#MPT-76

James Reeves is with his good friend, Kaya of Classic Firearms to get a brief overview of the MPT 76 and the MPT 76 SH (“Light” variant) .308 battle rifle from SAR aka Sarsilmaz.

Photo Of The Day: TFB’s favorite shots (pun intended) served on a daily basis. Today we have various images from 3E EOS, or 3E Elektro Optik Sistemler, from Turkey. Above you can see a “boosted” Heckler & Koch HK417 with a PARS thermal sight and a DLIRIL multifunction laser device.

Turkey has announced that a new version of their 7.62x51mm rifle, the MPT-76, has passed qualification with the Turkish Army. The MPT-76-MH has been significantly lightened. It has been reported by some sources that the rifle will be used in the role of a designated marksman’s rifle. However, this has not officially been confirmed and it seems more likely that it’s simply a lightened version of the service rifle.

Today’s photo features graduating Somalian Army conscripts being sworn in next to some new Turkish MPT-76 rifles and MG-3 general purpose machine guns made by Turkey’s state-owned small arms manufacturer MKEK. The photo was taken at a graduation ceremony for 185 Somalian officer cadets at the Somalian-Turkish Task Force Command in Mogadishu. The Ceremony was attended by Somalia’s National Defence Minister, Turkey’s ambassador to Mogadishu, Somalia’s chief of general staff and senior officers from the Task Force Command. A new cadre of officer cadets also began their training during the ceremony.

In a show of patriotism Turkey’s state-owned small arms manufacturer MKEK (Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation) has delivered the next batch of new MPT-76 rifles to the Turkish Army ahead of schedule.

The independent Turkish small arms company Sarsılmaz has released their first pre-production prototypes of the MPT76 and should soon begin production on their share (10,000 rifles) of the 7.62x51mm NATO MPT76 rifle contract ordered by the Turkish Armed Forces. MKEK has since already been producing MPT76s since 2015(20,000 rifles), and along with Kalekalip (15,000 rifles) will form one of the three companies producing the infantry rifle slated to replace current HK33s in service with the Turkish Armed Forces. Approximately 35,014 ( later upped to 45,000) are slated within this contract, but that will certainly not be enough to arm the entirety of the 500,000 plus service men and women currently in the armed forces of Turkey. These MPT76s appear to be making their way to the infantry community, with follow-on contracts to arm the rest of the military in the ensuing years.

A Turkish news outlet has reported that Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization  (Millî İstihbarat Teşkilatı or MİT) will be the next organisation to receive the country’s new domestically produced infantry rifle, the MPT-76.

Turkey’s state-run Makina Ve Kimya Endustrisi Kurumu/Mechanical and Chemical Industry Corporation (MKEK) have announced that non-commercial military exports of their new MPT-76 rifle have begun. Turkish news site Hurriyet report that MKEK have already secured a number of foreign contracts for the new 7.62x51mm, select-fire rifle.

Last year TFB reported about the MPT-76 rifle with some unique pictures from the MKE stand at IWA.

MKE – Makina ve Kimya Endüstrisi Kurumu – from Ankara in Turkey has roots going back to the 15:th century.

The Turkish Defense Ministry has announced the continued acceptance of their new service rifle, the 7.62x51mm MPT-76 in a new batch of 15,014 rifles for their armed services. This is out of an initial order of 35,014 rifles that was placed in June of this year. Now, the Jane’s report says this is for the Turkish army, navy, and gendarmerie. Which if we do some quick researching, combined is comprised of around 600,000 troops across the board. So a contract of 35,014 rifles could possibly be enough to arm some of the units dealing with PKK and the Syrian border. But again, this would only be at most, three divisions worth of troops getting this new rifle. Certainly not enough to equip all the initial training camps with them, in addition to the units that new troops would be reporting. However, like all new adoptions of a service rifle, it cannot come at once and will take a while for Turkey to fully phase out their current 7.62x51mm G3 rifles.