The Firearm Blog

EmptorMaven has reviewed the NATO conversion kit for the Steyr AUG SA. The kit allows the use of STANAG (AR-15) magazines.

Steyr has always offered the NATO version as an option to military customers, but no country, as far as I know, has chosen to adopt it over the standard AUG.

I was incredibly surprised to open an email a few days ago and see photos of the mythical Australian F88T Austeyr. Quite a long time ago I had scoured the internet searching in vain for photos of this gun.

The F88T Austeyr

Note the subcaliber magazine insert - the only giveaway that it is chambered in .22 LR

Almost no information about this rifle is available online. This is very surprising because the rifle is currently in service with a major defense force.

The F88T Austeyr was developed by ADI Limited (now known as Thales Australia). It is, as far as I know, the only variant of the Steyr AUG chambered in .22 Long rifle. A page on the, now offline, ADI website described the weapon as:

ADI has developed a .22 calibre training rifle for use by the Australian Army. The weapon provides an economical training alternative, with very low ammunition cost, which can be used in environmentally sensitive training areas and indoor areas for special force training with reduced risk to trainees and instructors.

This paragraph sums up just about all the information available online! Because of the lack of information I was convinced that very few of these had ever been built, but I stumbled across the minutes of a meeting from an Australian Air Force conference where they discussed an order of 200 F88T's which were going to be used for cadet training. Presumably there are more than 200 in existence.

Australian cadets also train with .22 single shot bolt actions rifles.

I do not have any technical information about the gun. Most .22 semi-automatics share similar features. The gas system will be non-functional because a .22 LR cannot generate enough case to cycle an action. The action will be a standard blowback system. The barrel is probably the same as the regular Austeyr. While this is not optimal for accuracy I can't imagine it would have been worth the cost of producing dedicated .22 Long Rifle barrels.

I am sure that the owners of the civilian Steyr AUG SA, which went on sale this year, would love to have a .22LR conversion kit. Realistically, a third-party American firm is much more likely to develop a conversion kit than Steyr is too either develop their own or license the design from Thales Australia.

Many thanks to Jon for the photos.

Steyr Arms is now importing the original AUG A3 scope. The scope has a magnification of 1.5x and an objective aperture of 14mm.

On their website Steyr state that it has a “Crosshair/crosshair” reticle. I think this is a typo. I doubt they would have changed it from the military circle / crosshair configuration. The circle is sized so that a man sized object fits inside it at at 300 meters. UPDATE: Steyr have confirmed that it is indeed a circle/crosshair reticle.

AUG A3 with scope mounted (rifle is the Austrian-made military version)

It is not cheap at $799, but is probably as tough as nails.

UPDATE: Steyr have told me that Swarovski Optik no longer make their scopes.

I asked Dave, who blogs at LetsKillDave and is a reader of TFB, to take photos of the internals of his new civilian Steyr AUG A3 rifle and he was kind enough to oblige.

16″ barreled AR-15 vs. 16″ AUG. The bullpup length advantage is obvious.


AR-15 bolt vs. AUG bolt. Very similar design.

I highly recommend reading Dave’s blog post. I learnt a lot about the AUG design that I did not know before.

Thanks Dave.

Steyr Arms have confirmed that the Steyr AUG SA A3 will be shipping in the first quarter this year.

From the press release:

Currently, the AUG is in the final stages of product development and is expected to hit the shelves of Steyr Dealers in 1st quarter 2009. In fact, the veryfirst units are already in endurance testing as of the date of this article. Most companies run 1-2,000 rounds through their guns to test them, not Steyr-Mannlicher. The Steyr rifles have at least 10,000 rounds run through them while continually testing for both durability and accuracy.

You better sell your first born, get a second job and start saving: the SCAR-L 16S has an MSRP of $2,696.56.

FNH SCAR 16S (actual photo, not the military version)

itstock posted the information at fnforum.net:

They are now available, and allocated to certain distributors at a set number. The MSRP that FN states is still 100% correct at $2,696.56, and EXPECT TO PAY THIS. Your dealer does not have much wiggle room!

They come in FDE with 16″ barrels, and either a 10 or 30 round mag.

If you want one, GO ORDER IT NOW! There will not be a large run as of now, and dealers are ordering for themselves to sell on GB and the like! !

Also, the SCAR-H has not been released in any way, no pricing, and no order information.

It sort of make the civilian Steyr AUG SA seem cheap at a mere $2295.00!

The SCAR-H referred to above is the 7.62mm NATO (.308 Win.) model.

Thanks to Raif for the tip.

The Firearm Blog reader Edward contacted Steyr about pre-ordering the AUG SA (civilian semi-automatic model) and was told it would $2995.00 $2295!

Wow! If you want to buy one you had better start saving. It makes that $500 Steyr AUG SA NATO stock (allows use of AR-15 magazines) not seem all that expensive!

Thanks to Edward for the info.

UPDATE: Edward just emailed me to say Steyr linked to PJs which is listing the price as $2295.00. That sounds much more realistic.

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Steyr is finally releasing a civilian semi-automatic AUG (AUG SA) which should be out in January next year (2009).

Sabre Defense Industries will be producing the rifle.

The newly produced AUG rifles are expected to be ready for distribution by January 2009. “We were honored to be selected by Steyr-Mannlicher, Gmbh to manufacture the AUG in our state of the art facility. In the process of making this icon of assault rifles, we have blended the proven and classic features with modern manufacturing techniques to make this what we believe to be the best AUG ever produced.”

The design appears to be an AUG A2 with a A3 style top rail.

Currently AUG magazines are available in 10, 30 and 42 capacity and cost either $35 or $38 depending on capacity and color. With possibly of another assault weapon ban you will probably want to budget for a lot of magazines.

Steyr also sells a AUG SA NATO stock for $499. This allow the AUG to use AR-15/STANAG magazines. If you already own a AR this may be a cheaper option than stocking up on AUG magazines.

UPDATE: It will cost $2995.

Hat Tip: Ahab

Matt recently comment on this post about the Australian AUG A4 (ADI Austeyr F88 A4):

To clear up “125″ issues and confusion the A3 varient is to be upgraded to allow the firing of GLA and underslung shot gun attachment with the trigger finger. There is much speculation on INF 2012 weapon systems and the steyr will look marketly different. What is concrete is that what changes happen to the weapons system the it must have the same range or better and must not be any heavier than current weight with modifications. There is a photo around of an ugly australian modified A3, this is not the new rifle and was a test bed system and was a demo only. The ADF rumour mill is leaning more to the AUG A4 design as now Australia owns the rights of all world wide styer production and also pattened designs from Austria.

I had not idea that the A4 existed. I did some Googling and found some photos in a brochure from ADI, the Australian arms and ammunition manufacturer. They may be the “test” A4 that Matt mentioned in Matt’s comment.

I think it’s a pretty ugly design. It looks like someone attacked an AUG with a hacksaw, screwdriver and a few picatinny rails. Especially in contrast to the AUG A3 (from steyr-arms.at):

Where is the grenade launcher trigger?

I would be surprised if the Australians upgrade their A1/A2 AUGs to use the M203 when the M320 will go into production later this year (according to Wikipedia).

M4 with M320

From MP.net:

However, although the 13,000 Steyr rifles which have been in service for 20 years, would not be replaced, they would be a significant part of the upgrade programme.

The study would look at modifying about 3000 of the 13,000 5.56mm rifles so they could take more fittings on the top rail, instead of the factory-fitted 1.5 magnification sighting system

The Australians already use a mixture of the AUGs with 1.5x sights and the ‘railed’ AUGs. I have always thought that the 1.5x scope was a bad compromise on an assault rifle. The target acquisition speed is less than a non magnified red dot sight (I have no experience with magnified red dot sights) but lacks the benefits of a more powerful scope. It must be working for the New Zealanders because they are only thinking about converting 23% of their rifles.

Australian Solider in Iraq with ADI Austeyr A3 that
comes fitted with a rail.

I came across some nice Steyr AUG photos at MilitaryPhotos.net.

More here.