Well, more the opposite. HK is deeply in debt, obligations almost topping assets, and desperately needs the order for the rifle. But they’re not owned by foreigners in another part of the world, and have many decades of connections. The military-political-industrial complex works as mysteriously in Germany as it does in the US. So obviously they’re pulling out all the stops.

And a lot of people in Germany, including in the Bundeswehr, aren’t even convinced that there’s anything wrong with the G36 to begin with. Maybe there’s even hope they’ll abandon the whole project for now; there are other military equipment issues in more urgent need of financial attention.

Since the HK416 was the main competitor for the MK556 in this bidding, that may well be the origin of the issue. On this patent stuff, the devil is in the details.

Like the Kampfstiefel Modell 2000, where the soles are coming off.

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FFL08

Yeah, they are hitting quite some rough patches... but what do you expect if you do shady things just to make a few bucks?!

Just another gun company with a management problem!

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Jorge

Folks go on and on about how dirty Direct Gas Impingment is, yet the AR-15 is generally known as an extremely reliable rifle.

Personally, I stopped believing in DI and it's supposed filtiness being detrimental towards reliability after watching Tim from Military Arms Channel do multiple videos of himself shooting thousands of rounds through an El Cheapo M-Forgery without cleaning it between videoes, and despite being all caked up inside with carbon, it just kept cranking along until the Ammo Shortage put the series on hold indefinitely. He had some crazy high round count through it too before he had to stop, I think it was right around 15,000 rounds, and it was only just starting to show some signs of sluggish extraction.

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Shooting Comfort is bilateral.

I'll bet it would have kept running if lubed, at least if it was close enough to specs ...

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NHI, 10-8.

The latest news
...and the winner is (at least for the moment ?): HK
Bundeswehr: Haenel scheitert mit Beschwerde gegen Sturmgewehr-Auftrag f"ur Heckler & Koch - DER SPIEGEL
(Sorry, only in German)

P.44

I try to shoot my various rifles several times a week, at a state range. The max I can shoot out to is about 100 meters, being in SC in the forest. I have iron sights on some, and scopes or Dots on others. Some are Vintage military and others modern rifles, bolt, semi, and 5.56 "AR" style rifles. For me, off a rest, with careful breathing, I am sure I can reliable hit a stationary man sized silhouette out to about 300 yards with any of my rifles, but further than that my sights or dots cover too much of the target to be sure of a hit. I could do better with some of my precision, scoped rifles.

I know our military in the desert has found the 5.56 and its platform inadequate at some of the target ranges encountered in that conflict.

So surely the military in its search for a widely useful individual weapon considers not just the cartridge, but how to ensure a high probability of a hit at distance. Then too, with our military allowing females to engage in combat, how heavy a weapon and its ammunition is matters a lot, not to mention recoil sensitive troops leaning to accurately shoot. What good is a potent cartridge/rifle if the aiming system cannot place the impact.

The are so many considerations in military firearm acquisition, cost, interservice pride, source, and others. But in my case, having been issued an M14 and M16, both iron sighted, if I couldn't see the target, I couldn't hit it. It further than 200 or so meters, for me, it was just suppressive fire. And I fired expert with every weapon the army put in my hands.

SF VET

I like HK, they make great guns. But they have reached a position where they have a virtual monopoly over service small arms in Germany‘s armed and security forces.

The Bundeswehr (military)
Standard service pistol: HK P8 (= USP9)
Special purpose pistol: HK P30
Subgun: HK MP7
Rifle: HK G36, now likely followed by some upgraded HK 416
Squad Automatic Weapon: HK MG4
General Purpose Machine gun: HK MG5 currently replacing Rheinmetall MG3
Flare gun: HK P2 A1
Only in precision rifles is there some brand variety including heavy rifles from Accuracy Int‘l and Barrett.

All uniformed federal police agencies: HK P30, HK MP5 and MP7
And 10 out of 16 states issue HK pistols: P10, P2000, P30, SFP.
(The other 6: 5 Walther P99, 1 Glock 46)

As I said, they make good guns. But corporations without serious competition tend to get sloppy, and can become more like bureaucratic government arsenals.

Indeed. While both the Ljungman and the AR are often described as operating by direct gas impingement, that is only partially true, to the extent that neither uses an oprod. The AR bolt and carrier operates on a completely different principle than the Ljungman (and Hakim) design. One could say that the AR basically has a piston inside the carrier/bolt mechanism, but the Ljungman does not. And there is no similarity in the way their bolts lock up to the chamber.

Spot on. I used the AR 180 for a short while during my LEO career. It was accurate and took only a quarter of the time to fully clean after shooting it in comparison to the M16A1, M16A2, and the M4A1 that I used in the military.

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Keep your powder dry.