#7.62X51

While today the Italian company Franchi is not a heavy-hitting military small arms manufacturer, in the mid-1950s the company did produce some very interesting rifles, carbines, and submachine guns for the military market. The most recognizable of these is the LF-57 submachine gun, a simple blowback submachine gun very similar in design and appearance to the contemporary Walther MPL. Like that weapon, the LF-57 used a heavy, overhanging bolt to control cyclic rate of fire down to about 500 rounds per minute. The LF-57 ultimately wasn’t a huge success for Franchi, and only a few nations (including Italy) bought it.

At the 2016 National Rifle Association Annual Meeting, Blackhawk! was present showing off their new products, including the new suppressor line we reported on earlier this week. Blackhawk! was also showing off their new improved GI triggers, which we’ll cover later in the article.

The venerable SVD “Dragunov” (after its designer, Yevgeny Dragunov) was one of the first successful squad designated marksman’s rifles ever developed, and it spawned numerous copycats and competitors. In the more than half-century after it was developed, however, virtually no successors to the design have been developed in Russia itself – until now. The Russian 164th edition of Popular Mechanics carries the story on a new precision carbine.

Arizona based K&M Arms was present at the 2016 National Rifle Association Annual Meeting, and they brought with them their M17S series of bullpup, triangular-bolt rifles. New for the show was the finished .308/7.62x51mm variant of the M17S, prototypes of which had been shown previously at Bullpup Shoot 2015.

Got a chance to shoot some FNH classics while testing out some new steel targets coming out soon. The FN BAR Model D was caliber converted to shoot .308 using FAL mags.

It’s not April Fools’ ( we already did that, thanks for playing along!), German gunmaker Heckler & Koch has apparently won the US Army’s Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System competition with its G28E incorporating a baffle-less OSS suppressor. This is a major victory for both H&K and Operator Suppressor Systems, as Heckler & Koch beat out long time rival Fabrique Nationale as well as SASS incumbent Knight’s Armament Company to win this major procurement contract. This is also, so far as I know, the first time that OSS’s baffle-less supressor design has won a major general issue military contract. From FBO.gov:

Earlier this week, we reported about the Pakistani Army seeking a new rifle to replace its aging license-produced Heckler & Koch G3 and Chinese Type 56 rifles, and now new details – and most excitingly, new images – have come to light.

The latest country to seek an upgrade to their aging fleet of small arms is Pakistan, according to statements made last week by military officials from that country. The current Pakistani rifle suite consists of license-produced Heckler & Koch G3 rifles, and Chinese Type 56 rifles based on the Russian AK and AKM. From DefenseNews.com:

One of the lesser-known offspring of the M1 Carbine was designed by Gordon Ingram, ironically also the designer of the world-famous MAC-10 submachine gun. This was the SAM, sometimes also called the Ingram Police Rifle, a rifle designed in the mid-1970s with multiple calibers in mind. Like virtually all of its close relatives, the SAM was a very lightweight weapon, clocking in at just 6.1 pounds for the fixed stock variant, and Ingram planned for there to be versions in .223 Remington, 7.62×39, and 7.62x51mm NATO. Over at GunLab, Chuck has given us an uncommon look at Ingram’s rifle, some of the photos of which are embedded below:

The next few installments of my Light Rifle series of articles will cover in detail the development of the two calibers that shaped the NATO rifle trials until 1953: The .280 British and the .30 Light Rifle, the latter of which – spoiler alert – subsequently became the 7.62x51mm NATO in 1954. The subsequent rejection of the more intermediate .280 British as the standard NATO rifle cartridge caused considerable controversy in the UK, and many experts today believe that it was the superior choice for a standard round versus the much more conventional .30 Light Rifle. Advocates of the .280 British lament its rejection as being politically-driven, but – while there’s considerable truth to that notion – there is another side to the story. One critical document from this period is A Comparison Test of United Kingdom and United States Ammunition for Lightweight Weapons, from 1950.

TFB stopped at the Beretta Defense booth, where they were exhibiting the new ARX-200 7.62x51mm select-fire rifle. We reported on the rumors, and subsequent release of this rifle last year, but details remained hazy, and there was no word of a US market release.

Earlier this year, Daniel Defense announced their new entry into the thirty-caliber AR-15 market: The DD5V1, a lightweight, direct impingement 7.62x51mm/.308 Winchester rifle using a shortened rear receiver with a dedicated bolt and bolt carrier for the .308 cartridge family. Daniel Defense was present at the SHOT Show Industry Day At The Range 2016, along with their DD5V1, and TFB got behind the trigger.

Fabryka Broni of Poland is eyeing more than just the 5.56mm market with its new MSBS rifle; the arms maker just announced a new, larger variant of the rifle chambered for the more powerful 7.62x51mm NATO cartridge, called MSBS-7.62. Both assault and designated marksman rifle variants are planned, with the rifles reportedly being ready for showing in Fall of 2016 at the International Defense Industry Exhibition MSPO. Altair.com reports (below is a somewhat rocky machine translation of the original Polish, Polish readers should follow the link and read it in its original form):

The H&K PSG-1 is a rare gun. Fewer than 400 are supposedly in the US. My friend Hughes shared these pics with me of a takedown version of the elusive PSG-1. According to Gun Wiki, the PSG-1 costs around $12k – $15k for a new version. I don’t even want to know how much this takedown model costs.

DPMS/Remington/AAC came out to Big 3 East and they brought out their G2 rifles.