Forgotten Weapons' Stoner 63, 63A, & Mk23: History and Mechanics

[Wendell]

Published to YouTube on Dec 7, 2018 by Forgotten Weapons

[Bigghoss]

[TGS]

I'm a huge fan-boy of the Stoner 63 and its children. It still lives on today as the Robinson Armaments XCR, KAC Light Machinegun, and the Singaporean Ultimax 100 IAR.

When Ian did these episodes I nearly had a heart-attack and watched them multiple times over ASAP.

What's interesting is that the Danes were one of the few to adopt them, which is fitting for the Danes. They historically have adopted next-gen technology decades before other countries......adopting the Madsen LMG in 1902, 20+ years before the advent of similarly effective mag-fed LMGs like the ZB26, Chatelleraut, or the even later Bren. The Danes even adopted a semi-automatic rifle prior to most nations even developing their first bolt action....15 years prior to the vaunted Springfield 1903. They were already on their 2nd generation of semi-automatic rifle by the time Mauser created the Gewehr 98.

I feel like we missed out big-time by not adopting a simplified version of the LMG and Rifle/Carbine variants of the Stoner 63, and made another mistake when we opted for the HK416 to fill the M27 IAR billet instead of the Ultimax 100. I personally wish that we had the 13" barreled versions of the Ultimax 100 with Magpul D60 drums at my work.....they're way more applicable than the M249 Para, and actually 100% useable as a full-auto weapon unlike most any other firearm.

[Doc_Glock]

Barely have heard of it, mostly in Vietnam war stories. Impressive gun!

[DocGKR]

http://www.smallarmsreview.com/displ...darticles=2436

and

http://www.smallarmsreview.com/displ...darticles=2442

[John Hearne]

Do we have any theories on why the Stoner is so good? I don't think it uses a continuous recoil system so why is it so steady while being so light?