I know Ian is considered the pinnacle of TH-cam firearms history, but I think you should just straight up do the exact same thing as him and not limit yourself to stuff he might not have already covered or video game guns. Even if you do all the same firearms he has in the past. You're a great presenter, you have amazing access to an incredible arsenal, and an audience that loves that kind of content.
He's done quite a few guns that Ian has covered. It's just that Jonathan has access to such a ridiculous array of weird and wonderful guns, he's a bit spoiled for choice, so he might as well do stuff that nobody else has touched on.
It's very kind of you to say this, and there is truth to it for sure - for a long time I tried to avoid duplicating FW. But, there have been a few where I have, and we're not afraid to revisit guns he's covered provided we can add *something* to what he's done with it :) The video game guns are entirely separate and the purview of Gamespot - they will continue regardless.
If I may voice a request: Could you try and get your hands on the "grossfuss sturmgewehr" prototype? It's the only gas delayed assault rifle ever created. Unique delay mechanism and extremely obscure. It has never been disassembled on video!@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries
It's not totally daft, given the context of the time. Mounting systems caused all manner of grief before Picatinny became standard, as we saw with the SUIT. A lot of procurement departments were quite reasonably averse to anything quick-detach, because of the risk of loss of zero (or indeed loss of the optic). This arrangement isn't too far removed from what Steyr did with the AUG, or indeed what H&K went on to do with the G36.
@@TheKerberos84fan 9nly imagine. As on my personally owned rifles here in the states that are self loading rifles. The National Match M1A(M-14 clone) I owned blew the interior lenses out of two different brands of scopes. Burris and Red field.
He did mention it came after the steyr AUG. I think the difference here is that there's no iron sites, unlike the AUG, and the AUG is very easy to disassemble and switch out the upper receiver if anything happened to the scope. Obviously you couldn't do that in the field, but you can do it in seconds back at base. You're right, though it's not far removed from the AUG, but when the upper receiver was already designed to accept scope mounts, it seems a bit strange.
But don’t forget, as I was reliably informed a few years back, the pic-rail system is over 100 years old! He literally said, and I quote, “After all, it’s called the MILITARY STANDARD-1913 rail and was first introduced in WW1 in 1913!” 🤪.
Just want to say that the audio is excellent on this episode. Whatever you did for this one, it's perfect. As for the idea of built in scopes, I can see why many companies decided to go with them but what I'll never work out is why they chose some of the worst sights you could imagine.
I've often wondered that. It feels like they were trying to augment the iron sights, more than add a scope, if that makes sense? Almost like they were a precursor to red dot scopes, or something.
@@ohredhk I can agree with that, and the scope might be easier to use. However, those iron sights are pretty close to bullet proof. I wonder how much better than any other scope these can be - I´ve destroyed more than a few reticles because of shocks, some just from recoil. So how do you replace these scopes if that happens? Even the iron sights can be replaced on the 33 if damaged.
Commented last video, so wanted to follow up: audio is top-shelf here. Not sure if the setup has changed or if the multiple perspective component of the last video played a part, but this quality is fantastic. Great work (as always.) Cheers, RA crew!
The fact that there are German proof marks on the "EN33" receiver, not just the barrel, must mean it was not only made in Germany but fully assembled, proofed and THEN disassembled and shipped to Enfield for the export trick. I doubt Enfield did anything more than install the trigger pack, handguards and buttstock etc.
@@murphy7801Not sure why. The companies themselves have no will, they are led by people who have the duty to profit regardless of morals. It comes down to whether the government lets them, and corrupt German politicians never left the shady business (see their recent dealings with Russia and their former prime minister curiously becoming the chairman of Putin's Rosneft in August). I guarantee you that the reason he didn't go into it is because it has to do with shady dealings.
If I remember correctly, a lot of these developments (3 round burst, low magnification optics) came from experiments to improve the first hit capability for conscript soldiers. The epitome of this development was the G11. In a typical conscript army in Europe most of the soldiers hadn't a lot of shooting training and it was at least more than a year ago for a reservist.
I love that they called it the "German Rifle" 3 just abbreviated to "GR3". I work in manufacturing and I can tell you that the most amazing engineers can be utterly useless at the creative endeavour of naming something. A few years ago we released an updated version of a thing we sell and for the name we just slapped an "X" on the end of the old ones name because the new iPhone at the time was the iPhone X.
I guess one has to blame _Zeitgeist_ as well. It was about the time that West Germans started to think that to mean that you're business-oriented, customer- and export-friendly you really need to use as much English as possible, even if it's for internal consumption. Dropping unnecessary (and even cringeworthy) English loanwords into presentations still seems to be considered proper decades later, judging by some Rheinmetall advertisement videos.
I reckon it was to do with being in competition with ARs. Plus, every one knows German is synonymous with engineering quality, and HK is an incredibly well-respected gun manufacturer, so why not combine the two and really hammer home the point? 🤣
@@WilhelmEley-lr4gl That's an excellent example of the dangers of making up a word for a new automobile model and then selling internationally. The Vauxhall Nova sounded like "the Vauxhall won't go" in Italy and the Toyota MR2 sounded like "the Toyota s**t" in France. The Ford Capri was nearly the Ford Caprino until somebody realised that colloquially it meant goat droppings.
I remember the GR series from when someone modded them i to the early Rainbow 6 games (i mostly played rogue spear). The 1.5x scopes were perfect for the typical map size in the first two games. The memories are still.strong of the difficult choice between a GR2 and one of the early Tromix AR insanities.
8:30 as a production engineer, addressing the question of whether or not you would make a new production line for top rails without iron sights or if you would just grind off existing iron sights. It would entirely depend on how many of these you were going to make. Let’s say for instance you have 100,000 HK33 rifles that need to be made by a certain deadline, and that has the factory in full production. And you only need to make 1,000 or even less GR3s without the iron sights. You would sacrifice too much machine time to write a new program to make a new fixture without iron sights and set several machines to produce those 1,000 GR3s over the next few weeks, or however long it takes. With such a small order it would be far more cost effective to remove those 1,000 iron sights without disrupting your production line. But if instead you were expecting to need a lot more GR3s then you very well might write a new program and set several machines to make separate parts. And also this is talking from a modern perspective using modern CNC manufacturing. Back in the 80s it would have been even more difficult. Hopefully this helps answer the question!
The sound is perfect this time! And so is the content and delivery from the always outstanding Jonathan. Lively and scintillating as always, keep them coming!
I dont know what HKs deal was back then but they were really fixated on these kinds of optics. The whole idea of making the optic an integral part of the firearm. They did it to the G11 too and eventually it eclipsed in the G36 where the optic really is molded into the carryhandle.
Well you have to remember during WW2 the Germans already wanted to replace iron sights with a short range magnified optic as standard, but they never were able to standardize it. A good example is the ZF-41 1.5x magnified long eye-relief scope. Even the G36 had a built in optic when it came out. The non-magnified red dot sight entirely built into the carry handle. I think Germany always wanted this to be a thing, and honestly made sense.
@@Gameprojordan It does make sense. Pick what you consider the best optic for the gun and mould it right into the gun. No user servicable parts inside. Any malfunctions the units armorer has to take care of. Soliders arent known to be the bightest lights all thru the ages and in every country so quick detach picatinny mounted optics might not be the right thing for the grunts of an army. You know, they might take it off for cleaning and then put it back on reversed. Nothings unheard of.
@@GameprojordanIt wasn't just the Germans, the Soviets were also wanting to broadly distribute optics with SVTs, and British EM-1 and EM-2 had integrated optics.
Well, let's see... the Steyr AUG did it, the L85 did it, SAR-21 did it. Plenty of firearms during the 80's and 90's did it because it was trendy. Believe it or not, there are trends in firearms too, just like fashion.
the HK 33 is propably my favourite Assault Rifle in terms of looks it has all the sexappeal of the STG44 but in a modern gun (i know its not so modern by todays standarts) if you put the long 40 round magazine in it it looks even more like an STG44
I love both the designs of the hk33 and 53. There's just something very sexy about them. I always wanted to get an airsoft hk53 (I'm in the UK, so won't be owning a real one any time soon) and swap the front end for an mp5sd, just to make it the sexist hk53 on the block. 🤣
I'm Glad it's not only Ian showing the internet the beauty of Firearms History, i mean there's a few out there but one on the same level as Ian, one of em are this
Speaking as a mechanical engineer, I would imagine H&K would have had a significant stock of the front sight castings. Overruns were likely common, and it would be easy in drawings ("blueprints") to note to grab a piece from inventory grind it down and call it something new. However, they could have designed a flush fit "filler" into the castings so that it just wouldn't fill the space where the sight post/shroud would be, then just a simple clean up procedure on a grinder or by hand. The front sight casting also doesn't seem to be under any major loads other than inertia, so any re-engineering would be an unecessary effort, which if they could avoid doing would allow them to reduce engineering hours and reduce the cost of each piece. I can imagine it was very popular internally to push these GR weapons during contract bidding, they can likely be sold at significant margin thanks to the added optic and minimal cost to modify existing rifles or overrun rifles from other contracts. Many weapon "improvements" intended for governments are where significant margins/ROI can be secured, espeically since the NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) costs are mostly done if any major redesigns aren't needed.
If they intended to make more than just a few of these the front sight is unlikely to be ground off. That's something you would do for a prototype or a very limited batch of something. But a new casting would be worthwhile for volume production.
My god I miss those HK33 manual, I was not red because it translated into my native language. When we first saw we ask instructor "Sergeant ! Where is our scope and bipod ??" he replied, "You don't have enough responsibility to get it" And we love HK drum sight.
Brilliant video. FW Ian recently posted a picture on IG with him holding a 91 pattern GR series rifle, but he said HK wouldn’t let him disclose or make a video on the subject. Not sure what the information embargo is about, but any content on the GR series is great to see.
Over time, there have been different rumors associating the GR series either with German or British special forces. This would explain the camouflage variants, the selection of GR rifles (who else ever cared for the H&K21 and the H&K53?) and the secrecy.
13:05 - wouldn´t that range wheel on the scope actually lower the crosshairs to increase the range? If you want to aim higher manually, yes - you´d hold over, but changing the zero should be the reverse, shouldn´t it?
Yes, scope adjustment turrets (or wheel in this case) are marked in terms of moving the point of impact relative to the point of aim. So in this case moving the wheel in the 'H' direction ( I assume 'Hoch' is German for 'Up') would move the point of impact up by angling the reticle down relative to the barrel.
If it was for police use, it sort of makes sense to have a short range optic, zeroed at factory for pick-up-and-go use for some "less professional" forces that might need to fill a marksman role but might not necessarily have a dedicated training program for it
As I noted in my comment, a police optic would start with a 0 meters range. And as someone else noted, it wouldn't have a 3 round burst. Either way, it was a complete flop.
You should remove the bolt carrier and the fcg, and there should be fasteners in the top of the receiver. They probably hid the fasteners to cut down on bored troop tampering.
You could really add the MG42 to the list of roller locked weapons too. Slightly different but it still has 2 opposed rollers that the bolt forces into locking recesses as it goes forward into battery.
I think it makes a decent amount of sense. At the time this was developed a lot of potential customer countries had armies largely composed of conscripts and reservists, and optical sights are pretty well-established to improve hit probability over irons, especially when given to shooters with limited proficiency. Making the sight fixed to the gun simplifies things, cuts costs, probably makes the overall package more rugged, and importantly prevents soldiers from taking the optic off the gun and ruining the zero in the process, the kind of thing that's always a concern with bored conscripts.
I carried the Swedish version of the G3 for a long time, it was more accurate with the iron sight than the hi point POS they put on it so I removed that and got the one on our team that was going to use a scope a proper scope. I know nothing about this gun as we switched to our version of the FN FNC (AK5 and in the end of my service we carried the AK5D and at that point we had stopped the use of the AK4 (G3) completely as the PSG90 (a 7.62x51 sniper rifle)) which was also extremely reliable and accurate with iron sights, we did get night sights on it which, of course, work as normal sights during the day. So long story short, we made a good pick but I'm sure the GR3 would have been an excellent service rifle as well considering the G3's performance.
I remember seeing a scope like that back in the day that had that groove on the top. I believe the idea was to have a fiber optic thread that gathered light from the top and made a dot on the crosshairs or something like that. I remember thinking it was a dumb idea ad didn't bother thinking about it after that so I admit I could be completely off base with that but that is what I thought you were going to say when you first mentioned the groove from that memory. Lol
If I had to be stuck with a optic something in the 1.5-2x range would be my choice, especially with modern illuminated reticles, I'm a huge fan of low power scopes, massive relief and with low magnification and some practice you can get on target at very close distance about as quickly as a red dot.
Fascinating how many minor differences or changes are made with no clearly visible benefit over alternatives. Have to say it looks sharp with the psuedo scope on though haha.
0:17 Well, isn't it kinda the spirit of the game? Besides, today seems to be the best time for firearms & artillery museum curators to discuss less-known quirks of relatively well-known firearms, given that Ruslan Chumak from the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg had already talked on the SVT family of rifles in quite some detail. 1:08 1985 seems to be about the time when the HK G41 was around already, and it was supposedly better suited for export market (with G11 still in the works for the Bundeswehr), so why were HK still tinkering with an older design? 2:14 I would argue that a night vision optic would be perhaps even more important, since the goggles+IR laser combination wasn't viable at the time. 3:43 Are they though? Denmark and Norway each adopted their own version of this sight which is different in some regard, and the Swiss who chose to use in on their Stgw. 90 had to write in the manual an instruction on how to modify the sight so as to avoid its drawbacks. Doesn't strike me as a successful sight, to be fair with you. Aperture sizes aren't great either, although this is sadly a very common problem outside the UK. 5:38 As a lefty, I greatly approve the use of scare quotes here! 😊 8:20 Given the sort of stories HK ends up embroiled in with their export deals these days, this doesn't surprise me, but I would like to know more. 11:50 This also doesn't have the greatest field of view, especially so given the low magnification. 13:59 If I were to speculate wildly, I would suggest that it perhaps could have been riveted or bolted or spot-welded from the inside or the receiver somehow.
Could the scope be attached via the inside of the top of the upper receiver? Bolts going up into that polymer section below the scope? Definitely an odd decision to not make it removable, although it was something HK were trying in other rifles like the G11
I feel like it was one of those strange evolutionary moments where manufacturer's were caught between the need to improve the iron sight, but weren't sure if modularity was the way to go. Fortunately, modularity eventually won out, but these little moments in history are often the most fun to look back on.
I am just guessing here, but I can imagine that the idea of having a rifle with a fixed scope was also influenced by the outcome of the 1972 Munich massacre, where regular police officers had to engage terrorists at night at medium to long range with regular G3s with iron sights. I could imagine police forces learning their lesson and wanting an easy solution to implement "sharpshooters" that could reach out to longer distances using an off-the-shelf rifle with a scope.
You may well be right, but it seems weird by today's standards when they could have just bought some scope mounts and scopes. I suspect there was an element of the rule of cool at play. Integral scopes were sort of the precursor to modularity as being seen as tacticool.
G3 is an army designation. The police only had mp5s. No 7.62 rifles at all. The GSG9 was founded after 1972 Munich debacle. And they started to adopt their own marksman rifles.
Disassembly absolutely IS worthwhile, as it would allow you to look at the interior of the upper receiver and see if the scope is drilled and tapped or welded.
You know, with green-brown polymers all round and a 5-10rnd Mag, this would make a great Retro-Futuristic sniper/DMR for a sci-fi movie, feels like a Late80's/90's prop.
I wonder if that slit in the top of the optic mount isn't some sort of stress relief for the casing? A lot of plastics are actually quite sensitive to temperature and you wouldn't want the casing distorting your aim point on a hot day - or just cracking and falling off because it was too rigid. Anyway, the thing is reminding me of a video one of the 3d printing youtubers did a while back about designing for injection molding. Darned if I can remember what channel that was now, but I half-way remember them talking about needing stress relief cuts.
@@peterclarke7240 That makes three of us on all counts then! Must be a conspiracy: I'd come up with a secret handshake for us, but I'm crap at secret handshakes 'cos I'm left-handed...
I think this is the rifle depicted on the cover of "Sniping Pigz" by Plutocracy; if it's not just a drawing of what a sniper rifle looks like to people who don't understand firearms. It looks a lot like the GR3 with a G3-style Z24 4×24 scope and some weird kinda semi-waffle mag crossed with an SG550 mag
My take on as to why the scopemania so to speak went over the European manufacturers could be traced to the early start of the US Weapons replacement programme. Where the Steyr ACR (Yes not a typo) HK G11 amongst others competed to replace the M16. One of the beliefs in that period was the lack of soldier of accuracy, so a lot of that blame was shifted to iron sights, as a result you got to see a lot of weapons come supplied with the scopes built in. Steyr AUG, HK G11, Steyr ACR and even FNC with the Swedish AK5 came with that scope bolted on as a "fix" for the accuracy problem. Of course they were crappy scopes as the more proper ones were a bit too expensive and certainly not fit to deploy to "GI Joe" according to military belief. So my take on the GR series is, it was an attempt to join the trend of the competitors with the FNC (Swedish AK5) and AUG to nab a few of those lovely 80-90s contracts.
Great to see a H&K derivative I hadn't even heard of before and I'm quite a big H&K fan. If you field strip it you could probably tell how the scope is attached by looking at the inside of the upper receiver, or at least eliminate bolts, rivets and spot welds as methods used if no sign of them is present although they will be hard to see as I imagine they will have been polished down for clearance of the bolt carrier and recoil spring.
Whilst I'm here, do you have an exhibition in Leeds that focuses on more modern firearms? I.e. Cold war era and later. The last time I was there I think the most modern stuff I saw was the police seized things but I I'm sure I missed a section or 2. I got to the WW2 stuff quite late on then spent way too much time ogling the FG42. I have been meaning to visit again and would love to see more of the firearm collection.
I think they change what's on display semi-regularly, like any museum. Pretty much every weapon shown on this channel (with obviously a few exceptions and I believe they specify in those cases) will be kept in Leeds at whatever secure location they have.
Pop open the receiver and see if there's some screws along the top/inside holding it in place. Also, I bet the GR part was someone over at HK trying to figure out how to get a rifle to be as popular as the AR. And someone mentioned that it must stand for American Rifle and a lightbulb went off 🤣😂🤣 (for the humor impaired: this has been a joke)
I’ve never used a gun in any way, but would it not be a lot easier to use a big sight like that than peering through a small iron sight like on the G33? It looks like it would be much easier to use and give you more visibility, but I’m coming at this with complete ignorance of what it’s like to use those small iron sight apertures.
I would have doubts about police marksman origin of the optic and rifle considering it because HK already had a very well established rifle set for police marksman in the from of the HK33 SG1 which came with a preloaded trigger, bipod, 4 or 6 power scope, and cheek rest. But who knows.
I'm going to assume the GR meaning "German rifle" is an export name. As I know the G series (G3, G11 etc) the G stands for "gewehr" or "rifle" in german
The groove would fit a shotgun style "glowstick" type sight (optical fibre that is). But overall 1½X magnification wont really do for police sniping, objective of the scope wont work well in low light. More or less everyone got rid of the built in optics as you mention, because they dont do anything well anyways.
I feel like the fixed optical sights were designed to be easily mass-produced, issued and trained in case of full-scale war with the Russians. Especially if conscripts are involved.
Most of these weapons came from the MOD and the SAS, I have a picture of the SAS with the early 6 shot grenade launcher, testing it out it the killing house, they were firing CS gas and flash bang grenades threw the windows and doors lol
GR... I wonder if it wasn't something incorporating the German word 'rohr' (meaning tube) in the way that 'fernrohr' means telescope? Just some idle speculation...
So 200 of these were ordered by Pakistani special forces (SSG) in 80s, follow up orders were probably never given cuz SSG bought Steyr AUGs in large numbers afterwards.
Royal Armouries, :) 😀. God bless you. Please do in your next TH-cam videos, video of the Taiwanese Type T65 assault rifle and the Taiwanese Type T91 Carbine and the Taiwanese Type T81 Carbine and all their variants. Thanks.
I think the appeal of fixed sights may have to do with the cold war, where the prospect of full scale national mobilisation is always lurking. If you are going to be equipping hundreds of thousands or even millions of infantry, having a fixed standard is much more appealing than the added complexity of modularity. Post cold-war, military product slows down and scales down - but there is a greater focus on quality and versatility: it makes sense in a post cold-war world to focus on modular weapons that can be adapted to fit into different roles.
That argument doesn't really work with the British Army - long term professional and not conscript, who had gone to L85s with SUIT optics for the infantry who would use them everyday, but L85s without optics for the support units who wouldn't use them nearly so much.
@@davidgillon2762 My comment wasn't to suggest every cold war rifle was designed with the same philosophy. It was more about the rationale for why a significant number of rifles were designed around a similar period with fixed optics (Styr AUG, the original G36 etc.). That isn't to say that opposing design philosophies didn't exist during the same time period. For example the late 70s and 80s are also the time when you see the Americans become very obsessed with modularity and the 80s are when you start seeing real interest and development around rail mounting. Although speaking of the British, the EM1 and EM2 - where the philosophy was definitely abought creating something incredibly standardised and general - did have fixed "Universal Optical Sights".
@@JimIBobIJones The L85/SUSAT followed on from the L1A1/SUIT which followed on from the EM1 and 2 (plus the L64/64/68 en route to the L85). The British Army had been convinced universal optics were the way to go since c1950, had been long-term professional rather than conscript since 1960, and there's plenty of time for that interest to have spread to other Western militaries.
@@davidgillon2762 I think you are missing my point again: My point around the "Universal Optical Sights" in the EM1 and EM2 is about their fixed nature - something which was not carried over to the SA80. The concept in the 40s and 50s was that all rifles should have permanently attached optical sights by default instead of iron sights - which isn't something that was carried over to later British rifle design. I am arguing that there is likely a good reason for fixed optical sights on rifles due to how regularly we see this as part of weapon design during the Cold War, and that its not just "bad design". It is a trend that continues across the decades - starting in the 40s and 50s and running well into the late 70s and early 80s. If it was a bad idea outright, designers would not keep implementing it time and time again.
H&K is like a marmite relationship (love it or hate it). Hated the HK53 carbine, you needed gorilla hands to work the selector. They (H&K) seem to get a historic pass with their design flaws (no hold open etc) because they're just cool!
I know Ian is considered the pinnacle of TH-cam firearms history, but I think you should just straight up do the exact same thing as him and not limit yourself to stuff he might not have already covered or video game guns. Even if you do all the same firearms he has in the past. You're a great presenter, you have amazing access to an incredible arsenal, and an audience that loves that kind of content.
He's done quite a few guns that Ian has covered. It's just that Jonathan has access to such a ridiculous array of weird and wonderful guns, he's a bit spoiled for choice, so he might as well do stuff that nobody else has touched on.
It's very kind of you to say this, and there is truth to it for sure - for a long time I tried to avoid duplicating FW. But, there have been a few where I have, and we're not afraid to revisit guns he's covered provided we can add *something* to what he's done with it :) The video game guns are entirely separate and the purview of Gamespot - they will continue regardless.
Love your work mate, keep it coming!
If I may voice a request: Could you try and get your hands on the "grossfuss sturmgewehr" prototype? It's the only gas delayed assault rifle ever created. Unique delay mechanism and extremely obscure. It has never been disassembled on video!@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries
Do you have any plans to look at the L403A1 only 50 late to the M16?@@JonathanFergusonRoyalArmouries
It's not totally daft, given the context of the time. Mounting systems caused all manner of grief before Picatinny became standard, as we saw with the SUIT. A lot of procurement departments were quite reasonably averse to anything quick-detach, because of the risk of loss of zero (or indeed loss of the optic). This arrangement isn't too far removed from what Steyr did with the AUG, or indeed what H&K went on to do with the G36.
I know from experience, the fixed mount of the G36 didn't prevent it from loosing zero.
Every optical sight is vulnerable to this, to be fair.
@@TheKerberos84fan 9nly imagine. As on my personally owned rifles here in the states that are self loading rifles.
The National Match M1A(M-14 clone) I owned blew the interior lenses out of two different brands of scopes. Burris and Red field.
He did mention it came after the steyr AUG. I think the difference here is that there's no iron sites, unlike the AUG, and the AUG is very easy to disassemble and switch out the upper receiver if anything happened to the scope. Obviously you couldn't do that in the field, but you can do it in seconds back at base.
You're right, though it's not far removed from the AUG, but when the upper receiver was already designed to accept scope mounts, it seems a bit strange.
But don’t forget, as I was reliably informed a few years back, the pic-rail system is over 100 years old! He literally said, and I quote, “After all, it’s called the MILITARY STANDARD-1913 rail and was first introduced in WW1 in 1913!” 🤪.
How about swing mounts then? I´ve never used one myself, but they are really popular on drillings and triples.
Just want to say that the audio is excellent on this episode. Whatever you did for this one, it's perfect.
As for the idea of built in scopes, I can see why many companies decided to go with them but what I'll never work out is why they chose some of the worst sights you could imagine.
I've often wondered that. It feels like they were trying to augment the iron sights, more than add a scope, if that makes sense?
Almost like they were a precursor to red dot scopes, or something.
These scopes were good for their time. Plus if the intention is to equip everybody, the scope has to be relatively cheap.
Thank you @J1mston, we are listening (very intently) 🙂
@@peterclarke7240 but then they got rid of the iron sights...
@@ohredhk I can agree with that, and the scope might be easier to use. However, those iron sights are pretty close to bullet proof. I wonder how much better than any other scope these can be - I´ve destroyed more than a few reticles because of shocks, some just from recoil. So how do you replace these scopes if that happens? Even the iron sights can be replaced on the 33 if damaged.
The pictogram description is great, no bullets, one bullet, three bullets, all the bullets.
Commented last video, so wanted to follow up: audio is top-shelf here. Not sure if the setup has changed or if the multiple perspective component of the last video played a part, but this quality is fantastic. Great work (as always.) Cheers, RA crew!
Thanks Nicholas... we hear you 😉
The fact that there are German proof marks on the "EN33" receiver, not just the barrel, must mean it was not only made in Germany but fully assembled, proofed and THEN disassembled and shipped to Enfield for the export trick. I doubt Enfield did anything more than install the trigger pack, handguards and buttstock etc.
Yeah, they probably did the bare minimum to legally count as assembled in the UK for export reasons.
Probably for the best. I trust HK more than Enfield of this time.
@@murphy7801Not sure why. The companies themselves have no will, they are led by people who have the duty to profit regardless of morals. It comes down to whether the government lets them, and corrupt German politicians never left the shady business (see their recent dealings with Russia and their former prime minister curiously becoming the chairman of Putin's Rosneft in August).
I guarantee you that the reason he didn't go into it is because it has to do with shady dealings.
If I remember correctly, a lot of these developments (3 round burst, low magnification optics) came from experiments to improve the first hit capability for conscript soldiers. The epitome of this development was the G11. In a typical conscript army in Europe most of the soldiers hadn't a lot of shooting training and it was at least more than a year ago for a reservist.
Another good reason that this was not intended for police use. As I said elsewhere, at least not any legitimate police force.
Deutsches Gewer sounds like a proper rebranding of H&K. German Rifle not so much so.
I love that they called it the "German Rifle" 3 just abbreviated to "GR3". I work in manufacturing and I can tell you that the most amazing engineers can be utterly useless at the creative endeavour of naming something. A few years ago we released an updated version of a thing we sell and for the name we just slapped an "X" on the end of the old ones name because the new iPhone at the time was the iPhone X.
Ha! I'm a tech communications specialist (creative type) working in an Engineering department, and totally know what you mean.
I guess one has to blame _Zeitgeist_ as well. It was about the time that West Germans started to think that to mean that you're business-oriented, customer- and export-friendly you really need to use as much English as possible, even if it's for internal consumption. Dropping unnecessary (and even cringeworthy) English loanwords into presentations still seems to be considered proper decades later, judging by some Rheinmetall advertisement videos.
I reckon it was to do with being in competition with ARs.
Plus, every one knows German is synonymous with engineering quality, and HK is an incredibly well-respected gun manufacturer, so why not combine the two and really hammer home the point? 🤣
@@WilhelmEley-lr4gl That's an excellent example of the dangers of making up a word for a new automobile model and then selling internationally. The Vauxhall Nova sounded like "the Vauxhall won't go" in Italy and the Toyota MR2 sounded like "the Toyota s**t" in France. The Ford Capri was nearly the Ford Caprino until somebody realised that colloquially it meant goat droppings.
I remember the GR series from when someone modded them i to the early Rainbow 6 games (i mostly played rogue spear). The 1.5x scopes were perfect for the typical map size in the first two games.
The memories are still.strong of the difficult choice between a GR2 and one of the early Tromix AR insanities.
8:30 as a production engineer, addressing the question of whether or not you would make a new production line for top rails without iron sights or if you would just grind off existing iron sights. It would entirely depend on how many of these you were going to make. Let’s say for instance you have 100,000 HK33 rifles that need to be made by a certain deadline, and that has the factory in full production. And you only need to make 1,000 or even less GR3s without the iron sights. You would sacrifice too much machine time to write a new program to make a new fixture without iron sights and set several machines to produce those 1,000 GR3s over the next few weeks, or however long it takes. With such a small order it would be far more cost effective to remove those 1,000 iron sights without disrupting your production line. But if instead you were expecting to need a lot more GR3s then you very well might write a new program and set several machines to make separate parts. And also this is talking from a modern perspective using modern CNC manufacturing. Back in the 80s it would have been even more difficult. Hopefully this helps answer the question!
There's nothing like sipping a good cup of tea while watching Johnny after a long day of hard work.
Nothing more relaxing 👌
The sound is perfect this time! And so is the content and delivery from the always outstanding Jonathan. Lively and scintillating as always, keep them coming!
Thank you! Glad you're loving the content.
I dont know what HKs deal was back then but they were really fixated on these kinds of optics. The whole idea of making the optic an integral part of the firearm. They did it to the G11 too and eventually it eclipsed in the G36 where the optic really is molded into the carryhandle.
Well you have to remember during WW2 the Germans already wanted to replace iron sights with a short range magnified optic as standard, but they never were able to standardize it. A good example is the ZF-41 1.5x magnified long eye-relief scope.
Even the G36 had a built in optic when it came out. The non-magnified red dot sight entirely built into the carry handle. I think Germany always wanted this to be a thing, and honestly made sense.
@@Gameprojordan It does make sense. Pick what you consider the best optic for the gun and mould it right into the gun. No user servicable parts inside. Any malfunctions the units armorer has to take care of. Soliders arent known to be the bightest lights all thru the ages and in every country so quick detach picatinny mounted optics might not be the right thing for the grunts of an army. You know, they might take it off for cleaning and then put it back on reversed. Nothings unheard of.
@@GameprojordanIt wasn't just the Germans, the Soviets were also wanting to broadly distribute optics with SVTs, and British EM-1 and EM-2 had integrated optics.
Well, let's see... the Steyr AUG did it, the L85 did it, SAR-21 did it. Plenty of firearms during the 80's and 90's did it because it was trendy. Believe it or not, there are trends in firearms too, just like fashion.
Thank you for showing the scope view, the manual and also for the functioning sound on this video.
Thank *you* for watching and sticking with us. We're listening and constantly making changes to make it sound better and look brighter.
the HK 33 is propably my favourite Assault Rifle in terms of looks it has all the sexappeal of the STG44 but in a modern gun (i know its not so modern by todays standarts)
if you put the long 40 round magazine in it it looks even more like an STG44
Fat mp5 in 5.56
@@AKK5I that would be the HK53 tho, HK33 is more like a G3 who went through a diet
I love both the designs of the hk33 and 53. There's just something very sexy about them.
I always wanted to get an airsoft hk53 (I'm in the UK, so won't be owning a real one any time soon) and swap the front end for an mp5sd, just to make it the sexist hk53 on the block. 🤣
I'm Glad it's not only Ian showing the internet the beauty of Firearms History, i mean there's a few out there but one on the same level as Ian, one of em are this
Speaking as a mechanical engineer, I would imagine H&K would have had a significant stock of the front sight castings. Overruns were likely common, and it would be easy in drawings ("blueprints") to note to grab a piece from inventory grind it down and call it something new.
However, they could have designed a flush fit "filler" into the castings so that it just wouldn't fill the space where the sight post/shroud would be, then just a simple clean up procedure on a grinder or by hand.
The front sight casting also doesn't seem to be under any major loads other than inertia, so any re-engineering would be an unecessary effort, which if they could avoid doing would allow them to reduce engineering hours and reduce the cost of each piece.
I can imagine it was very popular internally to push these GR weapons during contract bidding, they can likely be sold at significant margin thanks to the added optic and minimal cost to modify existing rifles or overrun rifles from other contracts.
Many weapon "improvements" intended for governments are where significant margins/ROI can be secured, espeically since the NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) costs are mostly done if any major redesigns aren't needed.
If they intended to make more than just a few of these the front sight is unlikely to be ground off. That's something you would do for a prototype or a very limited batch of something. But a new casting would be worthwhile for volume production.
My god I miss those HK33 manual, I was not red because it translated into my native language. When we first saw we ask instructor "Sergeant ! Where is our scope and bipod ??" he replied, "You don't have enough responsibility to get it" And we love HK drum sight.
Brilliant video. FW Ian recently posted a picture on IG with him holding a 91 pattern GR series rifle, but he said HK wouldn’t let him disclose or make a video on the subject. Not sure what the information embargo is about, but any content on the GR series is great to see.
KK's general attitude towards us Untermrnche.
HK hates civvies so god dang much
HK just hates the plebs lol, imagine how much money they could make with semiauto MP7s
Over time, there have been different rumors associating the GR series either with German or British special forces.
This would explain the camouflage variants, the selection of GR rifles (who else ever cared for the H&K21 and the H&K53?) and the secrecy.
You better be at the museum in 3 weeks John. I'm flying halfway around the world to meet my spirit animal
I remember the old HKPro site had a section of photos of these guns with a note that they didn't have any details of the fixed-optic HK guns
13:05 - wouldn´t that range wheel on the scope actually lower the crosshairs to increase the range? If you want to aim higher manually, yes - you´d hold over, but changing the zero should be the reverse, shouldn´t it?
Yes, scope adjustment turrets (or wheel in this case) are marked in terms of moving the point of impact relative to the point of aim. So in this case moving the wheel in the 'H' direction ( I assume 'Hoch' is German for 'Up') would move the point of impact up by angling the reticle down relative to the barrel.
Another great video thank you Jonathan
Thanks for watching Peter
Great video! Best overview of the GR series I have ever seen.
Love your work mate, keep it up.
The optic was likely derived from their work on the G11 as well.
It certainly looks the same
If it was for police use, it sort of makes sense to have a short range optic, zeroed at factory for pick-up-and-go use for some "less professional" forces that might need to fill a marksman role but might not necessarily have a dedicated training program for it
As I noted in my comment, a police optic would start with a 0 meters range. And as someone else noted, it wouldn't have a 3 round burst. Either way, it was a complete flop.
what police uses rifle camo?
I'm surprised you guys had one in inventory!!!
Given that G probably stands for Gewehr (rifle), the R might be for Rohr, meaning ’tube’ and referring to the sight tube (scope).
You should remove the bolt carrier and the fcg, and there should be fasteners in the top of the receiver.
They probably hid the fasteners to cut down on bored troop tampering.
the HK33 is a fun piece.
quite an interesting optic too, very toobular
Totally tubular bruh
You could really add the MG42 to the list of roller locked weapons too. Slightly different but it still has 2 opposed rollers that the bolt forces into locking recesses as it goes forward into battery.
Roller Delayed and Roller Locked are different, the MG42 is roller locked, not delayed
I think it makes a decent amount of sense. At the time this was developed a lot of potential customer countries had armies largely composed of conscripts and reservists, and optical sights are pretty well-established to improve hit probability over irons, especially when given to shooters with limited proficiency. Making the sight fixed to the gun simplifies things, cuts costs, probably makes the overall package more rugged, and importantly prevents soldiers from taking the optic off the gun and ruining the zero in the process, the kind of thing that's always a concern with bored conscripts.
I carried the Swedish version of the G3 for a long time, it was more accurate with the iron sight than the hi point POS they put on it so I removed that and got the one on our team that was going to use a scope a proper scope.
I know nothing about this gun as we switched to our version of the FN FNC (AK5 and in the end of my service we carried the AK5D and at that point we had stopped the use of the AK4 (G3) completely as the PSG90 (a 7.62x51 sniper rifle)) which was also extremely reliable and accurate with iron sights, we did get night sights on it which, of course, work as normal sights during the day.
So long story short, we made a good pick but I'm sure the GR3 would have been an excellent service rifle as well considering the G3's performance.
I remember seeing a scope like that back in the day that had that groove on the top. I believe the idea was to have a fiber optic thread that gathered light from the top and made a dot on the crosshairs or something like that. I remember thinking it was a dumb idea ad didn't bother thinking about it after that so I admit I could be completely off base with that but that is what I thought you were going to say when you first mentioned the groove from that memory. Lol
Excellent '' Great Stuff ''💯 Thank you Jonathan 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥
Thank you for watching
That is such a cool looking scope
I do love the look of the HK33
If I had to be stuck with a optic something in the 1.5-2x range would be my choice, especially with modern illuminated reticles, I'm a huge fan of low power scopes, massive relief and with low magnification and some practice you can get on target at very close distance about as quickly as a red dot.
Fascinating how many minor differences or changes are made with no clearly visible benefit over alternatives. Have to say it looks sharp with the psuedo scope on though haha.
0:17 Well, isn't it kinda the spirit of the game? Besides, today seems to be the best time for firearms & artillery museum curators to discuss less-known quirks of relatively well-known firearms, given that Ruslan Chumak from the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg had already talked on the SVT family of rifles in quite some detail.
1:08 1985 seems to be about the time when the HK G41 was around already, and it was supposedly better suited for export market (with G11 still in the works for the Bundeswehr), so why were HK still tinkering with an older design?
2:14 I would argue that a night vision optic would be perhaps even more important, since the goggles+IR laser combination wasn't viable at the time.
3:43 Are they though? Denmark and Norway each adopted their own version of this sight which is different in some regard, and the Swiss who chose to use in on their Stgw. 90 had to write in the manual an instruction on how to modify the sight so as to avoid its drawbacks. Doesn't strike me as a successful sight, to be fair with you. Aperture sizes aren't great either, although this is sadly a very common problem outside the UK.
5:38 As a lefty, I greatly approve the use of scare quotes here! 😊
8:20 Given the sort of stories HK ends up embroiled in with their export deals these days, this doesn't surprise me, but I would like to know more.
11:50 This also doesn't have the greatest field of view, especially so given the low magnification.
13:59 If I were to speculate wildly, I would suggest that it perhaps could have been riveted or bolted or spot-welded from the inside or the receiver somehow.
Could the scope be attached via the inside of the top of the upper receiver? Bolts going up into that polymer section below the scope?
Definitely an odd decision to not make it removable, although it was something HK were trying in other rifles like the G11
I feel like it was one of those strange evolutionary moments where manufacturer's were caught between the need to improve the iron sight, but weren't sure if modularity was the way to go.
Fortunately, modularity eventually won out, but these little moments in history are often the most fun to look back on.
I am just guessing here, but I can imagine that the idea of having a rifle with a fixed scope was also influenced by the outcome of the 1972 Munich massacre, where regular police officers had to engage terrorists at night at medium to long range with regular G3s with iron sights. I could imagine police forces learning their lesson and wanting an easy solution to implement "sharpshooters" that could reach out to longer distances using an off-the-shelf rifle with a scope.
You may well be right, but it seems weird by today's standards when they could have just bought some scope mounts and scopes.
I suspect there was an element of the rule of cool at play. Integral scopes were sort of the precursor to modularity as being seen as tacticool.
G3 is an army designation. The police only had mp5s. No 7.62 rifles at all. The GSG9 was founded after 1972 Munich debacle. And they started to adopt their own marksman rifles.
PS: This thing originated within H&K itself. There was no demand by governments or police or army.
@@kleinerprinz99 Afaik they even had to call out for hunters and their rifle within the police force for sharpshooters.
Disassembly absolutely IS worthwhile, as it would allow you to look at the interior of the upper receiver and see if the scope is drilled and tapped or welded.
Oh my, that's a beautiful H&K rifle.
I think I haven't watched in a year. The audio, video, and lighting is a lot better.
Welcome back ❤
How fortuitous that Forgotten Weapons also uploaded about another HK today.
You might be in for a treat this week...
Doesnt increasing the distance on the scope LOWER the crosshairs so the shooter has to raise the gun to get on target therefore lofting the shot?
You know, with green-brown polymers all round and a 5-10rnd Mag, this would make a great Retro-Futuristic sniper/DMR for a sci-fi movie, feels like a Late80's/90's prop.
HK P11 on ForgottenWeapons and the GR3 here - the HK gods must be happy today.
...and they'll be even happier this week. 👀
With the first of the GR series being first designed for Police marksmen, could the GR stand for Gendarmerie Rifle?
As a manufacturing engineer, I would probably mill it off for low volume production and make a new mold/etc for high volume
i got one book called "HK Assault Rifle Systems " By Duncan Long at 1991, it got detail about GR6 and HK IR laser device.
I wonder if that slit in the top of the optic mount isn't some sort of stress relief for the casing? A lot of plastics are actually quite sensitive to temperature and you wouldn't want the casing distorting your aim point on a hot day - or just cracking and falling off because it was too rigid. Anyway, the thing is reminding me of a video one of the 3d printing youtubers did a while back about designing for injection molding. Darned if I can remember what channel that was now, but I half-way remember them talking about needing stress relief cuts.
Apart from the M16 what was the best 5.56mm rifle available in the 1980s?
Depends what you mean by "best."
@@peterclarke7240 Best for militaries.
If you raise the reticle wouldn't it shoot lower? I could be wrong as I may have had some wine!
Small correction: "These are standard H&K sights and everybody EXCEPT IAN says they're very good."
Ian is a wrong'un. He's a lefty, and is not to be trusted.
I should know: I'm a lefty, too. I wouldn't trust me as far as I could throw me. 🤣
@@peterclarke7240 That makes three of us on all counts then! Must be a conspiracy: I'd come up with a secret handshake for us, but I'm crap at secret handshakes 'cos I'm left-handed...
@@MrHws5mp We're called "ambi-sinister" for a reason.
I think this is the rifle depicted on the cover of "Sniping Pigz" by Plutocracy; if it's not just a drawing of what a sniper rifle looks like to people who don't understand firearms. It looks a lot like the GR3 with a G3-style Z24 4×24 scope and some weird kinda semi-waffle mag crossed with an SG550 mag
The sight has some resemblance to G11's 1x sight.
My take on as to why the scopemania so to speak went over the European manufacturers could be traced to the early start of the US Weapons replacement programme.
Where the Steyr ACR (Yes not a typo) HK G11 amongst others competed to replace the M16.
One of the beliefs in that period was the lack of soldier of accuracy, so a lot of that blame was shifted to iron sights, as a result you got to see a lot of weapons come supplied with the scopes built in.
Steyr AUG, HK G11, Steyr ACR and even FNC with the Swedish AK5 came with that scope bolted on as a "fix" for the accuracy problem.
Of course they were crappy scopes as the more proper ones were a bit too expensive and certainly not fit to deploy to "GI Joe" according to military belief.
So my take on the GR series is, it was an attempt to join the trend of the competitors with the FNC (Swedish AK5) and AUG to nab a few of those lovely 80-90s contracts.
Any chance there's a HK36 in the collection? The one with the weird fixed mag with a loading door
Awesome cameo by Gun Jesus himself! 🤘
Very much feels like early ideas that went into g36
Btw, the rumor is that these were the reson why POF ended up with the tooling for the mp5 and 93.
screws through the top cover/reciever?
Oh I want, I definitely want 😅
I wonder if the sight is screwed from inside of the receiver?
Great to see a H&K derivative I hadn't even heard of before and I'm quite a big H&K fan. If you field strip it you could probably tell how the scope is attached by looking at the inside of the upper receiver, or at least eliminate bolts, rivets and spot welds as methods used if no sign of them is present although they will be hard to see as I imagine they will have been polished down for clearance of the bolt carrier and recoil spring.
Whilst I'm here, do you have an exhibition in Leeds that focuses on more modern firearms? I.e. Cold war era and later. The last time I was there I think the most modern stuff I saw was the police seized things but I I'm sure I missed a section or 2. I got to the WW2 stuff quite late on then spent way too much time ogling the FG42. I have been meaning to visit again and would love to see more of the firearm collection.
I think they change what's on display semi-regularly, like any museum. Pretty much every weapon shown on this channel (with obviously a few exceptions and I believe they specify in those cases) will be kept in Leeds at whatever secure location they have.
Pop open the receiver and see if there's some screws along the top/inside holding it in place.
Also, I bet the GR part was someone over at HK trying to figure out how to get a rifle to be as popular as the AR. And someone mentioned that it must stand for American Rifle and a lightbulb went off 🤣😂🤣
(for the humor impaired: this has been a joke)
IMO a low power optical sight is a hindrance because it slows target acquisition right down...
I’ve never used a gun in any way, but would it not be a lot easier to use a big sight like that than peering through a small iron sight like on the G33? It looks like it would be much easier to use and give you more visibility, but I’m coming at this with complete ignorance of what it’s like to use those small iron sight apertures.
cool video
I would have doubts about police marksman origin of the optic and rifle considering it because HK already had a very well established rifle set for police marksman in the from of the HK33 SG1 which came with a preloaded trigger, bipod, 4 or 6 power scope, and cheek rest. But who knows.
3:42
Jonathan: "These are excellent iron sights. Basically everyone says so."
Ian: *Screeches in 7.65mm French Longue*
When the Swedish AK4 became AK4B the ironsights was cut also.
HK 33E mentioned LETS GO!!! (where are my fellow Upotte enjoyers)
So what is the earliest example of a telescopic weapon?
Oh I DO WANT IT
Was the HK-33 used in South American. Countries in the 70’s & 80’s?
I believe Brazilian air force bought hk33
Morning gents!
I think roller delay is cool for intermediate and hot pistol rounds, why it wound up mostly on 308s and 9mm is beyond me.
Looks like the G11 scope.
I am sure that Jonathan was the one that came up with that title!
Is there anything he can't do!?
Whats that watch he's wearing??? And the wristband???
I'm going to assume the GR meaning "German rifle" is an export name. As I know the G series (G3, G11 etc) the G stands for "gewehr" or "rifle" in german
The groove would fit a shotgun style "glowstick" type sight (optical fibre that is). But overall 1½X magnification wont really do for police sniping, objective of the scope wont work well in low light.
More or less everyone got rid of the built in optics as you mention, because they dont do anything well anyways.
"Now this is NOT an HK33."
Well he's the one with the guns here I better believe him
Whys the optic so long when it's only 1.5x? What's taking up so much space inside?
I feel like the fixed optical sights were designed to be easily mass-produced, issued and trained in case of full-scale war with the Russians. Especially if conscripts are involved.
Can you react/review the mexican assault rifle FX-05??
Most of these weapons came from the MOD and the SAS, I have a picture of the SAS with the early 6 shot grenade launcher, testing it out it the killing house, they were firing CS gas and flash bang grenades threw the windows and doors lol
GR... I wonder if it wasn't something incorporating the German word 'rohr' (meaning tube) in the way that 'fernrohr' means telescope?
Just some idle speculation...
On the exact same day Forgotten Weapons did a video on the rare HK P11, and Johnathan Fergusson did a video on the rare HK GR3. Coincidence??
You might be on to something there... 🤔
So 200 of these were ordered by Pakistani special forces (SSG) in 80s, follow up orders were probably never given cuz SSG bought Steyr AUGs in large numbers afterwards.
Royal Armouries, :) 😀. God bless you.
Please do in your next TH-cam videos, video of the Taiwanese Type T65 assault rifle and the Taiwanese Type T91 Carbine and the Taiwanese Type T81 Carbine and all their variants. Thanks.
I guess the lack of modulator is why this has so little on it compared to the HK33/93
I think the appeal of fixed sights may have to do with the cold war, where the prospect of full scale national mobilisation is always lurking. If you are going to be equipping hundreds of thousands or even millions of infantry, having a fixed standard is much more appealing than the added complexity of modularity.
Post cold-war, military product slows down and scales down - but there is a greater focus on quality and versatility: it makes sense in a post cold-war world to focus on modular weapons that can be adapted to fit into different roles.
That argument doesn't really work with the British Army - long term professional and not conscript, who had gone to L85s with SUIT optics for the infantry who would use them everyday, but L85s without optics for the support units who wouldn't use them nearly so much.
@@davidgillon2762 My comment wasn't to suggest every cold war rifle was designed with the same philosophy. It was more about the rationale for why a significant number of rifles were designed around a similar period with fixed optics (Styr AUG, the original G36 etc.).
That isn't to say that opposing design philosophies didn't exist during the same time period. For example the late 70s and 80s are also the time when you see the Americans become very obsessed with modularity and the 80s are when you start seeing real interest and development around rail mounting.
Although speaking of the British, the EM1 and EM2 - where the philosophy was definitely abought creating something incredibly standardised and general - did have fixed "Universal Optical Sights".
@@JimIBobIJones The L85/SUSAT followed on from the L1A1/SUIT which followed on from the EM1 and 2 (plus the L64/64/68 en route to the L85). The British Army had been convinced universal optics were the way to go since c1950, had been long-term professional rather than conscript since 1960, and there's plenty of time for that interest to have spread to other Western militaries.
@@davidgillon2762 I think you are missing my point again: My point around the "Universal Optical Sights" in the EM1 and EM2 is about their fixed nature - something which was not carried over to the SA80. The concept in the 40s and 50s was that all rifles should have permanently attached optical sights by default instead of iron sights - which isn't something that was carried over to later British rifle design.
I am arguing that there is likely a good reason for fixed optical sights on rifles due to how regularly we see this as part of weapon design during the Cold War, and that its not just "bad design".
It is a trend that continues across the decades - starting in the 40s and 50s and running well into the late 70s and early 80s. If it was a bad idea outright, designers would not keep implementing it time and time again.
H&K is like a marmite relationship (love it or hate it). Hated the HK53 carbine, you needed gorilla hands to work the selector. They (H&K) seem to get a historic pass with their design flaws (no hold open etc) because they're just cool!