No, not that Arsenal, the other Arsenal. At SHOT 2017, I briefly swung through the Arsenal Firearms/Salient Arms International (SAI) booth looking at Glocks, but I must have missed the bigger news. DefenseReview.com is reporting on the company’s new rifle the ‘Switch’. The AR/AK-patterned gun is piston-driven, accepts AK magazines and utilizes a reciprocating side charging handle. Currently the Switch is chambered in either 7.62x39mm or 5.45x39mm.

From DefenseReview.com on the Arsenal Switch:

Let’s start with the Arsenal Firearms AF Switch, which was designed and developed by one Michael Brown, who was kind enough to spend some time with us and take us through the gun’s design features at the company’s booth (see DR video below). According to Brown, the guns accept standard AK (AK-47/AKM and AK-74) mags (magazines), which secure very positively, with no play. The Switch can also, according to Brown, handle any available ammo (including corrosive military ammo) and any combat-type adverse conditions, including “over the beach” salt water-and-sand conditions. We assume this is due to the combination of the piston/op-rod design and chrome-lined internal parts. The adjustable gas block has on/off capability and high and low settings for suppressed or unsuppressed/standard fire. “The first thing that’s wear out on this gun is your ammo budget”, says Brown.

All Photo credits: DenfeseReview.com

Now, on to the Arsenal Firearms AF Streamer QD556-A and QD762-A QA/QD low-back-pressure muzzle cans (silencer/sound suppressors) designed by a design team at Finnish company Saimaa Still Oy. The Streamer cans get their name from their proprietary “Stream-Through” front venting technology, which vents gases out the front (see DR video below) to lower the back pressure and virtually eliminate “blowback”. This reduces or even eliminates hot gases and particulate matter coming back and hitting the shooter in the face, and eases weapons cleaning and maintenance, since the rifle/carbine/SBR’s (Short Barreled Rifle) internal parts don’t doesn’t get as dirty. The extremely-lowered back pressure also obviates the requirement for different gas settings on the gas block, so you can shoot suppressed or unsuppressed with the same settings. According to an email we just received from Mr. Sjogren (on 3/29/17), the QD556-A and QD762-A Streamer cans are essentially further-developed/product-improved variants of the earlier Saimaa Still AK 545L and QD762L cans, which were developed for Kalashnikov AK-47/AKM and AK-74 rifles.