Has firearm development reached a standstill for shoulder

Yes, its plateaued. We've got some neat smart optics in the works, it looks like rifle ammunition is going to all be telescoping in the next 20 years and airburst grenades are going to be deployed at the squad level, but actual firearms themselves are totally dead in the water. With all of these peripheral improvements, we're still going to be using AR15/18 actions and Mauser bolts until we move on to lasers and plasma.

>>34829599
>thinking shoulder fired weapons means rifles only

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>>34829599
>not man fireable

>>34829621
P much this.
Unless someone invents a simple way to make a revolver rifle (and I mean that in the sense of a revolver cannon like the ADEN and M39, not S&W) were not going to see changes in rifle development.

>>34829599
As the price falls on proprietary polymers and metal additive manufacturing gets better and cheaper we may see some ultra compact designs.
If we get faster expansion rate propellants or ETC guns we'll be able to get rifle performance cartridges out of pistol length cases.
This will mean PDW, SMG sized guns with 7.62x51 firepower.

>>34829621
No until equally sized mass drivers become feasable but yes chemical propellants arent going to get any better.
Mass drivers however demand nano supercapacitors to be deployable on anything that doesnt have its own generator.
>>34829665
Why? The only benefit would be an increased firerate. I could see that however get mounted instead of miniguns on anything flying to reduce weight.

>>34829822

The merit of putting mounted miniguns on a vehicle is that they can have a higher rate of sustained fire without overheating.

the weight of the weapon and ammo being a non issue because its on a vehicle

>>34829632
Tits or GTFO.

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>>34829666
I hope for more volitile explosives so airburst genades can be sized down to 10 or 12g.

>>34829666
that just sounds uncomfortable to shoot

>>34829599
at this point we're just polishing mostly perfected designs. every new rifle is based off another successful action, which only makes sense. I think we'll see more improvements in ammunition before we see any major change in firearms development. cool-burning propellants would allow caseless to finally be developed.

>>34829840
On a jet for example your window of opportunity to fire is usually only a couple of seconds.
One would have to beef up the barrel but even if twice as heavy as a normal one its still lighter.
I guess you are right when it comes to crew mounted guns though.

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>>34829599
I think there's plenty of room for improvement. Firms like Tula produced better mousetraps that people struggle to understand 50 years later, you can't tell me that the AR is the apex of conventional firearm design when this sexy beast exists.

IMO we don't see much development of more radical technologies because upgraded existing designs like the AR are generally considered "good enough," can be customized to fit a wide variety of roles, and have a massive amount of resources devoted to supporting them. Maybe one day we'll see a breakout design like the Lebel that will turn the world upside down and usher in a new era, but until then market forces and inertia will ensure that things will probably stay boring as shit.

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>>34829853
comfort was never an option, komrade

>>34829983
Complexity does not Imply superiority.

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>>34829632
It's a prototype. Here's another prototype for the new rifle.

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>>34832675
The TKB-022PM it's complex though. You can say that about any salvo-burst gun but the feeding and extraction on this guy is elegant

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>>34829599
>>34829632
they mean it like this
the bastards