Stephen M. Katz photos | The Virginian-Pilot
Posted on 10/13/2007 2:06:00 AM PDT by csvset
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| Tom Maffin, senior gunsmith for Transformational Defense Industries Inc. demonstrates the company's revolutionary Kriss Super V 45 caliber submachine gun at a range on the Blackwater USA campus in Moyock, N.C. Stephen M. Katz photos | The Virginian-Pilot
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MOYOCK, N.C.
His Ford Crown Victoria disabled by hostile fire, driver Tom Maffin scrambled from the car, crouched behind the hood and sprayed a target with automatic gunfire to cover for a passenger.
Maffin's weapon: a KRISS Super V .45-caliber submachine gun.
If you're military or law enforcement and haven't heard of it, chances are you soon will.
Maffin is senior gunsmith for Transformational Defense Industries Inc., a weapons technology firm that conducts its research and development from a Virginia Beach office park near Lynnhaven Mall. Watch video of the KRISS Super V submachine gun.
By early next year, the Washington-based TDI plans to open a production facility in Virginia Beach to begin manufacturing the submachine gun for police and military use and a .45-caliber semi automatic carbine for the commercial shooting market.
Industry experts say the weapons are unlike any other now on the market and could shake up the firearms world.
What makes the weapons special, company and industry officials say, is a new patented operating system that substantially reduces recoil and muzzle climb when fired.
The recoil, or kick, of a conventional weapon is directed backward into a shooter's shoulder, causing the gun to rise off target. TDI's "Super V" bolt-and-slide mechanism directs the energy downward in front of the trigger.
Company tests indicate the mechanism reduces recoil by 40 to 60 percent and muzzle rise by about 95 percent over conventional gun operating systems.
At a Thursday demonstration for media at a Blackwater USA firing range in Moyock, officials said their system improves accuracy and reduces user fatigue. The submachine gun can be fired with one hand and remain on target.
"This is the future of weapons right here," said Andrew Finn, TDI's senior vice president.
TDI has worked with the Army and special operations forces to develop the technology. It uses Blackwater's facilities to field test the weapons.
Officials set up the disabled vehicle scenario to demonstrate the maneuverability and firepower of the .45-caliber submachine gun, which TDI says is ideal for close-quarter situations the police and military encounter in urban settings.
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The gun, which weighs about 5 pounds unloaded and collapses to a length of 16 inches, can be easily carried in helicopters, Humvees and other vehicles, said Maffin, a retired Marine who began working at TDI's Virginia Beach operation about a year ago.
"Seeing this product for the first time in my interview, I was sold," Maffin said. "It's got the knockdown power a lot of guys want."
Members of the media at the Thursday event, heavy in such trade publications as Guns & Ammo and Small Arms Review magazines, were allowed to shoot the submachine gun and the carbine.
"The reduction in recoil is absolutely amazing," said Wendy Henry, who works in Pennsylvania for Women In Scope, a TV series that promotes women's awareness of firearms. "It's very easy to maintain your control over it."
Frank Borelli, a law enforcement and military consultant in Maryland, said the weapon is "going to rock the firearms industry." He has fired the TDI submachine gun but did not attend the event.
"What they're doing is very different," Borelli said.
Some industry experts question whether the company will make significant inroads with military and police, which have moved away from submachine guns - in part because their pistol-caliber rounds can't pierce body armor. The gun's price tag - now expected to retail in the $1,200-to-$1,300 range - also could chill sales.
Company officials said interest is high, noting that they worked with the Army's Picatinny armament research and development arsenal in New Jersey to develop the technology.
These guns are the first product that TDI, a five-year-old subsidiary of Switzerland-based Gamma Research and Technologies Holding SA, has brought to market.
Chuck Kushell, TDI's chief executive officer and director, said the Virginia Beach operation, dubbed Viking Works, will grow once production starts in January or February.
 Prototypes of the KRISS Super V .45-caliber submachine gun and carbine are displayed at TDI’s production facility in Virginia Beach.
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Currently, eight engineers, machinists and gunsmiths work in a 4,000-square-foot facility. Kushell said he expects to more than double the space and add 15 to 20 employees as the company ramps up over the next few months.
To reach the civilian market, the company developed the .45-caliber carbine. Plans call for marketing it primarily to shooting enthusiasts who would use it for competitions and target practice, but it also could be used for hunting.
"This is not going to be a gun for everyone," Kushell said.
Company officials said the Super V mechanism can be adapted to any caliber weapon. Work currently is under way on a 12-gauge shotgun. And the company has won an Army contract valued at a little over $1 million to develop a lighter-weight, more user-friendly .50-caliber machine gun, Kushell said.
Jon W. Glass, (757) 446-2318, jon.glass@pilotonline.com
btrl
Braverman had made the FPR22 and FPR32 with the barrel at 6 but of course those werent auto-revolvers...
I think with an Ithica with only a bead front sight, he wouldn’t have been able to get a hit with his two shots. He only got ineffective hits at all because of his buckshot’s pattern. He’d need good rifle type sights or an optic to get a hit with a slug.
OTOH, it would have been an easy head shot at 80 yards with an AR. And he probably would have gotten off 3-5 aimed shots in the time allowed, vice (I think it was) only two shotgun shots. (After that, the AK tore up the kiosk, and he could only take cover, and couldn’t return fire.)
What always amazed me was that none of the cops there could shoot accurately enough to make a head shot on those two bozos...
I am not the shot I was 10 or 20 years ago, but I can still put 6 of 8 .45s into the black at 100 yards and that is a smaller target than a human head.
Well, to be fair, the perps were moving around, not standing still like a target. And this was a “two way range” with several thousand rounds of full-auto 7.62X39 coming back. And the cops didn’t know until well into the fight that the bad guys were armored from head to ankles, so they were still aiming for the body.
This of course was after many rounds had bounced off center mass, slooooow learners...
Seems like there was an extended news story right after the incident where the cameras showed cops scrambling from the gunstores with ARs, been a while though, and that footage probably doesnt exist anymore cept tween my ears...
Indeed, the forces will ultimately go straight back. Cleverly, this design does some things that spread out the impluse.
In recoil, there really isn’t that much energy transferred - thing is, it’s that it’s all transferred really fast. Anything that extends the time of that transfer dramatically reduces perceived recoil. Comparison: a candle releases the same amount of energy as a stick of TNT - it just does it really slowly.
Good analogy with the candle & stick of dynamite. Furthermore, I would bet that candles (the dreaded open flame) have caused far more damage to structures than has dynamite.
I seem to remember stories of cops buying those very loaner rifles and a contest or two to own them.
I have to agree with you. (not that my opinion counts for much ;o)
It seems to me these days if you have need of “full auto” you also have need of “armor piercing.”
One without the other is like taking a Terzuola knife to a gunfight.
The North Hollywood Shootout indeed had cops scrambling to a local gun store to buy “assault weapons”.
Not quite. One BG eventually dropped pretty much everything, wandered away, and offed himself. The other BG got some buckshot in a foot, and bled out.
Well I’m glad you’re here and the other fellow ain’t!
I’d still rather have a rifle against a rifle at 80 yards.
No reason for accuracy to be affected. It’s the loading mechanism that’s different, not the chamber+round+barrel.
It’s not that it’s a free lunch, it’s that thanks to the 1986 MG ban, we haven’t had the market forces encouraging technological development. This and the FN P90 are the only real individual-sized MG innovations in the last 50 years.
I saw the helicopter film on the documentary, and it was clear the first guy (the walker) offed himself with an upward pistol shot. It was clearly visible: pistol, recoil, effect.
The guy by the car and truck went down after being hit by SWAT several times in the feet under the vehicles, and after that he was shot by dozens of rifle shots almost point blank.
That’s based on my recall of the documentary.
If the “gun store AR” story is true, it was 100% whitewashed out of the documentary.
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