{"id":10790,"date":"2015-09-21T14:00:02","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T14:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/21\/colts-unicorn-mg-the-cmg-3\/"},"modified":"2020-07-22T16:37:58","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T21:37:58","slug":"colts-unicorn-mg-the-cmg-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/21\/colts-unicorn-mg-the-cmg-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Colt&#8217;s Unicorn MG: The CMG-3"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"youtubomatic-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g3aayF-S2ps?controls=1\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Hammer price: Did Not Sell<\/p>\n<p>In the mid\/late 1960s, Colt was manufacturing AR-15 rifles and wanted to supply light machine guns to go with them &#8211; so they developed the CMG-2 (&#8220;Colt&#8217;s Machine Gun&#8221;). The CMG-2 competed against the Stoner 63 in trials for the Navy SEALs (among others), and narrowly lost out. It was a very well designed and thought-out weapon, but not *quite* as good as the Stoner.<\/p>\n<p>A few years later in the early\/mid 70s, Colt brought the design back in response to a request for a belt-fed 7.62mm machine gun for special operations units. Something with the firepower of the M60 was desired, but in a lighter package. Colt took their CMG-2, scaled it up to 7.62mm NATO caliber, and redesignated it the CMG-3. A total of 5 guns were made, and they went into military testing.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately for Colt, the design wasn&#8217;t quite as simple to scale up as they had hoped. The CMG-3 was determined to have a service lifespan of about 35,000 rounds &#8211; a third of what was required. Around that point, the receivers would fracture at the front trunnion. By the time Colt had worked out a new design to strengthen the guns without adding too much weight, the contract opportunity had passed, and the improved version was never made.<\/p>\n<p>Of the five guns originally made, I believe only two still exist. This one is serial number 1, and I was privileged to get permission of the consigner to test-fire it on camera. In my opinion, it is a fantastic gun. At only about 18 pounds it is remarkably light for a 7.62mm beltfed, and quite simple to shoot from the shoulder. As with the SMG-2, it&#8217;s internals are a parade of clever elements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons Hammer price: Did Not Sell In the mid\/late 1960s, Colt was manufacturing AR-15 rifles and wanted to supply light machine guns to go with them &#8211; so they developed the CMG-2 (&#8220;Colt&#8217;s Machine Gun&#8221;). The CMG-2 competed against the Stoner 63 in trials for the Navy SEALs (among others), and narrowly lost out. It&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2015\/09\/21\/colts-unicorn-mg-the-cmg-3\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Colt&#8217;s Unicorn MG: The CMG-3<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":10791,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[89,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-content","category-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10790"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15502,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10790\/revisions\/15502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}