I’m not super familiar with firearms and usually only see them in video games. I notice that pistols and sub machine guns use something called blowback to load the next round from the magazine. My understanding is that the recoil of the round pushes the bolt back and ejects the bullet. This works for pistols and submachine guns like a Glock or MP40.
For rifles though, they have to be gas operated or put in a separate tube so that the gas can go backwards to push the bolt back. Why is this the case? Why can’t rifles like the M16 or AK47 simply use blowback and let the recoil of the gun push the bolt back and load the new round?
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A blowback automatic firearm using typical rifle rounds tends to want to beat the shit out of itself and the user. Or it needs the bolt to be very heavy, which causes other issues like less controllability (that back and forth momentum transfers to the rifle), a heavier firearm, etc.
This tends to be less of an issue with pistol caliber firearms due to them having significantly less muzzle energy. Not to mention that many submachine guns throughout history that were straight blowback had lower cost of manufacturing and ease of repair as primary drivers for that decision.
You can account for these drawbacks with other engineering solutions, but the simplest solution is often to use another form of action to move the bolt whereas some of the energy is dissipated first vs straight blowback.
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