Saturday - March 17, 2012

Circular Linkage and Brittania Rules

If I link to him, and he links to me, does that set up an infinite loop that fractures the time/space continuumuumumm and flushes the intertubes? I’ll just have to risk it.

Yay Me, I got linked from Summer Patriot, Winter Soldier. When I spoke the other day about playing guns online, this is what I was talking about. John Jay over there is bringing the .280/30 back to life, or a close approximation of it, and it looks like he’s actually going to build the thing. And it’s awesome that I was able to help by running a bunch of calculations for him to help prove his idea had merit.

The .280 British, and it’s slightly later and larger variant the .280/30, were both early assault rifle cartridges that predated the 7.62x51 NATO (aka the .308 Winchester). In the post-WWII world the Brits were miles ahead of the Americans in prophesying the battlefield of the future, and developed a great mid-powered cartridge and an amazing little “bullpup” rifle to use it. Unfortunately they were under the thumb of the Americans at that point, who were - as usual - behind the times and wouldn’t budge for any cartridge less potent than the .30-06. So the .280 British never got off the ground, and the 7.62 NATO came about, and it turned out to be way too much gun for full-auto, and then a little more than a decade later the Yanks did an about face and signed on for the 5.56 poodle shooter. And history bears out my “as usual”: the US military was one of the last to switch from flintlocks to percussion fired guns, was one of the last to adopt a metallic cartridge firearm (Springfield 1873 “trapdoor” in .45-70), was one of the last to go to a repeating rifle (the Krag), was one of the last to get on the spitzer bullet bandwagon, etc, ... but somehow was one of the first to adopt a semi-automatic battle rifle, the M1 Garand. Although it’s debatable whether the 8mm Mauser or the .30-06 was the better cartridge, both were far more than what was called for after 1945. So the 7.62 NATO was adopted, and it matched the .30-06 in terms of military performance, but did it with a cartridge 1/2” shorter and somewhat lighter. But the .280 British was nearly as potent, was 3/4” shorter and even lighter, and would have made a tremendous intermediate range combat cartridge, solidly effective to 600 meters. Too bad that politics killed it. It took the Americans almost 50 years before they came back around to the idea of light, short rifles of intermediate power (FN SCAR) and we still may not be there yet.

Here’s a link John sent to a great old newsreel clip now on video. Look how little recoil the .280 generates in that backwards built bullpup gun. Fantastic.

And I’d rather just ignore the fact that all of these rounds were reinventing the wheel to a great extent, and any number of shorter cartridges of somewhat smaller calibers and somewhat shorter lengths had all be around since about 1905 or thereabouts. Truly, there is very little new in the gun world. Most of it has been kicking around for more than 100 years now. Almost all the advances since then have been in metallurgy and propellants, although we’ve come up with some new ideas about case taper, shoulder angle, and neck length that have all aided accuracy.

So hats off to the “.280 JJ” or whatever Mr. Jay calls his creation once he makes it work. He’s not looking to get any government to adopt it, but it ought to make a dandy deer hunter for moderate distances. And it might just fit into the AR platform, just to smack the hoplophobic argument that “black rifles are only for war, not for hunting” as it so richly deserves. Awesome.

Posted by Drew458     on 03/17/2012 at 02:46 PM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
• Comments (0) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

DISCLAIMER

THE SERVICES AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE HOSTS OF THIS SITE EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF SATISFACTORY QUALITY, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, WITH RESPECT TO THE SERVICE OR ANY MATERIALS.

Not that very many people ever read this far down, but this blog was the creation of Allan Kelly and his friend Vilmar. Vilmar moved on to his own blog some time ago, and Allan ran this place alone until his sudden and unexpected death partway through 2006. We all miss him. A lot. Even though he is gone this site will always still be more than a little bit his. We who are left to carry on the BMEWS tradition owe him a great debt of gratitude, and we hope to be able to pay that back by following his last advice to us all:

1. Keep a firm grasp of Right and Wrong
2. Stay involved with government on every level and don't let those bastards get away with a thing
3. Use every legal means to defend yourself in the event of real internal trouble, and, most importantly:
4. Keep talking to each other, whether here or elsewhere

It's been a long strange trip without you Skipper, but thanks for pointing us in the right direction and giving us a swift kick in the behind to get us going. Keep lookin' down on us, will ya? Thanks.

THE INFORMATION AND OTHER CONTENTS OF THIS WEBSITE ARE DESIGNED TO COMPLY WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THIS WEBSITE SHALL BE GOVERNED BY AND CONSTRUED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AND ALL PARTIES IRREVOCABLY SUBMIT TO THE JURISDICTION OF THE AMERICAN COURTS. IF ANYTHING ON THIS WEBSITE IS CONSTRUED AS BEING CONTRARY TO THE LAWS APPLICABLE IN ANY OTHER COUNTRY, THEN THIS WEBSITE IS NOT INTENDED TO BE ACCESSED BY PERSONS FROM THAT COUNTRY AND ANY PERSONS WHO ARE SUBJECT TO SUCH LAWS SHALL NOT BE ENTITLED TO USE OUR SERVICES UNLESS THEY CAN SATISFY US THAT SUCH USE WOULD BE LAWFUL.

Copyright © 2004-2015 Domain Owner