G3s and HK-91s and FALs

[Tim May]

At 10:58 PM -0500 1/10/01, Harmon Seaver wrote:
>    Oh, god, that goes waaay back. That's right, the HK G3 is a clone 
>of the CETME.
>Although I think, IIRC, that the CETME used the bolt from the German 
>(WWII era)
>MG-38/42 series of light machine guns, so it's not that the Spanish really
>invented it. And, as a matter of fact, most of the CETME people were postwar
>Deutsch refugees protected by Franco anyway.
>     Nice weapons, all of them. Did you ever see the CETME 
>light-weight version of
>the MG-3 in .223? What a sweetie! Dual drums.
>    Gotta' hand it to the krauts -- best damn weapons in the world. I 
>could care
>less what Smith & Colt do, as long as HK, SIG, and Walther keep on 
>doin' what they
>do!

I have no idea what the hell Choate is foaming about now.

The HK (or H-K, or Heckler and Koch, since quibblers are amongst us) 
G3 was their entry into the NATO standardization effort in the early 
50s. NATO was planning to standardize on the 7.62 mm NATO round for 
its main battle rifle. (The length was 54 mm, hence "7.62 x 54 NATO." 
Henceforth, I'll skip reporting the length. You can look it up if 
interested.)

Heckler and Koch submitted a model. As you say, based on the Spanish 
CETME rifle, itself based on one of the late-war Sturmgewehr efforts 
(G-43 or somesuch though don't bother quoting or correcting me...it's 
in the books).

It was introduced in 7.62 mm NATO, very, very close to .308 
Winchester. (Some say there are headspace differences, though I have 
used 7.62 mm NATO in my Remington 700 VSSF, ostensibly chambered for 
.308 Winchester, and I have used .308 Winchester in my Federal Arms 
FA-91/G3, ostensibly chambered for 7.62 mm NATO.

(By the way, the Brits had already done much work on a battle rifle 
to be used with a round somewhat smaller than the 7.62 mm. But the 
U.S. decided the 7.62 mm was to be the round, and what the U.S. 
wanted in those years was what happened. As it turns out, the U.S. 
decided only a decade or so later that the 7.62 mm was just too much 
of a round for most soldiers, and for intended uses, and so adopted 
the 5.56 mm in the form of the M-16. Some think it was too light. In 
hindsight, it's really too bad the British efforts were blocked by 
U.S. obstinacy. The 7 mm (roughly equivalent to the .270 Winchester 
in use today) would have made a good compromise.)

The G3 is, of course, the usual fully-automatic-capable rifle. In the 
United States, and perhaps in other countries, the 
semi-automatic-only version of the G3 was called the HK-91.

(I almost bought one in 1975, and now wish that I had. I could have 
bought one in California as late as 1987 or so, and I also wish I 
had. What once sold for $300 then sold for $600 and now is 
unobtainable in California, legally.)

In addition, HK developed a variant of the G3 chambered for the 5.56 
mm NATO (again, closely similar to the .223 Remington). They called 
this the HK-93 in the U.S.

And HK took the same roller-delayed action of the G3/HK-91/HK-93 and 
used it for a 9mm version which comes in various forms, such as the 
MP-5. In the U.S. the semi-automatic version of the MP-5 basic model 
came in two flavors: the HK-94 carbine and the SP-89 pistol, 
sometimes referred to as an "assault pistol." (A travesty of a name, 
but there you go.)

California made sales of the rifles and carbines impossible to 
civilian end-user buyers after the Stockton shootings of the late 
80s. The SP-89 was purchasable up until the mid-90s. I acquired one 
in 1991.

The Federal import bans of around 1994 made the prices of all of 
these skyrocket, to where a mint condition HK-91 is around $3500 and 
a mint condition SP-89 is around $2500-3000. Sales in California (and 
maybe New Jersey, Hawaii, and other such places) are not permitted to 
civilian end-users.

However, the way the California laws and Federal import ban laws were 
written allowed certain rifles and handguns to be built with many 
foreign-made parts (up to 7 such parts) with the remainer U.S.-made 
parts. And thus the "clone" was born.

(By the way, the post-Stockton ban in California only dealt with 
certain _named_ models. And thus a renamed Colt rifle could be sold 
as the "H-BAR" instead of the "AR-15." Likewise, Bushmasters and 
OlyArms and Armalites.)

Anyway, one of the clones of the HK-91 is the Federal Arms FA-91. 
Another is the Hesse G3. Both use receivers (the main part that holds 
the bolt carrier and the trigger group) made in the U.S., but barrels 
and other such parts from disassembled surplus G3s from numerous 
foreign countries. The Federal Arms variant uses an aluminum 
receiver, a la the AR-15/M-16 rifle, and the Hesse uses a sheet metal 
receiver, a la the actual G3.

I have one of the Federal Arms clones. Shoots very well, takes 
standard G3/HK-91 magazines (of which I have 20).

The same applies to the FAL, the astounding rifle built originally by 
Fabrique Nationale in Belgium and adopted by even more countries than 
the G3 was adopted by. (My recollection from my copy of "The FAL 
Book" is that the design of the FAL was originally designated the 
"G1." Something else was designated the "G2." And the HK design based 
on the CETME was designated the "G3." This was for the NATO trials. 
After the G1 won the trials and was selected as NATO's main battle 
rifle, Fabrique Nationale resumed calling it the FAL and HK just 
called their rifle the G3. While the FAL was preferred, the G3 was 
also considered acceptable. And the U.S. threw a spanner into the 
works by deciding to ignore the trial results and to adopt its own 
Springfield model as the M-14. And less than 10 years later, further 
confusing matters by switching to the 5.56 mm M-16.

FALs are being cloned as well, thus bypassing California's rules 
banning "the FAL." I have three of these, all based on Brazilian (or 
Argentinian, I forget which) receivers from IMBEL and enough U.S. 
made bits and pieces to make them legal.

Fucking burrowcrats were tearing their hair out over all of these 
clones evading their bullshit laws.

Oh, and I acquired 40 (yes, 40) magazines for my FAL clones. You see, 
we all knew that California had passed a ban on high-capacity mags, 
effective January 1, 2000. Gun dealers across the country were only 
too happy to help those who planned ahead. And since the FAL had been 
a main battle rifle in conflicts all around the world, from Zimbabwe 
to Viet Nam to Borneo, magazines were inexpensive. I paid $8 each for 
most of my magazines, mostly in "unused" condition.

Which brings us to the present. All such rifles are now impossible 
for Californians to buy legally. We even have to register them. I 
dutifully registered mine. It's bullshit, and perhaps someday those 
who violated the Second Amendment with these laws will be tried and 
convicted, but that's the way it goes.

As to what Choate was debating, only he and the other residents of 
Choate Prime (aka the Austin Halfway House for the Deeply Disturbed) 
know what is going on in his head.

The HK-91 has been an accepted name for the semi-automatic version of 
the G3 for nearly 30 years, perhaps longer. The G3 is often used as 
shorthand for the class of rifles, even if they're the semi-auto 
variants. The HK93 is the accepted name for the 5.56mm/.223 variant. 
Sometimes some people call both the "G3," due to the basic family 
type of both weapons.

--Tim May
-- 
Timothy C. May         tcmay at got.net        Corralitos, California
Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon
Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go
Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns