#MachineGuns

My good friend Houston, who created the majority of the gun artwork in my office (see XRayGuns.com), sent us this photo. He wrote …

Back in the 1990s, Heckler & Koch USA decided to put together a working reference collection of the company’s products. This collection was put together at their Sterling facility in Virginia (Here are some pictures from the previous facility), but has since been moved to their new facility in Ashburn, VA as of 2007. The name “Gray” (or as H&K had British management, they write it “Grey”) comes from the color of the walls in the room which in both locations were gray. Although the room is mostly used as a working reference and display collection, there is also a full set of tables, chairs, and a TV inside it as it is also used as a conference room (it should be noted that there is a dedicated conference room at the Ashburn facility as well). There is another Gray Room back in Germany (the original H&K pattern room, here’s a link to some good pictures of that) but it is much less publicized and known about. I took all these pictures in 2012. There’s a thread on HKPRO that has some decent pictures of the room but from different angles that I took. Please note that I’m not an H&K expert in the least so I’m doing the best I know of with the captions, so feel free to correct me or add your own commentary about the small arms displayed.

The U.S. Armed Forces have alot of guns. Let me correct myself, the military has A TON of guns. Where are all these kept and stored though? In armories of course. But these mysterious enclaves filled to the brim with boy toys must be an absolute joy to even step inside right? Well, maybe if you like paperwork. And I can say that, because I spent two months in one as an Armory Custodian.

Disclaimer: For the purpose of this article, the term “machine pistol” refers to fully automatic conventionally laid out handguns, not submachine guns, PDWs, or obscenely large pistol-like firearms such as M10s. Also, for video, scroll to the bottom.

Note: this post is not political, it covers ongoing legal shenanigans.

A while back we blogged about an individual who took the Prince Law Office’s determination that, as a result of the ATF clarifying that “unincorporated trusts” are not “persons” under the Gun Control Act, it may have opened a way for trusts to manufacture new Post-86 machine guns. As I have written about before, machine guns are and have always been legal in the US, but those made and registered after 1986 are not legal for civilians to own, so we may only keep trading the ones already on the market.

FPS Russia released a video a couple days ago to educate his viewers briefly on how he obtains the NFA items in his various videos. The explanation is rather straightforward and simple.

Funkertactical posted up a video of U.S. Marines cross training with French Foreign Legion soldiers.

Alex C, TFB’s resident machine gun expert, shows us the “Texan Bellagio” located at the Trinity River …

I love machine guns. They don’t call the selectors on automatic firearms “fun switches” for nothing, and I have yet to hand off a machine gun to someone and have it not bring a smile to their face (it brings me joy exposing people to full auto for the first time). For the sake of this article, the word “machine gun” will meet the ATF’s definition: Any weapon which shoots, is designed to shoot, or can be readily restored to shoot, automatically more than one shot without manual reloading, by a single function of the trigger.

According to the gun lawyers and bloggers over at Prince Law Offices, P.C. a recent ATF determination that “unincorporated trusts” are not “persons” under the Gun Control Act may have opened a way for trusts to manufacture new Post-86 machine guns.

The assault rifle is the defining individual weapon of warfare in the latter half of the 20th century, and the 21st. It’s history is deeply intertwined with the political and war-making developments of the era. Fast, mechanized maneuver warfare, the decline of cavalry, the continuing refinement of artillery, and perhaps most of all, the invention of the infantry mortar, meant that large formations of men firing powerful rifles at targets thousands of yards away dissolved, and were replaced by men with carbine-length bolt action rifles fighting through trenches, between bocages, and in jungles. Though by World War II trench warfare had faded from dominance, infantry were still expected to assault positions and fortifications, often more heavily defended than the trenches in the First World War were. This need, and the greatly reduced emphasis on long-range ballistics, formed the bedrock of requirements for what would later be called “assault rifles” in the West.

The Charlton Automatic Rifle sums up the adage “necessity is the mother of invention.” These LMGs were produced for the New Zealand home defense forces beginning in 1941 from old Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield bolt action rifles.

Since I got into machine guns one of the most unusual things I have noticed is that an astounding amount of people who shoot most commonly available submachine guns will get ready, anchor their feet into the ground, cock the bolt to the rear, and then look at me confused and say “it won’t cock” or “the bolt won’t close”. I used to simply say “oh, it fires from an open bolt,” but that typically led to more confusion, even among people you would assume would be familiar with that type of action (including military folk and police officers). Hell, I have been to competitions where the range officer was insistent upon me walking around the range with the gun’s bolt open in the ready to fire position, even though I explained how the bolt closed with no mag in it is correct and that to render the gun completely safe I would have to remove the magazine and walk the bolt forward. Nowadays instead of explaining how an open bolt gun works I just say “it’s fine, just pull the trigger” and people will shrug it off and dump a magazine.

The German Sturmgewehr is a firearm that needs no introduction. It was the world’s first true successful assault rifle (despite what some people have to say about the Fedorov Avtomat) and was used with great success by the forces of the Third Reich. This truly revolutionary instrument of war inspired countless other designs and influenced many small arms developed during the 20th century. It is amazing that these guns still make the news and are often still used in combat.