight.
Thank you for the explanation. I had the M-16A1 in basic in 1973 and until whenever the A2 came out and I probably carried it off and on. Ah, the details of one’s service that slip away in 25 years of retirement.
Materials science has advanced ridiculously in some areas over the past 30 years. Materials we would never have considered durable before have gotten absurdly strong. Ceramic was “fragile” and now we’re making brake rotors out of it.
Based on what? Your personal experience? Or the same people who told us that .223/5.56mm was the "deadliest round in the world".
In my own experience,.45 kills very effectively with one shot. 9mm is just .38 Special writ small - I don't buy the "computer simulations". The reason the army pushed it so hard was to come up with a pistol that women could handle.
The original M16 handguards were very flimsy and broke easily. Also rough on your hands and heat shielding was a joke. The newer handguards are 100% better. Magpul handguards are excellent.
Yup, the Fiberite on the original M16s was not very good - in fact, that technology was ended up being a dead end. And yes, the Magpul furniture is great - and it’s a full polymer (aka Zytel) product.
And getting the left/right hand guards off was especially a double bit***.
History.
The 9mm has been fielded by 20x more countries and militaries than the .45ACP ever was. INCLUDING GERMANY. They made good work of it, so I’ll stand by my statement that the 9mm has killed more people than the .45 ever will.
And I don’t know ANYBODYY that claimed that the 5.56mm was the “deadliest round in the world.” Who told you this? When?
The Army pushed the 9mm because of NATO LOGISTICS, ammo capacity and performance. PERIOD.
Uh, no. I was there at the JSSAP at Aberdeen when the army and Air Force were pushing the 9mm. The issue wasn’t ammunition or effectiveness - it was about finding a caliber that women and weak men could handle.
How much NATO ammo have we used? Answer: none. We use ours and they use theirs.
How often do pistol gunfights need high capacity magazines? Almost never: pistols are used at knife range. First well-directed shot wins.
Spent 17 months in combat and all of the people I saw shot by a .45 died.
P.S.; the pistol caliber that has been used to kill more human beings than any other is the 7.65/.32 ACP. The Germans used it to murder vast numbers of innocent, helpless civilians - sportsmen that they are.
The army - or more correctly, the army civilian engineers and acquisition managers at Picatinny Arsenal and Fort Benning are the ones who claimed that the ".223/5.56mm is the deadliest round in the world". If you don't believe them they whip out all of their bogus computer models to "prove" it. They are also the ones who are steadfastly blocking any attempts to replace the 5.56 with a more effective caliber.
If the 5.56 is so deadly, it should be a simple matter to publish a wounds ballistics study as was done after WWII. The WWII study focused on three arenas of combat: New Guinea, Italy, and the casualties of the Eighth Air Force to derive what actually killed our men during those battles. At the end, it was determined that projectiles of 1/2 ounce (about 200 grains) killed most effectively because they retained lethal energy over the greatest distances.
The army - primarily civilians who never spent five minutes in uniform - has decided to doggedly resist all that historic data to cling to mistakes made in the '60s and '70s. It's a shame.
Which means they'll be in the hands of tankers and other assorted treadheads. It'll be interesting to see how well they hold up in that environment of Diesel and hydraulic fluids, plastic and finish-eating cleaning solvents, dust, sand, mud and grit. And, of course, guys who can break the noving parts of a hammer. Of which I are one [the guy, not the hammer!] 
Use in 9mm SMGs, and, of course, by executioners putting down unarmed captives. I've carried and used the 9mm Parabellum, in handguns and buzzguns both, using both ball and jacketed and softpoint lead rounds, and I'm still around. But given a supply of good ammo, and a handgun nin decent condition, I'll take a M1911A1 first any time, as I have since first qualifying with one as a tank crewman at Ft Knox in the Summer of 1966.
I was working for the Navy as a contractor during the JSSAP days at the NWSC Crane small arms engineering shop at Warehouse A. I suppose you're aware that part of the deal on the M9 adoption included a sale of F16 aircraft to Italy if we bought the Beretta handguns.
The fix was in.
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