#Iwi

The Galil ACE by IWI is the successor to the classic Israeli Galil that was itself an upgraded Kalashnikov. But is this new design worthy of the name Galil, a rifle that we here at TFB love? Can it redeem the good name of IWI after the Tavor, Uzi Pro, and X95? Well these questions can be answered by an 810 round reliability test and review.

Gear Head Works posted this on Facebook.

Update: The owner of MAG contacted me after the publication of this article to remind me that “there are thousands, not hundreds” of guns in the vault. Somewhere close to 4000 with 1000 of those being handguns and 2000 being machineguns. Clearly my urge to resist hyperbole was misguided.

The IWI X95 has a dedicated 40mm grenade launcher that uses the pistol grip rather than the standard cutlass style hand guard grip. This grenade launcher was developed to replace the M203. It attaches by just a single push pin an can be removed without special tools.

The history of the IWI Tavor is a subject that has interested me for close to a decade. The rifle’s history doesn’t seem to have been well-documented so far, at least in sources I have read; yet available on the Internet are many of the original concept images and mockups of the weapon. So, instead of writing a history on the Tavor, which I cannot yet do (although I am working on it!), let’s take a look at these concepts, and see how they evolved from the first drawings to the final product. (Note: About half the photos in this article came to me via a thread on bullpupforum.com, so thanks to them.)

Israel Weapon Industries announced the introduction of the 300 BLK caliber into its X95 line of assault rifles. The new military weapons will be shown at the Eurosatory 2016 show in France this month.

A solider posted up some photos of himself and his platoon from back when he served in the IDF in 2010-2012. He focuses mostly on the X95. There are a LOT of photos and comments with each photo. It is interesting seeing the subtle differences and seeing how the guns were setup for the IDF.

The X95 was released to the market with much fanfare. Focusing on streamlining the operations of the rifle, IWI had a veritable second “home run” on its hands after the original Tavor, but the weapon has been criticized for poor accuracy. Our Nathaniel F caught the first wind of the X95 having issues and again reported on it after Tim from Military Arms Channel put it through some respectable testing.

The question – raised by AR15.com poster AJBello – of whether the X95 has an issue with wider-than-expected dispersion from a rest with match ammo, has hit the next note. Tim of the Military Arms Channel, a long time Tavor and new X95 owner, put the X95 to the test at the 100 yard line with few different brands of ammunition:

The X95 has just hit the US market after a firestorm of buzz surrounding the rifle’s launch in January at the 2016 SHOT Show. However, reports from AR15.com indicate that the initial batch of rifles may be experiencing some accuracy-related issues. User AJBello on the popular gun forum posted pictures of groups his new rifle shot with a variety of ammunition, including many match-grade brands, compared with groups shot with the same ammunition from his SBR’ed Bravo Company Machine AR-15. The groups showed a great deal of variation in the groups, from over 2.5″ minimum extreme spread to almost 5″ with IWI M855:

Between the IWI US powerhouse bringing bullpups back to America, and the IDF upgrading their standard issue infantry rifle, the Tavor platform has gone through a number of iterations. Here we’re going to take a closer look at 3 variants, and the factory sighting systems they come with.

Down at Big 3 East, last March, IWI USA VP Mike Kassnar, set aside fifty X95s for the writers in attendance. I eagerly jumped at the opportunity to get my hands on the X95 for review. I have only had a little trigger time behind the older Tavor SAR. I recall one of my earliest experiences was with an 18″ FDE Tavor that someone got and he put a QD Gemtech suppressor on it. It had a Mepro sight and we were hitting steel off hand at 200 yards with ease. However when it was suppressed, there was a significant amount of gas to the face. I was perplexed. The Tavor has a long stroke gas piston operation. I was under the impression that was one of the benefits of shooting a piston operated gun as there would be less gas returning into the chamber and thus less gas to the face. I was wrong. There are a few companies that make gaskets to further block the gas escaping from the factory blocked left side ejection port. Such as Manticore Arms’ Port Cover and Gear Head Works FLEx Swivel.

For those of you not familiar with RS Regulate, they make some of the best AK side rails and mounts out there. This time at the Big 3 East event, Scott showed us his latest MLOK handguard for IWI’s Galil ACE. This one was a metal 3D printed protoype. It is a 6 inch handguard for the pistol. Scott will make a 12 inch version for the rifle Galil ACE. The handguard will have integrated QD holes and have 5 sides of MLOK holes.

The concept of a stockless – or “bullpup” – rifle has been around since the very dawn of the 20th Century. It was invented in the United Kingdom, the country with which it still is most closely associated. After World War II, the concept began to gain traction, but bullpups saw their greatest success in the 1970s and ’80s, being adopted by Austria, Britain, France, Singapore, and many other major nations of the world. However, in the modern military market, the concept’s popularity has declined. The questions of why, and how designers can create more competitive military bullpups are the subjects of this article.

I discovered this Ukranian Short-Barrelled Rifle at a Swedish dealer.