H&K pissed off with Australian goverment
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.
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.
I founded TFB in 2007 and over 10 years worked tirelessly, with the help of my team, to build it up into the largest gun blog online. I retired as Editor in Chief in 2017. During my decade at TFB I was fortunate to work with the most amazing talented writers and genuinely good people!
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A complete ban on almost anything leads to skyrocketing prices and fortunes for men like Pablo Escabar and Capone. One of the reasons organized crime is so big is because they got big during prohibition. A complete ban on guns, cigarettes, alcohol, or any number of dangerous substances only provides fuel for organized crime and is political suicide. It has nothing to do with left or right. As for partial bans, we could argue about that all day but here is not the place. As far as I can tell this is just a government official with no firearm experience except for when his dad let him shoot a 12 ga when he was three sitting in a cubical with a picture of a g36 and a picture of this and putting it on the banned list.
Not sure how anybody from a country with obscenities like the Patriot Act not resulting in widespread public rage can declare a country "fascist" based on gun control laws. News flash: The United States government spies on it's citizens to an extreme extent.