The actual, serious complaint I have by far heard the most often by actual shooters and reviewers is that the trigger pull is clunky and much more significant on bullpups than on non bullpups.
While I have not shot a bullpup… I find it odd that nearly all of the reviewers I have seen complain about this to the point of it being a widespread meme and point of mockery… it doesnt seem to actually affect their accuracy or drill times much, and they will all tell you they don’t use bullpups anywhere near as often as non bullpups… so its kind of a self fulfilling prophecy in that… im sure if they practiced more, even that small discrepancy would lessen.
Other sort of silly complaints I’ve seen are that they bruise and cut their hands when trying tonuse it like a longer weapon that can set up against a rock or other object to establish a firing position, because they are used to having more weapon length after where their hand grips on the barrel shroud.
The most legitimate concerns IMO are ease of field stripping and maintenance, though this seems to be improving with more modern designs, and the ejection port position making the gun very unfun for a lefty with brass and gas flying into your face… but there are bullpups with ambidextrous configurable ejection ports, or a few oddballs with downward or forward facing ejection ports that solve this problem.
Many will also complain about awkwardness of reloading and length of pull, but given that multiple world militaries seems to not have a problem using bullpups as service rifles, seems to me that sufficient practice would negate these issues. There also exist bullpups with adjustable stocks.
I have actually seen a study that shows that inexperienced shooters have better performance in terms of drill time and accuracy with bullpups over standard rifles, and experienced shooters with lots of standard rifle experience, while they do perform better with standard rifles, significantly overestimate how much better they were with the standard rifle in comparison to the bullpup.
If youre interested, the american youtube gun community seems to begrudgingly like the VHS 2 / Hellion, and the IWI 95/Tavor. Its pretty difficult to get your hands on many other bullpups that are known from movies or video games in the US as there aren’t civillianized semi-auto variants of them manufactured.
As much as I wish I could try an F2000 or AUG, I have no credible first-hand experience and can only parrot complaints that I have read on the Internet:
Ambidextrous use is more difficult when the ejection port is next to the shooter’s face. It’s not ideal for all your left-handed soldiers to have their weapons setup differently from all your right-handed soldiers. A workaround like the forward ejection on the F2000 is technically impressive, but complex.
All the controls - trigger, safety, bolt release, magazine release - are either operated by longer/more complex mechanisms or are tucked under the shooter’s chin, farther away from the normal hand positions.
Putting the chamber close to the shooter’s ear is nobody’s idea of fun.
What’s wrong with bullpups?
The actual, serious complaint I have by far heard the most often by actual shooters and reviewers is that the trigger pull is clunky and much more significant on bullpups than on non bullpups.
While I have not shot a bullpup… I find it odd that nearly all of the reviewers I have seen complain about this to the point of it being a widespread meme and point of mockery… it doesnt seem to actually affect their accuracy or drill times much, and they will all tell you they don’t use bullpups anywhere near as often as non bullpups… so its kind of a self fulfilling prophecy in that… im sure if they practiced more, even that small discrepancy would lessen.
Other sort of silly complaints I’ve seen are that they bruise and cut their hands when trying tonuse it like a longer weapon that can set up against a rock or other object to establish a firing position, because they are used to having more weapon length after where their hand grips on the barrel shroud.
The most legitimate concerns IMO are ease of field stripping and maintenance, though this seems to be improving with more modern designs, and the ejection port position making the gun very unfun for a lefty with brass and gas flying into your face… but there are bullpups with ambidextrous configurable ejection ports, or a few oddballs with downward or forward facing ejection ports that solve this problem.
Many will also complain about awkwardness of reloading and length of pull, but given that multiple world militaries seems to not have a problem using bullpups as service rifles, seems to me that sufficient practice would negate these issues. There also exist bullpups with adjustable stocks.
I have actually seen a study that shows that inexperienced shooters have better performance in terms of drill time and accuracy with bullpups over standard rifles, and experienced shooters with lots of standard rifle experience, while they do perform better with standard rifles, significantly overestimate how much better they were with the standard rifle in comparison to the bullpup.
If youre interested, the american youtube gun community seems to begrudgingly like the VHS 2 / Hellion, and the IWI 95/Tavor. Its pretty difficult to get your hands on many other bullpups that are known from movies or video games in the US as there aren’t civillianized semi-auto variants of them manufactured.
As much as I wish I could try an F2000 or AUG, I have no credible first-hand experience and can only parrot complaints that I have read on the Internet:
Ambidextrous use is more difficult when the ejection port is next to the shooter’s face. It’s not ideal for all your left-handed soldiers to have their weapons setup differently from all your right-handed soldiers. A workaround like the forward ejection on the F2000 is technically impressive, but complex.
All the controls - trigger, safety, bolt release, magazine release - are either operated by longer/more complex mechanisms or are tucked under the shooter’s chin, farther away from the normal hand positions.
Putting the chamber close to the shooter’s ear is nobody’s idea of fun.
Shit fucking triggers, the explosion is literally right next to your face, shit ergonomics because of it
But hey, the gun is a tiny bit shorter with a tiny bit longer barrel!! Gtfo