New handguns and assault rifles for the armed forces are benefiting from National Defense University’s proprietary technology, a polygonal rifling that doubles the service life of barrels and more than doubles their precision, the university said.
Employed in the military’s new T75K3 pistols, polygonal rifling would also be used in the T91K3 assault rifle, which is being developed at the Armaments Bureau’s 205th Arsenal, the university said.
Rifling — a groove that spirals down the inside of a barrel — gives a bullet spin, thereby improving its aerodynamic stability and making the gun more precise at longer ranges, power vehicles and systems engineering professor Deng Shi-gan (鄧世剛) said.
Photo: Aaron Tu, Taipei Times
The inside of a barrel with conventional rifling is marked with sharp, angular indentations that cause friction and allow gas to escape, he said.
The smooth undulating grooves of polygonal rifling — the name comes from the shape of the bore, which resembles a polygon with rounded corners — gives superior wear-and-tear and gas-sealing properties, he added.
The university team used computer-aided design to make the rifling patterns to greatly extend the barrel’s service life and improve precision, Deng said, adding that the program was partially funded by the National Defense Industrial Development Foundation.
Firing the barrel at 100m would result in an average 10-shot grouping about the size of a NT$10 coin, while the barrels can be used to fire more than 20,000 bullets without any loss of accuracy, material sciences professor Liu Yi-ming (劉益銘) said.
The university and the arsenal are also jointly developing a nickel-boron finish for bolt carriers that should almost eliminate the need for rifle lubricant, Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology Commandant Major General Jing Yuan-yeu (荊元宇) said.
Compared with phosphate, nickel-boron finishes last longer and offer greater resistance to corrosion, increasing the number of rounds between malfunctions and are less harmful to the environment, Jing said.
In testing, a T91 rifle with the nickel-boron finish and no additional lubricant could fire about 10,500 rounds before jamming, he said, adding that there was no discernible damage at 8,000 rounds and the corrosion tests were promising.
The finish would make the next generation of small arms more reliable and durable, while decreasing upkeep requirements, he said.
In other news, a defense official said that the army plans to buy 10,404 T75K3 pistols at a cost of NT$368.6 million (US$12 million) to completely replace the aging Colt M1911A1 handguns in its inventory.
The M1911A1 pistols, either 60-year-old holdouts from US military aid or locally produced copies, show significant wear-and-tear, the official said on condition of anonymity.
The M1911A1 is considered an overly heavy weapon with excessive recoil and a small magazine — only seven rounds — compared with the T75K3, which has a more durable barrel and a 15-round magazine, the official said.
All of the aging pistols should be replaced by 2022, the official said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) is maintaining close ties with Beijing, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said yesterday, hours after a new round of Chinese military drills in the Taiwan Strait began. Political parties in a democracy have a responsibility to be loyal to the nation and defend its sovereignty, DPP spokesman Justin Wu (吳崢) told a news conference in Taipei. His comments came hours after Beijing announced via Chinese state media that the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s Eastern Theater Command was holding large-scale drills simulating a multi-pronged attack on Taiwan. Contrary to the KMT’s claims that it is staunchly anti-communist, KMT Deputy
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
RSS