#Misc

John S. is a guest writer who is concentrating on the subject of body armor. This is his second article on TFB, his first one being

John S. is a guest writer who is concentrating on the subject of body armor. This is his first article on TFB.

Sturm, Ruger & Company, Inc. has just released a version of their Ruger American Rifle Ranch Model chambered in 7.62x39mm. The rifle is also designed to accept Ruger Mini Thirty magazines of varying capacities. Shipped with the rifle is a 5 round magazine, but aftermarket and higher capacity magazines are available both from Ruger and throughout the market. Ruger representatives expressed an interest and demand for the caliber throughout the U.S. market.

A recent news report in Arabic has highlighted the efforts of opposition forces in Yemen to emplace IEDs within Kalashnikov magazines, just above the floor plates of the magazines themselves. The magazines have several rounds loaded, around 4-8 to be precise. The tactic employed appears to necessitate the rounds being taken out of the magazine, either by hand or by actually firing them in a rifle. When the spring pressure has weakened enough, or the follower has reached a certain point, this connects an electrical circuit, completing the process of ignition and thereby blowing the main charge within the magazine itself, with the ends to seriously injure or kill the user of the magazine. Yemeni security forces took these magazines while searching a vehicle enroute to San’a, and made them safe. However, it would appear that the magazines were intended to be battlefield pick ups, or otherwise emplaced around security forces that would find them, either unload them manually or shoot the cartridges.

Competing elements of the Ukrainian Special Operations Command came together recently to participate in a skill of arms testing precision rifle capabilities, teamwork, handgun marksmanship, care under fire, among numerous other skill sets often required by sniper teams in combat. Due to the diversity of uniforms, weapons, and equipment, it appears that each two man sniper team might have come from a different Ukrainian Special Operations unit. According to Wikipedia there are five such ground regiments (SoF regiment, not conventional) and one Naval regiment currently active in the Ukraine.

A Bulgarian investigative journalist by the name of Dilyana Gaytandzhiev has published an article vigorously detailing the activities of the Azerbaijani state run airline Silk Way in providing arms shipments across the MENA region and Africa in the airlines diplomatic capacity. Not only does it appear that U.S. Special Operations Command is using the airline to transport massive amounts of small arms and ammunition from Eastern Europe to groups in Syria, but also such customers as Saudi Arabia, and Kurdish state actors in addition to possibly much more. The majority of the shipments appear to be rocket launchers and associated ammunition, but there are numerous amounts of Kalashnikov variants mixed in among the shipments as well. W e actually had a post on TFB about shipments from Bulgaria to Kurdistan as early as 2008, so the Silk Way connection might not be that far off in this regard.

Taiwan’s 205th Armory small arms design bureau has unveiled a 7.62x51mm NATO Designated Marksman’s rifle at the 2017 Taipei Aerospace & Defense Technology Exhibition as evidenced by the Sohu news agency. Designated the XT107, it is a 7.62x51mm NATO version of a modular 5.56x45mm NATO rifle of the same name. Taiwan has had this modular service rifle in development since at least 2013 with the XT97, later renamed the XT105 in 2015, and appears to have been renamed XT107 in the latest iteration. Unfortunately, we haven’t had an in-depth look at the internals of the rifle since the XT97 so we cannot discuss at length about what changes the design has undergone. However, one thing is for sure and that is Taiwanese Defense Forces still appear to be armed with the 5.56x45mm NATO T91 service rifle, and as of now we don’t have any information showing if the adoption of a new service rifle will take place in the near future.

Lobaev Arms is a precision rifle company that produces high power precision rifles in calibers ranging from 6.5mm to .408 Chay Tac. The company is mostly focused on the civilian competition market, although the founder said in an interview to the Russian press that there were some Military contract pursuits both in Russia and outside. He wasn’t too optimistic about a Russian military contract because of the long processes involved in trial, purchase, and adoption. For the ARMY 2017 exposition, the company highlighted four updated versions of their lineup. All of the rifles are bolt action, magazine fed, with barrels mounted in a chassis system that incorporates folding stocks. In addition, the pistol grips are all AR15 based designs, so users can switch out grips to a different AR version if need be. Folding buttstocks are adjustable for cheek height, length of pull, and having a Picatinny rail for a monopod.

Originating from Russian Ministry of Defense counter-UAV trials, the most recent version of the LOKMAS (the com[any that produces it) “Stupor” Counter-UAV device was on display at ARMY 2017. Hrachya wrote about the prototypes of this device back in April of this year. It has an effective range of 650 meters, and a somewhat less reliable range of 650 to 850 meters and can run 4 hours and 40 minutes while being charged with either a 12 Volt or 220 Volt connection. It can suppress both GPS (L1, L2, L3) and Wi-Fi signals (2.4 GHz, 5.8 GH). Currently, the drone is undergoing military tests and evaluations, of which a recent article was written about here. Apparently, the outcome of the tests was that it was favorable, but we don’t know if the device is going to be adopted as of yet.

Essentially Yugoslavian 7.62x39mm M70B1 rifles, the Tabuk series of small arms were produced in Iraq, with the help of Yugoslavian engineers in the late 1970s, just in time for the Iran-Iraq conflict that endured for an agonizing decade afterward. There were different iterations of the Tabuk, the standard rifle with wood stock, an underfolder, an RPK variant, a “Krink” version with a 12-inch barrel, and finally the Tabuk Sniper, but we’ll leave that topic for next week when we can devote an entire episode to it.

We recently received an excellent opportunity to tour Apex Gun Parts, which you can read about on a recent TFB post here. During the tour we got a chance to sit down with Jeff Salvig and really ask him some in-depth questions about the surplus industry and how he got into it himself, eventually starting his company, Apex Arms. I think Jeff serves as an example to the rest of us, that he started out just as a very passionate collector and through hard work and determination, brought together one of the better companies in the industry when it comes to surplus inventories.

Kalashnikov Concern has released several new handguns this year at ARMY 2017, most notably a compact version of the  Lebedev PL-15, the company’s flagship semiautomatic handgun. We’ll post some photographs below, which are courtesy of Maxim Popenker, the famous Russian gun blogger.

Kalashnikov Concern’s subsidiary Zala Aero Group has released a counter UAV device named the REX-1. The handheld device is designed to target a UAV/drone’s emergency land function, forcing it to land from a hovering position. Very importantly, it is designed to halt the location functions of a UAV by blocking out various geolocating systems, specifically U.S. GPS, Russian GLONASS, and Chinese BeiDou. Expanding upon its specifications, the device can block various mobile signals such as GSM, 3G, LTE. It can also jam the 900 Mhz range in addition to 2.4 GHz and 5.2-5.8 GHz wi-fi signals. The company says it has a range of one kilometer.

Recent so-called Islamic State propaganda videos and an individual Twitter account within Syri a have posted numerous examples of improvised suppressors in use on a wide variety of precision rifles and anti-material rifles.The Twitter account simply mentions that the rifles belong to “Brothers” and “Sunni” fighters, which could literally be any one of the tens of opposition groups in the conflict. Most of these suppressors or cylindrical flash hiders appear to be made out of pre-constructed materials such as a flashlight or other metal tubes. With the exception of one, they appear to be direct thread as well. Although very simple to employ, direct thread brings with it the possibility of the suppressor unscrewing itself unless there is a method of locking.

Like many Vets these days, Steve Russell was very frustrated that he or any of the soldiers under his command couldn’t actually bring back captured rifles from their campaigns overseas, unlike previous generations of American infantrymen. So if you can’t bring back rifles, maybe the next best step is to make them? This is exactly what Steve did with Two River Arms, a company in Oklahoma City that makes excellent copies of Iraqi Tabuks from Yugo M72 parts kits, complete with Iraqi markings in Arabic and all. The niche that this company fills is extremely unique and small for that matter, very unlike most any Kalashnikov producing companies in the AK business. They are uniquely tied into the conflicts of our era that directly connects the small arms from those conflicts.