hi guys thanks for tuning in another
video on forgotten weapons calm I mean
I'm here today the Rock Island auction
company taking a look at some of the
guns they will be selling in their
September of 2016 premiere auction and
among those we have this one which I'm
pretty sure is the strangest looking gun
to come out of the 1980s and 1990s u.s.
assault weapons bans this is a heckler &
koch sl8 now we previously did some
videos on the SL 6 and the SL 7 and i
figured we ought to take a look at the
number 8 just to round out the package
now this thing looks really strange
because it had to be redesigned to meet
US import laws when it was brought in in
the mid 1990s this is basically
mechanically a g36 rifle which is the
super sleek and cool and very tactical
german standard combat rifle at least
until they replace it but they had to
make a bunch of changes so at the time
there was both a import ban on assault
weapons which dates to 1989 and there
was also a domestic production ban which
dates to 1994 now the 1994 ban expired
in 2004 the import ban is still in
effect it doesn't have a sunset and at
the rate it's going it'll never end up
going anywhere so what they had to do to
make this rifle legal to import was get
rid of all the features that made it and
assault rifle so for US production that
meant getting rid of things like
threaded muzzles
barrel shrouds pistol grips the pistol
grip is a big one and that's of course
why it has this odd thumb hole style
stock on it by legal definition if the
bottom of the grip is connected to the
buttstock then it's a standard single
piece buttstock and not a pistol grip
despite of course the fact that it
functions the same way as a pistol grip
just with this extra bit of plastic in
there they also had to get rid of the
ability to take a double stack or a
30-round really anything over 10 round
magazine so that meant they couldn't
have a standard magazine well in the
rifle they had to cut it down to
something that could only use 10 round
magazines they did that by putting this
indentation on the side of the receiver
and then they made a specialty magazine
for it which only holds 10 rounds in a
single stack now
it's kind of interesting that the the
import laws in different countries vary
most places do have magazine
restrictions but in most places they
don't require it quite as severely as
the US does for import restrictions so
most places what you would get for a
restricted capacity g36 magazine or sl6
sl8 magazine would be a standard double
stack 30 rounder that has been cut down
in length and pinned and can only hold
ten here for the u.s. they had to design
a completely new magazine so that the
rifle would be incapable of using the
existing 30-round max so these are also
a bit unusual in that the balance and
that feel is kind of odd to them they
have a remarkably heavy barrel which is
probably on there to support the
sporting style of the gun the sporting
usage from this notion that a sporting
usage can only mean like shooting target
groups from a bench and thus you would
want to have your barrel to give better
accuracy perhaps I'm going out on a limb
here and making assumptions but combined
with a heavy barrel out front this is
also a very light hollow plastic
buttstock on the back so the thing
balance is quite front-heavy there's
there's one real reason why people
bought these guns
well people bought them because they
looked interesting and they were cool
and people liked HK stuff but the most
compelling reason to me that people
bought these guns was actually to
convert them into more proper replicas
of the g36 because the mechanics on the
inside are basically the g36 if you go
if you're willing to put in enough work
and time and money you can convert one
of these to a semi-auto only replica of
the g36 and there are a couple tutorials
out there on the internet explaining how
this is done but it basically involves
replacing all of the furniture cutting
the receiver replacing a bit of the end
of the receiver getting a semi-auto g36
style fire control group new magazines
the new optic the g36 has a kind of
interesting to to type optic it's got a
red dot and a magnified optic in one
unit sit on this optics rail you replace
this whole black rail with one of those
it's a very long and involved process
but it is the one option for getting a
semi-auto g36 look-alike rifle in the US
anyway this comes apart fairly easily
with the exception of a weird choice of
allen screw on the back so why don't we
go ahead and take a look at that so you
can see the magazine is narrow and if
you look at this rifle from the bottom
you can see that the magazine well is
actually off-center because for the
proper double stack magazine it should
be this wide they indented the receiver
here and you can see that the left side
or this side of the bolt is kind of not
visible underneath the magazine well
there now for disassembly we have handle
e HK s continued their love affair with
pushpins which are an excellent way to
do this sort of thing we've got one
there we've got one on the front
handguard right there and pull those out
the front handguard slides off the rifle
hollow chunk of plastic there then the
magazine well I have to push in the mag
release to pull this all the way out
which is a little finicky there there we
go that comes out just another chunk of
plastic and then rather than a pushpin
on the back there are actually a pair of
large hex head bolts or I'm sorry allen
head bolts pull that out
that one out and then the rear end of
the gun comes off so the buttstock here
is pretty much hollow we have a little
bit of an impact buffer for the bolt and
then we have the fire control group here
it is hammer fired like that and to
position safety safe and semi-auto
there's how the pistol grip actually
handles it's a little weird with this
being pointed almost the center section
seems like it would shoot okay but it's
a weird design choice now mechanically
the g36 which this basically is is very
similar to the AR 18 in that it has a
short-stroke gas piston here which is
when you fire this piston goes backwards
and impacts the bolt the bolt on this
just slides out as a unit which is
pretty slick and pull the recoil spring
out that's captive and then the bolt
itself is an AR style multi lug rotating
bolt so like I said very similar to the
AR 18 the charging handle on this guy is
ambidextrous so you can actually just
pull it over to either side and if you
need it to be a forward assist you pull
it over and push it in very slightly and
that will lock it in place and you can
do that on either side that's a kind of
slick handy element to the g36 s design
to help lend it ambidextrous nature now
one SL eight specific parts change that
I do want to point out here because it's
kind of interesting that they did this
is to the bolt face or rather the
locking lugs so this log right here
works as a locking lug but you can see
that it's been cut down into this
triangular shape where the rest of them
are square the reason this was done was
actually to reinforce the single stack
only magazine conversion the single
stack Maggie is basically just the left
hand side of a standard g36 magazine in
a normal magazine you would get
cartridges that come up on both sides
they alternate this side and then this
and then this side and this side and the
way these are fed from the magazine into
the rifle is one of these two locking
lugs hits the back of the cartridge and
pushes it forward to feed well the
single stack magazines are only ever
going to present on this side so HK
actually cut down this locking lug so if
you managed to convert this rifle to a
double stack magazine but don't change
the bolt you'll have a gun that
malfunctions every other round because
it can't feed from this side of the
magazine that's an interesting change
most of the changes on this rifle are
strictly driven by legal requirement
things like the single stack magazine
the lack of pistol grip etc this seems
like it might have been a little more
work than was strictly legally necessary
although to be fair I wasn't a party to
you know the the ATF back and forth
compliance discussions about what would
make this rifle legal to import into the
US thanks for watching guys I hope you
enjoyed the video I will point out that
at the time of this filming there is
some chatter that really has been for a
couple years about HK bringing in a more
proper g36 semi-auto copy but who knows
if that will ever happen importation of
these guys ended I believe around 2010
obviously they never sold very well
because they're really kind of an odd
rifle and there's a rather small group
of people who would have bought these
things brand new so today they're still
floating around this one in particular
is in fantastic shape really because not
a lot of them got a lot of use so if
you're looking for an SL 8 because you
think it looks pretty awesome or if
you're looking for one because you want
to do that project and convert this into
a g36 clone yourself well take a look at
the description text below you'll find a
link there to rock Islands catalog page
on the gun and you can take a look at
their pictures in their description and
place the bid right there online or over
the telephone or come up here to Rock
Island to participate live in the
auction thanks for watching
you