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G36 (and other non-Zahal weapons): Impressions
I recently had the opportunity to examine and to fire a G36 (in a job-related activity). Thought some people might be interested in my impressions. Please keep in mind these are impressions from a very limited acquaintance with the weapon.
On the positive side:
Very good ergonomics. Comfortable bringing to the shoulder, low recoil, trigger squeeze a bit soft.
The sights (built in x4 telescopic and a red-dot reflex) are easy to use.
Very light weapon, which as a former infantryman, I greatly appreciate.
The clip matching magazines are wonderful. They click together or apart without any problems: means no external clip, no twisted wires and carton, ... .
The telescopic sight has good visibility and was very effective.
The top cocking lever is ambidextrous: you simply twist it to either side, though I don't think you can change the direction of the ejection port.
Didn't fire enough to say anything about the accuracy. I also asked about the problems, discussed elsewhere, about barrel heating, but the Bundeswehr people said they had never had any problems with it.
On the negative side:
The weapon is _very_ light. This means I had great difficulty in getting the scatter (mikbatz) right (standing, unsupported). I tried a G3 immediately afterwards, and with one mag had a 10 cm scatter. With the G36 I had 40. I imagine improvement would come with practice.
The reflex sight is very small, with a very wide rim, which means that I found it a bit difficult to acquire the target immediately.
The magazine well is a disaster. The magazines are very fat,which makes them much shorter. However, they do not fit into the magazine well (beit hamakhsanit) easily: unlike for instance, the FN-FAL, there is no side plate to help in guiding the magazine in, and unlike the AKs, there is insufficient tolerance for the top of the mag, so you have to struggle to get it in. Moreover, when I did the automatic load - smack bottom of mag - pull to check seating drill that we were all brought up on, I was told this is a no-no: apparently, there are problems with the magazine feeder lips (sfat hamakhsanit), which spread if they are smacked against the bolt.
The distance between the grip and the safety (which is also ambidextrous) is a bit too large for me (I have small hands) but presumably fits local ergonomics. However, at least on the weapons I tried, it was rather stiff and difficult to switch from safe to fire and back again without takig the weapon away from one's shoulder.
Overall, in many ways a nice weapon, but could use some improvements.
I would also*like to suggest that we might be able to start a new eshkol related to weapons forum members encounter that are _not_ usually encountered by forum members. |
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