I was digging through some old footage and pictures of QBZ191 and noticed a few things that I thought was interesting.
1. The debate regarding the magazine release vs bolt release on the right side of the gun.
I know there was some confusion around this, and if the debate has been settled, I apologize for bringing this up again.
This old picture was interesting to me:
Notice the gap there, I believe this suggests that the extended flap here is not a part of the magazine release, but a separate part for bolt release.
If this is true, then it is a very well-thought out design, a comparison to VZ58 (picture to the bottom right with 2 circles, yellow circle is magazine release, blue circle is where bolt release mechanism is located, although it is not functional on default VZ58s) shows how much more ergonomic QBZ191 is.
Notice how much longer and wider the magazine release on the QBZ191 is compared to the VZ58's (yellow circle). The magazine release on the QBZ191 is longer and wider than the trigger guard, making it much more accessible from both sides of the gun. I'm pretty sure you can drop the magazine easily by just pushing on this huge magazine release with the index finger of the hand that is holding the pistol grip with either the left or right hand.
Oh and another thing, I really like what they did to the fire selector switch. Max 90 degree rotation feels a lot more comfortable than 180 degree rotation (30 degree per switch vs 90 degree per switch between fire modes). This may seem like a small feature, but when HK upgraded their HK416A5 to HK416A6, this is one of the most prominent changes made. You can switch from safety to single fire so much faster!
2. Accuracy of QBZ191:
At 2:47 of this video, you can see this picture:
Apparently this is the 208 Institute testing QBZ191 in Tibet to see its high altitude performance (around 5000m in altitude). The Chinese on the paper does not indicate any useful information like distance or barrel length, it only says "Group 3". Everything else is too blurry.
I'm not very familiar with ballistics or how low air pressure and low oxygen affects bullet accuracy. But one of the core features of QBZ191 according to the lead designer is high accuracy, and that MOA on the paper does not seem too bad for a service rifle even at 100m considering they are shooting it at 5000m above sea level...
3. Some random facts on the QBZ191
According to the lead designers, over 300 prototypes of the gun was made, and they tested it with over 2 million rounds fired. (A lot of the previous leak photos we saw over the past few years may, in fact, be legit. They were probably just earlier prototypes during various stages of development.)
QBZ191's core design philosophies are “五高一长” (Five high one long), meaning high accuracy, high reliability, high ergonomics, high molecularity, high safety level, long durability.
4. Picture of the bottom hand guard rail and magazine
I don't have much to say about the hand guard, I just thought this is a rare screenshot that shows how it looks.
But the magazine, especially the bottom plate, seems to have a design that is similar to Magpul PMAGs.
I think a good feature of PMAG is how easily you can remove and fix a broken magazine spring. Just remove the bottom plate by hand and put in a new spring and you are good, takes no longer than 10 seconds.
For a NATO standard STANAG mag, you gotta use quite a bit of force using a bullet or screw driver to remove the bottom plate.
Overall, I gotta say, this gun is really growing on me. I'll admit, when I first saw it I was a bit disappointed, it looks a bit too "土鳖“ (a meme describing PLA's unfashionable and cheap-looking aesthetics) for me at first glance. I was expecting something like Sig MCX or HK433 for such a hyped up weapon. But as I start to look into its overall design features, I gotta say I really think they got it right this time. The small details of the gun that improves the overall performance and ergonomics are really well-thought out. 208 institute has not disappointed me, and I can't wait for QBZ191, the new LMG and HMG to be fielded in mass quantities.
To think that at the turn of the century, the PLAs were still mostly using Type 81s, fielding Chest Rigs built for Type 56s, wearing 解放鞋(Jie Fang shoes) that were first produced in 1950s. Only 20 year later, they look like this now. It is truly amazing how times change.
