Shameless Copycat Guns in History

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Weapons manufacturing is the backbone of each country’s defense system. Having a domestic defense industry provides a country with the capability of defending its territory and interests independently. Production of weapons, even if they are small arms, is an expensive and complex business however. It takes a lot of time, expert knowledge, and money to design the weapon, test it, and finally put it into production. That is why many countries resort to the license-production of firearms. It is far cheaper and more efficient to produce a weapon that another country has developed. it can however come at the price of political and diplomatic strain. It is not uncommon to find that some countries resort to unlicensed weapon production. Weapon blueprints can be obtained through various methods, usually by industrial espionage, and used to make copycat weapons. Some of these weapons have only a couple of so-called “borrowed” features, while others are complete clones of the originals.

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Credit:
Created by Daniel Turner (B.A. (Hons) in History, University College London)
Script: Dejan Milivojevic
Narrator:

Chris Kane

Sources:

[Simplehistory]

What do you do if you have no original ideas of your own? Steal and rip off someone else's research, ideas and design and make a shameless copy! 🤮🔫

[jaykobnash]

That reminds me of the time in Vietnam. when the Navy seals desperately needed a sub-machine gun in 9mm, and was using the Swedish K at the time. Seeing how Sweden was a neutral country, it posed a problem having Swedish guns in a war zone to which they cut off the supply of new sub-machine guns. So the government commissioned Smith and Wesson to make the model 76 which was a direct copy of the Swedish K. Super interesting story in my opinion. I don’t understand why when the government shamelessly copies something it’s okay, but when I pirate a copy of shrek 3 to DVD the FBI kicks down my door.

[lockedon]

Unlike Russia's model, the galil actually had built in wire cutters and a bottle opener.
The M60 was also technically a clone.

[igotnothingbettertodo]

Just a note for the Israeli Galil, Yisrael Galili was not Palestinian but rather Russian with the original name of Mikail Balashnikov yes Balashnikov and he has no connection to Mikail Kalashnikov the famous AK47 designer.
He changed his name to Yisrael Galili to sound more Israeli like because they were going to name a gun after him and so Galili was chosen.
Edit: lot of people seem to think Balashnikov was born in Mandatory palestine but no he was not, the wiki page you read is of Yisrael Berchenko a Hagganah commander who also changed his name to Galili.
So in summery there are 2 Yisrael Galili's one with the original name of Mikail Balashnikov, a Soviet who moved to Israel and designed the Galil rifle, and Yisrael Berchenko who was born in Israel and was a Haggana (underground millitia before the IDF) commander.

[smtoonentertainment]

I wouldn't call the Galil a shameless copycat, it's one of the best AK derivatives ever made

[tetov]

Mexico's fx 05 was thought to be a copy of the g36 and hk sued them. However, they dropped the lawsuit when they were allowed to see the interal mechanisms and concluded that although it takes visual inspiration the fx05 is not a copy

[okaro]

Yisrael Galili actually was not originally called that. He actually had to change his name because of the rifle. His original name was completely unsuitable for someone developing a Kalashnikov copy. Believe or not, it was Balashnikov.

RK62 use also a milled receiver. Only exception were the RK62-76 models made by Valmet for about five years from the the late 70s. Sako never used stamped receivers. The army required similar tolerances for the stamped so it did not become much cheaper and was abandoned. Mine was from 1973 and had a milled receiver.

Sten was a simplified version of Lanchester SMG which was a copy of German MP-28 Schmeisser. Schmeisser was one of few German SMGs with semi-automatic option and Sten kept that. MP40 was only fully automatic.

[theprofessional]

Norinco also produced the Type 56 a very similar copy of the Tula Soviet SKS. However this rifle was designed with cooperation from the Soviet Union . However the Soviet Union regretted it after the Sino Soviet Split. This is when the two communist countries turned on each other . They also later designed the Type 63 which is also in COD Cold War. It has a detachable 20 round magazine where the original SKS uses stripper clips . The Type 63 could also be produced for full automatic fire where the original SKS was semi automatic .The Type 63 had higher accuracy then the Type 56 a Chinese Copy of the AK47. The Chinese army used their own copies of the SKSs and AK47s against the Soviets the same country they copied from in the Sino Soviet border war.

[VertietRyper]

It's worth mentioning that the Sten is quite literally a gutted MP-28 because it worked and they had the ability to make a lot of it. The MP-28 was a German interwar-era improvement upon the MP-18 from World War 1. So yes, the sidemounted magazine well of the Sten is from the gun's... lineage.

[Dont_care__U]

You forgot the most important feature that the Israeli galil had.

A built in bottle opener!

It was added because Israeli soldiers kept using their FAL magazines as make shift bootle openers and in the process ruined said magazines.
So in order to avoid this situation IWI designed its original galil with both a wire cutter and a bottle opener at the base of the barrel

[BadBomb]

Britain in fact did copy an SMG as well. Lanchester MkI was a straight copy of German MP28 SMG with additional bayonet lug. This was however way too expensive to produce in mass quantity so Britain had to resort to cheapening it's productation till they managed to make it into the Sten, which Germans copied later to complete the full cycle of copying.

[rhorho]

The fact that the Springfield rifle, a copy of the Mauser bolt action, was not included is a damn shame. Especially since the patents for the Mauser were still valid so the US "nationalized" them.

[Amigafur]

Fun fact! The Sten was based off of the Lanchester, and the Lanchester was a copy of the MP28, a German SMG!

[jannawrocki]

What is also interesting that the Polish Underground State build own version of Sten, which was called Błyskawica or The Lightning. And it also looked like sten gun but with magazine like in MP40.

[vivelenapoleon]

USA: I made this new gun!
UK: Cool, too expensive for us.
France: I got my Famas, but good for you.
China: OUR gun.

[lucianoosorio]

“I need guns, lots of guns.” John Wick

[AudieHolland]

The animation of parts falling off of the Chinese 'M-16' reminds me of the original M-60, used in Vietnam.
The trigger section had a tendency to fall off rather sneakily if not checked or somehow fastened more securely.
This would prove to be rather embarrassing when the M-60 gunner needed to lay down suppressive fire during an enemy ambush.

Some gunners wound their dogtag chain around the barrel to prevent some other stuff from getting loose.

[lightninglj]

I remember hearing some of the old timers talk about how you can just throw a sten smg in a room and it would just fire until it runs out of ammo, the trigger was that sensitive

[noahowenst]

Fun fact, his real surname was Yisrael Balashnikov, and because he was a gun inventor, he felt he needed to change his name because of Mikhail Kalashnikov.

[Freedomlander_]

As an actual Gun Enthusiast, i do hate Copycat gun designs, although i find them somewhat interesting.