During the mid-1980 period, the East German government Deutsche Demokratische Republik (DDR), embarked on an ambitious program to design and market their own variant of the small caliber Russian AK- 74 rifle, primarily for export sales. The impetus for designing the rifle was to generate an influx of foreign currency from non-Communist countries in order to boost the struggling economy of East Germany. East Germany had been a substantial manufacturer of military goods and weapons and exported large quantities of military material, but these sales had previously been largely limited to Third World, Warsaw Pact and Communist satellite nations.

During 1981, the DDR had negotiated an agreement with the Soviets to obtain licensing and technical assistance to produce the new small-caliber 5.45x39mm AK-74 in East Germany. By this time period the Soviets had obviously taken notice that East Germany, and other countries authorized to produce the 7.62x39mm AK-47 and AKM rifles, were exporting large numbers of the rifles, and these sales were providing competition that was affecting both Soviet sales and market prices of their AK rifles. East Germany alone was exporting nearly one-third of its AK rifle production. To insure that East Germany would not saturate the world market with their AK-74 variant (the MPi-AK-74N), the agreement included a clause that East Germany could not export any of the rifles that they manufactured. In an attempt to circumvent this contract clause the East Germans decided to redesign the AK- 74 and offer it to the world market chambered for the 5.56x45mm cartridge (.223 Remington), the same round used in the U.S. M16 rifle and the standard small arms cartridge of NATO. In addition to exposing a loophole in the Soviet agreement, the East Germans surmised that there was a huge potential market for the legendary reliability of the AK design chambered for the Western 5.56x45mm cartridge.

The development and the arrangement for production of the new East German rifle was initiated in 1985 by the East German Commercial Coordination Division, Bereich Kommerzieller Koordinierung or KoKo. A joint company Internationale Messtechnik Import-Export-GmbH (IMES GmbH – international measurement-technology import-export-Ltd.) and Ingenieur-Technischer-Aussenhandel (ITA) were responsible for export sales of weapons and military equipment. Having several separate export “companies” permitted the East Germans to provide arms and equipment to both sides of those engaged in conflict, as was demonstrated during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war.

During September 1988, the evaluation of four pre-production prototypes of the Wieger rifle was underway at the Brandenburg rocket testing facility. The trials were being conducted and supervised by the East German Army: the Nationale Volksarmee (NVA). The test reports stated that the Wieger rifle was easy to handle, accurate in semiautomatic and full-automatic fire, and did not malfunction when subjected to intense mud, dust and rain conditions.

Initial production began at the VEB Geräte-und Sonderwerkzeugbau Wiesa plant, with a proposed yearly output of 100,000 the first year, and a subsequent planned capacity of 200,000 guns per year thereafter. The parts for the Wieger were produced at a factory located in Suhl and then sent east to the small town of Wiesa for final assembly. The weapons were designated as the Wieger StG 940 series. The Wieger name was a contraction derived from the factory in Wiesa and the country of origin Germany. The StG acronym represented Sturmgewehr, or storm rifle, the same name that had been given to the world’s first assault rifle, the German StG 44 fielded during the last months of World War II. By 1989, there were four variants of the Wieger 940 System being planned for initial production: the standard model StG 941 with a fixed plastic buttstock and 16.5-inch barrel; the StG 942 with a side-folding German-pattern singlestrut stock and 16.5-inch barrel; the compact StG 943 with folding stock and 12.6- inch barrel and the StG 944 a light machine gun version fitted with a bipod and 19.7-inch barrel. A 30-round box magazine was designed for the rifles along with a bayonet. All of the aforementioned weapons were in the Western 5.56x45mm NATO caliber. Only the StG 941 and 942 models were produced in any substantial numbers. East Germany also manufactured steel-case 5.56x45mm ammunition for the rifles during 1988 and 1989. The ammunition was produced at the plant VEB Mechanische Werkstätten in the town of Königswartha, East Germany.

Although the East German StG was basically a Kalashnikov design, it featured a several cosmetic changes that included an M16-style flash suppressor, an ergonomic inline buttstock, handguards and unique pistol grip with a finger rest, all fabricated from a modern lightweight and impact resistant plastic material. The buttstock of the fixed stock StG 941 model featured a curved removable end cap with two 13mm thick spacers that could be removed or added to adjust the length of the stock to comfortably accommodate practically any shooter. The Wieger rifle was select-fire having the selector positions marked with a numeral 1 for semiautomatic and for the full automatic position an infinity symbol. A 30- round steel magazine was standard, but there were also magazines produced from a clear plastic material similar to the Steyr AUG magazines. Later production models had the Soviet-pattern optical side rail riveted to the left side of the receiver.

The East Germans began to market their Wieger StG 940 series of small arms and received at least two substantial orders. One was from Peru, who was planning to arm their police and military with the weapon. They were currently armed with 7.62x39mm AK rifles, but wanted a similar, reliable AK design, in 5.56 NATO caliber. A second larger order was received from India for their army. Reportedly, small initial quantities of the Wieger rifle were delivered with 2,000 of the Model StG 942 rifles to Peru and 7,500 of the Model StG 941 to India. Although it appeared that the StG 940 series was going to be successful, fate stepped in. On 9 November 1989 the infamous Berlin Wall fell, followed by the collapse of the East German government. In the aftermath, the government of West Germany, the Federal Republic of Germany, took over responsibility for the newly reunited Germany. The Federal Republic of Germany was a NATO member and their army was equipped with Heckler & Koch rifles in 5.56mm and 7.62mm NATO calibers. H&K was also the primary manufacturer and exporter of small arms for West Germany. Having no interest in promoting or selling the StG rifle, the government killed the project and closed the Suhl factory in June of 1990. According to the Telegraph, a former East German newspaper, the contract cancellations required that a substantial penalty was required to be paid to countries having valid contract agreements and the new unified German government accepted the burden of the payments. India eventually designed and manufactured their own variations of the AK rifle with their Indian Small Arms System, INSAS, in 5.56mm NATO. The fate of the StG 940 rifles seemed to be sealed when the Federal German Government destroyed the last remaining 6,000 rifles in 1992. Most of the small arms and equipment of the defunct East German Army was sold off by the new government. A lot of the surplus DDR equipment began to show up in the U.S. surplus market, including a number of the Wieger rifle 30-round steel magazines.

The East German idea to offer the AK system in the NATO caliber had proven to be quite insightful. Not long after the collapse of the Soviet Union many former Warsaw Pact countries applied for, and eventually were granted membership in NATO. Being NATO members required the countries to use standard NATO military ammunition and for infantry rifles this was the 5.56x45mm cartridge. Most of the countries redesigned their AK weapon systems for the NATO ammunition. During 1992, the Russian factory Izhmash introduced the new 100-series of AK rifles. The new modernized AK line of weapons were offered in the traditional Russian 7.62x39mm and 5.45x39mm calibers and for the first time they offered two models, the AK-101 and AK-102 models, chambered in the Western 5.56 NATO round. The choice of calibers was made available in order to appeal to a diverse world market.

The Wieger StG 940 is Resurrected
There is little doubt that the East German Wieger rifle had the shortest production run of any AK variant. Few of the weapons were ever delivered and the remaining lot destroyed.

The recent proliferation of foreign AK parts sets and U.S. made compliance parts, along with low price tags, have made the AK rifle extremely popular with shooters and collectors in the United States. With the current demand for AK rifles in mind, Inter Ordnance, Inc. of Monroe, North Carolina (IO), a well-known source for unique military rifles and surplus items, has resurrected the East German StG 940 Wieger design by introducing their semiautomatic StG-2000- C and StG-2003-C AK pattern rifles.

SAR received both variants of Inter Ordnance’s new rifles for test and evaluation. The StG-2000-C rifle is chambered for the standard 7.62x39mm AK round. Its counterpart is the more recently introduced StG-2003-C chambered for the 5.56x45mm (.223) cartridge.

The basis for IO’s StG clones are factory- produced AK rifles imported from Romania. In order to be legal for importation to the United States the rifles must comply with Federal Statute 922r and thus are fitted with thumbhole stocks and receivers that will only accept single-column, low-capacity magazines. Despite the fact that the Romania imports are configured to be politically correct, they are factory built AK rifles and feature high quality hammer-forged chromium lined barrels, and should not be confused with some U.S. assembled Romanian imports that have gained a dubious reputation for such problems as canted front sights and magazine wells that make magazine insertions difficult or impossible without enlisting the use of a Dremel tool.

Once the rifles arrive at the Inter Ordnance facility they begin their transformation into Wieger rifles by adding the required number of U.S. made components, to include the fire control group that includes the Gordon Technologies/Tapco G2 components, and the Wieger design furniture to bring them into compliance with U.S. laws. Addition of the U.S. made components allows certain features like the pistol grip, flash hider and ability to accept a large capacity magazine legal. The Romanian imports used for the StG rifles use the WASR type receiver, which lacks the magazine guide indentations found on most stamped AK pattern receivers. The receivers have an accessory rail riveted to the right side that is designed to accept most Russian pattern optical devices. The one-piece front sight/gas block is the 90- degree design first implemented on the AK-74 to eliminate bullet shear that occurred when firing high-velocity cartridges. The StG rifles are finished with military-type flat black oxide.

The most readily apparent feature of the StG rifles is their black plastic stocks, pistol grip and foregrip that are configured quite differently than most AK pattern weapons. Shouldering the rifle, the operatorwill immediately find the weapon lighter and far more ergonomic, due in part to its longer buttstock.

The Wieger furniture is U.S. made and closely replicates that used on the original East German rifles. The buttstock is quite an improvement over the original AK configuration. Being longer provides for an improved cheek weld and increased length of pull while the stock is inline with the bore of the barrel. The pistol grip features a finger rest and an addition protrusion at its base. The unique two-piece foregrip is retained by a sheet-metal cap and lock. Removal of the foregrip differs and provides the only exception to the normal procedures for disassembly of standard AK designs. The foregrip is the later pattern without the right and left side cooling slots seen on the early Wieger rifles. The unique features of the furniture combine to make the rifle easier to control, (particularly with the original select-fire design) and more compatible with U.S. shooters than the original AK pattern.

Inter Ordnance StG rifles are shipped with an original East German sling, cleaning kit, manual and one 30-round U.S. manufactured magazine in order to be 100- percent compliment with the requirements of current federal law. Inter Ordnance offers a host of accessories for the rifles including a bipod with accompanying wire cutter/can opening tool, carrying case with magazine pouches and a variety of optical devices.

In addition to the standard StG-2000-C and StG-2003-C models, Inter Ordnance also offers two sniper variants the SSG- 2000 in either 7.62×51 NATO or 7.62x54mm Russian.

Special Thanks to: Inter Ordnance, Inc., Michael Free, Freedom Firearms, Mike Eros, Kalinka Optics, Michael Heidler, Germany

FIELD STRIP SEQUENCE
•1 Remove the magazine. •2 Manually retract the bolt and visually inspect the chamber to insure that there is no cartridge in the chamber. •3 Depress the recoil spring tab and lift the top cover upward and remove. •4 Push the recoil spring assembly forward to remove it from its dovetail retainer. •5 Slide the bolt carrier and bolt assembly rearward until it can be lifted upward from its guide rails in the receiver. •6 Slide the bolt assembly forward to remove it from the bolt carrier. •7 Remove the handguards. This is the only step that is different from stripping a standard AK. Push the retaining bracket rearward and slide the captive retainer pin out. The retaining bracket can be moved forward to remove the handguard halves. •8 To remove the gas tube assembly, rotate the retaining lever upward until the gas tube is free. •9 Tilt the back end of the gas tube and slide it rearward. •10 The STG 2003-C stripped for cleaning or routine maintenance.

Inter Ordnance of America
P.O. Box 847
Monroe, NC 28110
Phone: (866) 882-1479
Fax: (704) -225-8362
Website: www.ionic.us

During the ATF Importers Meeting held last August in Washington,D.C., ATF representatives presented the following chart detailing the number of arms transferred during the year of 2006 for each state.

Number of Arms Approved Into Each State by Form & Arm Type for Calendar Year 2006
In other developments at the meeting,Wonjiri Ridley, an ATF Imports Branch Specialist, stressed the importance of completing Form 6 in an accurate and complete manner.Large numbers of Form 6s are returned to importers due to inaccurate or incomplete preparation of the form. When additional information is needed by ATF Examiners the form is returned with no action taken.

Common issues with return of the form include not listing the manufacturer or the firearm models attempting to be imported as well as not including the registrant’s Arms Export Control Act registration number.

For users of the electronic version of Form 6, known as e-Form 6, processing times (as of last August) were running from four to six weeks, Ridley noted. Users of the electronic e-Form 6 have long complained that if they do not access the e-Form 6 system for several weeks their passwords become invalid. Ridley acknowledged this and advised users that they must access the system two to three times a month to keep their user ID’s active. For password resets, call (877) 875-3723.

Those licensees eligible to use e-Form 6 are:

• Type 08 Federal Firearms Licensees (Importer of firearms other than destructive devices)
• Type 11 FFLs (Importer of Destructive Devices)

To make application to use the e-Form 6 application process, submit ATF Form 5013.3 e-Form 6 Access Request via FAX to (304) 616-4551 or U.S. Mail to 244 Needy Road, Martinsburg, West Virginia 25405.

Form 6A

The importance of filing ATF Form 6A was also stressed by Ridley as she said many importers are not filing Form 6A as required. The form must be returned to ATF within 15 days of the importation. Form 6A is used for the release and receipt (from Customs) of imported firearms, ammunition and firearms parts.

Our Firearms Attorney rose to say he had heard from licensees that U.S. Customs & Border Protection officers (who must process Form 6As) that some U.S. Customs officers are retaining the Form 6As in the mistaken belief that their agency is supposed to keep them.

Our Firearms Attorney’ remarks were answered by ATF attorney Teresa Ficaretta who pointed out that since Form 6A is a two-part form, Customs should be keeping only one copy and returning the other copy to the importer so that this second copy can be forwarded by the importer to ATF.

Our Firearms Attorney then raised the issue of whether importers should submit Form 6As unsigned by Customs. In response, Audrey Stucko, Deputy Assistant Director ATF Office of Enforcement Programs and Services promised to explore the issue with customs and said information on it would be published on the ATF web site. However, as late as early January, no information on this problem with U.S. Customs could be found on the ATF web site.

In use, licensed Type 08 and Type 11 importers fill out Sections I and III (along with an original signature) on Form 6A. The foreign seller is provided by the importer with copies of the processed Forms 6 and completed 6A, to be placed inside the package along with the articles approved for importation.

Once the goods arrive at the port of entry, U.S. Customs officials are supposed to conduct a physical inspection of the articles and the processed Forms 6 and 6A to ensure the articles imported coincide with the information on the forms. When the goods pass inspection, Customs is to complete and sign Section II of the completed Form 6A, retain one copy and provide the importer with the other copy.

27 CFR § 478.112 requires the importer to forward (within 15 days after the articles are released from Customs) the Form 6A to the ATF Firearms and Explosives Import Branch in Martinsburg, West Virginia.

Import Permit Exemptions

A presentation on Import Permit Exemptions was made by Larry White, Industry Liaison, ATF Firearms and Explosives Services Division.

The regulations that require an import permit for firearms, ammunition and firearms parts are contained in 18 U.S.C. Chapter 44 and 27 CFR Part 478 (Subpart G) of the 1968 Gun Control Act, 18 U.S.C. Chapter 40 and 27 CFR Part 555 (Subpart J) of the Organized Crime ControlAct and 22 U.S.C. §2778 and 27 CFR Part 447 (Subpart E) of the Arms Export Control Act.

However, certain exemptions are found in 27 CFR 115(a) – (d) of the Gun Control Act:

• Return of a firearm and/or ammunition a person took out of the U.S.- 478.115(a)
• Importation of a firearm, firearm barrel, or ammunition by federal,state or local government entity – 478.115(b)
• Importation by nonresidents of the U.S. for a hunting/sporting purpose – 478.115(d)1
• Importation by a foreign military on official assignment (duty weapons only) – 478.115 d)(2)

There is also no permit needed (according to 27 CFR 478.115(a) – (d) of the Gun Control Act) for Official representatives of foreign governments accredited to the U.S. en route to or from other countries; officials of foreign governments and distinguished foreign visitors (as designated by the U.S. Dept. of State); and foreign law enforcement officers of friendly foreign governments on official law enforcement business.

The Arms Export Control Act’s 27 CFR 447.41 exempts from the permit requirement, minor components and parts for Category 1(a) and 1(b) (on the U.S. Munitions List) firearms,except barrels, cylinders, receivers (frames), or complete breech mechanisms, when the total value does not exceed $100 wholesale in any single transaction (447.41(c)(2).

The importation of components for items being manufactured under contract for the Dept. of Defense are exempted by 27 CFR 447.53(a)(2). When claiming such an exemption, at the time of entry the importer must submit to Customs a statement claiming exemption and proof of eligibility for the exemption such as a copy of a contract. Importers may request a letter ruling from ATF to help out in such situations, White noted.

The author publishes two of the small arms industry’s most widely read trade newsletters. The International Firearms Trade covers the world firearms scene, and The New Firearms Business covers the domestic market. He also offers FFLmailing lists to firms interested in direct marketing efforts to the industry. He may be reached at: FirearmsB@aol.com.

The SOPMOD (Special Operations Peculiar MODification) program was initiated by USSOCOM (United States Special Operation Command) and implemented by Naval Special Warfare Center, Crane Division, Crane Indiana, in the mid-1990s. SOPMOD set forth the requirements for a new family of weapons for SOCOM use that would be standard for all branches. This would include enhancements of the M4A1 carbines, rail adaptation systems, enhanced versions of the M16 series rifle, optics that include thermal, night vision, video module, range finder and integrated pointer-illuminator. In addition to optics would be silencer/ suppressors, muzzle brakes, bayonet and shot counter.

Part of the SOPMOD requirement was for a CQBR or Close Quarters Combat Receiver. It was to be between 10 to 12 inches and fit on the standard M4A1 lower receiver.

The CQBR
(Close Quarter Battle Receiver)
NSN 1005-01-498-1913

The CQBR receiver was first produced at Crane. The barrel started out life as a standard Colt M4 14.5 inch barrel. The gunsmiths at Crane would cut the barrel down to 10.5 inches, re-thread the muzzle and modify the gas port. Development of the CQBR barrel was assisted greatly by Karl Lewis, President of Lewis Machine and Tool (LMT). Then, a Knight Armament Company (KAC) RIS (Rail Interface System) and a flash suppressor/ quick detachment for the KAC silencer were added. The back-up rear sight chosen was one manufactured by Lewis Machine and Tool.

Due to the short 10.5 inch barrel, the CQBR receiver remains relatively cool even when firing at a faster rate of fire. The complete Colt manufactured Mk18 Mod O carbine. A standard government issue “Property of U.S. Govt M4A1” lower receiver with the six position LMT stock assembly mounted with the CQBR (Close Quarter Battle Receiver) consisting of the Lewis Machine and Tool back-up sight and SOPMOD stock with. Knight’s Armament RAS with rail protectors, vertical pistol grip and compensator (for use with KAC quick detach suppressor). Owing to the short barrel, a significant amount of powder burns after it leaves the barrel and with this decrease in temperature, and additional modifications, the CQBR carbine will have an extended barrel life over the standard M4A1 carbine 14.5 inch barrel.

As previously stated, the original 10.5 inch barrel was modified by the gunsmiths at Crane. Lewis Machine and Tool had also produced some 10.5 inch barrels. Colt got together with Crane and told them that rather than Crane go through the efforts of modifying the barrels of M4 carbines, Colt could just make the barrels to Crane’s specifications: which they eventually did. This made it simpler for Crane to have Colt barrels due to the fact Colt is the sole manufacturer of the M4 carbine and government inspectors were already present in their facility. The barrels would be made to the same manufacturing specifications as their standard GI M4 barrel. At around this time, the specification was changed for the barrel length. The new specification called for a 10.3 inch barrel instead of 10.5 inches. It was found that 10.3 inches was the shortest the barrel could be for installing the KAC sound suppressor. This is the configuration Colt is producing today.

Currently, Colt Defense manufactures the complete CQBR upper receivers and barrels. They are 10.3 inch light contoured barrels with a chrome lined bore and chamber with the standard 1 turn in 7 inch twist. The M4/M16A4 “F” front sight base is used to properly align the front sight with the rear. They come from Colt as per specification with the Knight Armament Company RIS as well as RAS (Rail Adapter System) as well as the KAC flash suppressors which are for use with their QD sound suppressor. The bolts provided by Colt have the black extractor buffer, heavy gold extractor spring and the rubber O-ring to enhance extraction force. As per military specification, the bolts are proof tested with a 70,000 psi proof cartridge and then Magnafluxed to check for stress fractures in the metal. According to Colt, there are several Bills of Materials for the Mk18 Mod 0. The back-up rear sights are provided by SOCOM to Colt. Normally, the provided sights are the Lewis Machine and Tool back-up sights, however; others may be supplied as well.

The Mk18 Mod 0
NSN 1005-01-527-2288
With the acceptance of the CQBR receiver, the complete weapon was type classified as the Mk18 Mod 0. The U.S. Navy/SOCOM has large stocks of obsolete M16A1 rifles that were in the navy arsenals. The M16A1 rifles were used as the host weapons for the CQBR upper receiver. The standard M16A1 rifle upperreceiver was replaced with the CQBR upper receiver. The original bolt carrier group from the M16A1 was used. Some of the original bolts were upgraded with the SOPMOD Reliability Kit including a new ejector spring that is much stronger and speeds up the ejection of the fired cartridge case. The three gas rings were replaced with a single McFarland gas ring and there was a rubber O-ring placed around the extractor spring increasing the extraction force by a factor of 4.

The lower receivers from the M16A1 rifles were modified for use with the CQBR upper receiver. The complete fixed stock/buffer assembly was removed and replaced with a telescopic stock assembly. The receiver extension plate was replaced with a 1-point sling adapter. The stock chosen was the SOPMOD stock assembly manufactured by Lewis Machine and Tool. This stock has a dual battery compartment for storage of batteries for optics. The profile of the LMT stock is triangular and is very similar to the Colt Advanced Combat Rifle stock. The receiver extension has six positions rather than the standard four of the typical GI Colt M4. Many weapons had disconnector springs replaced with the stronger carbine spring as well. However, many different stock assemblies may be seen on MK18s, although many are not “officially” authorized.

Colt provides both CQBR upper receivers as well as complete firearms. The complete firearms have CQBR upper placed on new Colt “Property of U.S. Government” marked M4A1 lower receivers. The SOPMOD stock is provided.

There is no standard MK18 configuration and the configurations mentioned in this article are the most common found. The Mk18 can be found with just about any accessory out there in use (mostly not authorized by Crane). The most common rail systems are the Knight’s Armament Company RIS and RAS. However, the NAVY EOD (Explosive Ordnance Disposal) has procured CASV-EL rail systems from VLTOR that are tan color. These weapons were equipped with A.R.M.S. #40 back-up sights. Most EOD MK18s will be equipped with M68 reflex sights on LaRue mounts, but EOTech holographic sights are showing up as well. Another interesting accessory EOD purchased was the Arrandondo magazine well adapter, which is an extended magazine well that makes speed reloading faster and easier to accomplish at night. EOD procured 1,100 tan color GripPods and A.R.M.S. #40 back-up iron sights. The GripPod (NSN 1005-01-541-1772) is a fairly new accessory introduced in 2003 that has seen major use with the Special Operations Forces as well as the military at large. The GripPod won the CQB and Midrange Bipod contract by U.S Army at Picatinny Arsenal for nearly 100,000 units. GripPod is currently shipping 200,000 GripPods to the U.S. Marine Corps to field one for every infantry marine. This vertical pistol grip doubles as a grip and a bipod. By pressing a button, a bipod springs out from the base of the grip at the speed of 1/90th of a second. The length of the unit is long enough to allow the shooter to freely maneuver with a 30-round magazine in the weapon. The unit folds by grasping both legs together and pushing them back up into the pistol grip. This enabled the troop to drop to the ground with his Mk18 and go prone, but supported.

Back-up sights are also not standard. The most common is the Lewis Machine & Tool sight. This is a fixed position rear sight identical to the standard A2 fully adjustable rear sight. If this sight is used, the optics will have to be risen to the point of aim with the sights. Also common are the Knight back-up sights – both fixed and adjustable elevation models that is part of the SOPMOD kit. Also common are the A.R.M.S. #40 and #40L back-up sights. Also used is the Matech sight. As with the M4 and M16A4 weapons, a plethora of aftermarket sights can be seen on government weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan as Uncle Sam has not had enough to go around.

Optics is not standard for the Mk18 Mod 0. Depending on what unit they are going to will determine their optics as well as availability. The most common optics would be the SOPMOD Trijicon ACOG reflex and day optical scope, and the AimPoint M68 red dot sight. Also, the EOTech holographic sight has been seen in use. The MK18 is best used with reflex sights and not magnified scopes. The purpose of the MK18 is close quarter battle and reflex sights are perfect for this task.

The Mk18 Mod O has proven itself in many different arenas of combat. The Navy uses them for boat security, boarding teams in their fleets, EOD, SEALS and Search and Rescue units. SOCOM has issued them as well. They may be seen n the hands of Rangers, Airborne troops, Green Berets as well as Operational Detachment Delta. The modularity of the M16/M4 systems is what has kept it the U.S. military’s weapon of choice for more than 40 years. Short barreled versions have served well in the caves of Afghanistan. The M4 carbine and Mk18 carbines has been the weapon of choice in Iraq for many reasons. These include increased mounted units as well as urban combat where targets are at close range. Colt Defense had designed a CQBR version of their OICW candidate with this barrel length as well. However, the OICW was a piston operated system with Colt’ proprietary monolithic upper receiver.

Another secret to the Mk18 Mod 0 carbines success is the adoption of the Mk262 Mod 1 ammunition. As a rule, the shorter commando barrels decrease the velocity of the projectile so much that a tremendous amount of energy is lost so the main advantage of the 5.56mm cartridge, hydrostatic shock, is minimized. The projectile will just go through the target or splinter and come apart. The M855 ammunition exacerbates this problem even more. As with the M4 and M16A2/A4, the inconsistency of terminal performance of the issued duty cartridge has caused problems in the Global War on Terrorism. When these thin, malnourished “evil doers” are struck with the M855 projectile, they go right through. The yaw rate is very inconsistent and varies from lot to lot. Due to the penetrator core, the accuracy potential of the weapon is not realized. The M855 is ideal for asquad automatic weapon, but not a rifle where accuracy of the single shot is more critical then laying down a heavy volume of fire on buildings, vehicles or other barriers. SOCOM saw this problem and turned to the USAMU (United States Army Marksmanship Unit). SOCOM at the time was working on the SPR, destined to be the Mk11 Mod 0 and 1 rifles. They were looking for a long range match-grade combat 5.56mm cartridge. The USAMU had already developed an incredibly accurate long range cartridge that would deal with SOCOMS issues. The 77-grain Sierra Open Tip Match projectile showed excellent sub-minute of angle accuracy. However, SOCOM needed to militarize it and turned to Jeff Hoffman at Black Hills Ammunition. They told him what they wanted, and he provided the most accurate combat 5.56mm ammunition in the world. Some of the things Hoffman did was use a stronger military brass, crimped and sealed primer, flash inhibitor and worked with Sierra to produce a 77-grain OTM with a cannulure. Not only was this ammunition incredibly accurate, but extremely and consistently lethal. Due to the long profile of the projectile, when the bullet strikes a target it quickly begins to yaw and splinter in the same manner as the M855 projectile. It would perform consistently regardless if the round came from a 20, 18, 14.5 or 10.3 inch barrel. Now SOCOM’s ammunition of choice, the Mk262 Mod 1 ammunition has proven itself in the caves of Afghanistan and Iraq. The M855 ammunition has much responsibility in the terminal performance of the M16/M4 families of weapons. The early M193 ammunition inflicted more destructive wounds than the M855. The Mk262 picks up where the M193 let off, but with the benefit of long range precision accuracy.

Research for this topic was quite difficult due to there being no standard weapon. The variations are numerous depending on where they were procured, equipment available at the time of procurement, unit purchased and individual purchased equipment used on the Mk18 Mod O. Shown in this article are the most common variations found. I would like to acknowledge the assistance of Karl Lewis, President of Lewis Machine and Tool, David Lutz of Knight’s Armament Company, William Keys of Colt Defense, Joe Moody of GripPod and Eric Kincel of Vltor for all of their technical assistance and providing the equipment to show in this detailed study.

By Jim Schatz

Each year, as the air turns cool in the Washington, DC metro area and the trees that line the banks of the Potomac River begin to turn to color, the Army rallies for the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting and Exposition held in 2007 from October 8-10 at the Washington Convention Center. This year’s event was larger than any before it and is, as always, an excellent opportunity to see the latest military equipment on display from around the world; not to mention the small arms – the real focus of this report

Protestors

As one arrived at the site of the show, the AUSA banners flew high and proudly from the tall buildings in downtown DC. The day was clear and sunny, a perfect day for such an event and folks were in high spirits as they made their way to the convention center by taxi, the Metro and on foot. However, this feeling of slight elation was dampened by the chanting and insulting signs of anti-war/anti-America protestors roaming outside of the center and harassing the visitors and denigrating the soldiers and contractors entering the facility. Waving their “blood” stained hands in the faces of the attendees and harassing our brave men and women warriors making their way inside, one could not help but wonder if they realize that their very right to protest, to spout their anti-freedom rantings, has and was paid for with the blood of so many courageous military men and women who have sacrificed so unselfishly and so dearly for our freedoms. To their great credit, the proud and disciplined soldiers in uniform were seemingly not enraged by the actions and mindless rantings of the protestors.

Quietly and Professionally

The mood inside the building was positive, electric in a way and yet reserved. The “surge” in Iraq is clearly working. Civilian and U.S. military deaths are down and insurgent deaths are up. The Army has once again, as it has always done quietly and professionally, performed at its very best for America and for the Iraqi citizens who maybe do not yet realize fully what freedom, independence and a true self governing country is.

The Army gathers each year at the annual AUSA Meeting to celebrate its successes, recognize its heroes and in many quiet ways morn its irreplaceable loses. In 2007, there was much work to be done in all these areas.

The big news on the show floor, besides the hum about troop withdrawals and the success of the surge and the meeting and greeting of old friends and comrades in arms, was the then very recent announcement of the sizable contract awards for new armored vehicles called MRAP. The MRAP (Mine Resistant Ambush Protection) translates to highly mobile but equally protected wheeled vehicles to provide improved protection against IEDs and RPGs. More than 6,400 RG31 MK5 MRAPs have been ordered thus far for the Army alone from just one of numerous vendor teams, BAE Systems through its partnership with General Dynamics Land Systems, while another 600 MK5Es, an extended version of the RG31, have been ordered on a separate $135 million dollar contract for the U.S. Marine Corps. These are huge contracts with the biggest defense contractors in the world. The show floor was awash with armored vehicles of all shapes, sizes and even colors (yes, there was one in British SAS desert “pink” as well). The MRAPs have proven highly effective in countering modern ballistics threats with U.S. and coalition forces. They have and will continue to save lives on the battlefields wherever they are deployed. Most countries involved in OEF/OIF are buying into them at the moment.

AAI
(www.aaicorp.com)

The U.S. Army’s LSAT (Lightweight Small Arms Technology) demonstrator program continues with further success with both its Cased Telescoped (CT) and Caseless Telescoped (CL) ammunition types. AAI reps reported that to date 6,000 rounds of CT ammunition have been fired in the LSAT LMG prototype 001 with prototype 002 testing to begin shortly. Various successful live-fire demonstrations had been conducted for U.S. Army officials at Fort Benning and elsewhere. The caseless ammunition firing weapon is further behind and is challenging the designers to solve the tough-nut chamber sealing issue that haunts all auto-loading caseless ammunition firing small arms. Reportedly, the firing mechanism is in final development with a two-part expanding chamber design similar to that of the ill-fated H&K G11 Rifle.

Thus far, 100 rounds of the rectangular DNAG G11-style ammunition, the basis for the LSAT caseless ammunition, have been fired on test fixtures only. The first cylindrical LSAT caseless ammunition was expected to be completed by end of CY07.

While still clearly in the early R&D stages of development, the LSAT program offers scalable technology that can be applied to other types of small arms such as 7.62mm rifles and machine guns. LSAT offers 35-50% system (weapon, links, ammo) weight savings, but only if system durability and soldier ruggedness can be assured. Watch this program carefully. Put your money on the CT ammo.

Barrett Firearms Manufacturing, Inc.
(www.barrettrifles.com)

The big news at the Barrett booth this year was their 240LW, an in-house development to reduce the overall weight of the U.S. M240 GPMG. The Barrett 240LW (LW for Light Weight) employs a fluted barrel and one-piece CNC machined steel receiver. Offering a weight reduction of 5.5 pounds, this brings the outstanding reliability of the otherwise heavy M240 machine gun into a more portable, maneuverable weight range of 21.5 pounds, and along the lines of lighter GPMGs like the M60 and HK21E, without the need to employ more exotic materials with questionable durability. While there is no official program for this Barrett-funded creation, one can only wonder, “Why not?” Barrett also announced at AUSA that the “BORS” (Barrett Optical Ranging System) is now available for commercial sale at $1,500 each with mount; $2,700 with the L&S MKIV telescopic sight.

Beretta Law Enforcement and Defense Group
(www.BerettaLE.com)

Beretta Firearms Company may be the longest running small arms exhibitor at the AUSA event, continuously supporting the U.S. Army Annual Meeting for more than 23 years. The newest product on display at the Beretta booth this year was the new Px4 Storm Subcompact Pistol. Available in calibers 9x19mm Luger and .40 S&W, the Px4 Subcompact, with 3-inch barrel, weighs only 26 ounces and holds an impressive number of cartridges (thirteen 9mm rounds or ten .40 S&W rounds) for such adiminutive pistol.

Colt Defense, LLC
(www.colt.com)

This year Colt came to the AUSA Show to impress the attendees with new and long awaited developments in the M4 family of weapons. This includes the open public display (and even disassembly) of thehighly secretive M5 Advanced Military Carbine with piston operated gas system, Colt’s new patented aluminum rail system offering 100% return to zero capability and redesigned front sight assembly. Other unique features include barrel heat sink and airflow grooves to help cool a hot barrel and reduce the occurrence of cook off. Colt claims the new op rod M4 has fired over 12,000 rounds without cleaning or stoppages. It is even fitted with proprietary drain system to allow for over-thebeach use wherein the operator can safely fire the weapon without the need to first fully drain water from the interior of the weapon.

In addition to the Colt LE1020 Law Enforcement Carbine with piston operated gas system, Colt representatives were also showing SLA models of various prototype folding stocks for use with the M4 and M5 Carbines to reduce the overall length of the weapon to compact PDW size. The Colt 5.56mm PDW, as it was being referred to, sports a 10.3-inch barrel, new buffer and spring built into the back of the bolt carrier, 3-position QD sling attachment points and LaserMax vertical foregrip with green aiming laser. Firing at 700-900 rounds per minute, the Colt 5.56mm PDW stands ready for the release of the long rumored requirement from the U.S. Army for a rifle-caliber Personal Defense Weapon. At the time of writing, little additional information was available on any such release by the U.S. Army for such a weapon. However, according to sources within PEO Soldier, this requirement is still being written by the user proponent.

FNH U.S.A, LLC
(www.fnhusa.com)

The big news at the FN booth was, of course, SCAR. If reports from both company representatives and from U.S. officials are correct, the SCAR Light and Heavy models and the 40mm EGLM grenade launcher could enter series production as early as March 2008. Reportedly production, fielding and logistical funds have been programmed for full SCAR (12-16 thousand units) and EGLM fielding within USSOCOM once the full production Milestone C decision is made. This is expected to come after the final Operational Test (OT) report is completed and reviewed. At the time of writing, the USSOCOM was finishing up the last of the OT phases with U.S. Army Rangers and Special Forces, U.S. Navy SEALs and U.S. Marine Corps MARSOC personnel. One interesting note was that the BOI (Basis of Issue), which was originally heavy on the SCAR-L (5.56x45mm NATO) side, has now been revamped and it shifted to the SCAR-H (7.62x51mm NATO) variants at the request of the user community. Maybe someone in the SOF world knows something we don’t? An 85% commonality of parts between the SCAR-L and SCAR-H certainly will help to reduce the logistical burden on the organization, especially when one considers just how many different weapons the SCAR family will eventually replace.

The SCAR-L was also involved in the congressionally mandated Extreme Sand/Dust Tests at Aberdeen in 2007 wherein it competed against its potential rivals in the U.S. DoD rifle market. This included the XM8, HK416 and Colt M4. Reportedly, the SCAR-L completed the test with good results but not before a change in the lubrication cycle was required to insure reliable function and test completion. The op rod SCAR-L did reportedly finish ahead of the direct gas operated M4 along with the other two operating rod carbines tested.

General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products
(www.gdatp.com)

(GD) announced that the .50 caliber XM312 is now a separate effort split from the Army’s Future Combat System program and has received some close attention from the U.S. Army and USSOCOM recently for potential replacement of the venerable M2HB heavy machine gun. The XM312 has been modified to accept the standard U.S. M9 disintegrating metal link belt common to the U.S. M2HB. Due to the light weight and reduced recoil of the XM312, it can be mounted and employed anywhere a 7.62x51mm M240 GPMG can be used. Under the current schedule, Low Rate Initial Production (LRIP) of the XM312 is anticipated to begin in 2010 with full production to begin in 2011.

GD representatives also stated that M2HB and MK19 production is “maxed out” at the moment with series production ramped up to meet U.S. and foreign friendly requirements. Approximately 1,800 to over 2,000 of each will have been procured during CY07.

NAMMO
(www.nammo.com)

If you want to witness ammunition and ordnance perfection and innovation, the NAMMO booth at AUSA is the one to visit. Makers of some of the finest high performance small arms ammunition in the world, to include the armor piercing M995 (5.56x45mm NATO) and M993 (7.62x51mm NATO) rounds, they also have an IR Tracer round now in final U.S. Navy qualification testing for use with passive night vision devices. Most notably the progress of the preprogrammed air bursting 40x53mm HV ammunition for the U.S. MK47 Striker ALGL (Advanced Lightweight Grenade Launder) is now in final type classification in the U.S. 90,000 rounds will have been delivered to the USSOCOM by December 2007 for combat evaluations by USSOCOM and other U.S. Army units.

Night Vision Systems
(www.nightvisionsystems.com)

NVS had on display the clip-on Knight’s Armament Company Universal Night Scope Thermal (UNST), or model M890. The maker claims this small 23-ounce device, mounted forward of a variety of optical and reflex sights, can provide human target detection up to 1,000 meters. The UNST can be quickly detached via the throw lever mount, fits on most any rifle or scope and can even be used in a hand held mode when detached.

ST Kinetics
(www.stengg.com)

Singapore based ST Kinetics had on display in their booth a series production sample of their new Air Bursting Modular System (ABMS) for any 40x53mm grenade machine guns. This bolt-on system can be added to the weapon in minutes by the operator and allows for the use of preprogrammed air bursting ammunition to attack targets hidden behind cover, in the defilade, using their quick attach Fire Control System. Using time-of-flight technology, the ABMS ammunition contains 300 tungsten balls within its warhead and costs approximately $350-400 each. Each round has a self-destruct feature and when programmed for air burst will detonate 2 meters above the target and at any location before or after a barrier as determined by the gunner. The ammunition programming “coil” attaches to the muzzle of the grenade launcher and therefore requires no permanent modification to the host weapon. The entire system costs $50,000 at this time. ST Kinetics is also currently working on a 40x46mm LV air burst system as well.

Part 2 of the 2007 AU.S.A Show Report appears in the next issue of SAR and covers current U.S. Army small arms programs and the results of the recent U.S. Army Extreme Carbine Sand/Dust Tests.

In Part I of this interview (SAR Vol. 11, No. 6, March 2008), Jim Sullivan fills in the blanks on Armalite and the AR-15 project, the Stoner 63 project, digs deep on the Ichord Committee regarding M16 failures in Vietnam, covers the Ruger Mini 14 and M77, as well as his work on the 7.62mm Chaingun, the EPAM, Chiclet Guns, and caseless ammunition. We now join the interview when Jim has moved to Singapore and is working through the Ultimax 100.

The following is Jim Sullivan’s favorite quote on preparedness regarding a 1917 exchange between Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt. Woodrow Wilson: “If this country goes to war, our boys will immediately leap to arms.” Teddy Roosevelt: “Whose arms, their mothers’? We don’t have any guns!”

SAR: So, Jim, what inspired moving to Singapore?

Jim Sullivan: Again, it was Armalite. They had been over there trying to sell the AR-18, and the problems between Singapore and Colt on the M16 manufacture also involved the State Department. It was a huge mess. The US State Department wasn’t going to let Singapore sell any M16s they made, claiming US technology was involved. Singapore had contracted with Colt to build a factory to build M16s for their military. They also thought they were going to be able to sell them in the region. Their understanding of the deal with Colt was that they would have that part of the world and they could sell M16s to anybody the State Department agreed to. Once Singapore made their 100,000 M16s for their army, they wanted permission from the US State Department to sell to Malaysia. I don’t know how they found this out, but this is what I am told happened: Colt pressured the State Department to tell Singapore no, because they had a man in KL (Kuala Lumpur) that was going to sell the M16s to them. Singapore’s the one that did all the demonstrations that got Malaysia ready to buy. They wouldn’t have contracted on the M16 if they had known they wouldn’t be able to sell them regionally.

SAR: That’s a deal we’ve all seen before.

Jim Sullivan: Remember, this was when the Munitions Control Act and the new Arms Export Control Act of 1976 (AECA) was coming into play. The ramifications weren’t known yet, so it was hard to tell how things would be viewed by the US State Department regarding US made defense articles, let alone the quagmire of design and US based technology exports. Singapore wanted another gun to make that they could sell, that the AECA didn’t forbid. Armalite was all ready to sell them or license the AR-18 to Singapore so Singapore could make it and sell to, no longer Malaysia – they missed that opportunity – it was the Philippines that was the next customer in line. But again, the US State Department said no way. I wasn’t on the AR-18; that had been Art Miller’s project. I was working nights there at Armalite, so Armalite knew me, Armalite knew CIS and the problems they were having, and so Armalite said to me, “What would you think about going over to Singapore?” They hadn’t talked to Singapore yet. They said they saw one way around this technology transfer issue. The AECA didn’t forbid it at the time, although it does now, an American could go anywhere he wants to and design guns there. They said, “What would you think about going over there and designing a gun?” I jumped on that. They set up a meeting, and they talked to the Singapore people and we all agreed I would go. What they wanted was an assault rifle. I don’t know why they were doing both at the same time, they had bought the Sterling assault rifle, which was really an AR-18 knockoff.

SAR: So, it’s 1978, and you saddled up and headed to Singapore to design a new “Assault Rifle.”

Jim Sullivan: Correct. I took my whole family – wife and kids. It was supposed to be a two year project, but it ended up to be three years. I loved it, it’s a great place. It was a bit hard to get along with the people there at first. We did travel around Southeast Asia a lot. We’d take the train up to KL maybe three times a year. That is the most beautiful train ride around. Only problem was that at that time, people used to not want to go in first-class because the Communists that were in the jungle would shoot at the first-class coaches when the train crossed their areas. Some people, when they’d come to the bad areas along the track, would move back into the cheap seats, with the chickens and goats. Once they passed the Communist Guerilla areas, they’d move back up front. Singapore to KL up to Bangkok: all the way along there. That whole west coast of Malaysia is great. Penang is simply beautiful. Our son went over there first, but he couldn’t get a job, so he went back to the States. Our daughter went to high school there and graduated in Singapore. She just loved it. Every year at The American Singapore School, they’d go off on trips, and she ended up going to about 30 different countries when she was in high school.

SAR: Great way to grow up and learn the world. In those three years, your project was originally to just make something along the lines of an AR?

Jim Sullivan: Yes, an “assault rifle” was what they had said. They weren’t real specific, and I had a bunch of ideas I wanted to try out. One of them was how to make a controllable full automatic gun. If you can’t hit anything in full auto, the gun is worthless. It goes to my guideline rules of Rugged, Simple, Reliable, and Accurate. If the accurate part is missing, the rest of them don’t count.

SAR: I like that motto, it goes to the heart of things. How were the people to work with?

Jim Sullivan: I liked the people very much, but I didn’t like what they call “filial piety.” Your boss is god-like and Americans don’t accept that very well. I was kind of in the same position that Bob Fremont had been. I had argued with the Chairman of the Board and he was an officer in the government. He made a suggestion that I didn’t think would work and I argued with him about it. Everybody froze up solid, but I wasn’t going to give up on it. I was expected to stop talking because he was upset.

SAR: That’s not really an American trait.

Jim Sullivan: (Laughs) You got that right. Anyway, he ended up beating his hands together, and he couldn’t even talk he was so upset. (Laughs again) Two guys helped him out of the room. They said, “Don’t anybody leave,” and we just sat there absolutely silent, nobody could talk, and pretty soon they came in and said, “Okay, you can leave now.” Last I heard of that!

You know, they had good machinery, but the machinists were basically uneducated types that are just naturally gifted people. They did good work because they had this innate understanding of mechanisms and mechanics. I got along real good with them. Funny, because they didn’t speak English and I didn’t speak Mandarin. It was a difficult environment in some ways. I had designed this thing, and it was obvious how it was supposed to work, and the machinist was making the two or three parts that had to go together. The other engineer who kind of acted as the interpreter went out because of a fuss going on out in the machine shop. He came back in and the machinist was hanging his head, following along. These two parts didn’t fit together and they were ashamed. I said, “Oh, well, he gets 20 lashes.” (Laughs) They kind of brightened up because I was kidding, and pretty soon they went back and came back in again with the drawing, and they were both kind of smirking, and here it was because of my mistake on the drawing. I said, “Okay, now you only get 10 lashes.” They all laughed, and that story went all through the plant. It became real easy to work with everybody over there, there was no tension at all like there had been at first.

SAR: Let’s recap this. You had ideas, and you’d seen and designed different systems and studied all around. At this point you had 25 years of small arms design, and now you’ve got a country and a company that wants a rifle, and they’re not really quite sure where they’re going with it, and you’ve got full access to the machine shops and design. The end result is one of the most controllable machine guns ever made, the Ultimax 100.

Jim Sullivan: Yeah, it was great! I started in on making a machine gun that in fully automatic fire would be accurate. I had lots of ideas, plus some things I had seen elsewhere – you know Hugo Schmeisser’s work, I had seen the guns. In fact, they had some at Armalite, but I hadn’t paid much attention to the STG, although I recognized some kindred ideas. The Ultimax idea came from over there. It wasn’t until I was working on this thing as an assault rifle that it all clicked. One of the things about 5.56 being a small cartridge with low impulse is that you don’t need excessive length in the gun. I had already recognized that as a blowback submachine gun, the MP-18 in World War I was designed to get controllable full auto, but that was a blowback gun, and I got to thinking about that principle. How could you do it in a gas-operated gun? You can’t use blowback, of course, with a high-pressure cartridge like a rifle cartridge. The case walls seize in the chamber and it’ll just blow the back end right off the case. The pressure needs to come down enough so that you can get extraction. Pistol bullets that are used in a submachine gun are low pressure so no problem, but that higher pressure was a huge stumbling block. We had solved this in several weapons before, but not to my satisfaction for a controllable weapon. They gave me several guys to assist me, and I invited Bob Waterfield over there too. He came over a couple of months after I had started, and I’m glad he did. Bob did almost all the work on the 100-shot round magazine, and I concentrated on the gun, but there’s a lot of overlapping on that type of thing. He did an excellent job. Think of the requirements we faced. First, I had to design a gun that would fit the equipment they had at the factory; that they could build with what they had. The reason that factory could make the M16 is because Colt had come over there and gave them all the production equipment, tooling and everything else, a turnkey line. Now, I had to design a gun that could be built on what the factory had, or could use. The skills necessary to manufacture something are different from the skills needed to design something. My specialty is the product, not the production end of it and I now had to engineer for manufacturing capability, not what might have been my best choices.

SAR: Adding another dimension to the design phase. Any examples?

Jim Sullivan: I used sheet metal that was simple to form – not drawn, complex shapes. These were very simple shapes requiring very simple machining. And to also make use of some of the Colt machines and processes because by then they were familiar with them, so that they were similar type. Other than the magazine, there are no dimensions that are the same on the two guns. But some of the machining that’s done on the bolt and bolt carrier is similar in principle, so they could set up and do it.

SAR: Did you have any problems with the system you designed?

Jim Sullivan: There are always problems. I made a first prototype. Talk about a plumber’s delight. Except for the barrel coming out of this junk pile, you wouldn’t know it was a gun. (Laughs) I tackled that thing very early on and got the controllability I wanted but not the looks. Then I made the gun fire full auto only, and from the open bolt, and tried to interest them in working backwards towards the assault rifle idea. I was going for an open bolt, closed bolt trigger mechanism. You really can’t get accurate semiautomatic fire from an open bolt mechanism. You get too much lurch in the gun before it fires, throwing your aim off.

SAR: So you went off on a tangent to the goal of an assault rifle. Were they supportive of that?

Jim Sullivan: Yeah. What I was doing there for the first year, and what they were doing was in parallel, and they would only end up with one of these guns. What I suggested to them is why don’t we break off and go in this direction, and come back to the assault rifle? They liked that idea because they saw that of these two programs, one of them would just die a natural death. I knew that would happen too, and I didn’t want it to, because I really had something with that controllable full auto.

SAR:What’s the heart of the system?

Jim Sullivan: Everyone thinks they know the reason a gun kicks. A bullet goes this way…

SAR: …and Mr. Newton tells us that there will be an equal and opposite reaction….

Jim Sullivan: …and it’s true you can’t violate that principle, Dan, but recoil is a measure of force times time. Let’s take a simple bolt action rifle: The force of recoil is the same force that’s driving the bullet, and it’s for the same amount of time that it takes to drive that bullet. In other words, whatever amount of time it takes to accelerate that bullet from the back of the barrel to the front, and out through the front of the barrel, that amount of time is what that same force is pushing rearward against the gun and against the guy’s shoulder. Okay, of course it kicks, but here’s the thing: that time is very short, so the force is very high. Recoil is a function of force times time. In a machine gun, let’s say it’s firing 600 shots a minute, that’s ten shots a second or one shot every one-tenth of a second. You have one-tenth of a second to deliver that force. If you’re delivering it in the one-thousandth of a second that a bolt action rifle does, you’re screwed. But if you can find a way to stretch it out, instead of a thousandth of a second, stretch that time out to a tenth of a second, that’s 100 times longer. That means the force is one one-hundredth, and it’s the force that moves you, not the time. It not only means that you can reduce that force to one one-hundredth; that’s a hell of a reduction in force. It also means it becomes a constant force, because you time it so that it fires this shot and stretches all the recoil out until exactly the time it fires the next shot. So the force is not only a very small force, it is now constant. It doesn’t hit you as a bunch of sharp impacts.

SAR: OK, Jim, the mass of the bolt is traveling rearward after it unlocks. It travels rearward on the spring, and that spring applies pressure against the rear of the stock and the platform, the shooter’s shoulder. That bolt mass never has a jarring impact to the rear because you’ve got such a long recoil spring designed into this. It runs out of energy, and the spring energy forces it into return. So the spring is always constantly pushing backwards against the platform, which is your shoulder.

Jim Sullivan: That’s right. You don’t have two things going on in there: it’s constant over the stroke. You can’t do it perfectly because of friction and a lot of other things. If you take an assault rifle of the same weight as the Ultimax, the Ultimax out-hits them about eight-to-one, on light machine guns it out-hits them three-to-one, but they’re heavier. It’s finding the harmonic of a machine gun, and balancing it with a constant recoil system.

SAR: So, what was the response from CIS to this?

Jim Sullivan: Excellent. We went to the range, and they were impressed. It’s a shame it never made it to the SAW trials in the US. The Ultimax kicked the M249’s ass in all of our trials! But, the politics involved kept it out.

SAR: It’s 1978 and you’re with your family in Singapore, and you’ve designed the constant recoil system in the Ultimax 100.

Jim Sullivan: Singapore was 1978 to 1981, and the Ultimax was what I did first. We got the proof of concept done and we took it to one of their army bases to shoot. They did the firing against their M16s as I think that was all they had to compare it with. Later on, they got a hold of some of the Minimis. This is before the US adopted the Minimi. After they fired the Ultimax they were sold on it, and that was very early in the program. Bob hadn’t finished the 100-round drum yet and we just used a standard M16 magazine. The prototype gun looked really crude but it was the first step. This was about the time that I found out that they had been running a parallel program to make the Sterling rifle, what became the SAR80 in Singapore. The US military had come out and I suggested that we go in this new direction, do this machine gun first, partly because the US military already had come out with the Squad Automatic Weapon requirement.

SAR: So you saw this as a possible SAW candidate?

Jim Sullivan: They were so angry over the State Department screwing them over on the export of the M16 projects that they refused to enter it in the SAW trials. This was too bad because it would’ve beat that M249. By then we actually had tested it against the new M249. There was no way to really compare it because the guys in Singapore couldn’t hold an M249 on target at all. One guy fired the thing. It was kind of a gravely berm and he was laying at an angle to the gun. He started shooting and it was so wild that he froze on the trigger. It swung him around and rolled him over. He was firing straight up in the air, and we’re all steppin’ and fetchin’ all around there. Luckily, he ran out of ammo. There was a lot of nervous laughter after that. They couldn’t hit anything with it. They wanted to get into production on the Ultimax immediately. There were actually 16 patentable items, and they patented it in 19 countries: separate patents. That’s the most patents I’ve ever had at one time, but patents run out after 17 years. At any given point the most patents I had active was 200, so I’ve gotten a lot of patents, on a lot of guns.

SAR: How many of the Ultimax 100 were made?

Jim Sullivan: I never got a full count, but about 10,000 for their army. One guy out of ten had the Ultimax 100. They’ve got a system like Switzerland does where everybody has to go in and serve. They have a fairly big army, 100,000 men or so. I looked on Wikipedia on the internet and they said they’re up to 80,000 Ultimax 100s made now, so they’ve sold a lot of them. A lot of the users are Central and South American countries.

SAR: I understand that the Mark IV Ultimax, with the quick changeable barrel, has some interest in the US military. Vince Dinero is involved in that project.

Jim Sullivan: Yes. Bob Waterfield and I went back to Quantico and put on a demonstration with the Ultimax. This was a different group of people from the ones who had tested it a year before that. There were four guns they had tested at 29 Palms. Ultimax was one, and they had a Colt Light Machine Gun, HK’s MG36, and the M249. Somebody had taken off the elevation slide on the Ultimax. On the Ultimax, when the aperture drops down without the slide, all you see is a pivot pin and you can’t get a sight picture at all. Still, on one of the tests, it beat the M249, and yet nobody could get a sight picture. Out of all the four guns, the Ultimax was chosen by almost all the Marines that tested it.

SAR: Are you familiar with the Israeli Negev?

Jim Sullivan: Yeah, I am, I’ve fired it. I was over at IMI one time, and they were going through their paces with that thing. A lot of similarity in the Negev system to the Ultimax but it’s not controllable like the Ultimax and it’s no better than the M249 in my opinion. They shortened the travel, and didn’t really get the constant recoil thing although people say the Negev does. It doesn’t.

SAR: In 1981 you left Singapore?

Jim Sullivan: From there I went to Italy. I had a program where I did an assault rifle for Beretta. They had the AR-70, then the AR-70/90 later on. There was one gun I was supposed to do, and there was another they were doing with SIG or somebody in Switzerland. That had fallen apart on them and whatever that program was they weren’t able to sell it to their own military. Beretta wanted a new gun to offer. Again, the Armalite people kind of lined that up because they knew the people over there at Beretta. I spent a year and a half there and did a prototype of that.

SAR: They never completed it? Italy has some new offerings now.

Jim Sullivan: All they did was a prototype. My agreement with them was a royalty agreement. They couldn’t make it without my permission, and we hadn’t reached the point where they had signed yet; assignment hadn’t been made. What went wrong was, right about the time I got done with it, their Air Force went and bought 17,000 of the gun they thought they were never going to be able to sell to their military. They didn’t need my project anymore. Mine was a controllable full automatic weapon, somewhat different in principle from the Ultimax, and it would have an open bolt, closed bolt trigger mechanism, to fire accurate semi-auto. It had a precise quick barrel change. You need the barrel change for hot barrels for the machine gun role, but that traditionally has ruined your accuracy, it makes for a loose, sloppy fit for barrel, for heat expansion, and ruins it as a rifle. But this system didn’t do that. It was accurate hot or cold, you could change barrels and it stayed put on accuracy.

SAR: At the end of that project you came back to the US?

Jim Sullivan: Yes. I met a US submachine gun designer named Gordon Ingram. I had actually known him for a while and one day he and his “angel” who had funded one of his programs ended up there at Beretta. We all went out to dinner together. This was right about the time things were falling apart on the Beretta project, and it looked like there was going to be no completion on this thing, and his angel asked me to do the C-Mag for him – it was part of my Italian project ideas. Actually, he feigned interest in the C-Mag. What he wanted me to do, though, and this ended up kind of as a fight between myself and Gordon, was to take Gordon’s program over, where in this guy’s mind, Gordon had kind of messed up. There were problems with the gun. That’s what the guy wanted me to do. Gordon had been working on something similar to the Mini 14 idea in 5.56, but it was based more on the M1 Carbine.

SAR: He didn’t have a drum magazine for this…

Jim Sullivan: No, it was an assault rifle. The gun I did for Beretta had a double drum magazine. It was the predecessor of the C-Mag. I took the innards out of my Italian design and that eventually became the C-Mag, but that was my design, my invention. It didn’t belong to Beretta yet, because they hadn’t completed the program because our agreement was they had to fund the whole thing before I made assignment. They hadn’t done that. So, I was with Gordon and his financial backer, and I mentioned this C-Mag – it wasn’t called that at the time – and he got all excited about it. He wanted me to leave Beretta, and that was fine with me because it was all coming apart. I still had to complete some stuff, so I said, “Okay, in two months we’ll get on this C-Mag.” Before the two months was up, it became clear that what he really wanted me to work on was Gordon Ingram’s program. Well, I wouldn’t do that. The thing that Gordon and I had the fight over was that this guy that was funding all of this, he was setting up in Somalia, in Mogadishu. I had gone down there, still thinking the interest was in my magazine, and it wasn’t. Gordon, when he found out I was going down there, he thought I was stabbing him in the back. I wasn’t, but he thought that.

SAR: Did you ever get that squared away with Gordon?

Jim Sullivan: Yeah, but it took a while. He never did quite trust me after that, which is too bad. Anyway, I did make the deal on the magazine with the guy. He was kind of an entrepreneur. It wasn’t his money, he had a group of investors lined up, and one of them was the ex-governor of Georgia, Carl Sanders. Sanders was the real investor in this thing, and then he and this entrepreneur had a falling out, and neither one of them owned enough of it, and they got Sylvia involved, otherwise it would have fallen apart.

SAR: What was your inspiration on the beta C-Mag?

Jim Sullivan: I designed it there in Italy for the purpose of the gun I was designing, and I used a double drum magazine because it makes a lot of sense. You’re familiar with the old German saddle drum magazine?

SAR: Of course. The 75-round saddle drum fit on the MG15 and the MG34 with a special top cover.

Jim Sullivan: I was going to do that basic design, only the one I did for Singapore, the two drums were right up tight against each other. I had to spread it out again when I made it a C-Mag; when I wanted to make something that would fit the M16. But the thing about it is the M16 was designed for a 20 or 30-shot magazine. We really designed for a 25-shot at the start. The bolt comes back, it barely over-travels, 3/16ths of an inch, and that’s enough time for the cartridge to get up there before the bolt is bounced back forward and starts chambering it. The C-Mag, you couldn’t make 100 rounds work, because 100 rounds moves slower than 30 rounds. In theory you can just make the spring three times stronger and get it to move as fast, but in reality you can’t. It’s like putting the brakes on and the gun couldn’t cycle. This was all in 1983.

SAR: Where did the physical work get done for the C-Mag?

Jim Sullivan: In the US. The original idea was to make this an expendable package of ammo that the soldier would use once and toss. The ammunition was going to be low temp ammo. On the technical side, barrel heat doesn’t really come from the powder gases; it comes from the friction of shoving a bullet through the barrel with the brakes on. A Spitzer bullet, a lead core bullet, remember that we think of lead as a solid, but lead is real weak, and it’s nothing more than hydraulic fluid when it gets heated. Imagine a bullet copper skin has been filled with hydraulic fluid, and now you hit it with 50,000 psi behind it, driving it through the barrel. That’s where barrel heat comes from – resistance. The reason I know that is from the ammunition that we did: Delta ammo. It’s a steel bullet with a plastic sabot, and the rifling twist is transferred from the sabot into the bullet by fingers that reach through grooves on the steel bullet. You can get 19 grains of powder to give you as much energy in 5.56 using that as 26 grains in standard ammo. The difference between 19 and 26 isn’t really the barrel heat. Sure, the powder’s got something to do with it, but a bullet only takes one millisecond going down the barrel. The powder hangs on for a little while longer. It’s venting out the barrel. It’s about one and a half milliseconds at 5,000 degrees, which is hot as hell, but that’s 5,000 degrees for only one and a half seconds on a long burst. That won’t heat that barrel up enough to boil water; the real heat is coming from friction.

SAR: One and a half seconds, you mean…

Jim Sullivan: Yeah, a thousand-shot burst is the equivalent of a 5,000 degree torch put on the barrel – 5,000 degrees for one and a half seconds. You can take 5,000 degrees and go very quickly like that over the back of your hand and it doesn’t do anything. That’s about a half a second that you’re exposing it to. At one and a half seconds, an M16 barrel, just to use a well-known weight, is 1.7 pounds. It will not heat 1.7 pounds up more than 30 degrees. It won’t even boil water. There are all kinds of things that should have been done by now in small arms development. You don’t need water-cooled barrels or seven-pound barrels on .30-caliber machine guns. You can get by with rifle barrels if you design the ammunition correctly. Nobody’s doing this kind of work.

SAR: Reducing the friction? What about the chamber heat?

Jim Sullivan: Most of that just comes back from the pressure, from the heat that builds up in front of it. The hottest part of the barrel isn’t the chamber area, it’s well forward of that. That’s one thing you can do to fix the systems. You can get rid of barrel heat, not entirely, but you can sure reduce it with ammunition design. Since the barrel’s the heaviest single part in a machine gun, if you can cut two and a half pounds out of a machine gun barrel and get rid of a quick barrel change, you’ve done something for a machine gun. Although I developed the magazine in America, I had invented the ammunition in Mogadishu, so we chose England to develop that in. You could still do that back then. Americans could still develop things overseas. Today you can’t legally help a foreigner in designing munitions. That’s the AECA. All this was before that law changed, and I went and developed that ammunition in England. The name of the company was Delta.

SAR: What happened with the C-Mag?

Jim Sullivan: The C-Mag became a success; just not so much in this country. Remember, the C-Mag is a different type of drum. The Ultimax drum moves pretty slow. The C-Mag has an accelerator in it so it’ll work on an M16 because you don’t have much time to get that top cartridge lifted up and presented. The way they work, it’s like two rings of ammunition moving together, and you can squeeze them together. They make their full circle and they get to the end of their circle, and then they get squeezed. As they squeeze together, this doubles the speed of the cartridge. It’s changing it from a double column to a single column. That doubles the speed and cuts the force in half. Now you can have twice the spring force and twice the speed of the cartridges at the top. If you took the Ultimax drum, it wouldn’t be near fast enough. It was fine for the Ultimax because I sailed way on past the back end of the magazine and gave it just lots of room, lots of time before it starts ramming the cartridge forward. You can have a sluggish drum magazine. Before the C-Mag the only way you could get something like this to work was you had to design a gun for a drum, you couldn’t just put a drum on there. Some of the other high capacity designs, well, they’re not that reliable because they use way too strong a spring force. Spring force equals drag on the bolt. That limits the reliability of the gun. It’s all about getting that cartridge out there just as fast as if you had a 30-round magazine. The C-Mag system does it.

SAR: How long did you work on that project?

Jim Sullivan: Six months, I guess. It didn’t take very long. That’s been pretty successful, but not in the US military market. The US, they don’t seem to even know what’s out there, and for another thing, they don’t test anything in the US unless they have a big budget for testing. That means they don’t like to test anything that they haven’t written a requirement for. That means they don’t write requirements for stuff that’s already there. I don’t know what’s gone wrong here. When I say “they,” I mean Army Materiel Command and it’ll be one of their agencies. I don’t think they’re opening the market up to enough tests other than just specifically the things that they are writing a requirement for and not testing what’s out there to see if it suits. The other thing is they like program longevity; I mean to the point of the extreme. They never want a program to end. I think the last thing they want is the successful conclusion of a project.

SAR: You’re defining “bureaucracy.”

Jim Sullivan: I know, and the contractors know that, and cooperate because they want it that way too. That’s why they love stuff like caseless ammo, even if somebody in there knows that they’ll never get to the finish line with that idea, they love those programs. You can always make small incremental improvements.

SAR: Still, there have been a lot of successes and advancements out of these programs…I mean, research has its place, but admittedly not as many fielded projects as there have been programs.

Jim Sullivan: (Jim gestures emphatically) That’s the whole point! Look, after C-Mag, I had made some money, and I went back to my office in Armalite and did a lot of proposal work and stuff. I did a lot of consulting. I went over to Royal Ordnance, Nottingham; just short-term stuff. Looked at the British SA-80 program. It was at the time they were shutting down RSAF and Enfield. They had already switched all the manufacturing to Nottingham. There wasn’t all that much to my involvement. They asked me to go over there and take a look at it, I did and I told them my views on the gun, and they got angry and that was the end of it. From what I saw, everything about it was wrong. For instance, they were using an M16 type bolt and not making it right. In manufacturing it, first you drill a hole for the firing pin. Once that hole is there, everything centers on that hole. You turn the outside, you cut the slots and everything else. They didn’t do that. They cut all the outside first, then tried to drill the hole for the firing pin in the center. It wasn’t “true.” Then they found out you can’t drill a hole that way, holes go off this way and that way and aren’t centered. To solve that, what they did was mess with the firing pin tip. The firing pin has a nice, respectable diameter for most of its length until the front. Instead of a tapered firing pin so that it’s good and strong, they just narrowed it down, and they had the thing about a half-inch long, and just a sixteenth inch in diameter. Another thing was the magazine well. It’s a sheet metal receiver, and the magazine well is sheet metal, but it has to be welded on. That’s fine. But the sheet metal stamping for the magazine well, they stamp the slot, the little hole, the slot for the magazine latch, they stamped it in there, and then they weld it on. I mean, sure, you save an operation because you can stamp the hole instead of machining it, but no two latch positions on any guns are precisely the same. Their magazines on some of the guns were jammed up and the bolt couldn’t move ’cause the magazines were stuck in there on some guns. On other guns it was too low, wasn’t feeding properly. They didn’t fix this stuff, it just went on and on like that. They’d hold plus or minus one-thousandth, completely unrealistic tolerances, which nobody could make the parts to. The firing on that trip when I went over there was still done at the only range they had, which was still at RSAF Enfield. One of the things you do to test is you load up a mag, put it up in the rifle, you fire a shot and let the thing cycle and chamber the next round, and then instead of firing that next round, you hand extract it and look for scratches on it. When I did this test, it was just scratched all to hell. They weren’t up on that. The back end of the lugs, you’ve got to carefully smooth off that corner. These were just raw. It was just cutting the cartridges. I don’t know why they weren’t getting split cases from that. Maybe they were.

In part three of the interview with L. James Sullivan, we cover Uzi Gal, the Ruger SMG, Kalashnikovs, “Sacred cows”, his current design work and Jim takes a no-holds-barred look at the current USM4 issues. Don’t miss it!

By Robert Bruce

“The M60E4 is a great weapon and definitely fills the gap between vehicle mounted M240B and dismounted M249 SAW. Scout teams have been taking them out to overwatch and support the snipers, occupying OPs near them and carrying the M60E4 because it is small enough to hump a good distance and has great firepower. Some comments directly from soldiers: The M60E4 is small enough to maneuver in tight places, it allows for easy access entering and exiting vehicles and aircraft, can be shoulder fired in short bursts accurately, does not require a complete crew to operate effectively.” Email to US Ordnance from an officer of 101st Airborne Division in Operation Iraqi Freedom

What’s not to like about a real machine gun that’s significantly lighter than a chunky M240, about the same size as a puny SAW, pumps out powerful 7.62mm rounds with reliability and accuracy, and has long been a force multiplier in elite Navy SEAL Teams? GIs who’ve tried ‘em love ‘em, they’re comparable in price to buy and sustain as the FN guns, they’ve been in the logistics and combat doctrine chains for ever, and they’re 100 percent American designed and built. Slam dunk? Sorry.

The “Screaming Eagles” in Iraq only had a few of the newest Sixties, provided free of charge by US Ordnance in response to their urgent request while forward deployed for the Global War on Terror. US Ord sent a crate full of MK43s (M60E4), spare barrels and spare parts to Fort Campbell and the Army delivered it to Iraq.

Subsequent use in the unforgiving arena of intense urban combat resulted in a number of enthusiastic responses leaking out, but any formalized after action report has apparently been kept on close hold. We are unaware of any plans by the Army for further evaluation and PM Soldier Weapons is moving out at double time to develop a lighter and shorter version of the M240.

Meanwhile, production of M240s and 249s at FN’s South Carolina plant continues at breakneck pace but there remains a substantial backlog. This necessitates keeping large numbers of existing M60s in service with all branches of the US Armed Forces. But these guns are mostly old and tired veterans of decades of hard service and victims of poor maintenance with shoddy and cannibalized parts. What’s going on here?

Life and Times of the M60

Developed in the aftermath of WWII and fielded in 1957, the light and handy 7.62mm NATO caliber M60 General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) has been alternately praised and cursed by GIs who have carried it combat from Vietnam to Iraq and beyond.

Inspired by the WWII German MG42, the M60 was intentionally designed for mass production – cheap and fast on a stamped sheet metal receiver that houses a clever gas operated, carrier-cammed bolt mechanism first seen in the Lewis Gun of WWI. It replaced the Browning-designed M1919 series, built on heavy riveted steel receivers with lots of machining required for its beefy, recoil operated internals.

When the original M60 is good, it is very good; appreciated for its compact size, good handling, mechanical simplicity, quick change barrel, and effective operation from shoulder, hip, bipod, tripod, or vehicle/watercraft/aircraft mounting.

But when it’s bad it deserves its ‘Nam nickname “The Pig.” Punishing combat use in Vietnam’s tropical climate was hard on men and unforgiving of their weapons, adversely affecting all US arms which had been designed primarily for land warfare in Europe. The M60 was lightweight, but correspondingly flimsy, prone to damage and relatively quick to wear out critical parts like the bolt and op rod.

Special emphasis on parts is called for here. With spares and replacements supplied in later decades by unevenly performing, lowest-bid subcontractors, the gun itself can’t be blamed for problems arising mostly from user abuse, poor maintenance and extreme environmental conditions.

Despite its handicaps, the Sixty performed rather well when light weight and mechanical simplicity were preferred vs. the heavy M1919 series .30 caliber guns. Determined to phase out all those old Brownings, the Army began a series of modifications to the basic M60. The M60D came first, a helicopter door gun characterized by its spade grips and prominent ring sight. The solenoid-fired M60E2 was developed about the same time, a coaxial gun for tanks and helo gunships.

The M60E3 followed, dropping five pounds in a major overhaul demanded by the Marine Corps. Easily recognized by pistol grips fore and aft and a receiver mounted bipod freed from the barrel, the weight loss unfortunately came with poor durability and reduced performance.

Over on the Navy side, SEALs liked their regular M60s, used since ‘Nam with sawed-off barrels and no front sights. Some even utilized clever backpacks fitted with flexible feed chutes, capable of delivering a thousand rounds or more when things got particularly hairy. Yeah, the 5.56mm Stoner LMG and the M249 SAW had their place, but there’s no substitute for hard-hitting 7.62mm rounds. Unfortunately, the troubled E3 wasn’t up to the job.

In the early 1990s, SACO responded to Navy Special Warfare’s unique requirements and specifications, developing a retrofit parts package they called M60E4. Quantity deliveries of new guns and E4 parts kits to SEALs and other NAVSPECWAR units began in late 1994, receiving the Navy designation MK43 Mod 0.

Still reasonably light but significantly more reliable and durable than the despised E3, SEAL Team MK43s can be recognized by a distinctive “duckbill” flash suppressor and a positive lock gas cylinder extension that is stubbier and thicker.

SAWing Off The Sixty

Over on the Army side, the 5.56mm M249 Squad Automatic Weapon began taking the automatic rifle’s place in regular infantry units in the mid-1980s. This boost in firepower resulted in official Army doctrine being modified to reduce the number of M60s used in the traditional role of “General Purpose Machine Gun” in most infantry formations. On the other hand, vehicle and aircraft 60s were unaffected by this ruling and continued soldiering on.

While there have been and continue to be fierce debates about the wisdom of all aspects of this, Infantry Board documentation from the period asserts that the Belgian- designed mini machine gun would make up for lack of reach and penetration with one-man portability and high volume of fire.

It is no exaggeration to say that this radical change wasn’t warmly received by all members of the infantry community.

Yes, bootborne movement to contact in offensive operations is faster with the lighter SAW, but once the firefight begins there is little to recommend using anything smaller than 7.62mm. Same deal in defensive operations where bipod and tripodmounted Sixties have significantly superior accuracy at longer range and decidedly deadlier terminal effect than the M249.

At the same time, users of multitudes of aging M60s in tanks, helos and other tactical platforms were developing serious envy for their counterparts in the US Marine Corps. Leathernecks were beginning to get another Belgian designed weapon, the 7.62mm M240, marveling at its astonishing reliability and durability.

Against this background, sufficient pressure was brought to bear in favor of retaining a 7.62mm belt fed weapon for infantry combat. But the burning question was which medium machine gun would be best?

The process of finding an answer began with Fort Benning’s Dismounted Battlespace Battle Lab (DBBL, commonly pronounced “dibble”) preparing a detailed list of what the ideal weapon would have to do. This drove specific requirements for technical testing at Aberdeen Proving Ground and more general operational testing at Fort Campbell.

Trial by Fire: Sixty vs. 240

The Army’s big 7.62 belt fed shootout kicked off in January 1994 under the interesting program title of Medium Machine Gun Upgrade Kit. This name actually fits rather well because the only two significant competitors – M60s and M240s – were modified versions of weapons currently in the Army inventory.

SACO’s “Enhanced” M60E3 guns were fitted with a number of product improved parts and the FN 240s were coaxial guns from M1 Abrams tanks, converted for dismounted ground combat with buttstocks, bipods and such; hence the “Upgrade Kit” moniker for both.

Each manufacturer submitted eighteen guns and more than a year of technical torture and tactical trials ensued. This ended in December 1995 when the Army declared the M240 victorious.

Not surprisingly, there were strong critics of the decision then and now, raising objections and citing shortcomings in the process with varying degrees of credibility. Sadly, by keeping a close hold on details of the test regimen and tabulated results, the Army hasn’t helped dispel inevitable misinformation.

What is a matter of public record is the much-cited test results table quantifying two key performance areas; Mean Rounds Between Stoppages (MRBS) and Mean Rounds Between Failures (MRBF). Stoppages are jams and failures are parts breaking – both are essential indicators of combat serviceability.

50,000 rounds were fired through both the M60 and the M240. The 240 was a runaway winner in averaging 2,962 MRBS and 6,442 MRBF. The Sixty limped along at 846 MRBS and 1,669 MRBF.

Determined to find and report more facts of the matter, SAR went right to source, Program Manager Soldier Weapons at Picatinny Arsenal. Naturally, our first request was for hard copy of test documentation.

Sorry, came the official answer, “We can’t release any test paperwork until SAR’s request goes through legal.” Seems the specter of defamation lawsuits still looms darkly even after a dozen years have past and even where tabulated test results speak for themselves.

OK, we pressed, how about an interview with Ed Malatesta, the individual who was Product Director/Program Manager for the process? Although since retired from government service, as luck would have it he’s now an independent contractor working at PMSW. A phone interview was agreed to and arranged by officials in surprisingly short order.

In a conference call and subsequent email exchange Malatesta was very emphatic on the following:

SAR: What major factor(s), in your opinion, led to the decision to phase out the M60 in favor of the M240?

Malatesta: Reliability was by far the major factor. The M60s were always breaking and this doomed them almost from the beginning.

SAR: How is this shown in program documentation?

Malatesta: In data reporting the various test results. Based on this, the Army Source Selection Authority, a general officer, wrote in summary, “In view of the above discussions (Reliability, Probability of Hit, Human Factors and Price) and based on an integrated assessment of the above findings (Developmental Tests, Operational Tests, Human Engineering Testing and a Price Assessment), I conclude that Saco (M60) has no reasonable chance for award and should be eliminated from the competitive range, and that a competitive range of one, Fabrique Nationale Manufacturing, Inc. (M240) be established.”

SAR’s candid discussion with Malatesta, coupled with additional research, clearly shows the fundamental problem that, in his words, “doomed” the Sixty. Put aside all the “Enhanced” M60E3’s niceties of lighter weight, portability, balance, controllability in assault fire, easy to parachute with, already in the inventory, tons of spare parts, existing instructional materials, lots of experienced armorers, etc., etc.: SACO’s Sixties broke down way too often while FN’s 240s didn’t.

And the Army moved out smartly to fully equip the force with a new machine gun that – despite being considerably heavier – was vastly more reliable. When you need it to shoot, it shoots.Passing a Sputtering Torch

Prior to its last-ditch effort in the “Upgrade Kit” trials, M60 production had long been the exclusive domain of Saco Defense, where a skilled force of dedicated craftsmen had been turning out hundreds of thousands of these guns in various configurations. But for some reason the level of quality seems to have dropped.

This is particularly puzzling given Navy Special Warfare’s apparent satisfaction with their measurably improved M60E4/ MK43s of about the same time frame.

It must be left to others to explain the reasons for the abysmal performance of the eighteen guns SACO brought to the Army’s gunfight in 1994. SAR’s numerous phone calls – with detailed messages left for a certain individual who had been identified to us as a key player on the industry side of the trials – were not returned.

Market forces being what they are, SACO was acquired by defense industry giant General Dynamics in 2000. No secret that the Sixty was by then a neglected stepchild as Big Army transitioned to the M240 and it would have slowly faded away if it weren’t for a visionary named Curtis Debord.

We contacted Steve Helzer, General Manager of US Ordnance, Inc., located in Reno, Nevada, to get the straight story on how the M60 was saved from a lingering but certain death. What follows is based on telephone conversations and email exchanges.

SAR: Who is primarily responsible for acquiring the M60 rights from SACO and what was his reason for pursuing this?

Helzer: In 2000, Curtis Debord recognized that there was a business opportunity for a small arms manufacturer in acquiring the original tooling, technical data packages, processes, and procedures necessary to make a MIL-SPEC M60. General Dynamics (GD) was just completing the purchase of SACO Defense and recognized that they had an obligation to ensure the availability of spare parts for the M60 for the next five to ten years. But GD wanted out of the 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Gun business so a licensing agreement between US Ordnance and Saco Defense/GD was a logical conclusion. It ensured the availability of spare parts and ensured that the M60 remained in production. Spare parts and complete weapon systems would be available, and design improvement work could continue.

SAR: We have seen plenty of evidence to convince us that US Ordnance’s M60E4 – initially fielded by Navy Special Warfare as the MK43 Mod 0 and now the Mod 1 – represent significant ‘design improvements’ over all previous versions. Will you take our readers through its mechanical upgrades?

Helzer: US Ordnance’s MK43s feature twenty-two key improvements. I’ll list them roughly from muzzle to buttstock, not necessarily in order of importance —

1. Redesigned flash suppressor. It’s shorter, more effective and not prone to breaking like the ‘duck bill’ variant used in early SEAL team guns.
2. Adjustable front sight allows for zeroing of spare and primary barrel prior to mission operation. The old design required the gunner during combat to remember to adjust the rear sight for each barrel change. A small relief cut in the new front sight base decreases the chance of losing the front sight in the field.
3. Bipod moved from barrel to receiver. This has reduced the weight of the spare barrel and keeps the receiver stable, off the ground away from debris and pointed down range during barrel changes.
4. Bipod is strengthened and simplified, one hand operated and has ambidextrous legs to ease maintenance and spares.
5. Improved forward handguard with increased heat shielding that protects the operator from barrel heat, plus a forward pistol grip for better control.
6. Mod 1 variant has a Rail Interface Handguard with removable/repositionable pistol grip. This accommodates different sized soldiers and allows mounting of the gun to most all existing platforms. Three rails (both sides and underneath) allow mounting of multiple items like lasers and aiming devices.
7. Carry handle is mounted on the barrel to facilitate hot barrel change and offset so it won’t get in the way of the sights.
8. Improved gas system is “soldier proof” reversible. The old system was one direction only and if assembled wrong the gun would fire once and not cycle.
9. Gas tube on the barrel is simplified with three fewer parts than the old standard.
10. Both the Mod 0 and Mod 1 come with an aluminum rail top cover to facilitate the mounting of optics.
11. A new spring loaded feed cam allows loading of the weapon with the bolt forward (safe position) or rearward (charged) without damaging the feed cam assembly.
12. A redesigned feed cam, feed pawl assembly, and cartridge retaining pawl for 30% improved belt pull to overcome misaligned ammo and debris.
13. Two sear notches on the operating rod help prevent run away gun in extreme operating environments.
14. The operating rod tube is now hard chrome plated for corrosion resistance and to facilitate cleaning. Its fore end is induction hardened to resist mechanical wear from the forward sling mount.
15. A new captured pin prevents accidental detachment and loss of the trigger group.
16. Improved trigger grip housing that is stronger and redesigned to prevent trigger pin from being installed backwards in unsafe position.
17. Ambidextrous safety.
18. A trigger guard that hinges down to allow trigger finger access wearing thick winter mitts or NBC protective gloves.
19. Nyloc safety nut on cocking handle retainer holds tight despite vibration and allows for multiple assembly and disassembly with no degradation.
20. The ammunition hanger is now rigidly mounted to the side of the receiver – unlike the previous version, where the hanger was mounted to the feed try. Now, when checking the chamber, the gunner doesn’t have to lift a belt of heavy ammunition and also risk dumping it out of the bandoleer.
21. Improved polymer buttstock that is lighter and stronger while retaining the hinged shoulder rest feature.
22. Overall weapon length (fitted with short barrel) is 5 inches shorter then the Standard M60 and almost 4 pounds lighter

SAR: When we interviewed Dale McClellan at STS he said there were some other improvements in the works. (Editor’s Note: SAR’s interview with McClellan, a former SEAL M60 gunner and now president of STS, is a fascinating perspective on development of the MK43 Mod 1 and slow death of the Sixty in the US Navy. It is scheduled to run in an upcoming issue)

Helzer: That’s right. Our improved short fluted barrel is currently available and is based on the ones that STS did the 850 round demos with. Still in the RDT&E (research, development, test and engineering) stages are the improved cocking handle, bolt with new metallurgy, and a modification to the feed tray. We’re always working to improve our M60 family of guns and there are a couple of other things that maybe we can talk about in a few months.

SAR: What US military/government/law enforcement entities have purchased at least several guns and/or quantity orders for spares in the last couple of years?

Helzer: We have sold to numerous Sheriff Departments to assist with their new role in Homeland Security. Primarily for Maritime Security escort duty for tankers carrying oil or LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) in states with ocean access ports. We would prefer not to mention their names as this might be somewhat sensitive. It is safe to say we have ongoing programs on both coasts and in with the gulf coast states to arm their various patrol boats with Mk43s.

The US Army Tank and Automotive Command in Rock Island, Illinois (TACOM-RI) is our largest customer. TACOM-RI purchases are primarily for Foreign Military Sales. We have also received US Government purchase orders for spare parts from TACOM-RI, Defense Supply Center Columbus (DSCC) and Defense Supply Center Philadelphia (DSCP) for use by our own soldiers. These have primarily been spare barrels and sub assemblies for complete weapons.

And, we just delivered a small quantity of complete MK43 Mod 1s to the US Navy.

SAR: What foreign countries have gotten guns in quantity over the last two years?

Helzer: Colombian Navy and Army, Czech Republic for their 601st Special Forces, Philippine Air Force, Spanish Air Force, Italian Navy, Chilean Air Force, and Thai Navy. The M60 family of weapons is still very popular around the free world.

SAR: What’s the price of the MK43 retrofit parts kit?

Helzer: Anyone with a serviceable M60 receiver can have what amounts to a brandnew MK43 for about 60 percent of the cost of a complete new gun. Or, we’ll be happy to sell them a complete MK43 Mod 1 for $11,200 (domestic suggested retail price). That’s less than commercial price for FN’s M240 and significantly less than their MK48 guns. Our MK43s are in stock and ready for delivery to US Government and law enforcement pending ATF transfer approval.

SAR: We know that US Ord used to sell semiauto M60s that were civilian legal with no special paperwork. But now, the website says resumption of sales is delayed indefinitely. Comment?

Helzer: The Global War on Terror has caused a dramatic impact on the small arms industry. As our government orders ramped up we pulled our employees from the semi-auto production line and converted that area in our shop to military and law enforcement. This was a difficult decision because of the large and loyal civilian M60 following but a necessary one to support the warfighter and our coalition partners. Sales are still delayed indefinitely.

SAR: How many semiauto US Ord Sixties are out there now?

Helzer: There are more than 150 of the M60, M60E3 and a small number (10-20) of factory M60E4/Mk43 Mod 0 and Mod 1 semi autos in civilian hands.

Live Firing the MK43

The scope of this feature is not intended to include a hands-on evaluation of the new Sixties from US Ordnance. This has been well done by others, most notably Kent Lomont, the highly respected tactical small arms guru and SAR-certified “RKI.”

In a recent telephone conversation, Lomont told us he has put more than 70,000 rounds of “every kind of ammo” through his US Ord MK43 with excellent results. In no uncertain terms he declared, “It’s a goddamn good gun! For the first time there’s a Sixty you can bet your life on.”

Lomont’s salty and straightforward endorsement tracks with what we have repeatedly heard from law enforcement and military users. To the point, the MK43 has proven itself over recent years in hard training and combat operations by Navy SEALs and other elite formations such as the “Screaming Eagles” in Iraq.

We have personally observed the situation where one US Ordnance MK43 Mod 1 was run without incident for several thousand rounds in the industry demo and participant live fire opportunity at NDIA Small Arms 2006. Then, in our day on the range with students of Navy Center for Security Forces’ Crew Served Weapons Instructor Course, no problems occurred with either of two US Ord MK43 guns that were hard-used all afternoon by a dozen Sailors.

Those who are still skeptical are invited to see for themselves some real torture tests of the MK43. A couple different 850 round continuous burst videos are linked on the Special Tactical Services’ website at www.spectacserv.com. Click VIDEOS on the navigation bar, then select MACHINE GUNS. Plenty more folks have accessed and marveled the one at Blackwater that is posted on YouTube.

MK43 Mod 1 Technical Specifications
Source: US Ordnance Product Documentation

Caliber: 7.62 x 51mm NATO
Operation: Gas piston with 2-lug turning bolt
Weight: 20.5 pounds with short barrel
Length: 37 inches with short (16.5 in.) barrel
Barrel options: Short (16.5 in.), Assault (17.5 in.) and Long (21.5 in.)
Cyclic Rate: 500 to 600 rounds per minute
Max. effective range: 1100 meters
Notes: The latest product improvement of M60E4/MK43 is quickly recognized by Rail Interface System (RIS) forearm assembly with integrated Mil-Std 1913 rail system for mounting laser and lighting systems, plus improved control with a repositionable pistol grip. Also, one-piece milled aluminum feed tray cover with optional/integral RIS for mounting virtually any scope, night vision or electrooptic system. The Conversion Kit is available for all M60 variants that is 100% backwards compatible with all pre-existing M60’s. All components and parts of the MK43 Mod 1 are built to exceed original mil-spec standards.

Find Out More
US Ordnance, Inc.: www.usord.com
Special Tactical Services, LLC:
www.spectacserv.com
Link to 850 round demonstration video:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=mBNGguOqGIQ

By Jean Huon

Before and during WW II, Germany developed several programs of assault rifles using conventional or intermediate cartridges:

• Mauser prototype in 7x39mm, with gas action at the mouth of the barrel like the G41.
• FG 42/I and FG 42/II used by airborne troops and shooting 7.92mm Mauser ammunition. But most of the other models used a single intermediate ammunition: 7.92mm Kurz.
• MKb or Maschinenkarabiner (automatic rifle) developed by Walther and Haënel, which produced the MKb 42(W) and MKb 42(H). After some improvements, the last was used as the MP 43, MP 44 and StG 44,
• other prototypes developed by Gustloff and Erma,
• StG 45(H) created by Haënel that looks like a StG 44 whose mechanism is reversed (cylinder below the barrel).
• StG 45(M), initially called Gerät 06H, this assault rifle was developed by Mauser. Its progress report would certainly have allowed its production during the summer 1945 if the war had continued.

But in April 1945, the allied Armies penetrated deeply in Germany and the hours of the Third Reich are counted.

An intact factory

General Leclerc’s 2nd Armored Division penetrates deep in the Black Forest and arrives on April 20th, 1945 at Oberndorf, a small town of the Wurttemberg area at the edge of Neckar. It is there that is established since 1872, the Mauser company. On their arrival, the French note that the production equipment is practically intact, although a certain number of machines, plans and prototypes were evacuated towards the Austrian Alps in a railway train that the Allies captured on June 1, 1945.

The war is completed in Europe, but the French Army must be rebuilt and be reequipped. Although France profits from the American assistance, it has lost much at a great cost and headquarters looks about the Mauser factory who could ensure assembly of weapons which are lacking to French troops; especially as the war continues in Asia and Indo-China should be reconquered.

The factory is then managed by a French officer, Major Michon, who supervises a German director, Doctor Harnisch. The French gave orders to Mauser to assemble under their control a variety of small arms from spare parts held in stock:

• 51,000 P38 pistols
• 18,000 to 20,000 HSc pistols,
• 1,000 W.T.P. pistols,
• 3,000 Lüger P08 pistols,
• 48,115 K98 k carbines.

The research department is also reactivated and develops a .22 Long Rifle rim fire repeating carbine for training. It was adopted as the Mauser Modèle 45 and later became the MAS 45. Other prototypes were also developed.

But the use of Mauser factory by the French is not well appreciated by the Soviets who protest and order the destruction of the factory.

Before the factory buildings were destroyed in July 1946, the French took care to recover many prototypes, drawings and machines that were dispersed to various factories in France. The DEFA (Direction des Etudes et Fabrications d’Armement) now managed all research. The German research department from Mauser (138 engineers and technicians “under contract”) was invited to follow the tools to France.

Transfer to Mulhouse

In Mulhouse (Alsace), a team of German technicians placed under the direction of MM. Vörgrimmler, Löffler and Kunert continue the research.

The establishment where they work is installed in a former artillery shell factory. It becomes the FOMHAR and its activities are divided into two specific branches: the stamping of artillery shell and the study of prototypes of small arms.

In 1947 or 1948, the company name of the establishment is modified and it becomes the Centre d’Etudes d’Armement de Mulhouse (CEAM), and is then changed again in 1952 to Atelier de Fabrication de Mulhouse (AME).

The small arms branch of the Mulhouse establishment concentrated their work on several projects that included pistol, submachine gun, automatic carbine, semiautomatic rifle, assault rifle, light machine gun, big bore machine gun and automatic cannons (20 and 30 mm) until the closing of the establishment in 1967.

It is interesting to note that the preponderance of the documents examined in the files of the AME (technical notes, correspondence, drawings, etc.) are very often written in German.

The majority of the produced light weapons use a mechanism derived from that of StG 45(M), with a mobile breech with delayed opening and semi-rigid locking by side rollers. This mechanism appears on a 7.92mm Mauser semiautomatic rifle resembling the G 43, a carbine in .30 M1 and particularly an assault rifle which precedes already what will become the CETME rifle.

The weapon is fitted with a collapsible stock whose design is close to that of the MP 40. The cylindrical frame is lengthened with a perforated cooling jacket that contains the barrel and a tube that receives the bolt carrier. The cocking handle is located on the left and it is directed upward at a 45 degree angle. The operating parts comprise a bolt carrier, a mobile head with two locking rollers and a striker carrier. The barrel is screwed in a ring where it also locks the bolt. A box contains the trigger mechanism and receives the pistol grip. The weapon is fitted with a bipod and is fed by a detachable curved magazine introduced through the bottom.

The first model is completed in November 1948, and fires an intermediate cartridge of the 7.65mm Model 1948 (7.65×35). It is followed a short time later by other versions in .30 M1: carbines CEAM Type 1950 A and B. A report/ratio of test dated May 3, 1950 shows that these versions functioned normally, but that one had not been able to cure a problem of bolt bounce at the time of closing. On the following models, a braking pawl solved the problem.

The rifles/machine guns in .30 M1 are developed until 1950. Then the French Army changed direction and is interested in assault rifles firing a conventional cartridge. Although the program officially appears on July 10, 1952, the first prototypes were developed in 1951.

Spanish Recruitment

Meanwhile, the Spanish military authorities created in 1949 the Centro de Estudios Tecnicos de Materiales Especiales or CETME, placed under the direction of General Cantero and they seek to enlist the services of German technicians. Ludwig Vorgrimmler is contacted but the French refuse to deliver a passport to him and he leaves France clandestinely for Spain. He arrives at CETME in Madrid on June 1, 1950 and it is there that he finds fellow engineers that worked in all of the German armament industry, including engineer Heynen.

To answer a military requirement program, CETME was charged to study and develop an assault rifle having the following characteristics: maximum weight 4.5 kg, possibility of selective fire and a shooting range of 800 to 1,000 meters. The need was a rifle having the same weight and recoil as the StG 44 but shooting at double the range.

The first prototype is made but encounters numerous problems. Many parts are hand made with makeshift solutions. For example, the magazines are hand made with sheet metal recovered from oil barrels.

One year later, the prototype is finally ready and it is presented to General Franco. It is followed of a preproduction run of 30 weapons and new ammunition was developed by the Palencia cartridge factory. These special ammunitions have an extraordinarily long projectile. The stability of the bullet (very light for speed), is obtained by the use of an aluminum core and a copper jacket. This ammunition was made in two versions and was developed by Dr. Voss and his collaborators: 7.92×40 and 7.62×40.

CETME developed the Modelo 1, an experimental rifle, which employed the 7.92×40 cartridge. This rifle resembled much of the weapons developed in Mulhouse. The French establishment will continue on its side the development of assault rifles based on the same principle until 1960. Modelo 1 functions with gas action. Its mechanism is thickset and it is fed by a curved 30-round magazine.

The Modelo 2 in 1952, again in 7.92×40, with a refined silhouette, finds an operation similar to the CEAM Type 1950 rifle, with a delayed opening bolt and semi-rigid locking by side rollers.

CETME now relied on several subcontractors and coordinated the production and the final assembly of the weapons for testing. To conclude the project, they called upon other arsenals and specialized companies in mechanics, stamping and aeronautics for assistance.

The Spanish tests revealed a very good performance with light recoil, flat trajectory, good precision and an excellent capacity of penetration with a helmet being pierced at 1,000 meters. Some of the results equaled those obtained by a machine gun: a good shot would have a 50% chance to achieve a hit placed at 1,000 meters with a one-second burst of 9 shots.

Other countries were interested in the CETME rifle, particularly the Federal Republic of Germany. The German Ministry of the Interior was very interested in the CETME rifle to equip its police forces. However, a condition that had to be met was in regard to the ammunition: the 7.62mm NATO cartridge had to be used.

The bolt mechanism of the new rifle allows the use of ammunition with variable power by varying the angle of the bearing surfaces of the locking rollers.

The Spaniards then developed a rifle known as the Modelo A as an alternative of the Modelo 2; supplied with a slightly curved magazine. The rifle now has a carrying handle and preserves the folding hand-shield being able to be used as bipod. The weapon fires from now on a 7.62×51 cartridge with a reduced load called 7.62mm CETME-NATO, associated with a light bullet fitted with a mixed core (plastic and lead).

The firm of Madrid yields the production license of its assault rifle to the Dutch company NWM, which then undertakes to carry out demonstrations abroad. Tests take place in Germany, Chile, United States, France, Netherlands, Philippines and Portugal.

After a short time, the CETME rifle is again presented in Germany. At this time the Defense Ministry is interested in order to equip the new German Army because the FN refused to yield to them the license to produce the FAL (G1). Several rifles were tested: SIG SG 510-4 (G2), CETME (G3) and AR-10 (G4).

Altered, the CETME Modelo A became Modelo B, which was adopted in Spain in 1958. The weapon is fitted with a perforated jacket which extends the frame, a bipod and a tangent sight. The magazine is slightly curved and there exist two types of magazines of 20 or 30-round capacity. The pistol grip is metal with plastic inserts. From now on, it functions with a closed breech, both for single shot or burst fire, which was not the case of its predecessor.

Come Back Over the Rhine River

Germany, which was interested in work of CETME since 1954, adopted this version in 1959 under the name of G3. The license for commercial sales held by NWM (a Dutch firm) for all the countries except Spain, Portugal and Germany is repurchased in 1960 by the German government. Manufacture is entrusted to a group of German industrialists and the final assembly and the control of work of the program are assured by the company Heckler & Koch; a young company of former employees of the Mauser Company that manufactured components for sewing machines.

The Germans improve the G3 by modifying the operating system, the recoil spring is reinforced and the weapon can now fire the 7.62mm NATO standard ammunition.

Collaboration between CETME and H&K (sealed by two agreements between the two governments in 1959 and 1962) continues and in 1964, CETME introduces Modelo C, which is practically identical to the G3 firing the 7.62mm NATO standard ammunition. The two weapons now have a wooden hand guard and the bipod disappeared. The Spanish weapon is equipped with a rear sight with four eyepieces on a rotary rise in the vertical plan, while the G3 has a formed rise of an oblique drum to a bead and three eyepieces, rotary in the horizontal plane.

The CETME was the link that ensured the connection between the prototypes developed in Mulhouse starting from the StG 45(M) to the G3. The Modelo C was produced until 1976.

CETME Modelo C

The CETME Modelo C is in 7.62mm caliber and the barrel has 4 right-hand grooves with a pitch of 305mm (against 240mm on the Modelo B) and a flash hider/grenade launcher is screwed on to the muzzle.

The receiver frame is made of sheet metal worked by successive passages in presses, then welded partly low in the median plane. Under the frame is a case joining together the trigger mechanism and the magazine well. The pistol grip is made of plastic, fixed with a longitudinal screw.

The selector switch is located at the upper part of the pistol grip, on the left and marked from the top downwards with T (single shot), S (safety) and R (burst).

These controls are different from those of the G3 which is marked from the top to downwards with S (safety), E (single shot) and F (burst).

The supply of ammunition takes place by means of magazines. For the CETME, there exist two types of magazines: one of 5-rounds for garrison service and one of 20-rounds for combat.

The cocking lever folds and is placed on the left side guide tube located above the gun.

The bolt group is made of several elements which are: the bolt body, locking piece, locking rollers and bolt-head. The recoil spring is at the back of the bolt body.

Sights are composed of a protected front sight and a rear sight with four revolving blades graduated for 100, 200, 300 and 400 meters. The blade for shooting at one hundred meters has a bead out of V to facilitate instinctive shooting. The other blades carry an eyepiece.

The forearm is made out of wood of poplar, but on request Modelo C could also receive a perforated metal jacket with a non-removable folding bipod like the Modelo B.

The stock is also made of poplar and is fixed at the back of the frame by a metal support and contains the buffer. The connection between the stock holder and the frame is ensured by two metal pins that also ensure the fixing of the trigger mechanism case.

Accessories

• Removable and folding bipod with telescopic legs, it is mounted on the ring holding the front sight. It makes the rifle able to shoot in a 17 degree horizontal sector and 7 degree vertical.
• Cleaning kit located at the front of the cocking lever guide tube. It is contained in an aluminum tube fitted with a screwed plug and is composed of a flue brush and a rag holder with string.
• Scope for day shooting.
• Philips infra-red night scope.
• Blank firing attachment
• Fabric protective cover.
• Plastic plug for the barrel mouth.
• Carrying sling.
• Magazine loader.
• Bayonet with 22.5 cm (8.86 inches) blade. The handle has squared black plastic platelets. The scabbard is of olive plastic with khaki nylon belt holder.

Disassembly

• Remove magazine and visually check the chamber make sure gun there is no cartridge in the chamber.
• Extract the two pins that affix the stock to the receiver and place them into the two tubular rivet receptacle holders in the stock.
• Remove the stock and the recoil spring.
• Hinge down the pistol grip assembly.
• Using the cocking lever, retract the bolt assembly.
• To remove mobile breech, bring the head of the breech forward and to make it swivel 180 degrees.
• Remove the head of the breech.
• Turn the striker holder and withdraw it.
• Extract the striker and its spring.
• The reassembly is carried out in the inverse order

CETME continued the development of individual weapons and created Modelo D and Modelo E rifles, which were improvements of the previous models but were not adopted. It then developed the Modelo L, a weapon firing 5.56×45 ammunition. The development of this weapon began in 1966 and was adopted in 1980 for the Spanish Army.

CETME also developed the AMELI, a mini MG 42 also shooting the 5.56×45 ammunition.

In 1996, the Spanish Army opened a contest for the adoption of a new 5.56mm assault rifle and tested the following weapons: HK G36 E (Germany), Steyr AUG 77 (Austria), FNC (Belgium), Diemaco C-7 (Canada), Galil (Israel) and SIG 550 (Switzerland). In 1999, the G36 E is chosen.

CETME Modelo C
Caliber: 7.62mm
Ammunition: 7.62mm NATO
Overall length: 1.015 m
Barrel length: 0.305 m
Weight unloaded: 4.200 kg
Magazine capacity: 5 and 20 rounds
Cyclic rate of fire: 550-650 rpm

By Lawrence Heiskell, M.D. and Hans Bek

Suhl, Germany is located in the eastern province of Prussian Saxony, picturesquely situated on the Lauter River on the southern slope of the Thueringen Forest. In the middle ages, the knights of Southern Germany especially prized the swords and armor made in Suhl and many of the weapons used in the campaigns against the Turks and in the Seven Years War are said to have been manufactured in Suhl. The history of Suhl is closely tied to some of the most famous gun makers in the world such as ERMA, Walther, Sauer & Sons and Merkel, all of which have their roots in Suhl. The gunsmith craft has a long tradition in this small German town dating back to 1535. Suhl was also a major producer of cannons throughout the seventeenth and subsequent centuries. It is also the oldest proof house in Germany dating back to 1893. The extraction and smelting of iron ore had been common in the region around Suhl for centuries, as the mountains around the town are all rich in iron ore. The name Suhl first appeared in connection with weapons during a time when small arms were in demand for growing armies. In 1622, the Suhl based gun maker Simon Stohr received orders for 4,000 match lock muskets and by 1631 the Suhl gun makers had manufactured a total of 28,950 muskets.

In 1753 the town suffered a major setback when a fire destroyed the shops of 82 gunsmiths, 60 stock makers and 9 barrel smiths. It was not until 1800 with theintroduction of the new percussion lock to replace the flint lock did the town somewhat recover economically as the gunsmiths found profits in converting the old flintlock rifles to the new percussion design.

In 1872 two brothers, Paul and Wilhelm Mauser started the Mauser factory in Oberndorf am Neckar (also the home of Heckler & Koch, GmbH) and began mass production of weapons further causing economic problems for Suhl.

After WW II, Suhl became a part of the Eastern and Soviet controlled part of Germany. Over 4,000 enterprises in Suhl were accused of having connections to the former Nazi Regime and were shut down. A major arms company that was located in Suhl for almost 200 years was JP Sauer und Sohn GmbH, producer of hunting rifles, shotguns and pistols such as the Sauer 38H until moving operations to Eckernfoerde at the end of WW II.

The Waffen Museum is located at Friedrich Koenig Strasse 19 and is constructed in the Fachwerk Haus style with a stone foundation and, in the classic German style, has flower boxes in the windows.

As you enter the museum there is a reception desk and a place to buy tickets, postcards and books. The museum collection is on two levels with display cases that are well lit. Some of the larger weapons, such as the Maxim, are openly displayed. There is an exceptional period display showing the tools and materials used to manufacture early weapons. There are several groups of weapons behind Plexiglas lighted enclosures. One such display holds a near mint MP35 and an exceptional MP18 I. In another room is a display with an MP40 and an MP44.

There are several collections of early flint lock and percussion rifles as well as various WWII rifles and pistols. The oldest gun on display dates back to the 14th century. The weapons exhibits provides the visitor an interesting insight into the history and development of small arms that made the town of Suhl famous and well known around the world. Today, Suhl is the home of 14 out of 25 gun makers in the region and still produces fine hunting and sport weapons.

The museum is currently closed until the summer of 2008 for renovation, improvements and construction of new exhibits. If visiting the area it is advised to call to see if they are open.

Museum hours are dependent upon the time of year you visit the museum. From April 1 through October 31, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Sundays from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Holidays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. From November 1 through March 31, the museum is open Tuesday through Saturday 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.; Sundays and Holidays 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Tickets are sold up to one hour prior to closing. Adults cost 3 Euros. Groups of 20 or more are reduced to 2 Euros each. If you want to take photos inside the museum you will be charged one Euro extra.

Waffenmuseum Suhl Friedrich Koenig Strasse 19 D-98527 Suhl Phone: 011 49 3681 72 06 98 Fax: 011 49 3681 72 13 08 Email: info@waffenmuseumsuhl.de

Many years have past since I remember the days that I would lie awake at night thinking about that pounding at the door from an ATF Agent who wanted to see my books at 4 in the morning. I would look over my books two and three times a day and make sure, out of pure fear, that I had everything in order and that I was certain no one would ever find anything amiss with my books. Twenty five years later that fear still exists and I still check the books as much as I did 25 years ago. Once again I know that even after a number of compliance reviews there is just something unsettling about an audit. It doesn’t really make any difference how well you are prepared, that twinge of nervousness just doesn’t go away. That same fear exists in a lot of dealers whether they hold a C&R license or are running a full fledge manufacturing operation and are making guns by the thousands. I often equate that fear factor as the same one you have when a police officer runs up behind you in your car, and you all of a sudden have that horrible sweat break out from the nervousness. It’s the fear of the unknown, and we all have it, no matter how well you are prepared for someone looking over your shoulder.

One of the goals of the NFATCA has always been to break down the fear factor and to develop a better working relationship with ATF in all aspects of both of our operations. In late 2007, NFATCA board members met with Assistant Director of Field Operations Billy Hoover and Deputy Assistant Director of Field Operations Jim Zamillo in an effort to better understand the initiatives being taken in the enforcement branch of the bureau, specifically with Compliance Reviews. During 2007, the NFATCA had received several calls complaining about the overbearing efforts with several compliance reviews. We met with the Branch to try and determine if there was something the NFATCA could do to help dealers in staying prepared for an audit.

We learned that the division office has made some monumental changes in the design and the implementation of the compliance reviews during the last several years. The surprise factor isn’t going to go away any time in the near future and giving notice and allowing the law breakers time to clean up their act is not in the cards. That logic is understandable. We learned that there are many tools that new and more experienced dealers can access to better prepare them for audits and to generally keep their house in order with ATF. Most every tool and documentation to give dealers of all kinds of the right information is available on the ATF web site, http://www.atf.treas.gov/pub/fireexplo_pub/1004safsec_info_ffl.pdf. Looking through the information that is available on the web site will provide a mountain of information for those dealers that are interested in getting a jump on a successful compliance review. All of the information points in one primary direction: stay organized and maintain control of your inventory. Sounds like a simple task but unfortunately it is not always the case.

When it was explained that thousands of guns were missing from the inventories completed during previous year’s audits, it became quite clear that a lot of dealers simply don’t understand the seriousness of keeping good records and control of their inventory. As a community we have a lot of work to do in order to eliminate this kind of problem.

During our meeting, the NFATCA discussed the possibility of offering assistance in whatever way possible to work with the dealer community in making the entire effort more successful. The Board of Directors is considering offering a “New Dealer Program” that will offer up answers and training to anyone that might be interested in obtaining a license to do business in the firearms industry. In addition, the NFATCA is also looking into a variety of ways in assisting the dealer community in keeping an organized presence in their business.

The NFATCA’s Chief Counsel and lobbyist, has written several articles on keeping good records and maintaining good control of your inventory. But with several thousand guns still missing it is obvious that our industry still needs help. In our efforts to be proactive, the NFATCA met with the appropriate personnel within ATF and have initiated several ideas on how we might work together to better assist dealers nationwide in keeping good records and better control of their inventory. As the NFATCA rolls out training programs or other forms of assistance, we are asking every dealer in the nation to help everyone stay better organized in our respective businesses. We ask that you keep posted on our progress through future articles and visit us at www.NFATCA.org. for more information.

American Tactical Imports Introduces MP-5 Look-A-Like in .22

American Tactical is the exclusive U.S. importer of the GSG (German Sports Guns). The GSG-5 is a world innovation, the first semi-automatic small caliber rifle in the legendary design of the MP-5. The GSG-5 is a .22 Long Rifle High Velocity Caliber gun with an overall length of 26.7 inches. The rifle has a 22 round magazine capacity and weighs just 4.9 pounds. The gun features a shrouded barrel that resembles an MP-5SD. Other features include an ambidextrous safety/selector, adjustable sights, paddle magazine release and built-in “notches” for scope mounting. The gun combines the high-technology, reliability and appeal of the H&K MP-5 submachine gun series with the tactical accessories mount so popular these days. At a MSRP of $499.95, the GSG-5 is perfect for plinking, varmint or small game hunting. Watch for an in depth test on this new .22 in an upcoming issue of SAR. For more information, please contact them at American Tactical Imports, Dept. SAR, 100 Airpark Drive, Rochester, NY 14626. Phone: (800) 290-0065. Fax: (585) 328- 4168. Their website can be visited at www.americantactical.us.

Rainier Arms Introduces Enhanced Magazine for the P-Mag

Rainier Arms has teamed up with Gaylean Tactical to bring you the EMG (Enhanced Magazine Grip). The EMG was designed specially for the channels of the MagPul P-Mag and provides superior grip on the magazine. This allows for faster reloads when speed matters most. The EMG rubberized textured panel features an industrial strength adhesive with pressure application that adheres stronger the harder you press. The EMG can also be used on USGI magazines as well as any other mission critical item that needs superior grip. The new EMG comes in three configurations: front only with 12 front panels, Basic Kit with 24 side panels and Full Kit with 12 front and 24 side panels. Installation is simple; clean the magazine, press the panels in place and you’re done. For more information or to place an order please contact Rainier Arms, Dept. SAR, P.O. Box 5786, Kent, WA 98064. Phone: (253) 218-2999. Fax: (253) 218-2998. Their website is www.rainierarms.com.

Buffer Technologies Introduces New Buffer for SIG P229

Responding to demands from law enforcement professionals, Buffer Technologies recently introduced an addition to its extensive line of recoil buffers. The newest member of the buffer family is for the SIG P229. Like Buffer Technologies’ other SIG and Beretta buffers, the SIG P229 includes a new stainless steel guide rod with a high-density, shock-absorbing polyurethane buffer. The factory spring is retained. The stainless steel rod is a stronger, non-corrosive improvement over factory rods. Recoil buffers eliminate the metal-to-metal impact of the slide as it hits the frame. Over time, this continued force and impact can weaken the slide and jar internal workings of the gun, which can lead to cracks or potential malfunction. Law enforcement weapons can get heavy use, so the SIG line of buffers can help extend service life. The Buffer Technologies SIG P229 recoil buffer retails for $24.95 – a cost less than half that of many other after-market buffer products. The company also offers buffers to fit SIG 220 and 226 models, including the 9mm, .357SIG, .40 S&W and .45 ACP. Recoil buffers also are available for the Ruger 10/ 22, Ruger Mini-14/30, M1A/M14, FN/ FAL L1A1, SKS, HK G3/91 93, Model 1911 and clones, MAC-10/11 and all Kalashnikov-style weapons. For more information contact them at Buffer Technologies, Dept. SAR, P.O. Box 105047, Jefferson City, MO 65110. Phone: (573) 34-8520. Fax: (573) 634-8522. Website: www.buffertech.com.

Taurus Introduces Their New 800 Series Pistols

Derived from the company’s popular Taurus OSS model designed for U.S. Armed Forces, this new series of pistols boasts many new customer requested features including an added external hammer. The 800 Series, available in .45 ACP, .40 cal. and 9mm, features Taurus’ industry changing Strike Two capability. Firing normally from single action mode, if the primer ever fails to ignite, the gun reverts to double action mode to provide a potentially life-saving second or third try at a faulty cartridge. Research indicates an 88 percent or better chance the round will fire on re-strike. The pistol will then automatically revert back to single action mode. When field stripping the 800 Series, which is achieved quickly with unique take-down levers, users will be impressed with the firearm’s rugged construction including a forged slide and captured recoil spring with stainless steel guide rod. These components help create incredibly balanced spring pressure that allow for record-setting cycle times capable of firing ten rounds in under a second.

The series also features true ambidextrous magazine release buttons and extended magazine bumpers that double as a finger rest and helps prevent damage to the magazine when ejected in rapid-fire situations. Included with each firearm are three of Taurus’ exclusive magazines, which fit into guided wells for record-setting reload times. Each magazine is double stacked for hi-capacity and features witness holes for easy round count. The 800 Series offers ultimate exclusive protection with three internal safeties, unnoticed by the shooter when firing. True ambidextrous safety and decock lever allows the user to leave a live round in the chamber and safely decock or leave a round in the chamber and apply the safety with the left or right hand. The series also comes standard with a visual loaded chamber indicator and the unique Taurus Security System that allows users to securely lock the gun using an inconspicuous onboard key-lock. Each caliber is available in either blue or stainless steel. For more information please contact Taurus International Manufacturing, Inc., Dept. SAR, 16175 Northwest 49th Avenue, Miami, FL 33014. Phone: (306) 624-1115. Fax: (305) 623- 7506. You can visit their website at www.taurususa.com.

GunTec USA Introduces New AR-15/M16 Armorers Wrench

A new combination Armorer’s Wrench for the AR-15/M16 series of rifles has just been introduced by GunTec USA. This new wrench combines many of the functions necessary for anyone building or repairing an AR-15 or M16 rifle. It is a two sided wrench. At one end, it attaches either multi-point or peg style barrel nuts on barrels up to 1 inch in diameter, and a torque wrench can fitted into the 1/2 inch square slot opening. This wrench also works well with installing free floating handguards. The other end fits CAR/M4 stock locking nuts, and a large flat head screwdriver blade is also included for use on full-size A2 buttstock screws. The two other slots on the wrench fit A1 and A2 birdcage flash hiders and receiver extensions. The wrench features all steel construction, is heat treated and has a parkerized finish. The wrench is 13 inches long and weighs just 1 pound 5 ounces. For more information or to place an order, please contact GunTec USA, Dept. SAR, P.O. Box 12731, Scottsdale, AZ 85267. Phone: (480) 518-5359. They can be found at: www.tacticalaccessories.com.

Spikes Tactical Introduces Two New Products

Spikes Tactical has just introduced two new long awaited products. The first is their new STZ “HAVOC” 37mm flare launcher. This new launcher features the latest in design and manufacturing technology. Parts are CAD designed and CNC machined from solid billet material rather than the typical stamped and welded construction of other launchers. The 6061 T-6 aircraft grade aluminum components are anodized in a non-glare matte black finish for maximum durability and ease of maintenance. This color also matches most AR finishes perfectly. Additional components are built from 1018 cold rolled steel and plated with a mil-spec black oxide finish. The proprietary STZ push button cylindrical breech lock design is three times stronger than existing lever locking systems. The HAVOC is designed to mount on any rail system that is carbine length or longer. Installation simply requires sliding the launcher onto the bottom rail of the handguard and tightening two set-screws which are included. The HAVOC also features a one piece launcher tube and hand grip design for the ultimate in strength. The launcher has an extended tube opening which will accept even the 5 3/4 inch long cased USCG approved munitions. Retail price of this new launcher is just $299.

The other new product from Spikes is their SL-15 lower receivers for AR-15 rifles. These new receivers are fully machined from forged 7075 T-6 aircraft quality aluminum and have a very durable black anodized finish. What really sets these lowers off from others is that they can be ordered with pictogram bullet markings. They are available with just safe and fire markings or also with safe, fire and fullauto markings. Spikes also offers color filled markings for a very unique look. Specially marked lowers can also be ordered on a custom basis. The fit and finish on these lowers is first rate. For more information on these or the full line of other AR uppers, lowers and accessories, please contact then at Spikes Tactical, Dept. SAR, 2593 Clark Street, Suite 103, Apopka, FL 32703. Phone: (407) 928-2666. Fax: (866) 283-2215. Their website is www.spikestactical.com.