Greetings From the Bullpup Timeline, Part 3
This is the conclusion of the last two posts stolen from the parallel reality in which bullpup long guns became mainstream decades ago and are now considered the default. You keep a Mossberg 590A1 for home defense? How bizarre. Everyone has a Kel-Tec KSG or an IWI TS12 these days. If you haven’t already, go read last week’s post for more explanation. Note: This is (still) a joke. I am not aware of the existence of any actual parallel universes, even the one where the NRA actually fights for our Second Amendment rights.
Weight and Balance
Welcome to part three of my explanation of the myriad factors which have made bullpup long guns dominant over old-school “conventional” ones in the past few decades. In the last installment, I covered the distinct ergonomic advantages that helped firearms like the Steyr AUG and Kel-Tec KSG skyrocket in popularity while the AR-15, AK, and Mossberg 590 platforms, for example, fell by the wayside and are now considered largely irrelevant.
Ergonomics isn’t just about the placement of controls like the charging handle and magazine release, though. Something you’ll immediately notice if you ever get the chance to shoot a “conventional” long gun offhand (from a standing position) is just how poorly balanced they all are. Because the bullpup layout places some of the firearm’s heaviest components—particularly the receiver and bolt carrier group—in the stock rather than in front of it, bullpup firearms tend to be comfortably center-balanced.
This advantage becomes especially noticeable during reloading and other administrative handling, when the shooter can easily support the firearm with the firing hand while performing other actions with the support hand. Indeed, it’s even possible (though of course not recommended) to fire a bullpup rifle one-handed with reasonable accuracy. When shooting such firearms, the support hand is really there to provide control more so than support.
“Conventional” long guns, by contrast, are relatively difficult to keep on target during reloading and administrative handling due to their front-heavy nature, especially with rail-mounted accessories. Because a “conventional” rifle or shotgun’s center of mass tends to lie several inches forward of the firing grip, taking the support hand off to reload or clear a malfunction will immediately cause the gun to dig down instead of staying pointed downrange like it’s supposed to. Granted, this tendency can be overcome with enough training, but it’s still a more mechanically difficult task and the fact that it even requires training to overcome just serves to highlight the problem.
The same center-balanced nature that allows military and law enforcement professionals to open doors and turn on lights while clearing a building with their service weapons at the ready also makes bullpups more suitable for novice and smaller-statured shooters. It’s a simple physical fact that a rifle or shotgun whose center of mass sits closer to the shooter’s body creates a shorter moment arm, therefore requiring less energy input and consequently less upper body strength, to hold and aim.
It should go without saying that, all other factors being equal, the gun that’s easier to handle and shoot will endear itself more to its users. This, I think, is an under-recognized but important contributor to the utter dominance of bullpup platforms today. It’s comparatively easy to quantify the advantage in overall length and explain how that aids the mechanized infantryman in mounting and dismounting his IFV; the police officer in raiding the claustrophobia-inducing confines of a drug den; the competitive shooter in maneuvering between barricades on a practical shooting stage; and the average person in moving through his or her home to repel or engage a violent intruder. It’s easy to quantify how much faster it is to reload a Tavor, for example, than an AR-15. It’s comparatively difficult, however, to objectively measure comfort, but I argue that that is the biggest reason why bullpups dominate the civilian market, not just the military and law enforcement world.
Most civilian shooters will hopefully never need to clear a room or perform emergency reloads under fire, but everyone of every experience level innately recognizes a more comfortable gun when they handle it. Absent any other compelling reasons, why would anyone willingly gravitate toward a front-heavy rifle or shotgun whose objectively awkward balance makes it more difficult to use? The answer is, they wouldn’t, and as I’ve said, I contend that that’s a big part of why you’ll see a healthy mix of AUGs, KSGs, Trek-22s, Manticore Arms Scorpion conversions, and myriad other bullpups at your local range, but seldom an AR, AK, Benelli SuperNova, or MP5/SP5 derivative.
Most people won’t go out of their way to buy a less common, less ergonomic firearm and learn a whole new manual of arms with the magazine well or loading port in the wrong place, because there is simply no compelling reason to do so outside the dubious novelty of having a weirdly front-heavy gun. Of course, if you happen to fall into that very small category, I don’t mean to dissuade you, just to explain why you’re the exception rather than the rule.
Conclusion
The bullpup configuration didn’t displace the “conventional” layout for just one reason, but for many. The paradigm shift from the latter to the former in the second half of the last century was arguably the first revolution in firearm design motivated not by an advancement in underlying technology, but by a greater understanding of the end users’ needs. Centuries of “conventional” long guns which forced shooters to adapt to them have since given way to decades of bullpups designed from the ground up with the shooter in mind. Now go out and shoot your RDB or KSG and silently thank the engineers for providing you with a reliable, modular, ambidextrous, center-balanced firearm that’s fully ten inches shorter and commensurately more maneuverable than an equivalent “conventional” design.
Thank you very much for humoring me for these blog posts from the bullpup timeline. Yes, this is all a bit, but I think it serves to illustrate some important points. I was inspired to write these after hearing so many bad-faith arguments used to denigrate the bullpup concept as to make me wonder: what if the situation was reversed? People will gloss over every advantage bullpups have and harp on a few relatively minor disadvantages to justify their own subjective preferences. I don’t think one format is objectively better than the other in every way, or in all circumstances, but I do think many people uncritically accept the same myths about trigger pull and ergonomics and try to characterize opinion as fact.