#.556

What was the first military .22 caliber high velocity infantry rifle round ever developed? Many would name the 5.56mm round designed in the 1950s to that title, but that would be incorrect. In truth, it’s probably impossible to know for sure due to the large number of obscure and even totally forgotten experimental rounds in history, but a very interesting candidate for this title was a development of the United States Army in the last decade of the 19th Century, designed at Springfield Armory in late 1894. The round’s official name was “0.22 Inch Caliber Cartridge for Experimental Arm”, but it has subsequently been called the “.22 Krag”, or “.22 1895 Experimental” by the small circle of ammunition collectors aware of its existence.

Previously, courtesy of The Wound Channel we got our first looks at the stellar ballistics of the 7.62mm M80A1 EPR round, which proved to combine excellent fragmentation with good armor penetration and barrier blind characteristics, while being extremely consistent. Now, TFB has received ten M80A1 cartridges, so I decided to dissect one of them to take measurements of the new round and its 130gr EPR projectile.

The much acclaimed and anticipated Sig Sauer MCX rifle has been shipping in 5.56x45mm for the past couple of weeks for the civilian market. MSRP is $1,999 for the standard 16 inch barrel variant. In addition, SIG just opened up an MCX giveaway for a 16 inch barrel on their website for anyone that wants to run their luck for one. In addition the company just released the first episode of a video series about the MCX, in the spirit of promotion. It’s actually a professionally well done video, so be sure to give it a look. Lots of gratuitous MCX shooting, and a look inside their factory, talking with some of the design staff about the rifle. However, the .300 Black Out (MSRP $2,284) and 7.62x39mm (MSRP not released yet) rifle versions have not been made available to the general public as of yet. Also note that this release has to do entirely with the rifle MCX, and not the SBR or pistol versions of it, which is an entirely separate matter.

At the recent IDEF Istanbul exhibition held this past May, Azerbaijan had some interesting developments of various small arms on display. Interestingly there wasn’t any demonstration of their service rifle, the Tavor (similarly, it appears most of the military still has 74s while the Tavor is making its appearance in parades). Regardless, Jane’s has covered the Azerbaijan boot pretty well, and there are some more in depth photos of the small arms on a Pakistani defense forum. Something that really sticks out about all the small arms displayed is that much of the design is completely taken from other designs, such as the shape of the receiver on the anti-material rifle, to the sniper rifles that seem to take direct inspiration from the SCAR H and the AI PSR stock. In addition, either FAB Defense is getting the upper hand, or whomever the designer who copied FAB Defense is getting lucky, as the pistol grip on every single firearm (sans Grenade Launcher) is similar to FAB Defense’s designs, in addition to the buttstock on the light machine gun. From Jane’s-

Back in the 70s, this was originally the Individual Multi-Purpose weapon or IMP. It was chambered in .221 fireball and was designed for the airforce. A PDW for pilots. It was designed to be shot from the arm, but they also did consider shooting it from a sling. Similar to SAS technique, the shooter would press out and the tension from the sling would stable the firearm.