site banner
PaperclipPerfector  7mo ago (text post)   2824 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for March 24, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

1
Top Bottom Old Controversial Comments
Jump in the discussion.

No email address required.

With all the hubbub over in the main thread with the ATF, it's the perfect time to have a favorite gun thread!

In other words, what's your favorite gun? Preferably a real one, but I'm scared you'll shoot me if I adjudicate too harshly, so if it launches a projectile from a barrel I'll let it slide.

Trick question! Anyone worthy of this contest can't have just one answer.

In my case, the top 5 are:

  1. The MCX Spear. Because we were due an M5 already, .277 Fury is a wild cartridge, and while it's grossly overkill for Russian conscripts or Chinese soldiers in Alibaba armor, when the robots come for you, better come packing. I was mildly inclined to reconsider because the Textron entry to the NGSW program was a bit cooler, a bullpup with a telescoping barrel that shoots polymer rounds? If only it hadn't been a bullpup, it would be a shoe-in.

  2. The G3. While the FAL is the right arm of the Free World, I simply think this one is neat. Well, at least I think it looks cooler stock. An SA-58 variant of the FAL with modernized furniture certainly tells you the 70s are back with a vengeance.

  3. The MG-338. For when you still don't have power armor and can't have Infantry hoof around Brownings, but want something with more oomph than 7.62x51.

  4. The Mk-18. My short-barreled beloved. Compact, all the cool kids use it, comes gucci-d out. Closely tied with a Honeybadger or Sig MCX Rattler both in .300 Blackout for small but deadly.

  5. The Mk-18 Mjolnir. Do not confuse these two entries. The Mjolnir fires .338 Lapua. Because fuck you and the tree behind you (for a modestly sized tree).

  6. Thought I'd stop at 5 did ya? Mistaken. The PKP, because we need some Soviet or Russian representation. Better than the M240B in almost every way, including weight. So good that new and not so new NATO countries like Finland and Poland field them.

One day, I'll make it to Battlefield Vegas, and then I will dual wield PKPs and fire them at my feet till the recoil lifts me straight to Valhalla.

The Colt Single Action Army and it's many clones. It's got to be up there with the Kalishnikov as far as a massively influential and successful design.

Phased plasma rifle in the 40 watt range, obviously.

Well, that's one way to describe a malfunctioning microwave when you put a grape in it.

Wrong.

I've seen the Terminator my dude. 40 watts is a ridiculously low power rating for a plasma rifle, because the screenwriters don't know physics.

It was a joke. And grapes do turn into plasma in a microwave, if you thought that was a joke.

https://www.snexplores.org/article/why-microwaving-grapes-makes-plasma-fireballs

S&W 686-6 6” 6-shooter.

SKS

Well, at least you don't need to live somewhere with particularly permissive gun laws to make it work!

the FAL is the right arm of the Free World

Ah yes, the Western SKS. Certain types of gun people complain to high heaven about people putting detachable magazines, improving the ergonomics, and trying to add optics to the SKS, yet praise the FAL even though it's literally the exact same thing (the FN-49 is even more blatantly just an SKS) with the exact same drawbacks, adopted for the exact same reasons (because your country fought WW2 with obsolete bolt-action rifles and some form of submachine gun, it's the early '50s, and the enemy is at the gates).

In any case, my top 5 are:

  1. Remington Model 8, an AK-47 but 40 years early. Caliber selection is exactly what people try to do to their AKs now, since the most popular calibers for AKs are 6.5 Grendel .25 Remington, 7.62x39 .30 Remington, 9x39 .35 Remington, and .308 .300 Savage. Identical manual of arms (the longer mags don't lock the bolt back, something AKs don't generally have either), identical safety (to the point that I'm not sure I believe that was just convergent evolution), identical dual-hook trigger mechanism. Only difference is the ergonomics, provided you're ignoring the Saigas.

  2. Stoner M69W, better known as the Stoner 63. What if AR, but AK with basically no recoil instead? The XCR is the spiritual successor to this but it doesn't look nearly as nice, having 5 guns from more or less one set of parts is plain cool, and the reason why the gun's so well-behaved would go on to star in later developments where the bolt doesn't bottom out -> gun just sits on target in full auto fire.

  3. Bushmaster M17S, the best version of an AR-18 ever created. Would pioneer most of the construction techniques every gun that isn't the AR-15 or coming out of Russia uses- the fact it's an extruded aluminum upper is very obvious unlike later rifles and the use of plastic in the lower is also what every gun does now. It's what the SA-80 would have been if it was done correctly; sadly, the only thing that gun does right is have a plastic handguard so you're not cooking your hands after dumping a few mags.

  4. HK36 (not the G36), about the last StG-45-derived rifle HK would create. Still very much a G3, but with plastic stripper clips, a single magazine, the G36 cocking handle, and some ridiculous fire rate that the G11 would later do better, maybe.

  5. Desert Eagle. The Malorian 3516 is probably more reliable, but that gun doesn't actually exist outside of Cyberpunk- it's important to understand that the reason people hate this gun is because it's impractical for most of the things media portrays it doing (and also because its reliability is questionable unless you're careful about the ammunition you feed it), but at longer distances when you want to carry a lot of ammunition it's probably a better option than anything else on the market. Also, golden gun lmao.

I grant it to ya, those picks certainly have unique aesthetics. I'm certainly fond of the Stoner 63, need to play around with it in VR some more.

What is this place?

This website is a place for people who want to move past shady thinking and test their ideas in a court of people who don't all share the same biases. Our goal is to optimize for light, not heat; this is a group effort, and all commentators are asked to do their part.

The weekly Culture War threads host the most controversial topics and are the most visible aspect of The Motte. However, many other topics are appropriate here. We encourage people to post anything related to science, politics, or philosophy; if in doubt, post!

Check out The Vault for an archive of old quality posts. You are encouraged to crosspost these elsewhere.


Why are you called The Motte?

A motte is a stone keep on a raised earthwork common in early medieval fortifications. More pertinently, it's an element in a rhetorical move called a "Motte-and-Bailey", originally identified by philosopher Nicholas Shackel. It describes the tendency in discourse for people to move from a controversial but high value claim to a defensible but less exciting one upon any resistance to the former. He likens this to the medieval fortification, where a desirable land (the bailey) is abandoned when in danger for the more easily defended motte. In Shackel's words, "The Motte represents the defensible but undesired propositions to which one retreats when hard pressed."

On The Motte, always attempt to remain inside your defensible territory, even if you are not being pressed.


New post guidelines

If you're posting something that isn't related to the culture war, we encourage you to post a thread for it. A submission statement is highly appreciated, but isn't necessary for text posts or links to largely-text posts such as blogs or news articles; if we're unsure of the value of your post, we might remove it until you add a submission statement. A submission statement is required for non-text sources (videos, podcasts, images).

Culture war posts go in the culture war thread; all links must either include a submission statement or significant commentary. Bare links without those will be removed.

If in doubt, please post it!


Rules


Recommended Posts And Communities

Recommended Realtime Chats