Caliber - easy to get scared
Lose peace for good
By eye - thirteen millimeters, More precisely - twelve and seven, Half an inch - make you shiver
A creature of heaven and earth, Half an inch of everything is separated
From the death of your enemy!
Weapons and firms. How are inventions born?
Someone how, but quite often it happens in a dream. For example, one day I dreamed about a thermal machine for the manufacture of parts from foam, which was once praised by the magazine "Modelist-Constructor", and in the morning I just had to sketch and make it. In January 2001, British gunsmith Bill Alexander had the same "vision" that he had to give up everything here and go to the USA. And after all, in his homeland, Bill has developed dozens of new types of weapons and cartridges for him. But … the man wanted to go even further.
And he came to the United States, and after years of design, testing and development, he managed to combine his powerful 50-caliber Beowulf cartridge (created in 2001) with the AR-15 light assault rifle. Then, together with Arne Brennan, he developed the 6, 5 Grendel cartridge and then, again, based on the AR-15, created the same rifle for it. So, on the basis of these two cartridges 12, 7-mm and 6, 5-mm and, accordingly, two for these rifle cartridges, the Alexander Arms® company was formed, which immediately won a niche for itself in the US small arms market. Although, it would seem, what is there only in this market. But still other manufacturers of "arches" had to make room and give place to Alexander's company.
Alexander Arms® manufacturing facilities are located at the Radford Arsenal in southwest Virginia, and this is where the 6.5mm Grendel Highlander and 12.7mm Beowulf are produced - by far the most powerful AR-15 rifles on the all the world.
The fact that the process of creating firearms is very complex and there are no trifles in it is just very clearly shown by the example with the Grendel rifle. The company has spent a lot of time testing the materials for the shutter to get the most out of it. The fact is that this rifle uses a bolt of the same size as in a rifle chambered for 5, 56x45 mm NATO cartridges, but the end surface of the bolt has been increased from 0.376 to 0.439 inches.
For the AR-15 valve, back in 1957, the Carpenter 158 alloy was chosen with a low amount of sulfur and phosphorus. The wear properties of this alloy were well known. However, such a composition made it quite sensitive to the heat treatment process and, if the regime was not maintained, the valves made of "Carpenter 158" steel had no chances to serve for a long time. Unfortunately, it is not possible to simply look at the AR-15 shutter and determine whether the heat treatment process has been carried out correctly or not.
Alexander Arms has tested many grades of gun steel and opted for 9310, noting that its bolts last longer than others. This metal contains slightly more sulfur and phosphorus than Carpenter 158 and this facilitates proper heat treatment. Steel 9310 also contains vanadium, which gives it a denser grain structure. And the dense structure of the metal makes cracking more difficult, so the valve lugs last longer. Now it is this steel that is used in every bolt of the Grendel rifle, which increases its life cycle.
The bolt is very important, but any firearm is, first of all, the barrel. This rifle uses an 11 '' (279 mm) barrel, which gives 200 yards (182 m) more muzzle energy than any 5.56 mm muzzle bullet when exiting a 20 '' barrel (508 mm), which is certainly preferable in terms of range and penetration.
Making a firearm faster and more comfortable to use is easiest by simply shortening the barrel. The vast majority of AR-15 rifles sold in the United States have been proven to have a short legal barrel (16 inches), which does not require paperwork under the National Firearms Act (NFA). And the reason for the popularity of short barrels is that with them … "life becomes easier." The weapon with them is lighter, it is easier to lead on the target, it is easier to transport, and it is undoubtedly more convenient to store the "short barrel".
Therefore, the designers reduced the length of the barrel, leaving it exactly as many centimeters as would be enough to disperse the bullet and … to place additional sights and optics.
And now the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE) has passed the Second Amendment, so now an even shorter barrel can be used on the AR-15 without having to pay an additional $ 200 tax. This is probably the first time in history that a government bureaucracy has saved a consumer's money, instead of taking more money from him, and at the same time has given him the opportunity to enjoy more of the weapon he has acquired.
As for the heavy rifle.50 "Beowulf", it was designed to effectively engage any large targets at short and medium distances. Combining the high reliability of AR-15 / M16 style weapons, it is also suitable for hunting wild pigs, and can also be used against moose, buffalo and bears. At the same time, this weapon is used not only by hunters, but also by hunting control bodies.
Semi-automatic light carbine "Beofulf" with the characteristics of a rifle of caliber 45-70, but for a lethal caliber.50, has also found wide application in the military and law enforcement agencies. The external ballistics of this cartridge is well suited for shooting in urban environments, where its bullets can successfully disable both vehicles and attackers wearing body armor. In this case, the windshield of the car does not affect the trajectory of this bullet, as well as the body panels. That is, as in the case of the 9-mm "Great Eight", from which the infamous Bonnie and Clyde were killed, this weapon will not allow criminals to hide inside the car from the fire of law enforcement officers.
The Beowulf rifle is also based on the standard Alexander Arms receiver. But only its upper part has slightly changed dimensions of the hole for ejection of casings to ensure 100% reliability of ejection of a case that is thicker than that of the 6, 5-mm cartridge. The barrel is 11-inch, made of chrome-molybdenum vanadium steel and has high strength characteristics.
Free-floating forend from Manticore Arms Transformer. Its design is such that it allows you to attach a lot of various accessories to it.
Well, and of course, for the commercial success of a weapon sold on the market … its color is of great importance. The days of gloomy monochromatic weapons, enlivened, say, only by the light color of polished wood, are long gone today. Now the trend is color weapons, with a stock and forend of various colors, up to bright red.
So Alexander Arms® is in no way inferior to others in this regard. The paint options she offers to potential buyers include dark green, dark earth, titanium, burnt bronze, cobalt and sniper gray, although black is still used as and before. Going to meet the consumer, the company even released a sample with a wooden unregulated stock, a pistol grip and the same wooden forend (!) Made of walnut wood. However, outwardly, it does not look so impressive as the most recent "modern" samples.
Rifle "Ulfbert".338 Lapua Magnum stands somewhat apart in the row of Alexander's rifles. It is designed to fire a special sniper cartridge 8.6 × 70 mm at a "growth target" at a distance of up to 1800 m. It was used in Afghanistan, Iraq and even Ukraine. But still, she is not, so to speak, the face of this company.
Photographs by Mark Fingar were used to decorate the material.
