The “American 180 Security Briefcase” is the best execution of the operational briefcase concept that I have yet seen. The idea is simple; hide a submachine gun inside an ordinary looking briefcase so that it can be carried in the open by VIP security without arousing attention. Sometimes this is done strictly for stowage (see the Uzi coming out of a Secret Service briefcase during the attempted Reagan assassination) and sometimes it is designed to fire from within the case (see the H&K MP5 operational case). This one is meant for firing.
Unlike virtually all other such cases, this one includes a sight, a helium-neon laser. That allows the gun to be actually aimed – what an idea! The firing mechanism is also well thought out, with a manual safety switch that powers the laser and firing solenoid, then a constant-pressure witch for the laser and a pressure pad for the gun. I don’t know who made this, but it was a commercially available product…and a very cool one at that!
Every other one of these I’ve dismissed as lawsuits waiting to happen for collateral damage. I briefly handled one of the MP5 variants once upon a time, and I’m not even sure I’d want to fire one on a range, let alone during a “situation”.
This one, which I’ve somehow never heard of or seen, looks like it might actually be practical and reasonably effective/safe to use as intended.
I thought I’d plumbed the depths of 1980s gun weirdness, but I’m obviously mistaken in that this is something I’d never seen before today. I’m actually sort of in awe; this is perhaps one of the only AR180 use-cases that make sense to me.
I’m pretty sure that the red dot showing up on someone’s center of mass, followed by a hail of .22LR, would work wonders in changing attitudes.
Only misstep I can see is the wooden backer; given the critical need for consistency and immobility in the mounts between the laser and the weapon, I’d prefer something in the way of metal or some sort of plastic that’s not going to be affected by moisture or temperature.
The one thing I would have liked Ian to go over in more depth was the laser mounting and the zeroing procedure. The wooden backer struck me as being a little less than optimal for consistent point of aim…
High rate of fire, little recoil; probably settles itself, sort of towards the target’ish… More than 9mm.
[OFF-TOPIC so ignore if you wish]
According to https://www.afgsc.af.mil/News/Article-Display/Article/4284351/afgsc-completes-m18-handgun-inspection-returns-to-service/
AFGSC Completes M18 Handgun Inspection, Returns to Service…Air Force Global Strike Command has completed a comprehensive inspection of its 7,970 M18 Modular Handgun Systems, following a directed pause on July 21, 2025.…review of weapon discharges in AFGSC showed that none were attributed to weapons malfunction…AFGSC is implementing enhanced inspection procedures…By incorporating these added measures, we assess that any issues found with the safety lever, striker assembly and sear will be identified during semi-annual and annual inspections…Air Force Global Strike Command Security Forces Defenders are resuming arming with M18s that have successfully passed inspection – deeming them safe and reliable for use – on Aug. 25, 2025.
Well thats good to know; what, are said parts made out of die-cast like model soldiers, or what? Seems quite quick for catastrophic parts failure. Who did they give the contract to “Fat Tony” off the Simpsons; his meringue made public infrastructure.
Said it before, and I’ll say it again: That whole thing just reeked of junior enlisted shenanigans, and once they arrested someone involved in it, that made it almost certain that someone was engaged in “stupid” when the victim got shot.
I don’t care for the P320 design, at all, but… In any situation where a military member is claiming something “failed” with a weapon, you need to start looking very carefully at the whole incident. I remember a guy who had something like a 15-round “negligent discharge” involving an M60, and he tried claiming that it was the gun that “just went off”. In an awful lot of circumstances, I’d say that was a potential reality, but… Huge, huge “but…”, the “uncontrolled discharge” happened after the weapon had been cleared off the live-fire range, and had been inspected by the range safety officer. The only way possible for the weapon to have fired was if someone had placed the belt back into the feed tray, closed the feed tray cover, and had also brought the bolt to the rear.
I mean, the investigating officer was asked to believe either that the Range Safety Officer didn’t rod the weapon off the range, or that somehow three things that required conscious action by the gunner had somehow “just happened” such that a fifteen-round belt got blasted into the side of a wadi. Did I mention that this also took place after the live-ammo shakedown…?
I’ve never seen anyone more delusional about their fake little fairy tale than that young man. They had me check his weapon out for mechanical issues, and other than the usual wear on it, I couldn’t find a damn thing to explain it having fired, other than someone loading it and pulling the trigger. Sear and sear notch weren’t even slightly worn…
Any time you hear of someone being injured or killed by a military weapon in “weird conditions”, start looking at it being a “people” problem right away. You’ll almost always find something; another case in point was one of my guys who got himself pretty badly messed up by a badly-headspaced M2HB; swore up and down that he’d properly headspaced and timed it, but it later transpired (after nobody on that gun truck could produce the requisite gauges they were supposed to have with them…) that he’d been doing it with some BS “stacked coin” procedure after they’d lost and/or left their gauge back in the states before deployment, and hadn’t told anyone. Dumbass nearly died; the fragments from the case that blew out came within millimeters of severing his femoral artery, being as he was standing in the uparmored HMMWV turret when it happened. If I remember right, that investigation took a couple of months to finalize, and it would have never come out except that the investigating officer wanted to eliminate the gauges as the problem, and when they couldn’t be produced…?
Junior enlisted are a lot like very small, very dangerous toddlers when it comes to a lot of things. The fact that we were trusting them with weapons and explosives used to keep me awake at night, and constantly checking on them like a mother hen with a flock of suicide-prone chicks that want to keep playing with the fox and hawk…
Anyone wondering why so many senior NCOs go prematurely gray and look like they’re about twenty years older than they are? You just need to spend some time reviewing “accident investigations”, which I put inside scare quotes because all too many of them are anything other than the predictable outcomes of idiotic and outright suicidal misadventure that someone, somewhere, spent long hours trying to prevent through training and supervision, only to have some village’s lost idiot circumvent each and every reasonable control measure put in place by the leadership…
Probably gay ethnic trans folk who happened to be Colonels; modern world, probably playing a gay version of the Simms. Be that as oppose “meringue” parts, burp.
And disabled, spac hands, merrr… Too much. Tut. Anyway…
Anyway! Quality luggage.
Quite like that 180 design in a drone, horizontal rather that vertical like… Flying etc. Anyway I won’t go on.
Thats a great case, I’d buy it, he he…
Douglas mc arthur would have it fitted with legs and it would chase after you for being negligent with your weapons; had he had access to modern tech… Yes, quite. Indeed… Was reading about him, earlier; wiki spiral, unsure were it started – Spain in the French revolution. Burp, well excuse me.
https://youtu.be/pSANTRnEBgg?si=tS3w1FjrDmATgMC4
The drawback to this sort of thing in an executive protection function is that if the potential attackers have been properly briefed and have an ounce of sense, their “team” is going to include at least one or two shooters who will be detailed to target anybody with a briefcase first at the instant the AoP goes off.
“Lone nuts” may be the most common form of would-be “king killers” statistically, but the post-modern types tend to run in packs like their spiritual forebears, the “illegalists” did in Europe before WW1.
Being ready for the likes of Guiteau or Czolgosz doesn’t do much good when the Bonnot Gang comes to play.
clear ether
eon
I’d blow up Parliament you know, I don’t like them. But being traditional, I’d insist on tunneling under it and rolling down a whole load of whisky sized kegs of gunpowder while dressed in period costume using candles. So I don’t bother, as I wouldn’t cheat; essentially convention dictates you can do that via precedent – Guy Fawkes.
Why? Because they smell. Moat cleaning or Rayner, the issue is there… Doesn’t matter who it is/party; soon as they get in that cess pool, it’s all about them. So there is something wrong with it.
Because its supposed to be about us. Fact; Oliver Cromwell.
Interesting gun that maybe for drone conversion “In general” ok small calibre, but if we could lose the back end; wee gas trellis lark… Lighter. Prefer maybe .380 though at half that capcity – Single Soldiers do three probably at 30 high rate of fire in the nuts “Meaning kill, you don’t want one moaning – With fair reason, after 180.” Body armour see, reckon 30 full pelt “low” would do most folk in – Blood loss.
Dangerous that, wee fecker loosed from a wee blimp; fibre optic cable. Woods. Suppressed. Game… Cause you to think, eh.
Which I don’t consider “Progress” mind; how do we take prisoners? We don’t. Well it’s gone wrong right there, with most countries; I mean if we don’t take Russian prisoners as we can’t – Could’nt ask, drones. Well… Wonder how that would go down, convention; European armies – Badly, probably.
Hmmm… Yet here we are. Already.
Ok… Suppose they have probably worked out something; such and such dead/injured in so and so = Such a sector, with folk… Hmm, maybe not eh; total war, new thing really; daft, 18th c wouldn’t have.
“(…)lark(…)”
Please decide if you want to use sub-machine gun XOR SAM-N-2 https://www.designation-systems.net/dusrm/app1/sam-n-2.html for said decide.
The only thing I have against the American 180 is that there is not a version in .22 WMR. I am thinking that would even be better as an anti-drone weapon.
Probably right, as anti drone weapon; flimsy little shits are they not. Bit annoyed with myself really, I never caught on, to that, quick, enough; and now it looks obvious – Wee air supremacy. Another anti drone weapon is giant fuel air bombs above your head, duck. Shitty little electric baaarstewards. Blow up the airspace! In stahlgewittern, God I hate the very notion of the little battery powered shits.
KAAABOOOOOM!!! No air anywhere, it is an oxidizing agent only. Anyway, tut… I was slow to catch on; what annoys me is I knew about model aeroplanes/choppers, but didn’t register batteries. At all. Anyway, modern world fancy drones, dildos, shitty Tesla cars; shit happens, better batteries. Meh.
Drills, toothbrushes, progress; batteries.
And Terminators… Can only think, they need better “Batteries/stuff” Surely I, would have grasped that otherwise. 20 pound T2 arcade machine you lose, Blackpool 1995.
“(…)Blackpool 1995.”
Now I am extremely confused, is not Blackpool Tower 1894 rather than 1995?
“(…)modern world fancy(…)shitty Tesla cars(…)”
For your information wide usage of electric vehicles is not something unique to modern, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_electric_vehicle#1890s%E2%80%931910s:_Golden_age
It’s all gone downhill, a tram is an electric vehicle. Whats wrong with a tram.
“(…)giant fuel air bombs above your head, duck.(…)”
Observe that such kind of weapon does consume oxygenium, as such you have good chance of getting dead due to lack of said element, even if your previous action was to duck.
Livens Projectors fact, remove the capacity for the enemy to operate in air. They have oxygen machines in hospitals, adopt for military use. Fact – The enemy could send an individual accurate bomb “Via” a drone. Drones fly don’t they, well try flying in that KAAABOOOM!
Shell burst, sends out a drone/s to target folks individual hot weapons… Too many, to zap. Thus deny them the chance, vapourise the air; again try flying with what amounts to a wanky wee motor in that amount of “turbulence” can’t thus swarm defeated. Radio jamming, lasers etc, are ok for a drone… A few.
It actually came in a special “short” version of .22 WMR, the .22 ILARCO Short Magnum Rimfire. It was Just What It Said On The Label; a .22 WMR shorted to .22 Long Rifle case length.
Its 40-grain bullet left the 180’s muzzle at 1,350 F/S for 160 FPE. which meant it was actually less powerful than some of the hyper-velocity .22 Long rifle rounds, such as the CCI Stinger, Remington Yellowjacket, and etc.
It could be argued that the hyper-velocity .22 LRs wirh RNLHP bullets rendered the .22 ILARCO largely irrelevant.
cheers
eon
“(…).22 WMR shorted to .22 Long Rifle case length.(…)”
Does it interchanges with its’ own grandparent, that is .22 WRF https://www.chuckhawks.com/22WRF.htm ?
.22 ILARCO dimensions;
Case length 0.669 in
Rim diameter 0.294 in
Base diameter 0.242 in
Neck diameter 0.240 in
This makes it shorter than the .22 WRF, case length 0.960 in, only slightly shorter than .22 WMRF at 1.052 in.
However, it is very close to the dimensions of the older .22 Remington Auto;
Case length 0.663 in
Rim diameter 0.290 in
Base diameter 0.245 in
Neck diameter 0.245 in
So, no, it won’t interchange with .22 WRF. And I wouldn’t recommend trying to use it in an old Remington Model 16, the only rifle ever chambered for the .22 Remington Automatic round. Made from 1914 to 1928, the Model 16’s “proprietary” cartridge was intended to prevent the use of black powder .22 ammunition in the self-loading rifle.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/02/11/tincanbandit-forgotten-remington-model-16/
In fact, no other .22 rimfire round can be used in a Model 16, period. Both the rifle and its ammunition are collector’s items today.
cheers
eon
eon — you are always informative. Which brings up the question of just how souped up of a .22 LR cartridge could the 180 take? Also can we bring the idea of explosive rounds into the discussion?
The Russian/Ukranian war has really let the genie out of the bottle, as far as the use of drones in warfare goes. They are no longer used just for reconnaissance. How is a small unit of infantry to defend itself?
I’m expecting that eventually everybody will wise up and start building suitcase-sized EMP (Electro-Magnetic Pulse) generators, carried on either a light vehicle or one of those “mechanical mules”.
Given proper shielding on your own electronics, such a generator could fry the innards of drones over a fairly wide radius, at least keeping them from dropping HE on your head.
I’d like to see similar EMP generators that fired a discrete, directional pulse on every police cruiser in the country. Auto theft, speeding, reckless op, DUI, and “street takeovers” are out of control, period.
(Trust me on this- dealing with this kind of s#!t is how I used to make a living.)
Frying some speeder’s, car thief’s, or doughnut-doing jerkoff’s ignition system and making him coast to a stop beats trying to use stop sticks or a PIT maneuver at over 100 MPH.
Also, on most modern cars with electrically-operated everything including windows and door locks, that would also keep the little (expletive deleted) from bailing and taking off on foot, as is the usual MO.
Not only safer but very deflating to the little (bleep)’s outsized ego.
clear ether
eon
“(…) such a generator could fry the innards of drones over a fairly wide radius, at least keeping them from dropping HE on your head.(…)”
Recently https://www.overtdefense.com/2025/09/05/epirus-leonidas-system-disables-49-drone-swarm-in-successful-test/ was presented but it is supposedly microwave and trailer size (see photos)
The type of EMP generators or jamming equipment you are talking about are, in their current state, good for point defense. They will get smaller, more powerful, and more mobile. But this still does not help the grunts slogging through the muck, way out in the middle of nowhere.
I am thinking that human-portable projectile defenses will have issues of detection, aiming, and tracking the target while it moved. I am thinking a person-carried unit would need to have tracer bullets as part of the load out along with camera type of sighting systems, with image processing smarts to help locate a target drone. And even then, the range of effective use will be limited.
Electronic defenses seems the way to go, as a single instrument will have broad sweep of coverage. But there has to be something that works for detached foot units.
Do you think they made the shortened case not for a ballistic advantage, but to use the jacketed bullet of the 22WMR and eliminate the heel bullet, which seems to result in the case and bullet connection being a bit fragile?
An astute observation. In a previous discussion of how the new .21 Sharp, in pursuit of similar goals, idi0tically introduced a completely new bullet diameter with no previously existing barrels or bullets, I suggested something along those lines without knowing it already existed.
“(…)not(…).22 WMR(…)”
If you wish to have full-auto using said cartridge and high capacity then use STOEHR https://www.reddit.com/r/ForgottenWeapons/comments/a9pb7r/stoehr_machine_pistol_in_22_magnum/
Ian once said shooting the American 180 a angry swarm of bees. So this would make the briefcase a beehive.
20 quid barsteward T2’s.