What keeps bullpups from being superior to guns with conventially placed magazines?

Question

The only disadvantage to a bullpup that I can think of is that might take longer to reload.

The AUG and P90 seem to be the best ones,along with the upcoming TAVOR

Answer 1

It's complicated and possibly difficult to comprehend unless you've actually disassembled and used both bullpups and conventional rifles.

In a conventional weapon, the working parts are toward the front, easily accesible. You can reach them and grap whatever protrusions or handles you need to to make the weapon do what you want.

In a bullpup, those working parts are at the rear. Because it's impractical to operate the weapon at the rear, you still have your handles, buttons, levers, trigger and so on at the front. This means instead of directly manipulating an extension of what you're trying to move, you're moving something which pushes against something else, which disengages a spring that...... And so on.

With more parts involved, there are inherently more things that can go wrong. Field strip an M16 and count the parts. Then do the same with a Steyr AUG. You'll see what I mean.

Answer 2

All these "Bullpup" weapons have iron sights or Emergency battle sights,

the magazine is more convenient to exchange,

the only down side is the shortness in a bayonet fight.

And the fact that the original SA 80 was released for service with many minor design problems still infesting it.

Answer 3

Simple its tradition. Bullpups are new and people havent gotten used to the, it took a while for the autoloader to take the place of the revolver especially in US police departments. Oh there are also logistics of parts similarity,training time......

Answer 4

On the SA80 there are iron sights and even on the SUSAT itself there is an emergency battle site on the top, and as far as i remember on the steyr aug there is a battle site on top of the optics as well. I dint think the loading of the weapon is much of an issue compared to the convential rifle design.

Answer 5

I do not find bullpups harder to load; the only disadvantage I see is that you cannot use iron sights. Optics tend to get broken, I am an old guy that likes to have an iron sight backup.