#Launcher

Welcome back to Wheelgun Wednesday, where we talk about wheel guns . . . on Wednesday. Last week Hrachya showed us some bizarre double-headed revolver. Well, today we take a look at a revolver, technically. Yes, it is not a handgun but a destructive device as deemed by the ATF. It is a Penn Arms GL65-40. I got a chance to check one out recently.

There is extremely little to nothing written about the Tatmadaw’s 40mm Low-Velocity standalone Grenade Launcher. Even when it comes to the name, we are actually unsure of it’s official nomenclature within the Burmese Army and Police Forces. For argument’s sake, we’ll be calling it the MA-Launcher, similar to the designation used by the Burmese Army to name small arms within it’s current arsenal, MA standing for Myanmar Army, replacing the former BA, or Burma Army designation for small arms in use before the 1990s when the name of the country was changed by the SPDC junta.

Corey joined us for a talk about rifle grenades and launchers in use by U.S. Infantrymen during the Second World War. Particularly we focused on the M1 Launcher for the M1903 Springfield rifle, however we also discussed some of the aspects of the M7 Launcher for the M1 Garand, and a very similar one for the M1 Carbine.

An Egyptian man in Cairo found something unusual and worrying in/near Cairo International Airport: A 9K32 Strela-2 “SA-7 Grail” missile launcher, designed to take down aircraft at ranges of over 3 kilometers. The man, Ibrahim Yousry claims he found the missile launcher – launcher only, sans missile – about a mile from the airport, at the side of the road among other trash. From the Telegraph:

Over Thanksgiving Break I went down to Arizona and got to see some of the new and interesting things that Jeremiah Cohn of Kalashnicohn LLC is coming out with these days (this is the maker of some interesting pistol caliber AKs we blogged about earlier). There will be a full interview with him up here soon, but for the time being I got some hands on with his latest product, a Mosin Nagant Golf Ball Launcher. At first I didn’t really get the allure to it, never having fired a golf ball launcher of any kind previously. But once we got out to the range, it was just pure fun and enjoyment, watching one or multiple balls sailing through the air. They tended to head in what ever trajectory they felt like going in, accuracy being measured in cardinal directions. But depending on what angle you tilted the muzzle, those balls were going a pretty far distance, certainly in excess of 400-500 meters. Jeremiah said he has seen them go much further than that, but the hill in front of us didn’t go beyond about 600 or so. I found that when aimed at something about 200 meters away, you can really see the ball zip this way and that, as opposed to just up in the air, where you lose track of the thing after about halfway through the flight. It can shoot up to three balls at a time, which is quite fun because you just watch this scatter blast of golf balls going everywhere downrange! In addition, this current version doesn’t have a locking mechanism on it, but the productions ones will have a simple latch down that secures it to the muzzle. The best part about it, is that it doesn’t alter the rifle in any way.

Larry Vickers’ TacTV YouTube channel has released a series of videos showcasing 40mm underbarrel grenade launchers, including uncommon footage of firing actual high explosive dual-purpose (HEDP) grenades. The videos are embedded below:

X-Products has been busy making the rounds with their soon to be in production Can Cannon. The cannon has now received ATF approval as a non-destructive device. It will use military-standard blanks through a short ported barrel to avoid damage to the cans.

As a direct results of the positive response from the prototype, X-Products has confirmed on their Facebook page that the Can Cannon will be headed to production. Posted on July 4th, X-Products stated that they are needing ATF approval and will have pre-orders online in “about a week.”

These kids in Poland are using trashcans and oil drums either as a cannon or launching the drums in the air.

X Products is partnering up with another company to produce a Soda Can launcher. It will be a dedicated upper and fires from blanks. It will shoot a soda can about 100-150 yards.

A reader emailed me this photo of a Bolivian solider carrying a strange firearms and asked what weapon he was carrying.

S&S Precision manufacture a holster for the 40mm M320 grenade launcher. Everything else aside, carrying a holstered 40mm grenade launcher has got to look really badass!

Sage have developed a very cool 37mm semi-auto magazine-fed grenade launcher (although 37mm rounds are only manufactured with less-lethal payloads). It is surprisingly compact. This is in part because it ejects upwards and has a rebated rim (the rim is much smaller than the cartridge diameter).

Michigan based Defcom LLC is a new firm that have designed two lightweight grenade launchers which make maximum use of polymers. They are in a sense the Glocks in a world of Beretta M9s.

The Army Times reports that the H&K developed M320 will being replacing the M203 in February next year.