[ VHS-2 at the Range ]
Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I am here today in France
specially having access to an HS Produkt VHS rifle.
This is actually one of the rifles that was in French military trials,
or was one of the models of rifle that were in French military trials to replace the FAMAS.
It is in fact the only bullpup that was in those trials.
And of course ultimately the HK416 won the trials,
but the Croatian VHS was actually the number two runner-up rifle.
And well, I did a video yesterday showing you the internals of this
and how it works, and frankly it's a pretty impressive product.
I think a lot of people will hear "Croatia" and just assume that it's subpar,
this is actually a quite nice rifle.
So we have it today at the range, and we're going to go ahead and do a bit of shooting with it.
These are ambidextrous rifles,
so we have set this one up for left-hand eject because I am left handed.
But what's kind of cool is you can actually shoot it on either side
in either configuration, and you won't eat the brass.
So we'll demonstrate that in a moment.
All the rest of the controls are completely ambidextrous.
This particular example has been limited to two-round burst instead of full-auto,
which was a police request from one of the French
police agencies that was also looking at the rifles.
So, we'll start with some semi-auto fire, and then some two-round burst.
Oh, after I actually charge it.
So overall it is a remarkably pleasant, comfortable, easy rifle to shoot.
You may notice that the sight rail up here is substantially elevated over the barrel.
That is done so that when you get to the back,
the barrel is basically right in the middle of the buttstock, which means
it really doesn't have any tendency to climb.
The length of pull is a little bit long, largely because it's a bullpup.
But it actually has an adjustable stock despite being a bullpup design.
So I'm keeping that almost all the way closed to shorten up this length of pull as much as possible.
Let's try some two-round burst.
It's a pretty darn high rate of fire.
On paper, we're talking 1,000 rounds per minute in full-auto, or burst.
And again it doesn't tend to climb.
So, I'm not entirely sold on the general utility of a two-round burst mechanism at all.
But it's something that the police specifically wanted, so of course
this rifle was set up to do that for them. And it is certainly a controllable burst.
Alright, now I said that we can shoot this right handed as well as left handed.
So it's still set to left hand eject,
but as long as I keep my face back of this basically ... ejector guard,
I should be fine and not eat any of this.
I get just a little breeze of brass across the beard when I do that.
But it actually works both ways, which is really nice
to be able to set the rifle up for what you're most comfortable with.
But if you have a place where you need to transition from one shoulder to another
for something like clearing a corner,
that can be done without any real problem.
Alright, so the rifle I was shooting before was the K2 version of the VHS,
which is the short-barrelled version, it had a 16 inch barrel on it.
This is the F2, which is specifically the model that was submitted for French military trials.
It has a slightly longer barrel at 19 inches.
And it has not been burst limited. This is safe, semi, and proper, true, full-auto.
So I figured we can do a little bit of shooting with this one as well.
And it is currently set up for right-handed shooting, so I will shoot it right handed.
Got a magazine, and our bolt release is right back here.
Boomp, and away we go.
It is in fact quite comfortable.
... I want to say the rate of fire sounds a little bit slower than the two-round burst,
but that's pretty subjective, and I'm not 100% sure about it.
But like the two-round burst, the full-auto doesn't tend to rise.
It vibrates around a little bit, but it's pretty easy to hold on target.
Which I suppose is a thing for 5.56 rifles in general, but certainly applies to this one.
And I think ... I am out of ammo.
So there is one more thing that I want to try,
and well, let's just say the handguards on these are interchangeable.
Alright, so one of the cool things about the VHS-2 is of course the modularity.
So I have a grenade launcher handguard here and, whoo, a 40mm riot grenade.
So, we have a release button right there,
which is, plop, going to open that up.
And then I can stick that in there, lock it shut.
And what could possibly go wrong firing a rifle grenade in an indoor range?
Other than having the safety on.
Whoo! And there it goes!
That's pretty cool.
Pop.