ok, what in the hell does THAT mean?
ok, what in the hell does THAT mean?
Okay: one detail at a time. Gas operated means that a small hole is drilled in the barrel, from which a portion of the gas pressure in the barrel during firing is tapped off to unlock the bolt, usually by driving it backwards enclused in a carrier shell, which then strips the next round from the magazine or belt as it returns forward and locks the next round into the barrel's firing chamber. It's a long-used and time-tested design, as utilized in the M1 Garand and Kalishnikov, among many other designs.
In that the bolt rotates to lock and unlock as it closes on the chamber, as per the Garand, Kalishnikov and Stoner AR15/M16 and AR18 designs, rather than using locking flaps or rollers in recesses in the receiver walls, as with the H&K rollerlocked or British SA80 weapon, it's probably more likely to be a fairly reliable weapon, not requiring a fluted chamber to function like the rollerlocked H&K G3 or the French AAT52 light MG. And it's probable that the stresses of operation can thereby be relatively easily contained, and that slight variances in ammunition pressure [as can happen from exposure to direct sunlight, storage, age, or manufacturing variances] shouldn't be as much of a problem as with some designs.
But my guess is that very shortly down the line, somebody will chop the barrel of that thing down even with the front of the forearm to make it handier aboard helicopters, inside armoured vehicles, and the like. And when they do, the ballistic effectiveness of the cartridge will suffer, the question being to what extent. I'd have gone with a bullpup; the state of the art in that department has not yet been achieved, and might yet be.
-archy-/-