I recently did a TFB write-up on the inner working of the Chinese QBZ-95 bullpup. That piece plus my RS Regulate AK optic mounts and the new QBZ-95 optic articles got translated into Chinese and posted in some Mainland website as soon as they were up on TFB. That site didn’t bother to even put a link-back to the original TFB articles, but at least they acknowledged me as the author.

While checking them out, I have found their coverage of the 7th Beijing Police Equipment Expo from May 2014. So, I’m sure they won’t mind that I’m using their pictures for this TFB write-up. The 8th Beijing Police Equipment Expo will be held at the 3rd week of May 2015. Looking forward to see some newer Chinese small arms from that.

 

The QBZ-03 with a quad-rail handguard. While the AR-15 markets in the USA are moving to the modular handguards with the Keymod and M-LOK systems, but in China, the quad-rail is still new to them. I was expecting the QBZ-03 quad-rail handguard would be just a simple drop-in 2-piece replacement, but this close-up shows it has a short piggyback section that screws onto the upper receiver. They should have done a full flat-top with a longer piggyback 1913 rail like that of the Vltor CAVS handguard.

 

This seems to be the same 5.56x45mm QBZ-03 that Norinco has been using for display for the last couple of years. This gun still has the prototype rear sight in the Type 87 style. The QBZ-03 design utilizes an AR-15 style two-halves forged aluminum receivers layout. The bolt carrier group hangs inside of the upper receiver. The back of the lower receiver houses a recoil buffer so that the QBZ-03’s BCG won’t smash onto the rear trunnion like a Kalashnikov.

 

Hmmm…..this look familiar. The Senior Colonel (a brigadier equivalent) is probably a POG.

 

An updated SVD/NDM-86 design as the CS/LR19 semi-automatic sniper rifle. From just these images, I saw there are actually quite a few major changes from the standard Dragunov design. The most obvious is the Picatinny 1913 rails and especially with the longer top rail that have replaced the Russian-style receiver side rail.

 

The barrel is considerably heavier and slightly longer than the barrel on the SVD. Behind the slots on flash hider, there is a thread section for mounting a suppressor. The lengthy top rail allows a co-witness mounting of a night-vision scope in front of the day optic.

 

The new handguard is now free-floated instead of the semi-free-float one found on the original SVD. That’s why the bipod can now be mounted farther forward on the handguard for better stability. Although, the receiver mounting slots for the standard clip-on SVD bipod are still there. The CS sniper has a shortened top dust cover. There’s a single machined metal piece that makes up the free-float handguard mounting base, part of the top 1913 rail and acts as a fixed dust cover above the ejection port.

 

The old-school wooden SVD stock has been replaced by a black polymer stock with adjustable cheek piece, heavy rubber buttpad, a ticker grip and a build-in extendable monopod.

 

Sino MPX? The subgun is probably based on the gas-operated 9mm SMG design they have been working on for the past few years. The exterior on the other hand, is a blatant copy of the new Sig MPX, down to the AR-15 style controls and the slotted modular handguard. The Sino MPX knock-off uses the common MP5 magazine.

 

A bunch of boring wheel guns? Although the sight in the middle indicated all of these revolvers are chambered in 10mm caliber.

 

The close-up of the highly ornate engraved model. Unknown if the Chinese 10mm round is based on an existing revolver cartridge or something new.

 

The Sino Judge! This looks like they have copied the idea of the Taurus Judge. The cylinder seems to be big enough for multiple .410-size shotshells.

 

A new tactical semi-automatic shotgun from the Hawk Group. This one comes with a tube extension, fiber optic sights and a shotgun muzzle brake with sharp serrations (I call that the rifle bag cutter). This is probably looking too “evil” according to ATF for importation.

 

A close-up of its continuous top 1913 rail with an old EOTech N-battery model mounted in front of the 2-dot fiber optic rear sight.

 

A bolt-action sniper rifle chambered for the 7.62x51mm NATO. This is different from the CS bolt-action 7.62mm and 5.8mm sniper rifles currently used by the Chinese military and police. Yes, the 7.62x51mm NATO is the new standard medium range precision caliber for the Chinese police and military.

 

A closer look of the continuous top 1913 rail and the bolt action. That scope on the gun looks familiar….

 

It’s a Meopta MeoTac ZD 6-24×56 RD imported from the Czech Republic.

 

Also from the Hawk Group is a laser dazzler gun. I wonder if it’s eye safe? Just kidding, it’s probably not. Since it’s not technically a gun, maybe it could be imported but I don’t think our ATF would like that either. This would be great for entertaining your neighbor’s cats for hours on end.

But seriously, and for those not from the USA, lasers devices are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US for some kooky reason. The FDA is known to overreact on anything that has a slightly higher output than a PowerPoint Presentation laser pointer.

 

I am especially interested in the grenade launchers. You can read my piece on the Chinese QLZ87, which is now all over the raging civil wars in Syria and Iraq.

The LG3 automatic grenade launcher (AGL) seems to based on the existing 35mm QLZ04 AGL internally but chambers the 40x53mm NATO high-pressure grenade. The LG3 is probably made for export only.

 

Besides the caliber difference, the LG3 has a center mounted sight with Picatinny 1913 rail for mounting optics and it has a dual side firing grips control instead of the rear mounted dual spade grips on the QLZ-04 AGL.

 

The QBZ-95 bullpup is not the only Chinese small arm that has some Czech design influence, The LG3’s side trigger is also a Czech influenced feature that came from the tradition of using the Czech ZB26 and ZB37 machine guns in Chinese military service. In fact, many of the ZB26 in the Chinese service were converted to 7.62×39 and remained in the inventory until 1980. The right side grip actually function similarly as the one found on the Type 85 .50 cal heavy machine gun, pulling on it would charge the weapon.

 

The LG5 “sniper” automatic grenade launcher. The 35mm version of this is in limited service with the Chinese Marine Corps and it has been tested recently on Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden. The LG5 could be a good candidate for replacing the similarly sized but aging QLZ-87 man-portable AGL. The LG5’s unique design feature is that the whole tubular receiver acts as a big recoil buffer with its barrel recoils into it after firing. The very long recoil system allows the LG5 to firing very high velocity grenades.

The rumored Chinese 35mm special high velocity grenade is quoted to have a 1355 fps (413 m/s) muzzle velocity, which is nearly doubles of that of the 40x53SR NATO’s. The higher MV increased the maximum effective direct-fire range to 1050m, a 250m increase over the standard velocity 35x32SR Chinese grenade. The indirect-fire range would be at least double but it requires a tripod mount with T&E adjustment.

 

The front view of the LG5’s huge muzzle brake unit. There’s a fuse programmer contains in it for setting the airburst timing for the new generation of programmable airburst 35mm and 40mm advanced grenades. The fuse timing data comes from the fire control unit, which is equipped with a laser rangefinder and ballistic computer, on the right side of the receiver. I bet the Chinese LG5 is way cheaper than the American XM29 and it doesn’t blow up as often either.

If any TFB reader is attending the upcoming 8th Beijing Police Equipment Expo, please feel free to email me any images you took from it. As the resident TFB optic editor, I’m especially interested in pictures of Chinese military optics.