#GPMG

The excellent firearms reference website Modern Firearms is undergoing a major move to a new location, with a much improved interface and look. Although the new site is still in beta, it already appears to include most if not all of the pages from the original, in an attractive new updated format.

Knight’s Armament Company has announced a new very light weight belt fed light machine gun – which they have appropriately termed the Stoner X-LMG (for “Extra Light Machine Gun). The new weapon is based on the previous Knight’s LMG, itself a development of the ARES, Inc (unrelated to ARES Defense, now called FightLite Industries) Stoner 86 LMG which itself descended from the famous Stoner 63 Light Machine Gun. Like those weapons, the new Stoner X-LMG is a 5.56mm caliber weapon, but unlike those it achieves a virtually unheard of light weight of just 8.6 pounds, unloaded. The release of the X-LMG was announced via IHS Jane’s, as well as – oddly enough – Turkish gear outlet Öztekin. From IHS Jane’s:

Coke’s slogan is “Taste the Feeling”, but maybe in the Ukraine it should be “the Army’s Rust Remover!” instead. “We use Coca-Cola when the gun is rusty. Coca-Cola takes rust away” says Ukrainian Ground Forces machine gunner Oleg Yuzkovich about his trusty PKM machine gun, in an interview with 5 Kanal (Channel 5 Ukraine, embedded below.

The South African state-owned defense conglomerate Denel Land Systems has recently experienced a large rise in sales which have maxed out its production facilities, African defense website DefenceWeb reports. According to DefenceWeb’s article, most of the increase in recent sales have been from small lot sales to the Middle East.

Recently we’ve published the Barrett factory tour, and another article on the M82/M107 series of rifles that the company is well known for. However, this might soon come to be another small arm that if successful, the company will have continued success. That is the Barrett 240 Light Weight, Barretts entry into the general purpose machine gun market.

Vickers Tactical has posted up a video showcasing the M60E6 “Pig” in b-e-a-utiful slow motion. Not content to showcase only an original M60, Vickers Tactical had access to US Ordnances latest M60E6 variant. The E6 was just picked up by the Danish military and features US Ordnance’s Stellite-lined barrels for increased heat mitigation.

The Danish weapons blog Krigeren (translation: “Warrior) reports that the Danish military has chosen the M60E6 as its next GPMG. The M60 beat out its arch-rival, the HK121.. The new GPMG weights almost 3 KG less than earlier models of the M60 On a personal note, I would have loved to have had this during my time in the Corps. 

Originally developed and manufactured by Rheinmetall (and later parts manufactured by H&K) the Bundeswehr’s MG3 has been in service since the 1960s. Its design is essentially an improved MG42 chambered in 7.62x51mm NATO. It retains that distinctive MG42 aesthetic many gun enthusiasts love, along with the MG42’s reliability and ease of use (and, as some might argue, its far to high rate of fire). But 50 years later it is showing its age, being bigger, heavier than 21st century machine guns built with polymer and modern alloys (not to mention covered in picatinny rails). The HK121 is being adopted as the future Bundeswehr machine gun, but it will be a very long time before budgets allow enough to be procured to retire the 10,000s (100,000?) MG3 machine guns in service. Enter the MG3KWS (“Kampfwertsteigerung” or “Combat Improvements”), an upgraded version of the MG3 being developed by Rheinmetall and Tactics Group.  Dr. Jan-Phillipp Weisswange, a Lieutenant Colonel of the German Army Reserve, was kind enough to share information and photos of the MG3KWS with us.

REMOV let me know that H&K have redesigned their version of the FN MAG 7.62mm machine gun (designated the L7A2 in the British Army). The new models have been completely redrawn from imperial to metric and also feature a lengthly picatinny rail (what self-respecting military firearm does not these days?).

British troops “desperately” need 400 of the jumbo 0.5in calibre heavy machine guns – the weapon most acutely missed.