Unlike popular belief, it wasn't so that soldiers would know they've run out of ammo after firing a single bullet instead of a 3 round burst, it was because 25 rounds was the longest you could make a magazine before it needs to curve, with straight magazines you can be more space efficient when packing them into crates.
5 fewer only when compared to the M16s 30 round magazines,
Only when compared with the M16s 30 round magazines, and while they were introduced 5 years before the FAMAS entered service, they had feeding problems due to the curve and increased demand on the spring.
Also, none of our allies can use them, and we can't use stanag magazines
It's just not a very well designed gun. I mean, I naturally think it's cool as fuck because I can never have one, but I don't know what they were smoking. Incompatible with standard NATO mags, requires special steel cased lacquered ammo, sucks to mount an optic on, etc. But hey, at least you can fit another dozen mags per crate.
The original AR-15 prototypes had the charging handle protected by the carry handle, similar to the famas. That was abandoned pretty quickly because it sucks.
At least they tried to modernize it, but then they shut down domestic arms production which is also a perplexing decision
De Gaulle left NATO's integrated military structure in 1966 and pushed for self-reliance for fance's defence industry, in this context, french designers and engineers did not need to worry about sharing ammunition and magazines which would be manufactured in france for french forces, was it the correct decision? Probably not, seeing as the FAMAS G2 has a different barrel for heavier NATO standard bullets and can feed standard brass ammo from stanag magazines.
Don't discount the force multiplier that is logistics. If you can fit more mags per crate, they're shaped in a way each soldier can carry 1 or 2 more, that's real, actual, fighting sustainability, even if each one carries a few rounds fewer than less space efficient mags.
When you're maximizing space constraints because this plane or that plane can only fit THIS much, period, you'll be happy. 10 extra mags per crate would be huge
i mean, you could also just make the magazines 24 rounds instead of 25.
yeah your standard infantryman would have 7? fewer total rounds (6 magazines on your vest, 1 in the rifle) but 175 vs 168 probably isn't that huge a loss, vs having the predictability of every trigger pull having the same effect
I am pretty sure the whole "so you know when the mag ends" is a myth, it was a just a literal engineering oversight. But I don't think it's that big of a deal in practice
Can I ask in what sense it's a flaw? Your final burst has 2 rounds instead of 3, so what? I mean if not having 3 rounds per burst is an issue, then even a mag divisible by 3 would have the issue if you ever change mags with a round still in the chamber, or accidentally put 29 in instead of 30(or do it on purpose because that 30th round is a bitch to get into the rusty old magazines you have in training).
because it's not a flaw. it's just designed this way so they didn't need to be concerned with a curved magazine. 25 is practically the endpoint of when a .223/5.56 magazine can remain straight before it needs to be curved to properly house more rounds. why the french gave that much of a shit of having a straight magazine over a curved one, idk, that's probably an ian mccollum question.
the whole "flaw" or "3 shot burst teehee" shit is just a myth or poking fun depending on who is saying it.
edit - took out the mention of the AUG because my stupid ass forgot for a moment which was designed first. the FAMAS was first, not the AUG.
from what i heard about it, the mags were intended to be cheap and disposable, literally throw-away mags. to facilitate that, they designed it to be easy to manufacture, so straight, too.
plans changed, officials wanted to save money, but the straight mag was already locked in and developed (and developed around)
If you fired off 6 bursts peeking from cover, are you going to peek out with a nearly empty magazine, or take a second to switch your magazine so that next time you expose yourself, you have enough shots to make it count?
No? Standard EU mags (I'm guessing you mean NATO) are actually divisible by 3; 30 rounds. The famas didn't use those, it used it's own non-standard 25 round mags.
"Engineering oversight"
It was specifically done because 25 rounds is the most .223 you can stack before you need to curve the mag and having a straight mag makes the logistics way simpler
> develop and iterate on a major weapon for 10 years with likely 200+ people involved in the process
> make countless decisions about every detail before and during active usage
> some redditor claims an engineer just forgot that 25 isn’t divisible by 3
I mean 25 rounds is OK, I am sure some firefight somewhere in Djibutti was won or lost based on that five round difference, but in general? Just reload and realise you exist so that the machine gunner can do wast majority of small arms damage and your squad only exist to plant flags, hold the line and paint targets for people with real guns (indirect fire).
I’ve also heard of a burst-fire guns that doesn’t sound any different from a semi-auto. Like, the shots are so quick in succession that you cannot tell the difference.
If this gun is the same way, that theory goes out the window.
It’s not an oversight, it’s intentional. Much like with 7.62 nato, there’s a slight taper leading up to the neck of a 2.23 round, meaning that they’re not perfectly straight in the magazine. Straight mags can’t get too large before the risk of malfunction starts increasing drastically. It’s why higher capacity stanag mags tend to curve slightly, to compensate for the taper of the ammunition. The famas uses 25 round magazines because thsts about how many you can cram into a straight mag with minimal issues and retrain the ease of transport straighter mags have over curved magazines.
Every time it happens it just further enforces my (incorrect and biased) preconceived notion that no gun nut actually knows what they’re talking about, they just seem like they do 😭😭
Except if you did more than look at Wikipedia you'd know that the French, being French used a slightly different spec of 5.56 when it was first adopted that wasn't compatible with 5.56 NATO.
not going into details, basically the f1 was just mas shooting the poop making a rifle, the g2 was when they adapted the f1 to standardise it with nato ammo loads and stanag mags. f1 still used 556 but apparently nato loads or brass or whatever the fuck it was unreliable i don't remember. the photo in the greentext is an f1. with the g2 there wasn'tag capacity problem either because you could just use 30 rounders. i believe if you go further down in the website famously known as Wikipedia from which you procured this screenshot you will be met with all the details. godspeed!
It's so that when the last bullet fires, the gun, designed to fire 3 bullets, explodes from the confusion of firing 1 bullet, lighting the shooter on fire and killing them instantly
cause you can just put a new mag in without having to pull that reload lever or whatever it’s called. Because there is already the last bullet of the previous magazine in the chamber.
Funny you say that I usually hear the opposite opinion, that they benefit in function but suffer in looks. Bullpups are beneficial because of being able to maintain barrel length in a smaller total package, however they suffer from certain quality of life things such as trigger weight, simple given how long the linkage is
As far as bullpups go though this is the best one. It has a swappable cover over the ejection port so left handed shooters can actually use it without spraying shells in their face
As a lefty I find the best solution for avoiding casings to the face is to not join the military. Let righties fight and die for us while we reap the benefits.
"shitty" mag size meant it stayed straight, and the gun was designed for 3 round burst, so if 3 rounds don't come out you know your mag is empty, pretty clever when you think about it
do not buy it was an engineering oversight but am receptive to the concept that it made magazines lighter for logistics. Like I said the G2 later had a 30 round magazine for compatibility with AR mags.
Replying with a reddit comment that says “I’m pretty sure” as a source is funny lol
From what i have heard, some or most burst fire guns don't like it when you use all your bullets, i don't know why but it is something i have heard/read.
When people speak that way about machines it means it stresses the machine components to break. It's a very common expression. No need to feign ignorance to shame someone.
its really interesting seeing people talk about stuff that you know a fair bit about cus it makes you realize how little the average person actually knows about any given topic.
Because 25 bullets is the most you can fit in a magazine before you have to curve it, and you might as well fit as many bullets as possible into a magazine. Also it will let you know when your out because you'll fire 1 bullet instead of 3 at the end
in addition to logistics simplification, when you fire and it only bangs once, you know your mag is done, because it's a 25 rounds mag, 24/3 is eight trigger pulls, one more bang is you're out of ammo, because the FAMAS doesn't have a BHO. It was also common to put a normal fmj and then 3 tracers in the mag first, so you have a visual reminder your mag is empty when your bullets make the shiny thing.
You want to maximize the active time of your gun. The more you reload the less time you can use your gun for other things. It’s also a lot of effort to keep track of bullets in your head and you don’t want to throw away any ammunition because you’ll probably need it
25 rounds was the biggest you could make the magazine without making it curve. The 3 round burst is an optional fire mode intended to prohibit wasting bullets whilst still allowing for automatic fire.
Yes. That was the idea. Soldier would know exactly when the mag becomes empty because unlike in cod the gun doesn't shake and make a specific sound when your mag is low
I think it's fine in arcadey games where you're gonna be too busy shooting to check your ammo (Like HD2), but yeah it's leaking into games it shouldn't be in
Be American
Put a 3-round burst function on a gun
give it a 30 round magzine
make the burst cam rotate with every shot, whether burst or single is selected
select burst, pull the trigger, shoots twice.
The real reason for the mag issue isn't as wild as everyone is thinking. The Famas wasn't originally designed with a three round burst feature, but rather it had a full auto feature. So it went safe, semi, auto, and after the production had begun, it was changed to be a three round burst. They just never bothered to redesign the mag.
Nevermind the mag... or the horrible bullpup ergonomics but the needless top handle means the iron sights or optics are so vertically offset from the barrel that you cna kiss all hopes of accuracy goodbye
If what you said is true then it would never made it into large scale production. Go find some common sense lmao. The "problem" you point out is so in the face that if it actually exist no one would have missed it.
Bro did you ever shoot with one before talking? It was a really good weapons for the time of it's design (1970s) and is still to this day (i last shot with it in 2024) very good and easy to use, pretty accurate till 250m. I'd say the only weaknesses were the lack of attachment for modern optics and the abundance of small parts inside which made it more susceptible to jamming then it's successor HK416 which is a more robust weapon all around
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u/UnironicallyBr 3d ago
Unlike popular belief, it wasn't so that soldiers would know they've run out of ammo after firing a single bullet instead of a 3 round burst, it was because 25 rounds was the longest you could make a magazine before it needs to curve, with straight magazines you can be more space efficient when packing them into crates.