I do not think caseless ammunition is a step in the right direction for it does not allow for reloading. how much cheaper would it be then regular ammo? a polymer or synthetic casing capable of resizing may be the answer.
The Russians don’t reload their steel cases, the US military does not reload it’s brass cases.
We’re talking military weaponry, not the ability of the US shooter to reload.
“Casket” or “coffin” - I’ve heard the term “coffin” but not “casket.”
Spooky
The big problem with caseless is heat and the resulting cookoffs. When the action doesn’t open to spit out the case it also doesn’t vent heat. This was a major problem with the G11 in development.
Cool that is the first cutaway I have seen of the AN-94. Unfortunately it doesn’t show the cable and pulley arrangement very well but you can see it in there. Which I remember reading about yrs ago and always interested me in its operation, If my memory serves me correct the pulley and cable combination is the key to high speed 2 round cyclic rate operation.
The reason I believe there hasn’t been a new weapon adopted on either side is because we are on a, plateau for fire-arms design the current standards are very good and until telescoping cased or caseless ammo is perfected the only-thing on the orison will only be incremental improvement which seems no one is willing to spend the money on. [Changing out systems for one that only can offer a incremental improvement no one seems willing to do.] For anybody wanting to know what the next gen weapons might look like. My guess would be cased telescoping ammo that offers 30-40% less weight and volume per case with a quad stacked magazine that offers 30-40% more ammo capacity than the standard 30 round magazines coupled with the possibility of less moving parts from telescoping ammo operation with the possibility of having the number of parts off set by having the the fast 2 shot burst feature of the AN-94.
http://www.defensereview.com/stories/aailmga/LSAT%20ps05-11-06c.pdf
If some one can combines all of these improvements then you would have the next gen small arm.
The current improvements in design right now will not be in the firearm itself but the material it’s made out of. But even then that is trivial. You’re preaching the same thing I am. All major advancements with firearms have been with ammunition first and methods of ignition. Cased ammo is the future. When and how? Not sure… if the Cold War didn’t end the West German Army would be armed with G11s. The G36 was H&K’s back up to a back up. H&K was pushing the G11 as the new thing followed by the G41. The G36 came to being after the Cold War ended and the Federal Republic of Germany wanted to upgrade to new rifles but didn’t have the cash to afford G11s or G41s.
A lot of the Russian designers have come up with neat and wacky designs through the years. I remember seeing some kind of bullpup rifle all in a bakelite looking body (the color of those awesome Afghan era orange bakelite mags)—and this rifle was from the '60s. Chambered in 7.62x39. I forget the name of it though.
It is certainly hard to beat the AK as a weapon for a large military, from its simplicity of manufacture and relative cost and all that. But is the future of AKs in the reciprocating 107 and 108 designs? These are supposed to greatly mitigate recoil, or so I read.
Glad to hear that the 7.62 is making a comeback. 
Not wanting to take this thread on a big tangent, but who supplied all the US made equipment to the IRA? Was it covert shipments from sympathetic Irish-American NGOs in the US? I remember being at some parties in college where the hat was being passed for the IRA.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOozMdEV_AU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWOoUsE3-Q0
The Russians truly do some whacky things, a 5.45 mm pistol being an example. An aircraft that uses grain alcohol for a coolant is another. This rifle evidently has no feature where an empty mag locks the bolt back. Go figure. It appears to be very controllable in full auto fire. I have a couple of air rifles that have actions that ride on rails after the shot. It makes for a smooth firing cycle and good accuracy but at the expense of complexity.
Same is true for all AKs.
So I have been told. I don’t know much about them. You would think at some point the Ruskies would see the value in the feature and incorporate it in the next design. But, as rojocorsa said, they do things their own way.
Not really sure why the AK was never designed with the bolt hold open mechanism. The feature was not new to the Russians as both of the gas rifles that preceded the AK (STV and SKS) had them. I’m just figuring that Gospodin Kalashnikov wanted to keep it as simple as possible?
Did the MP44 have a bolt hold open mechanism?
Pretty much this.
Running around West Belfast, I was everybody’s friend when they found out I sold guns in the States.
Nope. Neither did the post war roller locking systems (HK, CETME), or the British L1A1, or the FNC.
I guess “bang, bang, CLICK.” was good enough for everybody back then.
Actually there was a whole training doctrine devoted to counting bursts and changing magazines. If you ran a rifle, even an AR dry, it was considered an error on your part.
Back then if you had a mechanical click it had better be because a round FTF and not because you had an empty chamber or you were going to hear about it.
Personally I prefer a BHO simply because it gives a firearm more opportunity to cool and vent heat, especially when talking about select fire.
The whole rifle looks like an afterthought. I mean, it looks like they finished it up and while showing it to the brass someone said, “hey, you forgot the pistol grip”.
I’ve heard that, but didn’t know how true it was.
Do you know anywhere I could read about that more? (Old Russian training doctrine.) I know that was around in WW2.
I seem to also recall reading that the Russians would put tracers in as the last few rounds to signal it was time to change mags. It was in Gun World magazine (now out of print) that I seem to remember reading this and I believe it was in an article on the Abakan. This article would have been in the mid 1990s as I was in high school at the time.
Any validity to this or am I regurgitating gun rag BS?
I thought it was “us” that did the tracer thing in Vietnam… ?