#M38

Heckler & Koch Is (finally) offering a “clone” of the United States Marine Corps M27 IAR. The new MR27 is based on the familiar MR556 but with added features from the USMC version. Let’s take a look.

Welcome to our Image of the Day feature! Except we call it Photo Of The Day. Here at TFB each day we showcase at least one stunning image that captures the beauty of our world of firearms. Above you see a U.S. Marine Corps fire team leader as he provides cover fire at Range 410A with his Heckler & Koch. The lower clearly says Heckler & Koch GmbH, Made in Germany. There’s also a sticker that says M38 SDMR.

The hungriest beast of them all on this blog is our Photo Of The Day. It consumes hundreds of images every month, and it has been doing so for over 9 years. Today we offer a bunch of images from the Al Asad Air Base, in Iraq. This military airbase is located in the western Iraqi province of Al Anbar. It is situated approximately 180 kilometers west of the capital city of Baghdad and 10 kilometers south of the town of Baghdadi. The airbase is named after the nearby town of Al Asad.

One of the purposes of TFB’s Photo Of The Day is to broaden the audience for the excellent work done by combat photographers around the world. Today we’re somewhere in the Indian Ocean, where Lance Cpl. Sergio Escalante, rifleman, 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines, 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), stands an armed watch during a straits transit. He’s working aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Makin Island (LHD 8). The USS Makin Island is a Wasp-class amphibious assault ship. Its main task is to embark, deploy, and land elements of a Marine Corps landing force in case of an amphibious assault by helicopters, landing craft, and amphibious vehicles.

Winter is coming in this Photo Of The Day, and I’m sure the making of these photos – in the little sunlight given each day – took a lot of freezing. We see Air Force Special Operators from the Kentucky Air National Guard’s 123rd Special Tactics Squadron, as they learn how to survive and fight at the Swedish Subarctic Warfare Center in Grubbnäsudden. The location is near Sweden’s northern border with Finland and a stone’s throw from the Arctic Circle.

A great photo is often produced by being at the right time and place and using the perfect exposure. Today the photographer really managed to capture the moment, with U.S. Marines in training. If TFB’s Photo Of The Day came with sound, you could almost certainly hear the sound of yelling from the battlefield, and shots fired from the H&Ks.

It’s time for another Photo Of The Day, and we can’t express enough gratitude to soldiers and photographers who capture moments like this when the shooting range is lit up by the muzzle blast from rarely seen firearms. In this case, we have the Heckler & Koch G36C in the hands of U.S. Marines and Swedish Marines at the Berga Naval Base, Sweden. And as you notice, that’s not the only H&K in these images.

As usual, TFB has selected a few pictures for you. By this time you know it, it’s TFB’s Photo Of The Day to keep you in a good mood. Get a coffee, take a break and enjoy a few minutes off. Here we have Australian Army soldiers together with U.S. Marines with the Marine Rotational Force – Darwin as they dismount an MV-22B Osprey during Exercise Koolendong at Bradshaw Field Training Area, NT, Australia. This happened at the end of August of this year.

Photo Of The Day: The caption above says the U.S. Marine above is firing his M27, but I’d say he’s using the M38 Designated Marksman Rifle because of the Leupold TS-30A2 Mark 4 MR/T 2.5-8x36mm variable power scope and the QDSS suppressor. You can read Leupold’s description here:

Our Photo Of The Day takes place at an undisclosed location, which I’m sure makes people even more curious. Above we see a U.S. Marine with the 2nd Battalion, 1st Marines, who is assigned to the Special Purpose Marine Air-Ground Task Force – Crisis Response – Central Command. He’s participating in a combat marksmanship range in the United States Central Command Area of Operations. Note the tourniquet and the scissors in the plate carrier.

Ever since photography was invented in the early 1800s it has been a medium of almost limitless possibilities. Today most people have at least a smartphone to capture what’s going on around, and the professionals use even more advanced cameras and optics, like here. At TFB we’ve been running our Photo Of The Day for years, where we share the best photos with “firearms” as the lowest common denominator.

In today’s  Photo Of The Day we take a closer look at a group of U.S. Marine Corps infantry riflemen with 1st Battalion, 25th Marine Regiment, 4th Marine Division as they participate in an Integrated Training Exercise called 5-19. Location: Twentynine Palms, California, in the year 2019.

Subject: Photo Of The Day

Welcome to another edition of TFB’s Field Strip series.  Today we’ll cover the disassembly process of the famed Mosin-Nagant bolt action rifle.  Since the Mosin-Nagant rifles have hit the surplus market, people seem to either love them or hate them.  Regardless of your feelings on them, the Mosin-Nagant has sealed its place in history, despite not being the best at what it does.

It’s been a while since the US Marine Corps announced that they would be deploying the M27 IAR in a Designated Marksman Role, adapting it by mounting the Leupold TS-30A2 Mark 4 MR/T 2.5-8x36mm rather than an ACOG.