#F88

The Australian Government has announced that the Australian Defense Force will receive a further 8,500 EF88 rifles. This comes on top of the 30,000 already ordered and procured from the Thales owned Lithgow Arms. The move comes as Australia announced a major realignment of their defense policy, we covered this in more detail over at Overt Defense.

Led by the 1st Armoured Regiment, the Warfighter involved more than 900 personnel from across Australia including, cavalry, infantry, engineers, artillery, advanced medical and logistics support.

The 40x46mm low-velocity SL40 grenade launcher has been in Australian Defence Force service for some time now, serving primarily as a modular under-barrel grenade launcher attached to the 5.56x45mm NATO F90 service rifle within the infantry at the squad or section level. It was first chosen to accompany the F90 family of  rifles in 2014, a derivative of the Austrian Steyr GL40 launcher (the SL40 being a derivative of the GL40). The original design competition was between the Steyr GL40 and the Madritsch Weapon Technology ML40AUS, another Austrian armaments company. The Steyr design was selected for integration.

Good news for bullpup fanatics: The Lithgow F90, Australia’s improved version of the AUG, is in production in the USA right now under the name “Atrax”. Representatives of Dasan USA, the stateside manufacturer/importer, said that major components of the Atrax, including the barrel, were already being produced in their facilities within the country, to allow production weapons to comply with US import laws. Dasan Representatives said that the technical data package for the US-made components was transferred to the US from Australia, so each component made in the States adheres exactly to Lithgow’s methods and standards for that component.

Thales Australia has launched the newest update to its F90 bullpup assault rifle, at DSEI 2017. The weapon, which is the pre-production version of the prototype F90 Export shown off at IDEX 2017, sports a host of improved features versus both the legacy AUG and the F90. Thales released a press release describing the rifle, just prior to DSEI.

The New Zealand Defence Force is conducting a rather unique campaign: They are taking their war materiel – including select-fire assault rifles – to primary schools in New Zealand, to teach kids about leadership, values, army life, and – of course – weapons.  As reported by Manawatu Standard News:

An interesting video from “down under” was released a few days ago.

While the primary consumer of PMAGs continues to be the general American shooting public, various companies and countries have paid close attention to the success of the polymer magazine “PMag” offered by MagPul. The magazine’s success has not been by accident. Its durability, reliability, and performance have become the metric by which other STANAG magazines are measured.

Big news at the National Rifle Association Annual Meeting 2016, importer Lithgow Arms USA will be bringing the EF88/F90 improved bullpup assault rifle to the USA. The F90 is a variant of the Steyr AUG developed for the Australian Defence Force to replace the F88 (their designation for the AUG) bullpup rifle.

The Australian Army’s program to produce a successor to the F88 “Austeyr” is on the verge of bearing fruit. Army.gov.au reports that the F90, formerly designated “EF88” is now being issued for trials, in preparation for final modifications and production. The F90 is a lighter, more modular system that fixes many of the flaws of the original Steyr AUG design: