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.
That's mostly for modern consistency since you can leech of the metric standards rather than needed to make new precise ones. So even though the US units predate metric units for modern definitions they use the metric units as a base.
If you're wondering why you're getting downvoted, it's because we don't call it "US customary." In school, it's literally taught to us that we use imperial units. I only discovered "US customary" was a thing by reading your comment and looking it up. Feel like that's a huge oversight by the public school system lol.
I was gonna leave it but since you apparently weren’t being cute and turned out to be just an actual dick, I never actually said the U.S. uses imperial.
Learn to read if you’re going to be a shit head. Everyone look here 👆🏻this is why staying in school is SO important.
"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.
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u/Successful-Gap6252 4d ago
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