The Firearm Blog

Jim Shepherd writes that Remington is entering the handgun market! From The Shooting Wire (scroll down half way) ...

The Outdoor and Shooting Wires have received- and verified the accuracy of an internal Remington memorandum that effectively answers most of a question that has been making the rounds of the industry: Is Remington getting into the handgun market?

Short answer, yes.

...

A 1911 is in first-production testing, and may be ready for introduction at SHOT Show in January.

This is incredibly interesting news! I have wondered for a long time why Remington did not seem to want a piece of the handgun market. Not wanting to be associated with "evil" handguns was my guess.

I do find the suggestion that they are going with the 1911 platform odd. While the 1911 is a very popular pistol with civilians, police departments are not adopting it. Instead they are dropping the Glock in favor of other polymer pistols like the Springfield XD and Smith & Wesson M&P pistols.

We know Remington loves military and police contracts and that they are willing to delay consumer products in order to make a grab for lucrative military contracts. The constant delays of the Bushmaster ACR are a testament to this.

So is Remington making a 1911 because they know something we do not? Will we soon be hearing about a new military competition for a .45 ACP pistol¹ ? Or are they developing a polymer 1911 or some other polymer pistol ² ?

Ride Fast n' Shoot Straight reports that the user agreement for the Microsoft Online Technical Communities bans discussions about firearms.

Yesterday, on his 90th Birthday, Mikhail Kalashnikov was named "Hero of the Russian Federation". This award is the highest that can be bestowed on an individual by the Russian president. Kalashnikov has previously twice been awarded Hero of Socialist Labor that, which along with Hero of the Soviet Union, was replaced by Hero of the Russian Federation in 1992.

The Associated Press reports:

"Age is not significant. I have plenty of life left in me. But still, this is a special date and it needs to be celebrated," the white-haired inventor said in remarks broadcast on Russian television.

Kalashnikov, whose tie was decorated with a metal pin shaped like an AK-47, smiled and read patriotic poetry to journalists in Izhevsk, his hometown located 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) east of Moscow.

A fine award for a great man.

Many thanks to Morten for the link.

A few days ago Confederate Yankee wrote that Remington were not developing a 6.5mm cartridge. This contradicted what Adam Heggenstaller reported a couple of weeks ago. I checked with Jessica Kallam (Freedom Group - Remington's parent company), and the statement Confederate Yankee posted on his blog is the official statement regarding the ACR and 6.5mm round ...

We are not currently in the process of developing our own 6.5mm round for the AR platform. We have mentioned the 6.5 in our communications on the ACR simply because that platform is capable of handling the Grendel or something like it. At this point, there are no plans to chamber the ACR for the Grendel. However, that may change if we receive enough input from the marketplace to make it seem necessary.

Remington Military Products Division still list it as a caliber on their ACR webpage.

Screenshot of the Remington ACR webpage.

I expect this has generated much confusion as the company now has an official statement regarding the issue. For now the only 6.5mm cartridge in the Remington stable is the .260 Remington¹

Many thanks to rootman for sending me the top link.

The British troops are also calling for a switch to something better than the 5.56x45mm NATO. The Telegraph reports ...

A survey of more than 50 servicemen who have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan concluded that the 5.56mm calibre rounds used by British soldiers 'tailed off' after 300 metres yet half of all Helmand firefights are fought between 300 and 900 metres.

...

The study, co-written by Nicholas Drummond, a strategy consultant and ex-Welsh Guards officer, described British soldiers' rifles as "not much more useful than a peashooter".

...

The Ministry of Defence told the newspaper the 5.56mm calibre rounds used by United States and other Nato allies are "proven to be both accurate and powerful."

Typical government response.

Many thanks to RootMan for the link.

I had heard no news about the Army search for a "subcompact"¹ for quite a long time and thought that the idea had been dropped. Apparently this is not so. The Military Times reports:

Despite initial industry suspicion that the Army would let the effort die a slow death, the service is moving forward with the development of a compact weapon that shoots like a rifle but slings like a sub gun.

According to the Army official in charge of fielding new weapons for the service, the search for a so-called "subcompact individual weapon system" is moving ahead in earnest. In May, the Army sponsored a user evaluation where Soldiers put subcompact weapons through their paces to see if the idea would stick.

...

"To some people [the issues] are fundamental, to other people they're on the margins - it depends on who you talk to," he added, declining to be more specific.

The service is also waiting for the final version of the fiscal 2010 Pentagon budget to be signed by the president, releasing nearly $10 million to start the program.

...

Army officials have said that if all the benchmarks are met, Joes could potentially see a new rifle or redesigned M-4 by 2012.

The more important question is if they are willing to adopt a new cartridge. I don't think anyone would argue that the 5.56mm NATO performs well out of a sub-carbine (11" or shorter) barrel.

11" Barreled Colt M4 Commando. Another example is the HK416 sub-carbine.

My 2c: develop a 9mm +P+ round that is compatible with the M9 pistol (lets call it the 9mm Steve), then develop a short barrel, foldable stocked, sub-carbine which chambered the 9mm Steve. Deploy it. [ Army officials : contact me for the address to which you can send my hefty consultant's fee ]

Discuss in the comments ...

[ Errr ... that was a quick break! ]

Gun Holsters and Gear has info on the Fourth Generation Glock.

We all thought that the RTF2 Glock that come out this year was the 4th gen glock.

UPDATE: Gun Holsters and Gear takes a look at probable features of the next gen glock.

In 1973 a pair of pistol made for Pedro IV of Portugal, worth 100,000 euros, where stolen from the Military Museum in Lisbon. They have finally been recovered. The Publico reports (translated with google) ...

Designed by master gunsmith Arsenal Real in Lisbon Thomás Jozé de Freitas, weapons (one-offs that charge after he unscrew the pipes, which are embedded in gold and silver) were eventually stolen, along with a set of parts lowest, by a burglar who at the time was right pages in the newspapers but that, far from being an Arsene Lupine, it would reveal a "brick" because that stole not meet even the approximate value of the goods. Still, it was celebrated by the method, but effective, he chose to commit the crime: he hid inside the museum, behind a large clock, and when he was alone, plundered what was at hand.

The pistols. Beautiful guns!

Thanks to my Portuguese source for sending me the photo and links.

Lock n' Load premiers today on Showtime at 8pm ET/PT today (Wednesday). The idea behind the show is hidden cameras placed around a gun store and shooting range.

It is being advertised on the Huff Post ... so be warned, it could be very very bad.

Thanks to Sven for alerting me to it.

Advocate posted this comment on my blog post about the H&K / ATI lawsuit ...

I really think its important to remember that they sued over trademark and trade dress infringement ... not patent infringement. Very different things.

Add to that the fact that ATI openly claimed it to be a MP5 lookalike:

Add to that the fact that HK can absolutely smother them in legal fees and you have a no win situation for ATI.

Love them or hate them i feel HK had the legal right to pursue this course.

... i’m just glad i got my gsg-5 long ago

I had forgotten about that advertisement.

Because Australians are not allowed semi-automatic guns, rifle manufacturers make some interesting bolt and pump action conversions of AR-15s, AKs and other rifles for the Australian market.

H&K produce a special version of their SL8, itself a consumer friendly version of the G36, for the Australian market called the R8. It functions as a bolt action. The rifle is not manufactured with a gas system, that is then blocked to make it single shot, as other single shot conversions have been.

H&K R8

Last year H&K Australia were informed that they could not longer import the R8 because it is duplicates a military rifle. They are pissed because as you can see below it barely resembles the G36. The R8 receivers and barrels were never capable of functioning as a semi-auto (or at least that is what they claim).

Earlier in the year H&K again entered into proceeding to get it reclassified.

Many thanks to Ben for sending me the documents relating to the story.

Not long ago I blogged about A.R.M.S having won a lawsuit against Troy and jdun1911 mentioned in the comments that they were also involved in a lawsuit against LaRue Tactical. Mark LaRue posted this open letter at AR15.com ...

Guys,

As some of you know, we are under litigation attack by A.R.M.S. (Dick Swan) for using the numerals 1 and 7 in our LT-170 mount part number. He filed for and last spring outrageously got a trademark on "#17" and then he sued us. IIRC, he also trademarked 7.62, 5.56, 50BMG, etc., etc.

I'm more than a little perturbed.

One of his interrogatories (sic) is what evidence I have of soldiers ever having an A.R.M.S. mount fail on them. Ask and ye shall receive.

I know a gent that says that roughly 20% of the A.R.M.S. mounts have to be replaced before he can run the guys in his sniper course. Says they come in flopping in one way or the other, levers loose, roll pins shot, whatever. And these are the ones that are left of the ones that haven't already been replaced.

I have replaced numerous busted A.R.M.S. units in the past, and have heard more stories than I can count ... the gist of one story - "busted levers on square ranges crunching under the boots of trainees" ...

So, I am officially offering to replace/exchange any in-op/broken A.R.M.S. mounts for the LaRue product that best fits as a replacement.

I'll do it even at the unit level. If your team has a bucket full of dead A.R.M.S. mounts of any sort laying around, then put them to good use. I am aware that due to NSN numbers, many are the failed units are likely sh*tcanned and a replacement bought (with taxpayer money). Either way, I don't care how many ... besides, it won't be nothing compared to the attorney bills we are incurring weekly.

I do ask that some sort of note be written that says what the problem is, i.e. broken levers, loosened roll pins, stripped-out threads, etc.

Let me know about any and all A.R.M.S failures you know about ... even if you threw them away, no worries, please let me know about it here.

We may have to spend $100,000 dollars to fend off this attack, and that's money we can't buy equipment with, money we can't hire more folks with, money shot to hell.

Any help from you guys will be much appreciated.

v/r

Mark LaRue

Obviously this is only from the point of view of LaRue Tactical, but I still thought it was worth posting.

Many thanks to Kevin for emailing me the link.

A few years ago, in a classic case of government bureaucracy covering their ass, the Portuguese Police decided that one requirement of their future pistol is that it must have a manual external safety. They, of course, then choose the one gun which is the epitome of manual safety-less pistols, the Glock. Glock shipped them 42,000 Glock 19s with external thumb safeties, similar to the Glock 17 safety I blogged about recently, worth 13 million Euros.

Portuguese Police Glock 19. Photo from Portal das Curiosidades forum.

The police upper management then proceeded to tell the public how wonderful their new pistols were. The cops on the street must have been given a different gun because their pistols were having all sorts of problems. They had magazines randomly falling out of the guns, magazines refusing to drop out when the mag release was pressed, brass being ejected into the shooters face and just plain failing to cycle. The Portuguese IPSC community, where I believe Glocks are popular, were not at all surprised.

FORÇA DE SEGURANÇA translates to Security Force (Police force)

A few weeks ago the Portuguese media discovered that the police have signed a contract with Glock to retrofit all their pistols with normal, safety-less, Glock 19 frames. No doubt at a significant cost to the tax payer.

The government fears that the other pistol manufacturers such as HK, Beretta, Walther and Mannlicher, who were passed over in the search for the new pistol, will sue them for choosing a faulty pistol and for stipulating that a safety was a requirement, only to drop the requirement a few years later.

Many thanks to my anonymous Portuguese source for the links and translations he sent me.

There is an interesting video at WorldRadio.ch about the famous unique gun culture of Switzerland. At the start of the video a Swiss guy shows the rifle he used in military service, his fathers service rifle and says that his grandfather's service rifle is hanging in his office. How cool is that?

This was my father’s military rifle and of course he got to keep it when he was finished. I have my grandfather’s military rifle hanging on the office wall. This was mine when I did service. It’s quite an old one it was introduced in 1957 and used until 1990. And this is my son’s. It’s the current model. That’s what’s being used today. That’s what we’ll be using the shoot the Feldschiessen today.

The Feldschessen, or Tiro Federale in Campagna as it’s known in these parts is an annual Swiss event and the largest shooting festival in the world. Roughly 200 thousand people come out to target practice all across the country. ammunition is provided by the government.

A shooting content with 200,000 people! Crazy!

And for your viewing benefit, here are some swiss made Sig 550 rifles from CS's collection.

Many thanks to CS for the photos and the link.