Discussion




SeG-3 Self-Loading Rifle - The United Kingdom of Antigr



Statistics (M/7, Antigran Service)


Class: Battle Rifle

Length, Overall: 98.4cm
Length, Barrel: 48cm
Weight, Loaded: 4.39kg
Cartridge: 6.5x49mm Antigran Krag
Operation: H&K Roller-Delayed Blowback
Magazine Options: 15/30-Round Box Magazine
Effective Range: 600 metres
Sights: Rear: Antigran-Pattern Partridge-Type Rifle Sight Front: Post in Tunnel


History


The Royal Army Ordnance Commision was approached early in the year 1954 to design a semi-automatic weapon to replace the Antigran M/4 through M/13 Krag-Jørgensen rifles and the small number of more modern stop-gap SKS semi-automatics then in service. The requirement was simple - a semi-automatic rifle of no excessive weight using whatever technical innovations were available at the time. The project was to become the SeG-3. The weapon was made by the then-independent Sergey-Roksholm Armament Systems, the primary manufacturer of the rifle throughout the world.

Today, the rifle is in use in several areas of the globe, mainly in Antigran forces. The rifle is still standard-issue for many naval, about half of all marine, as well as many air force field units, and is the standard training rifle for all forces. It is also to be found on parade with the King Crown Guard on royal duty, embassy guardsmen, and generally as a ceremonial rifle. It is also commonly seen by the Royal Antigran Customs & Excise as a standard-issue weapon, the force the most prominent of it's type in the world and the only law-enforcment agency in Antigr to be issued with rifles as standard. Interest has been shown by many foreign militaries and large export orders amounting to a million or so examples have been recieved, and even as an old rifle, it is still used very widely, and while outdated, still capable. It is one of few rifles to have remained so capable for so long.


Cartridge


Main Article

The SeG-3, in Antigran service, uses the brass-cased traditional 6.5x49mm Antigran Krag round, developed in 1894 for the Antigran Krag-Jørgensen bolt-action rifles. It uses nitrocellulose powder as propellant, and available with a Jacketed Hollow Point, Ballistic Capped (Known as JHPBC), an Armour-Piercing round (AP), and the most common Full Metal Jacket round, known simply as BALL. Developed in the aforementioned year by a consortium of companies and institutions, it was given the simple suffix 'Antigran Krag' and is still in widespread and standard service use today. While considered slightly underpowered as a rifle round, this allowed it to remain in use in service rifles until today, Antigr having no indigenous truly intermediate rifle round, doctrine focusing on battle rifles and accurate burst-fire and 'double-tapping'. It has a double-base propellant of 53% Nitrocellulose (Propellant), 33% Nitroglycerin (Propellant), 9% Polyester Adipate (Plasticiser), 4% Rosin (Binder), 2% Ethyl Acetate (Binder), 1.6% N-nitrosodiphenylamine (Stabiliser), 1.1% Potassium Nitrate (Flash reducer), 1% Bismuth Antimonide (De-copperiser), 0.8% Graphite (Lubricant), and 0.5% Calcium Carbonate (Acid Neutraliser). Tracer variants of all rounds have been developed and all are used, with the military suffix -T. 6.5mm rounds have very high ballistic coefficients, the highest for this round being 0.555 from the 160-grain armour-piercing bullet.


Feed, Firing, & Safety


The feed options are limited to straight box magazines with a capacity of 15 rounds, more commonly the latter. Antigran-only rifles have magazine blocks compatible with the curved 30-round magazines as used in the various Bren-esque LMGs, although these are rarely seen. Export versions have differing recievers to prevent use of these. Antigran weapons are said to be almost as reliable as an Kalashnikov or a dog, although in a more sophisticated manner.
As such, the magazines - all double-stacked - are wider at the back than at the front, a simple feature that greatly reduces stoppages. In 1984, the magazines were made available with translucent plastic manufacture to be able to see how many rounds remain, but these are uncommon.
Magazine change is done in the following manner: (1) Magazine catch is pressed an magazine drops out. (2) Fresh magazine is inserted. (3) Slide is operated. This sequence must be performed in the said manner, there are no variations. The ejection port, to contribute to reliability, will close upon firing of the last round and stay closed until required to eject a fresh round or manually pulled open. The trigger is of the pressure-point variety, which enables a certain amount of free play before the trigger meets definite resistance and fires. However, there are definite noticeable 'stages', just like the focus ability on modern digital cameras by half-pressing the shutter button.
The safety, which blocks both striker and trigger, is on a slide on the upper portion of the stock's pistol grip, behind the trigger with simple pictograms.

The trigger pull is adjustable by a flush-fitting, easy-to-miss vertically-mounted screw just behind the magazine release. Adjusting this screw would likely cause the magazine release to be pressed, a safety feature as adjusting the trigger system may cause the weapon to go off. The pull is adjustable from 910g (~2lbs) to 3200g (~7lbs), with 1100g the factory preset, which is roughly 2.4lbs.


Bolt & Breech


The weapon utilises the Heckler and Koch Roller-Delayed Blowback bolt system, common in Antigran rifles, but far rarer elsewhere. The bolt is weighted to improve reliability. While the project was for a time as an automatic rifle, this was dropped because a high RoF was not thought important in a weapon with a severely limited feed. The bolt, as with the rest of the weapon, has machined dust/dirt grooves, as well as being equipped with a bolt hook for holding the ejection port open. In modern rifles, the breech is lined on the inside with chromium to increase the service life. The weapon is odd in that it is cocked by means of a slide. The H&K bolt is copied directly under license from the German company's G3 rifle and has numerous advantages, these being;
(1) The advantages of the simple inertia bolt are retained, in particular the fact that only the pre-determined distribution of momentum and the area of the gas force curve throughout the time are of importance for the recoil velocity of the bolt. this provides very good adaptability to all types of ammunition of the same caliber, bullet weight and velocity without the same adjusting elements in order to compensate for the shape of the gas force curve,
(2) It has low extraction velocity, practical for the cartridge case and ejection reliability,
(3) The movement sequence of the bolt assembly and the receiver follows the gas pressure sequence without any delay, making the weapon stable and highly predictable with no 'sudden impacts',
(4) The bolt does not make any rotating or tilting movements when opening or closing, again helping stability,
(5) The bolt parts are arranged symetrically to the axis of the bore. The roller contact poins are only at a small lateral distance from the axis of the bore,
(6) The sequence of the reaction force is uniform and without distinct peaks of force, and
(7) Because the cartridge case pushes and does not have to be pulled, extractor strain is limited to ejection.
Points 3-6 contribute to a very accurate rifle. A disadvantage to the system is a high manufacture cost, as it has very fine tolerances and is highly sensitive to changes in ammunition. The slide is complicated not only in it's unusual operation but also that a mechanism has been fitted to ensure that the slide does not move with the bolt operation and is inanimate in all but charging the rifle.


Accessories


While an old rifle, provision for accessories was adequate for the time. A bayonet can be attached under the barrel engaging a small concealed clip at the forewardmost portion of the handguard. The highest part of the rear sight unit is designed to hold part of a telescopic sight, and there is a large attachment point under the weapon for a folding pivoting bipod. Almost the entire cleaning kit is housed in the upper part of the stock. This consists of a cleaning rod, multiple fodders, pull-through, brush tips, cloth, and a multipurpose tool for opening and accessing parts of the gun. Housed securely in the bottom of the pistol grip part of the stock is a metal container with multipurpose cleaning and lubricant oil.



Construction & The Barrel


All main components of the gun that are in steel is of the cold-forged variety, for simplicity in manufacture and rigidity. Otherwise, the handguard and 'C-Stock', plus all of the major furniture parts of the weapon, are wooden. No Antigran version has a composite stock. The barrel is, as mentioned above, of cold-forged steel with the cost-cutting feature of polygonal sectioning instead of traditional rifling. It is equipped with dust/dirt grooves and is thick, designed to give between 13,000 to 15,000 rounds of barrel life.
The barrel can be fairly quickly unscrewed, and if hot the aforementioned multitool can act as a handle to avoid human contact. The weapon is held together with screws mainly of the same size, all compatible with the screwdriver in Antigran-Pattern Swiss Army Knives. The rifle breaks down into the following major components, although can be stripped further;
- Barrel
- Receiver
- Bolt
- Stock, 2 Parts
- Chamber
- Return Spring
- Trigger Mechanism
- Gas Tube
- Barrel and Mechanism Covers, Various


Sights


As standard, the sights consist of the front and rear units. The former is a unique Antigran-Pattern Partridge-Type Rifle Sight on a tangent ramp with hundred-metre increments to six hundred metres, and is like an enhanced pistol sight. It is also available with a ladder sight. The front unit is a post-in-tunnel and these combined make a quick to use but fairly accurate sight system, an illustration of which is given below. The red dot represents the target, and the weapon is correctly aimed.


Figure 1. The Antigran-Pattern Partridge Rifle Sight and Post in Tunnel combination. The SeG-3 is not represented.


Variants


- M/3. Final Prototype/Early Version. This has a standard ladder sight and lacks most safeties. These are rare, most having been converted.
- M/7. Current Version. Mostly with modern sights and all the above written features, shorter by ten centimetres. Oddly, this makes them shorter than the SeG-4s that replaced them.
- M/7 Reservist Rifle. This designation implies usage rather than design modifications and the title is fairly self-explanatory.
- Sniper 'Accurised' (SeG-3M) With various bipods and telescopic sights. Usually found with cheekpad, these are the standard lighter sniper rifles of the Royal Antigran Army.
- Automatic Rifle (SeG-3T) Heavily modified for automatic fire, these rifles are a rare but an effective modification, with 30-round magazines as standard and with a 400rpm rate of fire. Most common in the Royal Marines.


Figure 2. SeG-3M Sniper Rifle.


Export


Although the no-DMR rule still applies, an exception has been made in Antigr's strict weapon export policy and this rifle is available for full export. 6.5mm Antigran rounds come in crates of 1000 rounds at USD100 per.
The rifle itself is only exported in standard configuration in the 6.5mm chambering for USD445 per.

DISCOUNTS ARE AVAILABLE FOR ALLIES OR FRIENDS OF THE STATE. PLEASE KEEP A RECORD OF THE SALES RECEIPT AND REQUEST.