Usually, small arms companies have practically nothing to catch on the arms market, since all the places in the sun have long been occupied. All large government orders go to the titans of the arms world, who appeared a long time ago and are not going to give up their places to someone else. However, there are exceptions to the rule, and not only small-scale production of weapons is becoming the main source of income for small arms firms. Most often this can be observed with sniper weapons, which, although they require high quality production, are not always large-scale. Especially when it comes to high-precision samples, which the same army and police do not need so much and a small arms company may well cope with providing such rifles even for a relatively large army. Larger companies, when creating such weapons, usually try to create weapons not only for domestic consumption, but also for export. There are a lot of examples of the army or the police turning to small arms companies for sniper weapons, and one of them is the case of the Ultima Ratio rifle, which was produced by the then small and little-known company PGM.
In the late 80s of the last century, both the army and the French police felt a great lack of accurate weapons chambered for 7, 62x51. In principle, the French generally lacked such weapons, but since this ammunition was the most common, it was decided to start with it, especially since it covered most of the tasks that a sniper usually faces. To fill this gap, it was decided to start cooperation with the PGM company, which had just completed the development of the required weapon model and began to virtually piece production of this rifle. After testing the weapon, it was decided to put this rifle into service with the army and police as soon as possible, which was done, in turn, allowing PGM to develop and become world famous, and even "tune" new types of weapons, among which there are and SWR. But about this weapon in other articles.
What is this weapon. In fact, the PGM Ultima Ratio rifle is the simplest sample, based on a sliding bolt that locks the barrel when turning three stops. The weapon is fed from a detachable magazine with a capacity of 5 or 10 rounds. The barrel of the weapon has a non-chrome-plated bore, it is also noteworthy that there are ribs on the outside of the barrel for better cooling, although it seems that the design of the weapon does not imply a fast rate of fire. The rifle barrel is free-hanging, fixed only on the receiver and does not touch other elements of the weapon. The barrel is fastened with 4 bolts that pass through the receiver, entering the cutout under the barrel chamber, which allows not only to securely fix the barrel, but also to relatively quickly remove and install it using only one key. The rifle butt is fixed, has the ability to adjust the height of the cheek rest, as well as its length. The weapon has a folding height-adjustable bipod, and can also be completed with an additional "leg" under the rifle butt. The weapon does not have its own open sights, which can be attributed to the disadvantages, since if the optical sight is damaged, the rifle will become absolutely useless. The mount for the telescopic sight is relatively short and is mounted on the top of the receiver.
Another interesting point is that, despite not the most powerful ammunition, the barrel of the weapon is equipped with a rather large muzzle brake-recoil compensator, instead of a weak flame arrester. This made it possible to significantly reduce the recoil when firing, which is already quite bearable, and together with the shock-absorbing butt pad to make it really comfortable for the shooter.
Despite the fairly widespread use of light alloys in weapons, it turned out to be not so light, mainly due to the heavy barrel. So the weight of the rifle is 7, 39 kilograms with a length of 1158 millimeters. The barrel length is 600 millimeters. A noteworthy point is that the manufacturer turned out to be too honest, indicating a distance of 800 meters in the effective range of the weapon. Due to this, this rifle usually loses in "theoretical" comparisons with more common and well-known samples, although in practice it shows exactly the same results as the best samples chambered for 7, 62x51.
A little later, two more variants of the “Last Argument” weapon appeared, after which the main model received the prefix to the name “Intervention”. Later versions of the rifle were named Commando I and Commando II. These samples differed in a shorter barrel compared to the original, as well as a folding butt. The cooling fins have disappeared from the barrel of the weapon. DTK were separately redesigned, which required shorter barrels of weapons. The Commando I rifle variant is a sample with a barrel length of 550 millimeters, weighing 6, 26 kilograms and a length of 1108 and 823 millimeters with an unfolded and folded stock, respectively. The rifle with the designation Commando II is an even more compact sample. It has a barrel length of 470 millimeters, a weight of 6, 12 kilograms and a length of 1028 and 743 millimeters with the butt unfolded and folded.
Despite the fact that the Last Argument rifle is inherently the simplest weapon, it stands out among many others in that it gave a start in the life of a small arms company, which would have remained, most likely, little-known without a government order. Now PGM's weapons are known not only in France, but throughout Europe, the company has also reached the US arms market, but so far it is "fighting" unsuccessfully - there is very high competition with local companies.
