#New

At the 2017 Association of the United States Army annual meeting, gunmaker FB Radom was present at the Polish pavilion, displaying their MSBS modular assault rifle, recently named “Grot” (arrowhead) by the Polish government. The new rifle has been selected by the Polish government to replace their legacy AK fleet, many of which are the upgraded 5.56mm “Beryl” variant. The first order for the new rifles was signed in mid-September, and will result in the delivery of 53,000 rifles to the Polish government, which is expected to be completed by the end of November.

DefenceWeb recently released a video overview of the new Steyr / Rheinmetall RS-556 assault rifle. The rifle, a sort of hybrid between an AR-15 and a Steyr AUG, was submitted to the Bundeswehr’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr trials, competing against both Heckler & Koch’s HK416 and the new HK433 assault rifles. The RS-556, mechanically, is substantially different from a basic AR-15, and therefore occupies an interesting spot in-between being an AR-15 variant and a completely different weapon. The upper receiver is a single piece forged unit, with an AUG-style fixed extension/trunnion and quick change barrel. An AUG-style short stroke tappet gas system and connecting operating rod replace the AR-15’s direct impingement system. In the upper, a steel insert, rather than the aluminum receiver itself, guides the bolt carrier group. This feature is supposed to increase upper receiver life, and improve its maintenance characteristics, although it does make the rifle significantly heavier.

Ultimatum Precision has introduced a new bolt action rifle action called Deadline. It is going to replace their U300 action. Besides the beautiful futuristic look with angled surfaces inspired by the M1 Abrams tank, this action has a number of improvements and new features, too.

Molot has introduced four new rifles during the Arms & Hunting 2017 exhibition. All the new rifles are chambered in recently introduced 9.6x53mm Lancaster caliber and have oval bore rifling. According to Molot officials, these rifles are neither concept guns nor ones being developed but finished models which are already in production and will become available in the Russian market by the end of the year.

Representatives of the German gun manufacturing company Heckler & Koch confirmed today that the company has submitted both the HK416 assault rifle and the new HK433 modular assault rifle to the Bundeswehr’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr (SSB) rifle trials,  which are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2018.

While doing a research for another article and looking for different information, I visited Indonesian Pindad’s website. Their small arms page shows the different models of their SS-1 and SS-2 rifles chambered in 5.56x45mm. But then I noticed a couple of rifles designated as 7.62mm ones. Just by looking at the magazine size in relation to the weapon they didn’t seem to be  7.62x51mm rifles. I thought maybe Pindad has chambered these guns in .300 Blackout? Anyway, going to one of that rifles’ pages I saw the full caliber designation – 7.62x45mm! What in the world is that? Has Pindad decided to give a second chance to the long extinct 7.62x45mm Czech cartridge? No. It turns out this cartridge is designed by Pindad somewhere in the early 2000s. Nevertheless, I think many of our readers are not aware of it, too.

Earlier we reported about the first leaked images of the new Russian 9.6x53mm Lancaster cartridge. Recently, Molot published a video explaining the features and showing the details concerning this new cartridge.

The G36’s replacement is now known to be one of five guns – or at least that’s the report coming from reputable defense outlet IHS Jane’s. Competing in Germany’s System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr (Bundeswehr Assault Rifle System) will be the Rheinmetall RS556, Heckler & Koch HK433, Haenel Defence MK556, SIG MCX, and FNH SCAR. For four contestants, no known 7.62mm variants exist; only the FN SCAR has a 7.62mm variant – the SCAR-H – that is known publicly. This means the Bundeswehr will likely not be going back to .30 caliber infantry rifles any time soon.

A German gun magazine called DWJ reports that they had a chance to take a look at a new Glock 46 designed for German police trials. It is a 9x19mm Glock which looks to be a Gen5-based and compact size pistol. It gets even more interesting when you learn that the Glock 46 has a different locking mechanism. It still uses a short recoiling barrel, however, instead of the traditional Browning tilting barrel lockup seen in all Glock pistols, the Glock 46 uses a rotating barrel!

The timeline for the replacement of the troubled G36 rifle with a new yet-to-be-selected weapon has been announced by the Bundeswehr. The German System Sturmgewehr Bundeswehr (SSB)program was announced on February 3rd, 2016, with the solicitation itself being released on April 19th, 2017. According to Polish gun magazine MilMag, the testing and evaluation segment of the program was begun in July of this year, and is expected to be completed by November 2018. Between December of 2018 and April of 2019, the Bundeswehr will deliberate on the winner of the contract, which is expected to be awarded the following month in May. Final testing and troop trials will be conducted over the course of the next year, and fielding is expected to occur starting in September of 2020. Notably, it seems the new weapon is certainly not considered an “interim” item, as it is expected to serve through 2046.

Strike Industries has introduced a rather unusual handgun sight called CAT (Center Axis Targeting) Sight. It is an auxiliary aiming device designed to aid faster sight picture acquisition in dark or low light conditions. This sight is supposed to be a rough but quick aiming measure.

The idea of .366 TKM cartridge was accepted really well in the Russian shooting community. What makes it unique for them is that firearms chambered in this caliber have partially rifled barrels which qualify as a shotgun in Russia and don’t require 5 year wait period for the first-time gun owners to obtain a rifled firearm. That rifled portion (about 135mm or so) is considered a built-in rifled choke (a.k.a. Paradox choke). In other words, they can buy these sort of small caliber slug cartridges and guns right off the shelf and still have somewhat rifle grade accuracy and power at moderate ranges (100 to 300 meters). In the video below a camera travels down the .366 TKM barrel (starting from the muzzle). Note how riflings start to disappear at some point and the bore becomes completely smooth.

Strike Industries has announced on its  Facebook page that they are working to introduce SIG P320 frames. So far they have shown only one picture of their frame prototype. It looks to be a 3D printed one of a carry size SIG P320.

Aeroknox has released a new 1911 slide which they call AX // 01. Actually, they don’t ship it yet, but they’ve added the slide to their website with a “coming soon” status and pre-ordering possibility. Although being made for an over a century-old pistol design, this slide is not anything classic looking, but rather modern and futuristic. It really changes the way 1911 pistol looks making it more like a handgun from a science fiction movie.

Serbian Zastava Arms has introduced a new rifle during the “ Partner 2017” International Fair of Armaments and Defense Equipment held in Belgrade, Serbia. The rifle is called MAR which stands for Modular Automatic Rifle.