Tag Archives: M240

Le Glock Mle 2020

Posted on by Leave a comment

French trench raiders during the First World War, winter 1917 Bezange Forest, Lorraine, note the Ruby pistol.

The French military has flirted with modern semi-auto pistols for longer than most. During the Great War, thousands of Spanish-made Ruby and Star pistols augmented the country’s rather lackluster Modèle 1892 revolvers.

This cleared the way for the later FN 1922-inspired MAB Model D pistol and Charles Petter’s famous Mle. 1935, the latter design one that went on to morph into the Swiss SIG P210, arguably one of the best handguns of the 20th Century.

After WWII, the MAC Mle 1950, itself very P210-ish, was adopted and, coupled with the PAMAS G1, a domestically-made clone of the Beretta 92F, is still in service today.

The French MAC 50 PA modèle 1950 pistol

Now, 115 years after the Ruby was first ordered, the French defense ministry has placed an order for 75,000~ new Glocks.

The Glocks, reportedly a two-tone Gen 5 G17 MOS with a threaded barrel, suppressor-height night sight, and optics plate, will be delivered through 2022.

Besides the Austrian polymer pistols, the French are also going FN when it comes to a rifle to replace their venerable FR F2 (itself a souped-up MAS1936).

Sniper overwatch by a 3e RPIMa marksman with a French FR-F2, Rwanda, 1993. These rifles will be upgraded to SCAR H PRs in the coming years. 

More in my column at Guns.com.

That’s a lot of oily M4s

Posted on by Leave a comment

So I told you guys that I spent some time in the Palmetto State last month filming at FN with Guns.com. Want to see how the tour went? I think you will find the M240 and M4 production lines interesting. Do you know FN makes roughly 500 M4s every single day?

After they’re test fired, they’re disassembled, cleaned, then reassembled and given a 101-point inspection. Then, they’re literally dipped in preservation oil and packaged 50 rifles to a large wooden crate.

Some poor Joe or Devil is going to have to clean that off one day…

Anyways, check out the full video below.

MII Board clears HITRON shoot

Posted on by Leave a comment
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Petty Officer 2nd Class Anthony Phillips, a precision marksman at Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron, shows a group of VIPs the weaponry used at HITRON during missions Tuesday Feb. 23, 2010. The VIPs were at HITRON to view an advanced screening of an upcoming episode of Top Sniper featuring HITRON on the Military Channel Thursday at 9 p.m. EST. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Bobby Nash.)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Petty Officer 2nd Class Anthony Phillips, a precision marksman at Helicopter Interdiction Tactical Squadron, shows a group of VIPs the weaponry used at HITRON during missions Tuesday Feb. 23, 2010. The VIPs were at HITRON to view an advanced screening of an upcoming episode of Top Sniper featuring HITRON on the Military Channel Thursday at 9 p.m. EST. (U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 1st Class Bobby Nash.)

The U.S. Coast Guard last week announced the fatal shooting of an Ecuadorian man was in accordance with U.S. and international law and fully complied with the agency’s tactics and procedures.

Javier Darwin Licoa Nunez, 35, of Ecuador, was killed during a law enforcement operation 195 miles north of the Galapagos Islands Aug. 30, 2016. The USCG’s Major Incident Investigation Report made public this week found that Nunez, part of the crew of a suspected “go-fast” cocaine smuggling boat, died from fatal internal injuries caused by bullet fragments after a helicopter-borne Coast Guard marksman fired 10 rounds into the engines of the vessel while attempting to stop the craft.

More in my column at Guns.com.

You know Grafe looks like Hoth in winter

Posted on by Leave a comment

So there was a photo dump of the VALEX of the 2nd Dragoons in Germany’s Grafenwoehr Training Area last week by the very talented photojournalist Michał Zieliński and U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Jennifer Bunn among others which I compiled for Guns.com. Well surprise, surprise, the Dragoons’ social media picked it up, which I thought was cool.

Anyway, click on the photo to get your cold blast of fresh air from Grafe.

2nd-cav-rgt

Inside the Estonian national militia

Posted on by One comment

Tiny Estonia, who share a long and increasingly tense border with Russia, uses a force of volunteer unpaid citizens– equipped with their own military arms– to hold the line.

The Estonian Defense League, a militia independent from the government, is made up of over 15,000 members, making it several times larger than the 6,500-member official Estonian Defense Forces.

Stationed in every part of the country the League is ready at a moment’s notice to sally out and repel possible invasion from unnamed neighbors. It’s the largest military force in the region and members vow to put up more of a fight than they did when the Soviet Union took over the county in 1940 and remained for decades.

Earlier this summer Vice News spent some time in-depth with not only the minutemen of the League but also those on both sides of Estonian politics and the above video shows some interesting footage of their training and doctrine.

The firepower shown is impressive, showing some sweet shots of donated German HK G3s and MG3s, old-school Chevy K5s that likely came from the U.S., a sweet 1950s-era Bofors Pvpj 1110 90 mm recoilless rifle, a smoking hot M240/FN Mag, some IMI Galils, a sprinkling of 84mm Carl Gustavs and at least one BTR-80 armored personnel carrier.

It seems Estonia is very down with the concept of civilian use of military-style arms.

Sure, Estonia has no illusions about stopping an all-out Russian incursion, but they just have to slow it down enough to allow fellow NATO members to apply action or rush reinforcements to the region and they plan to do so by putting a rifle behind every blade of grass.

“If Russia knows that attacking Estonia is not a walk in the park, maybe Russia will think twice,” says a commander.

Speaking of which, check out a recent NATO exercise with the League as part of Operation Hurricane in the video below.

With so much firepower at the hands of your everyday civilian, its hard to sell the prospect of being a member of the League because you want to hunt ducks.

But then again, back here in the states we know that Washington didn’t cross the Delaware to get to a duck blind.

More in my column at Guns.com

Recent Entries »