When the last shot has been fired, the bolt will remain held open by a conventional hold-open device, but the bolt can also be kept in the open position by pulling back the cocking handle and rotating up out of its track into a recess in the receiver. As the bolt enters the barrel extension, the opposing lugs of the extension force back the splines, freeing the bolt to rotate into battery at the last instant. To prevent the bolt from prematurely rotating during the feeding cycle is a special spring-loaded collar with splines that ride forward between the locking lugs of the bolt. Rotating just 22.5 degrees to lock and unlock, the bolt of the AUG operates by a cam pin connecting it to the bolt carrier. On the tip of the original cocking handle was a button that allowed the handle to be used as a forward assist. Two long steel pins in the back of the stock provide compression against the recoil spring plugs to return the bolt group forward. The short-stroke (tappet) gas piston impinges on the front end of the right operating rod and the end of the left rod is in contact with the rifle’s non-reciprocating cocking handle (it is also used to clean the gas cylinder). The AUG’s recoil springs, however, are captive inside hollow operating rods. Using a receiver cast from lightweight aircraft alloy and a bolt group not unlike that of the AR-18, the AUG also uses a dual recoil spring system reminiscent of the AR-18.
With a 20-inch barrel, the AUG’s 31.1-inch overall length was complimented by a totally modular system that remains one of the most ergonomic rifles in the world. With development beginning in the early 1970s, the 5.56x45mm NATO Universal Infantrie Waffen (Universal Infantry Weapon, or UIW) soon came to be known as the Armee Universal Gewehr (Army Universal Rifle, or AUG). Bullpup rifles are nothing new, having been around since World War I when France fielded the earliest conceptual self-loading rifle of this ilk, the “Faucoun.” Great Britain designed the EM1 and EM2 bullpup rifles after World War II, and during the late 1960’s experimented with both AR-18 and Stoner 63 bullpup conversions prior to finally adopting what is today known as the L85A2 Improved.” Then there is the French FAMAS, the Israeli Tavor 21, the CIS 21 and many others… but nothing has ever compared with the bullpup rifle Austria’s Steyr-Daimler-Puch (now Steyr-Mannlicher) had up its sleeve.
0 kommentar(er)
