Type 81S Rifle

Larry Vickers apparently owns one.

I didn't even know that there was such a thing as a semi-auto type 81, but apparently there were a very few imported into the United States prior to the (1989 I think) import ban.

The Type 81 in its non-neutered, select-fire form was the standard rifle of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA). In frontline service it has been replaced with the QBZ-95, but the turnover is not yet complete, as China does possess a rather large army. The rifle does occasionally turn up in other places, most notably Sudan.

While it looks something like an AK-47 or AKM, the type 81 is somewhat different. First and foremost, the ergonomics look like they suck less. AKs have such wretched controls placement, such uncomfortable, squared-off furniture and so many sharp edges lurking around the gun that when shooting it one sometimes wonders if the gun was ever actually intended to be fired. It's so bad it's almost as if the gun resents you for using it.

The type 81 improves this sorry state of affairs by placing the safety and fire selector in the general vicinity of one's hand (the same cannot be said for the QBZ-95, which has control placement that somehow manages to be worse than that of the AK). The charging handle, alas, stayed on the right side of the receiver and does reciprocate. The rifle is said to have a last-round bolt hold, but I cannot ascertain whether there is any other way to lock the bolt back. Such a feature would be helpful for clearing various malfunctions.

Additionally the type 81 uses a different arrangement of the bolt carrier and gas piston. In the AK the gas piston is fixed to the carrier, presumably in the interests of having fewer loose parts to loose. In the type 81 they are two separate pieces, presumably in the interest of reducing the amount of mass in motion and therefore disturbance of the sight picture during shooting.

Also of note is the front sight, which is moved far back on the barrel to facilitate the use of rifle grenades. The extremely short sight radius cannot be helpful for accurate shooting, and this flaw is repeated in the QBZ-95. The type 81 does at least appear to have an aperture rear sight, but it is a very weird one, featuring a wide, horizontal slit rather than the usual small circular hole.

A few fairly incidental features seem similar to the Czech VZ58 rifle. The receiver cover features a very wide ejection port, although not quite so wide as the Czech rifle's. The placement of the ejector blade in the receiver suggests, however, that this type 81 ejects straight to the right, whereas the VZ58 ejects almost directly upwards (hot steel casings being launched vertically and coming down in unpredictable ways is fun fun fun!). The upper handguard likewise has no pretensions to being part of the gas system as it does in the AK, and serves merely to cover the piston. The way in which the pistol grip attaches to the receiver also appears similar to the VZ58.

This should not be taken as saying that the rifle is wildly different than the AK series, however. Indeed, so much is similar between the two that it is really only the differences which are of interest from a technical perspective. The bolt, bolt carrier sans piston, fire control group, return spring, and magazine arrangements all appear to be substantially based on those in the AK. The overall layout and external appearance is, of course, also very similar and one could easily mistake the two rifles at a distance:



Type 81 rifles



AK pattern rifles

But there is no possible way to mistake either for the QBZ-95:

Concordance of the New Synthesis

Is someone at the Exile reading Mencius Moldbug?


NB: "dominant tribe" and "brahmanic."

Equalizers

Be not afraid of any man no matter what his size; when danger threatens, call on me, and I will equalize.

I have yet to pin down the exact origin of this line, but it seems inextricably bound up with the Colt Peacemaker revolver. It has been mutilated as it has been passed down, but the meaning remains unambiguous; almost anyone can defend themselves effectively with a firearm.

As with any statement so bold, there are some rather important provisos in that. A firearm is not a magical death ray or talisman; it takes training and awareness to bring into combat effectively. The important point is, however, that anyone, saving perhaps the exceptionally physically disabled can be so trained and can be so aware.

Firearms aren't the first weapons with such a distinction. Certainly the crossbow was a shock to the status quo. The naginata was reckoned to be a good weapon for the short, as its reach would help keep a taller opponent at a distance. The composite bow allowed unarmored men and women to rule the steppes from stubby ponies for centuries; Central Asia has a long tradition of armed females. None of these priors, however are nearly so egalitarian as the firearm.

Certainly, other small arms are quite so accomodating to women. Gun guru Jeff Cooper, whom you could rightly accuse of many things but not inordinate political correctness, was utterly convinced that women are entirely the equals of men in the shooting disciplines. Some have even gone so far as to claim that women are inherently better shooters than men, but when asked why they tend to shuffle quietly away, so I suspect that this is hooey. It is, however, likely that women learn shooting much more quickly than men, as they are not afflicted with testosterone poisoning and less headstrong in the face of instruction. The industry seems to be learning this fact, slowly (due to the fact that is still largely run by men), and one of the largest demographic increases in shooters has of late been women.

Given all that, I find it odd that the way to accelerate this trend has been to single out female shooters. Why are there, for example, women's divisions in competitive shooting? Perhaps it is encouraging to the relatively small number of female competitive shooters to have a seperate division, so that they don't get lost in all the noise. Why does the Smith and Wesson Ladysmith line exist? Designing a gun for women is exactly the same endevour as designing a gun for a man, albeit one with slightly smaller hands on average. Again, this makes the most sense as an attempt to reassure female shooters that they are being paid attention. In an ideal world, this would not be necessary.

Bets?

I found a new, slightly untapped reserve to feed my John Dolan habit here at Alternet. Understandably, Dolan doesn't think much of Christopher Hitchens, but it's enjoyable to see him come out and say it nonetheless. Such acrimony demands resolution. Perhaps they could have a hate contest.

Things I know Bugger all About

I'm compiling a list of things upon which I am supremely ignorant. This is a difficult exercise for me; it's not only hard to tell when you know you don't know something, but it's also difficult to admit.

Anyway:


-Knitting, crocheting, and all other forms of textile fabrication I know bugger all about.

-Meteorology I know bugger all about.

-Boating I know bugger all about.

-Mushrooms I know bugger all about.


Seems that I'm coming up with things that I want to know about. I suppose that when I come across something I am ignorant of, and don't really care about, I just automatically exude contempt.

Anatomy of the CX4 Storm

One of the reasons I approve smacking upside the head anyone who seriously proposes a categorical distinction between "sporting purpose" guns and "military-style" ones (this includes George Bush Sr.) is because it blatantly ignores the history of small arms, and anyone ignorant upon a subject should refrain from pontificating upon it.

The simple fact of the matter is that if a gun is good for shooting deer it is sufficient for shooting people. Seizing upon this obvious fact, arms designers have largely refrained from scrupulously dividing "sporting arms" and "military arms" into two independent, parallel lines of development. Advances in military arms are rapidly passed on to sporting arms and vice versa. Indeed, military arms are frequently pressed into service as sporting pieces after suitable modification and, more than one might think, the opposite occurs as well.

Thus, the majority of American centerfire sporting rifles currently produced are based either upon the AR-15 action or upon the Mauser action, both of which were originally conceived as infantry weapons. Even the quintessential non-military deer rifle, the Winchester Model 94, which was originally designed as a deer rifle, has been impressed into irregular military service on a number of occasions. If you can drop large ungulates with it, you can also kill large primates with it.

Thus, I'm all for the inclusion of "military" features into sporting rifles, especially when it makes my life easier. The Elmer Fudds of the world may object upon aesthetic grounds, but it needs to be realized that this sort of thing has been going on for ages. There's nothing "unsporting" about this either. What constitutes a fair hunt is a matter of staying within responsible limits of game harvest and personal, spiritual matters of what constitutes a satisfying hunt. I also support slapping people who decry the "unsporting" nature of this or that method of hunting when they themselves have never been hunting. Anyone ignorant upon a subject should refrain from pontificating upon it.

Now, with that out of the way, let's take a close look at the CX4 Storm, particularly with a view towards "military" features on a "sporting" rifle.




Now, anyone with a half-informed opinion of early 21st firearm aesthetics could tell you that is a "military" or even "futuristic" looking rifle. Someone three-quarters informed would point out the lack of a threaded muzzle or muzzle device of any sort. Someone fully informed would, of course, know that the rifle was initially marketed during the waning days of the odious 1994 Assault Weapons Ban, a singularly stupid piece of legislation based upon the silly, nonexistant distinctions previously mocked, which had the effect of losing the Democrats control of Congress and banning the new manufacture of guns that were about 1% of those used in violent crime. Due to the drastic, and still mysterious fall in violent crime during the early nineties, which only slightly predates the ban, many people actually believe that the law accomplished shit. Despite the exasperating idiocy of this trivially falsifiable view, one must be patient with such people. Many are otherwise intelligent and can be gently corrected. The rest... well, as the Cardigans put it, "Reason will not pledge a solution."

One can, of course only determine so much about a rifle by looking at the exterior and bitching about the excesses of the Clinton years, so let's break this baby apart:



Once the rifle is cleared of ammunition, this is effected by pushing out a single, spring clipped polymer cross-pin highlighted here in Tactical Pink. This pin may be pushed out either to the left or to the right and re-inserted from either side. 4'7" tall career masseuses will find that their tiny steel fingers can work the pin out easily, but the rest of us hominids may elect to use a tool to accomplish this. Note that the pin actually comes all the way out, it is not captive like the takedown pins in the AR-15, so don't loose it!

This is the first "military" feature of the storm; it can be field stripped for inspection or cleaning without any specialized tools; indeed, if one is sufficiently dexterous, no tools whatsoever. I am of the opinion that all guns, and ideally all common household objects that require cleaning should be designed in this manner. As "military" in this case means "dead convenient" I must advocate the militarization of all things, because this feature is simply fantastic.

Since I can't think of a better place to mention it, I am not aware of any military on Earth that actually uses the gun. Closest I've ever heard is the New York State Highway Patrol, so anyone who describes this as a "paramilitary firearm" evidently considers speed cops to be paramilitary or is fond of sensational adjectives.

Once the cross-pin is removed, grab the forend of the gun with one hand and the stock with the other. Pull these apart from each other. The upper and lower receiver sections will separate thus:



The takedown pin is in Tactical Pink, while the upper receiver is in Calming Lime Green and the lower is in Arid Plum.

Separating into an upper and lower half is a trick borrowed ultimately from the Belgian FAL service rifle. Splitting the receiver in this manner allows greater access to the parts during, while still providing a rigid receiver suitable for optics mounting.

As in the AR-15, the lower receiver houses the trigger, safety, magazine catch, bolt catch and hammer mechanisms. These collect relatively little fouling during firing and thus their cleaning regimen can be light. They are also difficult impossible to disassemble and remove without special tools. We can therefore feel warm and fuzzy in the knowledge that they are there, perhaps perform a simple function test of thumbing back the hammer and pulling the trigger to see if it resets properly, and then ignore the lot and move on to the upper.

To begin disassembly of the upper, pull the charging handle all the way back until it sits in the circular cutout. Pull it outwards, away from the receiver to remove the charging handle from the bolt as so:



takedown pin in Tactical Pink and charging handle in Dynamic Taupe

It is perhaps worth noting that this method of bolt and charging handle retention is very similar to that in the AR-18. While I prefer to have a reciprocating charging handle permanently attached to the bolt, as it means one less thing I can loose, the mirror-image cutout holes on either side of the bolt which allow the charging handle to be installed upon either side and thereby accommodate left and right handed shooters arguably justifies this choice.

With the charging handle removed, the bolt may be taken out of the receiver by pulling on it directly, or upending the muzzle away from the local gravitational vector and allowing the bolt to fall out:



bolt in Assault Myrtle

Two things about the bolt are worthy of note;

1) It's a heavy cast iron son of a bitch, probably accounting for around a third of the weight of the gun. This is because the only thing keeping the breech of the gun sealed during the balmy peak firing pressure of 28,000 PSI is the inertia of that bolt. There is no mechanical locking, not even a retardation or delay mechanism. Be glad it's that heavy.

2) The bolt "wraps around" the barrel, which is to say that most of the weight of the bolt lies substantially in front of the pistol grip. This "telescoped" bolt design was first developed in Czechoslovakia just prior to WWII, but only became popular in after the uzi submachine gun became a certified triple platinum hit with lots of cheap imitators. It allows a shorter receiver and for the magazine to be placed in the grip by moving all the requisite mass and bulk of the bolt forwards, although in the CX4 Storm it is arguably unnecessary as the bolt could easily have tucked into the stock.

Look at the rear of the bolt. On top is a small, thin metal cover here slightly brightened and highlighted in Combat Puce:



Remove this by pulling it upwards. You may now remove the return spring (large spring doohickey in the photo), ejector (small spring doohickey in the photo), cage (small slotted plastic doohickey) and extractor (small, not spring-loaded doohickey not seen in photo, opposite the ejector).

Here are the ejector and extractor:



The ejector is the one on top.

Notice how similarly shaped they are? They fit in mirror-image slots on the margins of the bolt face and may be reversed to reverse the direction of ejection to help better accommodate left-handed shooters. Make sure to install the cage on the opposite side from the extractor and on the same side as the ejector:



To re-install the bolt, take out the charging handle before lining the bolt up with the charging handle hole:



Then replace the lower receiver and takedown pin and the gun is re-assembled.

The CX4 storm is joyously simple, and despite its "futuristic" appearance there is absolutely nothing fancy going on under the hood. The gun operates on the simple principle of blowback; that is, the unlocked bolt is blown back by the force of the cartridge being fired and returned forwards by the return spring. Not only is straight blowback simpler than all other semi-automatic operation cycles, it's actually simpler than manually-operated operation cycles as well, as those require some sort of locking mechanism.

Still, the internals have some way to go before they could be considered to be artistically simple. Unfortunately, the BATFE has arbitrarily ruled that open-bolt operation constitutes an NFA-controlled, post-86 machinegun (it shouldn't, but they are idiots), so there is no possibility of eliminating the articulated firing mechanism entirely and using Advanced Primer Ignition with a fixed firing pin, as do the majority of military submachineguns. A simplified, tooless removable hammer and trigger group would not go unappreciated, however. A glock-style safety trigger, perhaps, with the sear surfaces on the bolt and striker, rather than hammer firing, might reduce parts count. Eliminating the crossbolt safety and improving the trigger pull would do a lot to induce warm and fuzzy feelings in me. It is also unclear to me why there aren't mirror image bolt catches, as this is the one piece that's actually a bitch to move around for left to right conversion, and one of the most important.

And there's a (to me) obvious way to improve the arrangement of the swappable extractor and ejector, but in the interest of opsec on up and coming designs from other companies, I'll let you figure that out for yourself.

Why of all the mealymouthed...

Apparently Zanu-PF can't convincingly rig an election anymore. Zimbabwe must be in dire straits indeed.

Couple of howlers from this article.

1)

Mr Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said Mr Mugabe

had unleashed a war after security agents ransacked its offices in Harare on Thursday.

But it denied Mr Tsvangirai had gone into hiding and said he was "safe".

i.e. he is in hiding.


2)

Mr Mugabe, 84, came to power 28 years ago at independence
on a wave of optimism.

But in recent years Zimbabwe has been plagued by the
world's highest inflation, as well as acute food and fuel shortages.

The Western Media is making it sound like Mugabe didn't show that he was a bloodthirsty racist maniac of questionable mental stability until about seven or so years ago. If any of them had been paying attention, certain events would have made it quite obvious that he should never have been trusted. Perhaps genocide in Africa was deemed passe? The main problem isn't the confiscation of white-owned farms. That's one offense in a dictionary-length list off egregious examples of misrule. Mugabe is and always was despicable.

There's talk of giving the man a ceremonial post in the new government, and not "leaving him to dry" over accusations of human rights abuse. All he deserves is assurance that in deference to his age the execution will be relatively painless.

This is all a pipe dream of course. Mugabe was once a darling of the American Left, which makes the massive and absurd disaster there yet another thing we can hang, tangentially at least, around the neck of our own thrice-accursed and deranged leader Jimmy Carter. The hard-on that Mbeki gets for his old revolutionary idol was, and perhaps still is echoed in the memories of enough Western politicos that Mugabe will die a regrettably natural death. They even propose the now laughable idea that negotiations are the solution.

Punk and Gonzo Versions of Reality

Blogs, via their links and various link tracking software provide a quick, computer parsable impression of social networks. It doesn't take too long to figure out where the cliques are, what the centers of thinking are, where to get the best scoop on X, et cetera.

So, what are we to make of this War Nerd guy that's been getting a lot of link-love of recent, and even wrote his own book?

I've been reading him for a while, so I'll let you in on the joke, but only after you listen to his hilarious interview on NPR:

http://teageegeepea.tripod.com/warnerdinterview.mp3

(via tggp, copy the URL to your address bar or it won't work)

and since we're at it, why not read one or two columns while you're in the mood?

Alright, now I can let you in on the joke, such as I am able. That interview is a joke, and if you believed that it was what it sounded like, then the joke is on you.

Realize, for starters, that "Gary Brecher" isn't. He's almost certainly an alternate version of John Dolan dreamed up by John Dolan for the purpose of eradicating mendacity worldwide, and failing that, amusing himself. Even if Brecher isn't Dolan (and I would bet money that he is), the narrative almost works better if you do think of them as the same person. Brecher/Dolan is capable of much higher levels of communication than what he shows here, and since he doesn't sound drunk, assume it's part of the joke.

The joke is that this interview is all bullshit. The interviewer's pious aversion to violence and death? Bullshit, Brecher even goes so far as to explicitly point this out. Since this Brecher doesn't sound anything like Brecher usually does, and Brecher is probably a pseudonym for Dolan, we may even be dealing with nested levels of bullshit.

So exactly at who's expense is the joke? That's somewhat hard to tell. Sure, Brecher is making fun of the NPR interviewer; that much is obvious. That moralizing, condescending self-satisfied hypocrite is exactly the sort of phony person Dolan so detests, so naturally he's playing up the War Nerd at his most unsophisticated and revolting to squeeze as much out of his interviewer as possible, all while still staying more or less true to the character. This is performance art, after all.

(I wanna hear this naive mister rogers wannabe interview someone from 4chan. That's your goddamn nerd culture.)

But beyond that Dolan plays his cards close to the chest, or perhaps I'm just thick. For whom does he shill? Certainly, he hates the current American administration, but who doesn't? Indisputably he hates literary frauds, which he sees as indulgent masturbation of a most mendacious sort. Has a sore spot concerning the so-called war on drugs too. In his incessant, flamboyant hatred of these political institutions he reminds me quite a bit of Christopher Hitchens, another author whom we actually pay to tell us all how depressingly inferior we are.

Indeed the main differences, as I see them, are that Dolan is a better writer, doesn't explicitly spell out his political agenda, and prefers hard drugs to alcohol.

But in the folds hewn between his words Dolan betrays what Mencius Moldbug would call Universalist doctrines, that is, he isn't quite so different in what he believes than your average Yale or Harvard elite. The fact that he probably fucking hates their guts doesn't mean that he isn't in roughly the same ideological grouping.

John Dolan represents a sort of Punk Universalism. The chords, the words, the techniques all came from familiar ground, but they've been stripped of anything unnecessary and they started diverging after that. Whether this curious divergent path leads to anything truly derived depends on just how independent his thinking is. Does Dolan get his kicks picking off the errant and parasitic from his own herd, or does he head his own?

And holistically, why am I writing about all this sort of thing?

Simply, 2008 is an exciting time. The Internet isn't particularly censored, you see, so all sorts of divergent ideologies are constructing their own little niches, cliques and narratives. There are truly weird taxa, like Moldbugian Formalism, and sparkshow power struggles within existing confederations, like what Richard Dawkins does now that he finds biology boring. There are experiments with ultra-distributed, ultra-democratic communities like wikipedia. For whatever reason, perhaps it was their fantastic provincial arrogance, the powers that be saw fit not to make the internet conform to the same rigorous standard of conformity that other media do.

Thinking Reed my Arse

Via Matthew Mullenix as Stephen Bodio's Querencia, we get this story from ESPN about a Florida community who's boys hone their football skills by running down rabbits on foot.

I'm put in mind of Khoisan hunters chasing kudu to exhaustion. It's an amazing physical accomplishment, but within the range of human possibility. We don't have to be weak.

And heaven help me. I prefaced an anecdote with "Via___ we get the/this story___"

I'm beginning to write like Jeff Cooper!

Additions to the blogroll

I set this up with a list of links that I thought might never be expanded.

Ah well.

I'm adding Painterbrit, The World We Don't Live In and TFS Magnum.

Here We Go

Since thoughts worth preserving have been growing about as quickly as glaciers, I haven't really done a lot with this new, shiny blog, but now I have something that's slightly above filler quality, so away we go!

Itihasa posted a fascinating little gender-guessing widget. Check it out; the principle upon which it is supposed to work is interesting enough to toss me along all sorts of speculation that I couldn't begin to substantively answer.

So, what else was there to do but start feeding it material and seeing the verdict?

My writing was first, with appropriate selections taken in a decidedly non-random fashion from my old/other blog. The gender guesser nailed it as male or weakly male every time, which quite frankly pissed me off because I like the idea that I can pretend to be anyone when I'm on the internet. Oh well; I'm a guy, I guess that secret is out there now, and even a stupid bot can figure it out.

But what about the things that I read?

I'm pretty sure that Tamara K is a lady/woman/distaff whatever the preferred term for that is these days, but the gender guesser pegged samples from the blog as male every single time. Likewise Kathy Jackson of Cornered Cat. OK, though, both of those women write about guns and self defense, which is admittedly a male-dominated subject, and the gender guesser did say that it uses word frequency analysis in its inscrutable machinations, and that could be throwing it off.

So then I fed it some paragraphs from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, only to be reminded that the algorithm only works on American idiomatic English.

Apparently some of the Americans I read don't write like Americans either, since the guesser returned the weak option for several posts form Stephen Bodio's Querencia and Unqualified Reservations.

The gender guesser couldn't nail down a solid answer for Heather Corinna either.

Is that a large enough sample size to draw any conclusions from? I would think not, but it does amuse me to think that everything I read is written by a man, or cleverly disguised to look like the same.

Edit: The widget says that this post is only weakly male. I wonder why?

Here Goes

Testing, one, two, three...