“Bloop!: A Marine grenadier fires an M-79 round into a sniper’s position in Hue as 1st Marine Division Leathernecks advance toward the Citadel.” 22 February 1968
Official USMC photo by Lance Corporal R. J. Smith. From the Jonathan Abel Collection (COLL/3611), Marine Corps Archives & Special Collections.
Produced in a joint collaboration between the U.S. Army Research, Development and Engineering Command, the U.S. Army Manufacturing Technology Program and America Makes, the group used additive manufacturing techniques to craft a direct copy of the M203A1 40mm grenade launcher commonly mounted under the M16/M4 series rifles.
Every part of the weapon, save for the springs and some fasteners, was sintered in aluminum or printed in 4340 alloy steel in 35 hours of production.
Of the more than 50 parts of the M203A1, ARDEC was able to 3D print about 90 percent from scratch
The project name? RAMBO (Rapid Additively Manufactured Ballistics Ordnance)
Andi it has even fired 3D printed grenades to prove it works.
There’s a cathartic feeling associated with the sudden desire for a bigger gun; like for instance, if you found yourself alone in a back alley in Badguyville with only a pocket pistol and your mitts. Its in these quiet moments that you may find yourself praying for something a little over
the top like a lightweight 40 mm six-shot grenade launcher that is both easily portable and capable of laying waste to entire city blocks.
Well, such a weapon exists and its called the Mikor MGL.
The South African government in the 1980s was a pariah state, with no true allies due to its apartheid politics. These things aside, the country was also fighting a very real shooting war on its northern borders against Soviet-backed guerrillas. Unable to get weapons from the West, and openly fighting the Eastern Bloc, the country had no other options than to develop its own gear to keep the “springboks” in the field supplied.
One of the things needed desperately by the soldiers in the bush was superior firepower. In almost every engagement the SADF fought during this war, very well equipped Cuban-trained guerrilla fighters outnumbered them. It was a war of ambush and counter-ambush. Raids
and sneak attacks. The US had faced similar problems in Vietnam a decade earlier, which led to the adoption of the M79 and M203 “bloop gun” grenade launchers. With the US refusing aid, the South Africans came up with their own blooper reel…
Read the rest in my column at Guns.com