While some designers are trying their best to perfect the existing models of hand-held firearms, others are creating new and not quite ordinary weapons. I propose to deviate a little from the usual layouts and systems of modern assault rifles, pistols and other things and get acquainted with the result of the work of a not-famous Italian company - Technostudio Engineering.
Immediately I will make a reservation that in metal, or rather in metal and plastic, so far only a pistol exists, but soon you can expect a workable version of a submachine gun.
Pistol of the future New Edge
The vision of how hand firearms will change in the near future is different for everyone, there are many prerequisites for the fact that they will cease to be firearms altogether. The rejection of the detonation of gunpowder, as the main method of accelerating a bullet through the bore, will sooner or later come, but the designers of Technostudio Engineering do not look so far into the future, but offer a pistol with an unusual design, but with the most common cartridges.
Before you get acquainted with this pistol in more detail, you need to give it a comparison with other known weapons, in order to avoid premature criticism. The pistol was compared with the Glock 17 and the Beretta Px4.
The same shooter was shooting, the distance to the target was 25 meters. From the Glock pistol 17 10 hits fit into a circle with a diameter of 40 centimeters. From the Beretta Px4 pistol, all hits fit into a 35-centimeter circle. With the new New Edge pistol, all ten bullets hit a circle just over 5 centimeters. The cartridges used were the same 9x19.
It is hard to believe in such indicators, or rather, it is hard to believe at all, nevertheless, such a statement was made and if the weapon is of interest to one of the major manufacturers, then it will be necessary to explain why something does not correspond to reality. Therefore, we will pretend that we believe and try to figure out what exactly the constructors came up with in order for it to show such results.
One of the things that gives the New Edge such a high accuracy is its low barrel. This solution is far from new, and almost all manufacturers of handguns have made or tried to make a pistol with the maximum underestimated barrel axis. The reason here lies in the banal principle of the lever, the lower the barrel in relation to the shooter's hand, the smaller the shoulder is formed when the recoil energy acts on the pistol grip and, accordingly, the shooter's hand. As a result, the pistol does not move up during firing, it does not leave the line of sight, and the shooter himself feels less impact of recoil when firing, since the force vector is actually directed into the palm of the hand holding the weapon.
However, such results cannot be achieved only due to the low-set pistol barrel, there must be something else. Another option for reducing recoil when firing is the use of automation, which allows you to stretch the recoil moment.
It is precisely about the weapon automation system that the designers are modestly silent, but, most likely, not everything is so simple with it. It is possible, of course, that an automation system with a short stroke of the weapon barrel was used, but you can see that there is no protrusion above the chamber that would engage with the bolt casing. Perhaps the grip is carried out with the inner surface of the bolt casing, but we will not see this without disassembling the weapon.
It can be assumed, and this is most likely, that the designers have developed a balanced automation system, this would explain such a high accuracy when firing from this pistol. This assumption is supported by a rather large “beard” under the barrel of the weapon of the pistol, which has already been made, and not drawn. You can, of course, assume that there is a laser designator, but why then additionally made a seat for additional devices. In addition, built-in LCCs are characteristic of small-sized pistols, which are positioned as a means of self-defense, usually removable devices. There is also a hidden commercial component, since you can first sell the pistol, and then also the LTSU to it.
In general, so far one can only guess and make assumptions about the automation system, since no one except the designers knows the truth. They do not voluntarily disclose the secret, and the Geneva Convention limits the possibility of obtaining any specific information from them.
But the designers are ready to talk for a long time and with gusto about that feature of the weapon that catches the eye immediately - the absence of a trigger, in the usual representation of this detail.
Despite the fact that the New Edge pistol is positioned as a weapon of the future, it is still impossible to shoot from it using the power of thought. The designers failed to abandon the physical controls in the weapon, so in this regard, everything in the weapon is classic. However, the location of the controls, in particular the trigger lever, is completely unusual.
In order to fire the New Edge pistol, no movement of the index finger is required, instead of the index finger, the thumb is used. On the left or right side of the weapon, depending on which hand is the leading arrow, there is a fairly large lever that can be mistaken for a fuse switch. In fact, this lever controls the descent of the firing mechanism.
For some unknown reason, it is this innovation in weapons that is given a lot of attention (something similar could be seen in the same Italy at the end of the nineteenth century). Representatives of the company claim that it is thanks to this arrangement of the trigger that high accuracy is achieved when firing. However, at the same time, it is said about the presence of a pistol with a classic trigger location, which is not inferior in its characteristics.
This arrangement of the trigger raises many questions, because until you try it, you will not understand the benefits. Moreover, you need to try for a long time and not with a couple of hundred cartridges. Perhaps after the shooter adapts to the new weapon, the result will actually be better. However, the disadvantages of such a control are visible almost immediately.
First of all, it is almost impossible to get rid of the withdrawal of the weapon to the side when holding it with one hand. Especially if, when you press the trigger, you need not only to lower the trigger, but also cock it. That is, when firing self-cocking, there can be no question of any accuracy. The second negative point is the safety of handling weapons. A sufficiently large control element will cling to when removing the pistol and sooner or later the trigger will be triggered. If we make the trigger small and unable to catch on to anything, then it will be problematic to shoot from the pistol when necessary.
In general, the disadvantages are obvious, but the pros still need to be looked for. In addition, if there is a pistol with a classic trigger and it is not inferior in performance to a weapon with a side trigger, then what is the point of all these movements?
An interesting point is that it is planned to create a carbine on the basis of this pistol. In fact, the new weapon will represent the same pistol only with a longer barrel. All this will be put on a "body kit" with a fixed butt.
In addition, the designers are developing a quick-detachable silent firing device. This device will be attached to the frame of the pistol and will not be directly connected to the barrel of the weapon.
From all of the above, a very simple conclusion can be drawn: what the designers note as the main advantages of the New Edge pistol do not give it significant advantages over the existing models. Of course, the low-set barrel axis makes the weapon more docile, maybe even the side release lever after several months of training will seem more comfortable, but in total this does not give the advantages that are mentioned in the comparison of shooting from the Glock 17 Beretta Px4 and New Edge. This means that the main feature of this pistol is hidden from view, that is, the whole secret lies in the weapon's automation system.
SMG15 and SMG25 submachine guns
These submachine guns have not yet been demonstrated in the form of full-fledged working samples. While they exist only on paper and in the form of plastic models, which, of course, cannot shoot, for this reason it is not yet possible to assess the specific characteristics of the weapon. However, the main essence of the design of these samples is already clear and it is already possible to draw some conclusions.
In fact, the separation of these two models is conditional. Both submachine guns have a similar design and subsequently they will be renamed the fastest, depriving one option of the possibility of automatic fire and the use of extended-capacity magazines for the civilian market.
In terms of design, the main feature of the new weapon was the location of the store, which is located on top of the receiver, similar to the FN P90 submachine gun, which in turn is similar in this unit to the little-known HILL15 submachine gun.
As is clear from the designations of these samples, one version is fed from a magazine with a capacity of 15 rounds, the other has a magazine capacity of 25 rounds, while the P90 boasts about fifty rounds in the magazine. In this regard, the quite expected question arises: why was it necessary to complicate the design of the weapon for the sake of a relatively small gain in store capacity. After all, any complication of the design is not only an increase in the cost of the final product, but also additional weak points in reliability, and in this case, it is also a complication of such a simple procedure as shop equipment. In addition, this location of the store has a fairly large impact on the accuracy of fire as the ammunition is used up due to the shift in the balance of the submachine gun. In general, this solution is interesting, but it has a lot of disadvantages and only one “plus” - the capacity of the store, but in this case this plus is not implemented.
However, the designers managed to do something that cannot be repeated with the classic magazine arrangement in the handle - the bullpup layout. What does this mean for a submachine gun. First of all, this is the preservation of the maximum barrel length with the minimum length of the weapon itself. The second and, in my opinion, the most important point is the ability to extend the handle to hold it as far forward as possible, which makes the weapon more stable when conducting automatic fire, and makes it more effective to automatically fire when using only one hand.
It is also interesting in this weapon that the designers did not limit themselves only to the layout possibilities to reduce the overall dimensions of the weapon. No matter how hard you try, there should be a bolt behind the barrel, and there should be room behind the bolt for it to move. Accordingly, to reduce the size, it is necessary to reduce both the bolt group itself and the distance that it travels during firing. Of course, it is possible to achieve minimal results with an automation system with free or semi-free locks, but such a design will be short-lived even when using modern materials, since the loads at the extreme points of the moving parts will be great. For this reason, an automation system with the removal of powder gases from the barrel bore is used in submachine guns. Of course, there are no details about the specific implementation of even locking the bore, but any of the implementation options provides sufficient scope for the further development of weapons. For example, it becomes possible to use powerful ammunition without significant changes in the design of the weapon.
It is interesting that the ejection of spent cartridges will be carried out from below, behind the pistol grip. In this particular case, we can say that the shutter will periodically chew the shooter's clothes if it is loose enough in the wrist area. This is how a small feature can develop into a specific disadvantage, negating all the advantages of a new weapon.
The second feature of the new submachine guns should be another innovation, namely the counter of the remaining cartridges, the output of information from which will be carried out in the form of numbers on small screens on both sides of the weapon.
This decision is more than controversial. First of all, it should be noted that with transparent magazines, it is much easier and more convenient to control the remainder of the cartridges by simply looking away from the sighting devices than by rotating the weapon in your hands trying to see the numbers. Secondly, if the screens are highlighted, the arrow can unmask it.
The arrangement of the screens is really not the best. Even when holding the weapon with one hand, both screens will be buried, on one side with the phalanx of the index finger, and on the other with the thumb. Perhaps the only successful implementation of electronic cartridge counting in the store can still be considered a dim LED on the back of the receiver, which changes its color from green to red when the cartridges in the store run out. In the end, the task of such a system is not to indicate to the shooter how many cartridges he has left, but in a timely manner to warn the need to reload in the near future.
Outcome
Of course, both the pistol and submachine gun from Technostudio Engineering are very interesting and deserve attention. Not everyone can think of, and in the case of a pistol, implement something like that, so the work of designers can only be assessed positively. Nevertheless, you need to soberly assess the situation and understand that it is unlikely that such a weapon can be seen in mass production in the near future. Even if the characteristics of the same New Edge pistol really correspond to the declared ones, in the end such a weapon will be much more expensive and not everyone will agree with a similar price, since only units need an ultra-precise pistol.
Do not forget about the reliability of the weapon. It's no secret that the more complex a device is, the more likely it is to break down its individual units. This also includes not the simplest maintenance, the complexity of which increases in proportion to the complexity of the design. Perhaps, and the probability of this is very small, that the company will receive an order for a very small batch of its weapons to meet the needs of the personal protection of high-ranking officials or special units of the army or police, but we are unlikely to find out about this promptly.
