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At the last edition of ADIHEX, we discovered the Austrian company FBT – Fine Ballistic Tools. We had a brief look at their custom carbon fiber stocks and innovative suppressors. We can now see they’ve not been idle in these two years.
FBT @ TFB:
[ADIHEX2021] FBT – Fine Ballistic Tools from Austria – A couple of rifles with custom stocks, the tiger-striped model has a single-piece carbon fiber stock finished by the Austrian company Verex Tactical, recently acquired by FBT; the kipplauf in front adopts the Unic system. Both rifles are equipped with the new suppressor with titanium 3D printed internals and carbon fiber walls
[ADIHEX 2021] FBT – Fine Ballistic Tools from Austria
The Unic 3D printed stock module
The company, since the beginning, has embraced Additive Manufacturing as a production tool. They first employed it in their suppressor, with internals printed in Scalmalloy, and now they adopted it in their new stock, the Unic system.
With the goal of manufacturing lightweight carbon fiber hunting stocks for any possible platform, FBT focused on the interface between action and stock. They separated this portion from the grip and stock assembly in the back and the handguard at the front. While these components can be standardized, and conventionally manufactured in woven carbon fiber, the action area can be a bespoke module for each rifle.
The above flexibility is obtained by 3D Printing the module in Nylon enriched with continuous carbon fiber (think Markforged) which offers great mechanical properties coupled with low mass. The module is then permanently bonded via a patented process to the front and back portion of the CF stock.
The tool-less approach offered by Additive Manufacturing allows FBT to work on any customer’s rifle without additional setup cost if the model is new to them (designing aside). A clear example of this flexibility was shown in ADIHEX, where the Unic was presented both on a Sauer bolt action and a kipplauf (single shot break-action).
[ADIHEX2021] FBT – Fine Ballistic Tools from Austria – Detail of the kipplauf action; here we have two 3D printed parts, one joining the carbon fiber stock in two points in the upper part of the thumbhole and the other in front of the action pivot, joined to the handguard.
[ADIHEX2021] FBT – Fine Ballistic Tools from Austria – Two integrally suppressed models (3D printed Scalmalloy baffles), the front one, based on a Sauer action, sports the Unic system
[ADIHEX2021] FBT – Fine Ballistic Tools from Austria – Detail of the Unic system on the Sauer: the same stock and handguard of the kipplauf are here joined to completely different 3D printed modules
THE HOpe Mars Probe commemorative Carbon fiber STEYR aug
In February 2021, the UAE celebrated their successful entry into the Mars orbit with their Hope probe. Fine Ballistic Tools, with the help of their controlled company Verex Tactical, specialized in firearm finishing, and a few other Austrian partners commemorated the event with a very special Steyr AUG package.
The “base” AUG is the carbon fiber one we saw in 2019 (they still have a couple if anyone is interested) and here no expenses are spared to make it even more collectible.
[ADIHEX2021] FBT – Fine Ballistic Tools from Austria – Steyr AUG Mars probe edition; the AUG reclaiming its title of original “space gun”
[ADIHEX2021] FBT – Fine Ballistic Tools from Austria – Detail of the Emirates Mars Mission Steyr AUG, from the book part of the package
