While at IWA, I had a chance to look at some Swiss Arms rifles. They were all interesting, but the SG553 which takes AR mags definitely caught my eye. Of course, the aluminum receiver stood out also. Older Sig 55X pattern weapons had steel receivers, but they’ve tested these aluminum prototypes to 18000 rounds of full auto – and that was the 7.62×51 version.

Other different features include a 4 position adjustable gas system and an ambi mag release. It’s not something that’ll be available to civilians in the US any time soon, but that doesn’t make it any less cool.

[ Andrew is a former US Navy Hospital Corpsman who was deployed to Fallujah, Iraq with the 5th Marine Regiment. Today, when not at the range or a Larry Vickers tactical training course, he blogs at the excellent Vuurwapen Blog ]