Frag Out! Magazine
Issue link: https://fragout.uberflip.com/i/1519846
www.fragoutmag.com O ddly enough, this group inc- ludes both mass-produced guns (e.g. M1911A1), as well as those whose production reached a dozen/something thousand (such as the SPAS12,) and abso- lute gems, because their status is not determined by the scale of pro- duction. It only determines the ava- ilability and thus also its (usually high) price. Unfortunately, some of these fire- arms are completely unavailable to civilian collectors (OK, maybe not in the United States) as they were only made as military weapons thus are impossible to buy. Luckily, sometimes there are repli- cas available which are more or less similar to the original one. This happened to XM177E1 which was a shortened and modified ver- sion of the M16A1 assault rifle. XM177E1's bedrock was CAR-15 program developed with special forces personnel in mind. XM177E1 is iconic firearm from Vietnam War era. It was mostly used by Navy SEALs, but also 5th Special Forces Group and legenda- ry MACV-SOG teams. Later it also became a popular firearm of infan- try officers and enlisted personnel due to its compact size and low light. Do you remember Olivier Sto- T E X T / P H O T O : M I C H A Ł S I T A R S K I XM177E1 made in Poland ne's Platoon movie? Lt. Wolfe and Sgt. Barnes and Elias were using Colt M653 carbines to substitute the original XM177 (Platoon was filmed in the Philippines and M653 were from local armed forces). www.fragoutmag.com THERE IS A SIZABLE GROUP OF SMALL ARMS THAT ARE REFERRED TO AS ICONIC, I.E. THOSE THAT HAVE MADE THEIR MARK IN THE HISTORY: WHETHER DUE TO GROUNDBREAKING SOLUTIONS, DESIGN, PARTICIPATION IN HISTORIC EVENTS, OR APPEARANCE IN POP CULTURE.