{"id":5584,"date":"2019-02-22T12:36:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-22T12:36:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/candrdigital.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/22\/sig-ak-53-a-truly-weird-forward-operating-rifle\/"},"modified":"2020-07-22T14:50:39","modified_gmt":"2020-07-22T19:50:39","slug":"sig-ak-53-a-truly-weird-forward-operating-rifle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/22\/sig-ak-53-a-truly-weird-forward-operating-rifle\/","title":{"rendered":"SIG AK-53: A Truly Weird Forward-Operating Rifle"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"youtubomatic-video-container\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"580\" height=\"380\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-ykmqUFJWAw?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>Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! <a href=\"http:\/\/shop.bbtv.com\/collections\/forgotten-weapons\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">http:\/\/shop.bbtv.com\/collections\/forgotten-weapons<\/a><\/p>\n<p>One of the most mechanically unusual rifles I have had the chance to examine is the SIG AK-53. One of a long line of interested experimental self-loading designs made by SIG between the 1920s and 1950s, the AK53 is a gas operated rifle with a fixed breechblock and a barrel that cycles forward when fired. The gas system compresses a spring rearward first, which then releases and pushes the barrel forward in a system with a few elements in common with the British Farquhar-Hill rifles and machine guns. The magazine is also unique in design to allow rounds to move directly upward so as to have the barrel drop over them in a reverse sort of feeding (the magazine bears some vague similarity to the Madsen and Mendoza LMG magazines in this way&#8230;a bit). For reasons which will become very clear upon disassembly (if not already made clear by that description), only prototypes of the rifle were ever made, with no series production.<\/p>\n<p>Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film and disassemble this very rare rifle! The NFC collection there &#8211; perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe &#8211; is available by appointment to researchers:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/royalarmouries.org\/research\/national-firearms-centre\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/royalarmouries.org\/research\/national-firearms-centre\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>You can browse the various Armouries collections online here:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/royalarmouries.org\/collection\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/royalarmouries.org\/collection\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Contact:<br \/>\nForgotten Weapons<br \/>\nPO Box 87647<br \/>\nTucson, AZ 85754<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>http:\/\/www.patreon.com\/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http:\/\/shop.bbtv.com\/collections\/forgotten-weapons One of the most mechanically unusual rifles I have had the chance to examine is the SIG AK-53. One of a long line of interested experimental self-loading designs made by SIG between the 1920s and 1950s, the AK53 is a gas operated rifle with a fixed breechblock and a&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/22\/sig-ak-53-a-truly-weird-forward-operating-rifle\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">Read More &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">SIG AK-53: A Truly Weird Forward-Operating Rifle<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":5585,"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-5584","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\/5584","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=5584"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13833,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5584\/revisions\/13833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5585"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/surplused.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}