Lots of well thought out explanations. Most of which also seem to wildly underestimate the power of inertia and unit cost in decisions. Bullpups are way pricier than any reasonable form of AR. There also is a huge mindset that isn’t going to easily shift overnight. Or ever. I’m never going to use a bullpup (or an AR) on any battlefield. My military days are long in the past and I wasn’t an infantryman anyway. I could use one to defend my home, shoot 2/3 gun, or make bets with my buddies to hit far away stuff. Everything has a price, a compromise. Bullpups for HD make sense. There is no downside. Reloads are fast if you train and slow if you don’t. That’s on you. I’ve shot my Tavor out to 100 yards only. That’s my rifle range unfortunately. It would group around 2 to 2.5 inches with my dumb ass behind the trigger. Disclosure I removed the second trigger return spring and my Tavor trigger now feels like a mushy mil spec AR trigger. It’s not a Geissele. That means I can keep rounds at 200 yards around 5-6 inches. That’s good enough for me and truly most people for social work. If you need a DMR then yup this ain’t your rifle.

Around your house it’s tough to argue that a “good” modern bullpup isn’t a great choice. SBR size with no loss in ballistics. At room distance perhaps not a showstopper but I haven’t met the guy who prefers slower to faster (no can talk here). Yes it’s butt heavy. It’s also much easier to hold and shoot shouldered one handed than an AR. Don’t believe me? Try it yourself. I can easily keep my Tavor pointed at your soft bits and make a 911 call at the same time and hold that position for a long while. Try that with your AR.

Is it perfect? Nope, not even close. I don’t like AUG’s all that much. I think Tavors are overall best of breed but the new imported SA VHS/Hellion looks very promising to take top spot.

Inertia, cost, unwillingness to learn new, and some really bad bullpups have torpedoed bullpups. I’m getting one of these (Hellion/VHS) when they have been out awhile. I suspect it will be a great house gun that you could shoot at distance just fine if you trained to shoot at distance. Anybody have a pencil thin barreled AR that they have shot at distance? It’s not ideal but you can do good work if you put in the work.

Most people don’t want to spend 2000 dollars on a rifle that does most things not quite as well as a 500 dollar AR. You are paying the extra 1500 bucks to get a non SBR SBR. If you don’t want a short gun with long gun advantages this won’t interest you. If you are a gamer you can spend a lot less and have a better gaming gun. Walking around your house or property with a rifle and a phone, well now it’s a pretty solid choice.

IMO there are two distinct issues with Bullpups.

One is that the shooter is much closer to the chamber than with a conventional design. We have all seen pictures of of blown up rifles, now I ask you would you want your face darned near resting on that area.

The second issue is Balance. As a Skeet and Sporting Clays shooter I can tell you with absolute certainty that we actually need a good length of barrel out in front to provide some stability when shooting a long gun off hand. All that mass out front smooths the swing and aids in holding the barrel on target while waiting to release the trigger. In my case I have a 28 inch 20 gauge that I can't hit well with and and a 30 inch 28 gauge that I can hit quite well with. So well that I use the 28 for 20 gauge competition and the 20 is waiting for a 30 inch barrel to become available.

In addition I suspect that shooting a bullpup from the prone position in sandy conditions will result in a lot of dust getting kicked back at the shooter by the muzzle brake. I've also found that magazine length is an issue when shooting prone with an AR-15 and suspect the same will hold true with a bullpup.

Basically a Bullpup is only good for close quarters combat and is compromised for any other battle task. Frankly I really don't understand why this design keeps popping up. Yeah, they are short, so what.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:
One is that the shooter is much closer to the chamber than with a conventional design. We have all seen pictures of of blown up rifles, now I ask you would you want your face darned near resting on that area.

This gets tossed around a lot, but I've yet to see or hear of someone having a kaboom in a bullpup. I'm open to being corrected if you can find links, however.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:
The second issue is Balance. As a Skeet and Sporting Clays shooter I can tell you with absolute certainty that we actually need a good length of barrel out in front to provide some stability when shooting a long gun off hand. All that mass out front smooths the swing and aids in holding the barrel on target while waiting to release the trigger. In my case I have a 28 inch 20 gauge that I can't hit well with and and a 30 inch 28 gauge that I can hit quite well with. So well that I use the 28 for 20 gauge competition and the 20 is waiting for a 30 inch barrel to become available.

Uhhh.... I'll skip to the punchline on this one: You're wrong. A skeet shotgun and a bullpup MSR aren't even in the same ballpark in terms of handling, nor should they be. It's like comparing apples to footballs.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:
In addition I suspect that shooting a bullpup from the prone position in sandy conditions will result in a lot of dust getting kicked back at the shooter by the muzzle brake. I've also found that magazine length is an issue when shooting prone with an AR-15 and suspect the same will hold true with a bullpup.

Ah, informed opinions. I don't shoot any rifle with a brake, but are you familiar with the general design of the AR A2 birdcage style flash hider? Something similar to that is on my FS2000. Those slits in the sides and top? They're only in the side and top. There's no slit facing downward to keep from blowing dust around. No mechanical difference there between an AR and the bullpup I own. Also, prone on my floor just now to confirm what I remember, the FS2000 doesn't sit appreciably higher than the AR does prone. An added benefit is I can use the magazine as a rear monopod and it sits really stable. The 30rd magazine in the AR wasn't necessarily keeping my high up off the floor, either. I popped a 20rd mag in there and got a bit lower, but not so much that it seemed like a big deal. Shooting prone with a PMAG 40 isn't going to happen, though.

quote:

Originally posted by Scooter123:
Basically a Bullpup is only good for close quarters combat and is compromised for any other battle task. Frankly I really don't understand why this design keeps popping up. Yeah, they are short, so what.

And yet there are many countries that have decided Scooter123 is wrong and issue bullpups to infantry. How much experience do you have with these types of rifles? Or is this all supposition on your part?

Yea I pretty much don’t buy any of your argument. Shotguns swinging around with 26 inch and longer barrels and battle rifles aren’t really the same argument. Kicking up dust? My Tavor has the same flash suppressor as my Colt. Yes it’s closer but it’s closer on an SBR as well.

The funniest part is the silly disdain you show. It’s short, so what? Well every guy with an SBR or a braced pistol would certainly say there is value to “short”. Silly point. Of course shorter has value. Every military/police/civilian usage has recognized that in some form.

Kabooms. Oh brother. We all shoot, have you ever seen a bull pup kaboom and destroy somebodies face. I’m sure it has happened (statistically speaking) but I don’t make plans around crazy shit.

Once again, it shines around your house and your property. In quantifiable ways. Would I pick it to arm the US Army? Probably not. Would I give one to units that need short rifles? I would consider it. Forget all that though, we are just enthusiasts. Where it shines it shines. If you hate bullpups you will always find a reason to hate a short, ballistically superior (to SBR/pistol) easier to one hand rifle while walking down your hallways.

I’m not selling my AR’s but for the homestead my Tavor makes a lot of sense. The Hellion looks even better.

Edited to add: Try this experiment. Hear something and you grab a phone and your gun. Phone is in your pocket. Simulate you find a bad guy and hold him at gunpoint. Now reach in your pocket to dial 911. A sling helps with this but it helps both AR and bullpup and either way you can easily shoulder a bullpup (Tavor in my case) and dial phone all while keeping the rifle pointed and useable at bad guy. You can stay like that for minutes at a time. Try the same thing with your AR. You won’t last anywhere near as long. All that weight in rear makes it easy to shoulder one handed all day long. Try that with an AR and it quickly seems like you are back to holding an M1 at port arms till your arms quake. Night and day. Try it. It’s not even an unlikely scenario. More likely than the kaboom you so fear.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: pedropcola,

Come on guys. Argument based completely on supposition are just as good as those based on experience. Right?

Right??

I have yet to try skeet or sporting clays with my AUG, but I’ll also argue that it would not be ideal for it.

quote:

Everything about them makes sense; it's hard to find arguments against them, other than the often-repeated difference in manual-of-arms,

Its been discussed online for two decades, not all of it is searchable and there is a bias by some search engines both internet wide and in forum programming (arfcom I'm looking at you) which makes it difficult to find.

The bullpup was a child of the 60's trying to get a long barrel and it's ballistics into a short overall length. It requires compromises. First, the action and magazine are behind the normal hand position holding a wrist or grip, which is meant as a rest for the trigger finger. That puts the magazine a lot closer to the shoulder and the ejection port is above it. The chamber is directly in front, often shielded as it's the cheek rest.

That makes magazine changes slower, requires the loss of a sight picture and slows reacquiring the target. That is a negative compared to that standard mag forward position. It also puts the shooter at the rare risk of injury if there is a malfunction, usually premature ejection during ignition, also known as a kaboom. It's right next to the shooters face. Hand injuries aren't uncommon when that happens with action forward rifles, and protective eyewear is the recommended norm. Having it in close contact with the face isn't a positive, and would cause more severe injuries which might increase the risk of a soldier being put out of action. That is another negative.

Because the action is divorced from the trigger, despite over 50 years of design engineering, nobody likes the results. Another negative.

Iron sights are pushed far forward down the the lenght of the barrel making the radius shorter, which is less precise, and optics were regarded as mandatory even on the early versions. Nothing wrong with that, but a bare bones carbine would be slightly more compromised vs a standard action. Slight negative there, both use optics now.

Disassembly for cleaning isn't quite as fast and has some inherent issues. Getting to the gas chamber and piston on some takes more time, compared to the champion, the M16, which takes less than a minute if not seconds. It's another slight negative.

The need for a longer barrel was predicated on an understanding that intermediate cartridges weren't as powerful as the .30 NATO rounds, and it was an assumption that the power was required and necessary. With the armed forces of First World countries moving to mechanized transport, this was looked at as a positive. However, because of the build up of physical metros, and the changing world political situation, conflicts were compressed into shorter ranges. It turned out we didn't need a 50mm and larger case capacity to reach out and hit the enemy, the longer barrel to gain some effective distance wasn't as needed. More improvements in powder and projectiles contributed to the extension of range in intermediate cartridges, too. All of that negated the primary reasons to compromise rifle design into a bullpup at all.

I've read a lot of the same posted as a quote above over the last 20 years on the net. There are assumptions, not facts reflected in it. As outlined above and by plenty of others, the bullpup has issues and it's notable that so few have adopted it. The potential conditions and use didn't materialize as expected - reality of the future became concrete and the tactics did. It's why the M4/M16 remained in service as first adopted as early as 1965 with the XM177. Thats been 56 years, and its a reflection in the superlative engineering of the M16 as designed by former a Marine, Eugene Stoner, and his team. A lot of that engineering was also directed not only to using the most modern methods of fabrication, but also simplicity in assembly. The gas system gets a lot of talk, but the barrel extension screwed onto the barrel is highly significant in reducing costs overall.

Like the .308 battle rifles of the 50's to 70's, the bullpup is a short lived sideline to weapons developement overall. There are fans, even bullpup pistols sell, but the overall "efficiencies" and benefits aren't being realized in real world use. Some of the original Bushmasters were even bullpups - the M17S, which is a somewhat rare and largely unknown model. And the Chinese have issued the QBZ-45 since 1995, along with Austria and Britain with theirs.

There are plenty of fans but no, not so much at the application of national force level. It's simply too much compromise.

Thank you for your thorough and thoughtful replies, Tirod; both here and in the extreme reliability thread. With the GWOT over, and near-peer conflict seeming more probable, do you think bullpup designs will regain traction?

I have yet to find a bullpup with an acceptable trigger.

quote:

Originally posted by LimaCharlie:
I have yet to find a bullpup with an acceptable trigger.

And defying all sense in the world, the Keltec .308 bullpup has the best trigger I've tried - for a bullpup. It was better than a lot of GI AR triggers.

Geissele makes Tavor trigger parts, but I don't have a Tavor and never tried one with the Geiessele.

I'd like to have one bullpup to mess around with and put actual experience on the issue instead of opinion. The Springfield looks like the best contender because it swaps left or right hand easily and it will be easy to sell if I don't like it.

I have the x95 Tavor and an AR.

I should them equally badly with my old eyes.

The Tavor has an OK trigger out of the box but I am getting a Giselle trigger when I can find one in stock for a normal price.

It is what you are used to.

A Tavor x95 might change your mind about Bullpups.

I have mine set up for left-handed.

Not hard to switch, I have been told but I have never had a reason to try since I have had it.

Most of the Israeli army uses it.

Tirod, excellent post. However, I do disagree with a few factors.

First, I think we saw in Afghanistan that our forces were engaging at longer distances and that the 5.56 wasn’t optimal. Nevertheless, the 16” barrel vs a 14.5 really wouldn’t make that huge of a difference in long-range ballistics. I think everyone would agree it would take a new cartridge, to resolve the ballistic issue, and that platform type is not the issue or solution.

While there are not a lot of militaries that have adopted the AUG or the Tavor, there are enough out there that if there was a real concern, regarding explosions, you’d have heard of it by now. Therefore, I’m not worried about a kaboom next to my face. Of course, I don’t shoot reloads either - commercial or private.

I agree the triggers aren’t great and that the magazine changes could be better. However, Desert Tech addressed these issue in the MDR (but failed for the most part when it came to reliability). However, the new MDRx SE appears to address the issue of reliability while maintaining better controls for magazine changes and a better trigger out of the box.


Further, I don’t want a light trigger on a HD weapon. I submit a little longer and/or heavier pull makes sense for HD to prevent accidental discharges. That being said, there are trigger solutions for both the AUG and the Tavor that appear to do a good job without going into match trigger type specifications. And, as mentioned, the MDRx comes with a decent trigger out-of-the-box. I’d argue that the trigger issues are simply manufacturers staying within their original specifications and not because they couldn’t redesign them.

Next, I’d argue that the sighting radius is not really an issue anymore as Aimpoints, scopes, Eotechs, etc. have taken over as the primary sighting mechanism on western military rifles.

All this being said, none of us our going to buy a bullpup to engage another military. Rather, it would be used for self-defense/home defense where it would clearly shine with the ballistics of a 16” barrel coupled with the short length of a SBR. And, unless I have a magazine failure, I really doubt that more than one magazine would be needed in a HD situation.

To me, the real disadvantage of the AUG and the Tavor are parts. Without a question, the ability to find AR15 parts, at a decent price, well exceeds that of a bullpup.

I ditched my tavor due to the manual of arms. I felt like I could practice and get pretty slick at running one, but felt this would only degrade my capabilities in running traditional format rifles.other than that, I really like the advantages offered by bullpups.

Afghanistan did point out that a 14.5" carbine meant for close quarters or NON combat arming - like the M1 Carbine for support personnel - doesn't work in the longer range conflict.

The military never issued the M16 with a 16", it was the 20" that had the better ballistics and is what made 5.56 perform. The answer wasn't finding the remaining M14's, it's reported those refitted latecomers to the fight were left in the racks in the Green Zone. What worked - against a Russian .50 cal in a rock lined fighting position - was indirect fire or air based. Patrols got more suport instead of going barefoot into the wild and that is what stopped the long range sniping. Added resources in more sniper teams in the field also had an impact - shoot them putting up the old .50 before they can shoot you.

For the most part after they lost control of the hills it all moved to the metros as taking a beating got old and you can hide in ten thousand people easier than ten thousand square meters against sophisticated optics, sensors, and satellites pinpointing your presence to combat power which lives in the mountains with you. That is what happened in Afghanistan, we changed up our response and they quit trying to fight a losing battle. The individual soldier with his one rifle isn't always the entire solution when you have multiple layers of crew served weapons not being fully utilized. We got them engaged and it was telling.

Overall, the benefit of having a longer barrel with more difficult loading and ergonomics doesn't pan out. Check 3Gun, again, competitors show up with bullpups for the challenge, as do AK users, and yet they remain in very small numbers. The skill to use them to the top 10% of rankings is evidence of their overall inability to perform as easily as the M16 platform, which was the end result of examining the changes in the combat rifle and what improved efficiencies on handling the controls and reloading it in combat. The M16 has it's compromises - the straight line buffer tube requires tall sights to get them up to eye level - the rest of the gun has major advantages and that is why it handles and performs better than the bullpup. If anything the few nations that did adopt the pattern aren't known for continuous conflict - which is a good goal to accomplish - but it does invite making a less than desireable design more acceptable as the institutional knowledge of what works in combat isn't as widely experienced. Austria, Britain, and China - the last isnt ranked a world power now over it's combat ability, but it's political acumen. All three have nice parades, we don't bother. If fact, the last one was cancelled. That political acumen thing.

quote:

the straight line buffer tube requires tall sights to get them up to eye level

I have seen this mentioned here and there. In my opinion, it's not actually a thing. People see mechanical and optical sights sitting high, relative to the receiver, and they cry foul. The height over bore doesn't differ all that much, when compared to other weapons. The Sig 550, for example: it was even mentioned in a marketing video; the low-profile sight plane reducing a soldier's exposure. Well, the height of the 550 sights relative to the actual bore is quite similar to an AR15.

quote:

Originally posted by Chris42:
The bull pups are all butt heavy. Try shooting for accuracy at 200 yards and the light barrel is all over the place. Like a piece of yarn blowing in the wind.

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
it’s best if we can also extend our grasp and clamp our hand firmly (“C-clamp”) out near the end of a long handguard rather than having our hands close together.

Investigating these two aspects has been on my to-do list. I finally put a few rounds through my borrowed AUG, and I must say that I disagree with both comments. This was, of course, not a thorough or scientific evaluation, and merely served to give me an initial impression.

To address the first comment, I shot eight rounds, standing unsupported, at a torso-sized steel target 150m away; AUG then my AR.

AUG: 7 hits in 40 seconds
AR: 5 hits in 45 seconds

I was discouraged at my AR performance, so I did it again, after a break, and switched the order, so I wasn't fatigued holding the AR.

AR: 6 hits in 45 seconds
AUG: 6 hits in 30 seconds

The configurations bear mentioning:
11.5" AR is wearing a Specter 1x/4x and titanium silencer; it also has a light and laser adding some extra weight to the front end. AUG is wearing nothing but the 1.5x donut optic.

Considering the optical differences, I did fire the first 4 rounds from the AR on 1x, and switched to 4x for the rest. I thought that would make it more of a fair comparison. So, a couple seconds on the AR runs were spent switching magnification.

I think the data more-or-less speaks for itself. I did not experience anything remotely close to "yarn blowing in the wind"; If anything, the AUG was easier to hold steady, because my arm wasn't tiring nearly as much.

The lateral transition evaluation wasn't as cut-and-died. I used a three-target array; the targets were about 15m away from me, and 7m away from each other. 1 shot left, 2 center, 4 right, 2 center, 3 left, for a total of 12 shots. Bullseye was a 6" black dot...

AUG: 10.60 seconds with no misses
AR 1x: 10.44 seconds with one miss
AR 4x: 10.23 seconds with two misses

Again, I used both magnifications on the Specter, considering the AUG has the oddball in-between optic. Nothing about my experience gave me the impression that a bullpup is more difficult to employ, in this circumstance. I am not a competitor, and I am sure my times and hit ratio illuminates that fact. I am sure someone with a lot of time behind an AR in a competitive context would be affected in a bigger way, but that would probably be the case if you put them behind any sort of different weapon; not just a bullpup.

I didn't set out to evaluate the trigger, because I honestly don't care. I did notice it was certainly different, and it caught me off guard on both of my first 150m shots. After that first shot, I promptly forgot about it. It's heavier than a AR GI trigger. This is a 90's vintage AUG; maybe they're a bit better now?

Simply put; if a bullpup is truly “better” all things considered, for most uses they aren’t better enough (than the AR platform) to justify the transition costs in both dollars and/supply chain and or training. Ditto for most civilian use, while I’d buy one as a gun enthusiast, I wouldn’t be re-training my manual of arms to have it replace my AR as my go to HD gun.

I think my bullpup curiosity may ultimately perish due to what I hypothesize is a sub-par performance with a silencer. I have not found the opportunity to truly test it, as it would require investing in a bullpup myself, or investing in tinkering with a loaner. I believe that the noise associated with the action and gas system being that much closer to the shooter is what would ultimately kill it, for me. I enjoyed my time spent with the AUG in the past, and my time spent more critically assessing my borrowed gun the other day; the bullpup, specifically the AUG, is great.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: KSGM,

quote:

Originally posted by KSGM:
I think my bullpup curiosity may ultimately perish due to what I hypothesize is a sub-par performance with a silencer. I have not found the opportunity to truly test it, as it would require investing in a bullpup myself, or investing in tinkering with a loaner. I believe that the noise associated with the action and gas system being that much closer to the shooter is what would ultimately kill it, for me. I enjoyed my time spent with the AUG in the past, and my time spent more critically assessing the my borrowed gun the other day; the bullpup, specifically the AUG, is great.

What’s your basis for hypothesizing that silencer performance would be “sub-par” with a bullpup? You must be concerned about at-ear noise, more than muzzle noise, because the latter is mostly based on factors like barrel length, silencer characteristics, and ammo, and none of that has anything to do with whether a gun is a bullpup or not. As to the gas system, most rifle caliber bullpups are piston driven, so gas system noise is likely to be less than a DI AR, or on par with any similar piston gun. For your face being closer to the action, I can’t imagine that your face (and ear) being 6 inches farther away from the ejection port is going to make it materially less quiet. Plus, action noise is a function of the design of the action, and most bullpups have a similar action to a non-bullpup, with a rotating bolt, in a carrier, and a recoil spring behind. Also, not all bullpups have side ejection ports for the noise to go out of. There are downward ejecting guns like the RDB and forward electing guns like the RFB and FS2000. This seems like a baseless hypothesis.

My hypothesis is largely based on my only experience shooting a suppressed AUG. It was a gun with a 9mm conversion, shooting subsonic ammo through a can. It was unbearably loud, at the ear. I am sure the action noise was enhanced by the blowback system used by the conversion, but I know, based on experience, that a blowback 9mm AR SBR shooting subs or supers is quite tolerable in comparison.

Quantifying gas system noise output is difficult. It seems to me that the more baffling and diffusion that can occur, the better. I have seen piston gun gas vents that emit a visible flame jet; that likely makes a decent sound. The emission being that much closer to the shooter is what I base that aspect of the hypothesis on.

Downward-ejecting guns are out of contention, for me personally, but I understand and respect their approach.

Do you shoot a bullpup with a silencer regularly? How does it compare to a suppressed AR? Can you shoot it without ear-pro without feeling that your ears are taking a truly immediate beating? A lot of what I have been doing lately requires situational awareness and teammate communication, both of which ear protection hinders. I wear ear protection when doing most of my practicing, regardless of the presence of a silencer, but it's necessary absence in some training aspects has led me to scrutinize the at-ear performance of certain weapons lately.

An interesting video about “explosions” at the ejection port of the Springfield Armory “Hellion” bullpup that could be a problem with the gun.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3FT5dxcItw