http://www.hk-usa.com/corporate/medi...toncloselg.jpg

The HKM4 is little more than a pricey rip-off of several private designs made in previous years. Various individuals have successfully built piston-driven designs on AR-15 frames, but none attempted to market their ideas. The US Army is possibly considering this system, much to my (and others') dismay. It is basically a piston in the AR-15 design, being touted as revolutionary and ground-breaking.

This is among several useless designs on the table for adoption by the US Army, including the X-M8.

http://www.hk-usa.com/pages/military...8_rightmed.jpg

This similarly expensive use of funding merely adds minor changes to the existing soldier loadout. Functionally only slightly different from the M4A1, A2 or A3, and in no way compatable with existing parts (it completely fails to meet the STANAG and can't use standard magazines used in M-16, M4 and M-249 weapon systems) in storage. Considering that the Army still has M-1903 Springfield and Krag-Jorgensen rifles waiting to be unpacked at various warehouses, yet another new weapon is hardly a logical choice. The key here is expense. It's going to cost a considerable sum of money to purchase all the rifles, and then a considerable sum more to get rid of the existing weapons (unlike the days of yore, the military can't just sell off old stock, if they could, expense would be a non-issue) as well as the fact that this rifle, in addition to having recoil problems offers NO new functionality over the M-4, M-16 and other weapon systems already in use. Taken altogether, it's a complete waste of money, but the military is taking a serious interest. I feel that this is a rather lousy choice, and that if any money is to be laid down on a new rifle, several other options available would be far better, including the Steyr ACR and the H&K G-11, both revolutionary projects that produced amazing results, but were ultimately rejected... I just hope they don't open the pork barrel any further...

I ask you all, how do you feel about this silly free-wheeling of tax payer money?

[ 03-21-2004, 03:29 PM: Message edited by: Oblivion437 ]

Wednsday would be good for me.

Pfeh! "My gun is sooo cooler than your gun!"
"I can kill so many people with this."
"Look at this gun! It looks awesome."

This is either an extention of the childhood desire to have bigger, better toys than the kid next door, or it's an extention of 'masculine insecurity.'
Spending more money... TAXPAYER money... to upgrade a gun? Give me a break! It's pathetic! The last time I checked, the American military didn't have problems killing people. Do we need to look better when we do it? I'm ALL about appearance and aesthetics and looking good when you're fighting, but this is nonsense.

I'm working on a deal for the British army to buy 200,000 of these baby's, then we'll show the world who the daddy is.

http://grampatom.com/Preview.asp?ID=1519

[ 03-21-2004, 06:22 PM: Message edited by: Lanesra ]

Isnt that what Ken used when Barbie dumped him? Was it part of a set and is it still available?

<font color=skyblue>Looks like something for the http://images.hasbro.com/common/imag..._100_gijoe.jpg arsenal. </font>

No - I think the answer is "green"!

They keep those things in their MUFF!!!!!!!! That's a bit dangerous ain't it!!

I'm glad I gave up the diving years ago!

Purely for educational reasons!

Donut, if you gave it up that long ago, you may be missing out on some wonderful recent grooming trends.

Anyway, back to the OTHER kind of gun, the one originally mentioned -- a time of increased military spending drags every defense "used car" dealer out of the woodwork. If your failing defense/gun company can get one gummint contract for some shitty weapons, you might be able to save your company. And, in the world of gummint spending, we can be guaranteed at least some will be wasted on crap like that GIJoe-looking P.O.S.

Personally, I don't think our gummint should be considering new weapons that aren't bullpulp and caseless ammo weapons.

I've always wanted to go down to Brazil!