#MachineGuns

The battle for Mosul in Iraq is going on right now, being fought by Iraqi troops, Kurdish Peshmerga, and some Turkish elements against entrenched Daesh right now. However, there is a significant amount of international coalition SF groups that are helping these local forces call in air strikes, direct close air support, and otherwise facilitate assets that various nations are bringing to the table against Daesh.

If you are wondering why this FG42 probably costs more than most houses, then please, step into the club of the bizarre world of civilian legal machine gun costs and trade. I’m often asked by people who have no knowledge of firearms, even by many in our community why the price of these machine guns are so exorbitantly high.

No matter how diverse and separated the firearms community is from muzzle loading to action 3 Gun, NFA to concealed carry, I think one thing that every single one of us can agree on is that happiness is a belt fed machine gun. This year at Knob Creek, it was hard to conceal the enthusiasm that filled the range and gun show, with crowds not becoming smaller and smaller every year, but instead just growing and growing. I went to the show on Saturday, and would personally advise anyone planning on attending, if you can only make one day, or even a couple of hours, make it Saturday evening. I’ve noticed that on Friday, the show is really just starting, warming up, similarly with Sunday being the opposite, everyone is starting to break down, and the crowds are moving towards going back to work on Monday. But Saturday is certainly the most packed day of events, especially with the crowning night shoot (there were two this year).

Note to all readers. This information was in error. I had an attorney who represents many FFL’s across the country with license matters as well as NFA cases contact me. I’ve consulted with him several times on these types of matters. He informed me there has been no change in the law or BATF policy. Local law enforcement does not have to do the fingerprints.

Denel Land Systems, a South African manufacturer that produces a number of defense items from grenades to artillery, has introduced their DMG-5 medium/light machine gun (available either in 5.56x45mm or 7.62x51mm), and their DMG-5 CX vehicle mounted machine gun at the Africa Aerospace and Defence Exhibition in South Africa this week. From Army Recognition–

The Land Component of the Belgian Armed Forces will soon be retiring the venerable 7.62x51mm MAG M2 (FN MAG medium machine gun) for FN Herstals 7.62x51mm Minimi Mk3. Specifically 242 machine guns will be bought with an order of 2 million Euros from the countries own FN Herstal. The article mentions that this will be enough to have 3 machine guns per platoon of 30, thus making it a squad machine gun. I’m not sure if this is how the Belgium Army operates or if it is a editing mistake, but previously having a medium machine gun per squad slows it down and is where the Squad Automatic Weapon concept importantly plays in.

Previously, we discussed different concepts for lightening the soldier’s load, including aluminum-,  composite-cased and caseless ammunition. Today we’re going to look at the weight-reducing concept that many believe is the horse to bet on when it comes to next-generation small arms ammunition, and that is the plastic-cased telescoped ammunition concept, often referred to as cased, telescoped ammunition (CTA).

On August 4, the Risk Analysis Unit (UAR) Custom Algeciras noticed a suspicious container headed out to the US by ocean freight. The Bill Of Lading indicated dismantled weapons. However the UAR decided to seize the container for a full inspection. This is common for ocean freight and customs. I used to work for a Freight Forwarder and we imported containers of shipments from Asia. US Customs often runs random exams/inspections on containers. They can be as simple as a full container x-ray or in this case a full inspection and every item is pulled from the container and matched up with the packing list and invoice.

Jon Patton of The Gun Collective posted this video. It looks to be drone footage taken at Knob Creek. I was a little concerned about the rounds skipping off in the distance past the explosion. But I was told there is not much in that direction other than some military base owned land that has nothing on it. Knob Creek just alerts them ahead of time that they will be shooting.

Thanks to Josh B. for sending us this photo. Here is what he wrote.

Washington County Tactical Range is located in Southwest Pennsylvania. They are just over 40 miles south west of Pittsburgh, near the West Virginia/Pennsylvania border.  I discovered them through a Facebook group: TGTC – The Shooter’s Group. TGTC (The Green Tips Connection) had a get together shoot/mini contest at the Washington County Tactical Range back in April which I attended.

Just last week was SOFIC (Special Operations Force Industry Conference). It is like Shot Show but for LE/MIL. They always put on a grand show demonstrating techniques and equipment. Gratuitous amounts of blanks fired. The minigun on the helicopter is particularly fun.

The Moscow Police Force has put on a display that has been hitting the internet recently, specifically with this excellent collection of photos on The Chive, a website I still have no clear idea about the purpose of despite being aware of them five years ago. The collection is situated in a room, somewhere in Moscow, and includes everything from percussion muzzleloading handguns, to modern day submachine guns. however the key date in all this, is that the collection compromises confiscations starting in 1949. So these aren’t firearms that were taken in the 1800s and are now on display, these are firearms taken since 1949. Whether or not some of them were actually used by criminals is another matter, as perhaps some of them were taken off their owners for bad registration papers, death, and all other possible non criminal causes.  I think the heavy, water cooled machine guns interest me the most, in addition to all the homemade devices that are on display. The FBI Museum in Washington D.C. has a similar collection with 7,000 small arms, of all their confiscated small arms, some of which are on display, but I think the majority are locked away from the public.

The Barrett “Light Fifty” is probably one of the most iconic firearms in the world, along with the Kalashnikov, Desert Eagle, and the M16. The M82/M82A1/M107/M107A1 is unique in that it occupies a spot that very few other modern designs have even been able to compete with. That of a .50 BMG anti material rifle, the brainchild of a man who simply wanted to build a .50 caliber rifle because he couldn’t have an M2 machine gun. Indeed, when Ronnie Barrett, a professional photographer first proposed the idea to a fellow in the gun industry, all he got was, “If this was a viable idea, it would have been invented already”. Ronnie said no, and went on to create a stamped sheet metal semi automatic rifle that changed the way much of the free world’s armies work at long range precision shooting.

I don’t usually read The Daily Mail for its authentic and informative stories about the world, but some pretty interesting stuff does sometimes come out of it. Such as this story about a British parish council chairman in Suffolk who amassed over five hundred firearms in his house. We a story earlier back about an American in California who had thousands of firearms confiscated from him when he died, and in a similar case, this British gentleman passed away before any legal ramifications could be had for him. Comparing gun ownership in Britain to the U.S., that’s alot of firearms! Apparently most of them were illegally owned, but I’ve got a hunch that there might be more to the story than this. This might be a long stretch, but I’m willing to hedge a small bet, that the overwhelming majority of these “firearms” were actually deactivated. Although the problem is that I can’t see any evidence to support this in the pictures, and it doesn’t say so throughout the article. What makes me say this, is that the guy has over five hundred firearms, but apparently not a single round of live ammunition. The report claims that there were “200,000” rounds of ammunition also found, but in all the pictures of this “ammunition”, they either show just bullets without shells, or shells without bullets/powder/primers. Knowing English gun laws are extremely strict, I wouldn’t put it past the police to simply say these were firearms, because maybe they had been deactivated in the 1990s or so, but hadn’t followed any of the additional deactivation laws. For more information on this, see my article on the London Proof House. But essentially, Britain has passed a number of deactivated firearms laws, and with each law, the deactivated firearm has to be brought up to standard, by filling the barrel with lead, or slotting the chamber, or any other such method. Maybe this guy had all these deactivated guns, and just got tired of following each new law, and thus simply didn’t. Because I can’t see how even illegally, one has a huge amount of firearm