#47. Re “SAWS can use magazines, but that firing method isn’t terribly reliable”.
Tell that to my son who was his squad’s M249 gunner in Iraq. Box Clip-fed 250 rounds each. He was a sharpshooter, taking out enemy ground and building shooters/attackers.
And the bullets just pile up when you do shoot. Great picture of my son at a police training range in New Mexico with about 200 shells piled up next to his prone position. I feel really sorry for the cactus when he finished his training.
I can tell it to my SAW gunners who had weapons malfunctions every time they tried using 30-rd magazines in their machine guns.
I’m not saying it never works, just that it’s not reliable. Belt-fed is still the way to go with SAWs, but you can use magazines when you’re in a pinch.