SAR: When you say the cocking handle is wrong, what do you mean?

Visser: In the end we made it underneath, so that the left or right handed person could use it easily. Anyway, Gene got interested in other things, and I hired Hans Sturtz, a German who worked for Gene Stoner. He was fantastic at making things….he worked for us in Holland, and we changed the Stoner rifle in various ways, small things, but important, like a good folding stock – one that locks. We made a good bipod too, a sturdy bipod, one that locks on the gun. I kept all of the documentation about what we did. We made a barrel with flutes, a thicker barrel, and we arranged for the sling swivels on the right place.

SAR: This is the Stoner 63 we are discussing? Let me go get some examples from the vault. (Dan gets some Stoner 63 and 63As to put on the table for Henk to point out things.)

Visser: Actually the 63A but improved. We did several things for the 63A. This was now the 63A1 when we were done with it. As I said, we improved the bipod and made it mount on the rifle, which was my idea. In the beginning, Gene Stoner didn’t have a flash hider with the right dimensions for the international rifle grenade launching requirements. The original CETME was even missing that by design. They just had a barrel sticking out making a hell of a flash, and noise. I designed the flashhider for the CETME (G3). We changed the Stoner 63A to be able to fire Rifle Launched Grenades (RLG), a very important feature even today in many armies. We changed location of the charging handle, the bipod, the stock, and many other minor changes.

SAR (Dolf): Henk, I thought that originally you were involved with the AR-10, with the 7.62 Stoner rifle?

Visser: No, Dolf, I have heard this before but I had nothing to do with that. The AR-10 was our competitor, the government plant Artillerie Inrichtingen (AI) at Hembrug, in Holland. They got so upset that we had the Stoner 63A license – first we had the CETME rifle then the Stoner – that when the Director of AI read in TIME Magazine about this lightweight rifle from ArmaLite, he and his secretary got on a plane and flew to Costa Mesa to make a deal on the AR-10. He was not liked by the Dutch generals because of the way he treated them. In reality, the AR-10 was a fantastic rifle for 7.62 NATO. Director Jungeling invited all the top generals to his plant and they were getting coffee and cake, and while they were eating he reached next to his chair and holds up an AR-10 and announces, “Gentlemen, this is your new rifle! This will be the future!” Those generals decided at that moment in their minds that nobody was going to adopt the AR-10. They didn’t want to be told by a civilian what would be the new Army rifle. He killed it with that. It’s a very sad story because it was a good rifle. They wanted to do their own testing and make their own decision and like most generals, they do not like anyone telling them what they will have for weapons.

SAR: You had the rights to the Stoner 63 outside of the United States?

Visser: Outside of United States and Canada. We had a very optimistic view of our opportunities because we and Cadillac Gage thought that the US Marines would adopt the system. We took the Stoner Rifle to Ecuador, Chile, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Germany and, Israel. I went everywhere. We spent millions, and I told the top people in my company, “This is it. This is what the soldiers want.” I never told the customers that – I simply showed them the quality and let them test the rifle. Standardization, a cheap machine gun…the main parts are all the same. Maybe I overdid it a little bit at times. We had the Inspector General of all of the forces in Holland and his Royal Highness Prince Bernard; he had seen it and liked it, and he tried to push it in NATO. Again, I think maybe there was too much support in this way, these guys all wanted to do it themselves and make their own decisions. I was instrumental in the standardization of the rifle grenades as well. Because of me, all of the rifles have the flash hider with the 22mm diameter. I was close with MECAR in Belgium, and we developed a whole series of rifle grenades, including a new small hollow charge which would puncture a 5cm hole in a steel plate at 160 meters.

SAR: So this was a shaped charge system. What was the launching platform – bullet trap, bullet through or launching blank?

Visser: It was a special blank cartridge at the beginning. We had, even for the Stoner, a short magazine that was colored green that could be loaded with this gas cartridge, so that there would be no mistake of putting a live cartridge in the gun.

SAR: Did you get any sales of the Stoner 63A1 in the countries you just mentioned?

Visser: The biggest thing was that the United States Marines were going to adopt it. I was at Quantico almost weekly, and they wanted these, so after the first lots of prototypes they ordered 3,000 or so from Cadillac Gage and shipped the Stoners to Vietnam. They wanted a live combat environment to test them. The Stoner was very successful and the Marines liked it. Then the U.S. Army stepped in and said, “No. We will all have the same weapons. You take the M16.” The Marines got mad, and talked about bent barrels and this and that, and the cocking handle they did not like and the rifles needed a heavier barrel, etc. We were offering this gun that we demonstrated as the future U.S. Marine weapon. We really pushed that, you know? Because who was this tiny little company in Holland, and Cadillac Gage was not known either: they made a few armored cars. Nothing to show manufacturing ability with small arms, but the Marines with Stoners, that was another story and it was our sales pitch to our customers.

Gene Stoner was very bitter about many of the issues that occurred then. In the Stoner 63 rifle he had tried to fix what he saw as the problems in the M16, which was also his design originally.

The big blow was when the decision came that the U.S. Marines were not going to take the Stoner system. This made it difficult for us, because the people we were trying to sell it to thought something must be defective with the guns since the U.S. was not adopting it. I had sold 12 to Singapore after a demonstration and sold some to Thailand, Japan and South Korea. We were a nice company, we didn’t bribe anybody. The same in the Philippines. I still remember the offer for the Philippines. We had trained them so that they could work on the guns themselves. It was a $35 million deal. Then Colt got in and they got the order instead for $58 million. Their agent had better “contacts” – almost $20 million extra above what our program was. I was with the top man there, the commissioner, and if I had said that we could raise it to $55 million or whatever, we would have had that deal. But that would have never occurred to me. The same thing happened on the deal in South Korea.

The Stoner is an excellent weapon, and the only complaint I ever had was that if the soldiers have the rifle, and then they give the company armorer some cigarettes or something, they’ll quickly have a belt-fed and a heavier barrel, and before you know it everyone in the whole group has a machine gun. (Visser laughs.)

SAR: That’s a complaint? If they trained a platoon with all belt fed Stoners, it would have been pretty formidable.

Visser: Yes, but these armies aren’t trained that way. Riflemen should be riflemen, and the machine gun is restricted to certain personnel with specific machine gun jobs. It would have been very simple to make things so that you couldn’t make a machine gun out of a rifle, but that would get rid of one of the beautiful things about the Stoner – the adaptability. The only complaint I ever received was that it was too easy to make a machine gun out of it.

SAR: Henk, you were involved in many of the post World War II arms deals. What about the surplus deals?

Visser: I got some surplus 20mm ammo from our Air Force and I sold it to Israel. I worked with Tom Nelson’s company and went on some trips with him, but we were not very successful in obtaining surplus guns.

SAR: Was there any surplus in your time in Vietnam?

Visser: Only the RPGs and other items we discussed earlier. Of course there were much more US military leftovers from Vietnam that were surplused out, but not through our company. I should tell you that I was given the rank of Colonel in the US Army so that I had an ID card. If you got captured by the North Vietnamese, the US Army figured that an officer would be treated better. I still have the ID today. (Henk shows us a Vietnam era US Military ID card with his picture and the rank of Colonel.) We wanted to know how the testing went with the 3,000 guns for Vietnam, but secondly we had to be involved in the MECAR rifle grenades. The Marines were very interested in these rifle grenades, the shaped charges that punched 5cm holes. There was one demonstration where the armored plate was at 160 meters, and as I was a good shot, I could stand there and whop it, and they could see the hole was there. I came upon the idea of mini hand grenades then. In Vietnam, I saw the soldiers go out with only two hand grenades, and if the grenades got wet then they had to be destroyed. With the help of MECAR, we made very small hand grenades and the inside was ribbed in little squares. We used RDX instead of the normal high-explosive. I designed a special short ring that you couldn’t pull, you had to twist it, and then you could get it out. This prevented a lot of accidents. I had a special detonator made by Dynamit Nobel and we sealed the grenades in plastic so you’d have a bandolier with ten mini hand grenades. This weighed as much as two standard hand grenades giving the soldiers a lot of waterproof hand grenades for their missions. I also had them make an aluminum tail with an old-type beer bottle closer; you could stick the hand grenade on there and close that. There was a thin wire, so when you fired it from the rifle, the wire would break and the lever would jump off and at 200 meters you had an explosion.

Then MECAR said, “Nice, but let’s make a rifle grenade that’s just the same in arming, but the standard size.” We also had parachute flares. Then there was a request from the Americans and they said, “Listen, we have had cases where we bombed our own people in the deep jungle cover. We want a flare that goes through the canopy and explodes at 100 meters with a big flash and a brown cloud.” They wanted a test quantity of 200 or so, and three weeks later they were on a plane from Germany to Vietnam for testing. It was really successful; there was a big flash and a bang after it exited the jungle canopy. We were working to design a bullet trap in the grenade tail so you could fire with live rounds. Around that time the owners of MECAR decided to sell the whole shebang to an American company. I had a contract with them that said I received a commission on everything that was sold, regarding the rifle grenades and such. They tried to talk me out of it, and I said, “Gentlemen. You’ve just told me that I am going to make millions from these mini-grenades, but give me one hundred thousand dollars and it’s yours.” I wanted out of the company and the new owners. A lot of yak-yak and I got my hundred thousand dollars.

SAR: But not the millions in the future…

Visser: No, I would get none of that. The Marines bought a lot of those rifle grenades, and they tested them and decided to adopt them. Again the same thing happened. The U.S. Army was working on the 40mm launchers and they didn’t want the Marines to have something else. The Marines adopted the 40mm, not our multi-purpose hand and rifle grenades.

SAR: That sounds like the end of the Stoner 63 and MECAR projects. Where did you go from there?

Visser: We were into developing a “breakup” training round. It was an idea that I had in Germany after seeing how they had to have tremendous ranges when they were shooting at air targets. We had a plastic bullet with compressed iron powder parts in it that gave the same recoil – everything the same as a ball round, but it caught the rifling and because of the plastic jacket, after 50 meters or so, it would burst and there was just a cloud of powder. What they also wanted to test was putting a round that wouldn’t function in the magazines; something which would cause a stoppage. It was for the soldiers learning to fix the stoppage. We sold millions to the Germans. Really, many millions in numerous calibers as it turned out. This ammo functioned perfectly in the German 20mm gun and the twin 20mm AA guns.

They had thousands of these twin-barreled 20mm guns used for AA defense and the troops had to train with them. For training purposes, a plane came flying past with the target sack. They had to aim and they fired like mad and it was really something exciting to see: a whole row of twenty twin 20mm guns. From there we went to the 40mm Bofors round 40 l 60 and 70, also with the break up projectile.

One problem occurred when the Dutch Navy wanted the 40mm Bofors too. They went out and shot it at sea, but there was so much wind out there that the powder would blow back and immediately started rusting the ship. “Oh my God, our beautiful ship! You are ruining our beautiful ships” they cried. (Laughter.) For land based use, though, we sold a lot of these.

Around that time the Swiss company Oerlikon asked me to come and work for them. Singapore asked me to get them 120 20mm cannons for the armored cars they bought from Cadillac Gage. I just walked in to Oerlikon and said, “They want an order from you for 120 cannons.” Oerlikon couldn’t believe it. They had never done much business in the Far East, only Japan. I got the offer and flew out to Singapore. They looked at the prices and thought it was ok, and they went up to the boss, who had a Dutch name, and he signed the contract. I was amazed. I came back and walked into Oerlikon and said, “Here’s your contract.” They almost fell over. After the war they hadn’t had any big contracts like that, 120 20mm guns. The big boss said to me, “What do you want as a commission?” I hadn’t even thought about it. I thought, “Maybe one percent? Do I have the guts to ask for two percent?” Then the boss says, “Is six percent enough?” I got a million Swiss francs commission, and that was the first time I’d ever done anything like that. I started working for them and became the boss for the whole Far East. I sold the South Koreans all of their 35mm AA guns, and also sold to Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand. That made me a rich man, you know, because besides the big salary they paid me a two percent commission as well. When you get a $900 million order, that’s really something. (Laughter). I was with Oerlikon for about fifteen years, from 1975 until around 1990.

SAR: Not bad for a little Dutch kid who started his cannon ammunition career making 20mm detonators while a slave laborer in a German prison.

Visser: Yes, a very, very, long way from that.

SAR: What are you working on today?

Visser: I spend most of my time working on restoration of historical firearms, major projects to save many of these works of art. There was a big restoration project in Russia. I came to Russian in 1988 with Dr. Arne Hoff, the director of the Tojhuseet museum in Copenhagen. Even before the war, it was known there were many historical Dutch guns in the Kremlin Armory. We went there, and we were received well but they didn’t even want to give us their last names. It was forbidden to give your last name to a foreigner. I liked them, and they liked me, and we got off on good footing. Each time I came there, I brought them suitcases full of Dutch specialties of coffee, “cup-a-soup” packets, an electric water heater, and 200w light bulbs. They had 40w light bulbs in the depot and you couldn’t see anything. I brought them nice mugs to drink from, and we had a very good relationship.

I knew all the guns they had, and they had about 350 beautiful guns, of which 120 needed serious care. Pieces were broken off, pieces to be repaired, and I asked, “Why don’t you restore them? You have a lot of wonderful pieces here.” They said, “We have no money to do this, Russian things must come first.” I said I would do it and would pay for it. It took two years of negotiation, and I became friends with the Minister of Culture, who must have studied at an American university because he spoke fluent English. They eventually let 120 guns go to Holland where I could have them restored. We had the best restorer in the world for antique arms, Herman Prummel, he can do anything. I thought it would be half-year project, but it took two and a half years to finish. In the meantime, a good friend of mine, Helena Yablonskaya, wrote up all the Dutch guns in Russia; about 120 at the Kremlin Armory, some at the Historical Museum, some at St. Petersburg’s Hermitage, 350 in all. In the series of my books, there is one book about all of those.

SAR: It sounds like you are very dedicated now to restoring these historical Dutch firearms.

Visser: Yes, very much so. I am full of crazy stories on this. When I was younger, before the war, our high school made day trips to different places. One of the trips was to Emden in North Germany and there was an armory in the Rathouse with lots of suits of armor and guns and pistols. The first battle with the Spaniards in our Eighty Years War was in 1568 in ‘t Heiligerlee, a village near Groningen. There was a wooden case closed with mesh steel wire, and inside it were musket balls from the first battle to get rid of the Spaniards. We had a Nazi guard with us in a black uniform, and when he wasn’t looking I took my pocketknife and lifted up the steel wire and stole one musket ball. I still have it today. (Laughter.)

Emden was flattened during the war and I always wanted to go back. I went to the Meppen Army testing grounds nearby, but I never got to go back to Emden. Finally, about a year and a half ago I go with Herman Prummel who told me that a lot of pistols were rotting away in the depot. I went over there….and it was horrible. There were the most beautiful Dutch wheellock pistols full of wormholes, half the stock gone, and the metal cleaned with emery paper. My big mistake was not to take the whole pile for an offer of 50,000 euros because they’re never going to show this stuff, but I said, “Why don’t you restore them?” They said they had no money, so I said I’d do it. They said, “Why don’t you take them? We’ll talk to the director, and come back in two weeks.” So I came back in two weeks and instead of having 10 ready, they had 50. We took all 50, and it took more than a year for Herman Prummel to restore them. They are in fantastic condition now. Fortunately, they had saved all the metal parts that had fallen off. If the buttstock had been eaten, they still had the metal ring. Those Dutch wheellock pistols were very light and elegant. These are at my house right now, waiting for the museum to open. We are now working on a catalogue with pictures of them.

I guess that my passion today is the works of art that are in these old firearms. I have spent a lot of time making them whole again.

SAR: Henk, I want to thank you for sharing these stories with SAR’s readers.

Visser: Yes, I have enjoyed this, and I hope to come to the SHOT show and see old friends.

We discussed many more stories of the old days and the arms trade, as well as current restoration projects that Henk Visser is involved in, but those must wait for another day. – Dan

Hinderikus (Henk) Lucas Visser was born in the City of Groningen, the capital of Groningen Province in the northeast of the Netherlands, on 5 August 1923. Henk was very involved in the CETME rifle project, the original HK G3, Stoner’s projects (most notably the Stoner 63A1), Oerlikon, Mauser, and many other historical events that impact on the small arms community today. Smallarmsreview.com is pleased to bring this lengthy and comprehensive interview to our readers from our 2006 issue and will be presented in two parts. – Dan Shea, SAR Editor-in-Chief

SAR: Thanks for joining us, Henk. I guess the readers would like to know what got you started with firearms – what was your first gun?

Visser: My first gun was an old pinfire revolver, which you could buy for about two bucks in those days. I was maybe fifteen years old. Pinfire ammunition was very rare so I just collected these and enjoyed looking at them and I would hide them from my mother who did not approve. My father had died when I was ten years old. Later in life my mother would complain about my gun collecting habits, but I would say, “Mother, it’s your own fault. You never bought me an air rifle.”

SAR: And your interest in military firearms?

Visser: I had wanted to be in the military, so as soon as I could ride my bicycle, I was always around the barracks in Groningen and the nearby airfield. After the German occupation of Holland, May 10, 1940, there wasn’t much hope for me to join the Dutch army. I was still in high school, and was definitely not a Nazi sympathizer. With friends, we harassed the occupying military units, and I was arrested by the Germans but managed to talk my way out of it several times. I was eighteen years old when the SD (German Sicherheitsdienst) finally arrested me.

SAR: What were the charges? And, I suppose, were you actually guilty?

Visser: Guilty as charged. Sabotage, gun possession, those were the main charges. It was May 5th, 1942 when the German SD arrested me. It was in the classroom, in front of all the other kids. (Laughs) It was quite something! On one occasion I had broken into the German barracks and put a match to a wooden building that the Germans were setting up for storing radio transmitters. It was at the airfield next to our town that the Germans had expanded and made into a bigger airfield. They held me, because the last thing I did was to break into the Navy officers’ mess, and I stole a K98, a machine pistol, a pistol, ammo and some of their papers. We had a small group of people that had gotten together to do this, and there was one man who was a traitor, he tried to blackmail me. Anyway, the Dutch police got involved, and I got arrested. Then in July I had a Navy court-martial in the town of Utrecht.

SAR: So, your first machine gun involved getting a Navy court-martial from the Germans while you were in high school?

Visser: (Laughs) Yes, and they condemned me to death and also three years for another break-in in a Dutch Nazi gunsmith shop in town.

SAR: An additional three years?

Visser: With the Germans, you were condemned separately for each crime and punished that way as well. I had a friend in jail, a cadet from the Dutch military academy, who was condemned separately to death three times, plus ten years, and four months. His father was very rich, and he started paying people off, so the Germans took off two of the death sentences and shot him for the third. My uncle, who was a director of the Dutch Philips electronic company, knew one of the German supervisors of the factory and tried to get me off. He told the supervisor, “You have to go and see if you can get the boy pardoned since his mother is a widow and only has one other younger son.” The supervisor went to see Seis Inquart, the German ruler of Holland, who said that this was a job only for the military. He suggested that my uncle should talk to General Christiansen, who was the military commander in Holland…but he also said no, and he said that Dutch high school boys who think that they can make a joke out of the German Army will be shot. So my mother was quite desperate, and she went with our lawyer to see the German Navy commander herself. Just to let you know how these Germans were; he lived in a big villa…my mother and our lawyer passed the guards at the gate, rang the bell, and a Navy sailor opened the door. He took the letter that my mother had brought asking for a pardon, and left my mother and the lawyer standing outside in the rain for half an hour. Then the door opened again and the same sailor gave the letter back to my mother, torn in half.

My mother was very desperate at this point. Her father had a butcher shop in town, and next to that was a vegetable shop…our two families were good friends. One of the children of the vegetable shop owner, Kees Veening, had gone to live in Berlin to be a speech therapist, teaching them how to breathe, etc. Kees Veening had a neighbor, and they became good friends. The neighbor was a historian, a reservist in the German army and was called up for duty in 1938. He had become a general and was responsible for the daily historical facts in Hitler’s headquarters, the “Wolfschanze.” This man had an idea: if he could get a hold of my file from the Dutch prison and keep it, the Germans in Holland would not be able to shoot me. So I sat for three months in the section of the prison where they kept the prisoners who were condemned to die, and oftentimes at 5 in the morning you would hear the Germans with the steel-toed boots coming up to take one or two of us out to be shot. So the question was always, “Who’s next?” I was there for three months.

SAR: On a German death row cellblock for three months, waiting to be shot every day?

Visser: Yes. You had to take all of your clothes off at night, so that if you escaped during the night you’d be naked. One night, there was a tremendous row and shouting and a group of drunken German guards came knocking on my door. I was sleeping on a straw bale, so I got up and ran to the window, stood at attention, reported myself and my punishment. The Germans shouted “Visser, who was condemned to death…You swine, our Führer has pardoned you!” After repeating this several times they threw my door closed, and I thought, “Oh, this is wonderful,” and went back to sleep on my straw bale. The next morning I realized that I had made it, and had gotten 15 years in a German prison instead. Later I learned that the German historian had waited until the Germans were throwing a party for their successes in Russia. They had taken over a million prisoners at that occasion and were celebrating. They were extremely pleased and were drinking champagne in Hitler’s headquarters. As Hitler was sitting at the table, the historian, General Scherff, approached with the letter from my mother and explained the story. Hitler looked up and said, “A friend of yours, eh?” and Hitler himself crossed out “Death Penalty” and wrote “15 years Zuchthaus” instead. When the people at my prison got the telex message from the Wolfschanze, they got drunk and came to my door at 2 or 3 in the morning to tell me that I had made it.

SAR: Well, there’s a project for some of our better connected readers. Somewhere, there is a piece of paper with Adolf Hitler’s handwriting on it that freed Henk Visser from a death sentence.

Visser: Yes, yes, I would pay $10,000 for that piece of paper! I was then transported to prison in Germany, a prison with small factories inside. There I had to work very hard, we had to make little aluminum cylinders. After the war, while taking apart a 20mm shell, I found one of those little cylinders. It was an aluminum detonator. We had to fashion them and drill a hole through them and of course thread them. We would make 5,000 of these per day and if you didn’t make 5,000 then you only got a liter of cabbage soup instead of 1.5 liters. Cabbage soup may not sound very special, but in the prison, an extra 0.5 liter of soup was important! So we made 5,000 per day.

We were in a very old prison called Zuchthaus Reinbach, near Bonn. Then I was moved to another prison called Zuchthaus Siegburg, on the other side of Bonn, and there I also worked for my dinner. I repaired military uniforms, and worked in a tool making shop. We worked about twelve hours a day in shifts, sometimes during the day and sometimes during the night. I must say I was lucky; in a concentration camp I would have died. In these prisons you had a roof over your head. It was a big building with thick walls, and if it was 20 degrees below zero outside it was only just freezing inside, which was cold but you didn’t freeze to death. We had guards who had been guards for all of their lives, they were professionals and so there were not many beatings or much abuse. We had some new guards who came in from the Eastern front missing an arm or something, and since they really couldn’t do a good job they would sometimes beat us to take revenge.

Anyway, I got very ill. I had tuberculosis in my lungs, intestines, on my vocal cords, and on a heart valve. I was dying and my weight was 100 pounds. Still, I was always treated a little differently from the other prisoners.

SAR: You must have had some pull from somewhere.

Visser: They knew I had received a pardon from Hitler himself, and the General Scherff sometimes inquired about how I was doing, so yes, they were careful with me. I was taken to the prison hospital. It was unbelievable, there were 3,000 prisoners with half of them sick and there were only 14 beds in the hospital. I got one of those beds, and I was dying. My uncle, who’s company Philips also owned a lot of factories in Germany, started inquiring about how I was doing. He was told that I was ill, but treated very well, and that I was cared for by nuns and that every day I would get an egg, but my uncle didn’t trust them. He sent someone who talked to the director of the Zuchthaus who reported that I couldn’t talk anymore and that I was dying. So he had his lawyers look over the German law regarding prisoners, and they found an old law that said if you were incarcerated and dying, you could go home to die. All of the judges that condemned me would have to sign off for my release, so my uncle went to see all five of the judges, at that time they were dispersed all over Germany because of fear for an invasion in Holland. When all of them signed I was sent home, but because of my contagious disease, I wasn’t allowed to go back by train. They didn’t want me infecting anybody else. The Phillips people had an ambulance that ran on propane, but since the gas stations were so far apart in Germany, they put the ambulance on top of a truck and trailer which ran on a wood burning gas generator. They came with a nurse to the prison, and through my uncle managed to rescue my hospital cellmate as well, another Dutch student from Groningen. We drove back through Germany and I was very happy to see buildings still on fire from Allied bombings. We got back to Holland and they hid me in a Roman Catholic sanatorium in Bilthoven. I was there for two and a half years, recovering.

SAR: Was that the end of the war?

Visser: On the 18th of May, 1944 I got out of Germany. The liberation of Europe happened while I was convalescing, and at the end of 1946 I went home.

SAR: It must have taken a long time to build your strength back.

Visser: I felt ok, I did what I had to do, and I could even bicycle a little bit. My mother made me go back to high school; she said I needed a high school diploma. (laughs) Of course the military was out of the question for me, because of my weak lungs. I wanted to go to the police academy, but was offered a job as a sales inspector in Java, in the East Indies – formerly the Dutch East Indies – and I accepted. The company had me tested to make sure that my health was alright, it was, and I was approved to go and work in the tropics.

SAR: Was this a firearms related job you were looking for in the tropics?

Visser: No, it was in the tobacco industry. I was in Java for five years where I worked and hunted; wild boar, mostly. I had a German 7mm rifle with a 12 gauge shotgun barrel. My job was inspecting the cigarettes sold by our company in Java. We manufactured the cigarettes, and wanted to make sure that the cigarettes weren’t being sold or bought on the black market. There were many Chinese sales outlets all over Indonesia and the islands that needed to be inspected. I traveled a lot, all over Java, and for a while I lived in Jakarta, Malang and Semarang. There were about five Europeans running the factory, and for a year and a half I was the chief purchasing agent. This was from 1950 until 1955. (Dolf mentions that he was there at the same time, too bad they hadn’t met at that point.) It was a fantastic time; the company was really well run. The Dutch people who were running it were no-nonsense and everything was always ok. Holland had given up Indonesia in December of 1949, and the bad thing was (and I’m very pro-American) that under American pressure, they pushed the Dutch out and threatened to stop the Marshall Plan for Holland. There were millions of dollars going into rebuilding the Netherlands. So you can understand that our government gave in.

SAR: (Dolf) The Americans pushed the Dutch into giving up the country. My father was very bitter about that, too.

Visser: Yes, yes, the Americans had the idea of instituting liberty and democracy and everything Western, but we were not ready for it! Our Queen Wilhelmina had already said in 1942 that Indonesia would be a free country in the future; the process would have only taken about 15 years to complete.

SAR (Dan): In America we tend to think that there’s a magic wand for those who’ve been under colonial control or subjugation or despotic control, that they can suddenly handle freedom. I don’t want to get too far off the subject, but I’ve seen it too many times in too many places. Often we think we can touch a country and suddenly it’s free. It’s certainly not that simple. Henk, you lived right through the middle of the Jakarta incidents? Is this the point where you started to develop more of an interest in machine guns?

Visser: No, Dan, I have always been crazy about weapons. But going through the war years changed my perception of the world. When the Germans first “arrived,” they acted nice and very friendly. Holland was very wealthy and a rich booty. When it came to food I saw German soldiers go into Dutch shops to buy and eat an entire stick of butter, they hadn’t seen real butter in so long. Other things too, pastries, breads, all sorts of foods, they took them back home to their families. So in the beginning there wasn’t any ill treatment, but as every good Dutchman, I hated them from the very first moment. It wasn’t until later that the Germans showed their real character. They cleaned out the whole country. I actually started my collecting interest with military weapons when I got home from prison and the sanatorium. There was a gun in almost every home, taken from the Germans when they fled. I had friends at the police department, so if they had a really nice machine gun I was able to shoot it or buy it if they didn’t require it.

SAR: This was before your journey to Indonesia? Were you able to pick up many rare guns?

Visser: Yes, this was from 1947 to 1949. My interest in collecting military firearms was very intense, starting then. In those days it was all the common guns, also French guns that the Germans used. For instance, the first French machine gun that I got was a Hotchkiss 1914. It was a great big machine gun with cooling fins and a huge tripod. I was very interested in German sniper rifles at the time. When I went to Indonesia, I had to hide my collection in my mother’s house, since I had no license for these guns.

SAR: Are we seeing a pattern of youthful disregard for gun laws here?

Visser: (laughs) Yes, yes, and they were all cleaned very well before I left, so that when I returned there wasn’t a spot of rust on any of them.

SAR: When did you get involved in arms trading?

Visser: On my way to an appointment I stopped at a gun shop in a small street in Groningen. The guy that owned the shop had also spent some time in a German prison, as well as a concentration camp. In the shop I met a gentleman who was on the board of an ammunition factory in the south of Holland, he invited me to come and see the operation. I went there; it was a small factory that had just received an order for .30 carbine ammo from the Americans. The factory itself was a mess. I was told that the chairman of the board from the factory would like to talk to me; he offered me a job as director. He told me that the founder of the factory had died and that his younger brother wasn’t doing a good job running things. I said no, I didn’t want that job; I wanted to go back to Indonesia.

My boss back in Indonesia was a colonialist. He worked us to death, we never got enough salary, but we still led a wonderful life. He would always say, “Do this and I’ll give you a raise and a promotion.” I learned that even if I got a promotion, there would be no raise for me. He told me to go to Jakarta for a year and if I did a good job there, I would get a raise and a promotion, but when my review came up, I got a good promotion but no raise, as usual. He always had another task for me but I never got a raise. After five years, I got 8 months furlough. Usually when people went on furlough they would go straight home to Holland, but I asked if I could go to America. My boss agreed to pay for it, saying that I wasn’t such a bad guy. I flew to the Cocos Islands, Australia, lots of other small islands, Samoa, and then on to Hawaii, Los Angeles, Denver, Chicago, Boston to visit a friend, and down to Washington D.C.

SAR: That doesn’t explain your start in the arms trade…

Visser: I am getting to it, Dan, patience. Before I went on vacation my boss in Indonesia began to worry about the link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer, which was getting more and more attention in America. He asked me to see how the American tobacco companies were dealing with it. I went to Philip Morris, and they told me that more and more people were buying mentholated and filtered cigarettes because the public thought that they were not as bad. I wrote back to my boss what the Americans had told me, and he quickly started ordering the machinery to manufacture filtered cigarettes. These of course are more dangerous than unfiltered cigarettes because it allows you to smoke the cigarette all the way to the filter. You end up inhaling far more tar, etc. than you would get from smoking a cigarette without filter.

My boss had told me that upon my return from furlough I would become the Inspector for the Island of Sumatra. And so again I asked him if I would get my raise, he said that we would discuss it when I returned. He was in Holland at the same time, so I traveled to Eindhoven where he was with his family and had dinner with him. I asked him during dinner if I would finally get the position I wanted, with a higher salary and the ability to sign for the company as a representative. (Editor’s note: In Europe, the right to sign documents in the name of the company puts you in a much higher level socially. You generally get a much better salary.) He said that if I did a good job working in Sumatra that I would get the position I wanted. At that moment I realized he was lying, and the next morning I started talking to the people from the ammunition factory again. I asked for what was at that time a fantastic salary, not at all contingent on how the company did at the end of the year. They accepted!

SAR: So your international weapons career started in the ammunition factory in Hertogenbosch in Holland.

Visser: You might say it started when I was making those fuzes in a German prison (Laughs). But, I’ll tell you, my first day as director there, I almost cried. There were two secretaries, and neither one could write or type a letter without mistakes. Everything looked horrible and unprofessional from that office on down to the factory. I had to fight to straighten out that company. When I arrived, there were 63 people working there, and when I left there were over a 1,000.

SAR: Did this job lead to you becoming a member of the 7.62 NATO council?

Visser: After the cigarette factory in Indonesia, I think this was a really big start for me. I got a call one day from an American friend at the Pentagon who said, “Henk, we know you’re working on blanks with a lengthened case so that they feed automatically. We don’t have that, and this morning during a mock battle in Panama the American side had to shout “Poof! Poof!” because they had no blanks that would function automatically in their weapons. The general who was responsible for Panama got mad and demanded immediate delivery of the special blanks.”

I said to my friend that I could get some of my guys and some of our new blanks, cases, powder, tools and the necessary weapons, and fly over to see what we could do. We flew to Washington and went from there to Frankfurt Arsenal, where testing began on our ammo. Whether fired from a gun that had been in a freezer or not, our blanks worked perfectly! The guys from Frankfurt Arsenal wanted to inspect our blanks and see how they could copy them, but they didn’t have the time. The Pentagon wanted 45 million blank rounds in cal. 7.62 NATO, and we would get one-third of the order, which for us was a very, very big order. We were very excited until one day I got a call from them with sad news. They said that Congress refused to release the money needed for that big order and instead specified that only 30 million rounds would be purchased, with the order going to Frankfurt Arsenal, so we lost out. This was a big blow to our company, but there was also good news. They told me that they understood that we wanted to make 20mm aircraft ammo. They offered me a 20mm ammunition factory for free, with new machinery and everything, in St. Louis, that had been used to manufacture .60 caliber ammo and later 20mm aircraft ammo. It had been “mothballed” for use in an emergency.

SAR: The early M39 revolver cannon series, the T161s, were T130E3 .60 caliber machine guns before they were moved into the 20mm range.

Visser: Yes, it was the plant for that ammunition. We went to St. Louis to look at it, and we were flabbergasted. Everything, the machines, the tools, etc. was brand new, and just for us. I went back to Holland to arrange for transport. I came back to the Pentagon (which was very easy to just walk into in those days) to talk to Colonel Moor and a couple of other officials, but they had sad news again. “We cannot give you the plant,” they said. They saw my reaction…and after a long pause continued, “But we can sell you the plant for a $1,000.” We paid the thousand dollars and brought all of the machinery back to Holland. The end result was that once we got operational we supplied every NATO Air Force with the 20mm rounds: the Brits, the Norwegians, the Germans, the Dutch, everybody. Later, when the Vietnam War began, the US Air Force realized that they did not have enough 20mm rounds. They requested an order for 10 million 20mm rounds. Our Holland plant could fill that order so a meeting took place at the pentagon. One of the officials said, “This is crazy! Lake City is not the only ammunition plant we have. Don’t we have one in the South?” Colonel Moor pointed at me and said, “Yes, and HE has that plant.” (Visser laughs) So we used the plant from St. Louis to fill a 23 million dollar order for 10 million rounds.

SAR: Like all good arms dealers, I love a story where you get a plant for surplus and then get to sell the product back to your source (laughter). Henk, that probably would have been 1967 or 1968 and jumps us too far ahead in this story. When did you first get involved with Armalite?

Visser: Ah, patience, Dan, patience. First we must address the CETME (Centro de Estudios Technicales de Materiales Especiales) program. When I started to work in Holland for NWM in 1955, they had an advisor that was a retired Dutch rear admiral who became a very good friend of mine. He had been in Spain recently (he spoke fluent Spanish), where some Spanish and Germans had been working on a new gun made from sheet steel. I knew of some of the developments that had been done in Germany with the Sturmgewehr, and I flew to Madrid. The operations there were very isolated from the outside world. The main operation was on the CETME rifle. They showed me the whole factory, and pointed out some of the small tools and things that they were missing which I could supply, so I told them I’d help out. I became very friendly with them, and pretty soon I had my own CETME rifle to take back with me to Holland. That rifle…that’s a whole other story.

It was made for special ammunition, an aluminum bullet with a copper jacket…a very long bullet with a short case. The man who designed this ammunition was Dr. Voss, and he was the German Air Force ballistician, and he was also the ballistician for the CETME group. He was very knowledgeable about recoil and automatic fire and the physics of holding a gun. During that time, the first German armed forces were the Bundesgrenzschutz who were supposed to guard the German boarders. There were 20,000 soldiers armed with German K98’s and the MG42’s, as well as 100 new 20mm Hispano guns and of course the P38 pistol, and nothing else. The boss was Colonel Naujokat, and he had been in charge of the two flat cars before and behind Hitler’s quarters on his train (during WWII). These open cars had 4-barreled 20mm automatic cannons on them.

The Spanish went to the Colonel and demonstrated for him in Bonn. The Colonel liked the new Sturmgewehr and the ammo very much, but told them they had the wrong caliber. The standard caliber was cal. 7.62, but this new Spanish ammunition was cal. 7.92. So they went back to Spain and changed the gun, the magazine, and, of course, they had to make new ammunition. They also made new firing tables, it took a year. After which they had their new CETME ammunition in cal. 7.62.

SAR: This was not yet 7.62 NATO ammunition, correct?

Visser: Correct. After the Spanish finished their new ammo, they brought it and the guns back to the German Colonel, who turned white and said, “Oh my God. I should have told you that 7.62 also requires a new case: the T65 case.” The Spanish group was beside itself, returned to Madrid and decided that it was all over. The gun was mathematically designed for a low powered cartridge and the 7.62 NATO had much more power, so it needed a totally new gun. But one of the bosses at the Madrid factory pointed out that the factory had good relations with the American military attaché, since they had just received an order to develop caseless rifle ammunition and caseless 20mm. The boss said, “Go and get a barrel and 1,000 7.62 NATO rounds.” Which they got from the U.S. The CETME with that barrel fired 600 7.62 rounds before the gun fell apart. The cartridge was far too powerful, since the gun was designed for a lighter round. The German engineers rebuilt and strengthened the housing as the German army wanted to arm their soldiers with them.

They had contact with the Heckler & Koch people, who were all old Mauser people working in two wooden barracks, making tools for pressings and so forth, and that’s how I came into contact with Heckler & Koch. The Germans at the Weapons Department in Bonn were always making changes in the gun, and it was Heckler & Koch who made the changes on the CETME. I told the CETME people, “You guys have no sales organization….let NWM have the rights to act for you all over the world.” They told me I had to pay for the right, which was no problem for NWM. They gave me the world rights for the CETME rifle, excluding Spain, Portugal and Germany. The rest of the world was ours. They also said that if I wanted to set up production elsewhere, they would help us get started.

In the meantime they were still working on the guns…making a new grip and so on…they had spent millions making the guns and making the changes. I went to the Dutch army, who agreed to test out the gun with all kinds of different ammo, including French steelcased ammo. They fired the steel ammo. When the trigger was pulled, there was a BIG noise, the rate of fire was 1,800 rounds per minute, and about half of the empty steelcases got stuck in the wooden wall. I told the Colonel to stop the test…it was a hopeless case. As it turned out, they never actually manufactured the steel ammo, but it was a hopeless case nonetheless.

To make the gun work, they had added grooves in the chamber, so that some of the gas would press on the exterior of the case to release it. The main fault of the CETME rifle is that as soon as the climate gets moist, firing the gun without immediately cleaning it results in sticky cases. This design of the roller locking system is only good for lightly-powered ammunition. We had a very fortunate thing happen; the Germans had improved the gun enough so that it functioned, but later on I learned that Heckler & Koch had a trick up their sleeves. All of the guns were tested, and they had seven different-sized sets of rollers, so that if there was a problem they would put other rollers on the locking mechanism. They would change the rollers until everything worked properly!

SAR: Very pragmatic from the point of view of a demonstrator. What year was that?

Visser: 1958 as I remember. Because the Germans had changed the rollers and had gotten the first order for 400,000 rifles, the whole world wanted the CETME rifle in the form of the G3. They had to say no to worldwide orders, because they didn’t have the rights to sell outside of Spain, Portugal and Germany, I did! We did have plans to make the rifle outside of Spain, but I stopped those plans because I felt the design was not good. I got a call from Bonn, it was my good friend from the Ministry who said, “Henk, we cannot have this. Here we are, a great nation, and we cannot sell our own rifle. I’ll offer you a deal: I know you want to make 20mm ammo for those thousand Starfighters we have bought.” They were so far back, they bought 1,000 Starfighters and they didn’t know what gun was in it! He said, “You’ll get 33% of all orders for 20mm ammo if you relinquish the rights to sell the CETME rifle.” I said, “OK.” He immediately went and got his secretary to type up a document saying that I would forever get 33% of all the 20mm orders for the Germans. ANY 20mm ammo. It saved our neck. It was one of the best days of my life…I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was the end of our CETME involvement.

SAR: You were the link between CETME and Heckler & Koch?

Visser: Partly, yes. Heckler & Koch were not big shots. Their company wasn’t large enough at that time to make the big deals. They grew because of all these orders that came in from everywhere. Later they designed many important weapon systems. It was really something to see.

SAR: Henk, I would like to come back to the rifle design programs in more depth, later. If you share your experience as a collector with our readers, I am sure they would be interested. This may seem somewhat insensitive, but to obtain your collection must have cost a fortune; far above the income of a young Dutch boy who was on the Nazi death row.

Visser: Yeah, that’s about right. I have been very fortunate in my business decisions and made some very nice commissions. We can come back to that business later.

SAR: So, what was your passion?

Visser: Collecting guns. Well…really the military guns. That was the start, anything military I could get. Later it was the Dutch firearms and I sold my military collection to Bonn, it was the beginning of the museum they have now in Koblenz. 849 of my guns are still there – even my Gatling gun – the beautiful brand-new Gatling gun with the carriage and the ammunition car.

SAR: What was the Gatling, a British one?

Visser: No, an American one. The Colt 1883 model with the jacket around the barrel, and the tripod. One day in a military base, somewhere in America, near Picatinny I believe, a sergeant was cleaning up the attic, and he found this Gatling gun. It was brand new but completely taken apart, no one had ever looked at it. He went to his Colonel who said to get rid of it. And there, magically, was Val! (laughs) And who do you think bought it on the spot?

SAR:(Dolf) Yes, Val would certainly have been there! (We are discussing the late Val Forgette of Navy Arms, another international arms dealer of the good old days.)

Visser: I knew Val very well and he sold the gun to me. Very cheap, I might add. It was really a big affair, and when I left NWM they wanted to take it, but instead I sold it to Bonn, and the Gatling is in their museum today. Two of the magazines disappeared, it is sad that there are always people in museums stealing things. There were many rare guns in the military collection. One that I thought was very rare was a 7.62 NATO Gatling gun from GE. I was the only private guy in the world who had a brand-new one.

SAR: Gatling Gun, you mean an M134 Minigun?

Visser: Yes, I got it out of Vietnam…I had so much stuff there….I was working for Dutch intelligence at the time, so they arranged for a Shell tanker to haul all the stuff I had gotten to Singapore. I had 10 RPG-7 anti-tank launchers, with 200 rounds of HE grenades. The Dutch and the Germans wanted to test them.

SAR: And how about the testing?

Visser: Well, we finally got the shipment and it had to go on the deck of a Dutch destroyer in Singapore. They loaded it from the tanker onto the warship. I had managed to get a lot of interesting items for the collection during my time in Vietnam. With the RPG-7, we had to do some testing for the government. They decided that this test they wanted to run was too big for them and they made a deal with the Germans, who did a tremendously detailed testing. They even tested the glue on the wooden cases, they checked the labels to see where they were made, in Russia or East Germany. I still have one RPG-7 and an inert rocket at home. I was very interested in the American M72 LAW. I once owned six LAWS.

SAR: When did you get into the antique guns?

Visser: Slowly I got more and more interested in the antique guns…I had always hated them, so crazy and ugly they seemed to me…but then, because of my historical interests, I decided to get rid of anything that was non-Dutch. I had the best automatic pistol collection in the world, all the early Mausers, Bittners, Schonbergers, Borschards, Gabbit Fairfaxes, etc, etc. I sold them all in one lot to Dr. Sturgess, a good friend of mine. He came to my place the first time and I opened drawers for him, and he started sweating, he was going crazy. He was…really, I’ve never seen anybody so excited by my collection.

SAR: (Dolf) Even the Maxim automatic pistols came from you? I have them in my latest book.

Visser: Yes, Dolf, the Maxims as well! I was collecting automatic pistols when nobody was interested. I went to every gun shop in Switzerland where they hadn’t had the German occupiers to take everything, and there were a hell of a lot of people saying, “That old gun there, 150 francs and you can take it, with ammo too.” Those days are gone, you know. There was a gunsmith who I was talking about Lugers with, about how the prices of the Lugers had started going up, and he said, “You know, I have Luger serial number 0001, which was presented to my neighbor, an officer, in front of the troops.” It was the first Luger that the Swiss Army officially adopted. I said “That’s interesting, can I see it?” and he brought it to me in the holster. He said, “The normal price for this is 225 francs, but if you give me 275 then it’s yours.” Those were better days, you know? You would go into a gunshop and there would be a Mondragon rifle with special bayonet. It just doesn’t happen like that anymore.

SAR: Basically Henk, all the money you made you put into collecting guns?

Visser: Everything. I had no capital, no shares; I only had substantial commissions from sales. Eventually I sold my pistols and all my special ammo to Geoff Sturgess…but…it’s like a sickness, you know? I was at the Las Vegas Antique Show and there was a very rare Dutch gun there. It looks like a single-shot pistol, but it’s a three-shot pistol with a little channel where the powder goes for the first, second and third shot, and there is a Maastricht mark under the barrel. It was from the Funderburg Collection, a very famous collection. It’s in a catalog. I bought it for a lot of money! It’s crazy!

SAR: You’re preaching to the choir when you talk to Class 3 owners in the United States. You did a series of books on your collection of Dutch guns….

Visser: Yes, they are available commercially, but are out of print at the moment. The set weighs 22 kilos. Now I’m writing more books, one with the names of all of the Dutch gun makers, about 1,400 of them. Another book project that I was working on with two technicians, both specialists with Master’s degrees in History Drs. Martens en Drs. de Vries, was to write the story of Dutch weapons starting at the Napoleonic era. As these books were written in Dutch they will be translated into English and the 3 volumes will be condensed into one. There is another book in English, almost finished, about a very special German – who later became an American – Otto von Lossnitzer, the father of the modern aircraft revolving guns.

Look for a link to the second half of our smallarmsreview.com interview with Henk Visser in an upcoming SAR newsletter when we look at Vietnam, Oerlikon, the changes to the Stoner 63 system and the innovative Mecar rifle grenade programs, as well as Visser’s work to restore Dutch firearms in Russian museums. – Dan Shea

British Lewis gun.

By Robert G. Segel

The iconic Lewis gun, invented by American Isaac Lewis, gained its fame in World War I as the then-new concept of a reliable man-portable light machine gun that the Germans nicknamed “The Belgian Rattlesnake.” Originally made in Belgium in 1914 before that country was overrun by Germany, the tooling was taken to England before capture where it was made by B.S.A. (Birmingham Small Arms) company. It was also made later in the United States by Savage Arms Company. But it was the British manufactured gun that saw the most service in World War I and the British who embraced it as a squad automatic weapon. Though ultimately replaced by the Bren gun as the primary light machine gun between the wars, the Lewis gun remained as secondary armament in the British inventory of small arm weapons and continued service well into World War II in many different capacities.

As an interesting aside, prior to U.S. entry into World War I in 1917, the army used some Savage made Lewis guns along the U.S. and Mexican border during that time in 1917, and the U.S Marines trained with the Lewis gun. When the Marines went to France in 1917 attached to the Army’s 2nd Division, the Lewis guns were taken away and the Marines were issued the French Chauchat M1915 in its stead.

Because the Lewis gun saw such wide service in two world wars, and had such an extended service life, gunner’s kits were a necessary accessory to keep them operational in the field. In World War I the gunner’s kit was a simple leather wallet that contained the bare essentials for the gunner. From lessons learned, the World War II era gunner’s kit was far more compete with a larger canvas carrier that allowed the gunner a wider range of field maintenance.

A review of the activities of the industry’s regulator, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) is provided in the agency’s recently released 2005 annual report.

During fiscal year (FY) 2005, ATF processed 10,758 permanent and 6,464 temporary applications for the importation of firearms, ammunition, and implements of war.

During FY 2005, ATF industry operations investigators conducted 11,011 firearms compliance and application inspections. ATF conducted 3,083 inspections employing a streamlined inspection program designed to identify and examine FFLs that pose the most significant threat of being used by traffickers, as well as those FFLs that are “in violation of the law and responsible for the criminal diversion of firearms,” ATF says.

These inspections resulted in 1,110 law enforcement referrals; 493 prohibited sales violations (including sales to underage persons or prohibited categories of persons); 3,601 NICS violations; 1,663 unreported multiple sales violations; and 11,086 inventory discrepancies. Inspections resulted in over 700 firearms licensees having violations meriting serious administrative action. Referrals were also made to ATF law enforcement for criminal investigation.

ATF says its inspection efforts are resulting in FFLs coming into compliance with the law. Once ATF conducts a warning conference with a licensee relating to violations of the law or regulations, ATF performs a recall inspection the following year to ensure that the licensee is complying with federal laws and specific record keeping regulations.

In FY 2005, ATF conducted 558 recall inspections. A comparison of the previous inspection results with the recall inspection results showed a 90% reduction in inventory discrepancies, an 86% decrease in prohibited sales, and a 77% reduction in other types of violations.

During ATF’s firearms inspections, the Bureau found that 2,990 of the 3,083 federal firearms licensees had 12,274 missing or stolen firearms.

During FY 2005, ATF conducted over 260,000 firearms trace requests. Firearms tracing is the systematic tracking of the movement of a firearm recovered by law enforcement personnel from its first sale by the manufacturer or importer through the distribution chain to the first retail purchaser.

NFA Data

ATF processes all applications to manufacture, transfer and register NFA firearms. The registration information is captured in the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Record.

As of November 30, 2005, there were 1,762,948 firearms registered with the NFA branch. From January 1, 2005, through November 30, 2005, the branch processed 150,913 applications to make, register, or transfer NFA arms.

On the criminal side of its operations, ATF referred 3,253 defendants for prosecutions in firearms trafficking investigations, a 10% increase over FY 2004. There were 1,448 convictions of firearms traffickers in ATF cases in 2005, an increase of 14% over the previous fiscal year. ATF’s efforts resulted in the initiation of 28,526 total firearms investigations and 8,353 defendants were convicted for firearms-related offenses in FY 2005.

Forty-nine percent of the defendants convicted in 2005 were prohibited persons in possession of firearms. ATF had a 170% increase in the number of defendants referred for prosecution as prohibited persons from FY 2000 to FY 2005. Four percent of the firearms defendants convicted in 2005 were armed career criminals. Over the same 5 years, ATF also saw a 209% increase in the number of defendants referred for prosecution under 18 U.S.C. Section 924(e), the armed career criminal statute, which mandates a minimum mandatory 15-year sentence.

Meanwhile, reported firearm violent crime has decreased during the years 2000 through 2004. In 2000, there were 533,470 reported incidents, in 2001 524,030, in 2002 364,090, in 2003 366,840 and in 2004 280,890.

Homicides with firearms saw an increase during the years 2000 through 2003, before declining in 2004. In 2000, there were 8,661 homicides with firearms, in 2001 8,890, in 2002 9,528, in 2003 9,659, and in 2004 9,326.

ATF has also referred an increasing amount of previously convicted felons found in possession of firearms and armed career criminals for prosecution. In 2000, ATF referred 3,474 such persons for prosecution and 2,212 defendants were convicted. In 2001, 4,383 were referred for prosecution and 2,846 were convicted. In 2002, 5,456 were referred and 3,248 were convicted. In 2003, 8,034 were referred and 3,346 were convicted. In 2004, there were 8,944 referrals and 3,827 convictions. In 2005, there were 9,388 referrals and 4,076 convictions. Note: convictions may occur in a different year than referral.

In the year 2000, 252 referrals for prosecution were made of armed career criminals and 144 were convicted. In 2001, there were 321 referrals and 197 convictions. In 2002, there were 426 referrals and 255 convictions. In 2003, there were 638 referrals and 263 convictions. In 2004, there were 630 referrals and 276 convictions. In 2005, there were 779 referrals and 309 convictions. Over the past year, an average of ten defendants per field agent were referred for prosecution.

ATF Funding

For FY 2005, the U.S. Congress appropriated $882.5 million for ATF’s operations and an additional $53.5 million was made available from other sources. ATF incurred obligations of $923.9 million during the fiscal year.

The vast majority of ATF’s funds in FY 2005 were used for firearms enforcement; $591 million, representing 64% of its budget. Explosive enforcement consumed $119 million or 13% of the total. Firearms industry operations comprised 9% or $81 million of the funds. Arson work cost $64 million or 7% of the budget. Explosive industry operations ate up $48 million or 5% of the total and alcohol and tobacco absorbed $21 million or 2%.

As of Sept. 30, 2005, ATF had 4,921 employees. Of these, 2,441 are special agents who carry out investigative and law enforcement functions. Another 771 are industry operations investigators. The remaining 1,709 are administrative, professional and technical employees.

New ATF E-Mail Service for FFL Holders

ATF is offering Federal Firearms Licensees a new option to receive ATF information, such as open letters and notices by e-mail. This service will not replace traditional ATF postal mailings. Those licensees interested should e-mail their request to: FFLnewsletter@atf.gov. Include your name, business name, FFL number, and e-mail address. Only the licensee or a responsible person can request and receive information using the new e-mail service.

Proposed Bills Would Reform ATF

In the aftermath of the recent congressional hearings on ATF gun show practices in the Richmond, Virginia area, legislation has been proposed to change ATF procedures.

H. R. 5005, the “Firearms Corrections and Improvements Act,” by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) would (among other changes):

• Permanently ban taxes or “user fees” on background checks by the federal instant check system – fees that Congress has prohibited in appropriations amendments every year since 1998.
• Permanently ban electronic registries of dealers’ records – a threat to gun owners’ privacy that Congress has also banned through appropriations riders for a decade.
• Limit disclosure of firearms trace records – which Congress has already limited through a series of appropriations riders over the past few years, out of concern for gun owners’ privacy and the confidentiality of law enforcement records.
• Eliminate a provision of federal law that requires juveniles to have written permission to use a handgun for purposes such as competitive shooting or safety training – even when the parent or guardian is present.
• Allow possession and transfer of machine guns by firearm and ammunition manufacturers for use in research and development (for instance, to ensure that ammunition works reliably), and by federal contractors who provide national security services.

Another bill, H.R. 5092, totally revises the system of penalties for licensed dealers, manufacturers and importers of firearms. Under today’s system, ATF can only give an FFL holder a warning, or totally revoke the license. This bill would allow fines or license suspensions for less serious violations, while allowing license revocation for the kind of serious violations that would block an investigation or put guns in the hands of criminals. Among H.R. 5092’s other provisions, the bill:

• Allows penalties for intentional violations of the law, but not for simple paperwork mistakes. Congress thought it had fixed this problem when it passed the Firearms Owners’ Protection Act of 1986, but the government has argued in court that the 1986 changes were “without practical significance.”
• Provides a fair process for imposing penalties, by allowing FFLs to appeal ATF penalties to a neutral administrative law judge. (Currently FFLs appeal ATF decisions to another employee of ATF itself.)
• Requires a Department of Justice review of ATF gun show enforcement operations.
• Requires ATF to establish clear investigative guidelines.
• Focuses ATF’s efforts on violations of firearms, explosives, arson, alcohol and tobacco laws, rather than on broader gang, drug or terrorism investigations.

Slaying Prompts Calls for Controls in Switzerland

The recent murder of one of Switzerland’s most famous skiers has prompted the Swiss government to exercise great caution in the granting of permits to export small arms, a source within the country indicates.

Corinne Rey-Bellet was shot by her husband Gerold Stadler; just days after the couple had agreed to separate. Stadler also shot and killed Rey-Bellet’s brother Alain, and seriously wounded her mother, before finally killing himself. Stadler shot his famous wife with his Swiss Army officer’s pistol.

U.S. Bill Would Provide Machine Gun Amnesty

The “Veterans` Heritage Firearms Act of 2005,” (H.R. 2088) introduced by U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons (R-Nev.), would provide a 90-day amnesty period during which veterans and their families could register NFA firearms acquired overseas between June 26, 1934 and Oct. 31, 1968, without fear of prosecution.

The proposed legislation would not apply to destructive devices. Congress granted a limited amnesty in 1968, but many veterans did not receive notice in time to participate.

H.R. 2088 states that “in the absence of clear and convincing evidence to the contrary the Attorney General shall accept as true and accurate any affidavit, document, or other evidence submitted by an individual to establish that such firearm meets the requirements.”

This allows for the fact that veterans may have acquired war trophy firearms lawfully under military regulations, but without receiving official paperwork. Some veterans may also have lost such paperwork over the years.

Under the bill, the Attorney General would create and distribute clear printed notices providing information regarding the amnesty period and the requirements for registering a firearm.

Recognizing that veterans‘ trophies represent an important part of the nation’s history, H.R. 2088 would require the Attorney General to transfer each firearm that has been forfeited to the United States to the first qualified museum that submits a suitable request.

The Attorney General would be prohibited from destroying any forfeited firearm until the end of the 5-year period and the public would have to be informed of forfeitures.

Lastly, H.R. 2088 would amend federal law relating to machine guns, allowing their “transfer to or by, or possession by, a museum which is open to the public and incorporated as a not-for-profit corporation under applicable State law.” Current law only allows transfer of machineguns to government museums.

Excise Tax Gain Indicates Production Increase

Federal excise tax collections on firearms and ammunition rose 2.6% percent in calendar year 2005, signaling a slight increase in production by manufacturers.

Firearm and ammunition manufacturers paid $224.3 million in excise taxes last year, an increase from the $218.6 million paid in 2004, according to figures released by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Last year’s excise tax totals point to an estimated $2.1 billion in sales for manufacturers, up from about $2 billion in 2004, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Total excise tax collections for the calendar year of 2005 were: long guns – $105.6 million (rising 1.8% from $103.8 million in 2004); ammunition – $71.3 million (moving up 3.5% from $68.9 million in 2004); and handguns, $47.3 million (up 3% from $45.9 million in 2004).

Business Process Automation Offered to Industry

Most businesses in the sporting goods industry operate on disparate types of software which results in time consuming inefficiencies, says William Sucher, a consultant with Visualnet Media, Inc., a 5-year-old business process automation firm.

William Sucher, the son of Michael Sucher, a principal at the noted importer, Century International Arms, Inc., says he has witnessed first-hand all the frustrations sporting goods firms face in managing their inventory. Visualnet Media, he says, offers an end solution that will convert businesses to an entirely paperless, secure web-based environment. The method employs the use of technology that is commonly referred to as “free form software.” The technology can be used to manage shipments, handle inventory control or in real-time offerings to customers.

In use, with the click of a mouse, users can track what shipment an individual firearm came in on, how long that same firearm stayed in inventory and to determine which customer ultimately purchased that same firearm.

For further information, Sucher may be contacted by using his e-mail at: wsucher@visualnetmedia.com or by telephoning (425) 822-9181.

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

J&T Distributing Offers New Gas Block Option for AR’s 

J&T Distributing has introduced three new gas blocks, increasing the options AR shooters have in selecting a gas block to fit their particular shooting specifications. Designed for AR shooters who prefer removable front sights, the new gas blocks are available in three sizes: .937 for stainless steel bull barrels, .750 for H-Bar barrels and .625 for A-1 barrels. J&T Distributing is one of the few manufacturers of the A-1 size gas block machined from 6061 T6 aluminum and incorporating the 1913 Picatinny rail. J&T’s new gas blocks have a pleasing angular profile and an additional set screw on the top surface to insure a perfect gas seal. The blocks are hard coat anodized and are shipped with 3 set screws. With a retail price of $29.95, these low profile gas blocks allow AR shooters to also mount iron sights, flashlights or laser-aiming devices. This new family of gas blocks further expands J&T Distributing’s product line, which ranges from complete kits to specialized component pieces for military, law enforcement, competition or hobby shooters. For more information about J&T Distributing’s product line, please contact them at J&T Distributing, Dept. SAR, P.O. Box 430, Winchester, KY 40392. Phone: (888) 736-7725. Fax: (853) 745-4638. They can be located on the internet at www.jtdistributing.com. 

Heavy Duty 7-Position CAR Stock from Ace Limited USA 

Ace Limited USA has introduced a new Heavy Duty 7-position stock for the AR-15/M16 series of rifles. The new stock is without a doubt the strongest MOD stock available for the AR rifle. Current issue CAR or M4 adjustable MOD stocks have one fatal design flaw. The receiver extension tube is weak. The exposed threads and keyway create stress risers that greatly reduce the strength of the GI receiver extension tube. If a fully loaded M4 or M16 is dropped at an angle and the receiver extension tube is bent even slightly, the bolt carrier will get stuck in the receiver extension tube when the first round is fired. Worse, the carrier will be stuck in such a way that the rifle cannot be field stripped to correct the malfunction. In a military or police situation this could be fatal. This new stock solves this inherent problem. This stock features the strongest receiver extension tube available and also includes features such as machine tapered gussets that reinforce the lower receiver, adjustable screw-in stops that allow repeat adjustment to the same position very time in any conditions and four sling positions. The stock also has laser etched delineation marks to ensure a visual confirmation of your stock’s adjustment. Adjustable shim screws in the receiver extension tube allow all slop and rattle to be eliminated from the stock. The heavy-duty receiver extension tube can also be ordered separately for use with your existing stock. This is also the perfect stock for the .308 guns out there. This is another “must have” item from the company that is known for their stocks and stock adapters. For more information, or to place on order, please contact ACE Limited USA, Dept. SAR, P.O. Box 191, Chicago Park, CA 95712. Phone: (530) 346-2492. Fax: (530) 346-2582. You can find more information on their websites at www.aceltdusa.com or www.riflestocks.com. 

HALO Manufacturing Introduces the Stenstock 

HALO Manufacturing has now introduced a new product that will make Sten owners stand up and take notice. The new product is called the Stenstock and is an adapter that allows the Sten user to do away with his “T” or loop style stock and replace it with any stock that will attach to an AR-15/M16 style rifle. The adapter is made from aluminum and will be hard coat anodized to match the original weapon. The Stenstock also provides an attachment point for a standard AR-15 style pistol grip making the Sten even more ergonomic. For more information on this, as well as a full line of other firearm accessories, please contact HALO Manufacturing, Dept. SAR, 3980 Shenstone Drive, Suite A, Eugene, OR 97404. Phone/Fax: (541) 688-2645. Their website is www.halomfg.com. 

MD3 LaserLight from PentagonLight 

PentagonLight has just introduced their new MD3 LaserLight. The powerful light combines either a 135-lumen or a 75-lumen 5W LED light with a red laser all in one compact package. This compact integration of the light and laser with an ARMS throw lever mount easily engages and disengages both elements from the Picatinny rail at the same time, thus reducing preparation time for nighttime operations. The light source is protected by an anti-scratch tempered glass lens and is maximally focused for greatest distance and center brightness. The laser module is easily interchanged for an optional side mounted LED light for providing low visibility for reduced light signature. The MD3 LaserLight is pre-configured with a straight cord remote pressure pad switch or a push on/off tail-cap switch for the light. An independent push on/off tail-cap switch easily activates the offset laser. Several accessories are available for the light including a coil-cord remote pressure switch tail-cap, constant and momentary on/off tail-cap, gun barrel mounts and conversion heads for alternate light sources of the main light. For more information on this new light/laser combination, please contact PentagonLight, Dept. SAR, 826 Cowan Road, Burlingame, CA 94101. Phone: (650) 697-5505. Fax: (650) 259-1311. They can be found on the web at www.pentagonlight.com. 

Rapid Deployment Body Armor Bag 

A new company called Rapid Deployment Protection Systems has introduced a new product that combines two products in one. The Rapid Deployment Body Armor Bag is a soft body armor and weapon carrying case all rolled into one. The bag goes from a discrete carrying case holding a weapon to load-bearing vest-type body armor and a ready to use weapon in a matter of seconds. The new bag is made from heavy duty Cordura-type nylon and, by itself, offers no ballistic qualities. It features “Universal Plate Carrier Technology” pouches that can be outfitted with either ceramic or steel ballistic plates and when used in conjunction with soft body armor it will protect the wearer from most rifle ammunition. The Rapid Deployment Body Armor Bag can also be equipped with magazine pouches or pouches for lights, medical kit, gas masks, etc. They even have a place for flex cuffs. There are three versions available. Version 1 fits most submachine guns with folding stocks and short barreled rifles under 24 inches; Version 2 will accommodate weapons up to 39 inches, and Version 3 anything up to 45 inches. Other versions are currently being planned. No law enforcement or military professional should be without one of these bags. For more information, please contact Rapid Deployment Protection Systems Inc., Dept. SAR, 4008 Yarmouth Lane, Bowie MD, 20715. Phone: (301) 805-4830. Fax: (301) 805-4831. E-mail: support@rapiddeploymentinc.com. Their website is www.rapiddeploymentinc.com. 

KNS Precision Introduces the Lightning Link Re-enforcer 

KNS Precision, Inc. has just introduced their new Lightning Link Re-enforcer, a reinforcement piece made of stainless steel that prevents an AR-15 Lightning Link from cracking in the weak areas. Those who have invested in an ATF registered Lightning Link know how valuable they are and will want this added protection against breakage. Installation is simple and requires a minimal amount of fitting to the lower receiver. The new Re-Enforcer comes with full instructions along with helpful suggestions for proper maintenance. The Re-enforcer is guaranteed and sells for $129.95. For more information, or to place an order, please contact KNS Precision Inc., Dept. SAR, 3168 N. State Hwy 16, Fredericksburg, TX 78624. Phone: (830) 997-9391. Fax: (830) 997-2528. They can be found on the web at www.knsprecisioninc.com.

Q– I need some information about the Argentine FMK-3 9mm SMG. I have read that Uzi magazines can be used in this gun if the magazine catch is modified. If so, please show how this is done. Is it possible to modify the Uzi magazines and leave the mag catch of the FMK-3 unaltered?

A– The FMK-3 submachine gun is a standard tube gun, very reliable and robust. It is open bolt, and uses a 40 round magazine that is very similar to the standard Uzi submachine gun magazine which is generally 25 or 32-rounds capacity. Obviously the 40-round magazine has interested Uzi owners in the US.

The FMK-3 magazine is similar enough to convert over, and the accompanying pictures should help with understanding what is involved.

Q– In your Raffica column (June 2006) you mentioned having had a pair of VZ58’s from the Vietnam War. I was a crew chief/door gunner on a Huey during ’67-’68 and saw a number of interesting weapons floating around. There was a guy who had, what I now believe, was possibly a VZ26. I remember the Swedish K’s, “Greaseguns” and Thompsons, but this particular gun was new to me. Could it have been a VZ26? What was the production period of the VZ26’s?

A– The East Bloc supplied a lot of aid to the North Vietnamese through their affiliation with the USSR. I have had some very interesting conversations in formerly communist countries where men in my age group discuss how they gave blood or donated goods to help their communist brothers in North Vietnam. The same is true of the weaponry. Since that was the war that was in progress, different countries tried their weapons in combat from Uncle Ho’s side just as much as the West tried out their various weapons from the South’s side.

The VZ-58s that I had were brought back by a US soldier. I have never seen a bring back VZ23, 24, 25, or 26. It would be difficult to pin down the exact model you might have seen. The Model 23 and 25 were made from 1948 to 1952, when they were upgraded in production to the Model 24 and 26 respectively. Hard to tell the difference in the production runs, except the 23 and 25 had a folding stock, and the 24 and 26 had a fixed stock. The 23 and 25 were in 9mm Parabellum, and the 24 and 26 were in 7.62 TT. There are differences of course, but going back over 35 years in memory it is going to be tough for you to ID those mostly internal differences. In any event, it is quite possible from the hodgepodge of weapons in South East Asia that you saw one of the Czech subguns.

Q– Is the 14.5mm PTRG cartridge a Class3 round?

A– If you mean “does it require registration as a Destructive Device,” the simple answer is no. Even the rare “HEI” versions of 14.5mm ammo do not have enough explosive in them to qualify as a Destructive Device. Transportation and storage of the HE type rounds might bring in explosive regulatory issues if the quantity was large enough, but these rounds are generally restricted to single pieces in collections in the US. They are hoarded by those with the guns, since they can not be imported since the diameter of the projectile is over 1/2 inch.

There are two basic cartridges referred to as 14.5mm in the US. The 14.5x51R (or “14.5mm Spotter”) is a much shorter cartridge used in artillery training subcaliber devices. Frequently these projectiles are sold as pulled marking projectiles. They are definitely not compatible with the other type of ammunition which is the subject at hand, 14.5x114mm.

Remember that there are two basic weapon systems that use this cartridge; the PTRS41 and other 14.5mm anti tank rifles from the World War II era, and the modern 14.5mm KPV-T anti-aircraft systems (frequently used for anti-ground as well). Users of the early anti-tank rifles should note that while the cartridge case is the same, the KPV-T ammunition is significantly more powerful and will damage the early anti-tank rifles to the point of dangerous catastrophic failures. Just a word to the wise: pay attention to what you are putting in these old guns.

Q– I picked up a minty Colt M16A1 ser# 937xxxx that I think is in the 621 configuration. It is all ‘A1’ with the exception of a round hand guard and square front sight post. Barrel is 20” heavy with C MP B and a lug double pinned right behind the flash cage that looks to be for an M14 bipod. Is this really a 621 and what was it designed/intended for? What is the rarity? Anything else unique or significant?

A– The 9 million serial number range would be correct for the Colt Model 621, which is the true “H-Bar” most people think of. If it was, then the bipod would be for M60 legs as in the photo. The M14 bipod was first used on the Colt Model 606B (Referred to as the “06B”). To be correct as the Model 621, you would have forward assist, chromed bolt carrier, triangular fore end (not the round fore end), and the barrel would be heavy over the full contour. The Model 606B, which used the M14 bipod, would be marked Model 606B. I have seen what were supposedly original Model 621 H-Bars with an M14 bipod, but could not check the pedigree. I pulled the pictures here from the Colt M16 ID Guide we published early in Small Arms Review magazine’s first year, and the complete Guide is also in the Machine Gun Dealers Bible, 4th Edition.

Q– I picked up some 6.5 Italian ammunition in a brass stripper that has a handle on one end. There are twenty cartridges in the stripper, which has a brass sheath on each end. The guy who sold it said it was for the Breda 37 machine gun.

A– Close, but no cigar to your friend. This “charger” is for the Fucile Mitriagliatori Breda Modello 30, or the Breda Model 30 for short. This was a light machine gun that weighed about 23 pounds and it was basically the second model of LMG in the Italian arsenal in the Pre-World War II period. The Modello 1924 gave birth to the Modello 1930. The 1930 is an intriguing design, and it is much misaligned like the French Chauchat Mle 1915. Taken in context of a time when machine guns were all tripod mounted and frequently were water cooled, lightening a portable rifle caliber machine gun was a leap forward. Successful models like the 1918 BARs, the 1903 and 1914 Madsen LMGs, and the Hotchkiss guns of 1922 and 1926, were almost oddities themselves when compared to many of the attempts that were seen.

The Breda suffered from a number of deficiencies that should be pointed out to prospective owners. First is the very nice addition of a quick change barrel that somehow left out the idea of a carrying handle, leaving the A-gunner with a hot barrel to pull off of the bipod mounted gun. That was still easier than pulling off a standard M60 barrel with bipod on the barrel, though. The real issues arise around the magazine and the unlocking system. When the Breda unlocks, the barrel and bolt travel rearward together and unlock quite violently through a cam action. This puts undue stress on the spent cartridge, which means a lot of broken and stuck cartridge cases. To lessen the strain on this, the Breda has an oiler that squirts a shot of oil on each and every cartridge that feeds into the chamber. Thus, the bolt is lubricated as well. Hard experience taught the Italians that this system also quickly led to making either a slow down gunk or nice jewelers paste that either gummed up the system or wore down the parts depending on the size and composition of sand or particles that mixed with the oil. That is a “Bad” thing for a combat machine gunner.

The magazine appears to be either a sophisticated, modern designed piece of machinery, or a true Rube Goldberg invention; depending on your point of view. To load the magazine, a lever is pushed and the side mounted magazine flips forward. The operator then charges the magazine from the rear, using the pictured 20 round charger, and withdraws the empty charger. Since the actual feed guide lips are on the receiver, leaving the magazine forward is considered “Safing” the machine gun. Damage the magazine, and you are out of action. I have always liked them because they are so interesting, but really wouldn’t want my life to depend on a Breda Modello 30 functioning. –Dan

Send questions to: Raffica sareview@aol.com
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Small Arms Review gets an exclusive first look at Colt Defense’s three entries into the United States Special Operations Commands SCAR (Special operation forces Combat Assault Rifle) Program.

In Small Arms Review Vol. 8 No. 10, July 2005, SAR readers got the first in-depth look at the United States Special Operations Command new SCAR (Special operation forces Combat Assault Rifle) that is manufactured by FN Herstal, Belgium and soon to be produced in their Columbia, South Carolina facility. This weapon was but one of many that was tested in the competition. Some never made it through the minimum requirements and were eliminated prior to the first cartridge being fired.

The M4 has been, and remains to this day, the standard issue weapon for SOCOM. Complaints about the M4 surfaced within SOCOM and SOCOM conceded that they were using their M4s beyond the intent of the mil-standard, especially through extensive firing and lack of maintenance. Clearly these carbines were not meant to serve as a light machine gun or to have countless thousands of rounds fired through them without replacement of bolts and barrels. To complicate things further, the configuration of the M4A1 is controlled by the Army and not by SOCOM. This compromised the ability of Colt to make modifications to deal with SOCOM concerns due to the fact that the Army would have to authorize the changes. The Army was happy with the weapons and saw no need for changes. SOCOM clearly needed their own weapon where they were the customer and could modify and improve it at will at their own accord.

Solutions to the issues surrounding the alleged lack of lethality of the 5.56mm round include a heavier 5.56mm round or a new caliber. Whether in the M4A1 or SCAR (both have 14-1/2 inch barrels), the performance of the 5.56mm rounds will be the same. Reports indicate that the MK262 round is a significant improvement in accuracy and lethality over the M855 round, and, if adopted, would be a relatively easy fix and will function the same in either weapon.

As stated in the earlier article, SOCOM wanted an operator-envisioned weapon that would address these concerns. In September of 2003, an Operations Requirement Document was issued and the request was open to any contractor. In November the performance specifications were released by SOCOM. These called for two weapons. The first being the SCAR L (Light), a 5.56x45mm NATO caliber weapon and a SCAR H (Heavy), a 7.62x51mm weapon. Both models would have “future enhanced calibers” which would allow them to be adaptable to calibers such as 5.45x39mm, 7.62x39mm and possibly the 6.8 SPC, to just name a few.

Three of the finalists were submissions by Colt Defense. Information indicates that these weapons came in 2nd, 3rd and 4th in the competition. The reason(s) why one was picked over the others is unknown at this point due to SOCOM not publicly discussing other contractors’ weapons. SAR had the opportunity to visit Colt Defense and get a first hand look at their entries. The weapons observed were not museum grade weapons but the actual weapons used in testing. Traces of salt were visible from the salt water testing and the barrels were clearly worn. This in-depth look will be conducted in a two-part series. This first installment is on types A and B, Colt’s traditional direct gas impingement weapons. Part 2 will introduce Colt’s first piston driven weapon, the Type C.

Type A

The Type A SCAR rifle submitted by Colt utilized the traditional M16/M4 direct gas impingement operating system. Although it was pretty clear SOCOM was looking for a piston driven system, the combat proven direct gas system was a viable and reliable system for consideration.

The gas is tapped from the barrel under the front sight base and is bled off into a gas tube that runs back into the upper receiver directly into the bolt carrier. The expansion chamber is located in the rear of the bolt carrier between the rear of the bolt and the front of the inside of the carrier. This creates a hammer-like blow that drives the carrier rearward unlocking the bolt, extracting and ejecting the fired cartridge case. The spring loaded buffer is compressed on its rearward movement and then drives the bolt carrier group forward stripping a cartridge off the top of the magazine, feeding, chambering and finally locking the bolt into the barrel extension. This system lightens the weapon due to no heavy gas piston as well as increases the accuracy of the weapon by not impeding on the natural vibrations/harmonics of the barrel during firing. With the addition of a free-floating hand guard, the M16/M4 weapon systems are capable of match grade accuracy.

The Upper Receiver

The Type A rifle utilizes a Colt designed one-piece upper receiver. The Mil-Std 1913 rail runs from the rear of the receiver up to the front sight assembly. Additionally, rails run at 3, 6 and 9 o’clock on the hand guard. The barrel is left free floating to increase accuracy but, more importantly, to aid in cooling of the weapon. Accuracy is greatly improved due to nothing impeding on the barrel’s natural vibrations. During extensive fully automatic firing, the barrel is kept cooler longer and the use of vertical pistol grips and SOPMOD accessories such as optics will not put stress on the barrel causing it to droop or bend under extreme firing conditions. This one piece upper decreases the weight as well from using tradition rail systems such as the ARMS SIR system or the Knight Armament Company RAS systems and is also less bulky. The Colt upper receiver has a removable 6 o’clock rail for the installation of a grenade launcher and cleaning under the front of the upper receiver.

Both upper and lower receivers utilized a Kal-Guard finish in a “flat earth” or coyote brown finish as required in the specifications. The upper receiver utilizes the standard fired cartridge case deflector of the M16A2 and M4 family of weapons as well as the forward assist assembly. Also, the traditional ejection port dust cover is used to prevent unwanted dust and debris from entering the weapon.

The Backup Iron Sight

A universal component for Types A and C is the backup iron sight. This originally came from the M4 detachable carrying handle. The carrying handle is removed leaving only the rear sight. This sight looks similar to the Lewis Machine and Tool backup sight but is leaner and has less bulk. The backup iron sight has both windage and elevation adjustments. The elevation is adjustable from 3 to 600 meters. The flip-up “L” shaped aperture has two sights. One is for 0-200 meters and the other is for longer ranges.

The Folding Front Sight

The folding front sight assembly is mounted to the front sight base. This front sight assembly is universal on the Type A and B. Type C will utilize the same sight but a much different front sight base. The front sight is locked in place with a button on the left hand side. The front sight post is the standard square front sight that is adjustable for elevation only.

The Barrel

As per specification, two barrel lengths were required by SOCOM. The first is the standard 14-1/2 inch barrel and then a 10-1/2 inch CQC (Close Quarter Combat) barrel. Types A, B and C all came in two different barrel lengths. Due to the simplicity and cost, the Colt system changed barrels by simply popping open the rear and front takedown pins, pulling the complete upper receiver off and the replacing it with the other. This change is completed in seconds.

The barrels are both the mil-spec 1 turn in 7 inch twist button-rifled barrels. As per SCAR specs, the barrels all must be proof tested and then magnetic particle inspected for stress fractures and then marked accordingly on the barrel (C MP 5.56 NATO 1/7). Both barrels are heavy barrels all the way through. This was necessary to achieve the sustained fire rates requested by SOCOM and are very similar to the Rock Island designed M4A1 heavy barrel. The flash suppressor, as required by specification, is the Knight’s Armament Company Quick Detach compensator for the silencer. The barrels all have chrome lined bore and chambers. During the development stages, many barrel configurations were considered including stainless steel and hammer forged barrels. The barrels are finished in the same color as the receivers.

Modifications were made to the chamber to deal with the Over-The-Beach requirement. These were modifications that were proposed to the XM4 in the developing stages but not wanted by Rock Island Arsenal.

The Lower Receiver

The lower receiver assembly is the one component that is universal on Types A, B and C. There is no difference. The lower receiver, stock and buffer extension are painted in the required Flat Earth finish.

The chosen stock is manufactured by VLTOR and has two compartments, one on each side of the top of the stock that can hold batteries for optical sights. The standard buffer extension is used which allows four positions for the stock to extend. A sling mount plate is inserted between the buffer extension locking ring and the lower receiver, which allows a sling to be mounted to either the left or right side. The buffer utilized is Colt’s H2 buffer. This buffer contains one steel weight along with two tungsten weights. This was necessary due to the use of heavy barrels. This was a lesson learned when Rock Island Arsenal developed the heavy barrel for SOCOM and implemented the change without trial. The M4A1 carbines began malfunctioning in the field with light strikes caused by bolt carrier bounce. The change in the barrel affected the carbine’s dynamics and the solution was the replacement of one steel weight with one tungsten weight.

One of the most interesting changes to the lower receiver is the newly designed selector lever. Unlike the standard lever in which Safe is at 9 o’clock, Semi at 12 o’clock and Auto at 3 o’clock, the lever has been changed to where the Safe is at 5 o’clock, Semi at 3 o’clock and Auto at 1 o’clock. This was a change based on SOCOM’s requirement for the selector to operate over 90 degrees of travel (as opposed to the Colt standard of 180 degrees). In the end, this change was not liked. The selector lever is ambidextrous as per SOCOM specifications

The fire control selector is not the only ambidextrous part. The magazine release is the patented Norgon ambidextrous magazine release. Ambidextrous controls were required in the specifications. The charging handle in its original design is ambidextrous. The bolt catch remains on the left side only. Additional enhancement was that the hammer/trigger pins are made from stainless steel to increase service life.

The Bolt Carrier Group

The bolt carrier group on Type A and B are the same as the standard M4A1. As per SOCOM specification, the bolts were test fired with a 70,000 psi proof load and then magnetic particle inspected for stress fractures. The carriers are manganese phosphate finished and utilize the heavy extractor spring and buffer.

Type B

The Type B differs from Type A in two major ways. First, it uses a standard M4 upper receiver rather than the newly developed one-piece upper receiver. Second, is the addition of the ARMS, Inc. SIR (Selected Integrated Rail) system. The SIR system used was their #58-MOD.

The SIR system is a free-floating hand guard that attaches both to the barrel nut as well as the rail on top of the upper receiver. In essence, there is a protective sleeve that goes nearly all the way across the rail on the upper receiver. With nothing mounting to the barrel, the barrel is left to free float having the same effect in accuracy and heat control as the one-piece upper of Type A. This system provides a constant full-length rail from the rear of the receiver to the rear of the front sight assembly. Accessory rails may be mounted in various lengths to the left, right and bottom of the SIR system. The bottom grip of the SIR system may be removed for installation of a grenade launcher.

At the rear of the receiver is the ARMS, Inc. #40L back up sight which folds and has both long and short-range apertures. The sight is spring loaded and held closed by a lever. To engage the rear sight, one only need to pull rearward on the lever and the sight pops up and engages and immediately you are looking through the long-range sight. By flipping down the rear aperture, the larger short range aperture is engaged.

Due to the additional weight of the SIR system, the weight is slightly heavier on the Type B weighing in at 7.66 pounds in the carbine variation and 6.48 pounds in the CQC configuration.

Mechanical specifications are the same for Type A and B. The only departure was the use of the SIR system rather than a one-piece upper receiver. The only advantage to Type B is the ability to change out rail systems at will and parts commonality with the M4A1. The same front sight system is used as well as lower receiver and bolt group.

Conclusions

After careful inspection of both models in Colt’s model shop, Colt Product Development Engineer Art Daigle took me down to the engineering test range at Colt. Then he brought out a very large bin of loaded 30-round magazines. More than 500 rounds were fired between both models with no malfunctions of any sort encountered. The guns that were examined were guns that were actually tested by SOCOM during the trials. They were somewhat beat up and the remnants from the salt water testing was present. The rifling was quite worn and the guns were not clean nor was there any lubrication on them, due to Colt’s use of UCT Defense Ultra Chem. The ammunition used was Black Hills commercial 77-grain open tip match bullet; the commercial equivalent to the Mk262 MOD1 ammunition.

Coming up next month in Part 2 of the Colt SCAR program is Type C version. This is Colt’s submission of their own designed piston operated carbine. We will look closely at what might possibly become the next generation M4 carbine.

During the last several weeks we have been planning our first of a series of trips to ATF to visit the NFA Branch and the Firearms Technology Branch (FTB); both located in Martinsburg, West Virginia. I was amazed to find that the facility, only a two hour drive from Washington D.C., was an easy trip and an enjoyable drive. Still a long commute for any Branch employees who may still live in the DC area.

Getting inside the facility required special permission and there was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this facility is especially sensitive to security measures. At every turn we were met by ATF security personnel in a professional and welcome fashion. The building offers many of the amenities you find in office buildings everywhere with the exception of one major thing: everyone was extremely friendly. I pinched myself and reminded everyone that this is West Virginia, not D.C., and that the State expression, “Almost Heaven” could be felt by everyone we met. I knew this pleasant attitude already existed with the examiners but the friendly atmosphere in that facility went way beyond the personnel that most of our community has the opportunity to deal with in the past. Everyone was a pleasure to be around.

We started our morning with a tour of the Firearms Technology Branch, hosted by Chief of the Branch Sterling Nixon and Assistant Branch Chief FTB, Rick Vasquez. We learned the different aspects of the Technology Branch and the many issues that they address in their work. Surprisingly, approving new designs make up a very small portion of what they are responsible for. Included in their pallet of tools are not only labs for firearms identification and assessment but a live indoor range for weapons testing. The depth and the knowledge of the staff was impressive and again extremely friendly.

The surprise that followed our meeting with the Technology Branch was a tour of the new Martinsburg vault. Firearms Technology Branch (FTB) has access to virtually every NFA weapon ever imported, manufactured, or designed from countries all over the world. The brief stay in the vault was enough to make the most spirited collector lapse into a semi comatose state. I was glad for the opportunity to know that the agency has such a prolific reference library of weapons to work with in their endeavors.

After leaving FTB we were escorted to a conference room where we met with all of the members of the NFA staff and the Chief of NFA Branch, Ken Houchens. NFA Branch is responsible for the National Firearms Registration and Transfer Registry (NFRTR) data pool, as well as processing all types of forms that we use in the NFA community. We focused on introducing ourselves and what the NFATCA was all about and quickly turned the meeting over to the examiners with our first question.

“If you had the Class 3 dealers here in front of you today and you had 30 minutes to tell them what frustrates you the most about processing their paperwork, what would you say to them?”

The discussion that ensued would fill the space of the entire magazine and the examiners had good advice for both the industry with government transfers and the collector community. The NFATCA will detail and summarize that discussion in the next issue. In the lengthy discussion that followed the meeting with the examiners we decided that a separate article that details how we in the NFA community could help the refreshingly fast transfer process get even better. There are many ways we can easily help a process that has been totally overhauled in the last eight months. You’ll not want to miss that article. It will change your life in terms of how you handle transfers in the future.

One example of what they shared with us was regarding incomplete Form 4s being sent in. The examiners all stated that this was one of the top time wasters for getting transfer times sped up. The NFATCA has suggested to its members before that experienced dealers should always control the transfers to their customers, ensuring all paperwork is correct before it goes to DC, but unfortunately inexperienced people seem to be giving “Internet Advice” to the contrary, saying that the individual should insist on sending his own Form 4 in. We could all benefit from more efficiency if this system of checks done by dealers were followed.

At the conclusion of that meeting we had the pleasure of having the entire team meet in the vault where we captured a picture of the team. We took this opportunity to thank everyone who contributed to a very educational day and time with ATF. The visit is the first in series of events where we will begin working closely together on a number of issues, all of which we will try and address in the NFATCA articles. The entire staff at Martinsburg should be commended by everyone that has the opportunity to deal with them. They are a wonderful staff and I think I can say for our community that they are doing one heck of a job. Thank You!

www.nfatca.org

Operation Chilblain

On December 27, 1941 at 8:40 p.m., a Whitley with the identification number Z.9125 from the Royal Air Force took off from Stradishall airbase in England. It was piloted by Sgt. Jones and 2nd pilot Sgt. Gold. Apart from its payload of four 250 pound bombs, the plane carried a package in a parachute containing assorted equipment for the first Danish S.O.E. (Special Operation Executive) agent’s team (code named Chilblain I & II) to set foot on Danish soil. The agents were Carl Johan Bruhn and Mogens K. A. Hammer. The airdrop, which took place at Haslev in South Zealand, should have been the spearhead for S.O.E’s future operations in Denmark and was code named “Operation Chilblain.” Carl Johan Bruhn was selected as chief of S.O.E. in Denmark while Mogens Hammer, in his capacity of being a telegraph operator, would establish the communication line back to England.

At 9 p.m. that same night, 2 inches of snow covered the landscape. The temperature was about 18 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was North East at about 17 miles per hour. It was moonlit, but with clouds drifting across the sky, it made navigation difficult especially at altitudes below 2,000 feet. As a diversion they flew to Masnedø at Vordingborg but their first approach towards the target failed and Sgt. Jones decided to try once more. On their second approach they were successful in dropping four bombs from a height of 1,000 feet. One of the bombs detonated in a field and another impacted close to the railway tracks only 150 yards from the transformer station. Unfortunately, no significant damage occurred and the last two bombs failed to detonate. The rear gunner signed off by firing four bursts from his machine guns at the target and then the Whitley headed out for the primary objective of the mission: the drop zone North East of Haslev.

The plane circled a couple of times around the church in Freerslev approximately a mile south of the drop zone and then continued towards Torpeskov, to complete the mission. The drop, which took place from an altitude of only 500 feet, was “blind” which meant without a reception of Resistance fighters. Carl Johan Bruhn had expressly ordered a blind drop. His graduation in forestry in this particular area (Bregentved Gods) made him extremely familiar with the territory and he also had some personal friends that he could call upon.

According to Mogens Hammer’s personal account, told to his brother Svend Erik Hammer and in an interview with the Danish newspaper Berlingske Tidende from 7 August 1945, Carl Johan Bruhn was the first to jump, followed by the package, and then Mogens Hammer. From that height the luxury of carrying a reserve chute was not an option.

Unfortunately, Carl Johan Bruhn’s parachute failed to open as the snap hook on his static line came away from its anchorage point inside the aircraft and instead followed him to the ground. It was known that cable static lines had a tendency to “whip” but it had never been foreseen that the result of that behaviour could possibly cause the static eye-splice to part from its anchorage point. As a direct consequence of this accident all snap hooks are to this day fitted with a locking device.

Carl Johan Bruhn was instantly killed when he hit the ground and, with that, the first attempt to establish an S.O.E. operation in Denmark. Mogens Hammer landed safely and found the body of Carl Johan Bruhn within an hour. Searching the body, he salvaged the papers and money required to proceed with the operation. The money was hidden in Bruhn’s boots and he had to cut these open to get to it. Needless to say it was a very unpleasant experience for Hammer, especially as they had become good friends during their training. Mogens Hammer managed to slip away unobserved.

The Remote Control Pistol

The next morning, December 28, 1941 at 10:00 a.m., the temperature was 8 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind calm. The purple parachute connected to a suitcase was soon found by local farmers at the field of Holtegaarden next to Hostentorp. Regrettably, they failed to keep the information to themselves but notified the Danish police. Close by, a little north of there, the body of Carl Johan Bruhn was found still wearing his unopened parachute with the yellow static line still attached to the chute. Carl Johan Bruhn’s wristwatch had stopped at the time of impact showing 02:05 a.m. Next to him was found a canvas packet with 12 automatic pistols (unfortunately the report fails to establish the type) inside along with ammunition and a folding spade. The suitcase contained a radio telegraph transmitter, a grey rucksack containing civilian clothes and a white rubber package with a most unusual agent “tool” never before seen.

Research has succeeded to find only one official document from the War Office that confirms its existence and in this particular document, dated 6 of March 1942, it is referred to as the “Remote Control Pistol.” Despite this apparently official name, in the following text we chose to call it the Cable-pistol.

Because of the Cable-pistol, the German Reichssicherheitshauptamt in Berlin compiled a report which was sent out to all Statspolizei departments notifying them of the danger involved in arresting enemy spies and agents. The report, signed by Herr Müller, was stamped SECRET and dated 19 of February 1942. What the Germans thought of such a contraption is clearly described in the report: “Es handelt sich um eine überaus gefährliche Gangsterwaffe, die – soweit bekant – erstmalig von feindlichen Nachrichtendienst eingesetzt worden ist.” (“What we are dealing with is an extremely dangerous gangster weapon, which – as far as we know – originates from an enemy intelligence service.”

According to Danish Police Intelligence from 7 January 1942, found in a report in the Danish National Archive, the Cable-pistol is described in the following manner: “A suitcase containing one radio telegraph transmitter, a grey rucksack containing civilian clothes and a white rubber package with an automatic pistol riveted to a metal plate on a belt and a special trigger device (a very dangerous weapon), a dagger etc. inside.” The report was the direct cause for changing the restraining procedure. The decision of declaring an arrest by laying a hand on the suspects shoulder was immediately repealed.

Description

The pistol used is a Colt 1903 in .32 ACP. The gun is bolted pointing in the facing direction of the wearer to a carrier plate made of metal bent to follow the curvature of the body. A cover plate is mounted to shield the trigger and grip area. A Bowden cable with a release switch attached to a “finger ring” runs from the operator’s hand through the jacket-sleeve and is connected to the trigger housing. The system allowed the agent to fire one or more shots remotely from the hip if he was about to be arrested. This even if he was ordered “Hände Hoch” (‘hands up’). The whole apparatus was attached to the waist with the standard English model 1937 army belt. A single suspender strap attached to the belt in front of the plate mount assists in keeping the muzzle of the pistol pointing horizontal.

Models

We are aware of two different versions, both using the Colt Hammerless 1903 .32 ACP caliber pistol subsequently referred to as Mk. I and Mk. II. The one found on Carl Johan Bruhn is the Mk. I and the one produced by John Wilkes from the Wilkes Bros. gun shop in Soho, London is the Mk.II.

On the Mk. I model, one will notice that the cover plate is carefully bent and shaped to follow the pistol’s contours. The platform to which the pistol is attached is small and handy and the corners are curved leaving the impression of a professional production.

On the Mk. II version the cover plate is flat, rectangular and disproportionately big, which leaves the impressions of a hasty production. However, we know that the Mk. I version was encumbered with problems. For instance, the platform carrying the pistol was too small causing the pistol rig to be unstable during recoil. And, if the cable twisted, the pistol would not fire.

John Wilkes corrected these defects, and the rig as a whole, by making the platform bigger and made a modification to the trigger unit on the finger which allowed the cable to rotate freely without locking the trigger cable. According to John Wilkes, only 40 to 50 Cable-pistols were produced.

Origin

The Mk. I model was, according to John Wilkes, brought to the Wilkes gun shop by Major Ridout and Lt. Col. Tomlinson who requested that the gun be produced by John Wilkes. This information is rather interesting seen in light of newly released documents from the Public Record Office (PRO) in England. The book, SOE The Scientific Secrets by Fredric Boyce and Douglas Everett, features a reprint of a document that was produced towards the end of the war to ensure that the right persons would be properly credited for their inventions.

Among the entries on the list can be found: “Remote Control Firing Mechanism For Pistol.” The inventors are listed as Lt. Col. J.R.V Dolphin and Mr. E. Norman respectively. We now know that Lt. Col. John Robert Vernon Dolphin was Commander of Station IX (The Frythe). Station IX busied itself with the research and development of weapons and gear to be distributed to the resistance movements in the occupied countries and Eric Norman was one of its foremost weapons experts. In that light it is tempting to draw the conclusion that the Cable-pistol was invented and further developed at Station IX, only later to be handed over to Station VI (Bride Hall) being the weapons section and, as such, responsible for the further production. This is where Lt. Col. Tomlinson enters the scene. As chief of Station VI, he approached John Wilkes with the aim of getting a proper production started, the result of which is the Mk. II as we know it today.

Distribution

No one knows for sure how many Cable-pistols were used on missions, but it is certain that Carl Johan Bruhn and Mogens Hammer were issued one each for the Chilblain operation besides the one found in the rubber packing. It is believed, though unverified, that two Czechoslovakian S.O.E. agents who, on 27 May 1942, assassinated Reinhard Heydrich in Prague (Operation Anthropoid) were issued at least one Cable-pistol. It is doubtful if the gun was used from the rig but empty shell casings from one of the two issued Colt 1903 pistols were found at the scene of the action. The pistols have serial numbers 539370 and 540416 and, according to Colt’s shipping lists, they are both nickel plated. The pistols are now on display in the Prague Memorial Crypt.

Status

It has turned out to be very difficult to find any reliable information or evidence to prove its existence and the only model in existence that we are aware of is in storage at SATIC (Small Arms Technical Information Centre) in Leeds, U.K. formerly known as the MOD Pattern Room in the Enfield Building in Nottingham, U.K. Unfortunately there is no access to the public.

In 1980, the Imperial War Museum and the Pattern Room asked John Wilkes if they could borrow his original blueprints of the Cable-pistol which regrettably they failed to return. We enquired with both museums but neither could claim possession of the drawings.

The biggest mystery is what actually happened to the Mk. Is carried by the agents Carl Johan Bruhn and Mogens Hammer and the one in his luggage. We know that the two were seized by the German authorities but we haven’t been able to find them in any museums or archives in Denmark. It is possible that they were sent to Germany along with Mr. Müller’s report. After all, this was a completely new weapon never seen before. The one carried by Mogens Hammer has never turned up either but witness reports reveals that he was wearing it in Copenhagen after his escape.

Acknowledgement

We owe the following museums special thanks for their help and interest in our project: The Museum of Danish Resistance 1940-1945, Denmark; The Imperial War Museum, UK; The Ministry of Defence/Pattern Room, UK and S.A.T.I.C. (Small Arms Technical Information Centre), UK. We also thank the following individuals for their assistance and correspondence: Fredric Boyce, UK; John W. Brunner, USA; Paul Cornish – Imperial War Museum, UK; Joe M. Ramos, Canada; Mark Seaman – Imperial War Museum UK; Robert A. Sharrock – Ministry of Defence/Pattern Room, UK; Ian D. Skennerton, Australia; J. David Truby, USA; Craig Whitsey – Wilkes Bros., UK and John Wilkes – Wilkes Bros., UK.

On May 19-21, 2006, the National Rifle Association held its 135th Annual Meetings and Exhibits at the Midwest Airlines Center in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The three day event drew approximately 60,000 visitors to this lovely city on the shores of Lake Michigan. The convention center was packed as attendees attended numerous NRA seminars, visited commercial exhibitors and viewed rare, historic and unique educational firearms displays.

One of the favorite sections of the show was the aisles of firearms displays that are put up by the various NRA affiliated collectors groups. These groups display guns that represent the finest, rarest and most exceptional weapon types that are truly noteworthy.

The Thompson Collectors Association (TCA) and the Dallas Arms Collectors Association (DACA), both NRA affiliated collector organizations, joined together to sponsor an exhibit entitled Sir Hiram Maxim: Father of the Modern Machine Gun. Both groups are highly enthusiastic in advancing the legitimacy of collecting historic Class III weapons within the larger collecting community. In 1995, the Dallas Arms Collectors Association paved the way by sponsoring the first ever NRA Class III exhibit in conjunction with the Thompson Collectors Association with their highly acclaimed comprehensive and educational Thompson submachine gun display. Though a machine gun has been displayed at NRA shows on rare previous occasions, never before was there a specific display of NFA weapons.

Following up on that great achievement, the TCA and DACA pooled their resources and combined their allocated booths into one to enable a 10×20 foot exhibit of Maxim machine guns highlighting the genius of the prolific American-born inventor Hiram Maxim. Though Maxim invented many things, and held over 80 patents, his name will forever be associated with the machine gun and how his invention, at the peak of the Industrial Revolution at the end of the 19th century, forever changed warfare.

Putting the display together was no simple task. Planning the historic content and educational display took nearly a year to conceive and execute. Specific guns had to be selected for their historic importance, risers had to be developed for the proper display of the guns, and three large lighted wood display cabinets had to be designed and constructed. The display cabinets contained written historical information in a logical chronologic order along with displays of selected and appropriate accessories, artifacts and ephemera pertaining to Maxim and his guns. A large tri-fold handout had to be written with appropriate illustrations that outlined the biographical history of Hiram Maxim, the invention and application of his operating principle and thumbnail histories of each of the six guns selected for display. Forms for judging the exhibit by the NRA had to be produced and submitted.

A display of this magnitude required the help and assistance of many people but the main designer of the exhibit was Tracie Hill, who coordinated all the many details. Without his expert and experienced insight and dedication, this exhibit would not have happened.

Beyond merely sponsoring the exhibit, both the TCA and the DACA sent members to assist with the day-long set-up the day before the show officially opened, provided people to work shifts to staff the booth during show hours to answer questions, generally assist where and when needed and helped with the tear-down at the end of the show.

We all had hoped that the exhibit would be well received in the context in which it was intended. The rank and file NRA member is generally not a Class III enthusiast, but rather your typical hunter, sport shooter and outdoorsman. The Thompson exhibits of some years past were warmly accepted because there is an aura of mystique surrounding the Thompson. Everyone knew what it was and the historic importance from the dark days of prohibition and lawlessness, to its use by law enforcement agencies, G-Men and its tremendous contribution during World War II. But Maxim machine guns? They had only one purpose…

The response was truly astounding. The area in front of the booth was constantly four to six people deep. They had never seen anything like this before and were genuinely interested in learning more. Questions were constant, and a typical comment was, “I’ve only seen pictures of these guns in books. It is a treat to actually see them.” What was really surprising was the number of people who actually thanked us for putting on such an educational and historic display of machine guns.

The NRA acknowledges the importance of the gun collecting community within the NRA by awarding medals and plaques to those firearms and exhibits that deserve recognition. Thirty judges, consisting of NRA board members, museum curators and well-known collectors visit each booth to judge specific arms based upon their historic importance, condition and rarity. They also judge the educational value of the display as well as the display of non-firearm supporting material such as accessories and documents. They also determine a single Collectors Choice award for best display at the show.

A Clean Sweep

Ten firearms are selected by the judges to receive sterling silver NRA medals as best firearms of the show representing different categories and types of weapons. The medals are individually numbered and recorded with the NRA and the medal is always associated with that gun. If the gun is ever sold, the medal goes with it. The Colt Maxim Model of 1904 was judged to be one of the ten best guns at the 2006 show and was awarded silver medal number 440.

Plaques are awarded to those exhibits that showed the best historic display of supporting material that is not a firearm. This includes ephemera, accessories, memorabilia and related supporting documents. The Maxim exhibit received a plaque for this category as well.

Finally, there is the coveted silver bowl Collectors Choice award recognizing the best-of-the-best of all the displays. This award is a traveling award with the name of the winning collector’s group engraved upon it; meaning that the collector’s group that wins it has possession of it for a year and it is then returned to the NRA for awarding the following year. A smaller silver bowl is given along with the larger bowl so that the small bowl may be kept when the larger bowl is returned. The Maxim exhibit, under the auspices of the Thompson Collectors Association and the Dallas Arms Collectors Association, received this prestigious award.

The Maxim exhibit won all three award categories. While the awards are gratifying, the true significance is the continuing change in thinking concerning collecting and documenting historic automatic weapons. No longer viewed with a gasp and a shaking of the head, they are becoming recognized as the valuable significant component of firearms history that they always were; but are now just getting their due. Thanks to the dedication and foresight of organizations such as the Thompson Collectors Association and the Dallas Arms Collectors Association, the legitimacy of our chosen avocation is being recognized by not only the collecting community, but by common gun owners and august national organizations such as the NRA. This is, indeed, a giant leap forward and all machine gun owners can take pride in this accomplishment.

Because these guns are so large, and heavy, and the logistics were so complex, this was a one-time only display. This exhibit was never before seen at any other gun show, and it will not be repeated again. It was an incredible task requiring the help of many people and hundreds of man hours. However, never say never: as the idea was floated at the NRA show by a senior NRA official that perhaps this exhibit might be considered to be recreated for a run at the National Firearms Museum in Virginia so that an even wider public audience could be reached. A lot of stars, moons and planets would have to align for that to happen… but we will see.