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Anything can be quantified and measured, but you have to define what you're trying to measure and why.
What are you testing when you fire 2,000 rounds without cleaning a pistol?
What are you testing when you throw a rifle across an open field?
Why do these metrics matter? Do these benchmarks appear when the guns are being used for real?
I've said before that it really doesn't matter if a pistol can fire thousands of rounds without cleaning or lubrication if I'm only going to have 52 rounds on me. It's interesting, but what does the endurance test tell us? Why isn't the author telling us what they're testing by performing this exercise?
What are we learning from throwing rifles? When do you expect that to come up? Dropping from chest high to see if something breaks seems more apt.
A rifle can be "tossed" across a field under combat conditions. The owner of the weapon will no longer be in the fight, so does the fact that his gun was still functional matter to him in any way? Your personal position on "is there an afterlife" matters here.
WHAT ARE YOU TESTING AND HOW DOES IT APPLY TO ANY SITUATION I'M LIKELY TO ENCOUNTER FOR REAL?
The fact of the matter is guns are a very mature technology and most of the problems which will cause problems for the end user will show up before you've emptied the first box of ammo most of the time. That doesn't sell magazines or get clicks.
Remember, we live in a world where a
Practical tests are kind of dull, and will be a lot more tedious to perform because they're dull.
Impractical tests lead us to rifles set up to excel at one particular need. They lead us to make decisions which hamper the weapon's use at a different application.
Reliability tests which run past the amount of ammunition which a platoon will carry teach us what again? InRange's mud tests are a great place to see that not all reliability tests are the same. The famously reliable AK was reduced to a straight-pull bolt action and the notoriously unreliable AR barely hiccuped. Solid performers like the SKS and FAL said, "fuck this shit!"
The filth from firing hundreds of rounds is not the same as the filth of being carried for weeks on end. Carrying a gun in a pocket doesn't subject it to the same filth as carrying it in a belt-holster. (Do we want a lint moistened with sweat test? Ewwwwwww!) There's an essay from Lt Chomps on cleaning pervasive Namibian dust out of every conceivable orifice I need to commission.
Reliable in tropical conditions doesn't mean it's going to keep running in the arctic. A rifle which is fine in a temperate woodland might be a disaster in middle-eastern sand.
A pistol which eats 2,000 rounds at an indoor range could shit the bed on round two after spending months toted inside a waistband because the carrier didn't bother to check on the thing. Why didn't they check on it? Because they most certainly didn't fire 2,000 rounds, so there's no need to clean it yet!
A more apt test might be to carry the darn thing and ignore it for months and see if it can make it through all the ammo you're carrying.
What you're testing is what you are testing. If you're testing to see if a gun will fire 2,000 rounds without cleaning, what you're learning is whether it can fire 2,000 rounds without cleaning. Nothing more, nothing less. If you're testing to see if a gun will function after being covered in pottage-thick mud, what you're learning is whether it will function after being covered in pottage-thick mud; and that's all. If you toss it out the door of a helicopter you're testing... um... well a gun that survives that is damned tough, but do I need a gun that durable?
How many rounds?
How fast are they fired?
How dirty are the test conditions?
What's the temperature and humidity?
Will the weapon be cleaned during the test?
Does the shooter have to return a functioning weapon or not?
What you're testing is what you are testing. If you're testing to see if a gun will fire 2,000 rounds without cleaning, what you're learning is whether it can fire 2,000 rounds without cleaning. Nothing more, nothing less. If you're testing to see if a gun will function after being covered in pottage-thick mud, what you're learning is whether it will function after being covered in pottage-thick mud; and that's all. If you toss it out the door of a helicopter you're testing... um... well a gun that survives that is damned tough, but do I need a gun that durable?
How many rounds?
How fast are they fired?
How dirty are the test conditions?
What's the temperature and humidity?
Will the weapon be cleaned during the test?
Does the shooter have to return a functioning weapon or not?
Would I do this to a gun I paid for with my own money and intend to keep?
Do any of these matter? If they do, why do they matter? If they don't, why don't they?
If the gun can fire three magazines when it's cleaned and lubed; then it's cleaned and lubed between every time you fire three magazines and it can do that forever... but it can't fire 500 without cleaning...
Does that make it a bad gun?
Does it needing cleaned every 500 make it a worse gun than one that can fire 2,000? Does it matter?
Funny story - sort of related:
ReplyDeleteAt a long ago national IPSC titles in Oz (think USPSA), buddy and I were rostered to shoot the "gully run" stage first up, early in the morning of day two.
The gully in question was shady, and heavily wooded. The temperature at that time of day was in the low single digits (Celsius), while in the gully it was a few degrees cooler.
My run was OK - not spectacularly fast but solid hits with no misses or penalties.
Buddy stepped up, and the cold temperature coupled with the heavy weight lube he used on his gun turned it into a very expensive single shot until it warmed up - 10 or so shots into the 34 round run. His time was shot to hell (no pun intended) and the repeated malfunctions flustered him such that he completely blew past one target without engaging.
If he had NOT stripped, cleaned, and lubed the gun after day one, it probably would have run fine.