The M16-ish burp gun from the woodland camo era
A Colt M231 Firing Port Weapon mounted in M2 Bradley door 1986. Stoked with tracers, the gun was sighted via periscope (Photo: Christopher Barzyz)
Sharing only limited commonality with the M16, Colt’s M231 Firing Port Weapon was a full-auto-only buzz saw made to squirt bad guys from an opening in the M2 Bradley fighting vehicle. Some 27,000 FPWs were ordered from Colt for the M2, each of which originally had six firing ports from which to use the chopped down 5.56mm officially designated as a submachine gun by the Army.
After covering a rare Class III transferrable example up for auction, I spoke with a vet from the 1st Cav Divison who wasn’t too impressed with the FPW’s performance.
“When it was my turn I found that you had to walk the rounds to the target. By the time you got to the target area you had to change magazines again. The extremely high rate of fire went through the magazines fast,” he said.