Hi, I'm Ian McCollum from ARES (Armament Research Services) and today we're going
to take a brief look at the four most common rifles that you're likely to find
in an international conflict zone. Now, this video is intended primarily
for folks who are going to be in those areas and not dealing directly with firearms.
People like journalists, or aid workers, who may come across firearms in the
course of their business in a conflict zone and need to have the ability to
safely unload and clear those firearms without being weapons experts themselves.
So, we're going to take a look today at the four most common types of firearms
you are likely to encounter in these sorts of areas,
the Middle East, North Africa, pretty much actually anywhere in the world.
And those would be the M16 or AR-15 platform, the AK-47 / AK-74 / AKM platform - the Kalashnikov,
the G3 rifle made by Heckler & Koch - HK, and the FN FAL rifle.
All of these are very common rifles worldwide,
and between them they are the most common things you're going to run into.
All right, let's get right to work. We'll start with the AR-15 / M16 rifles.
Now, the weapon that you find in the field may not look exactly like any of the ones that you see today.
In fact, the chances are it won't look exactly like any of these.
However, what you need to be able to do is identify which family of rifles the one you have found belongs to.
And if it is any of these four that we're going to go over, you'll know how to unload and clear it.
What we have to do is remove the magazine and then open the bolt.
This ensures that there are no cartridges in the feeding mechanism
and then that there is no cartridge chambered and ready to fire.
Once you have done that, the weapon is safe.
Now in general we want to ... perform these operations with the safety of the rifle engaged.
And on most of them that's possible, although there are exceptions.
With the AR-15 or M16 pattern of gun
the safety is something that we can engage while we're doing this unload and clear.
So first, engage the safety.
Next remove the magazine. There is a button located right here.
When depressed, that allows the magazine to either drop free or allow you to pull it free.
We're going to do that without touching the trigger.
So push the button and remove the magazine.
Next, we want to open the bolt.
The bolt handle on the AR-15 style, or family, of weapons is located here, on the back of the receiver.
Grasp this, make sure to depress the locking spring-loaded plunger, and then pull the bolt open.
This will require some force, but once it's open hold it there,
and look inside the chamber to ensure that it's empty.
If there is a round chambered in the gun when you do this,
it should automatically eject when you open the bolt.
However, this isn't guaranteed. If the gun is not in good mechanical condition
you may have a cartridge that's stuck in the chamber.
So you definitely want to visually inspect to make sure that the chamber is empty at this point.
Once you've confirmed that the magazine is removed and the chamber is empty,
you can close the bolt and know that the rifle is unloaded, safe and clear.
You may encounter an AR-15 with a dust cover that is closed like this.
In this case you apply exactly the same procedure.
When you open the bolt the dust cover will automatically open, like that.
Next up, we'll take a look at the Kalashnikov family of rifles.
We have an AK-74, this is a more modern style of AK,
and we have a very cobbled together ... the equivalent of a craft produced AK here.
Now these are both going to undergo the exact same process.
We are going to take the magazine out, open the bolt, and ensure that the chamber is clear.
Now in the case of the AK we have to do this with the safety off,
because the safety prevents us from opening the bolt.
So, the safety on the AK is this lever here. This is disengaged, that is the engaged position.
So, first we will disengage the safety.
We will then remove the magazine using this spring-loaded catch under the trigger.
Pull that catch forward, rotate the magazine out, and remove it from the weapon.
With the magazine out, we can then grab the exposed bolt handle here,
pull the bolt back, and visually confirm that the chamber is empty.
Even on AKs that look dramatically different, this procedure is exactly the same.
I'm going to disengage the safety,
going to put my thumb on this spring loaded magazine catch,
pull the magazine out of the gun,
and then pull the bolt handle back so I can visually inspect the chamber.
Now, let's take a look at the Heckler & Koch G3, also known as the HK91 model.
Alright, I'm sure you know where we're going by this point.
We're going to engage the safety of the rifle which is located right here,
on the left side of the gun above the trigger.
We're going to push it up into the safe position.
Now we can remove the magazine. There are two styles of magazine release on this family of gun.
Some guns will have only one, some guns may have both of them.
So you'll have to figure out which version the gun you find has.
One of them is a button, located right here. This is very similar to the release on the M16 series of guns.
You simply push in, and pull the magazine out.
The other style of release is very similar to an AK platform.
It would be located right here, and it would be a paddle just in front of the trigger guard.
This particular rifle is an Americanised civilian version of the G3 that does not have a paddle magazine release.
Now that the magazine is out we need to open the bolt.
The bolt handle on the G3 series of rifles is rather different from most others that you will encounter.
It is a lever located here, up on the front end of the rifle.
This pattern of rifle requires a little bit more strength to open than most others.
What you need to do is grasp the handle, pull it open, and then pull the handle all the way back.
Now you may encounter other versions of the HK type of rifle.
This is a Spanish rifle which you are probably not going to encounter,
but you might, and it's a good example of the same family.
Here you can see we have a button magazine release.
We can remove the magazine from the rifle.
And then ...
looking at the left side of the gun we see the same style of forward-mounted
pop open charging handle as on the G3.
This tells us that this is how we're going to open the action on this rifle, pull back.
And last but not least, the FN FAL.
The FN FAL will follow the same pattern. We're going to remove the magazine,
and then open the bolt to visually confirm that the chamber is empty.
On the FAL we are able to engage the safety while we do this process.
On the FAL rifle, the safety is located here on the left side above the pistol grip.
It is a small lever and we're going to push it up into the safe position.
Now, with the rifle on safe, we can remove the magazine.
There is a small lever located right here in front of the trigger guard.
We are going to pull that lever forward and rotate the magazine down out of the gun.
With that done, we can then grasp the bolt handle, pull it back, and inspect the chamber on this side.
You are now capable of safely unloading and clearing the four most common rifles, or types of rifles,
that you're likely to encounter in an international conflict zone today.
Hopefully you learned something useful. Hopefully you'll never have to use this information,
but if you do, I'd like that you are able to put it to good use.
So thank you for watching, and good luck and stay safe.
[ Remember! 1. Always treat the weapon as if it was loaded. ]
[ 2. Always keep the muzzle of the weapon pointed in a safe direction. ]
[ 3. Always keep your finger off the trigger unless you intend to fire the weapon or perform a function check. ]
[ 4. Always keep the weapon unloaded unless you intend to fire it. If you need to function check the weapon with ammunition, use drill or dummy rounds instead of live ammunition. ]
[ sub by sk cn2 ]