#M2Carbine

Today on Modern PDW Calibers we’re going to look at what might seem like a humdrum round, but which represents an important performance band for the modern personal defense weapon. That round is the 5.56x30mm MARS, a purpose built “micro assault rifle” cartridge from Colt designed to fill a similar niche to the WWII-era .30 M1 Carbine.

It’s been a while since we’ve done one of these Modern PDW Calibers installments, but we’re back, and today we’re looking at a very new round on the market, one that is currently making some pretty big waves in the pistol world. I am talking of course about the 7.5x27mm FK Brno, designed for the CZ-75-derived FK Field Pistol from the company that shares its name. A high velocity .30 cal pistol round is not a new idea, having predecessors in the .300 JAWS, 7.62×25 Tokarev, and others, but what makes the 7.5 FK so interesting is just how powerful it is: A 103 grain monolithic bullet is advertised as leaving the 6″ Field Pistol barrel at an incredible 2,000 ft/s! This means that, if the company’s performance claims are true, the FK Field Pistol is ballistically the equal of the old WWII-era M1 Carbine!

While today the Italian company Franchi is not a heavy-hitting military small arms manufacturer, in the mid-1950s the company did produce some very interesting rifles, carbines, and submachine guns for the military market. The most recognizable of these is the LF-57 submachine gun, a simple blowback submachine gun very similar in design and appearance to the contemporary Walther MPL. Like that weapon, the LF-57 used a heavy, overhanging bolt to control cyclic rate of fire down to about 500 rounds per minute. The LF-57 ultimately wasn’t a huge success for Franchi, and only a few nations (including Italy) bought it.

We live in a world today that is completely inundated with AR-15 pattern rifles. In 2016, for just five Benjamins – sometimes even less! – you can purchase your very own fantactical black rifle and rely on it to work when you need to and shoot where you mean to. I won’t try to say otherwise: The AR-15 series is a great design, and it deserves its place at the center of the US civilian market.

I recently heard an intriguing story. After hearing it, I turned to Google and apparently this isn’t the only time this has happened. The story goes that a guy walks into a pawn shop/gun store. The guy sees what he thinks is an M1 carbine on the shelf. He asks to see it and notices a reasonable figure on the price tag. Upon further inspection, the guy notices the receiver is clearly marked “M2”. The guy seems to remember something about M2’s being full-auto and asks the clerk about it. The clerk assures him the carbine only fires semi-auto, has no selector switch and although originally an M2, has been converted to an M1 and is legal. Haggling ensues and the guy walks out with what he thinks is an M1 carbine, yet is marked M2.