#MachineGuns

The location in this Photo Of The Day is Poland where we take a peek at the U.S. Army 2nd Cavalry Troops as they offer support by fire during an evaluation exercise at Bemowo Piskie Training Area in November last year. The 2nd Cavalry is a vital part of the enhanced forward presence Battle Group’s mission to defend against any potential threat in the region.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of  The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about rimfire firearms, ammunition, practices, and trends. This week we’ll be taking a look at a piece of rimfire belt-fed goodness in the form of a rimfire Ma Deuce or M2. No matter how you take it, belt-fed guns are just somehow more fun. I don’t know if it is just the mechanical complexity behind them or the whole operation of the firearm but I know that anytime I get a chance to shoot a belt-fed, I’ll immediately take it.

Spotted a few days ago on Twitter via user @Progrockfarmer, we saw an entire arsenal being turned in by a Croatian citizen. As you can see from the picture above, the man had quite the armory at his disposal and it is far more than just a handful of rifles and a boatload of ammo. This man’s personal weapons cache also featured artillery rounds, hand grenades, belt-fed machine guns, and much more.

With IDEX 2021, the first major international defence exhibition of the year coming up in Abu Dhabi later this month, FN Herstal have announced a pair of improved machine gun mounts for land and sea vehicles. The FN M3M WM (Weapon Mount) and the FN Light MWM (Multi Weapon Mount).

The highly popular and highly anticipated Big Sandy Machine Gun Shoot is on for March of 2021 at the Big Sandy range in Wikieup, Arizona! Due to scares surrounding COVID-19 in 2020, both shoots were canceled last year along with many other popular gun-related events. However, the 2021 Big Sandy Shoot is back by popular demand and promises to be better than ever.

SOFWERX, in concert with USSOCOM PEO-SOF Warrior (PEO-SW) has announced they will be hosting a Lightweight Machine Gun – Medium (LMG-M) Virtual Industry Day to foster the development of the new machine gun sought by US Special Operations Command.

Following on from their recent procurement of .50 calibre heavy machine guns and 5.56x45mm FN Minimi’s to supplement their FN MAGs, the Norwegian Army is now seeking a ‘light weight machine gun’ in 7.62x51mm. An initial batch of 1,000 7.62 light machine guns is sought with the option of upping this order up to 4,000 to enable Norway to re-equip its Home Guard or Heimevernet units.

Last week we looked at the Stoner 86/ARES LMG-1 in depth while at the Institute of Military Technology in Florida. This week we are comparing the older design to the much more modern Knight’s Armament 5.56x45mm NATO Light Assualt Machine Gun (LAMG) that the company brought to SHOT Show last year and this year. In addition to the 5.56x45mm version, there is also a 7.62x51mm version as well. Hopefully we’ll be able to get an in-depth look at it in the future, but for the time being, we were only able to see the smaller caliber version.

The Pakistani commercial firearms company Daudsons Armory or DSA is much more known for their handguns and historical reproduction shotguns sold in the United States through Cimarron. However, the company also has a 40x53mm High-Velocity Automatic Grenade Launcher (AGL) that they have been developing for over a decade at this point. Currently, the PAK-40 AGL is undergoing Pakistani Army trials that could potentially lead to replacing U.S. Mk.19s and MKEK designs that are being used now. Testing consisted of severe temperature firing in both cold and hot extremes in addition to accuracy testing at 500, 1000, and 1500 meters. The AGL was also sent to South Africa to be tested with RDM ammunition (jointly owned by South African and German companies), in addition to NATO standard and Korean 40mm linked grenades.

Program Executive Officer (PEO) Soldier out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia recently tweeted an image depicting U.S. Army Brigadier General Anthony Potts (currently commanding PEO Soldier) on the test range firing a test rifle apart of “emerging technologies for Next Generation Squad Weapon” as spelled out in the tweet.

We previously covered the Marine Corps M27 in last weeks episode and will be really getting into the weeds here in terms of some of the issues and benefits the weapon system afforded to Infantry Marines. Topics such as the choice of magazines for the automatic rifle, why it was so accurate and reliable, even dummy-cording the Squad Day Optic (SDO) to the rifle so it doesn’t fall off while in the field. The current version of the M27 took care of some of these problems but left others intact.

The Israeli Dror Light Machine Gun was born during a time of necessity. What would later become the state of Israel was fighting off numerous enemies all around it and needed every weapon system possible. Through this endeavor, a sympathetic employer who formerly worked at Johnson Automatics helped supporters in the United States form a working copy of the M1944 Johnson LMG, fabricated in Canada, and then covertly shipped over to Israel where production was completed.

The AMELI light machine gun was Spain’s answer to what the Ministry of Defense needed in a squad automatic weapon, as a base of fire for the Spanish Infantry fire team. It was based on the late war German MG45 design, or as we see here, possibly just another version of the Mauser-CETME Light Machine Gun of roller-locking lore. It primarily used belts of M27 NATO links, but there were versions outfitted for STANAG magazines that replaced the feed tray cover (these were rarely if ever used). Later versions even had British SUSAT sights clamped to rails on the feed tray cover.

Cadex Defense had two recently introduced products specifically for the .50 BMG M2 Heavy Machine Gun on display at their booth at SHOT 2018. The first one was their KOLOS sight mount, meant as a lighter and less obtrusive alternative to the earlier SOLO sight mount. Second for this year is the M2 Cradle Mount.

Profense LLC is a defense company that has its origins in the aerospace industry. Their primary interest is trying to introduce a next-generation 7.62x51mm NATO M134 Minigun. The company is doing this through two different strategies. First, they are actually manufacturing their own version of the M134 with several significant design differences from the currently fielded Dillion M134 that is in service all over the world. Second, they are actually offering upgrade kits for the GAU-2, GAU-17, MK44 or M134. These upgrade kits are called the M134 MUK, or Mission Upgrade Kit. If a Government user doesn’t want to purchase a complete fleet of new and improved M134 Miniguns, they can opt for the MUK kit as an upgrade to existing Miniguns.