|
>>
|
No. 16960
File
131311054560.jpg
- (482.24KB
, 1195x544
, SteyrA3Left.jpg
)
I was an Australian Navy recruit, before I got a medical discharge for an injury.
Taking the barrel out of the rifle takes aqbout two seconds, there's a little button just aft of the forward handgrip, you press on it, twist it clockwise, and the whole barrel comes out. The trigger mechanism is just a little plastic carriage full of bits, you just drop it into the butt stock, you don't need to position it or fix it in or anything.
Recruits train with fixed-sight rifles, because they are cheaper (and the recruit school armory has about 600 of them in a big safe that have got to be used up) but the navy proper is phasing them out in favor of the F88S, which has a rail and detachable/adjustable sights. The fixed sight doubles as a carrying handle and a take-up point, but the S variant doesn't really leave enough room for hands, especially gloved hands, to pick it up from there. The steyrs balance point is on the wider rear part of the sight, reducing fatigue when carrying it from there.
Recruits train with standard F88's in classroom and on the range, but they use F88S variant compressed-air weapon training simulators on the big video game machine. It's pretty neat, it's like a big dark cinema where you get to shoot at the screen on a simulated range. Lasers and such give you accurate feedback as to your pre-fire breathing patterns, your trigger-snatch, recoil motion, groupings, etc. I only wish they would adapt it for use with call of duty or something instead of just boring targets.
I think this rifle is the compact with the rail, what they call a F88S-A1C, pretty much what we'd use in the WTS, except with air hoses and sensors pouring out of it.
|