Firearms Ammunition Counter Survey

[Chang]

Hi Everyone,

A friend of mine is building a small project for her electrical engineering degree which revolves around firearms. The final project is an electronics ammunition counter attached to your firearm which displays the remaining rounds in a magazine (similar to how you have the ammo remaining display in video games.) The final design will probably include a counter/display attached to the weapon itself and a small sensor attached to the magazine. She is looking for responses for a survey right now from people with firearms experience to see which direction to take for her project. I know many of the users here are military/ex-military so I thought I would post her survey here. If you could take a minute out of your time to fill this out that would be great!

Mods, if this is a violation to the user agreement please feel free to remove this thread! Sorry for the trouble!

Anyways, thanks for all your help in advance!

Link to the survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/C37DFQ2

 

[SeanNewman]

In my opinion, this an extremely complex idea that is not necessary.

Not because counting rounds is not important (it is), but because there is a far simpler way to do it:

Having small holes in the magazine showing how many are left is free and does not need batteries.

 

[Veovius]

Awesome project, if it will go on a pulse rifle

 

[Sig_Des]

Not a new idea:

Haven't heard great things about the company's quality, but AR Mags with coloured round count-down:

http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2008/11/20/ar-15-magazine-with-colored-round-count-the-countdown-magazine-cdmag/

Digital Firearms counter Patent Application, with assignee of no other than Colt Canada:

http://www.freepatentsonline.com/y2009/0084015.html

Having small holes in the magazine showing how many are left is free and does not need batteries

And in your pictured option, also requires removal of magazine from weapon.

 

[SeanNewman]

And in your pictured option, also requires removal of magazine from weapon.

That's because I just did a quick Google search to find a mag with the holes.

Obviously A C7 has a lot more of the mag exposed than a pistol and could allow for at least a ballpark counting until you had less than 10.

I like the idea of the coloured mag posted above; I've never seen that before but it seems like a really good idea if it worked well.

 

[GAP]

I don't like the battery idea, but could not something along the same lines be done by having the spring push plate trip an indicator halfway up.

Given all that, more useless complexity simply for LCF and convenience, may lead to more failing of the magazines. KISS is there for a reason. The hole idea is about as radical I would go....

We ran 20 round mags with 18 rounds, the last two tracers....it worked, especially at night.

 

[SeanNewman]

We ran 20 round mags with 18 rounds, the last two tracers....it worked, especially at night.

I can't speak for everyone, but I think that's a relatively common and effective way to do it (I have also seen something like the 5th last round being a tracer so you know you'll be empty soon).

That plus the low-tech indicating magazine just seem like far better solutions to the idea.

It reminds me of the space program anecdote where NASA visits the USSR to show off a million dollar pen that can write in zero gravity, and the Cosmonaut says "that's nice, but we just use this" and holds up a pencil.

 

[GAP]

We put every 5th round tracer....again, visual counting. You get used to it, but in a heavy ambush that sometimes goes out the window and you are surprised when the bolt locks back.... ;D

 

[SeanNewman]

GAP,

Agreed with you there on the hard to count part, which is why personally if I were going to establish an SOP it would just be near the end of the mag.

Due to my project to get the C7/C8 drills changed, I have been doing a lot of informal asking of people who I know have seen significant TICs and I have yet to meet someone who in their head was going "24...25...26..."