Well, the officer in charge isn’t, anyway

Greek soldiers practicing antiaircraft fire with a model 1926 Hotchkiss LMG – note the AA extension on the tripod. Thank to Di for the photo!

Production began in 1939, and very few had gotten into service when German forces overran the factory in 1940. Production continued after the war, but it wasn’t long before the French switched over to the 9mm Parabellum, and the MAT-49 replaced the MAS-38. The MAS did see some use in Indochina, and was used to equip police forces and other secondary units.

One element that is not necessarily apparent from photographs is just how compact the MAS-38 really is. The whole gun is just a hair over 24 inches long, and the barrel is a scant 8.7 inches. The receiver is narrow, and there are very few projections to snag on anything. (even the rear sight folds flush into the top of the receiver). The whole thing weighs in at about 6.5 pounds. That would make for controllability issues with many subguns, but the mild recoil from the rather weak 7.65×20 cartridge allows the gun to be pretty easy to handle. Of course, it lacks stopping power compared to just about any other subgun on the battlefield.

MAS38 cutaway drawing (click to enlarge)

Mechanically, the MAS-38 is a simple blowback action, firing full-auto only from an open bolt. The unorthodox element to its design is how the barrel and bolt travel are not parallel – the bolt travels downwards as it goes back, relative to the barrel. The breechface is cut at a matching angle to fit fully against the chamber mouth. This angle is partly to slow down the bolt (and thus the rate of fire) and partly an attempt to reduce felt recoil by using vertical travel of the bolt to compensate for it (this was also done on the Finnish Jatimatic and modern Kriss carbine to a more extreme degree).

The bolt handle is non-reciprocating, and stays in the rearward position once the gun is charged. It can be manually pushed forward and will latch in the fully forward position, acting as a dust cover over the ejection port. Another folding dust cover is pinned to the front of the magazine well for closing off that opening when no mag is in use. There is no selector switch since the action is full-auto only, and the manual safety is actually built into the trigger. When pushed forward, the trigger will snap into a more or less horizontal position, and in the process lock the bolt in place (whether it is forward or back). You can see how this mechanism works by looking at parts 22 and 23 in the diagram above.

Note closed magazine well and bolt handle which doubles as an ejection port cover.

The sights on the MAS-38 consist of a triangular front post and a pair of independent flip-up apertures for the rear sight. The apertures are set for 100m and 200m, and the sights are offset slightly to the left side of the gun. The magazines have a 32-round capacity, and are of the double-feed design.

MAS38 rear sight (200m aperture folded; 100m aperture in use)

MAS38 magazine

Despite begin a pretty simple mechanism, the MAS38 is not a really simple weapon to manufacture. Its bolt is round in profile despite the square receiver, and runs in a round channel bored in the receiver. This channel also houses the recoil spring, and runs back into the wooden stock (and for this reason a folding-stock model was not made). Other than small pieces like the ejection port cover, the MAS38 was made with all missed steel components. As World War II would soon prove, subguns could be made much faster and at less cost by using mostly stampings.

Disassembly, however, is very straightforward. Depress a spring-loaded catch under the front of the buttstock, and rotate it 90 degrees. The stock will then slide off the receiver, allowing the recoil spring and bolt out. The trigger frame can then slide out the back of the receiver (it runs in a pair of slots inside the receiver).

You can see the rest of our photos here (please note that this particular example has been deactivated, which required welding the barrel on and cutting the boltface at a 45 degree angle): MAS38 photos as high-res zip archive

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We haven’t had the chance to fire a MAS38 ourselves (yet), but we did find these short clips from American Rifleman TV:

We also have a manual for the MAS-38 (specifically, a parts identification list, in French):

MAS Mle 1938 Nomenclature (French, 1951)

The Maxim was hugely influential in machine gun development and warfare in general, and you won’t find a better reference work on it. Copies are available on Amazon, so head over and grab one!

Well, we found a couple archived photos of the 8mm Kurz prototype. We’d like to find more, but here are the two we have for the moment:

Note the removable sideplate, a feature of the earliest FAL designs (click to enlarge)

In this limited side view, we can see a bunch of design elements that would stay through to the final mass-production FAL rifles. The mag catch, bolt stop, and takedown lever are all basically unchanged. The detachable sideplate, of course, would be dropped. It is also worth noting that while the rifle was chambered for standard 8×33 ammunition, it used a proprietary FN mag and not the German StG magazine. The FAL receiver design isn’t wide enough to accommodate the German magazine.

8mm Kurz FAL prototype, top view. Not the forward charging handle and hybrid rear sight (click to enlarge)

The top view shows us some thing that would definitely not survive to mass production. Most notably, the charging handle was located up front on the gas tube, like later H&K rifles.  The stripper clip guide would disappear later into development, and the muzzle brake design would change substantially. The rear sight is also interesting, with an aperture much like the final FAL but mounted on a WWII-style leaf for range adjustment (click on the photo to blow it up much larger). The rear sight starts at 50m and goes out to 500m in 50m increments – a much more realistic scale than the 1000m+ scales in widespread use on rifles at the time. FN actually understood the assault rifle concept, it would appear.

BTW, if you look closely at the top view, you can see that the rifle is marked serial number “1″ just in front of the FN logo on the front of the receiver. Cool!

Interested in more of the FAL story? Here are some related posts you may not have seen:

Photos of the .280 British FAL
Photos of some other 1950s Light Rifle trials guns as well as the .280 FAL
Preliminary manual for the 8×33 and .280 FALs
Manual for the British X8E1 and X8E2 trials FALs
Modern FAL manual

Thanks to Keith, we have a copy of a really neat article from “The Model Engineer and Amateur Electrician” magazine. Printed in England in 1900, it is a set of drawings and instructions for building a .22 caliber model of a Hotchkiss-style quick-fire cannon (just like the designs covered in A Gun For All Nations). The model design is fully functional, of course, and includes a recoil and automatic ejection mechanism. As drawn, it uses a smoothbore barrel about 14″ long, so it would be an NFA item (just like the DefCad Liberator, interestingly). Of course one could lengthen the barrel a few inches without trouble to avoid that legal complication (or scale the whole thing up to, say, .38 Special size).

I think it would be a very educational project to take on, because it is written with the expectation that the builder will be making all the parts, not like most modern kit projects where you start with most of the work already done. The article includes directions on making the springs, screws, nuts, bolts, barrel, and patterns for casting some parts. And yet, this is all done with technology from 1900 – the tool list consists of a set of calipers, a small lathe (4′ bed), good set of files, and a solid vise (plus casting equipment, if you don’t want to outsource that work).

So…great end product, pretty low starting cost…all you need is patience and time. What are you waiting for?

And anyone does decide to take this on, please send me photos – I know I speak for everyone else reading when I say that we would love to see your construction process and finished product!

You can download the article with its drawings here, as a 3MB PDF file: Quick-Fire Model Article.

• Boris Karpa (who did a great job translating Dror testing reports for us a little while back) is running a Kickstarter to translate “The Soldier and Squad in Night Combat”, a WWII Soviet manual on night fighting without modern night-vision gear. It’s a neat subject, and we’d like to see a copy ourselves, so we chipped in a few bucks. A $10 contribution will get you an early copy of the finished product.
• A guy on The AK Forum (we don’t know him or have any ties to the sale, so caveat emptor) is selling a Chinese ZB-26 kit that has been converted to 7.62x39mm. It’s pretty beat up, and apparently missing some small parts, but the receiver looks like a pretty decent candidate for a reweld, the barrel is intact, and he’s only asking $500 for the kit.
• Another fellow, who has sent us a bunch of photos, has decided to sell his G41(M) and G41(W) rifles over at GunBoards. They’re not cheap, at $10k and $6k respectively, but they do look to be in pretty nice shape.

Beyond the neat-o factor, the 101 is actually a pretty nice shooter. The trigger is pretty good, operating the gun is smooth and easy, and it really would make a very effective starter pistol for a child.

• You know how we make fun of the Chinese over range safety? Well, how about getting a cigarette shot out of your mouth? (1:20 – and the guy nearly gets an ear piercing at 1:24)
• Full Sabrina as a competitive ready position (7:22)
• We may have improved training practices a lot since 1936, but pasting targets hasn’t changed a bit (8:56)
• IPSC deja vu – some things haven’t changed at all (10:34 – though the hop-skip-and-a-jump isn’t really a good idea)
• How many ranges would allow massed walking fire today? (15:13)

Of course, while I would like to think we have much better overall practices today, there are still some pretty cringe-worthy trainers out there today (take it away, Rick Taylor!).

Bipod? Check.
Vertical forward grip? Check.
Shoulder thing that goes up? Check.
Drum magazine? Check.
All it needs is a laser sight!

Finnish soldiers, photo found by Leszek at the Finnish Winter War Archive. The fellow on the left has a holstered Lahti L35 pistol, while the gent on the right has an early Suomi m/31 SMG.

Argentine SMGs

Called the “Falcon” family, these little-publicized subguns are still on duty with local polices forces

by Ronaldo Olive; photos by Ronaldo and Felipe Olive

Countless nations around the world have, of course, submachine guns in the inventories of their respective military and police forces. But not that many can boast possessing weapons of really indigenous design and manufacture. Among the lesser known of this group is the South American country of Argentina.

It is a sure bet that the mention of Argentina may prompt the average reader to think of fine beef or the charming tango dance, as opposed to guns in general, and even less submachine guns. Still, for the last half century or so the Argentines have not only been designing but actually producing subguns for their own use.

Author shooting a Halcon ML63

The whole thing kicked off in 1930, when Juan Lehnar put together the very first SMG to be devised in that part of the world. It was a selective-fire weapon employing 9mm Parabellum ammunition fed by a curved magazine on the left side of the receiver (the magazine well could be turned upwards to make the gun flatter, for transport). The metal stock could be swung forward, thus reducing the gun’s length from 700mm/27.5″ to 290mm/11.75″, and the wood foregrip could be moved to lie flat under the forward end of the receiver. A single prototype was built.

First Factory

A whole decade would elapse before things got started again. In 1941, Fábrica de Armas Halcón (Falcon Gun Factory) was established in Buenos Aires to develop a number of small arms projects, including that of submachine guns. They varied considerably in appearance, but have been generally referred to as the Halcónes (Falcons).

The first was the Modelo 1943 in .45 ACP caliber, for a long time employed by the “Gendarmeria Nacional” (National Police). Its appearance was definitely unmistakable, mainly due to the fluted, all-finned barrel with a massive compensator at the muzzle. Feeding was by straight box magazines of 17- or 30-round capacity that inserted into a housing that doubled as a foregrip. The fire selector was a button of the push-through type found directly above the trigger, working just like that of the British STEN (pushed in from the left side, fire was semiautomatic; full-auto was the other way around).

The next variation was the Modelo 1946, in the same caliber, which was known as the “Modelo Aeronautica” (Air Force Model) to refer to its intended use. Although the action was virtually unchanged compared to the earlier version, a number of modifications were to be found: a folding metal stock (allowing reduction of the overall length from 790mm/31″ to 520mm/20″), a shorter barrel (from 292mm/11″ to 152mm/5.75″) with a simplified compensator, the addition of a rear pistol grip, and the elimination of the forward grip proper (the magazine itself was used as such).

A switch to 9mm Parabellum caliber was one of the items that distinguished the Modelo 49, or “Modelo Ejercito Argentino” (Argentine Army Model), which returned to the earlier wooden stocked configuration. A curved 36-round magazine was introduced, and its housing/forward grip was enlarged at the bottom to facilitate insertion. Apart from other minor changes, the Halcón maintained other peculiar – but definitely unwanted – properties: it was still too complicated and expensive to make, as well as bulky.

Simplified Models

In the mid fifties, the company designers decided to depart from the previous generation concepts and embark on a program to develop a simplified gun, that is, functional and inexpensive to manufacture. The result was the “Modelo Liviano 57″ (Light Model 57), a far cry in appearance from the previous Halcónes.

Lighter it was, at an empty weight of 3.25kg (7.26lb) compared to the 4.75kg (10.5lb) of the Modelo 1943 and the 4kg (9lb) of the Modelo 1946. The weapon made extensive use of sheet metal stamping techniques, being slightly more than a long metal tube with a pistol grip assembly (where the firing mechanism was accommodated) and a housing for the curved 40-round magazine attached to it. At the opposite ends, there were a 225mm-long (8.85″) barrel and an extremely spartan metal stock, which could be swung upward and forward to lie flat  on the left side of the receiver (length reduction: from 780mm/31″ to 535mm/20″).

The previous model’s safety (a lever on the left side, above the trigger) gave way to a notch in the rear of the cocking piece slot, into which the handle hooked after the bolt had been retracted. Apparently, there was no way of locking the bolt in the forward position, a definite danger to a simple blowback action subgun. The fire selector lever was located on the left side of the pistol grip, whose corresponding panel was shaped so as to allow the lever to turn.

A further variant was the “Modelo Liviano 60″, which let go of the fire selector lever and used a dual trigger arrangement, in which the forward trigger gave semi-automatic fire and the rear one was for full-auto. In other respects, the two Light Models were twins.

Unconfirmed estimates are that a combined total of no more than about 10,000 of these Halcónes were manufactured. It should also be pointed out that several prototype guns were built over the years, and those had a mixture of experimental features.

Still Going Strong

But don’t think that the Argentine Falcons are no longer “flying high” in the country. There is one variety in current use with the police (as of the early 1990s, when this was written – Ian), in spite of having celebrated its silver jubilee. It was the final design to materialize from the Buenos Aires company, which, incidentally, was renamed Metalurgica Centro in the mid-sixties.

Designated ML63 (Modelo Liviano 63), it is a conventional blowback operated gun that atypically fires from the closed-bolt position only.It exists in both fixed wooden stock and sliding wire stock versions, and I was kindly allowed by the Argentine Federal Police to fire each informally during a familiarization session, under the supervision of local gun expert Pantaleón Kotelchuk.

With an empty weight of 3.7kg (8.25lb) this Halcón has an overall length of 690mm (27″), which comes down to 500mm (19.5″) when you retract the M3 ‘Grease Gun’-type stock. The magazine for the 9mm Parabellum ammunition is of the smooth-operating (and easy hand-loading) two-position feed type, and is inserted into a forward grip. The small catch is situated at the rear end, being pushed forward to release the magazine – and easy single-handed operation.

Although the cocking handle lies 90 degrees to the right side of the receiver, yours truly found no big deal actuating it with the left hand, without loosening the grip. The applied safety is a sliding lever on the left side, above the well-raked and comfortable pistol grip, which blocks the trigger action. A secondary (automatic) safety engages the hammer if, for example, the cocking piece is accidentally released before the stroke is completed.

The rear sight is of the flip type, with notches for the usual 50- and 100-meter ranges, while the blade foresight sits on top of the compensator (the same as the earlier ML 57/60). Although the ML63 employs a different trigger mechanism, the dual-trigger system is retained, with separate triggers for semiauto (front) and full automatic (rear) fire. Although being a straightforward mechanical solution, like everything else in life one must get used to it until the action becomes natural. By the end of my short shooting session I was still hesitating between triggers, but the local officers told me it has become second nature to them.

I found the Halcón a delight to shoot, especially the fact that it fires from a closed-bolt position in semiautomatic, thus eliminating that unavoidable jolt of the bolt displacing forward immediately prior to Bang! There’s no denying that the open-bolt system is a simpler firing system for an SMG. Also, it helps prevent “cook-off” incidents – in which a too-hot barrel causes the combustion of the cartridge’s powder – by keeping the action open and more ventilated between shots might be a fact of life…if the average user were carrying enough ammo to fire continuously, which is certainly not the case outside endurance testing facilities.

In any case, the steadiness of the ML63 in single shots is certainly an asset, mainly for the often ignored use of subguns in “surgical” (maximum precision) roles. I was shooting at an indoor range of about 25 meters, and consistently placing hits on the heads of standard-size silhouettes was a piece of cake.

I am one of those who favor slow-to-moderate rates of fire for submachine guns, and thus gave the Argentine weapon an “A” in this department. Bullets come out of that 170mm (6.7″) long barrel at 600 per minute, muzzle velocity being in the region of 350m/s (1070fps). That compensator adds somewhat to the stability…and noise, the two longitudinal slots on top making the shooter fully aware that hot gasses are being deflected upwards less than away.

The Halcónes are gradually being replaced by another submachine gun of local manufacture, the FMK-3 of the State-owned military factory “Domingo Matheus.” But I can bet they will still be around, in secondary duties, for several more years to come. Falcons are tough birds…

 Technical Specs

Manuals

Argentine Halcon SMG Training Manual (Spanish, 1960)