Leave it to the Germans to take a series of simple physics principles, stack them, and find a way to make it cycle a firearm incredibly reliably.
Leave it also to the Germans to take the Belgian’s snubbing of wanting to build the FN FAL in Germany as the G1 and turn that into being one of the world’s small arms power houses. H&K was born out of FN going, “no” when Germany asked to build the rifles natively post WWII and during the Cold War.
Fear of the Soviets didn’t outstrip pettiness, which I can respect after a fashion, and let to the rise and eventual dominance of H&K. H&K has service weapons in most of prominent the NATO nations. They even got the poor SA80 working well enough that it spawned an A3 variant that seems fairly properly modernized. Even when they aren’t supplying, like they are to the French and the USMC, they are inspiring with guns like the VHS-2 clearly deriving from the G36.
FN is no slouch and I certainly prefer the SCAR to the 416 but the results of that decision by FN decades ago is amusing.
Anyway, watch Henry go through the stacked equations of simple physics to show you why the G3 and the weapons that came from that line work so durned well, were modular far ahead of their time, and still hold their own today for being so simple.
Also check out 1911 Syndicate and Teufelshund Tactical for more.
