#RollerLocked

The first permanent photograph was a contact-exposed copy of an engraving made in 1822. Advances in digital photography combined with the Internet have made it possible for us to enjoy huge amounts of photographs. Some good, some more focused on “volume” rather than quality.

The roller-locked* Heckler & Koch G3 rifles and MP5 submachine guns have become iconic weapons of the Cold War era, being used in conflicts everywhere from civil wars in Africa, to hostage rescues and counter terror operations in Europe, to anti-cartel operations in South America. The operating system of these rifles is as unique as they are, and dates back to the death throes of the Nazi regime at the end of World War II. Desperate to save their failing state, the Nazis tasked engineers with developing new weapons, and the engineers were all to happy to oblige, lest they too be handed an old rifle and sent to the front!

This is a guest post by Zain from Pakistan

Despite using the arguably backward L85A2 ( which Ian did a great series on that Nathan S. covered), after World War II, the British were one of the foremost thinkers in terms of individual small arms. Almost immediately after the war, the British Army and start arsenals started development of various bullpup designs, which ultimately resulted in the adoption (briefly) of the EM-2 bullpup – an arguably fantastic weapon system especially if one likes the .280 British.*

Since we’ve covered the two most prominent PDW rounds of today, I want to take a quick detour and look at an interesting – but obscure – personal defense weapon/assault rifle round from history. After World War II, the apparati of the German war machine were being dismantled, and anything of value claimed by the Allies as spoils. While the Americans got Germany’s most prominent rocket scientists, the French claimed Germany’s tank designers, and many of her small arms engineers. As France was looking to replace their motley and outdated collection of small arms (a suite which developed more organically than by design, thanks to two devastating World Wars), they put these German engineers to work, including one Dr. Heinrich Vollmer, who before and during the war worked at Mauser. Vollmer had been involved in development of – among various other projects – the StG-45 assault rifle, which possessed a unique roller-retarded blowback action that promised an inexpensive and reliable, yet lightweight weapon. This rifle would eventually lead to the G3, but during Vollmer’s stay in France, the French government set him to work making a smaller version of it, in variants chambered for .30 Carbine as well as a new round: The 7.65x35mm MAS.

In the second of our 101-level discussions on firearms operating mechanisms, we mentioned that firearms may have what’s called a locking mechanism, which prevents the separation of the breech and barrel during the high pressure ignition of a round of ammunition. For 101-level posts, we’ll mostly note whether locking occurs or not and nothing more, but today’s 201 post will begin to talk about locking mechanisms in detail. First, we need to understand that there are two different things meant by the term locking. The first is the more proper understanding of a fully locked breech which must be opened by some external force, but the second is often referred to as “locked” as well, even in some professional literature. This second use is more properly called half- or semi-locked, and describes locking elements that are used in retarded-blowback mechanisms.

German gunmaker Korth was present at Industry Day, showing off variations on the Sky Marshal 9mm clipless revolver, and the PRS roller retarded blowback semiautomatic handgun. TFB got a chance to fire both guns, and found their triggers – as expected – to be excellent, with the PRS’s trigger being especially light.

It seems that if you want a reproduction late-war German experimental rifle design, you should get in touch with GunLab’s Chuck. Besides his VG-1-5 project which we’ve covered several times in the past, he also mentioned a year ago that he was doing a run of 60 Gerät 05 rifles. These were roller-locked gas-operated rifles patterned off the Gerät 03, which was itself a derivative of the G.43/K.43 (and they, in turn, were derivatives of the G.41(W) rifle). They fed from MP-43 magazines, while having a conventional stock layout.