You may have never heard of Dawn of Defense (D.O.D.) firearms before, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t having a dramatic impact on the firearms you are using today. I met Ben Richardson through a friend during my time as an instructor at the U.S. Army Sniper Course. D.O.D. is a small operation in north Georgia, manufacturing fully customized firearms and accessories. 

One look around their store and it is easy to see D.O.D. primarily deals with AR variants; but take a little stroll into the back, and you will find suppressors, custom slides for pistols and a section dedicated to Cerakoting. The difference between D.O.D. and most “manufacturers” is they have in-house CNC machines, a full-time engineer, and they make the majority of parts on-site.

When I decided to start my newest project rifle, I knew D.O.D. would give me the best quality rifle, built to my needs, no questions asked. I needed something lightweight for shooting in sniper-style field matches but also capable of consistent impacts out to 1,000 yards. We decided to go with a .224 Valkyrie, born on the same machines supplying receivers to the firearms industry all across the U.S.

During this build, I sat down with Ben to discuss what sets him apart from other manufacturers.

Tell us a little bit about yourself? 

Ben Richardson: My name is Ben Richardson, born and raised right here in Georgia. I’m married with one beautiful daughter.

How did Dawn of Defense get its start?

BR: After about 6 years in another industry, I decided to do what I was passionate about, even if it meant making less money, so I entered the firearms industry. My start was in 2010 with another manufacturer, I’ll leave out their name. I started off doing a little bit of everything: coatings, assembly, R&D, sales, kind of had to be able to do it all. After about 3 years, I didn’t like the direction the company was going, so we parted ways. In 2015, I was ready to start doing what I loved again, but the way that made sense to me. Specifically, manufacturing and designing new products to meet needs that aren’t being fulfilled, especially for today’s warriors. I am bit of a gas gun nerd. Don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love shooting bolt guns, but with modern manufacturing techniques gas guns can be just about as accurate. I’ve been known to make gas guns run like a scalded dog and accurate enough that most bolt guys would be impressed. All in all, I love what I do: I look forward to going to the shop and getting my hands dirty, I still work about 80 hours a week—pretty sure my wife wants to kill me.

Where is D.O.D. located?

BR: We’re in Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia, which is on the border of Tennessee, about 6 miles from Chattanooga.

How many employees do you have? 

BR: We are a small operation, started off with three guys. Now, we are up to nine and hope to add two more this year. We typically only look to hire vets. Currently, our team consists of former Army, Navy SEALs and Marines. Everybody has input on product design and ideas for future products. We keep in contact with buddies still serving and get input from them. Especially if something would make their life easier or even save lives.

What is with the name? 

BR: The name is actually kind of a play on words. The word Dawn implying the beginning. Typically, the beginning of defending one’s possessions, life or country starts with small arms, which is what we manufacture. Plus it’s a catchy name that is hard to forget, and people seem to really like the logo. Keep an eye out though; a new division of the company will be coming out under the name, Alpha Omega Armament. It will become the commercial side, and Dawn of Defense will become the OEM side. Look for our new website soon for products available to the commercial market, aoarmament.com

So what would you say is the mission statement for your company?

BR: Our mission is pretty simple; it’s to make the best products available at fair prices. What I like to call “white collar quality for blue collar pricing.”

So what parts did D.O.D. start with?

BR: Well, the easiest of AR parts really. Our goal is to go through every piece of the AR platform and refine and improve each item. We are almost done with every part.

What are you producing now?

BR: We now manufacture: lowers, uppers, handguards, BCGs, buttstocks, muzzle brakes, billet accessories, Titanium suppressors, integrally suppressed bolt guns, GLOCK’s mods and more. The only thing[s] we really do not manufacture are barrels, triggers and polymer parts. We feel there are so many good manufacturers of barrels that it would just be a waste for us to start doing it. We like to use Criterion, Lothar Walther, Draco’s and a few others. Triggers we typically use: CMC, LaRue and Geissele. Both of those are up to the customer and what they want in the rifle.

Where are your products typically used?

BR: Our products have been mainly used for precision shooting and hunting. A few 3-Gun shooters are running our rifles. We had a pair of rifles used at the Mammoth Sniper Challenge in January 2019. 

What makes your products different or better?

BR: Well, let me first say, there are a few companies that make outstanding products. I am a big fan of companies like Knights Armament [and] LaRue Tactical, to name a few. I like companies like that because they manufacture a lot of their products in-house like we do. Most people do not know that a lot of companies they buy from don’t actually manufacture anything. Now there is not anything wrong with that; we feel that we want to have more say in the quality control side of things. We do a good bit of manufacturing now on the OEM side for other companies—we can make sure the products are good to go before they leave. What I really hate to see are the companies selling these rifles with foreign crap, $400-rifle-type of stuff. It is only a matter of time before that cheap of a rifle fails.

There are several things that separate us from other companies. First, we are what I like to call “a small batch company.” One thing I have learned over the years in the manufacturing/CNC sector is quality control is absolutely critical, especially when someone’s life might be dependent on said product. We typically manufacture our products in batches of 50 to 100. What this does is allow us to make sure the quality of each product is up to our standard. 

Second, this is where we really shine, our custom rifle builds. You can choose what receiver set: forged, billet, AR-15 or AR-10, all made in-house. Then from handguard to Cerakote. Hell, we can do custom serial numbers and laser engraving. 

What surprises most people is the price. On average an AR-15 platform is between $1,200 to $1,800 depending on barrel choice, and the .308 platform averages between $1,600 to $2,300 depending on caliber and barrel. These are custom precision gas guns being built to your specs at pricing less than most of the high-end gas guns off the wall! 

Wow, that is really fair. What kind of wait do your customers have?

BR: As of right now, lead times are between 2 to 4 weeks depending on the barrel choice. The customer puts down 50% when ordered and the other half when finished. Our overhead is relatively low which allows us to charge less to the end user. This goes back to my saying of “white collar quality for blue collar pricing,” all of that with a lifetime warranty. 

Any special projects in the works?

BR: We do have new products coming out soon. One is a new platform that uses some AR parts but operates differently. I call it the “Moreau” project, based off the H.G. Wells novel about hybrid humans/animals. It is like an FN SCAR®, AK and an AR had a baby. Also, we’ll be releasing our integrally suppressed bolt guns. There are a few other products we are excited about, like a new suppressor design that is currently under testing. It is the quietest thing I’ve ever heard! 

Are there any companies you’re producing for or LE/MIL organizations you are providing products to?

BR: Ehh, we’ve got Non-Disclosure Agreements with a few … I’ll just leave it at that. It is an exciting time here and [I] cannot wait to see what the future holds!

If you want to learn more about the company or get details on a custom build reach out to Dawn of Defense via email info@dodefense.com or their website dodefense.com. Or follow them on Facebook at facebook.com/dawnofdefensedod or on Instagram at instagram.com/dawnofdefense. 

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

The Battle Royale Comes Down to SIG & Glock, SIG Takes the Day!

“We are not talking about nuclear subs or going to the moon here. We are talking about a pistol.”
General Mark Milley, US Army Chief of Staff, complaining to the House Armed Services Committee in 2016 about the $17 million, two-year MHS competition process.

Soon after the billowing clouds of nitrocellulose fog from a full year of grueling formal tests and soldier evaluations cleared at the end of 2016, the Army announced selection of SIG SAUER’s modified P320 as its new Modular Handgun System. The best of a reported dozen rivals hoping to replace the worn out warhorse Beretta M9, this polymer-framed, striker-fired, innovatively modular pistol emerged seemingly victorious.

Formal Announcement

“The US Army awarded the Modular Handgun System (MHS) contract on January 19, 2017 to Sig Sauer, Inc. The caliber of the weapon is 9mm, and the XM17 MHS handgun is a variant of the Sig Sauer model P320. It is ‘Coyote Brown’ in color and has interchangeable hand grips and is ambidextrous allowing the user to tailor the ergonomics to best fit their hands and optimize their performance. The contract allows the Army and other services to procure Sig Sauer’s proposed XM1152 Full Metal Jacket, XM1153 Special Purpose ammunition and training rounds; their proposed full size and compact variants of the MHS; and ancillary components. The contract ceiling is $580M which is sufficient to procure Army requirements, other service requirements, and potential Foreign Military Sales requirements.”—US Army MHS Contract Award announcement

Predictably, this sent hordes of heavily armed pistol partisans rushing to man the bulletin boards for Glock and SIG, firing off fusillades supporting or condemning the Army’s decision. While a lively debate, this had about zero chance of swaying the Army’s decision.

But what quickly emerged from Glock’s USA headquarters did. Although fresh from winning the almost equally prestigious $85 million FBI pistol contract, Glock’s executives were understandably unhappy with what they considered unfairly losing this multi-million dollar opportunity; perhaps diminishing the prestige and some of the multi-national military, law enforcement and civilian market sales the firm has long been enjoying.

Protest March

Alleging a veritable catalog of errors and slights in the highly formalized administrative and evaluation process, Glock’s detailed protest wisely zeroed in on supporting real combat soldiers. “By not completing the testing on both proposals [by SIG and Glock] on a competitive basis, the Army never determined which pistol would better meet the warfighter’s needs,” said Josh Dorsey, VP of GLOCK, Inc.

But bureaucrats and lawyers at the General Accountability Office backed the Army. “Overall, despite the evaluation errors uncovered in the course of this protest, we have no basis to conclude that Glock would have a substantial chance at an award,” wrote Susan A. Poling, General Counsel. “Even when the errors are considered together, we find no prejudice to Glock. The protest is denied in part and dismissed in part.” (Search “GAO Glock decision” for a fascinating look at the whole 17 pages of classic government legalese.)

Over and Out

Based on results of an IOT&E (Initial Operational Test and Evaluation) that had been proceeding separately from the legal fight, the Army followed-up with a public relations announcement that delivered a virtual coup de grace to Glock’s effort.

Army News Service release, 20 Jul 17: Soldiers have many reasons to be excited about the new Sig Sauer modular handguns, which the Army will begin fielding in November, said Lt. Col. Steven Power, product manager of Soldier Weapons.

Testing of the modular handgun system, or MHS, this spring by Soldiers at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, resulted in overwhelmingly positive feedback, Power said, and 100-percent concurrence that the XM17 was an upgrade over the M9.

In this case, all of the Soldiers who tested the handgun said the MHS was more comfortable to shoot, and they had better confidence with it, Power said.

Cynics may be excused for observing that most soldiers would rate most any shiny new pistol an improvement over the 30-year-old M9; its reputation sullied by the Army’s lowest bidder magazines.

Assuming SIG’s M17 makes it safely through “Production Verification” (can SIG make ‘em well enough and fast enough at the same time), that seems to be it for “Big Army,” on track to deliver the first 2,000 in November to Screaming Eagles of the legendary 101st Airborne Division. This is to be followed by some 193,000 more, Army-wide over the next several years.

With a generous $580 million ceiling on the 10-year contract award, there’s plenty of room for others to climb on the bandwagon.
Indeed, in presentations at NDIA’s 2017 Armaments Conference, representatives of all major branches of the US Armed Forces signaled they were going to replace, at some point, their current handgun inventories with new SIGs; some sooner than others. USAF wants 130,000, Navy 61,000, and a certain group of traditionally amphibious warriors might eventually buy 35,000 but has more important things to do right now with their badly wounded weapons budget.

Snake Eaters

Meanwhile, US Special Operations Command seems perfectly happy with all its various Glocks. The Army part of this–Green Berets, Rangers and Night Stalkers–has announced plans to field nearly 12,000 new Glock 19s with red-dot sights and tactical lights in its Family of Low-Visibility and Concealable Pistols for covert carry.

But not to worry, all the other SPECOPS components say they’ll likely begin integrating SIG M17 and M18 pistols a couple of years down the road. Assuming, of course, their very justifiably opinionated “users” concur with this phase-in. (Who’s gonna be make macho MARSOC operators surrender their high speed M1911 .45s or steely-eyed SEALS toss their Glock G9s overboard?)

Sighting in on SIG

So, the US Armed Forces Modular Handgun System is SIG’s M17 and M18, both in 9x19mm NATO caliber. Perpetuating this relatively puny cartridge is a bitter pill to many advocates of the venerable .45ACP cartridge, but made more palatable by the prospect of pumping out Winchester’s wickedly effective XM1153 “Special Purpose” hollow points. If the Pentagon’s notoriously liberal lawyers will allow …. (Calling Colonel Hays Parks to come out of retirement and rescue real warfighters once again).

Now, as painstakingly discovered from research in a number of authoritative sources and seen in the accompanying studio photos that SIG kindly provided, we offer some RKI observations.

Meaningful differences between the already quite nicely modular civilian 320 family–the NRA’s 2016 Handgun of the Year–and the military M17/M18 include an ambidextrous thumb safety, loaded chamber indicator, orange tritium in its metal sights, a cover plate atop the slide for later installation of a red-dot sight, dust shield in the trigger opening, anti-corrosion coating for the fire control module (SIG calls it a “frame assembly”) and an RFID chip. That’s pretty much it.

Some lesser points are overall “Coyote Brown” finish and two annoying “pin spanner” screws the Army reportedly insisted on to keep GIs from taking it apart more than allowed. (Hint: Small needle nose plier points do the trick).

If you’re curious as to why the Army wants its MHS in two sizes, the smaller M18 is slated to replace all those M11s (SIG P228) that some special type units have for concealed carry.

It’s a testament to the original 320’s excellent design and performance characteristics that this is all that was needed to meet solicitation specs and to excel in the ensuing torture tests. While the Army seemingly considers the test regimen to be Top Secret, it undoubtedly included dropping, drowning, sanding, salting, beating, baking, freezing, marathon firing and worse.

Building Blocks

“Modularity” was baked-in the borderline-absurd 350-page original solicitation. SIG has it; Glock not so much.

While the Glock entry boasts interchangeable backstraps for different sized hands, SIG includes three different sizes of grip frame modules that come with each pistol. All that’s needed to swap ‘em out (once the damnable pin spanner is defeated) is to remove the serial-numbered fire control module and install it in the desired grip module. A task about as challenging as opening an MRE.
Because their grip modules are the same Compact version, the standard SIG M17 becomes the stubbier M18 just by swapping the regular slide and barrel for the shorter ones. Need a red dot sight? A Leupold Delta Point Pro just happens to fit perfectly in that hole on top of the slide (and it may emerge the winner in a separate contracting effort). Tac light and laser? The Army’s got plenty already, and any other that grabs tight on the grip module’s Picatinny Rail is good to go.

Non-lethal force-on-force training? There’s UTM’s kit with marker rounds. Need to use a suppressor? Install a threaded barrel on either model and screw on the can. 9mm not doin’ the job even with JHP? Power up with a caliber conversion kit (not now approved by the Army but certainly available if needed).

Consolation Prize

While we weren’t able to test an XM17 for evaluation, they did send us the closest cousin; a nice little P320RX Compact, complete with blazing hot Foxtrot 1 tactical light. This allowed us and several other lucky shooters the opportunity for plenty of live fire drills under various conditions. In all, we went through about 800 rounds of various 9mm ball and JHP types including steel case, aluminum case, subsonic and even some interesting “cold tracer” loads. No problems were encountered.

P320RX COMPACT TECH SPECS

Caliber: 9 x 19mm NATO (Luger)
Action: Striker-fired, semi-automatic, recoil-operated, tipping barrel locking
Feed: Standard 15-rd. detachable steel magazine, higher-capacity available
Trigger: Double-action only, 6.5lbs. pull
Barrel: 3.9in. 6 grooves, right twist
Overall length: 7.2in
Height: 6.1in
Weight: 25.8oz
Sights: SIGLITE Tritium front and rear, co-witness with Romeo 1 holographic red dot
Materials: Polymer grip frame, stainless steel slide and trigger frame module, carbon steel barrel
Finish: Matte Black Nitron
Notes: Modular design with choice of interchangeable size grip frames, slides, barrels, caliber conversion
MSRP: $1,040 SIG SAUER, Inc., Exeter, New Hampshire, USA www.sigsauer.com

We Report, You Decide

Much has been made of the assertion that the paltry per-unit cost of pistols in SIG’s XM17 bid is approximately $207. Certainly a bargain-basement price, but will it be the best value in the long run?

Glock doesn’t think so, as evident in a press release at the time: “In fact, Sig Sauer was awarded the MHS contract prematurely based on price.”

While SIG’s M17 is roaring down the track to be US Armed Forces Standard, Glock fans have plenty of reasons for pride and optimism. As previously mentioned, they’re the handguns of choice for USSOCOM, the FBI and plenty of other LE entities, as well as mucho military worldwide.

And we may even see Glock winning the contract to arm all components of the sprawling US Department of Homeland Security. Game on!

Parting Shot

With the tantalizing likelihood of ODCMP selling US military surplus M1911 .45s, will Uncle Sam eventually hold a clearance sale for all those hundreds of thousands of now-obsolescent Beretta M9 pistols? Oh, and SIG M11s too?

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Special thanks to SIG for the loaner 320RX, all those great things seen in the studio photo setups and for providing essential pictures including the M17 and M18 MHS. sigsauer.com Also, to TTAC USA for building a perfect custom carry and competition holster for the RX with light. ttacusa.com And thanks to Blue Ridge Arsenal for Southern hospitality and generous range time. blueridgearsenal.com

A Veteran’s Report on the SIG P320RX

Talking with Range Safety Officer Colin Bruguiere

23-year-old Colin Bruguiere, our primary pistol tester for this feature, works part-time as a Range Safety Officer at Blue Ridge Arsenal’s Ashland, Virginia, location while attending a local university.

He’s a Marine Corps veteran of a combat deployment in 2013 in Afghanistan’s hotly contested Helmand Province as an MOS 0311 Infantryman in Golf Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine Regiment; he spent most of the time as an M27 Squad Auto Rifleman with the “door kickers and trigger pullers” of the Heliborne Interdiction Force, a rapid reaction asset for a variety of critical tasks.
Following our extensive live fire test and photo session on BRA’s excellent indoor ranges, we sat down with Bruguiere to get his impressions from his first time shooting the SIG P320RX Compact.

SAR: Along with the Corps’ M9s, what handguns have you had experience with?

Colin Bruguiere: Primarily SIG’s because we sell a lot of different ones here. I’ve been carrying this 9mm 320 full size now for several months. The Beretta PX4 series, 1911 style .45s like Springfield, various Rugers, Smith M&Ps. Anything we’ve got or when somebody says, “you wanna shoot this?” I used to carry a Glock 43; nice and small. I chose the SIG over a Glock or an M&P–and I’ve seen this for other people–because out of the box it shoots like I want it to. I feel like I could go out and shoot a competition with this stock 320 and do pretty well.

SAR: How about the Army’s new M17?

CB: (Studying photos of the pistol) The thing that gives me pause about the M17 is the thumb safety. Because, like with the M9, you have to train and train to draw and take that thumb safety off as soon as it clears the holster. What’s the point of having it? I like the SIG’s double-action-only trigger. Also, the three grip sizes to fit a wider range of hands.

SAR: Overall fit and finish of the 320RX Compact we shot?

CB: Well made, looks good, shoots well, fits in the hand (medium grip installed) pretty solid. Polymer frame can still take a beating. Looking at the removable stainless steel trigger group (SIG calls it the frame assembly), they haven’t over-engineered the thing but come damn close (laughs).

SAR: How did the Compact size test pistol handle in shooting?

CB: Because it’s a relatively lightweight pistol, there’s a tendency to have to force it back in place when kicking off a triple tap, even with the full size; the best balanced because of the longer barrel and slide. But in the rapid fire drills for the test and photos, I didn’t feel like it was going everywhere. Maybe the weight of the tactical light up front helped.

SAR: How about the sights? Not only the red dot Romeo 1, but also the backup iron sights.

CB: I like the SIGLITE Tritium night sights already installed as standard on the RX version. Bright in low light. Because they’re taller, they co-witness with the red dot. And there’s probably a clear path when SIG’s new low-profile suppressor is in place.

SAR: How about iron sight shooters getting used to that red dot. Do you have to retrain your brain?

CB: I think it’s a one-magazine training exercise. You shoot a couple rounds and see “OK that’s where I’m hitting with the red dot.” You pick up on it pretty quickly. One of the things about the red dot I was really impressed with was when we were shooting through all that fog machine smoke, the red dot came through. I like the Romeo’s wide field of view, variable brightness and size of the red dot. It’s sturdy enough to hit with the web of your hand for fast cocking. Or in a one-handed scenario maybe you can push it against your gear or your boot to cock it.

SAR: Any likes or dislikes in the loading and make-ready sequence?

CB: Over the M9, the SIG’s mag release protrudes a little more, making it easier to quickly hit. Even with cold fingers or bulky gloves. You can switch it to the other side if you’re a lefty. And if a gritty magazine doesn’t want to drop, those cuts at the base of the grip are nice for pulling it out.

SAR: Stripping, cleaning, reassembly?

CB: I’d say the SIG, the Glock and the M9 are all pretty close in ease of stripping down. Simple, no issues. No hard to get to places inside to clean.

SAR: Suggestions for making it better?

CB: I haven’t had any issues slapping in a new mag, but maybe beveling inside the opening to the mag well? I think the Army version has a loaded chamber indicator. Other than that, they’ve pretty much covered the bases.

SAR: When it came down to the wire there were two M17 MHS contenders: SIG and Glock. Do you think the Army made the right choice?

CB: Absolutely, I think they made a fantastic choice.

AUTHOR’S NOTE: Special thanks to the fine folks at Blue Ridge Arsenal for shutting down an entire shooting bay in their state-of-the-art facility for several hours to accommodate our live-fire test and photo session. blueridgearsenal.com

In part I of the Interview In SAR Volume 20 Number 9 SAR gathers the background on Barrett Firearms and Chris Barrett’s participation in the growth of the company. We take up the story at that point…

SAR: What is Barrett’s recent interest in creating a medium machine gun?

Chris: A while back a solicitation come out in the Commerce Business Daily. It was part of the network that people used for Government Contract announcements. Nowadays it is called Fed Biz Ops. The solicitation was for a lightweight version of the M240 series. Primarily replacing the Bravo version. Eventually this turned into what the M240 Lima is today. What we thought was really the case was that the solicitation was written so one particular contractor could quickly win it, written between the lines, and a Commercial Off the Shelf product would be available.

Apparently they were looking into a lightweight M240 at the same time the solicitation came out as well. We were very disappointed at that after we had invested so much energy into our design. Regardless, we saw the solicitation and we put the Barrett brain to it. We looked at the M240 and saw all these different rivets and small parts and thought to ourselves, “With a modern CNC machine can’t we make all of this one piece? Can we turn sixty some pieces into one part?”. And the answer is “Yes, you can.” The riveted design has a lot of short comings. One, it is built like the Titanic, old school, steam power, this is how we built things in the industrial revolution. It has laminations between metal. This is where corrosion and rust like to start. Anytime two pieces of metal are touching together, what happens between them? Oxidation. Any fastener eventually comes loose, a simple principle of firearms design. Anything designed to come loose, does. And rivets are a kind of fastener. So we designed a hardened 4140 steel receiver, that alone was four pounds lighter than the standard 240. It is simple, and proven. So we feel that the solution that the Army received in the Lima was not particularly creative at all. It is not wise to say, “Let’s take a great design and just make every part out of titanium.” That’s not how you select material as an engineer, by just selecting material based on one attribute. Titanium isn’t the ideal application for what that machine gun is used for. I would call it a misunderstanding of design intent. We just have a simple and elegant solution to a problem. We’ve really been paying attention to the design recently as well. We started with the receiver, the heart of the gun, and now we are moving out from there, on to many different parts of the machine gun. We will have several patents on components of that machine gun by the time we are production ready. As an example, the original handguard design with the tri-Picatinny rails clamps onto the gas tube. It tends to heat up very quickly during a course of fire. So the handguard has to be a huge block to keep your hand way from it, with heat insulators to further keep the rails from getting hot. We decided to say, “We’re not touching it”. Ours doesn’t even touch the gas tube, it bolts to the front of the receiver and free floats as you will along the gas tube. We removed the bipods which also used to be mounted to the gas tube, and that is connected to the barrel. I know that a machine gun is not a sniper rifle, but I want my machine gun to hit where I’m aiming. And even on that gun, with that heavy of a barrel, as that gun gets warm and I’m putting pressure from my head on the butt stock, that deflects a barrel and could have detrimental effects downrange. So we moved the bipods to the handguard, which is already free floated, so you are not affecting the point of impact. Your handguard and your bipods are still getting some heat radiated off of them but it is nothing compared to the previous design. Then you have the ability to quickly remove the bipods. If you damage them or need to get them out of the way in a hurry, then you can easily remove them with ours, but with a conventional M240, you have to take some time to take them off, time you might not have. We also redesigned the butt stock, feed tray cover, even some of the internals. Then we did the 240 LWS, the Lightweight Short. It is four inches shorter, but with the same system. It is a machine gun, the size of the Mk.48 in overall length, almost the same weight, but it is a 240. And the 240 is an undeniably reliable machine gun. The Mk48 is not what the 240 is, when it comes to reliability. What we think we have done, is that we have created a machine gun that is the same package size of the Mk48, but has the unwavering reliability of a 240.

SAR: Has there been any further input on the 240 LW outside of the U.S. and have there been any sales?

Chris: Yes, we’ve actually sold some 240 LWs to two countries now, one of them in northern Europe. They are very discerning customers, and they love our design so far. We’ve worked with them a lot on the design and throughout the experimentation process. We’ve got some interest from more, but this kind of thing takes time.

SAR: The Model 82 has made Barrett unique in that since its inception, the company doesn’t have any direct competition when it comes to a .50 caliber, long range, anti-material rifle.

Chris: There is an enormous value to being first in a field, and not only being first but also having a quality product. You almost have to be negligent to be caught off guard in that case, to get caught by competitors. We’re persistent with our platform, we have a rifle that is 30 years into maturity, and they are only getting better. We’ve got a tremendous amount of field testing from militaries all over the world as well. Things you cannot duplicate in a laboratory or design shop have resulted in the M82A1, with the enhancements to the bolt carrier group, are really at the heart of why that rifle works so well. But then the rifle became the M107. So dad built the rifle and it had some limited military usage, and I believe it was Sweden’s military EOD teams that were the first to pick it up. A huge misconception we have is that this rifle was developed for military usage and in reality, it wasn’t, there wasn’t a requirement out there that it would fill. People thought it was a bad idea to begin with. Ronnie Barrett, a photographer, who played with subguns and belt feds, wanted to shoot a .50 caliber firearm, but didn’t want to own an M2. But the military started seeing a use for it, and it just took off from there. We modernized it even further with the M107A1, which made it a lot lighter, more precise, and it takes a suppressor. It was a block of enhancements, some from feedback, some from things we knew we had to change from experience of building the rifle. Well the U.S. Military has not adopted the M107A1 because like a lot of things in Government procurement, things can take a while to happen. So the U.S. has not adopted it, but several other countries have adopted it as their first anti material rifle. Norway, Denmark, to name a few. We also offer an A1 upgrade to militaries that have the M107, in which we cut the rear of the buttstock off and put a polymer piece in it, with adjustable length of pull, and an integrated monopod socket with a Picatinny rail. This also allows for the fitting of a spade grip to the rear of it from which you could fire the weapon from inside a vehicle more easily than the traditional grip. We changed many of the little features as well, when it comes to tolerances and fits. In the beginning the M82s were 3 or 4 MOA rifles, we have multiple M107A1s that are shooting 1 MOA today. However one of the biggest downfalls of the rifle is the ammunition. Throughout its history it has mostly been employed with machine gun ball ammunition and it needs precision rounds for long range work. We handload our own rounds here for that purpose.

SAR: What are some of the recent changes that have influenced the company?

Chris: When it comes to employees, as we have become more efficient, our employee to rifle ratio has not grown. Our peak employee count was during the M107 fulfillment because we had to surge our production. But what has happened in the last three to five years is that we’ve gotten better leadership which has led to better efficiency. Now we are back down to around 110 employees, but are making more than we ever have before. It’s processes, and technology. We are getting better via technology but are keeping that Barrett “DNA” of the people that make it happen. We still have craftsmen, but we are leveraging technology as much as we can. In essence, to get to the ragged edge of performance, it costs a lot. The difference between a rifle that can shoot 1 MOA and one that can shoot .5 MOA, well that last .5 MOA is going to cost you a higher percentage than getting to 1 MOA. But the people we’ve added, the executive leadership team has been instrumental in changing the way the company operates, through the efficiency, the quality, and the customer satisfaction level. Especially our Vice President of Operations, is one of our unsung heroes. He isn’t from the gun industry at all, he’s from the automotive industry. Our sales head, he’s from this industry, and you have to have that. The sales guy has to know who to call, how things work within it, etc… But at the operations level, I didn’t want that. The gun industry compared to other industries is largely immature. As an example many companies have still been building guns gunsmithing style, fitting them together. He has changed the way we work in that he brought in a hospital like mentality of keeping everything clean, having quality control checks. He is the reason why we build more products today than ever, with more quality, more efficiency, with less defects, and with fewer people. I like to think we follow the Thomas Edison model. Edison was a brilliant designer on his own accord, but he didn’t design everything he came out with. He was the creative director of a group of people that he pushed to get what he knew he wanted. That’ is why he created so many industries and that is more or less where I want to see Barrett go. It is fantastic to have a Ronnie Barrett that put together the M82, but we are trying to get a whole group of equally talented designers, who are pushing the envelope. That is where I see us going. He is still here with us though, out on the floors, still very involved in everything that is going on. But for the future, we are looking into getting the right gun design team to be able to free him up and keep our products going. We are trying to stay above the trenches and see out as far out as we can, predict trends and so on. Sometimes the world’s greatest products were not from necessity but from someone saying, “Hey, this is where we need to go”.

SAR- So where does that put the company in the future? Where will Barrett be in 3-5 years?

Chris: I want to really broaden the Barrett brand so that it is accessible to more people in more markets. For example we’re pushing into the smaller calibers, the AR market. Because we started with the super niche, the M82. We’ve also got the .416 Barrett, which everyone thinks of as a California legal round, but it is so much more than that in that it is an exceptional cartridge of its own accord when it comes to long range precision. It should change what people consider to be long range. Long range used to be a thousand yards, it used to be three hundred yards a long time ago. Well I’m going to say that long range is now over two thousand yards. We want to be optimizing platforms for that cartridge. We want to offer the Barrett name to customers who might not have a need for a .50 caliber rifle. That’s why you see us with the REC7, and the MRAD. We have also launched a sub-brand of high end shotguns. We like hunting, we like traditional sporting guns too, but that doesn’t fit under the traditional Barrett brand though. We’ve got our Barrett Sovereign line of over and under shotguns, that we just introduced at SHOT show. A lot of people love the Barrett brand but they aren’t going to buy an anti-material rifle. Take for instance the Safari Club International folks. As another example we’ve acquired the assets of Forbes rifle company, a hunting rifle manufacturer, which makes some really light hunting rifles. I would like to see us as the Beretta of the United States, in that their product line up is very extensive. We’re not going to quadruple the amount of M107A1s we make, it is just not going to happen. So as a company that started at the highest echelon of performance, you can only go so far with that. You have to make products that appeal to a broader market if you want to grow. Back to us, the more products we make, the better we get, and the better our flagship products are. You just learn things from making that many more products that you wouldn’t have found out by just making just a few. That technology trickles up and down.

Since the company’s inception in the 1980s, Barrett Firearms has made leaps and bounds from the former garage that Ronnie Barrett used to make the first M82 anti material rifles. Today the company is expanding into the AR market, machine guns, and precision rifles with their MRAD design. Taking that momentum into the 21st Century is Christopher Barrett, the current president of the company. Chris was kind enough to sit down with SAR as we interviewed him about his history with the company, and where he wants the company to go in the near future.

SAR: Were you involved with Barrett Firearms from the beginning?

Chris: My earliest memories were of my dad shooting, and his firearms interests. He had machine guns in the 1980s, was a big time hobbyist, always shooting in sub-gun matches. He just had the coolest things in the world to a little boy. I’ve always been a part of the culture of this industry. I was around four years old when dad really came out with the company in 1982. I was shooting at a very young age, which a lot of people might not agree with these days, but it came naturally to our family. It helped make me the shooter I am today, and also helps with the designing aspect. I mean, people who actually shoot a lot, can identify what works and what doesn’t, and we put that into our designs. You could call it the Barrett “DNA” of the company, a lot of us are shooters, and we use the products we make. As an example, we don’t make submachine guns, but we still learn things from them that we can put into our other designs. If you are always in tune with that sort of thing, it makes you a good designer.

SAR: How did the company develop, throughout its history?

CHRIS: Well we started with the garage years, we lived in two different houses, with two different garages that dad was putting the rifles together in. The first house was in downtown Murfreesboro, and it was literally a wood walled garage, with gravel on the floor. They rolled out carpet over the gravel, and they realized that if they dropped a pin or other small part, they couldn’t find it. So they took the carpet and turned it over, and you were walking on the back portion of a carpet. But dad made a lot of guns out of there. Then from the garage, we actually leased a building because we outgrew it, out on Manchester highway. It was a former bus repair building where they fixed Bluebird school buses. It was owned by a man in Murfreesboro who invested in the company early on. We had that building for several years, during the 1990s. Then in the early 2000s, we moved over to this building. We built every M107 of the initial contract in that old building. We quickly outgrew that new building, and then built an extension to it, which is where we are today, connected by a ramp and it was a much higher ceiling for the running of CNC machines. Very thick concrete floors because these machines have to be on a very stable base, because of the vibration and harmonics.

SAR: When did you really start getting involved with the company?

CHRIS: Even as a young teenager and a child, I was tinkering at the plant. I remember being a kid, around 10-12 years old and I was operating acetylene torches, and doing stress relieves on welds. When you see your dad doing stuff like that, you always want to be a part of it. Another thing that helped was that we worked on cars together, we restored cars together. When I was 14, he bought a 1964 Corvette and we restored it together. I did the small jobs while he did the big stuff, but what you learn about metal working, fiberglass working, engine building, playing with gears in a transmission, you really take with you for the rest of your life. Most people just don’t have that opportunity anymore. We were doing that as the company was growing from the very early times. I went to High School, took computer aided drafting as a class, specializing in AutoCAD, working with two dimensional drafting. We don’t really even do that anymore, we do all our work in three dimensions now. When I graduated High School, I had no aspirations to attend university or go to college whatsoever, didn’t even occur to me. I wasn’t a good student, so I came right out of high school and that summer I came to officially work for the company full time. I got to work in the back, doing some of the jobs that I was already doing as a teenager, sand blasting, operating a band saw, sawing up raw stock. Every job I did, I wanted to improve immediately. For example I said, “Hey, let’s get a new sandblasting cabinet, let’s automate this sawing process”. So I got to move around the company and do a number of these jobs. This was around 1997 or so. After having this spot for a while I started realizing that this was all still on paper, there was no automation to it. We needed to make a revision to this. Chris Vaser, one of our oldest employees, was still drafting designs on paper for the company. Absolutely phenomenal draftsman, old world type with the lead pencils and putting things on paper. But this was what our technical data package was at the time, and this in the 1990s! It was on pencil and paper. It is beautiful and romantic when you think of it, but the technology of the industry at the time had far surpassed this. I mean, as a high schooler in 1995, I was working with AutoCAD programs. As an example, it automatically verifies geometry, with a pencil and paper, you could “cheat” and could get away with making mistakes. Computer aided drafting has really changed this industry in ways that we can’t imagine. I mean, we are in the golden age of firearms design. There is nothing like a brand new off the shelf rifle, a $400 hunting rifle that can outshoot the sniping rifles from the Vietnam War. A lot of this is because of computer aided modeling.

SAR: What role did you play in this computer revolution?

CHRIS: I bought the first engineering computer for the company, I remember it was a monstrosity of a tower and a monitor which was probably only 18 inches at the time, and we thought it was huge. We spent almost five grand on it, and in that day it was considered a major investment, along with the Pro Engineer software package. At the time it was the leading computer modeling software, so I sat there and learned how to use it. Not the most intuitive thing in the world, but after about a year or so, I designed the very first Model 98 on that. The prototype was actually a semi automatic .338 Lapua. Up to that point, it was the most radical departure we had made from our .50 caliber designs. The .338 Lapua Magnum was just starting to really gain some traction in the U.S. in 1997/98.

SAR: Accuracy International was becoming successful with their .338 Lapua and the Swedish contract in the early 1990s.

CHRIS: I hate to throw a bone to a competitor, but that rifle, at the time was recognized for there being nothing like it outside of AI. We heard the buzz about .338, and through that we kept plugged into our community of military and police buyers, so we knew there was beginning to be a need for the cartridge in a sniper rifle. It was sort of the thing in 98, but then it went dormant. We then heard of military solicitations for a .338 rifle in 2008, about 10 years later. At the time, we only had the Model 82A1 series, and the Model 95 and that was it. We only had two products back then, and they came in one color, and in one caliber. We essentially had two fixed products, like Henry Ford with the Model T, just coming in black. They were of a certain architecture at that time, and stamped sheet metal. They were .50 caliber, and were actually precision limited, in some part due to the ammunition. The .50 BMG round is not developed like a .338, a .308, or even a .223 is. It’s a machine gun round. Getting into the world of precision shooting was tough because we really didn’t build things like that.

SAR: Essentially they were 3 MOA anti material rifles.

CHRIS: Exactly, I mean even the Model 95, you probably could get an inch, inch and a half group out of it, depending on handloading. At the time we knew we needed a precision rifle. We did like semi autos, but we looked at what was the most accepted, most accurate, and precise rifle at the time. And it was the Accuracy International line. So dad bought one of their AWs for testing and evaluation. And we were looking at certain things, about what made it shoot so well and we found out it had some principles that we liked. But we wanted a semi-automatic, and were thinking along the lines of what would a semi auto version of the AW look like. So in the Model 98, you can see some of that inspiration with a strong rigid, bedded chassis, a flat bottomed receiver that looks a lot like a bolt action. A free floated barrel with a handguard beneath it. There was some influence there, but on the inside it was one of the most novel things ever. Although we never put that design into production at the time, we were able to take certain design elements from it and use it in our current rifles. Aside from that, when it comes to firearms design in general, you have to learn to only take the good elements from other designs, and make sure to reject the bad. However, I hate novelty for novelty’s sake; I want to design things for a practical purpose. But moving on, we weren’t and aren’t financially managed. We don’t have a list of share holders to report back to, we essentially do what we think is best for the company. Thus, the Model 98 project was sort of shelved until 2008. We noticed other companies were starting to produce their own single shot .50 caliber rifles, but no one was really getting into the .338 production. So that is where we focused our efforts on production and design. Looking back on it now, the original design we had for the Model 98, was interesting and forward thinking, but it wasn’t designed for production. And that goes back to our Advanced Research Group, a term that I prefer to R&D. Ideally those designers back there should be dreaming, not developing. They should be building up a design library, coming up with concepts such as the Model 98, that although might not be feasible to produce, will all us to come back to them in the future when we might actually see the potential for such products. Separate from this we have a product development team, that does that product development, because that has to happen, in order to keep the company on track.

SAR: So what kicked off development of the single shot Barrett?

CHRIS: We saw all these cheap single shot fifties springing up all over the market, and it really hit us because we established that lead with semi-automatic .50 caliber rifles. We didn’t want to lose that edge we had in the .50 caliber rifle market. We developed the Model 99 immediately. That was entirely new architecture as well. It looks much like a Model 95 on the outside, but it is entirely different. The Model 95 and Model 82 series are all sheet metal, fabricated, and welded. The Model 99 was really the first use of the architecture that became everything that we build now, in the Model 98B and MRAD series. It is made from a single piece of aluminum extrusion that forms the foundation of the receiver, with the barrel rigidly affixed to that. The Model 99 is really the genesis of what I believe has become the new defining architecture for precision rifles. The 98B and the MRAD basically are really different. When they came out, people were still just taking sporting rifle actions and solidly bedding them into fiberglass stocks that mimic wood stocks. We called it “B” because it was a revival of the 98 program, B for bolt action. But it was a head scratcher to people when they first saw it because they would look at it and say, ‘Where’s the action? Where is the stock?’. Well, there isn’t an action or stock in the way that you know it, like a Winchester Model 70, or a Remington Model 700. That doesn’t exist in the Model 98. It is a barrel rigidly affixed into an aluminum chassis that surrounds the barrel, and puts the bore axis really low, and gets the scope up higher. Then a lower receiver that separates from the upper like an AR does. So I think it really set a new course in the industry because after that I started seeing a lot of chassis going around. Another thing that is significant about the Model 99 is the breech mechanism, it has that interrupted thread that has been a significant design feature of the 98B and MRAD series.

SAR: What motivated Barrett’s movement towards the AR15 platform?

CHRIS: It started with the Barrett M468 in around 2003, and prototype production in 2004. What got us into the 6.8 SPC experiment was that the Army Marksmanship Unit, and some other entities at 5th Special Forces Group, specifically Master Sergeant Steve Holland, came to us back then and were showing us all this 6.8 stuff. It wasn’t even SAAMI standardized yet, AMU was hand loading these cartridges out of .30 Remington cases. They also had a .22 SPC, a 6mm SPC, a 6.5mm SPC, and a 7.62mm SPC. People don’t realize just how extensive this testing was. They were shooting all these odd cartridges, and they finally settled on 6.8mm. They came to us with a Mark 12 Designated Marksman’s Rifle, and said, ‘We need this, in 6.8, or a Recce sort of rifle, also in 6.8mm. We had no interest in getting into the AR game at the time, it wasn’t even a blip on our radar. But this whole 6.8 thing piqued my interest, the fact that it goes on a standard 5.56 lower receiver. We shot some of it and realized it was significantly more powerful, and it wasn’t some sort of niche that fills a gap between two cartridges that you can’t tell the difference between. So we started looking at it and that is how the M468 came along. I made some enhancements to it, such as the larger gas block because of the increased bore size. But we made a novel front gas block that had a flip up front sight and a suppressor interface for a suppressor design that would surround the barrel and actually attach to the gas block. If you look at an M468, you will see a ratchet on the gas block that attaches to a suppressor. The idea doesn’t really work nowadays because people are wanting suppressors to be modular and have the ability to be put on different rifles, but it was just something we were experimenting with. We built a good amount of M468s, probably put more into civilian circulation in the U.S. than any other company.

SAR: Development of the M468 then led to the REC7?

CHRIS: We started looking at the viability of a piston operated AR because of that, although the M468 itself was a mid-length direct gas impingement rifle. At the time there wasn’t much of a choice when it came to piston operated ARs. 2007 was the official release date, and we came up with REC through Reliability Enhanced Carbine, and 7 for the year 2007. The piston system on it, in my opinion, is the finest piston operated system on an AR out there today. It is one piece, it comes out the front of the rifle with one other part that holds it in. A lot like an FAL really, but the handguard doesn’t have to come off, and it doesn’t separate into seven different pieces. It is indicative of what we strive for at Barrett, making it well, but not overly complicated in a smart design. Anyone can make something complicated, but a good designer will strive to make something simple.

SAR: What sort of inspiration did that piston design take from?

CHRIS: I would say it is a hybrid of the FAL and the AK. The gas plug is a little like the FAL but doesn’t have this spring loaded mechanism like the FAL does, to retain it or switch it to a grenade position. The piston design takes a little from the AK, but we patented the fluted cylinder that is in there. This is important because a lot of other piston operated AR designs try to trap the gas in there, using gas rings, etc… We wanted the REC 7 to be simple, and hard to break. Ours runs without gas rings, like an AK. We found out a way to let the gas out of the gas block by incorporating a fluted cylinder. Early prototypes weren’t allowing enough of the gas out of the system and the piston was actually getting stuck in there from the carbon build up. We then put four flutes in the back of the gas block cylinder, cut with an end-mill that took away surface area at the rear, but we left it sealed at the front, where it needed the power stroke, then when the piston gets to the rear, it enters an open area, similar to an AK. These flutes allow that gas to blow around the piston and not allow it to clog up. The gas will then flow into the handguard, and this is why on REC7s with thousands of rounds, you’ll see some soot underneath the handguard. One of our earlier prototypes went 22,000 rounds without any sort of cleaning. From there we advanced the design to a Gen 2, with a better handguard system, and built-in steel QD mounts.

The M16, or in the early days of the Vietnam War, the XM16E1, had very mixed reviews with the troops. In the early part of the war around 1965 the Black Rifle first went to war with the 7th Cavalry in the battle of the Ia Drang Valley. The rifles were in-country prior to this battle with advisors but this is the first time the rifle would be used by a US military unit in direct combat with North
Vietnamese regular troops.

Joe Galloway was born in Refugio, Texas and is a journalist by profession. He is best known as a United Press International (UPI) combat correspondent who covered the early days of the Vietnam War. He covered the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley where he and now-retired General Hal Moore would eventually write a book titled “We Were Soldiers Once, and Young”. That book would be made into one of the finest war films of all time, “We Were Soldiers.” On 14 November, 1965 approximately 450 soldiers from the 7th Cavalry Air Mobile Division landed in Landing Zone X-ray located west of Plei Me in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam (precisely at the foot step of the Chu Pong massif). They unknowingly landed under a base camp of an entire North Vietnamese Army Regiment (nearly 4000 men). Joe Galloway flew in on a helicopter the 1st night of the attack. Joe Galloway is in a position to give SAR readers his first impression of the rifle, tell from his first hand experience how the rifle performed during the battle as well as the soldier’s perception of the rifle- being this was the first battle not only between US and NVA regular Army forces but also the US forces’ first major battle using the new rifles.

SAR: When did you arrive in South Vietnam?

Galloway: I arrived in South Vietnam early in April 1965 after the 1st Battalion of 9th Marines landed at Da Nang, and was immediately sent to Da Nang to cover the Marines. (Editor’s Note: 1st Battalion, 9th Marines are the fabled “Walking Dead).

SAR: Do you recall what weapons the Marines were carrying at that time? When did you first see the M16/XM16E1?

Galloway: They all carried M14 rifles and continued to do so for much of 1965 and into early 1966. My first close look at the new M16 rifles came in encounters with/coverage of Special Forces troops and 173rd Airborne troops in the Summer of 1965. I don’t recall any specific complaints about the weapon from those units at the time. My first thoughts were that it was light, easy to carry and easier to carry a whole lot more loaded magazines than the M14.

SAR: What was your first close encounter with the new rifle?

Galloway: My close acquaintance with the M16 came in October 1965 when I wangled a chopper ride into Plei Me Special Forces Camp in the Highlands as it was under siege by a Regiment of NV Regulars. Maj. Charlie Beckwith (Creator of Delta Force) was temporary camp commander. He ordered me to man a .30 cal. Air-cooled machine gun, saying he had “No vacancy for a goddam reporter.” After the siege was lifted and I was about to join a 1st Cavalry battalion sweeping the hills around the camp I went to say my goodbyes to Maj. Beckwith. He said: “You ain’t carrying a piece, Son.” I said: “Technically speaking, in spite of the use you made of me these last days and nights, I am a civilian non-combatant.” He said: “Ain’t no such thing in these mountains. Sergeant, go get this guy a rifle and a sack of magazines.” The sergeant came back with an M16 and 20 loaded magazines. I slung the rifle and marched off with the Cav.

SAR: Do you recall any conversations with then Lt Col Hal Moore and SGM Basil Plumley about their thoughts of this new weapon they were taking into battle?

Galloway: LTC Hal Moore liked and carried an M16 and I never heard him say anything but good things about it. SGM Basil Plumley thought it was a “plastic toy” and wouldn’t carry one. He wore a Colt 1911 .45 pistol throughout his first year in RVN.

In 2007 while working on a project for Picatinny Arsenal this author had an opportunity to interview Retired General Hal Moore regarding his thoughts of the new rifle. He had stated that he was fond of the rifle. He felt that most of the weapons that malfunctioned during the battle were from excessive operation. They were in constant battle for three days and two nights with little let up. He said he was not a weapons expert but he believed that the new rifle was superior to the M14 particularly in the close quarter fighting of the battle in the Ia Drang Valley.

SAR: Upon your arrival to the battlefield, did you notice- either see or hear of anyone complaining of malfunctioning weapons, or worse did you see anyone laying dead next to a jammed rifle?

Galloway: On arrival in LZ XRAY in the Ia Drang on 14 November, 1965 I saw a lot of Americans dead from the afternoon of bitter combat. I heard no one say that any of them had died due to failure of their rifles, then or later. LTC Moore credited his brave soldiers “and this rifle” in comments to reporters after the fight ended. Later I would hear from LT Rick Rescorla (B Co. 2nd Btn 7th Cav) say that his troops suffered a number of jammed M16s—so many that he assigned three men to each foxhole; two shooting and one with a steel rod clearing jams and reloading for the shooters. His was the only complaint about that rifle that I heard about.

At the time of this battle the XM16E1 rifles were fairly new. They did not have chrome plated barrels. The ammunition they had would have been the original IMR propellant the rifle was designed around. Ball propellant and the problems it caused would be after this battle. General Moore also stated that there was an issue with the supply of the ammunition for the rifles. He said they should have dropped in loaded magazines instead of ammo that had to be removed from a box and loaded into magazines. They had few lulls in combat for weapons maintenance as well as reloading magazines.

SAR: I am sure this is really difficult to remember but can you recall seeing riflemen holding the trigger down and spraying ammunition and then running out of ammo in battle? This question comes from the 1980’s M16A2 program where the Marines wanted to remove the AUTO position in favor of a 3-round Burst mode. They claimed it would help conserve ammunition so a Marine would not shoot up all his ammo at once and be left with empty magazines unable to fight. Also similar to World War II with the adoption of the M1 Garand with the 8 shot stripper clip instead of a box magazine. Detractors from this theory felt ammunition expenditure was a matter of troop firing discipline.

Galloway: I do not recall any of what I would call wild automatic firing. Those troops were disciplined and acutely aware that if they ran out of ammo they would end up dead. The chopper that brought me in at dark on first day of the battle contained ammo and grenade resupply in cases, as well as 5 gal plastic water jugs. The choppers would keep us well supplied with ammo as the battle went on. When it was all over the choppers had to haul out excess supplies of ammo that had gone unused. Ammo resupply was in cases of boxed loose rounds, not preloaded magazines. The troops had to reload their magazines during the lulls.

SAR: Do you recall anyone complaining about the stopping power of the 5.56mm round during the battle. As you may or may not know the rifle was given the nickname “poodle shooter” due to its .224 diameter projectile.

Galloway: No one complained in my hearing that the M16 had less stopping power vs. AK47. The troops were killing the enemy all around us.

SAR: During your time in-country or at any time covering the war, do you recall hearing of the rifles having serious malfunction issues and If so what do you recall they were?

Galloway: Referring to late 1966 early 1967 and complaints of M16s jamming? I heard this from the Marines primarily; that they hated the M16 and wanted their M14s back. I also heard that the primary problem was the M16s were handed out with little or no instruction on cleaning the weapon. Therefore the Marines cleaned and oiled the M16 exactly as they had done with the M14: Lots of oil, which in turn led to lots of jammed rifles. Once they learned to use dry graphite lube in place of gun oil the rifles worked better. And once the rifle was redesigned around 1968 the complaints faded away.

SAR: You had said that you had carried a M16 and that you had used it during the battle of Ia Drang. What were your personal experience with the rifle you carried?

Galloway: I carried the M16 that Maj. Beckwith gave me throughout the rest of my first tour in Vietnam. I made very sparing use of it because that was not my primary job. I did use it in the Ia Drang when things got very hairy the 2nd day of battle. Mine worked fine. Near the end of my tour I traded the M16 to a Marine PAO lieutenant who later complained that it jammed on him during a firefight. Possibly a cleaning or oiling problem.

Author’s Notes and opinion in closing: Over the past 50 years the M16 has been loved by some and hated by others. In those early days, the Army felt the end would justify the means and the Army would just stay with their home-grown M14. Even though their “means” was basically sabotaging the rifle and putting a rifle that did not work properly into the hands of American soldiers in a foreign land, and they knew it. You do not conduct engineering trials in the field, period. Army tradition and keeping the government arsenals pumping out M14 rifles and protecting all those jobs and high ranking officers clouded the judgment of what was in the best interest for the American soldier; which is what should have been their top priority and a solemn duty. The rifle as presented by ArmaLite was an excellent weapon but it was not fully developed. It is the job of the Ordnance Corps to get it in order to issue to the troops. After the Congressional hearing in 1968 and the Army being determined to be “borderline criminally negligent” the Army corrected the issues and those serving after 1968 had little trouble. The M16A1 proved to be the ideal rifle for the War in Vietnam. It has gone on to evolve to the M16A2 and now to the M16A4 serving n both Iraq and Afghanistan. The Vietnam era XM177-series of carbines has evolved to the M4 carbine which has become general issue throughout the US military. Controversy still follows the rifle today. The M16/M4 series has been attempted to be replaced with the Advanced Combat Rifle Program as well as the more recent Individual Carbine competition. According to the Army there is nothing after more than 50 years that offers a “significant leap in technology” over Gene Stoners design. The Army has just ordered a significant number of M4A1 carbines from FN and Colt. The M16A4 demand is dwindling as the M4A1 is the weapon of choice.

SAR would like to thank Joe Galloway for this interview. In this author’s opinion Joe is one of the finest combat correspondents ever. His character and credibility are top rate. His life has been dedicated to honoring the Vietnam soldiers and keeping the memory alive of the men who fought and died in that valley of death. Joes work along with Hal More have forever immortalized the men of the 7th cavalry into the hearts of the American public with the book and movie “We Were Soldiers.” Joe’s point of view is very credible and reliable on the early days of the M16. Joe has no dog in the fight. He is not an arms expert nor an army ordnance officer. He was there with the men and saw from unbiased eyes what happened from the soldier’s perspective. For the soldiers who experienced fatal stoppages and the ones who witnessed them, they will not care what mechanically went wrong and why. All they know is the rifle failed and it cost lives. The story does not end there. There were causes both political and economic that went into those fateful decisions. Once investigated and the Congressional hearing calling out and getting the Army to fix the rifle, the family of weapons has served with distinction for more than 50 years and is in no danger of being replaced any time soon.

I had first become aware of IRAC when I was looking for a primary provider of simulated weapons for Threat Tec, our company that provides highly realistic training to military and security clients.  During my search, I kept hearing about this company called IRAC and how they produced the best simulated weapons money could buy.  J.T. Crawford, President/CEO of IRAC, Highgate, Threat Tec and Pariri.

While some small arms purists might be tempted to dismiss replica guns as “toys for big boys,” we believe the best of these of this category have long served important roles in a wide variety of situations.  Think “Rubber Duck” M16 rifles and other weapons; realistic full size/full weight, non-firing models made from durable epoxy reinforced with steel rods.  These have proven a damn good alternative to beating up real guns (or the nightmare of losing them) in tough training like parachuting and waterborne exercises.

But they don’t go BANG. 

Or consider the cost, complexity, safety concerns, logistical hassles, and legal compliance issues of using blank-adapted versions of actual weapons by OPFOR (opposing force) elements in training scenarios.  Most often more trouble than worth.

These were among many obstacles confronting J. T. Crawford’s Threat Tec teams in carrying out highly realistic, demonstrably effective “threat emulations” under Department of Defense contracts.  He needed to find a good source for working replicas that were tough, reliable and looked and sounded right.

In the interview that follows, conducted earlier this year during a visit to the group’s headquarters in Hampton, Virginia, the 46 year old Crawford explains how he found International Replica Arms Company (IRAC).  And how he was able to make it a perfect fit in his group of closely-connected business entities.

A conversation with J. T. Crawford

SAR:  Tell us about yourself.  Where you came from and some things about what happened along the way to your highly successful group of companies. 

Crawford:  I’m from Kentucky and I grew up in the greater Cincinnati area of Ohio, right across the Ohio River where my paternal and maternal grandparents lived. 

I started shooting when I was probably 11.  I hunted from the time I was a small boy.   Probably for two years with my grandfather before I was allowed to carry a gun.  He would carry the gun and eventually I was carrying the gun with him.  We were avid outdoorsmen and loved to hunt and fish.  I have four sons.  All of my sons have been to the range multiple times.  Shot everything from the 1911 to the Barrett .50 cal. 

After high school, I enlisted in the Army for three years and served in the 101st Airborne Division;  2nd Battalion 187^th Regiment “Rakkasans” and 1^st Battalion 506^th Regiment “Currahee,” the Band of Brothers group of WWII.   I was a sniper in South Korea from 1987-88 under the 2nd Infantry Division.

Entrepreneur afterward, back to college later for an MBA, then work as a consultant to a number of companies.  I started Threat Tec in October 2013, finding early success as a DoD (Department of Defense) contractor and we started to recognize opportunities to vertically integrate some of those needs we have within Threat Tec.  ‘Vertical integration’ is bringing in things we would have to go out to third parties to bring into our mix, to provide the client with.  In this case weapon simulators from IRAC and battlefield effects from Highgate. 

SAR: How did your Army service influence development of Threat Tec?

Crawford:  In Korea there was a sort of mobile training team coming in setting up some simple sniper training for us.  Not anything like the realism of what we do today.  I don’t want to minimize the quality of the training back then because the tools they had to work with were limited. 

But now, we do work with the Army Sniper School, bringing realism into the picture for our clients.  They were able to refocus some of their existing training models and capture better complexity to their training set.  So, as opposed to having a sniper team go and observe a crossroads where maybe nothing will happen, they can now go observe a village where we have built some key vignettes that are happening in the background.  And we want to see if they pick those up. 

When you see role players go out in different exercises, lots of times there are folks on the low end of the scale for realism.  Only because they aren’t given a great deal of detail as to their mission set.  Our folks from Threat Tec receive our own internal training set to understand not just the verbal cues, non-verbal cues, body language, how different cultures will stand.  It really does give our soldiers a real chance to see a different lifestyle when they’re peering into that village.

SAR:  The evolving realities of warfare and the Rules Of Engagement have demanded that?

Crawford:  They have.  Certainly the 24 hour news cycles produce a lot of information very quickly so mistakes or mis-reads are really amplified.  I’ll tell you our service men and women do an extraordinary job of trying to understand the enemy, the enemy mindset, including identifying the enemy on the battlefield.  So it’s pretty encouraging to come back 30 years later and see these young men who are going thru the sniper program now and how dedicated they are to really learning and … becoming professional soldiers. 

SAR:  Your favorite weapons back during that time in the Army?  What was the standard sniper rifle?

Crawford:  The Remington 700 – M24 – had just come into view and the units were very protective in those days of certain sensitive items getting out because we weren’t used to employing snipers.  So more times than not I would go out with my M16A2 because what we looked at was another of the real missions of a sniper; the ability to collect and report data.  I think they called the course back then the “Scout Sniper Course.”  It was a five week long course with precision shooting, of course, but also man-tracking, hide building, and a lot of collection skills from memorization to terrain analysis. 

SAR:  A favorite gun at the time?

Crawford: From my perspective – even having been a sniper  – my favorite gun back then would have been the M249 (5.56mm Squad Automatic Weapon).  So light and so much firepower that I really had a love for that one.  I didn’t carry it much at all but I loved going to the range with any of the light automatic weapons.

SAR:  Personal weapons now ?

Crawford:  I have many.  My favorite now?  I have the Barrett MRAD and I really like that but it’s really hard to pick a favorite.  I have a .300 Blackout AR15  from Daniel Defense that is just outstanding.  Probably one of the smoothest shooting guns I’ve ever owned.  Lots of them, the Barrett M82A1  .50 cal. that I really enjoy shooting.  I’ve been to the Barrett factory, met Ronnie in passing, shook his hand.  They were friendly and knew that we were a DoD contractor, bringing anti-materiel rifles to our Threat Tec side for live training.  They worked hard to make the deal great for everyone.    Barrett is incredibly supportive of the military and its mission. 

SAR:  Tell us more about how Threat Tec’s work led to purchase of IRAC.

Crawford:  The main driver for our purchase of IRAC, finalized in September 2014, was how nicely it fit with our Highgate and Threat Tec brands.  Our DoD partners had been raving fans about our products and we knew IRAC would go a long way towards strengthening our value proposition.

SAR:  What’s a “value proposition?

Crawford:  (Chuckles)  A value proposition is ‘how does this make sense to our customers?  So, why buy IRAC?’  And what is the value we bring to the marketplace that they’re not getting from others?”  That was what we were trying to do.  You could just say it was an added value to our customers that now we have these capabilities in house.  So when you’re trying to do a live event and you’re bringing out – frequently with Threat Tec – I’ll bring a full OPFOR (opposing force).  We have a number of retired Colonels, retired senior NCOs and we’ll set up an operation to fight the BLUE FORCE – the good guys.  We fight using threat tactics, techniques and procedures, along with threat weapon systems.

Let me give you a little deeper analysis. Threat Tec did need some battlefield effects to help direct movement in some of the more constricted lanes we were working in.  And we were looking for a solution that would be very realistic, that would provide some value to the soldier going down the lane as in weapons identification.  If I’m in a scout sniper mode and I can see the position and I can say there’s a ‘Dishka’ (.51 caliber DShK heavy machine gun) on the ridge, I’m able to report that back.  So we were looking for someone who could make them.  And we knew we had seen these sort of things in Hollywood movies.  We searched but couldn’t seem to find the manufacturer.  So in my despair that I couldn’t find them, I decided to do what any country boy from Kentucky does, I consulted YouTube and I said let’s build one ourselves (laughs).  And while I was going thru layers of YouTube videos I stumbled upon IRAC.  They were doing a quad or dual mount Fifty in the back of a jacked up WW2 vintage military truck.  And I said ‘that’s the guy I need.’  And at the very end of that video, it was a television show, the guy gave a plug to IRAC.  And I found ’em.  After that Steve Carter, the owner, and I became fast friends and we certainly developed a whole lot of new R&D efforts for DoD.  Things like the RPG-29 (Russian antitank rocket launcher) we started building.  According to Steve, Threat Tec became his best customer.

Threat Tec began using IRAC as the primary provider of simulated weapon systems. From the very first time we used an IRAC product, we were impressed with just how good these simulators truly were. Our teams train military personnel in some of the most demanding environments in the world. IRAC simulators not only looked the part, but they consistently performed day in and day out, which was invaluable to us.

SAR:  ‘Most demanding environments in the world.’  More demanding than Ft. Benning, Georgia?

Crawford:  Yes, we do some great training environments.  Let me be clear:  We are not training in theater (overseas).  We’ve had some opportunities to do that but we’ve made a decision as a company we’re too old for that (smiles).  We really focus on where we think we can deliver the most impact to the troops, places like Ft. Benning.  We do a tremendous amount of training simulations at places like Ft. Leavenworth (Kansas) and live OPFOR at Ft. Bliss (Texas). 

SAR:  Another catch phrase in Threat Tec promotional materials references “’high fidelity operational environments.” 

Crawford:  For us this means a really good example.  High fidelity because they are very close to the original.  So we’re talking about really honest representations of operational environments.  Right down to the food they might be making.  So the smells, the sights, the trash piles, the vehicles driven.  You can see out back one of our technical vehicles still has an Iraqi license plate.  Not something we have in the states.  A little truck driven with a three cylinder motorcycle engine.  But they’re everywhere in Asia.

SAR:  Getting back for a moment to Steve Carter and why he was open to you purchasing IRAC.

Crawford:  Steve actually brought up the idea.  I think he had been approached by a competitor to buy him out.  And we felt it was so important to have IRAC as part of our business model that we did not want to see it go to a competitor where we could possibly lose access to all the things we had developed.  So in turn we made an offer.  Several discussions.  Over a year’s time we had discussed it, toyed around it.  There was probably just a day it became, ‘that sounds like a good idea,’ and it moved very fast after that.  Steve has retained a similar set of tools that we have here so he’s able to do some things wherever he is.  He built a facility in Tennessee that will operate under a no-competition agreement. 

Through my dealings with IRAC, I had developed a very strong relationship with Steve.  As our relationship progressed, it became apparent that we had very similar perspectives of how an acquisition could improve IRAC’s position in the market. I think with Steve there were a couple of things going on.  He was thinking of moving to Tennessee from Cincinnati and he looked at this as an opportunity to have a fresh start.  Do some things differently.  Quite honestly, I think he was ready to move on to a different business or take some well-earned time off.

SAR:  IRAC was physically located in Cincinnati and your headquarters in Hampton, Virginia is quite different from Tennessee.   

Crawford:  A couple of things have changed in his life since then.  Steve remains on as one of our advisors and one of our technical guys.  He comes in when we’re doing a major run of systems and he’ll be right here with us developing.  Steve will continue on with the R and D (research and development) role.  He’s known this company and treated it like a baby.  So IRAC turns 40 years old this year.  Steve was, I think, the third owner of IRAC and I’ll be the fourth.  We want to continue to expand and see some real growth opportunities in the different systems we develop.  And I’ve got Steve geared up to help create these new models.  We have a big goal for this coming year to see some new systems rolling out on a fairly regular basis. 

The primary reason why the transition of IRAC included the relocation to Hampton, Virginia was to consolidate IRAC resources and have them under the same roof as Threat Tec HQ and Highgate HQ. As a result, collaboration among our specialists is more fluid and natural, which leads to more innovations and higher quality products, and we have greater access to our prospective markets.

SAR:  Advantages anticipated and now realized ?

Crawford: The greatest advantage, as we saw it, was the ability to innovate and rapidly develop battlefield systems quickly and accurately.  Highgate Systems has developed a number of systems that have been used to build high fidelity operational environments for DoD in the test and evaluation space. Highgate”s rapid prototyping capability and the IRAC toolset have merged nicely.

So, think of Highgate as the rental company that rents those battlefield effects, the props, and provides some subject matter expertise to non-DoD customers.  So if you’re shooting a film and looking for somebody to advise you on, for example, how was the Battle of Tikrit?   Let’s get specific into DoD capabilities.  We have 28 Colonels on staff.  Those folks are really a ‘who’s who’ among warfighters.  We have a Navy Cross recipient, lots of Silver Star and Bronze Star recipients.

SAR:  That’s a nice video on YouTube for Threat Tec with Colonel John McCarthy pointing to its location in Hampton giving “greater access to our prospective markets.” 

Crawford:  Certainly TRADOC (Army Training and Doctrine Command), only five miles away at Fort Monroe.  So we have had the opportunity to share our developmental products, some of the things that are tried and true.  MCOE (Maneuver Center of Excellence) Ft. Benning, Georgia would certainly fall in that category.

SAR:  In addition to the Army’s TRADOC, any interaction with other services?

Crawford:  We do look for opportunities because they’re so close (the Hampton Roads area is heavily military) and some other venues.  Not so much on the live side.  We do have some small watercraft – Boston Whalers with gun mounts and things like that – so we can challenge some of those riverine, ‘brown water’ forces.  We have some fantastic tools.  Our Boston Whaler is a navy ‘red dot’ hull (reinforced for rough use) so it’s really capable of doing a lot, it’s a high performance boat.  But I can’t think of anything we’ve done locally.  Perhaps some of our Navy friends will read this feature and check us out.   

Inside TRADOC we also have the opportunity to work in the Joint community.  So some of the testing and evaluation efforts will include all of the services.  We’re always looking for the opportunity to help so wherever we can throw our weight in to help with the training venue or to help develop a concept, that’s a strong suit for us.  We work on a lot of concept development, innovation of training programs and simulations. 

We’ve done some really cool things by way of Mobile Training Teams and even mobile devices as training tools.  Using iPads and iPhones with applications that allow some training to go on.  We are able to put some very cool things in those digital environments that really make a difference and save a lot of money.

Let me go back a step.  The old concept where we have to load up a mobile training team, go out and see the soldiers face to face and teach them how to do things….

SAR:  But in the digital world you can employ apps rather than live instruction?

Crawford:  That’s right.  And also on an IRAC instructional method for today’s soldiers – ‘digital natives’ — the young guys who are so accustomed to using tools like smart phones to learn.  We take things like a .50 cal. and explode the parts, show them how to assemble, disassemble, functions, and clear jams.  On a phone or pad.  You can do it on a truck while waiting to move out on a convoy.

We’re trying to find things like that to really connect with our service members so they’re getting the training they need, whenever they’re able to do it.  We’re part of a contract at MCOE ( Army Maneuver Center of Excellence, Ft. Benning) that does mobile device training.  We have people in our Illinois office and MCOE who are working on that.

Let’s talk about that IRAC mobile app, called the IRAC Knowledge Vault.  What we’re doing is taking our simulated systems and providing all our buyers, customers with something powered by an app called VEZI which we own through our Parari Group.  It allows someone to take a smart device, hold it up, tap it to a tag, and it will explode to a user’s manual.  Everything from the history of the system, like an M2 machine gun. And then go to specifics of the system.  How do I set it up.  (Not as detailed as an old Technical Manual because the simulated system is simpler).  Our end users need to know what are the preventative maintenance steps and how do we service this thing.  How do we clear jams if there’s an issue in the field.  We’re simplifying that so our customers no longer feel the need to send it back, although that rarely happens.  Generally we’re able to talk someone thru it on the phone.  (like oxygen/propane mix).

SAR:  Way back in the day it was a laminated ‘cheat sheet’ and now it’s digital?

Crawford:  That’s right.  But you can hold their attention much longer than the ‘sage on the stage with the PowerPoint’ or a handout.

SAR:  What is your vision for the “new and improved” IRAC in selection of product line, manufacturing, customer service, etc. ? 

Crawford:  We started making changes right away.  Steve has built a firm foundation, and now we want to see our client offerings expand and our market presence grow.  The first big change was the new and improved website.  This gives our customers and channel partners a way to see what products are available, prices and even online ordering.  We have some big surprises to announce at the MVPA show in June.  I can tell you that they will include some mobile tools for our customers, new packaging and several new products.  We intend to offer a new replica each quarter for the next 24 months.  It’s a huge order but we have really great and dedicated people who can do just about anything.

SAR:  Who uses IRAC replicas ? 

Crawford:  Government Contractors, Hollywood, DoD, DHS, museums, and many collectors and military enthusiasts.  Our service members use IRAC systems for training and in the development of a realistic battlefield.

Many of the country’s best known war museums have an IRAC system or two.  Our systems are in use internationally and chances are you can see one at a parade near you!  We have a number of solutions and do a lot of customized systems for vintage aircraft and military vehicles.

Yesterday I took a phone call from England and the guy has a Loach, an Apache and a Huey (helicopters).  All, over the years, outfitted with IRAC systems.  He wants to outfit a (sim-fire) Minigun on the Loach.  The movie folks love the sim-fire 60s on the Huey.  When you have a conversation with Steve, he’ll frequently say, ‘oh yeah, we made those guns.  I forgot about that.’

You know that dinosaur thing that goes around to monster truck rallies?  It also has IRAC machine guns.  A company called us with a Vietnam era vehicle and said they were going to fight this fire-breathing dinosaur and we need to know if we can buy some of those.  And he bought five (sim-fire) guns; Mk19s, M2 .50s, really did a nice job on the vehicle.   

SAR:  Movies and television ?

Crawford: You can see IRAC systems on the Batmobile; the two 30mm cannons that came out of the hood.  Also guns on the Green Hornet’s car and in the Transformers movies.  Saving Private Ryan, We Were Soldiers, Battle of LA, Red Dawn, Terminator Salvation, and a lot more including Dreamworks’ WWII television series The Pacific. 

Hollywood prop companies would call and say ‘I need this.’  We sell to a lot of those guys now.  They may not say for what movie for fear we might try to go direct – which we don’t do.  But they will come in and say here’s what I need.

SAR:  What’s coming up next?  Promotional materials note a goal of eight new replicas in the next two years. 

Crawford:  The first two coming on line – we already have our alpha types – are the RPG-29 and the Kornet.  Those are really for our DoD market; training aids for Russian anti-tank missile launchers that a soldier is likely to find in multiple theaters today. Kornet is a nasty tank killer and the RPG 29 has a 105mm warhead.  We had a conversation with some foreign soldiers, I think from Israel, and they were talking about some of the recent battles and the devastation that was caused from these systems.  Our replicas are MILES (laser-based hit identifier) capable.  Not only an effective simulator, but has reported MILES “kills.” 

SAR:  Do you have anything in the works for other markets along the lines of traditional small arms?

Crawford:  We sure do.  For the public market, like military vehicle collectors, we’re planning on bringing online the M240 (GPMG), unveiled at MVPA (Military Vehicle Preservation Association) in June.

For the public market, like military vehicle collectors, we’re planning on bringing online the M240 (GPMG), unveiled at MVPA (Military Vehicle Preservation Association) in June. We now have a sim-fire M60, built on one of the receivers we’ve been selling.  Part of the issue is tooling and finding the right available components when we want to add some furniture.  I think you’ll see us reconstituting a lot of the things that Steve did in the early days of IRAC that were really successful.

What we are looking for now in the development of 3D printers and the resins and things we can get our hands on allow us to replicate things that we couldn’t do easily before.  So when we think static models, that’s a huge opportunity. 

SAR:  Anything older, like from WW2, to join those existing replicas ?

Crawford:  We have a number of systems we’re looking at.  Not ready to announce a winner but I can say keep your eyes peeled.  A lot of our folks from MVPA and reenactors have some things they’ve been looking for and we’re trying to discover where that itch is the most for them.  We already have Thompson and BAR receivers, and make full replica M2 .50 cals and also .30 cal. water cooled and air cooled Brownings.  

SAR:  Why not a Tommy Gun?  Didn’t IRAC once do a full replica Thompson?

Crawford:    We already offer an M1A1 receiver and we could do a static replica. Sim-fire (simulated firing) is not so simple in a Tommy Gun.  Steve made one of the Thompsons that Tom Hanks carried in “Saving Private Ryan.”

SAR:  Do IRAC’s highly realistic replicas give rise to problems with local laws and police agencies?

Crawford:  No difficulties.  Our systems are not made for kids, we’re not making toys. They’re really a training aid or static device.    But we do send out some with the orange tips required in some jurisdictions or if that’s what the customer wants. 

SAR:  Comment in the apparent “synergy” among your three business entities.

Crawford:  Primarily, the IRAC acquisition makes sense for us. Highgate, our family of companies, has always been very focused on delivering value beyond the purchase to our clients. Because IRAC had been built on similar values, it was easy to spot how IRAC was a natural fit.  The systems are all built with a great deal of pride, care and attention to detail, which are values each of our companies share. 

Highgate is essentially three things; renting rent props, costumes, effects.  So if your police station wants to do some IED training, we have IED devices, we have explosive device simulators, we have radio controlled detonators, we can help you work with your law enforcement folks, your fire departments, your first responders.

SAR:  Some of these devices are 3D printed?

Crawford:  No 3D printing by the three companies.  There is a fourth company, Parari Group, which has some capabilities in prototyping, rapid prototyping and such.  We have a number of things we want to do.  We have machinists in Hampton and modelers out in our Illinois office who are already 3D graphic artists whose strong set is building the language for those 3D printers.   

SAR:  We note the announcement of BATFE approval for manufacturing.  Now making real guns ?

Crawford:  Not real guns, but our IED simulators are technically classified  as ‘destructive devices.’  There’s a future version of us that will probably make some small arms.  Small batches.  Maybe specific runs that could be for something like a Thompson that we would want to make a commemorative semiauto.  I can see that in our long term future.  Very small quantities.  I don’t think we’re ever taking on FN, Remington, Winchester, or Barrett.  Any of those.

SAR:  Back to the ‘destructive devices,’ are these movie style pyrotechnics ?

Crawford:  There could certainly be movie style pyrotechnics, rocket launchers.  But we have another interest in unmanned aerial vehicles.   And potential warhead development for those sorts of tools.  That’s a bit out in the distance.  We’re right here in Hampton by the NASA facility.  There’s a very large group of aerospace engineers in the area who are very interested in UAV and UAS development.

SAR:  You’re buying semiauto AKs and making them blank only, right?

Crawford:  Yes and no.  We do modify the weapons so they’re only capable of firing a blank.  We can also undo that so we don’t really lose the ability to make it a firing weapon.  We simply, through some adaptation, make it so it can’t fire a live round while we’re doing training events.  As to what’s next, when you talk to Gethyn Jones (IRAC GM) he’ll have a thousand ideas of what he’d like to do.  Gethyn would love for us to do nothing but build real weapons.  From a business perspective I see that as a real uphill battle for us.  Not because we don’t have an interest in it, not because we think it’s a bad idea, but just because its a fairly saturated market.  And prior to the election of our current president, individual weapon purchases were on the decline.  Now they’ve taken a pretty good upswing.

SAR:  Some parting thoughts ?

Crawford:  The addition of IRAC into the Highgate family has been great.  IRAC is a solid brand and is capturing some recognition internationally.  We have static systems going into some Threat Tec channel partners in June.  This will be great for IRAC and expose the brand to an even larger audience.  Our Highgate customers are  excited to have access to the IRAC products and development team.  The integration couldn’t be more positive and I see huge potential in linking the brands.

SAR:  How do you keep track of all this?

Crawford:  Great people !  It’s a busy day (laughs) .

A conversation with IRAC’s Gethyn Jones

At Crawford’s invitation, we did enjoy the opportunity to talk at some length with Gethyn Jones, IRAC’s General Manager and multi-role problem-solver.  Jones’ professional resume includes extended time as an NCO with British Land Forces to include some “specialized” assignments that he’s not free to discuss.  Critical to performance in these was a 6 month stint in the precision machinist training program conducted by British Aerospace.  Little imagination is required to speculate on how this likely fit into “specialized” small arms for certain high-stakes military applications. 

SAR:  We’re in the Threat Tec arms vault with Gethyn Jones, IRAC’s General Manager, and right now he’s showing us a Romak (Romanian) AK that started life as a semiauto.  Did you do the conversion ?

Jones:  (Holding and demonstrating the rifle)  Yes.  We put our proprietary blank fire device on the muzzle.  That’s to maintain the correct gas pressure.  So the working parts will operate to extract and feed a fresh round.  We leave in the original piston and original bolt carrier group because we’re firing cartridge blanks.  What I do inside is to upgrade the recoil spring and locking pin system because the blank actually puts a lot more strain on receiver than the live round.  Blank rounds kill live weapons like nothing else.  We try to keep the function as close to the original.  So all you’ve got to do is insert a magazine loaded with blanks, cock it a you’ve got your mechanical safety lever to place on fire.  So the weapon handles exactly as the original.

SAR:  Adaptable to MILES (standard US military Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System for realistic force-on-force training) ?

Jones:  Yes, the MILES adapter laser box on the side of the barrel and we can either use an optical sight aligned with where the laser beam strike is – this is all done in their test units – or we can adjust our mechanical sights.  Very simple collimation.  Uses the same MILES box as M240 because its closest to  the ballistics of the 7.62 x 39mm round.

(Gets Russian bolt action sniper rifle from rack)  This is the Mosin-Nagant that everybody knows of.  Jim (Crawford) asked me to convert two of them to blank fire only for when the threat emulation scenario calls for a sniper.  We’ll put on a MILES unit that equates to the strike of the 7.62 NATO round, registering as a kill or a wound.

That MILES system, now geared with these makes it extremely safe and very effective training.  You can do sniping from buildings.  You can engage in a more realistic environment.  You could hire a mall for the weekend and – provided you pick up your empty cases – you could take these systems geared with the MILES and train right in the mall.  It’s safe.

SAR:  Getting back to the AK, what keeps it from firing live ammunition?

Jones:  First of all we seriously regulate ammunition when we’re on the range or training scenario.  When we’re running any scenario in conjunction with the Army, no live ammo.  We do a physical check.  Because the standard military blank for 7.62 x 39 mm rifles is slightly shorter than the live cartridge, our second line of defense is to use magazines with a blocking spacer that make it only capable of putting a blank in. 

SAR:  What about hand feeding a single live round?

Jones:  We can’t deal with fools all the time.  Some of the regulations, they want a barrel welded up.  If you hit that with a live round I can’t tell you where the projectile will go.  But with our baffle system blank adapter the barrel is going to ‘banana.’  This is going to come off, but the projectile won’t get thru.  It’s a hardened like driving the round into a steel wall.

SAR:  Going back to make sure we understand the AK’s modifications.  First of all the BFA is a proprietary design.  You start with a military BFA but there are internal modifications to prevent a live round from exiting the barrel.  Also “tuned” in its opening diameter to ensure the right amount of gas into the piston system for reliable operation.

Jones:  Yes.  We’ve done modifications to the support pins and recoil systems.  But selector; safe and semiauto settings are the same, as are sighting, magazine release, stripping, cleaning operations the same.  I’m working on a drum magazine for the RPK.  The SVD operates on the same system as the AK, firing blanks as well.

Highgate, Threat Tec, IRAC, and Parari
34 Research Dr. Hampton, Virginia 23666 Tel: 757-240-4968

J. T. Crawford’s four companies are headquartered in a large industrial park near Langley Air Force Base and NASA Langley. Eighteen key employees work comfortably in a modern, spacious 24,000 square foot facility. Close to a hundred others – mostly Threat Tec personnel – work off site in Illinois, Georgia, and Texas.

Crawford, characterized as an “intuitive entrepreneur” in some recent business profiles, provided some specifics on his coordinated business ventures and how they compliment one another.

Highgate Systems LLC. (Props, costumes, battlefield effects, consultation)

The overarching company in our group, Highgate rents props, costumes, and battlefield effects, and also providing some subject matter expertise to non-DoD customers. So if you’re shooting a film and looking for somebody to advise you on, for example, the Battle of Tikrit, we have many retired senior military personnel on staff; really a ‘who’s who’ among warfighters. And, if your law enforcement or security agency wants to do some IED training, we have realistic IED devices, explosive devices and radio controlled detonators. We can help your work with police, fire departments and other first responders. Web: highgateco.com

Threat Tec, LLC (Learning solutions, Red Teaming, support, equipment)

Certified ‘Red Team’ exercise support and immersive training environments from Threat Tec enhance U.S. military training and rehearsal exercises, as well as wargames, experiments, and operational tests and evaluations. We closely simulate the chosen Operational Environment (OE) with realistic host nation roleplayers, clothing, weapons, and battlefield effects. Threat Tec’s pool of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) and Threat Emulators (TEs) are able to support simultaneous exercises at multiple locations across the country.

One of the things we have inside of Threat Tec is development of tools and solutions to the human domain in training. We have a training village down at Ft. Benning that can be tailored to a variety of operational environments. In Sniper School there, for example, students can actually observe a village and do a real life mission set where they’re trying to find out if there’s a ‘bad guy’ in there. This is high quality training using what we call ‘Threat Emulation’ – not the less-realistic ‘role play’ that others offer. Web: threattec.com

International Replica Arms Co., LLC (Design and manufacturing of BATFE-approved non-guns)

The main driver for our purchase of IRAC – celebrating its 40 year anniversary – was how nicely it fit with our Highgate and Threat Tec brands. IRAC has been a recognized leader worldwide in the design and production of the finest replica, display and simulated-fire machine guns. From receivers for combat classics like the Browning Auto Rifle, to complete, modern-era weapons like the Mark 19 Grenade Machine Gun and MILES-capable Russian Kornet tank killer, each one is made in our cutting-edge manufacturing center. Our specialists use a combination of computer-aided machines and experienced craftsmanship to make sure every part fits perfectly and performs as intended. While other companies choose to piece their guns together using cheap parts, our passionate team incorporates world class tools, materials and expertise to construct each replica machine gun and reach the highest quality possible at an affordable price. Web: iracllc.com

Parari Group (Business strategies and design)

Our fourth company is Parari, combining traditional business strategies with innovative design processes to help companies create and deliver new products and services. These strengths are applied to the other three members of our group and readily available to outside clients. Capabilities include branding, web design, video/audio, and print media. Web: pararigroup.com

I had first become aware of IRAC when I was looking for a primary provider of simulated weapons for Threat Tec, our company that provides highly realistic training to military and security clients.  During my search, I kept hearing about this company called IRAC and how they produced the best simulated weapons money could buy.  J.T. Crawford, President/CEO of IRAC, Highgate, Threat Tec and Pariri.

While some small arms purists might be tempted to dismiss replica guns as “toys for big boys,” we believe the best of these of this category have long served important roles in a wide variety of situations.  Think “Rubber Duck” M16 rifles and other weapons; realistic full size/full weight, non-firing models made from durable epoxy reinforced with steel rods.  These have proven a damn good alternative to beating up real guns (or the nightmare of losing them) in tough training like parachuting and waterborne exercises.

But they don’t go BANG. 

Or consider the cost, complexity, safety concerns, logistical hassles, and legal compliance issues of using blank-adapted versions of actual weapons by OPFOR (opposing force) elements in training scenarios.  Most often more trouble than worth.

These were among many obstacles confronting J. T. Crawford’s Threat Tec teams in carrying out highly realistic, demonstrably effective “threat emulations” under Department of Defense contracts.  He needed to find a good source for working replicas that were tough, reliable and looked and sounded right.

In the interview that follows, conducted earlier this year during a visit to the group’s headquarters in Hampton, Virginia, the 46 year old Crawford explains how he found International Replica Arms Company (IRAC).  And how he was able to make it a perfect fit in his group of closely-connected business entities.

A conversation with J. T. Crawford

SAR:  Tell us about yourself.  Where you came from and some things about what happened along the way to your highly successful group of companies. 

Crawford:  I’m from Kentucky and I grew up in the greater Cincinnati area of Ohio, right across the Ohio River where my paternal and maternal grandparents lived. 

I started shooting when I was probably 11.  I hunted from the time I was a small boy.   Probably for two years with my grandfather before I was allowed to carry a gun.  He would carry the gun and eventually I was carrying the gun with him.  We were avid outdoorsmen and loved to hunt and fish.  I have four sons.  All of my sons have been to the range multiple times.  Shot everything from the 1911 to the Barrett .50 cal. 

After high school, I enlisted in the Army for three years and served in the 101st Airborne Division;  2nd Battalion 187^th Regiment “Rakkasans” and 1^st Battalion 506^th Regiment “Currahee,” the Band of Brothers group of WWII.   I was a sniper in South Korea from 1987-88 under the 2nd Infantry Division.

Entrepreneur afterward, back to college later for an MBA, then work as a consultant to a number of companies.  I started Threat Tec in October 2013, finding early success as a DoD (Department of Defense) contractor and we started to recognize opportunities to vertically integrate some of those needs we have within Threat Tec.  ‘Vertical integration’ is bringing in things we would have to go out to third parties to bring into our mix, to provide the client with.  In this case weapon simulators from IRAC and battlefield effects from Highgate.   

SAR: How did your Army service influence development of Threat Tec?

Crawford:  In Korea there was a sort of mobile training team coming in setting up some simple sniper training for us.  Not anything like the realism of what we do today.  I don’t want to minimize the quality of the training back then because the tools they had to work with were limited. 

But now, we do work with the Army Sniper School, bringing realism into the picture for our clients.  They were able to refocus some of their existing training models and capture better complexity to their training set.  So, as opposed to having a sniper team go and observe a crossroads where maybe nothing will happen, they can now go observe a village where we have built some key vignettes that are happening in the background.  And we want to see if they pick those up. 

When you see role players go out in different exercises, lots of times there are folks on the low end of the scale for realism.  Only because they aren’t given a great deal of detail as to their mission set.  Our folks from Threat Tec receive our own internal training set to understand not just the verbal cues, non-verbal cues, body language, how different cultures will stand.  It really does give our soldiers a real chance to see a different lifestyle when they’re peering into that village.

SAR:  The evolving realities of warfare and the Rules Of Engagement have demanded that?

Crawford:  They have.  Certainly the 24 hour news cycles produce a lot of information very quickly so mistakes or mis-reads are really amplified.  I’ll tell you our service men and women do an extraordinary job of trying to understand the enemy, the enemy mindset, including identifying the enemy on the battlefield.  So it’s pretty encouraging to come back 30 years later and see these young men who are going thru the sniper program now and how dedicated they are to really learning and … becoming professional soldiers. 

SAR:  Your favorite weapons back during that time in the Army?  What was the standard sniper rifle?

Crawford:  The Remington 700 – M24 – had just come into view and the units were very protective in those days of certain sensitive items getting out because we weren’t used to employing snipers.  So more times than not I would go out with my M16A2 because what we looked at was another of the real missions of a sniper; the ability to collect and report data.  I think they called the course back then the “Scout Sniper Course.”  It was a five week long course with precision shooting, of course, but also man-tracking, hide building, and a lot of collection skills from memorization to terrain analysis. 

SAR:  A favorite gun at the time?

Crawford: From my perspective – even having been a sniper  – my favorite gun back then would have been the M249 (5.56mm Squad Automatic Weapon).  So light and so much firepower that I really had a love for that one.  I didn’t carry it much at all but I loved going to the range with any of the light automatic weapons.

SAR:  Personal weapons now ?

Crawford:  I have many.  My favorite now?  I have the Barrett MRAD and I really like that but it’s really hard to pick a favorite.  I have a .300 Blackout AR15  from Daniel Defense that is just outstanding.  Probably one of the smoothest shooting guns I’ve ever owned.  Lots of them, the Barrett M82A1  .50 cal. that I really enjoy shooting.  I’ve been to the Barrett factory, met Ronnie in passing, shook his hand.  They were friendly and knew that we were a DoD contractor, bringing anti-materiel rifles to our Threat Tec side for live training.  They worked hard to make the deal great for everyone.    Barrett is incredibly supportive of the military and its mission. 

SAR:  Tell us more about how Threat Tec’s work led to purchase of IRAC.

Crawford:  The main driver for our purchase of IRAC, finalized in September 2014, was how nicely it fit with our Highgate and Threat Tec brands.  Our DoD partners had been raving fans about our products and we knew IRAC would go a long way towards strengthening our value proposition.

SAR:  What’s a “value proposition?

Crawford:  (Chuckles)  A value proposition is ‘how does this make sense to our customers?  So, why buy IRAC?’  And what is the value we bring to the marketplace that they’re not getting from others?”  That was what we were trying to do.  You could just say it was an added value to our customers that now we have these capabilities in house.  So when you’re trying to do a live event and you’re bringing out – frequently with Threat Tec – I’ll bring a full OPFOR (opposing force).  We have a number of retired Colonels, retired senior NCOs and we’ll set up an operation to fight the BLUE FORCE – the good guys.  We fight using threat tactics, techniques and procedures, along with threat weapon systems.

 Let me give you a little deeper analysis. Threat Tec did need some battlefield effects to help direct movement in some of the more constricted lanes we were working in.  And we were looking for a solution that would be very realistic, that would provide some value to the soldier going down the lane as in weapons identification.  If I’m in a scout sniper mode and I can see the position and I can say there’s a ‘Dishka’ (.51 caliber DShK heavy machine gun) on the ridge, I’m able to report that back.  So we were looking for someone who could make them.  And we knew we had seen these sort of things in Hollywood movies.  We searched but couldn’t seem to find the manufacturer.  So in my despair that I couldn’t find them, I decided to do what any country boy from Kentucky does, I consulted YouTube and I said let’s build one ourselves (laughs).  And while I was going thru layers of YouTube videos I stumbled upon IRAC.  They were doing a quad or dual mount Fifty in the back of a jacked up WW2 vintage military truck.  And I said ‘that’s the guy I need.’  And at the very end of that video, it was a television show, the guy gave a plug to IRAC.  And I found ’em.  After that Steve Carter, the owner, and I became fast friends and we certainly developed a whole lot of new R&D efforts for DoD.  Things like the RPG-29 (Russian antitank rocket launcher) we started building.  According to Steve, Threat Tec became his best customer.

Threat Tec began using IRAC as the primary provider of simulated weapon systems. From the very first time we used an IRAC product, we were impressed with just how good these simulators truly were. Our teams train military personnel in some of the most demanding environments in the world. IRAC simulators not only looked the part, but they consistently performed day in and day out, which was invaluable to us.

SAR:  ‘Most demanding environments in the world.’  More demanding than Ft. Benning, Georgia?

Crawford:  Yes, we do some great training environments.  Let me be clear:  We are not training in theater (overseas).  We’ve had some opportunities to do that but we’ve made a decision as a company we’re too old for that (smiles).  We really focus on where we think we can deliver the most impact to the troops, places like Ft. Benning.  We do a tremendous amount of training simulations at places like Ft. Leavenworth (Kansas) and live OPFOR at Ft. Bliss (Texas). 

SAR:  Another catch phrase in Threat Tec promotional materials references “’high fidelity operational environments.” 

Crawford:  For us this means a really good example.  High fidelity because they are very close to the original.  So we’re talking about really honest representations of operational environments.  Right down to the food they might be making.  So the smells, the sights, the trash piles, the vehicles driven.  You can see out back one of our technical vehicles still has an Iraqi license plate.  Not something we have in the states.  A little truck driven with a three cylinder motorcycle engine.  But they’re everywhere in Asia.

SAR:  Getting back for a moment to Steve Carter and why he was open to you purchasing IRAC.

Crawford:  Steve actually brought up the idea.  I think he had been approached by a competitor to buy him out.  And we felt it was so important to have IRAC as part of our business model that we did not want to see it go to a competitor where we could possibly lose access to all the things we had developed.  So in turn we made an offer.  Several discussions.  Over a year’s time we had discussed it, toyed around it.  There was probably just a day it became, ‘that sounds like a good idea,’ and it moved very fast after that.  Steve has retained a similar set of tools that we have here so he’s able to do some things wherever he is.  He built a facility in Tennessee that will operate under a no-competition agreement. 

Through my dealings with IRAC, I had developed a very strong relationship with Steve.  As our relationship progressed, it became apparent that we had very similar perspectives of how an acquisition could improve IRAC’s position in the market. I think with Steve there were a couple of things going on.  He was thinking of moving to Tennessee from Cincinnati and he looked at this as an opportunity to have a fresh start.  Do some things differently.  Quite honestly, I think he was ready to move on to a different business or take some well-earned time off. 

SAR:  IRAC was physically located in Cincinnati and your headquarters in Hampton, Virginia is quite different from Tennessee.   

Crawford:  A couple of things have changed in his life since then.  Steve remains on as one of our advisors and one of our technical guys.  He comes in when we’re doing a major run of systems and he’ll be right here with us developing.  Steve will continue on with the R and D (research and development) role.  He’s known this company and treated it like a baby.  So IRAC turns 40 years old this year.  Steve was, I think, the third owner of IRAC and I’ll be the fourth.  We want to continue to expand and see some real growth opportunities in the different systems we develop.  And I’ve got Steve geared up to help create these new models.  We have a big goal for this coming year to see some new systems rolling out on a fairly regular basis. 

 The primary reason why the transition of IRAC included the relocation to Hampton, Virginia was to consolidate IRAC resources and have them under the same roof as Threat Tec HQ and Highgate HQ. As a result, collaboration among our specialists is more fluid and natural, which leads to more innovations and higher quality products, and we have greater access to our prospective markets.

SAR:  Advantages anticipated and now realized ?

The greatest advantage, as we saw it, was the ability to innovate and rapidly develop battlefield systems quickly and accurately.  Highgate Systems has developed a number of systems that have been used to build high fidelity operational environments for DoD in the test and evaluation space. Highgate”s rapid prototyping capability and the IRAC toolset have merged nicely.

So, think of Highgate as the rental company that rents those battlefield effects, the props, and provides some subject matter expertise to non-DoD customers.  So if you’re shooting a film and looking for somebody to advise you on, for example, how was the Battle of Tikrit?   Let’s get specific into DoD capabilities.  We have 28 Colonels on staff.  Those folks are really a ‘who’s who’ among warfighters.  We have a Navy Cross recipient, lots of Silver Star and Bronze Star recipients.

SAR:  That’s a nice video on YouTube for Threat Tec with Colonel John McCarthy pointing to its location in Hampton giving “greater access to our prospective markets.” 

Crawford:  Certainly TRADOC (Army Training and Doctrine Command), only five miles away at Fort Monroe.  So we have had the opportunity to share our developmental products, some of the things that are tried and true.  MCOE (Maneuver Center of Excellence) Ft. Benning, Georgia would certainly fall in that category.

SAR:  In addition to the Army’s TRADOC, any interaction with other services?

Crawford:  We do look for opportunities because they’re so close (the Hampton Roads area is heavily military) and some other venues.  Not so much on the live side.  We do have some small watercraft – Boston Whalers with gun mounts and things like that – so we can challenge some of those riverine, ‘brown water’ forces.  We have some fantastic tools.  Our Boston Whaler is a navy ‘red dot’ hull (reinforced for rough use) so it’s really capable of doing a lot, it’s a high performance boat.  But I can’t think of anything we’ve done locally.  Perhaps some of our Navy friends will read this feature and check us out.   

Inside TRADOC we also have the opportunity to work in the Joint community.  So some of the testing and evaluation efforts will include all of the services.  We’re always looking for the opportunity to help so wherever we can throw our weight in to help with the training venue or to help develop a concept, that’s a strong suit for us.  We work on a lot of concept development, innovation of training programs and simulations. 

We’ve done some really cool things by way of Mobile Training Teams and even mobile devices as training tools.  Using iPads and iPhones with applications that allow some training to go on.  We are able to put some very cool things in those digital environments that really make a difference and save a lot of money.

Let me go back a step.  The old concept where we have to load up a mobile training team, go out and see the soldiers face to face and teach them how to do things….

SAR:  But in the digital world you can employ apps rather than live instruction ?

Crawford:  That’s right.  And also on an IRAC instructional method for today’s soldiers – ‘digital natives’ — the young guys who are so accustomed to using tools like smart phones to learn.  We take things like a .50 cal. and explode the parts, show them how to assemble, disassemble, functions, and clear jams.  On a phone or pad.  You can do it on a truck while waiting to move out on a convoy.

We’re trying to find things like that to really connect with our service members so they’re getting the training they need, whenever they’re able to do it.  We’re part of a contract at MCOE ( Army Maneuver Center of Excellence, Ft. Benning) that does mobile device training.  We have people in our Illinois office and MCOE who are working on that.

Let’s talk about that IRAC mobile app, called the IRAC Knowledge Vault.  What we’re doing is taking our simulated systems and providing all our buyers, customers with something powered by an app called VEZI which we own through our Parari Group.  It allows someone to take a smart device, hold it up, tap it to a tag, and it will explode to a user’s manual.  Everything from the history of the system, like an M2 machine gun. And then go to specifics of the system.  How do I set it up.  (Not as detailed as an old Technical Manual because the simulated system is simpler).  Our end users need to know what are the preventative maintenance steps and how do we service this thing.  How do we clear jams if there’s an issue in the field.  We’re simplifying that so our customers no longer feel the need to send it back, although that rarely happens.  Generally we’re able to talk someone thru it on the phone.  (like oxygen/propane mix).

SAR:  Way back in the day it was a laminated ‘cheat sheet’ and now it’s digital?

Crawford:  That’s right.  But you can hold their attention much longer than the ‘sage on the stage with the PowerPoint’ or a handout.

SAR:  What is your vision for the “new and improved” IRAC in selection of product line, manufacturing, customer service, etc. ? 

Crawford:  We started making changes right away.  Steve has built a firm foundation, and now we want to see our client offerings expand and our market presence grow.  The first big change was the new and improved website.  This gives our customers and channel partners a way to see what products are available, prices and even online ordering.  We have some big surprises to announce at the MVPA show in June.  I can tell you that they will include some mobile tools for our customers, new packaging and several new products.  We intend to offer a new replica each quarter for the next 24 months.  It’s a huge order but we have really great and dedicated people who can do just about anything.

SAR:  Who uses IRAC replicas ? 

Crawford:  Government Contractors, Hollywood, DoD, DHS, museums, and many collectors and military enthusiasts.  Our service members use IRAC systems for training and in the development of a realistic battlefield.

Many of the country’s best known war museums have an IRAC system or two.  Our systems are in use internationally and chances are you can see one at a parade near you!  We have a number of solutions and do a lot of customized systems for vintage aircraft and military vehicles.

Yesterday I took a phone call from England and the guy has a Loach, an Apache and a Huey (helicopters).  All, over the years, outfitted with IRAC systems.  He wants to outfit a (sim-fire) Minigun on the Loach.  The movie folks love the sim-fire 60s on the Huey.  When you have a conversation with Steve, he’ll frequently say, ‘oh yeah, we made those guns.  I forgot about that.’

You know that dinosaur thing that goes around to monster truck rallies?  It also has IRAC machine guns.  A company called us with a Vietnam era vehicle and said they were going to fight this fire-breathing dinosaur and we need to know if we can buy some of those.  And he bought five (sim-fire) guns; Mk19s, M2 .50s, really did a nice job on the vehicle.   

SAR:  Movies and television ?

You can see IRAC systems on the Batmobile; the two 30mm cannons that came out of the hood.  Also guns on the Green Hornet’s car and in the Transformers movies.  Saving Private Ryan, We Were Soldiers, Battle of LA, Red Dawn, Terminator Salvation, and a lot more including Dreamworks’ WWII television series The Pacific. 

Hollywood prop companies would call and say ‘I need this.’  We sell to a lot of those guys now.  They may not say for what movie for fear we might try to go direct – which we don’t do.  But they will come in and say here’s what I need.

SAR:  What’s coming up next?  Promotional materials note a goal of eight new replicas in the next two years. 

Crawford:  The first two coming on line – we already have our alpha types – are the RPG-29 and the Kornet.  Those are really for our DoD market; training aids for Russian anti-tank missile launchers that a soldier is likely to find in multiple theaters today. Kornet is a nasty tank killer and the RPG 29 has a 105mm warhead.  We had a conversation with some foreign soldiers, I think from Israel, and they were talking about some of the recent battles and the devastation that was caused from these systems.  Our replicas are MILES (laser-based hit identifier) capable.  Not only an effective simulator, but has reported MILES “kills.” 

SAR:  Do you have anything in the works for other markets along the lines of traditional small arms?

Crawford:  We sure do.  For the public market, like military vehicle collectors, we’re planning on bringing online the M240 (GPMG), unveiled at MVPA (Military Vehicle Preservation Association) in June.

For the public market, like military vehicle collectors, we’re planning on bringing online the M240 (GPMG), unveiled at MVPA (Military Vehicle Preservation Association) in June. We now have a sim-fire M60, built on one of the receivers we’ve been selling.  Part of the issue is tooling and finding the right available components when we want to add some furniture.  I think you’ll see us reconstituting a lot of the things that Steve did in the early days of IRAC that were really successful.

What we are looking for now in the development of 3D printers and the resins and things we can get our hands on allow us to replicate things that we couldn’t do easily before.  So when we think static models, that’s a huge opportunity. 

SAR:  Anything older, like from WW2, to join those existing replicas ?

Crawford:  We have a number of systems we’re looking at.  Not ready to announce a winner but I can say keep your eyes peeled.  A lot of our folks from MVPA and reenactors have some things they’ve been looking for and we’re trying to discover where that itch is the most for them.  We already have Thompson and BAR receivers, and make full replica M2 .50 cals and also .30 cal. water cooled and air cooled Brownings.  

SAR:  Why not a Tommy Gun?  Didn’t IRAC once do a full replica Thompson?

Crawford:    We already offer an M1A1 receiver and we could do a static replica. Sim-fire (simulated firing) is not so simple in a Tommy Gun.  Steve made one of the Thompsons that Tom Hanks carried in “Saving Private Ryan.”

SAR:  Do IRAC’s highly realistic replicas give rise to problems with local laws and police agencies?

Crawford:  No difficulties.  Our systems are not made for kids, we’re not making toys. They’re really a training aid or static device.    But we do send out some with the orange tips required in some jurisdictions or if that’s what the customer wants. 

SAR:  Comment in the apparent “synergy” among your three business entities.

Crawford:  Primarily, the IRAC acquisition makes sense for us. Highgate, our family of companies, has always been very focused on delivering value beyond the purchase to our clients. Because IRAC had been built on similar values, it was easy to spot how IRAC was a natural fit.  The systems are all built with a great deal of pride, care and attention to detail, which are values each of our companies share. 

Highgate is essentially three things; renting rent props, costumes, effects.  So if your police station wants to do some IED training, we have IED devices, we have explosive device simulators, we have radio controlled detonators, we can help you work with your law enforcement folks, your fire departments, your first responders.

SAR:  Some of these devices are 3D printed?

Crawford:  No 3D printing by the three companies.  There is a fourth company, Parari Group, which has some capabilities in prototyping, rapid prototyping and such.  We have a number of things we want to do.  We have machinists in Hampton and modelers out in our Illinois office who are already 3D graphic artists whose strong set is building the language for those 3D printers.   

SAR:  We note the announcement of BATFE approval for manufacturing.  Now making real guns ?

Crawford:  Not real guns, but our IED simulators are technically classified  as ‘destructive devices.’  There’s a future version of us that will probably make some small arms.  Small batches.  Maybe specific runs that could be for something like a Thompson that we would want to make a commemorative semiauto.  I can see that in our long term future.  Very small quantities.  I don’t think we’re ever taking on FN, Remington, Winchester, or Barrett.  Any of those.

SAR:  Back to the ‘destructive devices,’ are these movie style pyrotechnics ?

Crawford:  There could certainly be movie style pyrotechnics, rocket launchers.  But we have another interest in unmanned aerial vehicles.   And potential warhead development for those sorts of tools.  That’s a bit out in the distance.  We’re right here in Hampton by the NASA facility.  There’s a very large group of aerospace engineers in the area who are very interested in UAV and UAS development.

SAR:  You’re buying semiauto AKs and making them blank only, right?

Crawford.  Yes and no.  We do modify the weapons so they’re only capable of firing a blank.  We can also undo that so we don’t really lose the ability to make it a firing weapon.  We simply, through some adaptation, make it so it can’t fire a live round while we’re doing training events.  As to what’s next, when you talk to Gethyn Jones (IRAC GM) he’ll have a thousand ideas of what he’d like to do.  Gethyn would love for us to do nothing but build real weapons.  From a business perspective I see that as a real uphill battle for us.  Not because we don’t have an interest in it, not because we think it’s a bad idea, but just because its a fairly saturated market.  And prior to the election of our current president, individual weapon purchases were on the decline.  Now they’ve taken a pretty good upswing.

SAR:  Some parting thoughts ?

Crawford:  The addition of IRAC into the Highgate family has been great.  IRAC is a solid brand and is capturing some recognition internationally.  We have static systems going into some Threat Tec channel partners in June.  This will be great for IRAC and expose the brand to an even larger audience.  Our Highgate customers are  excited to have access to the IRAC products and development team.  The integration couldn’t be more positive and I see huge potential in linking the brands.

SAR:  How do you keep track of all this?

Crawford:  Great people !  It’s a busy day (laughs) .

A conversation with IRAC’s Gethyn Jones

At Crawford’s invitation, we did enjoy the opportunity to talk at some length with Gethyn Jones, IRAC’s General Manager and multi-role problem-solver.  Jones’ professional resume includes extended time as an NCO with British Land Forces to include some “specialized” assignments that he’s not free to discuss.  Critical to performance in these was a 6 month stint in the precision machinist training program conducted by British Aerospace.  Little imagination is required to speculate on how this likely fit into “specialized” small arms for certain high-stakes military applications. 

SAR:  We’re in the Threat Tec arms vault with Gethyn Jones, IRAC’s General Manager, and right now he’s showing us a Romak (Romanian) AK that started life as a semiauto.  Did you do the conversion ?

Jones:  (Holding and demonstrating the rifle)  Yes.  We put our proprietary blank fire device on the muzzle.  That’s to maintain the correct gas pressure.  So the working parts will operate to extract and feed a fresh round.  We leave in the original piston and original bolt carrier group because we’re firing cartridge blanks.  What I do inside is to upgrade the recoil spring and locking pin system because the blank actually puts a lot more strain on receiver than the live round.  Blank rounds kill live weapons like nothing else.  We try to keep the function as close to the original.  So all you’ve got to do is insert a magazine loaded with blanks, cock it a you’ve got your mechanical safety lever to place on fire.  So the weapon handles exactly as the original.

SAR:  Adaptable to MILES (standard US military Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System for realistic force-on-force training) ?

Jones:  Yes, the MILES adapter laser box on the side of the barrel and we can either use an optical sight aligned with where the laser beam strike is – this is all done in their test units – or we can adjust our mechanical sights.  Very simple collimation.  Uses the same MILES box as M240 because its closest to  the ballistics of the 7.62 x 39mm round.

(Gets Russian bolt action sniper rifle from rack)  This is the Mosin-Nagant that everybody knows of.  Jim (Crawford) asked me to convert two of them to blank fire only for when the threat emulation scenario calls for a sniper.  We’ll put on a MILES unit that equates to the strike of the 7.62 NATO round, registering as a kill or a wound.

That MILES system, now geared with these makes it extremely safe and very effective training.  You can do sniping from buildings.  You can engage in a more realistic environment.  You could hire a mall for the weekend and – provided you pick up your empty cases – you could take these systems geared with the MILES and train right in the mall.  It’s safe.

SAR:  Getting back to the AK, what keeps it from firing live ammunition?

Jones:  First of all we seriously regulate ammunition when we’re on the range or training scenario.  When we’re running any scenario in conjunction with the Army, no live ammo.  We do a physical check.  Because the standard military blank for 7.62 x 39 mm rifles is slightly shorter than the live cartridge, our second line of defense is to use magazines with a blocking spacer that make it only capable of putting a blank in. 

SAR:  What about hand feeding a single live round?

Jones:  We can’t deal with fools all the time.  Some of the regulations, they want a barrel welded up.  If you hit that with a live round I can’t tell you where the projectile will go.  But with our baffle system blank adapter the barrel is going to ‘banana.’  This is going to come off, but the projectile won’t get thru.  It’s a hardened like driving the round into a steel wall.

SAR:  Going back to make sure we understand the AK’s modifications.  First of all the BFA is a proprietary design.  You start with a military BFA but there are internal modifications to prevent a live round from exiting the barrel.  Also “tuned” in its opening diameter to ensure the right amount of gas into the piston system for reliable operation.

Jones:  Yes.  We’ve done modifications to the support pins and recoil systems.  But selector; safe and semiauto settings are the same, as are sighting, magazine release, stripping, cleaning operations the same.  I’m working on a drum magazine for the RPK.  The SVD operates on the same system as the AK, firing blanks as well.

The Proof House today. Not even the buildings have changed very much although the building on the right has often been rented out by the Proof House in times of economic strife.

By Miles Vining

Small Arms Review received the unique opportunity to tour one of the oldest running companies in the world of small arms. The Worshipful Society of Gunmakers, more commonly known as the London Proof House, has been in constant operation since 1637 completing the same tasks it was chartered to complete when it was founded: that of proof testing gun barrels and making them safe for use. Richard Mabbitt is the current Proof Master and spent several hours with the author touring the Proof House building and answering questions about the business.

Small Arms Review: So what kind of business does the Proof House find its clients in today?

Proof Master Richard Mabbitt: Apart from the mainly civilian side of things, we do an awful lot of military arms as well, whatever the government buys or is using. With the ban on handguns in the United Kingdom, we obviously dropped that part of the business. In more recent years, arms such as rifles and shotguns have increased in demand. With the changes to the laws about deactivated firearms, we’ve seen a good amount of deactivated firearms coming for certification.

SAR: What is the history behind the Proof House and why is there a need for one?

Mabbitt: When gunmaking was beginning to become a prominent commercial trade back in the fifteen and sixteen hundreds, a number of gunmakers got together and realized the need to have a central authority declaring that a gun sold in England, was in fact safe and of high enough quality to sell to the customer buying it, that it wouldn’t blow up in his face because it was improperly manufactured. From this need, the London Proof House was royally chartered by Charles the Second. The original site of the Proof House was actually about 200 meters down the road where the city wall of London once stood. In late 1673, the Proof House suffered an explosion that took out some of the city wall with it. Thereafter the London councilmen ordered the Proof House to move to a new location outside of the city, at which it stands today in this building. Back then fields surrounded it, but since then London has built up all around our current address at Commercial Road. It was chartered as a “Livery” company. This meant that the liverymen in it were originally a part of a trade such as goldsmiths, blacksmiths, or tailors. Apart from the daily operations, we also have a historical record of helping police forces with identifying various firearms that come up, in addition to helping investigate un-proofed guns (firearms that were in the United Kingdom that had not been proofed). Today most of these Livery companies have diversified as time has progressed and we are one of only two Livery companies still in operation and still doing the same work we were completing when we were formed. We’ve had our ups and downs, mostly during times of war or low economic turn out.

SAR: What are the differences between a Proof Master and the Master of the Proof House?

Mabbitt: The Proof Master is a historic position dating back to 1637. The role has changed little over time and encompasses all aspects of the business ensuring the smooth operation on a day to day basis. This includes overseeing the proof process, quality control, security and liaison with the military and government amongst many other duties. If you look at our plaques in the main room, we list every single Proof Master and Master that has ever been at the helm of the Proof House. We’ve had over 350 Masters but only 27 Proof Masters since 1637, myself being the twenty seventh. The Masters position is mostly a ceremonial one lasting only a year on the job. Proof Masters usually stay in the position until they retire or die. They are appointed by the Proof House Committee, which in turn is appointed by the Court of the Gunmakers Company.

SAR: Can you describe the process from start to finish of what a barrel or firearm goes through from the time it is delivered to the front doors?

Mabbitt: The arms are initially booked in; they aren’t classed as firearms because we are exempt from the National Firearms Act. At that stage we don’t know what we have in the boxes, whether they are rifles, pistols, or machine guns. This is where we fill out paperwork as to what they came in for, if it is for proof, the arms are initially checked for safety. All safety precautions are adhered to, to make sure no loaded firearms come in. We conduct a visual inspection but we don’t carry out non-destructive testing unless an armorer has come in for an incident report. Once we’re happy with our visual inspection of the entire arm, looking for any obvious fractures or weaknesses of the material, we will then go on and gauge the arm. On a modern arm we are gauging for cartridge headspace, diameter of the bore, diameter of throat and freebore. On a smoothbore we’ll also check for chamber lengths and the bore diameter of the 9 inch point. Once we’re happy we’ve got full compliance with CIP (Commission Internationale Permanente pour l’Epreuve des Armes a Feu Portatives, the European equivalent of SAAMI, except at the government and not civilian level) and the Gun Barrel Proof Act of 1868, later amended in 1978, we’ll then go and test fire the arm; testing each barrel twice with cartridges producing approximately 25 percent overpressure. Once we’re happy with the firing of the arm, they will go back into the workshop where we will go through exactly the same inspection and gauging process as before. What we are looking for there is any change that may have occurred during the firing process. If everything checks out alright, then the arm has been satisfactorily proofed. At this point we proof mark by various methods including pantograph engravers with diamond tipped or carbide cutters. We also still use the traditional hand stamp that has been in use since 1637 which is hammered into the weapon. (Most of the London Best guns are still done in this fashion, the Holland & Hollands, the Purdeys, etc.) For some of our modern arms we have a laser engraving machine, this is especially useful on anodized aluminium or polymer surfaces. When this marking process has been completed, we take information from the arm and put it onto our database.

SAR: What constitutes a “Proof Cartridge” and where do they come from?

Mabbitt: The proof cartridges that we use produce about 25 percent overpressure. They’re all manufactured by our own laboratory. We went into a joint venture with the Birmingham Gun Barrel Proof House about 10 years ago and they produce all of our proof ammunition and conduct all of our tests on caliber gauging equipment. The cartridges are made of standard service components; the only real difference is the pressures they produce at the chamber. We keep them in a climate controlled room at 21 degrees Celsius. The standard for testing ammunition requires the temperature to be at 21 degrees but we apply this standard to the ammunition used when testing small arms. Most of our proof rounds on hand are for common firearms, but every so often we’ll get a firearm that is chambered in an obscure or obsolete cartridge and we’ll have to make a special order to accommodate that. 

SAR: How much does it cost per firearm to get proofed and how is the business divided?

Mabbitt: Cost differs tremendously; it all depends on the caliber. A .22 caliber barrel will cost much less than a .700 Nitro Express. Take for example a .22 caliber sound moderator (suppressor) coming to us in quantity, will only cost £5 per unit. A 12 gauge shotgun is about £30 per barrel and something like a .308 Winchester will be £25-£30 to test that firearm. If a barrel blows up during the proof, we return the barrel and the customer owes us the same amount as if it has been proofed. As for customers, just under 60 percent are police, military and other specialist users. We’ve got about 3 percent of our business comes from the “Best” London trade – your Hollands, Purdey’s and Boss’. The “Best” shotguns. About 15 percent is certifying deactivated firearms. And then the remainder comes from our sporting clients, mostly imported rifles and shotguns that are sold in the United Kingdom. This also includes repairs done on these as well. Because the Gun Barrel Proof Act requires that if a barrel is modified in any way that will affect the material structure, it must be reproofed. For example, if a gunsmith screwcuts a barrel to add a sound moderator (suppressor), or rechambers the barrel. We handle about 18,000 weapons per year.

SAR: Is there any special consideration given to the London “Best” guns when they go through proof?

Mabbitt: No, they are treated like any other firearm that comes through the front doors. Although they may end up costing over £50,000 or £100,000 GBP when they are finished, the gunmakers send them to us when they are in the initial stages of production and thus we won’t be hurting any of the finish that is applied later on to complete them.

SAR: Can you explain how the Proof House serves the British Ministry of Defence (MoD)?

Mabbitt: Since the closure of Nottingham and Enfield factories, the MoD no longer proof their own small arms. That is left up to the individual manufacturers who come to us. We also work with the MoD on any specialist projects that they might have such as proofing the 30mm guns on the Apaches made in Arizona. We also proof 40mm grenade launchers but we don’t use High Explosive projectiles, we use lead shot. This is because we are testing how the chamber reacts to the proof round; anything that leaves the muzzle is none of our concern.

SAR: What about competition in the business?

Mabbitt: There are two proof houses in the U.K and those are London and Birmingham. We are two separate competitors as well in proof testing of firearms though we do work together as far as regulatory and legal matters are concerned and also in ammunition control. But the London Proof House, although we don’t have any branch proof houses anymore, we do a lot of our work off site. So I’ll send one or two of my men out to different sites once or twice a week all over the country. A lot of this takes place at predominately MoD ranges. One of the biggest differences between us and Birmingham is that we do mostly military small arms while they handle mostly commercial firearms. Also with the placement of a proof on the London “Best” guns, the two proof houses mark them on different sides of the shotguns; we stamp it on the right side of the receiver while Birmingham stamps theirs on the left side. Both are very similar, but Birmingham has a slightly large foot print.

SAR: How has technology changed the way the Proof House operates?

Mabbitt: The actual proof process is very much unchanged since 1637 in that we hand stamp proofs. Yes, technology has come into it in that we are now using various different gauges when inspecting the firearms, and with the marking we still use the traditional hand stamping method. We now do use pantograph engravers, and a laser engraving machine. But the actual process is pretty much the same since 1637. Back then, we laid barrels or firearms on a sand embankment and fired them off into a solid backstop. Today we have a reinforced room where we lock the actions or barrels into a vice that is pointed at a bullet snail catcher. A lanyard is attached to the trigger, or a contraption that can ignite the caps on a double barrelled shotgun that has yet to have a trigger mechanism. A Proof Assistant then closes the door, sounds a siren and yanks the lanyard to test fire the proof rounds (there are three of these “proofing” rooms in the Proof House). We are currently planning on installing high speed cameras in our testing areas so we can actually see what happens to the firearm at the point of ignition, if it happens to have a catastrophic malfunction due to a proof round. Ultimately we were founded for the purpose of public safety and that’s what we are doing today. We are just checking the safety elements of the firearms that come through our doors.

SAR: What is the Proof House’s relationship with the CIP and with American SAAMI (Sporting Arms and Ammunition Manufacturers Institute) today?

Mabbitt: The CIP is the predominantly European accepted standard of proofing and has fourteen member states. The UK government entered the CIP in 1980. With SAAMI, we have worked side by side but not necessarily interacting that way. Certainly I’ve played a very active part in cementing that relationship and have brought our organizations closer. In fact we have set up a working group with the CIP for CIP-SAAMI relations. We meet with SAAMI twice a year in various locations within the United States, along with CIP officials. I’ve attended these meetings for the last three years. The aim of these is to bring all our protocols into line so CIP and SAAMI can work off the same regulatory ammunition standards. We (the London Proof House) are also the only proof authority within the CIP that is entirely non-military or government run.

SAR: What kind of employees work at the Proof House and what are their backgrounds?

Mabbitt: All my staff actually hands on in the workshop come from a military armorer experience. I only have one engineer who has an entirely civilian background. All of the Proof Assistants are extremely experienced in their trade and have been working with different types of firearms for most of their professional careers. Indeed, most of the decisions that we come to in the Proof House come from the Mark One eyeball in regards to proofing arms. As for myself, I completed 10 years in the Army, serving in Germany and Northern Ireland as an armorer. After I left the service I spent a number of years working with different gunmakers until I became the Proof Master here in 2007.

SAR: What are the priorities in dealing with certifying deactivated firearms and destroying firearms?

Mabbitt: With destroying firearms, we’ll usually receive collected firearms from the Police that need to be destroyed or illegal guns that have been confiscated. With these we will make a number of cuts in the courtyard of our building until the metal is turned into scrap and a person cannot build a firearm from the remaining pieces. As for deactivated firearms, this has become a booming industry in Europe. We follow governmental directives on them that change from time to time. Mostly this includes cutting a slot down the length of the barrel, machining off most of the rails on slides and cutting the bolt face at an angle so a round cannot be chambered. These are then certified by stamping our proof mark for deactivation which is a “DA” over a sword and the year it was completed in.

SAR: So what does the future hold for the London Proof House?

Mabbitt: Obviously we have been carrying on throughout the many years of our existence. However we are dependent on what comes on through the front door. If the government creates more changes to the firearms laws, that would obviously have an effect on firearms coming to us. But certainly we put a lot of our attention on the Armed Forces and I’d like to think that our future is quite secure. We’ve been going since 1637 and we don’t intend to give up any time soon.

Although the London Proof House is not open to the public, readers can travel to its location on 46 Commercial Road, London E1 1LP. The nearest Underground station is within walking distance at Aldgate East on the Circle and Metropolitan Lines in London.

RRA LAR 47 utilized field expedient positions at Echo Valley Training Center’s Jungle Walk Lane Range.

By Todd Burgreen

The search for the “perfect” rifle and cartridge combination is the impetus of many gun designers and manufacturers; this search motivated Stoner himself back in the early 1960s. Of late, the most attention seems to be on “improving” the AR platform via developing piston-driven ARs in lieu of Stoner’s original gas-impingement design. Rock River Arms (RRA) has approached the AR from a different angle than just tweaking the AR operating system. One way Rock River Arms seeks to improve the AR platform rests on calibers chambered other than the 5.56mm. Rock River Arms features AR models chambered in 7.62x51mm/.308Win, 9mm, .40 S&W, 6.8 SPC, .458 SOCOM, and most recently 7.62×39.

Rock River Arms (RRA) was founded in 1996 by brothers Mark and Chuck Larson. The Larson brothers combine over 40 years of experience in the firearm business into RRA. Unfortunately, Mark passed away in early 2013. Their initial product focus consisted of custom 1911 pistols before turning their attention to AR style rifles. The attention to detail associated with creating Match-grade 1911s was soon transferred over to AR production methods. RRA’s goal with the AR style rifle is the utmost reliability combined with accuracy; thus wringing the most out of Stoner’s original design. These two objectives are often at odds with each other. The tight tolerances associated with accuracy can hinder reliability if not applied properly. By improving fit and finish, including the use of a forged receiver, RRA sets itself apart from the majority of AR manufacturers in existence today. RRA quality control was quickly rewarded within only a few years of emerging on the AR scene. RRA’s operating methodology was quickly brought to the forefront by winning contracts to provide RRA AR rifles to DEA and FBI law enforcement agencies. This has been followed since with other contracts with Federal, State, and local law enforcement entities.

Slight radius cuts behind where the firing pin rests in the carrier group are one difference with the chromed LAR 47 bolt carrier compared to a Mil Spec AR-15/M16 bolt carrier.

The exponential growth of AR popularity and Rock River Arms’ involvement in this progression is impressive. Rock River Arms definitely has “skin” in the AR game with numerous models and calibers in its product line-up. Our focus for this review is the RRA 7.62×39 LAR 47. Word emerged as early as 2012 about the RRA LAR 47 with product reaching dealer shelves in mid 2014. This delay was surely a result of the AR craze the industry went through during that time frame as well as Mark’s unexpected death.

RRA is an industry leader well known for producing a full line of high quality AR-15 style rifles. The LAR 47 is a hybrid design that combines the versatility and ergonomics of the AR-style platform with the popularity and hard hitting nature of the AK 7.62×39 chambering. Most importantly it accepts steel and select polymer AK47 magazines compared to other ARs chambered in 7.62×39 that take proprietary magazines. The RRA LAR 47 uses forged A4 upper and lower receivers. RRA decided to use the direct impingement (DI) AR operating method in lieu of the piston option with the LAR 47. This is intriguing as RRA features each operating method in its product line up. Some will have concerns with the DI operation and increased fouling in the receiver area magnified when using surplus 7.62×39 ammunition. This is addressed by Rock River Arms by chroming the barrel and bolt carrier group.

Two different model configurations of the LAR 47 are available: CAR A4 and Delta Carbine. This article features the LAR 47 Delta Carbine. The LAR 47 Delta uses a 16 inch chrome-lined HBAR profile barrel with 1:10 RH twist. The LAR 47 Delta Carbine is equipped with many standard RRA components that include an A2 flash hider (5/8×24 threads) and RRA 2-stage trigger group. Other features included are oversized trigger guard and centrally located ambidextrous magazine release. It is equipped with an RRA Delta CAR adjustable stock and Delta pistol grip, along with RRA propriety 2-piece quad rail handguard forend. The LAR 47 Delta Carbine weighs approximately 7.75 pounds with an overall length of 36.5 inches with stock extended. The package from Rock River includes polymer AK47 magazine, hard case, manual and RRA limited life time warranty. RRA lists MSRP for the LAR 47 Delta Carbine as $1,475.

Rock River Arms had to tweak the typical 5.56mm AR upper and lower receivers for the LAR 47. Interestingly, RRA was able to maintain length and width of 5.56mm AR receivers. The lower receiver’s aesthetics is impacted by being engineered to accept the AK magazine. One of the less appreciated aspects of the AK design is how the front of the magazine is hooked into place and kept steady behind a wide feed ramp allowing the bullet a smooth path to the chamber. This is one factor contributing to the AKs reputation for reliability. The LAR 47’s magazine well is angled to facilitate the AK’s magazine hook-and-latch system, i.e., you insert the front of the magazine in first before rocking it back and locking it in place. Rock River took into account the interaction of steel AK magazines with the LAR 47’s aluminum lower receiver by installing a steel crosspin for the magazine to interact with.

The LAR 47’s receivers had to be modified to make room for the wider and longer feed lips of the AK magazine. The same was done for the bolt carrier. The barrel extension feed ramps were tweaked to accommodate the 7.62×39 cartridge in the LAR 47. Rock River Arms dealt with the associated hard primer strike required for surplus 7.62×39 ammunition by using a heavier hammer spring and modifying the bolt carrier group geometry. The LAR 47 utilizes standard AR-15 buffer and spring.

Multiple AK magazines were tried with the LAR 47 including polymer US Palm, Magpul, Tapco, Bulgarian smooth and waffle, IO Inc., and surplus steel magazines. Even drum magazines were tested. Steel AK magazines worked without issue. On the polymer magazine front, only the AK magazine shipped with the LAR 47 functioned properly. The Magpul PMAG 30 AK inserted and removed smoothly, however this proved a false indicator as functioning was not possible due to the bolt group dragging along its feed lips. The other polymer magazines had issues inserting and locking into the LAR 47’s magazine well. Romanian and Chinese 75-round drum magazines were also a no go. The lesson here is to function test any magazine considered for use with the LAR 47. While there is definitely no shortage of steel AK magazines available for purchase, the inability to utilize multiple types of AK magazines will not be well received in many quarters of rifledom.

LAR 47. FIREClean CLP is a possible option for users concerned with direct impingement fouling.

Since typical AK magazines do not have a follower designed to hold the bolt open after the last round is fired, Rock River eliminated the bolt catch mechanism on the LAR 47. This eased design constraints associated with the magazine well area reconfiguration and alleviated the need to intrude into the trigger housing for space; thus enabling the use of Rock River Arms’ excellent two-stage AR trigger. The design approach further extends to the magazine release arrangement decided on by RRA. The angle of the AK magazine availed RRA the opportunity for a much larger trigger guard area. This allowed for a centrally located paddle release at the front of the trigger guard behind the magazine. The magazine release lever is ambidextrous.

It was decided to take full advantage of the RRA LAR 47’s flattop upper receiver by mounting a Trijicon TA 31 3x ACOG with horseshoe/dot reticle calibrated for 7.62×39 trajectory. The mounting of eye relief dependent optics is a weakness for the AK that the LAR 47 solves. A quick release mount was used with the ACOG. The mount is CNC machined from 6061 T6 aluminum and weighs only 2.7 ounces. The Trijicon ACOG offers the capability to engage multiple targets in rapid sequence compared to open sights, while at the same time providing accuracy at extended distances. The ACOG is a preferred optic for the U.S. Army and Marines. The Trijicon reticle superimposes an aim point on the target while not totally obscuring the target due to the center dot not being that large. The 7.62×39’s trajectory is conducive to making hits out to 300 yards without having to resort to excessive hold over; 3 inch high at 100 yards produces a 200 yard zero with 15 inches low at 300 yards.

Multiple 7.62×39 loads were tested with the RRA LAR 47 from Hornady, Wolf and Century’s Red Army Standard. A 50 yard accuracy test was chosen due to the ACOG’s 3x magnification. Wolf and Red Army Standard loads grouped into an inch at 50 yards. The Hornady 123 grain SST loads delivered accuracy in the 5/8 inch range at 50 yards. The RRA LAR 47 combined with quality optic mated to quality ammunition is a prime candidate for use as a general purpose rifle.

Range testing commenced with functionality consisting of dumping multiple magazines at targets arrayed along Echo Valley Training Center’s (EVTC) multi-stepped berm in rapid fashion once the ACOG TA 31’s was zeroed. Iron sights are not part of the RRA LAR 47 package. If so desired, Magpul flip up sights are a solution and easily mountable on the upper rail. No problems were encountered with the Wolf and Red Army Standard 7.62×39 ammunition. While the RRA LAR 47 fired Hornady 123 grain SST the most accurately compared to other loads, the rifle had issues functioning with it. Fired rounds were ejected, but fresh rounds were not picked up and chambered. It can be surmised that the bolt was not cycling back far enough to strip the next round from the magazine. The same magazines were tested with the other ammunition with no issues encountered. After initial functioning test, the LAR 47 was then put through its paces on different courses of fire. Magazine changes, shooting from the non-dominant shoulder and unconventional positions around barricades helped to evaluate the LAR 47. Strings of fire ranged from 15 to 80 rounds with target distances measured in feet out to a couple hundred yards. A major focus with the direct impingement LAR 47 was maintaining reliability after hundreds of rounds fired, including magazine dumps and breaking contact drill scenarios. The Rock River Arms LAR 47 paid several visits to Echo Valley Training Center with several hundred rounds fired. As mentioned earlier in the article, particular attention was paid to fouling and carbon build up and if reliability was compromised. Purposely, the LAR 47 was used as it emerged from the box and not cleaned or lubed for the duration of this review. The only issues encountered with the RRA LAR 47 in terms of reliability centered on AK 47 magazines chosen for use and the Hornady ammunition.

Further evaluation of the LAR 47 was based on training experiences derived from attendance at various training courses such as Pat McNamara, Suarez International, and Tactical Response. Team Tactic exercises involving moving to and from a designated target area using cover while either changing magazines or engaging targets when a partner is reloading are excellent weapon evaluation drills. One gets a good sense of the way a weapon handles along with reliability due to the sum of ammunition expended in short time frames characteristic of these types of drills. The full gamut of rifle manipulations are encompassed in Team Tactics training evolutions – handling around cover while engaging designated targets, accuracy to effectively strike at both distance and CQB ranges, magazine changes, and reliability once a weapon gets heated up.

High Speed Gear (HSG) Sure Grip patrol belt and TACO magazine pouches assisted with keeping steel AK magazines available. Many train and operate with multiple calibers either by choice or necessity. Others are tasked with training different weapon systems as part of their job description. The logistics of maintaining different belt systems or switching magazine pouches on one belt repeatedly is daunting. Imagine having to accommodate AR magazines one day, AK47 magazines the next, AR-10/SR-25 magazines, or AK74 magazines another time and so forth. Just as important in any transition between gear systems is making sure nothing affects magazine draw stroke muscle memory, pistol presentation or obtaining medical equipment. Accessing gear must remain seamless with no hitches caused due to different feel or location of pouches. High Speed Gear’s TACO magazine pouch was developed with this set of circumstances in mind. The HSG TACO magazine pouch eliminates the need for different gear per weapon magazine used and just as importantly keeps your items in familiar instinctual locations.

The Rock River Arms LAR 47 is a rifle that many will be interested in. This is based on the increasing popularity of the 7.62×39, especially when fed via AK47 magazines. Further supporting this is the better quality ammunition coming on line from manufactures combined with ability to securely mount optics on the railed upper receiver facilitating wringing the most out of the cartridge and platform.

SITES OF INTEREST

Rock River Arms
www.rockriverarms.com

Century International Arms
www.centuryarms.com

Echo Valley Training Center
www.echovalleytrainingcenter.com

Trijicon Inc.
www.trijicon.com