#Anti-materialRifle

A recent visit by the Vietnamese Vice President Ngong Thinh to the MoD’s state arsenal factory Z111 has revealed that the country is currently producing what appears to be a licensed copy of the Russian 12.7x108mm OSV-96 semi-automatic magazine fed anti-material rifle. Previous news articles from 2015 have suggested that the rifle would enter production or was at least in the prototyping stage of development during that year, but this confirms that the rifle will certainly be produced in Vietnam. Factory Z111 is the same factory in Vietnam that is also turning out 5.56x45mm Galil ACE rifles for the Vietnamese Armed Forces. This is not the first 12.7x108mm weapon system that Vietnam has produced, with the Vietnamese coming up KSVK anti-material rifle announced in August of 2017. We don’t seem to be seeing much of that particular design, being that it is a manually repeating bolt action rifle, it was probably less preferred by the high command to this semi-automatic one.

The bloody battle for the Syrian city of Raqqa has been since been won by the Kurdish Peshmerga with U.S. support. But while it was raging, we wrote about the Polish volunteer fighting with the Peshmerga with a public name and Facebook book title of Archer. After getting in touch with the individual, he was able to submit to TFB a number of photographs of his small teams inventory along with some actual feedback on the small arms used.

From the Ukrainian company Xados that brought us the MG34 lookalike .50 BMG Rhino Hunter, now comes a 14.5x144mm anti-material rifle, recently at Arms and Security 2017 held in Kiev. The rifle manually loaded with each round by inserting a round into an open chamber, then pushing the bolt forward which locks via what appears to be a rotating mechanism with a cam that is visible from the chamber. The bolt itself is operated via a sort of M3 “Grease Gun” like charging toggle that is on the right side of the receiver. The company claims it is of a bulpup configuration because the chamber and bolt are behind the trigger guard. From the images at Arms and Security 2017, it appears that the bolt is locked via a 3 sectioned, multi-lugged system into the chamber.

At IPAS 2017, Iran’s Defense Industries Organization showcased various grenade launchers and anti-material rifles the state owned company is bringing to the Iranian (and possibly Iran’s allied customers) market. Displayed first is almost an exact copy of the South African Milkor M32 six cartridge semi-automatic 40x46mm grenade launcher.

Recent so-called Islamic State propaganda videos and an individual Twitter account within Syri a have posted numerous examples of improvised suppressors in use on a wide variety of precision rifles and anti-material rifles.The Twitter account simply mentions that the rifles belong to “Brothers” and “Sunni” fighters, which could literally be any one of the tens of opposition groups in the conflict. Most of these suppressors or cylindrical flash hiders appear to be made out of pre-constructed materials such as a flashlight or other metal tubes. With the exception of one, they appear to be direct thread as well. Although very simple to employ, direct thread brings with it the possibility of the suppressor unscrewing itself unless there is a method of locking.

Dat Viet, a Vietnamese language news website has reported that the production of Vietnamese made bolt-action, five round magazine-fed12.7x108mm KSVK anti-material rifles has commenced at the Israeli IWI built, Vietnamese MoD owned factory Z111 in Vietnam. The factory has churned out Galil ACEs for some time now, to also include Galil Snipers, Negevs, Uzis, and even Negev light machine guns for the Vietnamese Peoples Army. This would make Vietnam the first and only country to be fully equipped with the 7.62x39mm version of the Galil ACE.

On top of introducing a 5.56x45mm carbine, MKEK is also showing current prototypes of an anti-material rifle that the Turkish state-owned company is in the process of perfecting and producing. The MAM-15 utilizes a manual bolt action, is chambered in .50 BMG, and has a capacity of five rounds. MKEK states that the effective range is 1,800 meters, while its overall length is 61 inches while the barrel is 29 inches. The rifle has a full-length monolithic picatinny rail and another rail section at the 6 o’clock position on the handguard. Attached to the lower picatinny rail is the bipod system, of which we’ve seen two versions. One is an adjustable SAW like leg system, while the other is a quick detachment system that is very similar in operation and appearance to Versa Pod, or Accuracy International’s original bipod design. The stock is adjustable for length of pull in addition to cheek rest height. Currently, it does not appear that the stock can be folded and is instead fixed. It also has a monopod that can be adjusted as well.

The Iranian Ministry of Defense has revealed a new locally produced semi-automatic, magazine fed, 12.7mm anti-material rifle to the public, dubbed the “Nasr”(نصر). In addition to the Nasr, what appears to be a locally produced 7.62x39mm Kalashnikov “Century Series” clone has also been announced, bearing polymer furniture and with an AK74 muzzle brake. According to some sources, both of these rifles are destined for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Recent photographs out of the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib show a thorough manufacture of improvised anti-material rifles, all in 14.5mm. Local gunsmiths in the rebel-held city appear to be using the discarded barrels of 14.5mm KPV heavy machine guns, of an unknown country origin (most likely Russian) to fashion both bolt action and what appears to be two variants of a self-loading gas operated rifle. Some of these rifles even have very well applied digital camouflage schemes for the conditions that they are manufactured in. All variants are magazine-fed from either underneath the receiver or in one case as a side loading mechanism. All have Picatinny rails fashioned to the receivers of which variable power scopes are affixed. At least one of the scopes is a Steiner, while others have a “B” logo embossed on the front of the objective lens cap. It could possibly be Bushnell but the logos don’t match. It could also be an airgun scope that those would be much easier to acquire not only in the MENA region but anywhere else. Barring any evidence to prove otherwise, all the anti-material rifles look to be manufactured by the same entity and also look to be in different stages of experimentation and testing. One of the self-loading rifles looks rather crude, and due to the presence of more bolt action systems, it appears that testing was done with the self-loading rifles but found to not be satisfactory so the entity went with a “production” run of the bolt actions which were much easier to produce reliably.

The Iranian Ground Forces introduced a new .50 caliber self-loading rifle named the Heidar. The Heidar is a .50 caliber five round magazine side-fed, gas operated anti-material rifle with an effective range of 1,600 meters, maximum effective of 2,000 meters, and maximum range of 3,000 meters. It weighs almost 40 pounds loaded and is 53 inches in length. The gas system looks to be direct impingement is mounted on the right side of the rifle. It also sports a massive muzzle brake. Interestingly it utilizes an MG42 inspired pistol grip as well. The magazine is fed from the left side of the rifle but far enough forward that it isn’t quite a bullpup design. Stock is adjustable for length of pull and it has a non-adjustable monopod on the bottom. The rifle sports a picatinny rail at the 12 o’clock position for the mounting of various optics. There isn’t anything specified on whether or not the caliber is .50 BMG or 12.7x108mm but I assume it is the Russian cartridge due to wide Iranian usage of the 12.7x108mm. The rifles name Heidar bears similarity to the Iranian Ground Forces Commander, Brigadier General Kiomars Heidari, with only the Farsi “i” missing from the end. It could be named after the General, or it could be a coincidence.

Dickson has shared another factory tour with us. This time he went to Hungary to check out Sero Engineering, the people how make the barrel recoiling GM6 Lynx.

Iraq may not have the best manufacturing resources among countries that produce small arms, but that hasn’t kept one Iraqi designer from trying his best to bring locally made firearms for the fight against Daesh, now coming to a climax in the ongoing battle of Mosul.

ADEX is the Azerbaijan International Defense Exhibition held in the capitol of Baku, Azerbaijan. The Azeris began work on a 14.5mm and 12.7mm anti-material rifle back in 2008 and having it enter service in 2009. This was the Istigal 14.5 and 12.7mm semi-automatic rifle. I would assume that the Azeris ran into the accuracy problem that so many large caliber semi-automatic rifle manufacturers have encountered. Thus at ADEX 2016, the Azeri Ministry of Defense showcased their new bolt action, magazine fed, 14.5mm NST rifle. It weighs 20 Kg, has an maximum range of 2000 meters, and a maximum effective range of 1600 meters. The scope and muzzle brake are both designed locally in Azerbaijan. The scope looks to be a variable power optic, with an extremely large elevation turret to account for adjustments out to the ranges listed under the specifications.

This video was posted on Live Leak showing a 14.5mm sniper rifle. The rifle is based off of the Open Joint Stock Company’s 2×35 Inserted unified self-loading gun. Or in Cyrillic: Вкладная унифицированная самозарядная пушка «2Х35»