‘Father of the PDW’ Passes: Mack Gwinn Jr, Dies at 79
Florida-born Mack W. Gwinn, Jr., the son of a retired Army officer, joined the U.S. Army Special Forces in 1961 and served until 1972, a period that included seven deployments to Vietnam, earning several Purple Hearts and the Bronze Star in the process.
Then, on return stateside following the war, he developed the Bushmaster Arm Pistol. The concept, a pistol-sized gas piston firearm that used an intermediate round rather than a pistol caliber, could rightly be described as one of the first personal defense weapons and predated the initial crop of large format AR handguns such as the OA-93 by a generation.
Moving on from Bushmaster, Gwinn went on to take out several patents on magazines as well as design and develop concepts for numerous other firearms applications including the SSP-86 pistol (see the Magnum Research Lone Eagle), developed the QCB system that FN used for the modern M2HB/M3 .50 cal, and lots of other neat stuff.
Capt. Mack W. Gwinn, Jr. (U.S. Army, Ret.), 79, died on March 11, 2024, at the Maine Veterans’ Hospital in Togus.
