The Firearm Blog

MIL-STD 1913 aka. the Picatinny rail attachment system, is will eventually be replaced by STANAG 4694, otherwise known as the NATO Accessory Rail (NAR). On May 8 the powers-that-be at the NATO Standardisation Agency approved the new standard, which will now need to be ratified by individual NATO member countries.

Don’t get worried about your countless picatinny compatible attachments being obsolete, the system is fully compatible with picatinny compatible accessories. According to DTIC.mil (PDF link) the differences between the MIL-STD 1913 and the NAR are:

* Metric reference drawing (see below).
* Additional measurements and tolerances.
* Adjustments of some measurements.
* Reduction of straightness tolerances (presumably making the manufacture cheaper).

NAR Reference Drawing.

Another notable change is the recommendation that while in the picatinny system the V-angles are used for the alignment and reference of the accessory, such as detachable optics, NATO recommends using the top surface instead. They say that tests have shown that this increases repeatable alignment.

Recommended surfaces to use for alignment.

According to Janes many countries contributes to the new standard, including many of the top military arms manufacturers:

Designed in conjunction with a number of weapon specialists including Aimpoint, Beretta, Colt Canada, FN Herstal and Heckler & Koch, the NAR system has full compatibility with current US MIL-STD-1913 specifications, also known as the Picatinny rail.

It will be interesting to see how long it takes before civilian arms claim “STANAG compatible rails”.

A big thank you to jesse for emailing me about the new system.

UPDATE: Mark posted a link to another DTIC.mil (PDF warning) presentation that discusses the future developments of the NAR.

NATO members are currently working on working on a powered rail design that extends STANAG 4694. The idea is to have a single battery to power all the accessories and optics of the firearm.

Battery in the pistol grip, power management in fore grip

I have blogged about powered picatinny rails before.

Two months ago I blogged that the Norwegian Army suspected that the ammunition used in their new H&K 416 rifles were making soldiers sicks. Chief of Staff Brig. General Rune Jakobsen initiated an investigation after Army HQ received three different reports about groups of soldiers getting sick after firing the new rifles. Symptoms included headaches, fever and joint pain. The investigation has determined that the soldiers were experiencing mild heavy metal poisoning caused by the “green” lead-free 5.56mm NATO ammunition manufactured by Nammo.

Norwegian solider with H&K 416

The report states that the gas exhausted from the rifles contained high levels of copper and zinc which account for all the symptoms suffered by the riflemen. A few, quite comical, short term solutions have been recommended. These include only shooting outside, slower rate of fire and spacing the shooters out more when at the range!

In 2003, under pressure from environmental groups and politicians the Army started using environmentally friendly ammunition. Since then they have had plenty of problems. The Norwegian ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) troops in Afghanistan were ordered to use the new ammo. The ammunition delivered either failed to fire or did not have enough energy to cycle the weapons. 300,000 rounds had to be dumped leaving the troops with no reserve ammunition. All the troops who did not need to leave the base had to hand in their ammunition so it could be distributed to those who needed it. The Army has also had to ban the green ammo from use in the MG3 machine guns because unspecified malfunctions occurred that could harmed the operators.

Nammo 5.56mm ammunition

I found a powerpoint presentation on the internet made by Nammo in 2006 extolling the virtues of their green ammunition. Here are a few very ironic slides (I added the red arrows):

Recently it was determined that the “green” tungsten training ammunition used by the US Military could be toxic.

So in summery: don’t use green ammunition.
Many thanks to Daniel Watters of The Gun Zone for the research he did for this blog post.

[ This article was written by Sven Ortmann of Personal Defence Weapons Central, an excellent small arms resource. ]

by Sven Ortmann, lastdingo@gmx.de, 2008-01-05

Caliber: 9×19 mm and .45ACP (= 11.43×23mm)

This is the standard NATO caliber for pistols and a popular caliber for submachineguns. The only ones who seem to have a strong dislike for this caliber seem to be those U.S. Americans who continue to compare it with .45ACP.

The U.S. American problems with the 9×19mm caliber seem to include a mix of emotions (a Colt M1911 in .45ACP feels much more powerful) and poor quality of the U.S. standard issue 9mm pistols. The latter is as far as I know more a magazine production quality problem than a pistol design problem. The origin of .45ACP is said to lie in combat experience around 1900 in the Philippines where determined Philippinos weren’t stopped reliably by smaller revolver calibers. Tests on live animals in 1904 showed better effects for heavier bullets, but little improvement with velocity. Bullet design has improved a lot since then, and hollowpoint bullets that flatten their nose in soft tissue to increase their diameter are much more effective than simple soft lead bullets. A good 9mm bullet enjoys a similar advantage over a .45ACP soft lead bullet than the latter over a 9mm soft lead bullet. There’s a fundamental problem, though: There’s not much difference in effect on the target if you hit the wrong places and the permanent cavities of pistol bullets are all relatively small. Many body parts are simply not essential enough – their destruction doesn’t stop a determined opponent immediately; no matter whether you hit with .45ACP or 9×19mm.
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