Last Month in Part I of The Interview, we ended with the following quote from Reed: “We have been able to take the ideas and the needs of a customer, and build solutions to those needs. My talent has probably been to think outside of the box. Gene Stoner told me something interesting one day; he said, “I believe when you become an engineer, and they teach you the disciplines, you learn that one and one make two, and that you have to do it this way because this is what the book says to do, I think it prevents you from becoming a true designer. If I sometimes knew what the engineering math was on some of my designs before going all the way through with them, I probably would’ve quit earlier.”

SAR: Interesting quote from Mr. Stoner… 

Knight: There are a lot of things that I’ve done not knowing it “couldn’t be done.” When we built the silent revolvers, everybody said, “That just can’t be done.” We thought, “Well, maybe it can.” There was a lot of trial and error and a lot of work. It was in 1989-90, and we needed a very, very small gun that was able to be taken apart and put in a briefcase, have a 200 meter range, have good optics, night-vision, and silenced capability. We built a .30-caliber silent rifle on the Ruger Redhawk frame, with a removable shoulder stock and an integrally suppressed barrel using custom case-telescoped ammunition. We used a very heavy .30 caliber bullet that was case-telescoped inside a .44 Magnum cartridge case. This was almost “Hollywood quiet,” and accurate out to 200 meters. It fit into a very small briefcase, with night vision capabilities. Those were the types of things that I got up early in the morning to go do, because I was excited about doing it, and I had a full team of people that really were passionate about making those things work. There was a requirement for that rifle/ammunition combination, and the revolver had another advantage in that after you fired it, you did not leave the brass cases behind like a semiautomatic, and it was better than a bolt gun because the cartridge is laying on the ground. It was a great project, a fun and very challenging project. Art Hoelke, my production manager today, worked on that project. A lot of things that we developed were just started by thinking, “Boy, that’d be neat to build” and we ended up in production. We’ve also built dozens of things that haven’t gone anywhere. That’s just the way it works.

SAR: You had the Mark 23 program.

Knight: We had teamed with Colt on the Offensive Handgun program back in the ’80s, and we built the suppressor. I had already sold Colt the design of the All-American 2000, which they were building, and they took that design and built a .45-caliber pistol based on it. The barrel rotated, moving straight back, which lends itself quite well to mounting a suppressor. H&K built a suppressor on their pistol candidate. The Colt gun and the H&K gun went out to test, and the H&K gun won. It had a plastic lower receiver and it had some other advantages in that the Colt gun was heavy, and it had some other disadvantages. But our suppressor was better; it was the first time that the Navy had ever seen a total of 40 dB drop in a handgun.

We were actually getting an honest-to-goodness, 162 dB starting pressure at one meter from the muzzle, and 122 dB with the suppressor attached to the gun. They either advised or requested HK to come pick us up as part of their team. HK was pretty negative about doing anything outside, because they had their own design team and they did their own manufacturing. They did pick us up as a subcontractor, and we built the suppressor, and if there ever was a suppressor that has become known as an “Energizer Bunny,” it would be that suppressor. I have a suppressor that has 250,000 rounds of .45 ammunition on it, and it’s still going. It’s noisier because it’s filled with lead and particles, but it’s still going. The user wore out three pistols with that one suppressor.

SAR: You mentioned the All-American 2000 pistol.

Knight: Gene Stoner and I woke up one Monday morning, figuratively speaking, and found ourselves with no military contracts. We would sit down at lunch and say, “What in the world are we going to do from here?” I’d been over visiting Henk Visser in Holland, and Henk said that he had a pistol that he had bought the manufacturing rights to that was a very small, compact, 9mm. Gene and I had talked about it, and Gene said he had a better idea. We sat down and started talking about it, and so we came up with ideas and started building a few little parts, lots of changes. We finally ended up building this pistol, the All-American 2000 as it ended up being called. The initial concept was a very small, compact, double action only rotary barreled pistol.

Trey: As far as from a design point, my dad brought the trigger mechanism to the table…

Knight: … and Gene brought the rotary barrel. The concept was based around an idea that when you picked up the pistol, it was always safe, there was no stored energy in the firing pin and no stored energy in the cocked hammer. You could lay the gun down, it was ready to go, and it also did not have any stored energy. You picked it up and had a very light double-action trigger pull that you pulled the trigger all the way through, and it pulled the striker back and caused the striker to hit. That concept was similar to what Glock later picked up on. We started building some guns. Gary French, who was the President of Colt, (owned by Colt Industries at that time), knew they were looking to sell Colt because they’d just lost the M-16A2 contract to FN, and their factory was downsizing. Colt Industries decided to divest themselves of Colt Firearms. Gary French looked at his list of all the things that they had that were on their future designs and future capabilities and the one thing they did not have was a good 9mm pistol. Gary talked to me and said, “How about your gun? Could we talk about manufacturing it for you?” We struck a deal, they were going to manufacture it and pay us royalties, as well as an up-front fee. This was the first gun that they’d ever bought that they did not manufacture any of the parts, it was all subcontracted to outside vendors. We were supposed to receive a down payment, which we got, another in three months, which we got, and then they said, “I don’t know that we want to continue putting this money into the costs of this thing. Is there anything else that you would consider that we could do?” I said, “Well, do you have any old guns laying around up there?” Colt said, “We have tons of guns in our pattern room and on the shop floor.” We grabbed old shopping carts that had those little rattly wheels on the front, and rolled through the wooden floors where the original plant was. We went into all these old dungeon-looking dark rooms, with racks and racks of old guns, and we just scooped guns up and put them in these shopping carts. Two or three of us did this, and there were hundreds of these old guns, some prototypes, some other manufacturers’ guns, different types of guns that you could ever imagine. We swept them up into the carts and that’s what Colt traded me for one of the payments. In retrospect, nobody knew that machine guns were going to skyrocket in value, and some of these guns are very, very significant.

SAR: This leads us into one of your passions, which is the reference library of firearms that you have.

Knight: Exactly. I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to have these reference collections available for study. I’ve been very fortunate that I’ve been at the right place at the right time on many of these deals. I got a big part of the Armalite collection when it went up for sale in the late ’80s. I also bought a very big part of the Colt collection when it went for sale. I got all of Sam Cummings’ machine guns that he had left the last time that he visited the United States, and I bought the whole Fairchild collection. That was kind of interesting – Gene Stoner was negotiating with Fairchild, because Colt had not paid them their last royalty payments. In one of my trips to Colt, I talked to Bob Morrison, and I said, “I don’t know how successful we’re going to be doing a deal with this pistol that you want to buy because Colt has not paid Gene Stoner his royalties for the M16 for the last two years.” Bob Morrison said, “You’re kidding me.” The payments were being paid from Colt to Fairchild, and Fairchild divided those things up and gave Stoner money and Stoner’s ex-wife money, and some to the Cooper-McDonald family. Everybody got a piece of this chunk of money. Gene had mentioned to me that he had recently talked to the lawyer from Fairchild, and that there was one gun that he had built in his garage that he wanted back and that was in the Fairchild collection.

I contacted the lawyer, and said, “Mr. Stoner has a gun that he had built in his garage that’s in the Fairchild collection, and I’d like to see if I can get it back,” and he said, “No, there’s no way that we’re going to dispose of these guns, because we have to have proof of concept because we’re in a position for a possible battle with Colt over the rights of who owns the technology. The patent’s long run out by now, but we had sold the know-how to them, and we have to prove that we own that know-how.” I said, “Actually, what you need is an expert witness to do that, and I’m your guy. I know this backwards and forwards. If you sell this collection to me, I will promise to keep it until these dates run out,” which was in seven years. He asked, “What would you give us?” I said, “Well, let me just think about it.” I thought about it, and I said, “Let me give you a check for X amount of dollars,” and he said, “Okay,” so I wrote a check out for X amount of dollars and said, “Consider this a deposit.” He said, “Okay.” Two weeks later I went up to their office at the Dulles Airport. I met the president and I sat down, and said, “I’d like to talk to you about this,” and he opened up this closet, about four foot by four foot, and there were many of the prototype AR-10s and M16s that Fairchild had thought that had been lost for all these years, stacked in the corner like cordwood. My jaw dropped. Here were all these prototypes, I think my heart actually stopped, because I’d never even heard of some of these guns. I made an offer and he said, “Okay, well, put it in writing and come back.” I went back two weeks later with Form 3s with all the serial numbers. I said, “This is my offer,” and he said, “This gun number one, we’ve been told that it is worth X number of dollars just by itself.” I said, “You think it’s worth that, it’s not worth that to me, so just take that out of the collection, and I’ll give you this for everything minus gun number one.” He said, “Gun number one’s not worth this much money?” I said, “Not to me, it’s not.” He said that they would go out and get more offers, and I said, “That’s fine, why don’t you give me my check back?” He said, “That’s another problem. “We’ve spent your check and we don’t have your check to give back to you.” I told him I had an appointment at ATF to have these Forms signed, and didn’t want to miss it, and that I thought we had a deal, and they spent my money as if we did. He signed the Forms, I went down to ATF that afternoon. The next morning I went and picked up the Forms, brought them back to him, put those guns in my van and headed back to Florida.

SAR: So you did really, really well on that trip, Reed? [laughter]

Knight: Not all those trips are good trips, but that one was one that I’d have to say that was a very memorable one. Armalite AR-15 number one that had been given to General Wyman, a bunch of the Dutch AR-10s of all different configurations, it was just amazing. I now had a very interesting collection of AR-10s and AR-15s from Colt and Fairchild. That’s where my focus was, to save that history. Most of the prototypes of the Cadillac Gage firearms came from Gene Stoner. He also had the rifles he built in his garage, M5 and M6, and I found the M7 (AR-3, 7.62x51mm caliber rifle) in California. The gun which Gene was looking for, which was referenced in the patents for the M16, was actually Gene Stoner’s M8, which later became the AR-10. It was the only one that was in .30-06 rather than .308. It had a steel receiver.

Trey: I remember Mr. Stoner’s comments about walking into a room where a large portion of his life’s work, all his “children” that were scattered all over the world were now together in one spot. He jokingly said in his dry sense of humor, “I would have just sold them all to your dad if he wanted them.”

Knight: He was excited about me going back and finding all these designs that were parts of his whole life, and bringing them all together in one place. It was like I was chasing firearms all over the world by serial number. I got all of Chuck Dorchester’s collection; he was the president after Fairchild sold Armalite to Dorchester and his group. I have had the chance to have a bit of fun with this as well. I remember talking to Ed Ezell, and he talked about these missing Armalite guns. Everybody had known that when Fairchild sold Armalite off, they sold them to a group – basically, it was George Sullivan, Dorchester, Miller and all the crowd that were there. As I mentioned, one of the things that Fairchild demanded was that they keep was all the AR-10s, all the AR-15s, all the rifles that had proved the gas impingement system, because that was what the patent was about. That large group of rifles left California and went to Hagerstown, Maryland, which was where the Fairchild main office was. To everybody’s knowledge, those rifles were lost in transit, and no one had ever seen those again. Back to Ed Ezell – after I obtained the Fairchild collection, I wrote Ed an anonymous letter, and the letter started off like this: “Mr. Ezell, I understand that you are at the Smithsonian Institution, and I have in my grandpappy’s barn a whole bunch of old guns that when my daddy comes here from California to take them to Hagerstown, Maryland, but when he got home, Mama was in bed with Uncle Johnny, and Daddy shot him, and Daddy went to prison, and these guns have been in the barn ever since. Daddy died in prison. I will trade you these guns if you promise to give me a new motor for my fishing boat.” [laughter] I took a crate, and I got some chickens and eggs and hay, and put the prized, one of a kind prototype AR-10s and the prototype AR-15 in the crate with eggs and a chicken standing over the top of ‘em, nesting on this crate of rifles. I had all these boxes stacked on this old, rusted out flatbed truck. I sent that to Ed, and his secretary got the letter and thought it was a hoax, she didn’t know that the pictures were real, and she tossed the letter. He never saw it. It was absolutely perfect, the best setup ever, and he never got it. Later, I told Ed that I found those rifles, he was absolutely excited. At least he did get to see these rifles before his untimely death.

SAR: As part of your passion for collecting and as a Stoner historian, you at one time organized a reunion for Armalite. When was that?

Knight: 1992. All the cast of characters were there. They all came to talk about the old days, and that’s where I met Mac McDonald for the first time. He was Bobby McDonald’s son, of the Cooper-McDonald Family. At dinner he proudly told me that he had M16 number one. I pursued him for years, and just within the last eight months, he finally decided it really belongs down in this collection. I now have AR-10 number one, M16 number one, and prototype AR-15 number one.

SAR: They’re all where they should be, in one place.

Knight: We’re sort of putting everything back in the box. At the Armalite Reunion, everybody got a chance to see all their old friends. Everybody kind of had a pretty good time. I had a tough time getting some people’s addresses, and getting some people there. Gene and Barbara Stoner were there of course, Chuck Dorchester was there, Tom Teleson was there, and Jim Sullivan (L. James Sullivan). Arthur Miller I couldn’t find.

SAR: Art’s still living in the same house that he bought back in the Armalite days; we have a big Interview with Art coming up in SAR.

Knight: I look forward to seeing that. Let me see… Tom Nelson, Henk Visser, Bob Sullivan and Saxby were there. Bob was the janitor and he was George Sullivan’s son. Saxby was bringing me some new ammunition. Let’s see… Al Paulson, Doug Olson, Eric Kincel, Dave Lutz, Stoner’s youngest daughter Dee Dee Stoner, Susie Klienpeld and Art Klienpeld. It was a big party, and everybody came and talked and had a few drinks and dinner at the Holiday Inn on the ocean. We came out to the plant and went through the collection, talked about the guns. Lots of interesting things about what people said and what they did, setting some records straight, telling anecdotes. It was great! I learned a lot about the history, put the pieces together.

SAR: Right around that time there were a number of reunions or meetings organized. Were you involved in the Kalashnikov-Stoner meeting?

Knight: Yeah, I was. Ed Ezell put together a meeting for Gene Stoner and Mikhail Kalashnikov, and it was the first time that Kalashnikov had been out of Russia since the wall came down. It was a very interesting meeting between the two of them; it was very cordial. That’s the first time that I met Kalashnikov. I was there about a week, they had two campers out in West Virginia, they were at a range, and the two of them would meet each day and go and talk and have a good time. General Kalashnikov had an interpreter. It was a very interesting and enlightening meeting, where the “Father of the M16” the main rifle of our armed forces, met the “Father of the AK47” the main rifle of many of our opponents.

SAR: The flagship project that your companies were working on were the rail systems.

Knight: I guess we’ve probably built close to 750,000 rails for M4s, M16s, and the like. It’s been a good product for us. We made suppressors, some low production dedicated systems, parts, mounts, and had designed firearms, but not built them completely. The military told us that there was a need for a very accurate .308 rifle. Gene came up with the idea, and said, “Why don’t we use some of the parts off the M16; let’s try to make as many common parts as we can, pistol grip, butt stock, screws, plungers, springs, gas key, see how many parts we can use.” We started designing for parts that would be in common between the two guns – the M16 system and our new 7.62x51mm rifle. The other idea was to manufacture the gun so that the training would be the same on the 7.62 rifle. That was the start of the SR-25 rifle. “Stoner Rifle-25,” we took AR-”10” and AR-”15” and added them together to get 25 as the designation. We took the best of the AR-10 and the best of the AR-15, and all of our experience, and the rifle started shooting very, very accurate right out of the box. We built a few more, then we geared up to build it, and we started selling them commercially.

SAR: What was the most challenging part of that project?

Knight: Building a good magazine ranks right up there. Plenty of challenges anyway, and then the military match ammunition, not even the M118LR yet, was thirty-two thousandths longer than SAAMI spec. We built the SR-25 to use original AR-10 aluminum “Waffle” magazines, which I had 10,000 of. Thankfully, I didn’t have to build a magazine at first. When we started to build the magazine, then it became very challenging, how to make the magazine work. The magazine is a part of a firearm that looks to be quite simple, and people think it’s pretty easy and straight-forward, but it’s a feeding mechanism that is dynamically moving and there are so many nuances that affect the reliability of a magazine. Because it appears to be so simple and straight-forward, I think that it’s often overlooked as being as important part of a weapon system as it really is. Very few people spend a lot of time on designing and developing a magazine, and that comes back as trouble later. The event of feeding the cartridge out of the magazine into the chamber happens very quickly. Feeding the round and presenting it to the chamber, and extracting and ejecting the old cartridge case happens in such a short period of time, and it’s all happening at that intersection of the firearm. This is generally right at the throat of the chamber, it’s almost Grand Central Station for interior activity, it’s at high speed, and anything that doesn’t keep up the pace or gets in the way and the system doesn’t work. The magazine has to be top quality and properly engineered or your reliability goes away.

SAR: You have two different ways of firing the system, suppressed and un-suppressed.

Knight: Yes, and that complicates things further – and then there are different types of ammunition, different grain weights of bullets. This system is what has morphed into today’s SASS M110 rifle for the military. We built some guns for the US Army to test way back in the early ’90s, and they came back with a list of around 11 features that they wanted improved on. I was told that if we could not improve on those things, we weren’t going to have a program. We worked on those things for about a year, and we finally got those improvements done. Then we started actually manufacturing, and that became a good enough rifle that the Navy SEALs wanted to buy it, and it was designated the Mk11 Mod 0. We probably made between five and 10,000. Some of them were sold in the civilian market. The early ones we sold commercially were overruns that we built for the Navy SEALs. We have not built a lot of SR-25s. The very early SR-25s, most of those were all 24-inch barrel, match guns, with round fiberglass hand guards. The Mk 11 Mod 0, we haven’t built a whole lot extra because our production has been pretty much taken by the military. As I mentioned, we won the contract for the new M110 SASS- “Semi-Automatic Sniper System.” The chassis is based on the Mk 11 Mod 0, but there are about nine different improvements that we’ve made over the Mk 11 that has made it into a better rifle. We’re building thousands of those now for the military. Over a 15-year period, our first purpose-built Knight gun, the SR-25, has now evolved into the new M110 SASS rifle. Our first program is still alive and well, and serving the US military. The Navy has changed the Mk 11 Mod 0 to the Mk 11 Mod 1 and Mod 2.

SAR: Your companies have built many of the firearm items in use today: suppressors, RIS and RAS rail interfaces, sniper systems, your own line of AR-15/ M16 rifles called the SR-15 and SR-16. At one point you took on the idea of a semiautomatic .50 caliber…

Knight: I guess I should address that. I would call myself strict on or kind of stubborn about what we make. If I can’t put out something that I’m really, really pleased with, I’m just not going to sell it. Stoner designed a .50 caliber gun, and we built some, and they worked very, very well, but when we started doing endurance testing, we had some problems with some bolt cracking, and of course that became a liability issue. We redesigned that, and just about the time we got that redesigned, we ended up having to step up to meet the demand for the September 11th issues. One thing led to another, and I have parts and pieces for the first 100 guns that are about, I don’t know, 50% maybe done that are out there, that I just haven’t put the engineering effort into it to really make me happy. It’s dormant now, and we’re a lot smarter than we used to be. We can build stuff a lot better than we did ten years ago. Our company is a much bigger company and has many more capabilities than we did back then. I’m sure if we build the rifle again, we could overcome some of the design issues that we had on the early prototype guns.

SAR: Parallel to that project, you were working on an AR-15-style weapon that had the input of Mr. Stoner, yourself and your design working team. The SR-15 rifle.

Knight: The SR-15 is semiautomatic and the SR-16 is select fire. It’s a 5.56x45mm rifle that uses a gas impingement system, M16 family, and we improved many things that we think that makes it a superior, reliable weapon. We built quite a bit of parts and pieces to those guns. We build all the production ourselves. As long as you control your parts, you can control your quality. The only person you can blame if you don’t get the things done is yourself. We’re very focused on building pretty much all of our parts ourselves. We do buy some parts on the outside, and our SR-15 we’re probably going to buy some parts on the outside, only because there’s other people out there who can build them cheaper than we can, and if they meet our quality standards, then we’ll probably buy parts and pieces from them.

SAR: Reed, you have almost 40 years experience with the gas impingement system of the AR-15, and 30 years experience dealing with the original designer, other designers of the system, and have intimately been involved in testing and being around all the original designs, the prototypes that worked and didn’t work. In today’s world, we have the M4, the M16A2, the M16 variants, there’s about nine or ten million out there. You are in active production of a gas impingement-style system. Frequently the answer to all the issues in the AR family is the idea of a drop-on piston system. You also have made piston-operated guns yourself that are in somewhat of the Stoner family.

Knight: Dan, I’m like everybody else, I’m striving to find a better mousetrap. I want the best of the best, to be able to improve things. I should probably qualify my statements here this way: In our testing over the last two years, we have fired about 1.3 million rounds of 5.56mm. In that process, we have come up with some things that we think improve the M4 rifle in its baseline design. We’ve also built some piston-driven uppers that drop on the basic lower. If there is anything that I am really convinced of, it’s that you should not go and think that the piston-driven upper system, based on the AR-15 chassis, is some type of a major improvement, because in fact, we have found it not to be. If the M4 is properly maintained, and if the gun is kept clean, it will run and do the job that is needed to be done. On the other hand, if you don’t use the tool as what it was designed to be, it was designed for, then it probably is going to cause you some issues. The major thing that we’ve seen with pistons is the bolt cracking of the locking lugs at maybe a higher rate than what we think it should be. The gas piston system does not help that issue, and it exacerbates the bolt cracking. If you take the things that were allowed to be done to improve the gun, such as some of the things that they’ve done for the HK 416, if they were allowed to do that or do some product improvements on the M4, the M4 itself I believe could have a higher reliability in its own design. Unfortunately, there are some things that you help when you go to the piston-driven upper, but there’s also some things that you don’t help. One of the major things is that in a gas impingement system, when the gas pressurizes the chamber in the bolt carrier, it actually pushes the bolt forward, and that pushing of the bolt forward, as it unlocks, takes a good amount of load off the back of the locking lugs as it’s unlocking.

That system allows you to have a less stress on the locking lugs while it’s unlocking.

The gas impingement system is pushing back on the bolt carrier, evenly from the inside, and pushing forward on the bolt relieving the rearward pressure on the lugs. With a piston, as you’re pushing back on the bolt carrier, you not only have tilting pressure which is uneven, it’s pulling the bolt backwards, which adds more load to the locking lugs of the bolt as the bolt carrier’s going to the rear, and the faster you drive it to the rear, the worse off it is. If you use an M4 in its conventional barrel length, which is 14-1/2 inches, I don’t think a piston gives you any advantage over a gas impingement gun. I think that an M4 in a 14-1/2 inch barrel is just as reliable as a piston gun with the 14-1/2 inch barrel. The gas piston has added different problems.

SAR: One of those issues is the tilting pressure that’s added using a piston on a standard M16 type system.

Knight: Right, you’re actually pushing down on the top of the bolt carrier. Instead of pushing evenly from the center of the bolt carrier, you’re actually pushing the bolt carrier down. Probably the most significant thing is what I am calling, for lack of a better word, bolt bounce. As the bolt unlocks, the bolt actually turns and bounces back, and as the bolt bounces back, it digs into the upper receiver very significantly right out of the unlocking bridge of the upper receiver. The bolt cam pin is actually digging into the upper receiver. I’ve noticed that on piston-driven guns, it is not present at all in gas impingement guns because there’s still residual pressure that holds that bolt from bouncing back. If you look at the bolt carrier velocities of a firearm with a piston-driven bolt carrier, and you look at the bolt carrier velocity of a gas impingement system, the initial bolt carrier velocity of a gas impingement gun is much smoother and less radical than the bolt carrier velocity is on a piston-driven gun. So as it bounces, and this flat right here digs into, significantly into the upper receiver right there, because it bounces… It unlocks and then bounces back and digs into the upper receiver. Bolt carrier speed and how smooth that start up is, effects how reliable the system is. Essentially, on a piston driven system, it causes the bolt carrier to speed up and slow down, and that jerky motion is just not conducive for reliability and smoothness of the system. The bolt carrier velocity on these piston-driven guns is much higher than it should be to get the same amount of work out of it. All that being said, the gas impingement gun is actually a smoother operating system. Where you do run into an advantage on the piston-driven gun is when you take and shorten that barrel length ahead of the gas port significantly. The amount of time that gas in an impingement system has to travel down that gas tube into the carrier is the time that the bullet’s traveling down the barrel, past that port, until it uncorks from the muzzle.

SAR: Time under pressure.

Knight: Exactly. It’s a time under pressure issue, and if you are able to have the luxury of having a barrel with 7 inches of barrel in front of the gas port, it gets the job done before the bullet leaves the end of the barrel. When you go to a 10-inch barrel or an 11-1/2 inch barrel, that time significantly drops, along with your reliability. The only way to do that is to open up the gas port, and you get a big gulp of air immediately. The rifle becomes sporadic at that point. The advantage on a piston system might come in with a shorter barrel. In my opinion, it’s the only advantage that it has. If you look at the bolt carrier velocity, and you shoot ten rounds with a gas impingement system, and you look at the velocity and you look at the standard deviation of that velocity, the standard deviation, meaning the velocities, and you overlay those velocity curves over the top of each other, the gas impingement system is much, much more concise and reliable than the velocity is for a piston-driven AR type rifle. The piston-driven gun is all over the place as far as its bolt carrier velocity, and its bolt carrier velocity at the back of the gun. The AR system likes a gas impingement system much better, because it’s a much better utilization of the gas.

SAR: That was Gene Stoner’s original design in the 1950s.

Knight: Right. It’s been said by a number of the people that were involved that everything worked really well until they changed the powder, which threw the system out of balance. Instead of changing it by going back to the right powder that it was designed for, they started changing the system, and it’s been bouncing around ever since, fixing the symptoms. The idea of putting a piston system on here throws its own problems into the mess. The piston-driven AR type rifle has created its own set of issues that are going to show up in the field in the future.

SAR: There are problems with the M4 though…

Knight: The gas impingement system is just so much more efficient. That said, if you don’t have a set of good gas rings on the gun, if you have a carrier key that’s worn out or if you have a gas tube that’s worn out, there’s going to be problems. I find it interesting that we have rifles out there in the military system that, some of them have 10,000, 20,000 rounds through them, and we’re comparing them with rifle systems that are brand new. Everybody likes a new broom because it always sweeps clean, and everybody wants something new. These changes need a track record, these systems need to fire as many rounds before we can compare. If there’s anything that I think that we are doing wrong in our small arms for the US military, it’s that we figuratively woke up one Monday morning, and said the M60 was a bad weapon. When and where did we fall out of love for the M60? It was after it got worn out and after the parts were worn out, and then we went out to low-bid, small business set asides as vendors that built parts for the M60, flooded the system with parts that may or may not have worked compatibly with the original parts and pieces. What we did was adopt a gun that was two years older, six pounds heavier, and much longer, and that had some other issues of its own. We adopted that gun “because it was more reliable.” If you would let me add 25% of the weight and 25% of the cost, and all the other things to any weapon system we have, sure, we could build a better weapon. When we started realizing that the M60 wasn’t going to last forever, we should’ve started a program to design a new belt-fed .308 machine gun. This brings me back to our firearms laws and the travesties of 1968 and 1986.

When Gene Stoner and I started working on this 7.62mm belt fed issue in 1989, the very first thing we tried to do was import a PKM. ATF said the law would not allow Gene Stoner to import a PKM – that’s just crazy – when he and I wanted to work on this. It was because it was a Russian design, and it was forbidden to import Russian small arms into this country. I mean, here’s the father of our main rifle caliber weapon, and he wants to work on a new belt fed, and he can’t have access to similar designs because of politics. We just decided not to even bother going down that road, it’s just not worth it. Our country should have started designing a new replacement for the M-60 when we saw that the parts were going to be worn out, and the parts weren’t going to be compatible. I’m hearing similar things right now that soldiers are saying about the M249, that they’re unhappy with its reliability, they’re unhappy with the parts, and maybe we’re going to wake up one Tuesday morning, and say, “Let’s throw the M249 away.” Instead of letting it get to that point, let’s see if we can fix the problems, let’s P-I-P it. A good Product Improvement Program.

The first thing to do is see if that machine gun can be improved, and if we have reached the lifecycle of those guns and they’re worn out, then let’s throw ‘em away and buy new ones. But how could a gun that we have had for 20 years, how can we wake up one Tuesday morning and that gun not be any good? What happened to it? If we have an issue, let’s start developing, let’s start thinking about a new level of M249, let’s start now, and let’s improve it. But there is not anyone that has written and told FN that they have a problem. As far as the Army’s concerned, there’s not a problem.

SAR: You’re talking about a breakdown in communication from the end user to the manufacturer.

Knight: The end user to manufacturer communication is only with a PDQR, and that’s a Product Deficiency Quality Report. When you turn one of those in, it goes in front of everybody, it’s throwing a big red flag up. I think there needs to be something else out there that’s a user failure of equipment report, and that means that, “I have a product that’s out in the field that’s not doing what I need it to do. So, somebody come out here and investigate.” I want the end user to tell me. I want to know if the design is faulty. Are parts built right, but the product isn’t working? Is the end user trying to use his M4 as a belt-fed machine gun role? Either the product is being used for something other than what it was intended to be used for, and it doesn’t meet the requirement, or, if it is not reliably doing the job we have another issue. I have to know as a manufacturer, and the sooner I know, the better. Maybe the end users have longer distances now than what we built the product for initially. Maybe he needs a heavier bullet, which is going to affect the system because you can’t just change ammunition and expect everything to be perfect. There should be a report that a soldier puts together that the Army goes and looks at and determines, is it a faulty design, is he using it wrong, or is it in fact a quality problem from the factory? And we’re not doing that.

SAR: In the First World War there were manufacturers who had representatives go out to the frontlines and talk to the people. In World War Two, both manufacturers and Army ordnance groups went out to the frontline, right out to the front, and talked with the guys. They had to take a ship across the ocean. It seems that there was a disconnect then in the information, and the manufacturers were frustrated then with the communication that came through ordnance groups.

Knight: Exactly. I have had some feedback from the front lines, but as a manufacturer, we need better feedback. I would like to have better info. First of all, I have to say there’s nothing in this factory that I am building that is good enough. Everything here can and should be improved. I can’t improve things and initiate obsolescence to previous designs and previous products, because once you get to a certain point, that design is frozen. If you don’t have vertical integration, so that the products that you have in the future are backwards compatible to products that you built in the past, then sometimes you’re shooting yourself in the foot in the supply chain. You can’t obsolete your other products, unless it’s a major improvement.

Let me run further down the road here, because if I have my soapbox to stand up on, it’s this: I think that we as a country would be making a major mistake to adopt another rifle, other than a rifle that we have in the system if that gun already meets our needs, without it being a significant improvement. What I’m trying to say is I do not believe that the United States should adopt another 5.56mm brass case M16-type weapon. In other words, a weapon that weighs six pounds, utilizes a brass cased ammunition, uses the same magazine. I think we should stick with what we have, but I think that we need to come to the table with new technology.

SAR: Do you think there should be some incremental improvements adopted in the M16 and M4 systems?

Knight: Sure. I think if we can come to the table with an incremental improvement that does not obsolete our inventory of parts, our inventory of training, then let’s do it. If as a manufacturer and designer, I can’t give you 30% across the board improvement, a 30% reduction in weight, 30% reduction in cost, 30% increase in reliability, etc., then we shouldn’t change systems. I think what we should look for in a new system is a 30% improvement before we move ahead and change it all. That’s what we should strive for.

SAR: Do you think that was done in previous generations of weapon changes in the US military?

Knight: I do. I think an M4 is as reliable as the M16 is today. I think when it first came out, there was a learning curve that came behind that, and I think that it had multiple issues with it, part of it was government-caused, and part of it was the manufacturing, learning how to manufacture the gun and all the other things that have to be learned, such things as chrome chambers, such as barrel twists, let alone how to manufacture the rifle. More importantly, I think the M16 over the M14 was a 30% reduction in weight, I think it was a 30% reduction in size, certainly I think today it’s been a 30% reduction in cost. There was a significant increase in hit probability in fully automatic, over the M14. The majority of the soldiers who used the M14 used it in semiautomatic role, and it was a good rifle in that, but in fully automatic it took a very skilled operator.

SAR: We’ve had many conversations about the leaps forward that need to be made, and noted that for the last 150-odd years, we take a brass case, fill it with powder, put a projectile in front of it, and we drive it down a rifled bore. We do it faster, more accurately, automatically, semiautomatically, for sure, but you’ve often brought up that we need to have a major sea change in the ammunition.

Knight: I’ve said this many times, that if John Browning, Thomas Edison and Henry Ford all came back to life today, the only one that would not be impressed would be John Browning, because we’re still using a brass cartridge case and a bullet and a primer, the same as what he had 110, 115 years ago. I don’t think we’re ready for caseless ammunition, what I think we need is case telescoped ammunition. Gene Stoner built some of the first ones on the ACR project back in ’86, ’87, Steyr had a case telescope round at around that time. Today, AAI and Ares have designs that make an M249-type weapon that’s very significant in reduction in weight among other things. Aside from all that, if we do not start today to develop the next small arms, we’re going to wake up one Monday morning and say, “Now we have to have what’s on the shelf.” And that won’t be a leap forward. Unfortunately, until you build 3,000 or 5,000 or 10,000 of something, you can’t get your manufacturing system nailed, and the bugs out of the product. I don’t want the first one off the line of a new model car that they build. I don’t want the first of anything that’s a new model that they build. That includes products that I build, or Colt, or FN, or H&K. We all have the same manufacturing issues of getting the product tweaked and leaving the new weapon system to what’s “on the shelf” isn’t good enough. The manufacturers need not only R&D but they need production to tweak things. Some of us are better at that than others and the customers can decide. One truly interesting thing I can tell you is that we’ve designed a gun recently building it in a computer before we ever built a prototype. Out of all the guns that I’ve ever built and all the guns that I’ve ever played with and all the guns that I’ve ever handled, we got there quicker with that first gun modeled and done on the computer, than we could have ever gotten building physical prototypes. We found design flaws with finite element analysis that we improved upon that prevented us from having problems, and having to modify later on in the system. And, we’re just one of a number of manufacturers exploring those capabilities.

SAR: You’ve designed several systems recently, including the ammunition.

Knight: I was referring to the PDW. Again, we’re using a brass case on our new ammunition, because that’s what the customer is most comfortable with. I still think the future is going to be built around a lighter system. The next leap forward is going to come from somewhere. If you ask me today, I would have to say case telescoped. The cartridge can be smaller, lighter and more efficient, and you can make the case out of today’s polymers rather than brass at a cheaper cost. Then in the future, that should transition over to either caseless or semi-caseless ammunition.

SAR: What caliber of projectile?

Knight: Well, let’s start at the target, the terminal end, and let’s decide what work we need to do. Do we need 600 foot pounds of energy at 500 meters? Do we need 200 foot pounds of energy at 500 meters? Do we need 600 foot pounds of energy at 200 meters? Or do we need 800 foot pound of energy at muzzle? Tell me first what work you want done by the projectile. If you want to produce a certain size wound cavity, and generally I really think that issue we’ve pretty much defined, the 5.56 is about as small as we want to go. I think we want to have no less than around 1,000 foot pounds of energy at muzzle. I don’t think we need 2,600 foot pounds of energy, like we have on a .308. Tell me the distance. Give me 1,000 foot pounds of energy, and let me go from there, and back up, and then I’ll tell you what bullet weight I want, I’ll tell you what velocity it needs to leave the muzzle, and I’ll tell you how big the system needs to be to give you that.

SAR: The testing that you’ve been doing over the last few decades has led you to be able to model ammunition also?

Knight: Absolutely. With a lot of confidence on results. Again, you have to start at the target, you have to start where the event is going to happen, and you need to look at what you want that bullet to do. How much work does it take to get the job done? How much energy are you carrying in that bullet to get that job done? Then we will move back to the distance that you want to be, I’ll call it a stand-off. But is the standoff 100 meters, 200 meters, 300 meters, 400 meters, 500 meters or 600 meters? The original M16 was actually bought to be a 300-meter rifle. They said, “300 meters is not enough, let’s make it 400 meters,” and went to the next meeting, and at the last meeting they said, “You know what? If we can do 400, let’s do 500, let’s make it 500 meters.” They wanted the gun to be lethal, and lethal at that time was determined to be penetrating a military helmet at 500 meters. Mr. Stoner was shooting the rifle in a .222 Remington lead core bullet, and it was hitting the helmet at 500 meters and was not penetrating it. Gene Stoner went back in his garage, cut the end of the bullet, put a steel tip on the front of the bullet and stuck it down in the bullet, and went back and shot the same .222 Remington at 500 meters, and it penetrated the helmet, and it squirted the lead of the bullet in there like a worm inside the helmet. And he said, “I met the requirement.” And the guy looked at him and said, “No, you didn’t, that’s cheating, you can’t do it that way. It’s gotta be a lead bullet, it’s gotta penetrate the helmet.” So Stoner went back and said, “Let’s take this long case neck and let’s blow this cartridge case because I need another couple hundred feet per second.” They made what they called a .222 Remington Special, and that was the blown out cartridge case, and that later became the .223. He needed just that many more grains of powder to give him that extra 200 feet per second at 500 meters to penetrate the helmet, because they wouldn’t let him use a steel penetrator.

SAR: Knight’s today is the size of other major defense small arms contractors, and there’s only a few of them. You’ve become a force in the field. When you took over this facility, you were overflowing your old facility, and you had a vision for where you wanted to go?

Knight: USOCOM told us in 2001, after September 11th, that we were going to have to double our capacity if we wanted to be in the game and take care of business. I went to the county commission in Indian River County and actually to the building department, and I bought a new building, and I set it on the ground, and I said, “I have to build a new building, because I need it now.” I had about a 60,000 square foot building, and I bought another one sitting there, ready to put up. And after months of trying to do traffic studies and fire suppression studies, and all the things that the county wanted me to do, I found a building up in Savannah, Georgia that I could go to with my 100 employees, and they would give me the keys to the front door. I came back to Florida, planning to move to Georgia. The local people in Bavard found out that I was going to do that, and they knew about this facility that had been left surplus, and they called the governor, then Jeb Bush, and said, “Can you talk to Boeing and can you get Boeing to talk to Knights and see if we can do something?” Boeing called us, and in two weeks we had a deal put together that they would sell me the facility that would immediately stop my problems of having delays and everything else. We bought this and started moving our Vero Beach factory up here immediately after buying it. By the time we went out and bought machinery, and our plan was to go and buy duplicate machinery that we had in Vero Beach, and to put the new machinery in place and operating, and then unplug the machinery in Vero Beach and bring it up here, and then we would be at two times capacity. Before we were able to unplug Vero, we got the word that two times our capacity was not going to be sufficient, that was going to have to be three times. Before we ever unplugged Vero, our first phase was in and we bought another full complement. We had two times capacity before we ever unplugged Vero, and then we brought it up here. Actually, with the efficiency that we have gotten with the new machinery and everything else, we’re at better than five times capacity than where we were. One thing that I was fortunate enough to have is that old man McDonald was really thorough in his design of this factory, and he has 100% redundancy of everything that is electrical and mechanical, this facility had the best of the best of capabilities when we walked in the front door. He built the Tomahawk missile here, with 3,500 employees. He had quite an infrastructure. We’re running about 325 employees right now and well over 100 CNC machines. We have robotic systems that are working quite efficiently. We do have a sound suppressor cell, we manufacture pretty much everything in-house.

SAR: The lessons learned from your study of prior programs that shows in your collection, the Stoner systems, the ARs, all of those things, have you maintained that diligence with your own designs? Prototyping and keeping collections for study?

Knight: I guess you would call it archiving. We probably have not done a stellar job of that. When, as you evolve something, do you stop and say, “This is a different model?” Because it is evolving, and you’re making multiple changes. Do you stop after five changes? Do you stop after six, do you stop after eight? Or do you just stop when you get it finished? Unfortunately, around here, we never get it finished. We’re always evolving. Everything is constantly in change. That has its advantages and disadvantages. The good news is our product has a reputation that it usually works really well, and that’s because we really pay attention to the product, and we really pay attention to how we build the product. And that’s not easy to do all the time. The answer is yes, we do keep a reference library of our own designs as well, but it’s perhaps not as thorough as future students might like to see.

SAR: Regarding the idea of a reference library, you’ve done major expansion back to the Civil War in US weapons. You’ve also started collecting military vehicles and tanks and some of the larger cannons and field pieces. Where do you feel you’re going to go with your collecting?

Knight: I have become somewhat frustrated at the unreasonable prices that I’ve seen currently on machine guns, and when I say unreasonable, obviously it’s what people think that they’re worth, or they wouldn’t be paying it. In order to grow a collection it takes a fairly serious checking account. I looked at going back to the Civil War or that timeframe and bringing that forward up to 1900, and I found those 50 years to be very significant in changes in small arms. We actually did more changes and more development in those 50 years than we have in the last 100. It’s very significant what they did and what they learned, so for the last two years I started collecting that period. I’ve bought Gatling guns and muzzle loaders and breech loaders and different weapon systems that either evolved or dead ended. As I was going down that trail, I started thinking, “What have we done in the past on artillery, and what have we done in the past in HE?” I’m going to call it HE, let’s call it cannonball HE, which it’s not, but let’s say that it is. It’s one more place that the evolution of weapons has caught my interest and I am trying to apply it. I’m now focusing on US weapons and weapon systems of our enemies and allies that are significant. Pretty much anything from 1850 to present, I’m looking at, if the US used it or had any fingerprint on it, then I’m looking to have a sample thereof.

SAR: One of the most important aspects of small arms is passing on knowledge, mentoring, apprenticing and training. There’s been some discussion about an institute or a school. Have you got any plans in the future for this?

Knight: I have to think that I would not have been anywhere near as successful at what I’m doing if I had not had the luxury of having someone mentor me like Gene Stoner, Uzi Gal and Henk Visser did, and some of the people that have been able to direct me and focus me on where I am today. Obviously, my father had a lot to do with it, in inspiring me to go chase what I felt like that I wanted to do, and not just do what other people said. I would rather train somebody that has a passion to do what’s needed than to try to take someone that has the knowledge and try to instill in him the passion. The passion is the driving force. I want employees that go home and read gun magazines, and go home and work on the computer, and go home and eat, drink and sleep what they do. I want them to be excited about what they do. I want them to be as excited as I am about what I’m doing. I joke around that I’m only working half-days now, from 8:00 to 8:00, and it’s how it seems, because every hour that I’m at work, I’m really having a good time, I’m really enjoying what I’m doing. Of course there are days that are discouraging, but then there are days that you get letters from soldiers out in the field that thank you for what you do. I got a letter from a young soldier, said that he was driving in a Humvee coming back from Baghdad, and they stopped and picked up a couple Navy SEALs. And the Navy SEALs got into the thing, and then they got into a firefight, and the Navy SEAL handed him his gun from the back seat while he got set up on the radio to call for support. He said he looked, and coming through the window of his Humvee, the light was shining on the hand guard of the side of the SEAL’s rifle, and he saw “Vero Beach, Florida,” and he said, “I just want to write you and tell you thank you for what you’re doing, and I just want to let you know, would you please take care of my family in Vero while I’m taking care of you in Iraq?” He found security by seeing Vero Beach, Florida on the side of his gun, and he didn’t even know us from Adam’s housecat, and he got that connection. Some of things that you can make a difference with what’s out there. I think, where do we want to go in the future? You know, I’m getting up there, these gray hairs are real, I don’t dye my hair, so I’m getting to a point that I gotta be getting serious about what is it that I want to be when I grow up. I do want to train more young people.

SAR: Do you have an apprenticeship program at Knights?

Knight: We have, we do, we have it for manufacturing, but if there’s anything that I think we’re unique about, it’s we are probably, out of all the small arms manufacturers, we build more of all of our parts than all of the other companies. We build pretty much everything here. And we grow our talent amongst ourselves. We train our people, and we train them in what to do.

SAR: Do you have an active recruitment program?

Knight: We have an extremely active recruitment program, of bringing good people in and bringing them to the table. Bonnie Werner in our HR Department runs that. She’s the Vice President here at Knights, and she is looking for new, inspired, young, talented help. We want people who want to make a difference and want to do something with their lives. They want to get out and they want to learn, they want to know more about how things work, and how they can do things better. Our claim to fame is manufacturing. We changed the paradigm in manufacturing. We have more table space in manufacturing than all the other small arms manufacturers in the United States added together.

SAR: You’re out there cutting chips in a country that is massively exporting work.

Knight: That’s a rare thing in America today. But we control quality in what we’re doing that way. The idea of an institute or a school on small arms is a very active idea, and I want to do it. It’s a lot harder to do than I thought it was going to be. It really is tough! What’s first, the chicken or the egg? Do you have the talent or do you have the people, do you have the people or do you have the talent? Educating people and training them to do what we need them to do is very difficult.

SAR: What would your concept be of a school?

Knight: I remember the conversation Gene Stoner had with me. We went to China, and he was at this equivalent to an auditorium, we’re in this college, their war college, it was 10,000 students, and they would ask Mr. Stoner, raise their hand and say, you know, “What is it you do in 1962?” And he’d answer, and a student would stand up and say, “Excuse me, sir, don’t you mean you did this and did that?” And Mr. Stoner would say, “Well, you know, matter of fact you’re right, that is how…” They actually knew more about his life than he did at that point – they taught a course on him. There was a cocktail party that night, and everybody was there, and he was drinking the local drink, and the guy rubbed up close to him, he said, “Mr. Stoner, tell me the secret,” and he said, “Sure. What is it you’d like to know?” “I want to know where the secret school is in America.” He said, “The secret school?” He said, “Yes, the secret gun school you have in America, because obviously you have to have one.” Stoner says, “There isn’t one.” “No, Mr. Stoner, there must be one. Please, here, have another drink.” And Mr. Stoner came back and he said, “I was at a school where there were 10,000 people that were designing and building China’s future weapons. We don’t even have one that even knows how to spell that.” Until we stop educating lawyers and start educating engineers, if we’re not careful, we’re going to wake up one morning and we’re going to have all the lawyers shutting down our few engineers. The lawyers are going to tell the engineers that we can’t build a nuclear car, we can’t build a whatever, because “it’s against the law.” Until we reach that point where we understand the importance of energy, importance of defending our own country, the importance of being what we are, until we train our people, until we educate our people again, until we are producing again, we’re in trouble. When I put an ad out in the paper and say “help wanted,” I get plenty of people that come to the door that do not have any experience at doing anything at all. I get ten times more than I need for that, and I get one-tenth of what I need of the educated people to run machinery, or to weld or skilled individuals. We’re not training our people to do skills and skill sets. It’s to the benefit of the manufacturers to start doing that training themselves, if they want to have a workforce that moves into the future.

SAR: Would you be teaching small arms design or would you be teaching manufacturing process?

Knight: All of the above. Engineering, CAD, model-making, prototyping, testing. You know how many people don’t know how to properly test a product? They don’t know how to get to the results that they’re looking for. Mickey Finn and Don Walsh and I had to agree on suppressor testing in the early ’80s, just to establish a baseline. A large part of our work is designing proper, valid testing protocols.

SAR: If you were talking to a young person today and they were thinking that maybe someday they’d like to run their own business, do you have any advice you’d give them?

Knight: Yes. You’re going to have to work real hard to be successful, no matter what it is. You’re going to have to be passionate about what you do. It’s very hard to be successful unless you really work hard at doing what you want to do, and you need to have an idea of what that is. That doesn’t mean you can’t change your mind, it doesn’t mean that you can’t stop and say, “I don’t want to be a welder tomorrow, I want to be a lathe operator tomorrow,” there’s nothing wrong with that, but be the best you can be. I don’t care if you’re sweeping the floor. Be the best you can be, and be the best floor sweeper that there is in that company. Be the best of everything that is there, and learn all you can about what you’re doing. I don’t care what it is. I don’t care, if you’re learning how to paint, or how to run lathe, learn everything you can about it, and be good at it, and be the best that there is, and most likely you’ll move up the chain. I’ve had a lot of things that have been major changes in my life, breakthroughs, things that, without those things having happened, I would not be where I am today. My father and my mother being supportive of my chasing of the rainbows, my meeting Gene Stoner, meeting Uzi Gal, finding different opportunities that have knocked on the door. Now, I do believe that you can be lucky and catch a big fish, but remember you have to put the bait on the hook, and you have to put the hook and the bait in the water, and then you have to be patient to catch the fish. Most of the time you have to make your own luck, and it isn’t always going to work out the way you want.

Finding Stoner’s M7, the AR-3
Armalite Rifle (1999-2000)

AR-3 is a semiautomatic rifle that disappeared forty years ago, but somebody had turned it into a gun shop, and this guy had bought it from the gun shop about 20 years ago. He calls and talks to one of my salesmen, and of course my salesman said, “You don’t know it, but my boss has every Armalite rifle that’s ever made. You couldn’t have anything he doesn’t have.” This guy says, “Okay, thank you” and hangs up. He calls back about a month later and he gets a hold of my secretary, and he says, “I’m telling you that I have a rifle that your boss needs to see.” She said, “Why don’t you email me a picture, and I will show it to him?” I was walking by her desk one afternoon, and I see this picture of the AR-3 that I had never seen, and I had pretty much seen every picture that had ever been made on the AR-3. I was shocked. I couldn’t get the words out of my mouth. “Where did you get this picture?” I asked. She said, “This guy’s been bugging me to send this picture from California.” I said, “Get me on a plane, I am going to California, I have to see this gun.” I flew out to Sonoma, California, and met with this guy, and the gun was, in fact, the AR-3, Stoner’s original he made in his garage, his M7. We cut a deal, and I got on an old prop driven plane through LAX. I put the gun in a little brown plastic case and checked it. I was just so excited that I had found this gun; it was the last of the four guns that Gene built in his garage. I now had all of them. The pilot announced; “We just put the gear down to land at LAX, and the landing gear light shows that the landing gear did not come down. We’re going out over the ocean and dumping our fuel, and then we’re flying back by the tower, there’s still enough light for them to see us. If our landing gear’s down, we’ll try to land, and if the landing gear is up, they’re going to foam the runway and we’ll belly land. Y’all be prepared for that.” I got on my cell phone, called my wife and said, “I just wanted to let you know, if you don’t hear from me again, that I just, well, you know, just tell everybody I said hello.” The stewardess walked by, and I said, “I need to get down in the bottom of this plane,” and she says, “What’s so important?” I said, “Well, I got something down there I need to get,” and she said, “What could possibly be that important right now?” [laughter] I said, “I really can’t say, it’s really immaterial what I need to get. I just need to get down because if you land on the belly of this thing, it’s gonna ruin what I have down there underneath the bottom of this plane.” And she said, “Well, the bottom line is you can’t get from here to there without being on the outside of the plane, and that’s not going to happen.” We were flying low past the tower and from one end of that airport to the other, there was nothing but red and blue lights flashing and everything. I wondered what in the world all these fire trucks were at the airport for. I really had no idea they were there for us. The gear was down, so we came back around, landed, and I ran over and got that rifle. I walked over to Delta, and handed them that gun case, and said, “I want you put this on that plane, I want you to make sure it’s protected.” When I got home, I took that gun out of the box, I put it on the wall, and I still won’t let anybody pick it up, because it’s just very important that it stay on the wall with the other three and nothing happens to it! It’s a treasure hunt, I found a relic, an artifact, that was just so important to the history of these systems. The chase is exciting, and Gene Stoner was just as excited about the other guns that I found at Fairchild. Of course, he was not alive to know that I did find his last gun that was missing, but I like to think that I completed part of the quest.

The 137th National Rifle Association Annual Meetings & Exhibits were held in Louisville, Kentucky on May 16-18, 2008. Louisville provided a wonderful venue for the largest convention ever hosted by the city. Firearm and accessory vendors assembled for the weekend exhibits at the Louisville Expo Center to display their wares in a setting similar to the S.H.O.T. Show. Since 1960, the NRA has provided space at the exhibits for collector displays, where affiliated clubs may apply to feature their firearms and related material for public viewing.

Members of The American Thompson Association (TATA) participated in the event, and assembled a historic display that will surely be remembered for many years to come. With the support of the Berrien County, Michigan Sheriff’s Department, TATA displayed the two notorious Colt Thompsons used in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre on February 14, 1929.

The effort focused upon Dr. Calvin Goddard’s crime scene investigative techniques, and respectfully presented the two Thompsons. Dr. Goddard had previously worked on the Sacco & Vanzetti case of the late 1920s, where he established some of his forensic principles. Immediately following the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, Dr. Goddard’s expertise was sought to assemble a crime lab at Northwestern University in Chicago to enable investigation of the case. It was the massacre of the century, purported to have been initiated by gangster heavyweight Al Capone, and law enforcement wanted to solve it quickly. As a result of the murders, and the subsequent investigation, Dr. Goddard pioneered many standard forensic methods used by law enforcement, including acid etching to reveal a ground off serial number on Thompson #7580, as well as rifling, cartridge case, and primer marking forensics.

Colt Thompsons serial number 2347 (Model of 1921A), and serial number 7580 (Model of 1921AC), which were recovered from a Berrien County hideout of “Killer” Fred Burke in December 1929 were featured on display. Also included on display were many artifacts, including one of three bullet proof vests recovered from Burke’s weapons cache, two bricks from the wall of the building where the murders occurred, an original full box of ammo from the same lot as used in the killings, various drums and magazines from the hideout, as well as several Goddard ballistic test artifacts.

The American Thompson Association was also fortunate to obtain the support of the Newark, Ohio Police Department, who lent their ballistic comparison microscope, which appeared on interactive display to the public. The microscope demonstrated some freshly spent cartridge casings from Colt Thompson #7580, and attendees could examine the markings left by the weapon on the casings as its own, distinctive fingerprint. The casings could also be compared to sample photos from the report produced by Goddard, showing the same markings.

The two Thompsons on display were undoubtedly the best documented firearms in the entire exhibit hall. Their provenance was apparent, as they could be spotted in several period photographs on display, and their descriptions and involvement in the murders were forensically proven in Goddard’s investigative report. It should also be noted that the deeds performed by gangsters with the two Thompsons drove much of the anti-machine gun sentiment of the time, and more than likely inspired passing of the National Firearms Act of 1934, therefore affecting many of our actions today. The Thompsons are truly historic artifacts for many reasons, and this was the first time they appeared to such a large audience, with over 71,000 attendees. Some fortunate audience members received unique souvenirs from the display; actual bullets and shell casings with documentation indicating they were fired through one of the SVDM Thompsons. These were highly sought mementos, and did not last long.

Goddard’s work was presented to a Coroner’s Jury to account for the seventy .45 ACP shell casings, and two “Climax” Brand 12-gauge shotgun shells found at the scene. All ammunition used was manufactured by the U.S. Cartridge Company. At the time he presented the evidence, the weapons had not been recovered. Goddard was able to determine the killings were performed by two different Thompson Model of 1921 submachine guns; one emptying an “L” drum of 50 rounds (later determined to be #2347), and one presumably emptying 20 rounds out of an “XX” magazine (later determined to be #7580). There were also two shotgun rounds fired from the same pump or automatic shotgun, probably as a “coup de grace” to Reinhardt Schwimmer, an optician by profession, and a gangster “groupie” who found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time on that fateful day.

It is important to note that no one was ever prosecuted for involvement in the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Captured in 1931, Fred Burke was jailed for life for the murder of police officer Charles Skelly of the St. Joseph, Michigan Police Department. Burke died in prison of a heart attack in 1940.

As a result of the amazing display, and the provenance of the Colt Thompsons, each Thompson was awarded a silver “Best Arms” medal by the NRA. To top it off, the overall effort won the 2008 “Best Display” award, which is a perpetual silver cup that is engraved with the winner each year. Very significantly, this was the first time that all 11 NRA judges unanimously chose one display to receive the top honor. Also awarded was a certificate of recognition for the accoutrements on display from Dr. Goddard, including pictures from his report, and boxes of labeled test bullets from his laboratory.

The display was produced through the efforts of several individuals. First of all, Lt. Mike Kline, who is the caretaker of the SVDM Thompsons in Berrien County, Michigan, and also Sheriff L. Paul Bailey supported the project. Tracie Hill, President of TATA, put together the incredible display, and coordinated the club’s involvement. Many tireless hours were spent by Tracie to make it possible, and his experience with previously designed firearms displays proved invaluable. Also critical was Chuck Schauer, whose display at the 2006 TATA Show & Shoot inspired this one. Mr. Schauer initiated the involvement of Berrien County, without whom the SVDM Thompsons would never have been possible to display. Also, Bill Helmer, author of the 1969 classic Thompson narrative, The Gun That Made The Twenties Roar, contributed artifacts and much of the historical account that was featured in the program handout that accompanied the display. Many other TATA members helped with construction, and staffed the display while providing historical tutelage to those who viewed it on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Much fun was had by all who participated from the club, and countless people were amazed and grateful for the opportunity to view such historic firearms presented in an interactive manner. The NRA provides an unbeatable collector display forum, and attending their annual events held in cities around the country is highly recommended. Nowhere else can one see so many firearm displays, vendor exhibits, along with Ted Nugent’s enthusiastic support of the second amendment, followed by his amazing guitar rendition of the “Star Spangled Banner,” all in the same day. The next NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits will be held in Phoenix, AZ, May 15-19, 2009.

It was a shameful day when the Germans occupied Denmark on April 9, 1940. The government surrendered after only a few hours of fighting and the chance of recognition as an ally of England was not to be in this round. However, not all good Danes accepted the government’s recommendation of accepting the presence of the occupying force without sword blows, and on the very next day, April 10, 1940, the first illegal sabotage strike was dealt with the blast from a Danish hand grenade M23.

The day prior, Danish engineer Erik Olsen from Odense’s electrical plant obtained the hand grenade from the Odense army barracks and subsequently threw it at a German troop transport train near Marslev. It was hardly an act that kept the German occupying force awake at night; nevertheless it was the opening salvo in a long line of sabotage missions conducted by a growing and extraordinarily effective resistance movement.

The Different Models

The basic version was the Hand Bomb M23 (offensive). Enveloped in an additional pair of cast iron fragmentation shells, manually attachable with steel wire, the Hand Bomb would become the Hand Grenade M23 (defensive). Both grenades were painted grey and some had a yellow band painted around the body of the grenade.

The construction of the practice version of the M23 differed slightly from the live version in that it was made from thicker steel as it had to withstand multiple impacts with the ground from throwing practice. A special cartridge containing a small black powder charge to simulate a detonation had to be inserted and it could be reloaded and thrown multiple times. The drawback was that it had to be returned to the manufacturer for reassembly of the fuse section. All the practice M23s were painted yellow or grey; the grey with a black band painted on the top cone.

In 1941 a new variant of the practice grenade, called the Blank Hand Bomb M41, was introduced for use in combat drill scenarios. The top 2/3 was made from wood and the bottom 1/3 from a cardboard tube filled with black powder. Just like the yellow practice grenade it could be reloaded but it also had to be returned to the manufacturer for reassembly.

A blank Hand Bomb/Hand Grenade M23 made from wood and steel was also used but no pyrotechnics were involved and it was only used to practice throwing an object with similar weight and shape.

The grenade body consists of a 0.6 millimeter (0.0236 inch) thick steel cylinder with conical cups soldered to each end. The top cone houses the fuse and striker which are threaded into a central tube running through the whole length of the grenade body, ending up protruding from the bottom cone. The detonator designated Taendpatron M. 23 was enclosed inside the other end of the tube behind the knurled brass end cap.

The fuse, from which the striker protrudes, has four vent holes positioned 90 degrees apart in the housing. One end of a safety wire extends through a hole in the striker and the other end extends through a hole in the safety interrupter tube and the safety interrupter. The safety interrupter rests in a tubed T-section inserted in the centre of the well thereby separating the delay charge from the flash channel leading to the detonator. On the opposite side of the safety interrupter there is a rectangular cover plate soldered over the filler hole.

The interrupter assures that the grenade doesn’t detonate prematurely due to a defective delay charge or before it has been thrown to a safe distance.

If the delay charge burns through with the interrupter still in place, the spark will be stopped before reaching the 2-second delay flash channel. The interrupter has a channel drilled lengthwise about 3/4 deep and it ends up in a vent hole. This is so the hot expanding gasses from the burning fuse can escape via the channel and out through the vent hole, into the interrupter tube and out without making contact with the 2-second fuse below.

One of the obvious drawbacks to this design is that the grenade is extremely sensitive to water and even just moisture, hence every single grenade was packed in a wax sealed cardboard box. The moisture sensitivity problem in combination with the complex functionality and cumbersome design made it no match compared to the British and U.S. pineapple or the German M24 stick grenade.

In order to throw the grenade, a firm grip around the grenade body with the thumb resting on the interrupter, are advised. Then the safety wire going through the striker is pulled out and then the other end of the wire has to be pulled from the safety interrupter. Now hit the striker plate hard with the other hand or against any hard surface with enough force to overpower the creep spring holding the primer away from the fixed firing pin, thereby ramming the percussion primer into the firing pin, initiating the primer, which in turn ignites the delay charge. A hissing sound from the 3.5 second black powder delay fuse is heard and the lacquered paper covering the four vent holes will start burning away.

When thrown, the grenade will spin along the lengthwise axis like an American football, thereby causing the centrifugal power and gravity to pull out the interrupter from the grenade body. After about 3 meters (10 feet) of flight the interrupter will fall away and the grenade is now armed.

The grenade is filled with 150 grams (5.3 oz) of Trinitrotoluene (TNT), making the total weight of the grenade 350 grams (12.3 oz). The M23 offensive grenade has an effective range of only 4 meters (13 feet). The official safety distance is 60 meters (197 feet) but it is advised that unprotected personnel turn their back towards the detonation site or at least cover their faces.

The markings can vary from the number “23” or a letter “K” inside a 12 pointed star and “AK/B 1942” the number being the year of manufacture. Also the stenciled letters “AMA” can be found being the abbreviation for the Danish ammunition factory named AmMunitions Arsenalet. Additionally, many of them have a painted 3/4-inch wide yellow band.

The defensive Hand grenade M23 is basically a Hand Bomb M23 in disguise. Two fragmentation shells made from cast iron are attached to the grenade body with two wire loops. A cutout has been made in the two shells to make room for the safety interrupter and safety wire. According to the manual, the shells will fragment into 48 pieces weighing 3.2 grams (0.1129 oz) and 64 pieces weighing 2.3 grams (0.081 oz) the effective range being 10 to 15 meters (32 to 50 feet). The official safety distance is 150 meters (492 feet) but again it is advised that unprotected personnel turn their back towards the detonation site.

The shells weigh 150 grams (5.291 oz) each, almost doubling the weight of the grenade to a total of 650 grams (30 oz). The operational procedure for the defensive grenade is, for obvious reasons, exactly the same as for the offensive.

Taendpatron Model 1923/31/41 (Detonator)

The detonator M23 consist of a brass section containing a 2 second black powder delay charge and a copper section containing 2 grams (0.0705 oz) of mercury fulminate explosive charge. The copper section is crimped to the brass section and the open end of the brass tube is sealed with a bakelite cap.

In 1931, the mercury fulminate was discontinued and replaced with Tetryl and lead acid, which is a more stable and powerful explosive. Also, both sections were made from brass. The diameter of the bakelite cap was increased from 9 mm to 10 mm to avoid the possible mistake of inserting the detonator with the bakelite seal still in place. Due to these modifications the nomenclature was changed to Taendpatron Model 1931.

In 1941, it was found that the total delay time at 5.5 seconds (3.5 sec. + 2 sec.) was too long and a new Taendpatron (detonator) with a delay charge of only 0.5 second was introduced, reducing the total delay to 4 seconds (3.5 sec + 0.5 sec). This detonator received the nomenclature Taendpatron Model 1941.

Hand Bomb Model 1923 (Practice)

The practice version of the M23 offensive grenade came in two different colors. One is painted yellow to distinguish it from the live grenade, and the other is grey with a 10 mm (0.3937 inch) black painted band around the top cone. Apart from the color, it differs by being thicker in the construction as the cylindrical mid section of the grenade body is made from 2.5 mm (0.09 inch) and the cones from 1 mm (0.039 inch) thick metal versus the 0.6 mm (0.0236 inch) on the live grenade. The alteration was solely made for reasons of durability and had no influence on the functionality or use of the grenade. Furthermore, the practice grenades have no filler hole or cover plate. Two small holes, one just below the safety interrupter and another one on the opposite side on the top of the cone, are drilled in the body to further tell them apart from the live grenades. Both holes are approximately 2.5 mm (0.09 inch) in diameter. Additionally, the knurled brass end caps on practice grenades have a central 6 mm exhaust hole so the gas and smoke from the spotter charge can escape. The practice grenades also usually have a string of dots from a mandrel on the mid cylinder just below the safety interrupter. The number of dots can vary from just one to numerous and they serve the purpose of telling how many times this particular grenade has been reloaded. Two fragmentation shells can of course be attached to the practice grenade in order to simulate the defensive Hand Grenade M23.

The grenade can be armed with two different charges. A black powder spotting charge called Ovelses Taendpatron M23 (drill charge M23) can be inserted into the detonator channel covered by the brass end cap.

The spotting charge is an enclosed unit containing the second delay fuse (2 sec.) along with a small 0.7 gram (11 grain) black powder charge sealed off with a lump of wax. When the charge fires the wax seal, the expanding gases and smoke escape through the 6 mm central hole in the end cap. To follow up on the modified detonator M41 the delay was reduced from 2 seconds to 0.5 seconds and now renamed Ovelses Taendpatron M41 (drill Charge M41). The drill charge is painted red, stamped with the Danish letter “Ø” meaning “Drill” and made from brass.

The other charge is a Provetaendpatron M23 (Test charge M23), which consists of only the black powder 2 second delay element. The grenade could then be test fired and demonstrated inside a class room. The test charge’s outer appearance is similar to the drill charge except it has four holes drilled from the side and one from the bottom. In 1941, the delay was reduced to 0.5 second and renamed Provetaendpatron M41 (Test Charge M41).

Hand Bomb Model 1941

In 1941 a new practice grenade called Los Haandbombe M41 (Blank Hand Bomb M41) was introduced. The top 2/3 is made from wood and has a steel cylinder inserted in order to gain weight equivalent to the live grenade. The bottom 1/3 is made from a cardboard tube and filled with 30 grams (1.058 oz) of black powder. The safety interrupter is non functional and only serves the purpose of resembling the live one. Because of the black powder charge, a safety distance of 3 meters (10 feet) was set. Just like the yellow and grey practice grenades it could be reloaded but it had to be returned to the manufacturer for reassembling. The first versions were unpainted wood and the cardboard were painted black; later the wood was painted white and finally the last versions were painted grey all over except for the black band around the top.

Hand Bomb/Hand Grenade Model 1923 (Blind)

A Blind Hand Bomb and Hand grenade M23 made from wood and steel were also used but no pyrotechnics were involved and it was only used to practice throwing an object with similar weight and shape as the live ones. It has a steel plate in each end. The plate on top has the word “OP” (UP) stamped, and a steel button is protruding from the side simulating the safety interrupter. The Blind Hand Bomb M23 weighs 350 grams (12.345 oz) and measures 10.5 cm (4.133 inch) long and 5.7 cm (2.244 inch) wide. The Blind Hand Grenade M23 weighs 650 grams (22.928 oz) and measures 10.5 cm (4.133 inch) long and 6.5 cm (2.559 inch) wide. The blind is painted white for ease of spotting and recovering in the terrain. Other versions are known to exist and cheap ones have been observed also made from wood but they had a 4 cm (1.57 inch) broad and 5 mm (0.1969 inch) thick iron ring attached to the body with a bolt that doubles as the interrupter knob. The grenades were painted silver grey.

The M23 and its variants have been obsolete for many years now. Exactly how many were used during World War II is unknown although a good portion certainly were used by the resistance movement. Unfortunately the Germans took over the production during the occupation and adopted it in the Wehrmacht and gave it the nomenclature respectively “Handgranaten 342(d) and 343(d).”

Almost 20 years ago in December 1989, in Operation Just Cause, the US invaded Panama in an effort to depose and capture General Manuel Antonio Noriega. As a teen, the author had the opportunity to visit the original Comandancia installations and thirty years later had a chance to visit the new installations of the Public Force built over the ashes of the former Comandancia. During this visit the Head of the Department of Public Relations of the Panamanian Public Force, Didacio L. Camargo, assured me that the troops observed in the corridors of the base were just police agents who had returned from operations in the mountains – after all, the Panamanian Defense Forces ceased to exist in December 1989. These police agents sure looked as seasoned soldiers dressed in OD fatigues, jungle hats and boots, assault vests and AKMs. The equipment is needed in order to patrol the vast and dangerous Darien jungle that borders Colombia and the broken terrain along the Costa Rican side. These were members of the Frontier Police; an elite outfit trained and equipped to operate deep in the forest in charge of planning, organizing, directing and executing actions and operations to guarantee the territorial national integrity.

Between 1953 and 1983, military and police duties fell on the National Guard. With the passing of Law No. 20 in 1983, the National Guard was divided into police, territorial, air and maritime forces, and then, on December 23 of the same year, Law No. 44 was passed transforming the agency into the Defense Forces (PDF). The US launched Just Cause on December 20, 1989, bringing to a sudden halt the development of the Panamanian military forces. The Panamanian Public Force (PPF) was created under Executive Decree No. 38 on February 10, 1990 to replace the PDF. The PPF is a law enforcement focused institution comprising the National Police (PNP), a Judicial Technical Police (PTJ), an Institutional Protection Service, the National Maritime Service (SMN) and the National Air Service (SAN). A constitutional amendment passed in 1994 abolished the military. Law enforcement units that are separated from the PPF, such as the Technical Judicial Police, also are directly subordinate to civilian authorities. Drug traffic and protection of the Panama Canal have become a major concern of this new entity, and today, the agencies involved in drug law enforcement are the Panamanian National Police (PNP), the Technical Judicial Police (PTJ), the National Maritime Service (SMN), the National Air Service (SAN), the Customs Service, the Joint Information Coordination Center, and the Drug Prosecutor’s Office.

The Panamanian Public Force

The invasion smashed the Defense Forces and most of the captured equipment was destroyed. The US would not allow another military establishment to be organized in Panama. However, the US-Panamanian Treaty required a force to protect the Canal to be in place before the transfer of 2000, and this originated rumors that the transfer would not take place. Against all odds, the transfer did take place as scheduled, and from the ashes of the Defense Forces the government created the Public Force (PPF) under the Ministry of Government and Justice.

Of the PPF, the Servicio de Protección Institucional (SPI) responds directly to the Office of the President, and was established in 1990 by Carlos Barés. The SPI deploys some 600 men, well-trained and equipped with HK MP5, Glocks and other equipment, for the protection of VIPs and intervention tasks. They are distinguished by the use of black uniforms.

The PTJ (Policía Técnica Judicial) operates under the control of the Panamanian Supreme Court since 1999. The PTJ is Panama’s equivalent of the U.S. FBI and has a small anti-narcotics unit with some 80 members responsible for enforcing national narcotics laws. The PTJ is the lead agency for conducting chemical and criminal investigations, including illegal and pharmaceutical drugs, and it has a proactive task of monitoring chemical shipments imported to, exported from, and transiting Panama. The DEA has a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the PTJ.

Panama’s Customs Service functions as a fiscal organization under the Panamanian Treasury Department. Customs enforces contraband laws and collects import duties. Criminal violations involving other matters, when uncovered by the Customs Service, are referred to the already mentioned PTJ.

Today the Ministry of Government and Justice dedicates some $159.1 millions to security concerns. The National Police (PNP) is its main element of the Ministry’s PPF, deploying some 15,000 agents nationwide. The invading US forces captured between 16 and 19 armored vehicles, but Mr. L. Camargo tells us that the PPF lacks any such vehicle, and the force remains equipped with Infantry equipment only.

By September 1, 2004, the National Police (PNP) had been under the command of Gustavo Pérez. Its forces in Panama City had been divided into Panamá Metro Este, Panamá Metro Norte, and Panamá Metro Oeste, and police precincts at ZP Bocas del Toro, ZP Chiriquí, ZP Darién, ZP Herrera, ZP San Miguelito, ZP Arraijam, ZP Coclé, ZP Cora, ZP Colón, ZP Kuna Ayala, ZP Los Santos, and ZP Veraguas. Additional related tasks are trusted to the Penal Security Police, the Crown Control Unit, Children and Teens Police, the Information and Investigation Direction, and Transit Operations. The Canal Zone Police in charge of the waterway and the other specialty units mentioned above add to the operational status of the PNP. The Service Support Group comprises three units. Of these, the Motorized Police Unit, established in 1993 at Albrook and trained by Venezuelan advisers is equipped with Suzuki DR-350 motorbikes. The unit is considered an elite outfit, and its members are designated Linces, and sport either OD or black fatigues, assault vests, protective helmets, and carry either Uzi or Peruvian MGP-84 Submachine Guns. Under the Specialty Services Direction we found the Maintenance & Riverine and Coastal Operations Unit, the PNP’s own naval flotilla equipped with 10 launches and based at Building 807 from the former Kobe Military Base. Under the same Direction we found the Air Police Unit, a separate entity from the SAN, and established on December 4, 2002, with a MD500E PNP HP1 donated by Taiwan. The Border National Direction keeps troops along both borders. The PNP was equipped with a few old T65 rifles, but now the AKM and variants have been widely distributed along with a few support weapons. The Special Operations Units carry the MP5 and HK53 SMGs.

Without a doubt, the Colombian border remains as a major security concern. Prior to the US invasion of 1989, the Colombian border was watched by elements of the Peace Battalion and the 3rd Diablos Rojos Company. US Army troops took over the tasks momentarily and then it passed to the hands of contractors for about 3 months until the establishment of the Chiriquí Police Zone. However, incursions by Colombian FARC guerrillas were detected at Choco-Urabá region and in January 1993, FARC guerrillas kidnaped missionaries along Púcuro. By October 1996, Colombian paramilitaries had attacked Armila, at Kuna Yala. These armed activities forced the establishment of the Darién Police Zone in 1997, which deployed a specially trained unit of 50 commandos to chase bandits up in the mountains. The problems persisted, and on April 20, 1999, the FARC attacked Sapzurro, followed by another attack on November 19, against Bonga, also at Kuna Yala, forcing a reinforcement of police along Comarca de San Blas. On April 11, 2003, the governments of Panama and Colombia signed the Combitrom Agreement (Comisión Binacional Fronteriza), a Police Cooperation Treaty to increase police and military presence along the border, and today the border police division deploys considerable assets.

The SAN, National Air Service, is responsible for protecting Panama’s air space and conducting aerial patrols. It also provides crop eradication support, humanitarian flights, aerial intelligence, and reconnaissance support to the various law enforcement entities of Panama. The SAN has 393 personnel, providing support for counterdrug operations, and it deploys a platoon conforming the Unidad Aérea de Fuerzas Especiales (UAFE), providing for intervention tasks. The SAN was established in 1990, and it operates from Air Stations at Santiago and David. The 1st Squadron operates six Aviocar C212s; the 2nd Squadron uses UH-1Hs, and a single Bell 407 (SAN 210) donated by Taiwan. After the US invasion of 1989, ENAER (Chile) received a contract for 1.19 millions Balboas (equivalent to the same in US dollars) for the recovery and overhaul of seven T-35 Pilláns, and today the aircraft are flown by the 3rd Squadron.

The SMN (National Maritime Service) is responsible for patrolling Panama’s waterways, operating 37 patrol craft to patrol Panama’s 2,800 kilometers of shoreline and 1,480 islands. US sources indicate that the service endeavors to maintain three patrol craft in the coastal waters of the Chiriqui Province (Pacific), and two patrol craft in the Bocas del Toro (Atlantic-Caribbean) area, to enforce economic and environmental laws as well as providing some deterrence to a full range of illegal activities. The SMN traces its origins to the Departamento de Operaciones Marinas established by Torrijos in 1968; this becomes the Naval Force in 1983, moving operations to Fort Amador. During Just Cause, US forces sank the patrol boats P-202 Presidente Porras in Balboa and P-101 Zarati at the Manzanillo Bay. One of the boats was recovered later.

With the establishment of the SMN in 1990, the government chose the Naval Base at Largo Remo as the first Naval HQ. The SMN developed from that point on, and now accounts for some 600 elements operating from 6 bases and 10 observation posts. In 1991 the SMN occupied installations at Flamenco Island, and in 1998, the former Marine Barracks in the Cocolí Naval Base. A little later, the service expands to Pier 3, at the old Rodman Naval Station, converting into the Vasco Nuñez de Balboa Naval Base, and the Atlantic Flotilla becomes operational at Coco Solo. Later, the installations at former Fort Sherman become the Cristóbal Colón Naval Base, and Naval Observation Posts (POM – Puestos de Observación Marítimos) are established at Taboga, San Miguel, Punta Cocos, Saboga, Pedro González and Otoque Oriente & Occidente as well as the Chimán District in Chimán, Brujas and Gonzalo Vásquez. The Service has established the Cocolí Naval Base Communication Center with the task of coordinating the maritime services.

The SMN has a Marine outfit, which has received training and equipment from the Spanish Civil Guard. The Panamanian Marines and Naval Commandos have their origins with the 1st Compañía de Infantería Naval of the FDP, which operated from Coco Solo, along with the Pelotón de Comandos de Marina (Naval Commandos Platoon) from Fort Amador. Both outfits would be disbanded soon after Just Cause, and replaced with elements of the new SMN. Today, the Maritime Service deploys a Grupo de Operaciones Subacuáticas (Diving Operations Group) under capitán de Corbeta Carlos Quiroz Abrego, qualified for Tactical Diving Operations. In addition, the Naval Infantry element, Infamar (Infantería de Marina), comprises a Grupo de Operaciones Especiales (GOE) and a Grupo de Seguridad. The Special Forces Group is charged with drug interdiction and boarding.

The SMN has received considerable assistance from the US, including a modified landing craft delivered in May 2004, and baptized SMN “Gral. Esteban Huertas” A-402, which arrived from Roosevelt Road Naval Base in Puerto Rico to Base Naval Vasco Nuñez de Balboa, in Panama. With funds from the US Embassy six “Eduardoño” style go-fast boats were rebuilt and donated to the SMN in 2004. Another four boats followed these, and all have new gasoline tanks, twin 200hp Yamaha engines, and radars, Global Positioning Systems (GPS), among other significant enhancements. They have a maximum speed of over 35 knots and its radar has a 12 nautical mile range. Two additional units followed in 2005, along with $50,000 in modern counter-narcotic equipment, and five tactical military vehicles for the PNP, and 18 heavy-duty vehicles for the Public Force.

The SMN was under the command of Ricardo Traad Porras, but in a change of fortunes, Traad Porras was first removed and soon after arrested, in mid-2007 accused of money-laundering. Several other officers were also arrested after a DEA sting operation.

The U.S. Coast Guard Attaché’s Office and the DEA have worked with the GOP to conduct multiple large-scale maritime law enforcement operations to interdict drug shipments in Panama. The operations also provide training in hot pursuit and the boarding of vessels in accordance with international law. These exercises allow both U.S. and Panamanian personnel to gain experience in developing communication, aviation, and search plans. Realizing that the most important material of the SMN flotillas are the five Point class vessels transferred from the USCG, every two years several Latin American countries meet in Panama under exercise Round Out to learn techniques in operations and maintenance of the Points. In order of developing a comprehensive defense of the Canal, the Panamanian government and the US counterpart sponsor a bi-annual exercise attended by Chile, Canada, Ecuador, France, Colombia, Dominican Republic, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Honduras, Panama, and the United States and designated Panamax. The goal of the exercise is to prepare for the execution, development of standardization and maritime interdiction techniques, rules of engagement, security, and develop command and control of multinational forces in case of emergency.

There are a few firearms that are immediately recognizable, even at a glance, and need no formal introduction. These include, but are not limited to the Uzi, AK-47, M16 and the Thompson. Manufactured in great numbers, utilized worldwide, and immortalized on film, these guns are known even to those who have no interest or background in the firearms community. Due to the vast number of troops returning from tours in the desert regions of the globe, and the media (as well as Hollywood) coverage of these events, there seems to be another “up and comer” to add to this list; the vz. 61 Scorpion.

No stranger to members of the gun culture, the Czechoslovakian Scorpion Submachine Pistol is quickly identified by its unique wooden pistol grip and square receiver. Designed in the late 1950s and chambered in 7.65 Browning (.32 ACP) this easily concealable firearm boasts a rate of fire in excess of 1,000 rounds per minute. Depending on the level of concealability desired it can be utilized with a 10-round or 20-round magazine. While some claim to have little use for this style of tiny submachine gun, the Scorpion handily fulfills its intended role of a basic pistol capable of carry in a holster with the option of fully automatic fire.

Welcome to America

Due to the 1968 GCA and 1986 ban on the manufacture of domestic machine guns, civilian legal variants of these unique and desirable firearms are extremely limited at best. At least they were until Czechpoint, Inc. of Knoxville, Tennessee established a distributorship for their newly manufactured, BATFE approved, semiautomatic version, the SA vz. 61 Scorpion.

Manufactured by D-Technik a.s. in the Czech Republic, these new variants have been redesigned in a semiautomatic-only capacity to allow import and sale for civilian purchase in the United States. Design modifications to the manufacturing process of the original SMG that meet BATFE legal standards include the semiautomatic-only fire control group, removal of the rate reducer and modification of three parts, including a new safety. Thanks to Czechpoint, those who desire a variant of this famous machine pistol now have an option.

When Czechpoint contacted SAR we immediately embraced the idea of a T&E on the new SA vz. 61 Scorpion. We are always interested in military and historically significant firearms, especially when they are available in any configuration to the general population. This example of “Trickle Down Weaponomics” illustrates the ingenuity of those in our industry to bring more firearm designs to more people, while complying with the numerous laws in place at all times. Since the original Scorpion pistol was never designed or intended to be offered in a semiautomatic-only variant, Czechpoint and D-Technik deserve credit for their innovative new design and market application.

In an attempt to get the whole picture, arrangements were made to test several variants of these pistols. A standard pistol as offered from the manufacturer, as well as an NFA Short Barreled Rifle (SBR) version were ordered for testing. We also obtained a registered select-fire version for comparison in both feel and function. Although Czechpoint only offers these in the standard pistol configuration, they have a working relationship with IN RANGE, a Kodak, TN based Title II Manufacturer to supply the SBR version should the purchaser desire one in that configuration. The SBR tested in this article was indeed an IN RANGE conversion. Troy and Christy Sellars of IN RANGE are well-known, long time members of the NFA community with a long history in manufacturing. While they are best known for their immaculate AK/Krinkov conversions, their high-end work reputation translated quite well into the SA vz. 61 we received.

When we received the Scorpions for our testing, it was immediately apparent that these were delivered from a professional establishment. The packaging is not something that is typically worthy of noting in a T&E article, but in this case we will make an exception. Each SA vz. 61 is shipped in a custom fit hard plastic case. Each case is custom fit for (and filled with) the pistol, a nylon holster, a holster belt, a nylon dual magazine pouch, and 3 magazines; two of 20-round capacity and one 10-round magazine. Also included is a professional CD filled with information about the weapon system including a printable owner’s manual in PDF format, historical information and information about the original submachine guns. There is also a holster suspension belt included, giving the user the option of wearing the holster on a belt in a traditional manor or suspended from the main belt and attached to the upper leg for stability with an additional (included) belt.

The Basics

The fit and finish of the pistols received was excellent. The upper receiver portion of those tested is a dark black paint and matches the finish of the barrel, and magazines. On the SBR version, it also matched the finish of the stock. The frame on our test models was blued but is also available with a Nickel finish if desired. The grips on our test models were the standard military versions with several vertical grooves covering both sides, the front and rear of the grips. Also available are a composite material “Police” grip and two fancy checkered models, one in Walnut and the other in Beech.

The barrel length is 4.53 inches and extends approximately 1.5 inches out the front of the receiver. The rear sight is an “L” sight that flips to 2 positions, preset from the factory for 75 meters and 150 meters. The front sight is a protected post and the “ears” of the sight double as the locking mechanism for the top folding stock on the SMG and the SBR models. When closed, the stock simply locks over the ears of the front sight and a gentle amount of upward pressure will unlock it so it may be extended. When fully extended, the stock locks open into the locking mechanism at the rear of the SBR receiver. On the pistol version, the rear of the receiver is smooth and does not include this portion of the stock assembly. To unlock the extended stock, it is compressed at the rear of the receiver so it no longer engages the locking lug and may be folded back over the top.

The vz. 61 Scorpion (in all configurations) fires from a closed bolt. The safety/selector is located on the left side of the receiver immediately above the pistol grip. It can be operated with one hand (thumb) if the shooter is right-handed. The magazine release is located on the left side of the receiver to the rear of the magazine. The vz. 61 uses a bolt hold-open mechanism that engages after the last round is fired or may be manually engaged by depressing a button directly in front of the trigger guard to the rear of the magazine, also on the left side of the pistol.

Live Fire Testing

While the sights are marked as 75 meters and 150 meters respectively, we thought it made more sense to shoot at a target at a more reasonable distance for a .32 ACP pistol with a sub 5-inch barrel. We decided on 20 yards and completed all testing at that distance. After a few test rounds for a simple function check we proceeded to start recording data. First was checking the muzzle velocity followed by off-hand accuracy shooting of all three models and a quick test of the rate of fire of the select-fire model. Ammo utilized was commercially available Sellier & Bellot 73-grain FMJ.

Noticed by all testers was the extremely light trigger pull. Many semiautomatic-only variants of submachine guns have a heavy and long pull. Trigger squeeze seems to not usually be as high of a priority with these guns as it may be with a traditional “target pistol.” Because it was so obviously light, we decided to measure the pull with a Lyman Electronic Trigger Pull Gauge. The average trigger pull measured between 3 and 3.5 pounds. For comparison, the FN FiveseveN pistol measures almost two times as much on the same gauge.

All testing was done in 10-round groups (complete compact magazines) without the aid of a rest at the previously mentioned distance of 20 yards. Targets were standard Green B27 Targets with an 8-inch Birchwood Casey “Shoot-N-C Target” overlaid for increased visibility with a nice red dot for a consistent point of aim. The first vz. 61 Scorpion tested in the accuracy portion was the standard pistol configuration. The 9 shots that landed “in the black” measured 4.5 inches with a flyer (first shot) bringing the overall size of 6.5 inches. For a distance of 20 yards, off-hand with a non target pistol, we were quite pleased in the capabilities of this model.

Next was the IN RANGE registered SBR. We considered it a “no brainer” that the next group would be significantly smaller given the extra steadiness of a shoulder stock. That is, at least until the first shooter readied the gun and shouldered it to begin shooting. It was quickly remembered that the design of this system was to be concealable, not comfortable. With an extended stock length of only 10.5 inches, the rear sight was about 2.5 inches from the shooters eye instead of the distance of 19 inches when held off-hand. With a firearm sight radius of less than 6 inches to begin with, this only gives the front sight a distance of 8.5 inches from the eye when using the stock. Concealable? Yes. Optimum for easy target engagement? No. Effective anyway? Most Certainly. As the focus was concentrated on the front post (as best as could be), the first 10-shot group with the stock extended was fired. The results were amazingly encouraging and repeatable in every test. Even though the comfort of shooting in this small package would not receive a high mark, the results of the shooting, which is ultimately the key goal of such an exercise, would score much higher than expected. Like the first 10-shot group with the pistol, the first round was a flyer. The remaining 9 shots landing in the black measured a maximum spread of 3.25 inches. When the first round flyer was equated, the overall group opened to a disappointing 7.5 inches. Subsequent group testing supplied the same results and those without a human-error flyer scored quite nicely.

Knowing it was not going to record the same type of accuracy as the semiautomatic versions, it was still necessary to repeat the tests with a 10-round magazine in the select fire version to see how it actually would perform. First, the cyclic rate was checked with a PACT IV timer and determined to run at an average of 1,082 rounds per minute. At such a high cyclic rate, not many controlled bursts could be fired before the magazine was empty; but we averaged three bursts per magazine – sometimes only two and sometimes up to four. For this test, the point of aim was simply center of mass on the B27 target as the little Birchwood Casey target didn’t really seem as appropriate for this type of test as an actual silhouette target. In select fire burst shooting, the average 10-round magazine yielded 7 rounds in critical areas with 3 rounds in non-critical areas – a somewhat impressive performance.

It should be noted that another unique feature of the vz. 61 Scorpion is the path of ejection. Neither left-handed or right-handed shooter needs to worry about the ejection path hitting them in the face. Both, however, should be concerned with their cranium. These guns eject straight up and, depending on the shooting angle of the impact area, usually rain brass casings straight back down. While something that most people got quite a chuckle about and made this little gun even more fun to shoot, occasionally a few casings would find a home inside the collar of the shooter. Attention should be paid to this interesting feature as an unexpected hot shell casing in the neck may cause an instinctive jerking reaction with a resultant possible accidental discharge.

Summary

Czechpoint, Inc. and D-Technik a.s. have done a great service for the recreational shooter and military firearms collector by importing and distributing the SA vz. 61 Scorpion. A number of returning servicemen will no-doubt want a version of this unique gun they saw during their recent deployments. Many military gun collectors who had once considered this firearm desirable but unobtainable will now have an option to add one to their collection. At a reasonable MSRP beginning at $599, they are not priced out of reach for this type of firearm and the ammo it uses is commercially readily available. The performance well exceeded our expectations at all levels. While attending a local shoot there was a small, steady line of those waiting to shoot these unique but seldom handled guns and all left with a smile and an inquiry of the selling price. Whether a serious shooter or a collector, the SA vz. 61 Scorpion should be an exciting addition to any collection. At the time of this writing these are in stock and ready for immediate shipment.

For those interested in having their Scorpion pistol done as an SBR like the one in this article, contact IN RANGE using the information below. At the time of this writing their price for converting your pistol on your approved BATFE Form 1 is $175 including the stock. Turn around time is usually inside four weeks or so. If you desire purchasing an SBR directly and having it transferred to a Class III Dealer on a BATFE Form 3 instead of doing your own Form 1 conversion, please contact Dan Brown at Czechpoint, Inc for pricing and information.

What’s Next?

As this article was going to print SAR was informed that a 3-lug adapter and ½x28 threaded sleeve is in the works for those who wish to suppress their Scorpion.

Also, keep your eyes open for a future issue of Small Arms Review where we will be testing the Czechpoint, Inc. vz. 58 rifles. The guns are in-house and testing is almost ready to commence.

Technical Specifications SA vz. 61 Scorpion Pistol

Caliber: 7.65 Browning (.32 ACP)
Barrel length: 4.5 inches (115 mm)
Rifling: 6-groove, 1 in 13.8 inches (350 mm)
Sights:
Front – Protected post
Rear – Flip type, 2 position:75 and 150 meters
Sight Radius: 6.5 inches (165 mm)
Overall length: 10.6 inches (270 mm)
Weight, empty: 2.43 pounds (1.10kg)
Magazine capacity: 10 rounds or 20 rounds
MSRP (pistol): $599.00

Sources

CzechPoint, Inc.
103 Stone Road
Knoxville, TN 37920
Tel: (865) 247-0184
Fax: (865) 247-0185
E-Mail: dan.brown@czechpoint-usa.com
Website: www.czechpoint-usa.com

IN RANGE
Troy and Christy Sellars
1048 Eagle View Drive
Kodak, TN 37764
Phone/Fax: (865) 932-6509
E-mail: inrange97@aol.com

Throughout the years, flashlights were considered a separate entity from firearms – something to be held in the other hand. Around the time U.S. military personnel entered combat operations in Somalia, troops began to realize it would be advantageous to have the flashlights mounted to the rifle to keep the other hand free to reload the weapon, clear malfunctions or whatever else might need be done. So, troops began to tape small flashlights to the handguards of their weapons. Two specific needs were shown at this point. One was a method to mount accessories to the rifle with some type of rail system. The other was a secure way to mount a flashlight amongst other accessories to the rifle. The first inspired A.R.M.S., Inc. to develop their Rigid Frame System (later evolved into the SIR) and C. Reed Knight, Jr. to introduce his first RIS (Rail Interface System) and later RAS (Rail Adapter System). With the final standardization of the Swan/Mil-Std-1913 rail and the then RIS system, now flashlights could be easily mounted to the handguards of the M16/M4 series of weapons.

In 1988, Insight was founded in a basement workshop. Early products were rail mounted lasers and illuminators. One of the first prestigious contracts for Insight Tech-Gear would come from a revolutionary program of the newly developed United States Special Operations Command.

Illumination 101

There are many applications for illumination in a tactical situation. It may be for illuminating an entire room, outdoor use where higher brightness is needed, or perhaps infrared for covert use. The most common form of light is incandescent. This consists of a bulb utilizing a filament. There are several variations of this type of bulb that make it brighter and have more life. Filament is fairly cheap making it easy to maintain. The filaments used with Xenon gas is somewhat less expensive than the LED (to be discussed later). The tint offered off of a filament bulb has a yellow-orangeish color to it making it a little friendlier for identifying features of a person at a quick glance. Probably the most serious downfall to the bulb is that when this type of power is utilized (70+ Lumens), the bulbs burn pretty hot – enough that if accidentally left on in a nylon bag, it could melt the nylon.

The other and growing popular illumination option is called LED or Light Emitting Diode. This technology became widely available in the late 1990s. This technology, although slightly more expensive, offers major benefits. The diode is much more durable with a life of 50 to 100,000 hours and the LED components are difficult to damage with external shock. LED has overtaken the efficiency standard of incandescent lighting systems. LEDs produce more light per watt than incandescent bulbs. The battery life is slightly better than the incandescent bulb and does not get anywhere near as hot. Due to these factors, it is not necessary to have back-up bulbs on hand. The LED has one minor trade off. They are more sensitive to malfunction under extreme ambient temperatures. There must be a proper heat-sink to maintain operating temperatures. The light from the LED is a bluish color. The bluish color can hide features of a person’s face as well as color of skin identification at a quick glance. Colors in general may be perceived differently with LED illumination that would not be altered with sunlight or incandescent illumination. However another incredibly useful use for the LED is target disorientation. When configured to do so, the LED can function in a strobing manner which when aimed at a target will disorient them and often will give just enough time to subdue the target before they can get their eyes refocused to do harm.

Insight Tech Gear Flashlights and Tactical Lights

Insight Tech Gear offers both incandescent as well as LED flashlights and tactical lights. Many models are manufactured of aluminum and are hard coat anodized for tough handling in all sorts of weather. Insight offers some different hand held LED flashlights. The H1X Proxima uses one Duracell Ultra (123) lithium battery with an LED output of 80 Lumens. This light is compact and could easily fit on one’s pocket or on a utility belt. The sample light put out an incredible amount of light for such a small package. The Proxima has settings for constant light, momentary as well as strobe capabilities. The H2X Arcturus is a rechargeable LED light. The H2X has an LED output of 120+ Lumens and the H3X Regulus has an astonishing 160+ Lumens of output. This model utilizes three Duracell Ultra (123) lithium batteries. All models have an activation button in the rear that activates and selects momentary, constant, strobe and dim settings. The LED flashlight provided for test and evaluation was the H3X Regulus. This LED flashlight can be held as a flashlight or placed on a mount and mounted to a rifle or any other type of long arm. There is a pressure activated button on the rear for moment or continuous illumination. The Regulus has settings for strobe, momentary, lock-out and continuous use of illumination. The LED output is 200+ Lumens of light and is powered by two 123 6volt batteries. The run time for the batteries is approximately 90 minutes on high power versus 400 hours on low power. The case of the light is made from aluminum alloy and is hard coat anodized to a black, tan or olive drab finish.

Additionally, the XTI Procyon is a module which will attach to the rail of a pistol or long arm which puts the LED into a tactical light. This gives a minimum LED output of 125 Lumens. A toggle switch on the rear allows the LED to perform in constant, momentary and strobe modes. There is a significant tactical application to the strobing features whether it be a LED in a flashlight configuration or weapons mounted. The strobing LED light will disorient a suspect for up to 2 seconds. This could take the place of a flashbang grenade (which serves the same purpose but on a much larger scale) under many entry circumstances. When taking a hostile suspect into custody, the strobing light could disorient them long enough to get them in cuffs and stop them from being a threat without the use of pepper spray or deadly physical force. The body is hard coat anodized aluminum for added strength. The rail interface is adjustable to fit any of the currently produced Mil-Std 1913 rails. The sample light was placed on a .45 Auto caliber Beretta Px4 pistol.

Insight has a host of various incandescent illumination lights. The M3 and M3X have a peak output of 90 and 125 Lumens respectively and can be attached to either a handgun or a long arm. This is as simple as switching the back plate. Pistol will utilize toggle steady-on or a contoured pistol remote back plate. For use with a long arm, a long gun back plate is used which has mode switch with three positions (off, mom and on). A pressure pad is plugged into the rear of the back plate.

The X2/X2L Series Xenon tactical light is designed to be installed on rails of sub compact pistols. The activation switch is a toggle style and is powered by a single CR2 3 volt battery. The peak output is 40+ Lumens.

The M2 UTL (Universal Tactical Light) was designed for H&K for use with their USP pistol. This mount is designed specifically for the USP pistol and utilizes two 123 6-volt batteries for a peak output of 90+ Lumens. This was the first rail-mounted tactical light in the industry that offered blinding illumination which was actuated by a single finger and was rail mounted and installed without tools.

The vast majority of the Insight Tech-Gear’s LE/military lines of lights are tactical lights. This means the lights are designed to be mounted on the firearm. There are models specifically for mounting the lights on handguns as well as ones which will mount on any Mil-Std 1913 rail.

The Laser Aiming Module (LAM)

After all U.S. special operations units were brought under one umbrella, one of their first programs in August of 1991 was the OHWS (Offensive Handgun Weapon System). Due to the numerous sidearms utilized by the operators, it was conceived as an offensive weapon system including a pistol, laser aiming module and a suppressor. The pistol part of the competition would come down to Colt and Heckler & Koch with H&K being the winner. The new pistol was designated the MK23 Mod 0.

Insight would be selected as the winner for the LAM (Laser Aiming Module). The LAM would have a focusable visible illuminator, an infrared aiming laser, visible aiming laser, infrared laser illuminator and would be powered by two 123 6-volt batteries. The visible laser is a <5 mW power with a wavelength of 640±40nm and the infrared laser is .05-.10 mW power and has a wavelength of 830±50nm. The Infrared Illuminating Laser has a .15 – .65 mW power and has a wavelength of 830±50nm. Infrared lasers and illumination lasers are used in conjunction with night vision devices. The benefit of this is that nobody other than those wearing the night vision devices will be able to see the laser pointer or the illumination. This is useful for a commander to point out a target to his team or to take out targets quickly and accurately in low level to complete darkness. The visible white light illuminator has a brightness of >60 Lumens.

The LAM weighs 5.0 ounces and has a dial on the left side of the unit to permit the user to select the mode that he wants to use. These modes are IR with IR Illuminator, IR laser pointer only, OFF, VIS laser and VIS laser with Illuminator. There is a toggle switch beneath the unit that with a slight push to the side will get momentary on and all the way to either side will get continuous on. The lasers are adjusted individually by an Allen head wrench. However, the unit comes with an integral adjuster tool which is stowed in the face of the unit above the white light source. At the time of the introduction of the Mk23 Mod 0, there was no standardized rail. H&K developed their own rail and the LAM would mount to the rail and held in place by a thumb screw.

Insight Tactical Laser Aimers/Pointers

Although first applied to handguns, these universal units were fitted to long arms as well. Lasers have proven themselves in both the law enforcement as well as military area of operations. Lasers have many applications. As an aiming device, it enables the user to hit targets from any position without having to use the sights. If a SWAT officer is standing behind a shield, he will be able to reach his firearm around the side of the shield and use the laser to aim. For target identification, commanders are able to mark targets for the team so everyone is after the same guy. Lasers can also be used as intimidation in order to diffuse a situation before deadly force is deployed. Sometimes just the appearance of that dot on the target will be enough for the target to surrender. Another important, but often overlooked application to lasers, is in training. The laser can help a firearms instructor to see what problems the student is having. The laser will not be zeroed to point of aim. The magazine will have dummy rounds randomly placed unknown to the shooter. When the dummy is attempted to fire, the laser will show the instructor if the student is jerking or pulling and to what side. This will assist in corrective action. Many modules combine the laser pointer with the white light source.

Insight initially designed the LAM that grew into several generations of laser and illuminators. The M6 and M6X laser illuminators consist of both a laser and a white light. The white light is a 90+ and 125+ Lumen output light respectively with a 640±40nm laser pointer. They can be used simultaneously or separately. The visible illumination can be focused by rotating the bezel and the laser is adjusted by an Allen key. The back plate is determined by whether the unit will be mounted on a pistol or a long arm. If the unit is to be mounted on a pistol, a back plate with a toggle will be used. Lightly pressing activates the momentary power and all the way continuous is activated. To mount on a long arm, the long arm back plate is utilized. This contains a switch with three positions (off, mom and on). The laser has another switch behind it with settings for off, visible laser, illumination only and visible laser and illumination simultaneously. A pressure pad is plugged into the rear of the back plate. The pressure pad is the attached to the vertical pistol grip of handguard. The sights can be attached either by a Mil-Std 1913 mount, a universal mount or a Rail-Grabber. Options also include Bikini filters in IR, red and opaque.

The X2 Laser tactical light and laser combination is designed to be installed on rails of sub compact pistols. The activation switch is a toggle style and is powered by a single CR2 3-volt battery. The peak output is 40+ Lumens. The laser is again activated with a toggle switch. The visible laser is a <5 mW power with a wavelength of 640±40nm. The laser point of impact is adjusted with an Allen key.

The LBS (Laser Borelight System)

This is one of those products that should be in any armory whether it is LE, military or gun shop. The sample provided for this article was put to use immediately and saves many rounds and a lot of time (especially on a freezing New York February day).

The LBS is a laser boresighting system that is used to boresight optics, lasers, as well as iron sights for 5.56mm, 7.62mm and .50 caliber firearms. This 4.5 ounce device is attached to a mandrel of the appropriate caliber bore and placed in the muzzle of the firearm. The activation dial has four settings (off, goggle, low and pulse). The goggle setting has the Borelight beam operate in a low power mode that is useful with night vision devices for night time zeroing. The low mode has the Borelight operate in a low power mode that is useful in low light conditions. The pulse setting allows the Borelight beam to turn on momentarily when the weapon is dry fired. The laser has a wavelength of 650±30 nm with a peak power of 0.9mW.

The provided test and evaluation M6X was boresighted with the LBS. The sight was placed on a SIR rail system on a Colt M4 carbine. The LBS was placed in the muzzle and the laser sight was adjusted to the boresight. At the range at 25 meters, the projectiles landed less than 1 inch to the left of the point of aim A couple of corrective clicks and done. The provided test and evaluation ISM-V (Integrated Sighting Module-Visible) was mounted on a LWRC M6A1 rifle and the LBS was used to boresight that unit as well. Both the laser and red dot on the ISM-V impacted a little more than an inch to the left at 25 meters. Another quick adjustment and done.

The Integrated Sighting Module

Red dot-type reflex sights have gained overwhelming popularity with military and law enforcement users. Currently, the most popular reflex sights are the AimPoint Comp2 and the new Comp 4 and the Trijicon ACOG reflex sight. The first uses batteries and the other is powered by a tritium lamp. Insight took an approach that uses both an optical reflex sight as well as a laser. Why not put both in one?

The ISM (Integrated Sighting Module) is just that, a combination of both a red dot (<2 MOA) reflex sight as well as a laser. The module fits onto any Mil-Std 1913 rail. Powered by a DL123 battery, the reflex sight features a red dot similar to that of the AimPoint Comp-series military reflex sights. The red dot can be made brighter or dimmer by adjusting the + and – buttons on top of the sight. There are a total of 18 brightness settings. The red dot is adjusted by elevation and windage adjustment screws. The battery life is approximately 1,500 hours for the red dot sight.

Also integrated into the unit is a laser sight. This red laser sight is simultaneously zeroed in when the red dot sight is so there is no need to zero them both. The laser can be activated with a button on the left side of the module or a remote switch can be plugged into the face of the unit. There are two models and the laser is the factor that differentiates between the two. The model provided for test and evaluation was the ISM-V, which the V stands for visible laser. The other model is the ISM-IR, which the IR stands for InfraRed. This model has both visible and IR lasers that are activated in the same manner. The ISM-IR has a switch on the rear of the unit that enables you to select either visible or IR mode. On the standard V model the selector has four settings (off, program, red dot and visible aim). The red dot is activated by pressing and releasing both the + and – buttons. To deactivate unit, press both buttons again. Your last brightness setting will be saved.

The test and evaluation unit was placed on a LWRC M6A1 5.56mm rifle: a piston operated variation of the M4 carbine. The unit was boresighted in at 25 yards with the LBS. When taken out for live fire at 25 yards the point of aim was 1 inch to the left. With a quick rotate of the windage, the weapon was zeroed in perfectly. After the red dot reflex sight was tested, the laser was then tested. As advertised, the laser was shooting to the exact point of aim as the redo dot. More than 500 rounds were fired in testing from several different positions in both semi and fully automatic fire. The sight remained point of aim throughout the shooting session. Off of a bench at 100 yards using Black Hills Mk262 Mod 1 ammunition, the rifle performed consistent 1-3/4 inch groups. The intensity of the red dot was decreased significantly to get a good aim point for accurate firing.

Tactical light, lasers as well as reflex sights have found their way into law enforcement, military as well as commercial weapons. Many companies are branching out to get into the market. Insight Technology has offered competitively priced top of the line products to serve all venues. They have several U.S. military contracts and their equipment is commonly used in the Global War on Terrorism. That is a tribute to the quality and confidence the end users have in their equipment.

Insight Tech Gear
23 Industrial Drive
Londonderry, NH 03053
Phone: (877) 744-4802
Fax: (603) 668-1084
Web: www.insightlights.com

By J.M. Ramos

There is an emerging class of weapon that is quickly catching on with the military and law enforcement who recognize its effectiveness as a weapon of choice in close quarter engagement. In the past, a grenade launcher was the most common attached secondary weapon to a service rifle dating back to the Vietnam days. In current conflicts, a 12 gauge pump action shotgun appears to be a more desirable combination given the close quarter type of environment and is among the latest breed of combat combos; primarily those that are to be used by sentries whose primary duties are to protect the perimeter of the base and other fortified installations. And, as a stand alone weapon, it has proven itself time and again in urban environments and other close quarter situations such as caves and tunnels.

Remington M870

Remington became solidly engage in the development and manufacture of military and police shotguns as far back as 1907 and introduced their first slide action sporting shotgun the following year called the Remington Repeating Shotgun Model 1908. A “Riot” gun version of this gun was called Model 10R. The military version of this particular model was used in the trenches during WW1 and came complete with a magazine extension, barrel shroud and a bayonet attachment. There were other similar models that superseded the Model 10 but none came close to the continued success enjoyed by the M870: a true bread and butter for the company. Introduced in the commercial market back in 1950, the popular model was designed by the company’s engineering team headed by Lexie R. Crittendon. The gun’s twin action bar was no doubt the most desirable feature of the gun and proved to be the strongest in its class. Shortly after its introduction, the M870 became available in two fighting shotgun formats: the M870R (Riot Gun) and M870P (Police Model). Both models were simply short barreled versions of the field grade sporting gun. In its early years, these models found limited success in the police and security market. However, it was in the mid 1950s that a quantity of the M870R with slings was purchased by the British Security Forces that were fighting Communist terrorists in Malaya that eventually influenced the design of future combat shotguns: slide-action and automatic alike. To date, the M870 remains as the world’s most successful pump action shotgun ever made. It is a top choice in the US military and highly revered as a defensive weapon by civilians and its field grade versions remain a top favorite among sportsmen and hunters alike. Not much has changed in the overall design of the M870. After over five decades of uninterrupted production, it has remained the king of scatterguns from which all other weapons in its class are judged. With the advent of ultra-modern tactical shotgun innovations of the new millennium, the gun’s well established form of over half a century may be about to change.

The “M412”

What makes the slide-action shotgun like the M870 an ideal combination for an M4 is its outstanding simplicity and robust overall construction. Being manually operated, its mechanics is less affected by most adverse climatic conditions, something a mechanically operated arm can be rendered unserviceable unless maintained regularly. While it is practical to keep the M870 as simple as possible to operate and maintain in the battlefield as a combination gun to a standard service rifle, it can also be upgraded to a primary weapon system for certain applications if desired.

Since the 1980s, there were few numbers of related accessories offered by independent companies for the M870: these being generally limited only to folding stock and fixed pistol grip furniture. Barrel shroud and magazine extensions are also offered but these accessories have been around since the Riot Gun versions of these guns become commercially available. The tactical gun market of the new era however has finally offered large varieties of accessories that are far more sophisticated and functional. It is particularly interesting that almost any available bolt-on device available for the AR rifle can now be fitted to the Remington shotgun with a little bit of work and imagination.

The availability of many exciting tactical accessories for the M870 revived the author’s long lost interest in this type of arm and the author’s goal was to be able to re-create the M870 to look and feel like an AR but most particularly with less felt recoil. What could be better than an M4 style M870 that feels more like a Short Barreled Rifle (SBR) than a nasty shooting 12 gauge scattergun. The possibility of creating this “M412” with trend setting hardware that can be truly appreciated by AR fans may have just become a reality.

While the market for tactical shotgun innovation has finally taken off, putting together the configuration envisioned in this project would take some imagination and figuring out what is needed and how the selected components are going to be put together to achieve the desired result without overdressing the gun or overspending unnecessarily. Bear in mind, the most expensive part is not necessarily the best. There are similar gadgetries out there that are far less expensive but do the job as well as the pricey ones. What really counts is how the components complement one another and how good they are put together. A gun project can only be considered successful if it meets the builder’s expectations and a true custom tactical arm must perform as well as it looks.

In the creating of the M412, some minor work will be required since not all parts selected are for the M870. Anyone with a little experience in gunsmithing will have no difficulty putting this specimen together. Police and military armorers can also learn from this project. Since most of these servicemen are already equipped and familiar with AR type weapons, it is much easier to train one who is already proficient with it especially with the feel and look that they are already accustomed to. Competitive shooters who favor the AR in their 3-gun matches will truly appreciate the M412 format in their quest for the top place. The M412 designation simply put a nice ring to the upgraded gun quite well. On top of the gun’s exceptional format, one can truly appreciate the added advantage of being able to incorporate almost any available device or accessory tailored for the AR to include BUIS sight, optics, varieties of stocks and forward grips, bipod, lights, lasers, etc. The sky is the limit. The arrangement is as good and as versatile as any ultra-modern tactical type AR out there. The big gun is now capable of exceptional accuracy with the aid of new generation sighting systems and handling characteristics never before experienced are achieved in this type of weapon.

Configuring the M412

The dominance of the AR rifle exterior format, primarily its straight telescoping stock design, has made tremendous impact in almost every type of popular tactical inspired long arms in the market today ranging from .22 LR to long range .50 caliber sniper weapons. This was a trend that soon expanded to accommodate police and military type shotguns to include the M870 and other popular US brands. Currently, the market has quite a few varieties of M4 style stocks marketed for the M870 as well as other US made pump action shotguns. However, it was not until the new CAA RS870 6-position collapsible stock became available that the author finally decided to undertake the project for four basic simple reasons: authenticity, quality, styling and price. Most similar stocks in the market are either too expensive, not authentic enough for a true M4 styling or simply poor quality. CAA (Command Arms Accessories) makes some of the finest accessories for the AR (and AK’s as well as other popular long and short arms) that are priced right for the average consumer. Along with the new RS870 stock, they also created the Shotgun Rail Adaptor (SGR1). This accessory is primarily designed to be mounted to the barrel as a laser/light mount. The writer sees a different use for it – a mount for an AR gas block front sight to match a flat top BUIS sight or a carry handle sight. For the carry handle sight, the CAA CH model that is used on flat top AR models fills the bill. The CH is less than half the price of most identical carry handle sights out there and is equally well made. The combination of the collapsible stock and Shotgun Rail Adaptor made it possible to create the M870 as close as possible to an M4 format sans magazine feed and self-loading operation. For a forward grip, the writer again selected a CAA product: the VG1 quick detachable combat grip. The VG1 matches the finger groove pistol grip of the RS870 stock. The combination of these ergonomically designed pistol grips is highly functional. For those “steady” shots, a bipod is simply an indispensable add-on in this tactical package. The CAA “Short Bipod” (BPOS) meets this requirement. This neat little bipod can be folded forward or rearward when not in use. When folded rearward, the pods rest snugly between the forend bottom rails yet it does not interfere when the arm is cycled manually. Complementing the compact M412 is CAA’s fully adjustable 1 inch Nylon One Point Sling, which allows easy movement of the arm when operating inside confined spaces. To accommodate the OPS sling, an end plate sling adapter (loop type) is assembled between the stock and receiver. Midwest Industries makes an excellent adapter and is available in a variety of styles.

Other accessories included in the M412 package are available from Brownell’s, Inc. These parts include the Wilson Tactical Picatinny Rail Forend. This replacement part is very well made from aluminum and features three Mil-Std 1913 Picatinny rails positioned at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock and are designed to accept forward grip, laser, light, etc. The Wilson accessory has the same length as the factory part and is securely retained on the action bar tube by the forend nut. Shooters with average or small hands may find the forend too bulky on the sides due to the over extended side rails. A simple solution to this is a forward grip such as the CAA VG1 or other similar handles that suits the operator’s preference. While it is possible to mount the bipod to the forend bottom rail, this will add more weight and bulk during operation. When the bipod is deployed, the forearm cannot be operated as usual since the gun is planted firmly to the ground. However, the author found that by holding firmly on the forward grip and pulling it downward to lock the bipod solidly to the ground, the shooter can simply move the gun back and forth with the rear grip following the movement with the shoulder resting steadily against the butt. This manual cycling action of the gun is quite comfortable and easy to get used to and quite fast. The gun is equipped with Scattergun Technologies (Wilson) one-shot extension. One special accessory found by the author in the Brownell’s catalogue to be a perfect mount for the CAA bipod is the 30mm Scope Accessory Rail made by Tactical Night Vision (TNV). This accessory simply clams to the magazine extension and can accommodate a light/laser or a bipod. In installing the CAA bipod to the TNV accessory, it is necessary to enlarge the first notch of the rail be used by using a 3/16 chainsaw file to fit the large diameter assembly screw of the bipod. (Note: do not over cut: the notch only needs minor widening. Keep the same depth.)

For a back up iron sight (BUIS), the writer selected one made by Yankee Hill Machine (YHM). These are very well made sights and priced right. Since the M870’s barrel does not rest as low on the receiver as on the AR, the YHM Forearm Flip Sight is the most compatible to the normal height of the Flat Top rear sight. The standard height front flip sight will be too high if used in this set up. The DPMS steel detachable front sight is a perfect match for the CAA Carry Handle Mount sight. The CAA sight is fully adjustable for both windage and elevation and can be raised if needed to get the perfect sight elevation alignment for the standard height of the gas block front sight. The YHM Forearm Flip Sight also worked well with the CAA Carry Handle Sight. To accommodate the BUIS sight to the receiver, the B-Square Saddle Mount was found to be most compatible having the longest forward extension. The longer rail allows the installation of the CAA Carry Handle Sight with an ample portion of the sight base forward clamp connecting to the front end of the B-Square mount. To install the YHM Rear Flip Sight to the B-Square accessory, the second notch at the rear must be enlarged with the 3/16 diameter chainsaw file to accommodate the large connecting screw of the sight. The CAA Shotgun Rail Adaptor assembled at the front end of the barrel has larger slots and do not require any modification to accommodate both the YHM and DPMS front sight. While some may consider a heat shield for the barrel unnecessary, it does offer some sort of protection especially for the busy shooter who enjoys shooting a lot of rounds in a single session. In this gun project, the heat shield was incorporated not only for heat protection and cosmetics but also as a mounting base for a forward rail extension that would allow low mount installation of Red Dots such as the Eo-Tech and other similar devices in front of the Carry Handle Sight. The most compatible accessory to act as a forward extension to the B-Square mount was the Havlin Mossberg M500R rail. This accessory is exceptionally well made and the price is unbelievably low for its overall quality. The heat shield made by Advance Technology has elongated slots, is well made and economically priced. The shield is shortened at the front to fit the shorter distance from the rear end of the rail adaptor where the front sight is mounted. In cutting the required length at the front end of the shield, a small tab was left at the top front end to fit tight underneath the Shotgun Rail Adaptor when assembled. The rear end of the shield had its own built in clamp and secures the part solidly at the base of the barrel. The Havlin rail is positioned precisely at the top rear of the shield to act as an extension to the B-Square rail and just about level with it. The forward end of the Havlin rail will need a tapered aluminum pad at the bottom to keep the part perfectly straight at the front since the forward end of the shield tapers downward. The pad is connected to the shield by a 6-32 screw assembled from the bottom. Separately, the front end of the Havlin rail is assembled on top of the pad by two 6-32 socket head screws on its pre-drilled mounting holes. When the Carry Handle Sight is assembled to the B-Square mount there is a fraction of the handle sight that extend past the B-Square part and locks with the Havlin rail connecting the two rails together as one. It’s a simple but effective set up. The added forward rail can now accommodate an optic and will no longer require dismounting the Carry Handle Sight before any extra accessory can be alternated.

One of the major drawbacks of the M870 design, at least at this point in time, is its magazine capacity. For a short barreled format with a 14 inch barrel, the most you can have ready for action is 5 plus one for a total of six with one-shot extension. Ideally, a compact ten-shot box magazine with double row compartment tapered to a single feed would be the perfect improvement for this battle tested shotgun. So far, the most one can do is to install a side saddle mount. These accessories vary in capacity from four to six and are normally assembled on the left side of the receiver. The author found the 6-shot Side Saddle made by Tac-Star to be a perfect add-on to the tactical package. The saddle is mounted to a thick aluminum plate backing. The extended portion of the saddle was removed and squared shortening the overall length of the part but still keeping the 6-shot holders. The front end of the saddle was secured to the collapsible butt stock through the QD push button sling swivel mount. A mild steel rod insert was turned and assembled through the mounting hole with its enlarged section at the base acting as a stop. A 6-32 socket head screw was assembled inside the center hole of the insert and connects directly to the aluminum backing of the side saddle. The saddle is secured to the rear of the stock via a drilled hole inside the second cartridge holder also using a 6-32 socket head screw. The assembly hole for this screw in the stock must be smaller and threaded for the corresponding retaining screw. The head of the screw will flush below the plastic part when tightened and stop over the aluminum backing when tightened. Any protrusion of the screw inside the butt stock must be cut flush so it will not interfere with the sliding movement of the part. The screw head will not be visible when the cartridge is inserted to the loop. This arrangement provides the operator that extra leverage for an instant supply of extra rounds when needed.

CAA can participate in developing a product in this category to complement their superb M870 accessories. The writer discovered their AR Picatinny Mag Pouch (MPS) can actually accommodate 3-inch Magnum rounds with just enough tightness to keep the rounds in place. Unfortunately, the pouch will only take 3 rounds and needs to be pushed by a rifle cartridge through a hole behind the pouch. A wide elongated slot on the exterior side that fit’s the thumb to push the cartridges forward and out will also work with the MPS. Unique with the CAA stock is that it has a built in side rail which can be moved on either side of the stock. It is logical for this company to develop and produce a 6-round magazine complete with spring loaded follower to push the cartridge to the lips as the operator unloads. The back side of the magazine will have a matching connector for the rail to hold it into position in either side of the stock.

The end result of this project is quite a rewarding experience. In summing it all up, not only did the M412 closely resembled the famous US battle rifle it emulated, but shooting this upgraded tactical powerhouse is now a joy to shoot and the dreaded shoulder breaker was finally tamed and looks better than ever.

Sources

Command Arms Accessories
76 Vincent Circle
Ivyland, PA 18974
Phone: (267) 803-1002
Website: www.commandarms.com

Brownell’s, Inc.
200 South Front Street
Montezuma, IA 50171
Phone: (800) 741-0015
Web: www.brownells.com

The surplus business was growing and things began to get really interesting. There were two primary players in those early days. One was an Englishman named Peter Anniston. The other was French-born Jacques Michault. These fellows, largely isolated from the U.S. market, were based in Europe and had started to deal in surplus military armament.

This was Europe in the early 1950s. There were all sorts of nationalist movements throughout the northern tier of Africa, and the demand for firearms in this and other regions was insatiable. Anniston and Michault were able to buy military bolt-action guns, semiautomatic rifles, machine guns, all the incredible array of surplus Allied and Axis weaponry left over in Europe from World War II. It was really very little problem for them to find all the supply they needed.

At the same time Anniston and Michault were doing these transactions, they were finding that a lot of the weaponry available to them was obsolete and did not have current military application. They turned to American gun dealers for disposal of this excess inventory. The first item Golden State was offered was a large lot of Swiss Schmidt-Rubin Model 1911 long rifles in 7.5mm caliber. They really didn’t know what to do with the offer. As expert as they had been in selling off a batch of ten of any one rifle, or perhaps even fifty, but the idea of being offered and having to dispose of 5,000 rifles at a time was at first staggering to them.

They had to try and figure out a time frame that it would take to sell the rifles. There were also legal and importation restrictions, and the proper licensing questions. Both Retting and Brenner were inexperienced in this type of trade and had to carefully feel their way through the transactions learning as they went. They ventured timorously into contact with the U.S. State Department to obtain the import licenses and permits handled by them. They needn’t have feared; the authorities were as inexperienced as they were, hardly knowing what they were doing either, since up until that time there had been very few civilian imports of large quantities of weapons.

They pressed forward and found themselves actually going forward with the importation of the first 5,000 Swiss rifles. They paid $3.50 apiece for them, and each rifle came with 100 rounds of ammunition, as well as a bayonet and scabbard. The rifles were in magnificent condition.

As the Schmidt-Rubin rifles came in, they learned about customs duties and federal excise taxes and so forth. They established costs and set a sales price. The rifles were tagged at $15.95 each, with 100 rounds of ammo thrown in. Their modest shop located on Washington Boulevard in Culver City, California had a small showroom that measured 10-feet by 12-feet, and they were used to having one or two people in there at a time. But when the Swiss rifles arrived, they started to get line-ups of 30 and 40 and 50 customers at once, waiting impatiently in line outside the shop. The value of these previously unobtainable and high-quality guns at that price was remarkable, and the gun aficionados immediately recognized it.

The Schmidt-Rubin rifles sold amazingly well. After all, they were offering a practically new rifle, Swiss quality, all parts with matching numbers, beautiful woodwork, with a bayonet and 100 rounds of what came to be very scarce ammo for way less than $20. Even by the monetary standards of the 1950s, the rifles were quite a bargain.

This first large-scale experiment with surplus weaponry was exhilarating as they finally realized the tremendous potential before them. The first tenuous steps into the world of surplus arms had been taken, and it was all straight ahead from there.

As time went by they became aware of other firms in the Los Angeles area who were also delving into overseas surplus material. One of these firms, Western Arms Co., was a supposed importer of material from Central and South America. They had a huge inventory of Rolling Blocks, Caliber 7mm and 11mm.

Another company dealing in surplus arms in Los Angeles was run by a man named Hy Hunter. He had a large inventory of European pistols and again over a period of time, Retting and Brenner bought hundreds of items from him for resale in their store.

Other competition was from a California firm situated on Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena. The establishment, called the Pasadena Firearms Company, was owned and operated by Al Gettler along with a junior partner Seymour Ziebert. The company had established some important connections in Mexico and was able to import some unique firearms from that country, like brand new Mexican Mauser military rifles straight from the factory, somehow bypassing the government depots the guns were originally destined for. The Mausers were beautiful in the straight 1898 configuration with a 29.5-inch barrel and the eagle and rattlesnake crest on the receiver ring. The rifles were chambered for the favored Latin American 7x57mm Mauser round. The Mexican Mauser deal eventually became quite a scandalous affair resulting in many high ranking Mexican Army officers retiring early, while lesser heads rolled.

Of all the surplus dealers established in California it seemed as though Al Gettler and Seymour Ziebert of the Pasadena Firearms Company were the one that had their act together.

Golden State Arms

Pasadena Firearms Company was an innovator in the surplus field, and it captured the attention of Brenner and Retting. After many meetings and phone conversations, the concept of the four men putting their labor, finances, and mutual knowledge together and perhaps coming up with a bigger, better company – one that could really pursue these deals overseas and go for it in a big way. Eventually, a new entity called Golden State Arms Corporation was formed. For many years the company was the kingpin importer and distributor of surplus arms in the United States.

An old mansion on Green Street in Pasadena was to be Golden State’s headquarters. The great house was of enormous size, and provided sufficient space for elaborate offices, a very large warehouse, and a major retail store. The retail store, in its heyday, was the largest gun store in the country.

The Golden State Arms retail store was sensational in its stock of antique material, both in terms of variety and of massive quantities. Swords, flintlocks, percussion guns from the Martin Retting side of the business, and more modern surplus weaponry from the old Pasadena Firearms Company stock, were supplemented by regular procurements of additional surplus weaponry from Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. The inventory of Golden State Arms was without peer in the glory days of arms collecting represented by the 1950s.

Brenner was made an executive vice-president of the company. His primary duties were to connect with selling parties overseas, private agents who would represent the company through their houses that existed in Europe and elsewhere. Brenner began to send letters to various governments and police departments throughout the world advising them that they were interested in purchasing any or all of their surplus weapons and ammunition. Soon there were offers coming in from all over the world.

A Cave in Denmark

During one of Brenner’s first buying trips overseas, a deal was made for the purchase of a few thousand miscellaneous handguns that were in the hands of the Copenhagen police. Europe was over-loaded with military surplus material. So when fresh-faced Americans showed up with lots of green dollars and said they actually wanted to buy all this surplus material, the Europeans were delighted. The Danes were no different; they just couldn’t get over it. The Copenhagen Chief of Police marveled at the fact that Brenner would buy this old stuff.

While dealing with the Copenhagen police, Brenner was also negotiating with the Danish army. The army, like the police, had a store of weapons that fell into two categories. First, there was equipment from pre-war Denmark that the occupying Germans couldn’t use and therefore did not confiscate. They just left undisturbed the local arsenals filled with Danish Krag rifles in 8mm Danish caliber; because this round was not interchangeable with the 8x57mm ammunition of the 1898 Mausers. The Danish service weapon was of no use to the Germans.

There were thousands of regular Krags in the warehouse, as well as substantial quantities of sniping and long-range target rifles that were used in military competitive shoots before the war – perhaps 500 of these. The target guns were fascinating and varied, with elaborate metallic sights and scopes. They were definitely collector items.

The next discovery was a sizable inventory of Nazi weapons, which had been stored by the Germans. The story went that, in the last days of the war, the Germans had planned for its troop of irregulars (known as “The Werewolves”) to fall back to Denmark and continue the battle from there with this warehoused material.

To inspect this find, Brenner and his boss Zeibert were taken to Jutland, on the northern peninsula of Denmark by two Danish officers. The officers led them to a depot, the greater part of which was underground in caves bored into the sides of hills surrounding the entrance. The cave floors had track laid so that the stored goods could be readily shuttled in and out by train.

From the depths of the caves, trains brought forth German MG34s and MG42s, new in the crates, with all the loading equipment, spare barrels, and spare parts kits: there were thousands of them. There were also German 98K Mausers, again in the thousands, and again brand new. This was rare; many collectors in this country had never seen a new, unfired German Mauser, but here they had them stacked up by the thousands.

Unfortunately, while these guns were available, the Danes were asking contemporary military pricing, which was not enough of a bargain for Brenner to make money on the deal. As an example, an MG42 machine gun would have cost $400 or so, and they weren’t really something saleable in the U.S. Surplus market. Later it was discovered that all of the material was eventually purchased and disappeared into the Middle East, a ready market for surplus military arms.

The Danish Army had been given the full American treatment. They had been given Garands, BARs, .30 and .50 caliber machine guns, and were quite content to retain those arms at that time.

From Denmark Brenner went down to Belgium where he met with Jacques Michault, the international arms trader. Jacques had set up a company whose acronym was SIDEM, which dealt weapons throughout North Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East. SIDEM still had more quantity of surplus than it knew what to do with, for the revolutionaries preferred not to have the bolt-action guns with which SIDEM was awash. There were rare exceptions; there was still a world market for British .303 rifles, although 1903 Springfields were strictly no sale with contemporary guerillas and insurgents.

SIDEM, had access to a lot of 50,000 1903 Springfield rifles, which Brenner was interested in. They were represented as new, but later it turned out that they were renovated rifles, which had left the U.S. years ago in fully serviceable, ready-to-go condition. Their location was very hush-hush; it was ultimately discovered that they were warehoused in Italy. They had been supplied to the government, which had booted Mussolini out. The Italians had switched sides from the Axis to the Allies. This enlightened decision by the always flexible and reasonable Italians led someone in America to think it would be a good idea to send over this batch of Springfield rifles. A cargo ship was dispatched from the U.S., which unloaded half of the rifles in Italy and the other half was sent to Greece.

It took a year before the deal was locked. The Springfield’s were very handsome rifles and much desired In the States. This was accomplished in the days before the U.S. government attempted to ban importation of guns, which were originally American issue and had been supplied to friendly foreign nations.

Police Guns

Golden State Arms continued corresponding with police departments. Within a short period, they were receiving offers from places as far away as Australia and South Africa. A police department in New South Wales, Australia claimed to have a large quantity of Smith & Wesson single action revolvers. The revolvers turned out to be nickel-plated American models with a shoulder stock and special leather holsters for both pistol and stock, all designed to be hung on a saddle. Golden State purchased the entire lot of 500 offered, and they were in excellent condition, at a price of $100 for the entire rig. Collectors quickly snapped them up.

Many U.S. police departments, instead of divesting their own obsolescent service weaponry, offered Golden State small to large lots of confiscated arms. Brenner bought random assortments in lots as large as a thousand.

Brenner began expanding Golden States’ chain of in-country agents throughout South America, Southeast Asia, and Europe maintaining correspondence with several dozen agents at a time. The contact would begin with exploratory letters, and then progress to agreeing on commissions and forming contracts with the agents. Then, the agent would pursue his police or military contacts to ascertain the availability of material. Next, there was a description of the merchandise as to character, quality, and quantity. Brenner typically followed up by traveling to the country in question and viewing the items, examining them for condition, rarity and completeness. The next step was the ancient and timeless process of negotiation, haggling either through the agent or directly with the selling party. Once a deal was struck, the agent arranged for packaging and shipping the purchase. Transporting the goods was a special problem; for they all had to be crated, crates loaded on pallets, and pallets loaded aboard ship. In some cases, upwards of 100,000 arms at a time had to be securely crated in wood.

The well-known cartridge factory of the Gévelot Company had in Saint-Germain Laval, close to Saint-Etienne, a subsidiary company that manufactured .22 Long Rifle carbines. These weapons were crude and worked with a blowback bolt, with a typical vertical bar that replaced the firing pin. It had no extractor. The production of these guns was made by the Gévarmoise Company.

In 1956, the Gévarm Company developed a submachine gun in two versions: a model with a wooden stock and another with a retractable wire metal stock. Respectively designed D.3 and D.4, these weapons experienced a limited development in spite of the efforts carried out by the company to make them better known.

Description

The D.3 had a fixed wooden stock manufactured with two elements similar to that of the Japanese Arisaka rifle and a rubber pad replaced the butt plate.

The model D.4 is provided with a retractable steel stock. Its two stems slide inside guides and the stock is locked by means of a transverse pushbutton. The stock enables three positions: fully extended, an intermediate position, and fully retracted.

The receiver is tubular in shape and is threaded at the rear to receive an end cap made of light alloy. The end cap supports the recoil spring guide rod. The end cap has two pins in its lower part to ensure proper positioning and locks it in place to prevent the end cap from unscrewing from vibration.

The ejection port is located on the right side of the receiver and the cocking handle is on the left. In front of the cocking handle on the left side of the receiver is the ejector, which is also the barrel collar lock. The bolt is similar to that as used in the Sten submachine gun and is chrome plated steel with a truncated head that supports the fixed firing pin and the extractor. The recoil spring is 18mm in diameter, made of 1.8mm wire, and is composed of 39 whorls. The recoil spring is guided only on 9cm, which is the length of the recoil spring guide rod attached to the rear end cap.

The trigger pack is made of cast iron with some machining passes. The trigger pack contains the trigger, sear, selector as well as the wire stock guides and the stock locking bar. The trigger pack attaches to the receiver tube with a back hook where it comes to rest across a pin. A screw with knurled head is located at the front that locks it in place. The fire control selector switch is on the left side of the trigger pack with three positions denoted: S to the rear for safety, CC in the middle for single shot, and R to the front for full automatic fire. The grip, which was originally furnished with plates fixed by means of a transverse screw, was later made in solid wood and was fixed with a vertical screw. A grip safety is located on the front face.

The magazine housing is a rectangular tube brazed under the receiver. The magazine is specific to the Gévarm and is made out of thick sheet metal and is retained in the magazine well by a magazine lever catch.

The 220mm (8.66 inches) barrel is in 9mm calibre with six right groves, one turn in 270mm (10.63 inches). It is retained on the receiver by a short perforated collar made of lathe turned steel that is screwed to the front of the receiver. The ejector is also used as a stop for the collar. The front sight is a vertical post protected by two ears to each side. The rear sight consists of two open V slots for 50 or 100 meters. All the metal parts of the weapon are parkerized. A carrying sling can be affixed on a ring under the front sight and on a bar welded at the rear of the stock.

Disassembly-Reassembly

Remove the magazine and clear the gun. Press the retaining button and remove the stock. Press on the collar retaining pin and unscrew the collar. Remove the barrel and collar forward. Take off the ejector. Take off the cocking lever. Extract the bolt and recoil spring. Unscrew the knurled screw located at the front of the trigger housing and separate from the receiver. Press the retaining pin and unscrew the end cap. Reassembly is carried out in the reverse order.

Tests

Gévarm submachine guns were presented on February 19th, 1957, by Messieurs Lesage and Brûlebois from the Gévarm Company, to the Versailles-Satory Proving Ground. The technical commission consisted of Engineer Lafon from the D.E.F.A., Colonel Legall, Major Duhamel and Captain Coudret from the Technical Section of Artillery.

Two guns were presented: one model D.3 and one model D.4, bearing serial numbers 353020 and 353043 respectively. It was initially noted that there was a defect of the safety device in the event that the weapon should fall. Though there were no inopportune shots resulting from these incidents, it was necessary to loosen the screw of the trigger mechanism to free the bolt. Shooting tests were made with five or six magazines for each gun, with two feeding incidents. Cyclic rate was 670 rpm.

Each gun was later shot with 350 cartridges (single shot) and 650 cartridges (burst). It was noted then: • SMG No. 353043: when shooting single shots there were five failures to fire and two feeding incidents; when shooting burst fire there were seven feeding incidents.

• SMG No. 353020: when shooting single shots there were two feeding incidents; when shooting burst fire there were seven feeding incidents.

Precision tests were made at 50 and 100 meters with cartridges made by Tarbes Cartridges Factory in 1955. At 50 meters, dispersion was 16 to 18 cm (6.30 to 7.09 ins.) with one of the two weapons and 16 to 22 cm (6.30 to 8.66 ins.) for the other. At 100 meters, this result was 34/39 cm (13.39/15.35 ins.) and 38/40 cm (14.96/15.75 ins.).

The conclusion was that the weapon was pleasant to shoot at the shoulder or the hip. The selector does not guarantee 100% of shooting single shots. During tests, 1% of incidents were due to feeding problems. The accuracy of the weapon is fine but the sights are not good. In the safety position, in the event of a fall of the weapon on the stock, the bolt can be blocked by the sear.

It would undoubtedly be easy to correct the disadvantages noted during the tests, but in spite of its qualities, this submachine gun arrived too late at a time when the French Army was largely provided with the MAT 49 SMG.

It is estimated that 3,000 to 4,000 guns were produced. Some of them were sold to French government organizations such as Customs, the Highway Police (the motorcyclists who were equipped with it transported the weapon in one of the saddlebags of the motor bike) and Police in the Parisians suburbs until 1985. Some others were sold until the end of the 1970s in of the Middle East. The few tens remaining in stock at Gévelot Company were sold about 1990 to gunsmiths in France and, after de-activating, they are now held by some lucky collectors.

Our office has recently received informal information regarding some Federal firearms licensees (FFL), special occupational taxpayers (SOT) who may have been misinformed regarding the transfer requirements imposed on machine guns that were manufactured or imported on or after May 19, 1986, which are sometimes known in the industry as “Post May” or “Post Sample” machine guns. In summary, it seems that the rumored advice is basically that a manufacturer or importer FFL/SOT may transfer any number of Post Sample machine guns to another manufacturer or importer FFL/SOT as if ATF Rul. 2002-5 (with its inclusion and application of the evidentiary requirements as imposed by 27 C.F.R. § 479.105(d) in support of a transfer of Post Sample machine guns) did not apply to such transfers.

27 C.F.R. § 479.105(d) as you may recall, is the regulation that implements the transfer requirements for Post Sample machine guns to dealer FFL/SOTs and it provides:

• Dealer sales samples. Subject to compliance with the provisions of this part, applications to transfer and register a machine gun manufactured or imported on or after May 19, 1986, to dealers qualified under this part will be approved if it is established by specific information the expected governmental customers who would require a demonstration of the weapon, information as to the availability of the machine gun to fill subsequent orders, and letters from governmental entities expressing a need for a particular model or interest in seeing a demonstration of a particular weapon. Applications to transfer more than one machine gun of a particular model to a dealer must also establish the dealer’s need for the quantity of samples sought to be transferred.

In applying 27 C.F.R. § 479.105(d), ATF Rul. 2002-5 holds that “…applications to transfer two (2) machine guns of a particular model to a Federal firearms licensee as sales samples will be approved if the dealer provides documentation that the dealer needs to demonstrate the machine gun to all the officers of a police department or the department’s SWAT team or special operations team. An FFL who offers other bona fide reasons for their need for two (2) or more machine guns may get more than two (2) with specific documentation.” Accordingly, ATF will approve the transfer of a Post Sample machine gun between FFL/SOTs if the required supporting documentation, executed by the law enforcement entity at issue, is provided in support of the transfer.

Although ATF Rul. 2002-5 specifically refers to “dealers” of machine guns in its analysis, ATF Rul. 2002-5 also advised that, “The dealer sales sample regulation in section 179.105(d) (editor’s note: now known as Section 479.105(d)) is a narrow exemption to the general prohibition on possession of post-1986 machine guns imposed by section 922(o).” Accordingly, as described above, ATF requires that the transfer of Post Sample machine guns between FFL/SOTs, including between manufacturer and/or importer FFL/SOTs, be supported by the same law enforcement demonstration (“LE Demo”) letter requirements as for dealer FFL/SOTs seeking such transfers. There has been no “loosening” of the rules for such transfers.

Perhaps, the recent confusion arises from a mistaken interpretation or unwarranted extension of the scope of 27 C.F.R. § 479.105(f) which governs the disposal of Post Sample machine guns by FFL/SOTs who are discontinuing their business operations. 27 C.F.R. § 479.105(f) provides:

• Discontinuance of business. Since section 922(o), Title 18, U.S.C., makes it unlawful to transfer or possess a machine gun except as provided in the law, any qualified manufacturer, importer, or dealer intending to discontinue business shall, prior to going out of business, transfer in compliance with the provisions of this part any machine gun manufactured or imported after May 19, 1986, to a Federal, State or local governmental entity, qualified manufacturer, qualified importer, or, subject to the provisions of paragraph (d) of this section, dealer qualified to possess such, machine gun.

Thus in “going out of business” situations, 27 C.F.R. § 479.105(f) dispenses with the LE Demo letter requirements imposed by 27 C.F.R. § 479.105(d) with regard to the transfer of Post Sample machine guns to a manufacturer or importer FFL/SOT but not to a dealer FFL/SOT which must at all times, still comply with the LE Demo letter requirements when seeking to be the transferee of a Post Sample machine gun.

In summary then, it is important to remember that 26 U.S.C. § 922(o) imposes a general and broad prohibition of the possession of Post Sample machine guns, and that the 27 C.F.R. § 479.105(d) dealer sale sample regulation is a very narrow exception to this general prohibition. As a result, it is important to keep in mind that the transfers of Post Sample machine guns between manufacturer and/or importer FFL/SOTs are still subject to this narrow dealer sales sample regulation and the associated LE Demo letter requirements, except that is, in the case of the even narrower sub-exception of 27 C.F.R. § 479.105(f) whereby a manufacturer or importer FFL/SOT may, without resort to the LE Demo letter process, receive the Post Sample machine gun inventory from any FFL/SOT that is going out of business (i.e. ceasing all firearms operations, or at least ceasing all SOT related operations). We trust that going forward, this clarification may serve to alleviate the aforementioned regulatory confusion that may or may not be, circulating in some sectors of the industry.