Many, if not most, combat guns (e.g. SA 80) are designed exclusively for right-hand use. What’s so difficult about making them ambidexterous?
As I understand it, there are two main issues:
1 - The stock. Surely this is relatively simple to re-mould?
2 - Ejection of spent cartridges. Can’t there be a switch to eject them the other way? Don’t you just need a bit of curved metal at the top of the path?
What else have I missed?
Common sense. You want to have soldiers that can pick up any gun from your arsenal, and guns that can be picked up by any soldier. If you train left handed soldiers to shoot left handed guns, one in ten (very roughly) soldiers will be “useless” with 9 out of 10 of your guns. And one in ten guns will be useless for 9 out of 10 of your soldiers.
Left handed guns makes sense in target shooting and hunting, they don’t make sense in combat.
Your common sense may of course differ from mine.
First of all, the M-16 and Kalashnikov series of rifles are effectively ambidextrous. So that’s 90% of all combat rifles right there.
The main problem is with the so-called bullpup rifles (like the SA-80), where the ejection port is in the stock. With them, ambidexterity is impossible, unless you want left-handed soldiers to be constantly burning their faces off.
I do know, however, that certain bullpup rifles - like the Tavor - can be converted from left to right relatively easily in the field, by any soldier who’s been taught to do so. I think solutions like this are better than forcing soldiers to use their opposite hand to shoot - a left-handed soldier simply won’t shoot as well with his right hand, no matter how hard he practices.
But it’s not as if soldiers run to the arsenal to pick up a weapon before each battle. Once troops are issued a weapon, they keep it in their possession at least until the end of the campaign (or until they’re transferred between units).
Well, yes. I’m asking why firearms aren’t ambidexterous, not why they aren’t made in LH and RH versions.
Or until it jams, breaks or is lost, in which case they use what’s available.
The FNH P90 is truly ambidextrous. Top feeding and bottom ejection.
You probably could make them ambidextrous, but you would add expense and complexity while providing little benefit. Combat arms are mass produced, so cost is very much an important consideration. Since most lefties just deal with it and perform well enough, the military doesn’t have much incentive to spend the extra cash.
The M-16 series has a little hump of metal at the rear of the ejection port that makes it kind-of-ambidextrous. Your experience may be different, but the two AK clones that I own and the various others that I have fired are strictly a righties only proposition. Ejection is, in fact, vigorous enough that shooting it from the left shoulder goes beyond unpleasant into dangerous.
Some of the designs younger than the AK/AR platforms are easily converted to left-handed configuration. The Steyr AUG is a good example. Further, some of the very latest generation of military-type weapons completely eliminate the issue by being forward-ejecting or bottom-ejecting. The FN-2000 is a 5.56mm forward-ejector example.
Ambidextrous rifles are actually advantageous for use by any soldier. They make shooting from cover/barricade positions a safer proposition when you can switch shoulders rather than expose half your body.
And if you look down the page, the Cypriot soldier is using it left-handed!
Add the FAMAS to the list of assaults rifles that can be converted to shoot RH or LH.
The FN MAG (US designation: M240) ejects from the bottom but I think you’re referring to assault rifles.
As someone else already said, you can forward eject the rounds which ought to make it simple to make a gun ambidextrous as long as you design the ejection rail not to create jams.
The main problems with making guns ambidextrous are that it adds some complexity and cost and (more importantly) that military procurement tends to be pretty bad. For example, in Canada, they put a X3.4 magnifying scope on a machinegun.
More to the point, why bother? You give a left-handed person a weapon ( or any tool ) designed for the right hand and train them to use it with the right hand, they will use it in the right hand just as effectively as a right-handed person would. As a left-handed person myself, I do plenty of things right-handed, shooting is no different.
If left-handed people could use things in their right hand just as effectively as they do their left hand, they wouldn’t be left-handed, they’d be ambidextrous.
But even right-handed people can benefit from an ambidextrous weapon. As someone else pointed out, when you’re fighting in terrain where you might want or even have to shoot from the left and sometimes from the right, you want an ambidextrous weapon. E…g: If you’re firing from the left side of a building or the right side of a window, it’s safer to shoot left-handed because it exposes less of your body. It’s also more stable.
I’m right-handed myself, but all the lefties I served with used their M-16 or Galil variants left-handed; it’s standard IDF doctrine (I also inferred the ambidextrous characteristics of the AK from the Galil, whcih is essentially a clone; I confess that I can’t recall ever seeing anyone using an actual Kalatch left-handed). I think there would be a real difference in aim and control if you forced left handed-troops to use their weker hand, particularly under stressful battlefield conditions, although I haven’t seen any actual research on the subject proving me right or wrong.
I can only offer an anecdote: I’m left-handed and did my qualification test right-handed. I would have preferred to do it left-handed, iI would have been more accurate. When I tried to do it left-handed (using an M-16 clone), the hot cases sometimes hit my right hand which didn’t help me concentrate.
Alessan,
Does Israel still use Galils? Why do I always see IDF soldiers with M-16s?
I’ve never fired a Galil, though I’ve always coveted one. They’re scarce and expensive here in the US because one of our POTUS’s banned their importation.
I described the M-16 as only sort-of-ambidextrous because one in standard trim still has controls (selector, magazine release) set up for a rightie. The charging handle is fully ambidextrous, though. There’s at least one company here in the US, Stag I think, making a true left-handed AR-15. It ejects to the left and has left-handed controls. Don’t know how many they make in a year, but they seem to have no trouble selling them.
As far as I know, the IDF stopped using the Galil in the early 2000’s. My regular service was from '93-'96, starting just after regular infantry transitioned to the M-16. Back then armor, artillery and engineering still used the Galil exclusively, as did lots of other non-combat units. I even carried one myself briefly.
Amusingly, my FIL, a reserve Lt. Colonel, demanded a Glilon last year when on reserve duty (he’s well past the age of retirement for the reserves, but still volunteers). They dug around some armories until they found him one. He just felt more comfortable with it that with an M-16.
It’s a nice, solid-feeling weapon, but also heavy and innacurate. I don’t miss it.
That Glilon is one photogenic gun. If any of those had ever made it into the US, they’d have been the go-to gun for all our celluloid commandoes in the heyday of action movies: The 80’s.
On a more serious note, it doesn’t surprise me to learn that the Galil is not particularly accurate. No AK variant I’ve ever fired, to include my PSL which is a designated marksman type of weapon, can compete with the AR/M-16 series on that account. That said, all of them were more than accurate enough for military combat at the typical ranges involved.
Interestingly, the Glilon’s foregrips and stock were essentially recycled in the IWI Negev, the IDF’s main light machine gun. The stock folds just like a Galil’s.
To address the OP, they did contemplate making a l/h SA80 early on in the project, to be supplied in proportion to the number of lefties in the population. The idea was not proceeded with.
Some models (e.g. the FAL) work reasonably well for lefties.
