Airborne Combat Engineer

Remington to acquire Marlin

North Carolina gunmaker Remington Arms is acquiring Marlin Firearms Co., which has been making weapons since 1870.

Madison-based Remington said the deal for Marlin is expected to close by the end of January. No financial terms have been released.

Marlin Firearms produces rifles, shotguns and muzzle loaders and other firearms at plants in North Haven, Connecticut, and Gardner, Massachusetts

Marlin was started by John M. Marlin, who had worked at the Colt plant in Hartford before opening his own business in New Haven with a line of revolvers and derringers.

Under the agreement, Robert Behn will remain as president of Marlin.

WRAL [hattip: The Firearm Blog]

DuPont bought Remington during the Depression. In 1993, Remington was sold by DuPont to an investment firm called Clayton, Dubilier, and Rice, or CD&R.

On April 6, 2007 it was announced that Remington Arms would be sold to a private equity firm, Cerberus Capital Management, for $118 million. The news comes due to the fact that Remington is millions of dollars in debt and did not report a profit during the years 2003-2005.

NYT|2007APR26

Update on the Magpul Masada

Steve at The Firearm Blog interviewed  Drake Clark of Magpul regarding their Masada rifle, introduced at the January SHOT Show.

A-C-E frst posted on the Masada on 14JAN2007.  A 21JAN2007 post linked to firing vdeos. An 03OCT2007 post linked to a Peterson's Rifle Shhoting article, which stated a commercial version will be offered to the MIL/LE market in 1Q/2008.

RND 2000 (.338 Lapua)

A 15DEC2003 A-C-E post featured the RND Edge in .338 Lapua Magnum, which is a beefed up semi-auto AR design.

Lloyd DeSantis, who builds some awesome firearms, has forwarded the latest specs and images of RND'S .388 Lapua, .408, and .50 caliber rifles. Here's the RND 2000 in .338 Lapua:

Compare to this earlier image which has been on the RND site for a couple of years:

Lloyd DeSantis RND Manufacturing 14399 Mead Street Longmont, CO  80504 970.535.4458

See the RND 2500 (.408 Cheytac) and RND 3000 (.50 BMG) in the next two posts.

RND 2500 (.408 CheyTac)

Lloyd DeSantis has forwarded the latest specs and images of RND'S .388 Lapua, .408 CheyTac, and .50 caliber rifles. Here's the RND 2500 in .408 CheyTac:

Lloyd DeSantis, RND Manufacturing, 14399 Mead Street, Longmont, CO  80504, 970.535.4458

See the RND 2000 (.338 Lapua) in the previous post, and the RND 3000 (.50 BMG) in the next post.

Wikipedia entry on the CheyTac .408

An 01MAR2007 A-C-E post reported hints RND was building a semi-auto .408 Cheytac for Cheytac Tactical.

RND 3000 (.50 BMG)

Lloyd DeSantis has forwarded the latest specs and images of RND'S .388 Lapua, .408 Cheytac, and .50 BMG rifles. Here's the RND 3000 (.50 BMG):

See an image of one with a brown coating in the continuation

Lloyd DeSantis, RND Manufacturing, 14399 Mead Street, Longmont, CO, 80504, 970.535.4458

The RND 2000 (.338 Lapua) and RND 2500 (.408 Cheytac) are shown in the previous two posts.

Machine guns as an investment

Most people, while they have the right, don't have the ability to buy a machine gun like Powell's. For instance, a Heckler &Koch MP5K machine pistol would fetch $15,000 on the civilian market, Powell said.

"It is doctors and lawyers — and other people with big money — who buy them," Powell said. "You don't have thugs owning machine guns — unless they're illegal ones — and an illegal machine gun is only worth 10 years in jail."

That is because it is the law — not the manufacturing costs — that drive the price. The federal government has outlawed the manufacture of machine guns for the civilian market in the United States since 1986. Only machine guns that were legally owned by civilians before that year can be sold privately.

Steve Hardin, vice president for political action for the Georgia Sports Shooting Association, said there are about 100,000 legally owned machine guns in private hands in the United States. "I know people who have bought them and never shot them and watched them increase in value by $1,000 every year," he said.

AJC

What would you pay for Hans Solo's Blaster?

A pair of California auction companies attracted the attention of collectors worldwide in June. Famous Hollywood movie guns were sold by Little John's Auction Service.

Hans Solo [a space age cowboy] was the make-believe hero in Star Wars. His futuristic ray gun weapon, called a DL-44 Heavy Blaster, was actually a real military gun, ironically one that may have seen combat against the Allies. It's a modified Second World War German Model 1896 Mauser semiautomatic pistol, serial number 64673, commonly called a "broomhandle." [adapted for space-age blasting by the addition of a fire extinguisher nozzle] Timing couldn't have been better to sell this item; the media was buzzing with Stars Wars talk because the original film celebrated its 30th anniversary in June. Carrying a modest estimate of $3000/6000, it sold for $201,600 (includes buyer's premium).

You can buy a reasonable facsimile from Sam's Club for $454.74, delivered, but the blasting mechanism has apparently been deactivated. You can buy a cheaper version for $29.95.

"You can that a gun?" Here's what he should have carried:

Read more about it at this earlier A-C-E post. Wonder who has it now, and what it could be auctioned for?

more in the continuation

Magpul Masada, revisited

Gun mags find it challenging to fill the pages between ads with new material. So, they frequently must recycle old news.

So it was with Peterson's Rifle Shooting, which featured the Magpul Masada, one of the stars of the SHOT show back in mid January [see this 14 JAN 2007 A-C-E post], in a 19 SEP 2007 article.

MagPul states, "[It] is rapidly reconfigurable for length, caliber, magazine compatibility, stock type and fire-control setup. Core features include a gas-piston operating system, tool-less quick-change barrel system, multi-adjustable folding stock and integrated storage."

A commercial version will be offered to the MIL/LE market in 1Q/2008. It could be a year after that before civies are able to buy one.

The Magpul website has one one page on the Masada, which doesn't have anything new.

A 16-page pdf document covers what is known about the Masada at this time.

Video of H&K UMP45 and MP5/10 firing full auto

The 2007.09.19 WTF featured the H&K UMP 45.  Tom, a commenter, found some YouTube videos, such as this one, which shows it can be held on target (reasonably well - no taret results shown) while firing full auto:

More:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQly_WNNglM http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHr7W5sFRtA&mode=related&search=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LbZueo3sN1g&mode=related&search=

See continuation for a video of the MP5/10mm & MP5/40S&W firing, found by Steve.

Official tool for sending radheads to their promised reward

As this is written, the KAC XM110 has dropped its experimental status and has been type classified as the M110 Sniper Rifle. As such it is slated to replace all 7.62mm NATO caliber sniper rifles in the system, both selfloading and bolt-action.

military.com  Defense Review, 27SEP2006

This is not really news.

A-C-E reported on the first XM-110 (SASS) rifles fielded in Afghanistan in a May 2007 Post, and reported on KAC winning the contract (in 2005) to replace the M24 in an Oct 2006 post.

optional ACE comments in the continuation