By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com June 8, 2010 And, speaking of enhanced-capacity 5.56x45mm NATO (5.56mm NATO)/.223 Rem. 4179 STANAG AR (AR-15) magazines, MagPul Industries has just filed a patent application (#: 20100126053) for a quad stack 4×2 AR mag. Here’s how The Firearm Blog describes the magazine’s operation: The design is quite straight forward. A central partition …

By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com June 8, 2010 Armatac Industries just sent us a link to their video on the new SAW-MAG (also written SAWMAG) 150-shot double-drum mag (magazine), which represents an evolutionary improvement over their CL-MAG. The SAWMAG is billed as the “ultimate feed device” and “the solution” for the Marines’ HK M27 IAR (Infantry Automatic …

By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com December 17, 2009 On December 4th, 2009, DefenseReview published an article on the HK IAR (Infantry Automatic Rifle) candidate–a modified HK416 5.56mm assault rifle/carbine/SBR–winning a U.S. Marine Corps IAR contract. In that piece, I tried to make the point that it’s a good idea to give warfighters a carbine/SBR with machine gun-level …

By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com December 4, 2009 Updated on 12/15/09 Marine Times (a.k.a. Marine Corps Times) is reporting on the U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) selecting the Heckler & Koch Infantry Automatic Rifle–or HK IAR, for short–to replace the FN M249 SAW/LMG (Squad Automatic Weapon/Light Machine Gun). The HK IAR is a 5.56x45mm NATO (5.56mm NATO) gas …

By David Crane defrev (at) gmail (dot) com Pictured Below: FERFRANS SOAR Gas Piston/Op-Rod SBR

By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com April 13, 2009 Updated on 4/26/09. My good friend and professional contact, prolific infantry small arms/machine gun designer Jim Sullivan (a.k.a. L James Sullivan), has complained to me quite a bit about U.S. military infantry warfighters not having an American version of the Russian RPG-7 / RPG-7V shoulder-launched, anti-tank rocket-propelled grenade weapon …

By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com October 24, 2008 DefenseReview recently mentioned Singapore Technologies Kinetics a.k.a. ST Kinetics in our article on the GDATP IAR/Ultimax 100 Mark V (Ultimax 100 MK5) LMG/SAW is offering an interesting and pretty slick-looking little lightweight, multi-calber submachine gun (SMG)/personal defense weapon (PDW) called the Compact Personal Weapon (CPW) for CQB/CQC applications and …

By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com All of the photos contained in this article were taken by Chen Lee a.k.a. "SMGLee" at the 2008 AUSA Annual Meeting and Exhibition, and he owns the copyright on these photos. Additional photos may be added to this article, later. October 21, 2008 Speaking of IARs, General Dynamics Armament and Technical Products …

By David Crane defrev at gmail dot com July 05, 2008 DefenseReview got the chance to test-fire two Israeli combat weapons during the firing demonstration portion of NDIA International Infantry & Joint Services Small Arms Systems Symposium 2008, which was held at the Tac-Pro Shooting Center. The two weapons we fired were the IMI-developed select-fire Negev Commando Version LMG/SAW 5.56mm …

by David Crane defrev at gmail.com December 17, 2007 This article was updated on 12/19/07 and 5/15/09. Ya’ know that Colt M4 Carbine vs. Heckler & Koch (HK) HK416 vs. FN MK16 SCAR-Light (SCAR-L) vs. HK XM8 LAR extreme dust conditions reliability test that the U.S. Army Test and Evaluation Center (ATEC) at Aberdeen Proving Ground (APG), Md. was conducting? …