Full Auto Explained

Thanks to John Richardson for this video, showing why the hysteria about full-auto fire is mostly just that:

Of course, the only thing this convinces our opponents of, is that semi-automatic firearms ought to be equally banned. Keep in mind this guy knows what he’s doing with a full-auto as well. An amateur is going to spray more wildly, and waste a lot more ammunition.

If I had to go against a gun wielding madman, I’d almost want him to waste all his ammunition firing on full-auto. Unless the guy brought a belt-fed machine gun and a while lot of ammo, he’s going to be empty with not much to show for it pretty quickly, and there’s only so much you can carry. Worst fear? Shotgun wielding madman. You’re probably not getting up from that, if hit.

10 thoughts on “Full Auto Explained”

  1. He did better than I expected in full-auto.

    When I was in Infantry School, the instructors brought us to a range with metal spring-loaded targets. They had us put our rifles on burst (the M16A2 isn’t full auto) and told us to fire off a full mag as fast as we could at our targets. It was fun but I hit the target maybe twice.

    Once we got that nonsense out of our systems, we reloaded and fired the next mag on semi – hitting the target every time.

  2. I wonder about the validity of this demo. In a typical spree shooting environment, the victims tend to be more numerous and have much less space between their respective lines of sight. Many of the misses would have hit someone else a little further away.

    Next time you’re in a crowded mall imagine the contortions you’d have to go through holding a rifle horizontal without muzzling someone. I would suppose that in full auto as long as you kept the rifle relatively horizontal you’d score a hit in almost any direction.

    Hopefully we’ll never find out.

  3. The problem is keeping the rifle relatively horizontal. Most newbs tend to climb up on the target pretty quickly if they aren’t prepared to control the weapon.

  4. Control is the key… Even with a semi-auto if you don’t know what you’re doing it can be difficult. I know I nearly put a few rounds over the backstop the first time I tried firing rapidly. Out of 3-4 rounds only one hit the target.

    If your average person even tried what Hickok did they likely wouldn’t have even been able to make a complete pass on the jugs.

    I do wonder how much better he would have done as far as his hit/miss ratio goes with controlled 2-3 round bursts though.

  5. I’ve never had the pleasure of shooting anything with a giggle switch so I really have no practical experience-just conjecture.

  6. Makes it seem very wrong to give someone thirty years in prison for having a full auto instead of a semi. A penalty along the lines of a traffic ticket for speeding, if any penalty at all, would be more appropriate. We wouldn’t think of giving someone thirty years for going too fast with a car, even though many more people are killed with cars every year than with guns.
    In the future, people will think that our laws were crazy these days, and they’ll be right.

  7. Reminds me of Gunblogger Rendezvous III when I shot Jim’s 5.56 FNC. With a rifle-shooter’s cheek-weld my glasses danced a pretty tune and I couldn’t see a damn thing, much less where the bullets were going – just downrange. It was hella fun though!
    It’s hard enough to shoot the M1 Garand in the rapid-seated and rapid-prone and hit the black, let alone the X-ring. I can see why the M14 was a full-auto failure.

  8. I think another big difference is that in full auto he is moving the muzzle while shooting. If he did the same thing in semi-auto mode (pulling the finger as fast as he can while sweeping the barrel across the targets) he might have similar results, albeit talking longer to empty the magazine. It points to the ridiculousness of “these guns are designed to be spray fired from the hip”. He was still firing from the shoulder- imagine if he didn’t look down the sights? All the bottles might be standing, and that is from someone who knows what he is doing.

  9. You are right!

    The Antis are gonna soil themselves over the dangerous “assault accuracy” of that semi auto fire. What sportsman or duck hunter would need a firearm that is that deadly accurate. They will renew their claims, using this video as evidence, that such dangerously accurate machines of death have no part in our society and that they must be immediately banned, you know, for the sake of the children. BTW did you notice how easy it was for him to “spray fire” that weapon using the deadly “pistol grip” assault feature. Terrifying!

  10. Most people think that full auto is the way they see in the movies: spraying fire for several minutes at a time. Note that the shooter emptied the weapon in less than 2 seconds.

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