Gun Stuff

A friend brought over some of his toys this evening. I haven't shot a rifle in some years now (more by being too busy than anything else). One of them was a Century International Arms copy of the H&K 91. This uses a U.S. made receiver and a number of imported parts to get around the import ban on assault weapons that President George Bush I put in effect back in 1990. I've always heard very good things about the H&K 91, and it does seem to be a well-made rifle.

There are a few quirks of the design that I don't know if I dislike them because they are different from what I am used to in battle rifles, or because it is genuinely a poor idea. For example, the H&K 91 has what seems to me to be an excessively complex charging handle compared to the M1 Garand, M14, M16--just too many moving parts for something that is just forcing the bolt back against the recoil spring.

Another H&K quirk (at least until quite recently) is that there is no bolt hold open on the last shot. When you have fired the last shot from the magazine, the bolt closes again, and you get only a "click" when you pull the trigger. The owner called this the "dead man click," presumably because if you are in combat, and you hear this click, it tells you that you are out of ammunition, and whoever you are firing at now has you at a disadvantage. The design that I am more used to on combat weapons--where the magazine locks the bolts
open, enabling you to drop the magazine, insert a fresh magazine, release the bolt, and be ready to resume firing--seems much more logical to me.

Yet another H&K quirk is that it seems that you have to cock the bolt in order to remove an empty magazine. At the magazine release is a simple button--definitely more intuitive than an M14 magazine release.

The H&K 94 was a fun little weapon. Since it fires 9mm, the recoil isn't bad at all. I've fired the MP5, which is the full auto version of the H&K 94, and I think highly of it. All the same design quirks that bug me about the H&K 91 apply to the H&K 94 as well.

This is the first time that I have ever fired an M1 Garand. This is really a pretty impressive weapon, considering that it was introduced into service 70 years ago, and has been out of front line U.S. service for 50 years. I still can't get used to the spring clip flying up and out of the gun after the last shot!