I wish they used the folding stock and upper receiver from the other new patent QBZ 191. Though, for what you asked, maybe if China has the same budget as the US.
QBZ-191 service rifle family
- Thread starter Blitzo
- Start date
TerraN_EmpirE
Tyrant King
Both have their own justification and issues.
When in example when IWI designed the ACE for military users initial stocks though similar to Mil spec M4 stocks were a proprietary design.
So a user couldn’t swap the sock for whatever they wanted. From a commercial perspective this was awful, But from a military standpoint it makes sense as one stop shopping. Just buy spares when you buy the rifles.
Because as a military you’re buying by the hundreds if not thousands.
For the civilian market where you are buying individually the standard mil spec tube makes sense as the end user can customize to their needs. So later commercial ACE ended up with mil spec tubes.
For American or even European rifles it makes sense to use the Mil spec AR15 buffer tube as a standard design even on rifles like the M7 that don’t have a receiver extension buffer. Because you can use that to tailor the rifle or replace a broken stock. So if you want a stock with a cheek riser for example it’s cheaper to buy a module than a whole new stock.
For the PLA as the PRC doesn’t have a large civilian small arms market why would they need to have the commonality with a commercial standard? Though I am sure some company in the PRC would happily offer Mil std AR15 style stock modules, why bother? It doesn’t have the same logic. The PLA could adopt proprietary mounting systems and stocks just as it has magazine and caliber because its military is a “captive audience”.
The U.S. Army on the XM8 looked at a proprietary mounting mechanism the PCAPS. It was supposed to offer a return to zero easy attachment for scopes, sights, bipods, grips, aimers and lights. Good luck finding anything that uses it though. Because well it made sense from the Department of War perspective ultimately all the new accessories were being sourced or derived from commercial industry. So Mil Std M1913 remains the norm. Eventually you got Mlok again because the commercial standard. People don’t like the cheese grater rails, Keymod didn’t win the sales and so Mlok is being adopted. The US military could have put its thumb on the scale and skewed that by demanding PCAPS but doing so would require making an investment. Money that could be better spent elsewhere.
Yet that only makes sense because there is such a well established industry.
For China the PLA and PAP are the driver, there is no competition that isn’t integrated into the system.
For Norinco looking to sell a commercial QBZ191 derivative in Canada or Europe or Africa it makes sense to chamber 5.56x45mm to make the rifle Mlok compatible, to use AR15 style socks to accept STANAG magazines. But for The PLA they have to live by the dictates of the PLA.
When in example when IWI designed the ACE for military users initial stocks though similar to Mil spec M4 stocks were a proprietary design.
So a user couldn’t swap the sock for whatever they wanted. From a commercial perspective this was awful, But from a military standpoint it makes sense as one stop shopping. Just buy spares when you buy the rifles.
Because as a military you’re buying by the hundreds if not thousands.
For the civilian market where you are buying individually the standard mil spec tube makes sense as the end user can customize to their needs. So later commercial ACE ended up with mil spec tubes.
For American or even European rifles it makes sense to use the Mil spec AR15 buffer tube as a standard design even on rifles like the M7 that don’t have a receiver extension buffer. Because you can use that to tailor the rifle or replace a broken stock. So if you want a stock with a cheek riser for example it’s cheaper to buy a module than a whole new stock.
For the PLA as the PRC doesn’t have a large civilian small arms market why would they need to have the commonality with a commercial standard? Though I am sure some company in the PRC would happily offer Mil std AR15 style stock modules, why bother? It doesn’t have the same logic. The PLA could adopt proprietary mounting systems and stocks just as it has magazine and caliber because its military is a “captive audience”.
The U.S. Army on the XM8 looked at a proprietary mounting mechanism the PCAPS. It was supposed to offer a return to zero easy attachment for scopes, sights, bipods, grips, aimers and lights. Good luck finding anything that uses it though. Because well it made sense from the Department of War perspective ultimately all the new accessories were being sourced or derived from commercial industry. So Mil Std M1913 remains the norm. Eventually you got Mlok again because the commercial standard. People don’t like the cheese grater rails, Keymod didn’t win the sales and so Mlok is being adopted. The US military could have put its thumb on the scale and skewed that by demanding PCAPS but doing so would require making an investment. Money that could be better spent elsewhere.
Yet that only makes sense because there is such a well established industry.
For China the PLA and PAP are the driver, there is no competition that isn’t integrated into the system.
For Norinco looking to sell a commercial QBZ191 derivative in Canada or Europe or Africa it makes sense to chamber 5.56x45mm to make the rifle Mlok compatible, to use AR15 style socks to accept STANAG magazines. But for The PLA they have to live by the dictates of the PLA.
it's My illusion, or does the art make the gun look bigger than it actually is?
I wonder how they got the feedback to make a different stock and handguard for the export version.
I wonder how they got the feedback to make a different stock and handguard for the export version.
To be honest, I genuinely don't see how an AR-15 pattern buffer tube is better than what the baseline version has (given the baseline rifle's buffer tube/stock can also be changed to one with a different geometry at the user level if such a kit was developed).
The handguard of course is a different matter, and having a free floated handguard with M-LOK (based on the imagery) would be a bit of a cost driver, and there's a reason why only QBU-191 has it as standard.
OTOH without additional context, I'm cautious if those designs are genuinely going to be produced or not.
QBU191 doesn't have MLOK. It's cooling vents that look a lot like MLOK but its not up to MLOK specs. The rumor was that 208 originally wanted MLOK for the 191/20 series but didn't because "they didn't want to pay M-LOK royalty fee" which is dumb because MLOK is open source??
And they still could have went with an AR buffer tube but kept the proprietary suboptimal buttstock.
I'm aware that the 45 degree angle vents (and 6 oclock too I believe) are not M-LOK and are just cooling vents, but the 3 and 9 o'clock holes should be either MLOK or some similar negative space mounting system.
Is there anything about the AR buffer tube that is more desirable than what they currently have?
Even the primary buttstock itself looks reasonable compared to a factory baseline M4A1.
On the grand scheme of things? Yeah, stocks are not gonna win wars. But had they gone with an AR-Buffer tube they'd have access to all the aftermarket accessories that's already on the market without spending extra resources be it money and research time, for a single proprietary tube.
The only thing that comes to mind is access to the wide variety of M4 stocks in the aftermarket. In terms of performance, I don't really see any benefits that the standard ones we got don't already have.
I think the HK garrison would've loved this. Including those more specialized, smaller branches that can afford aftermarket.
Lack of a proper sling mounting option is minor flaw that quickly comes to mind
For all the talk about units that require a proper handguard buying aftermarket, there's very few examples of it actually happening to be honest. In constrast, we see many examples of units with night fighting requirements mounting LAMs on the proprietary plastic handguard. And the truth is the few special units that have real needs due to real fighting don't seem to have much use for QBZ191/2 anyways due to mission requirements (domestic AR clones or even genuine foreign weapons are made available for them.) MPS SWAT has yet to formally adopt QBZ191 either, so we're likely still years away from seeing a demand from the wealthier cities.
As a sidenote, haven't seen anything on the 191 but HKPF feedback on mainland pistols and SMG is rumored to be not great lol...
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Lack of a proper sling mounting option is minor flaw that quickly comes to mind
Right, but... is that it?
There's a difference between the idea that the stock could benefit from a sling mounting position in the stock, versus saying that they should have gone for a M4 stock -- which as we all know has the standard military issue version versus the vast aftermarket industry available (and given this is the PLA we are talking about it's not like they would bother tapping into the aftermarket industry anyhow, especially given there isn't a civilian arms market in China anyway)