Today's episode is all about the Israeli army's historic 5.56 mm Galil which was their main combat
rifle between 1972 and 2000. So why is it known as one of the world's most beloved AK variants
ever made? well for starters it was a gun that had its priorities straight with an integrated
steel bottle opener manufactured directly into it because everyone knows doing war sober is the
worst. Now I'm jealous the American m4 doesn't have a rip-it opener on it! In order to truly
understand this weapon let's get out of the studio and actually put some rounds through it. The Galil
tried to combine the best aspects of western ammo and eastern firearms philosophy into one
very good looking package the one i'm holding here is an older model Galil had a long 18 inch barrel
for added accuracy one thing that hasn't changed since its creation is that it's always featured
a full send mode with a high rate of fire at 650 rounds per minute I was able to dump the entire
mag faster than i could say shalom that means hello the rifle has evolved over the years from
originally having a wooden foregrip and a carrying handle to its modern upgraded Galil ACE version
made with polymer and a picatinny rail system that we're going to get into later the future version
coming out soon is an NFT of a cat firing it don't screenshot that I digitally own it! it's still in
use to this day as the primary rifle in estonia and the Colombian military it's just not in use
by the IDF military anymore which is weird right so why did Israel decide to go through the trouble
of creating their own weapon if they don't even use it anymore the Galil has a fascinating rise
and fall story that tells us as much about the military history of Israel as it does about the
development of small arms in general the IDF military basically married an ak-47 to the m16
here to which I say Mazeltov! I always knew those two would be good together if they ever stopped
fighting. but it did have some downsides like it's noticeably two pounds heavier than the AK-47
but there's a good reason for that the real reason the Galil was much heavier was because its
receiver was forge milled instead of stamped iwi also has a closer machining tolerance which means
that the margin of error on the parts is lower at their factory so that adds to the cost as well
on the plus side it also makes the Galil way more accurate than the soviet AK47 the reason they used
this more expensive forged mill production method was because they saw the original ak-47s were
being made using a sheet metal stamping technology that made the weapon lighter but created serious
issues in the field with parts breaking one of the distinguishing features that you'll notice right
away on the weapon is its long curved magazine that it's often seen with i think this comes
from the IDF military's dislike for their old FAL Rifle which could only carry 20 rounds and
you'll see a lot of design choices in the Galil Rifle are a direct consequence of the bad taste
left in their mouth after the FN FAL. Look I'm all for having more ammo but can we agree that
the IDF military's 50 round mags were a little bit too long where do we draw the line soldiers even
reported having trouble hitting their targets with these things this was one of the first military
weapons adopted to fire the accurate small NATO 556 from the reliable ak-47 style action the AR
Galil has an impressive muzzle velocity of 950 meters per second and an extended max range of
500 meters you have to remember at the time of its development in the late 1960s the Galil Rifle was
a very novel idea if you think about it two years after it went into service the soviet army made a
version of the AK-47 that fired a small round that was very similar to the Galil Rifle it also had
a foldable stock just like the Galil coincidence maybe but i think that the Israelis were inspired
by the soviet ak-47 who were then inspired by the israeli galilee isn't the circle of firearms life
fascinating so how does the glial work when fired the high pressure gases from the explosion of the
gunpowder are evacuated into the gas cylinder which drives the piston rod rearward as the bolt
carrier flies backwards this in turn compresses the return spring and that return energy contained
inside the spring sends the assembly back forward which then strips a new round from the magazine
this all happens in a fraction of a second and the whole process creates what's called recoil which
i'm known for getting tossed around by seriously it looks like these firearms are handling me
so in 1955 israel adopted the FN FAL Rifle which was all the rage with nato at the time in the six
days war of 1967 the FN FAL turned out to be a huge disappointment for israel so you have to
remember the brand new IDF military wasn't very well trained or equipped to correctly maintain
the FN FAL in the field guys can we pause the war real quick time out i got a grain of sand
jammed in my gun it's not working they would even try to use the enemies captured ak-47s instead
israeli soldiers gave the feared ak a majestic nickname
the tiger of the desert which was similar to the nickname that the enemy gave me in iraq
the kitten of the sandbox israel knew it would be hard for them to acquire the ak straight from
the soviet union at the time since they were just starting to get buddy buddy with nato
so they turned to their internal state-run weapons production company imi to create a solution
Yisreal Balashnikov headed up the design team working on what would become the galil he was
born in 1923 in the soviet union of all places at a very early age he moved to israel where he
served with the british army during world war ii and his job couldn't have been more relevant
he would steal weapons from the enemy in order to give it to the allies to use after the war he
helped develop the uzi sub machine gun at israeli military industries. The whole point of his
Galil gun was that it needed to work in the desert without fail unlike the finicky FN FAL gun it was
supposed to solve all of their problems maybe not all of them i hear there's a noble peace prize up
for grabs whoever figures that out they also liked the advantages offered by the lighter 5.56 round
because they felt it was a more accurate cartridge and allowed for additional rounds in the magazine
when compared to the 762 i think the galil even borrowed some design features from the
FN FAL gun like the shape of its carrying handle the distinct rectangular shaped wooden foregrip
was a uniquely israeli design aesthetic it was balashninkov putting his signature on the rifle
when making the prototype for the weapon he studied captured ak-47s and borrowed its reliable
long-stroke rotating bolt design he didn't like the way the aks were stamp manufactured though so
when he heard about the finnish army's improved valmat 62 he wanted to know how they made that
israel secured the rights to make the first allele prototypes using the finnish Valmet machinery
and blueprints so at this point in its early development in 1970s the prototype galil was
still named after the firearm engineer's original name the balashnikov rifle i can imagine that
name did not go over well with the focus groups because of its coincidence of sounding too much
like kalashnikov nice to meet you israel blasinkov we love your prototype balashnikov rifle it's just
perfect we think you're a creative genius keep up the great work don't change a bit but also do
you think you could just i don't know completely change your name we ran some focus groups and we
found that the name balashnikov wasn't really sitting well with the 25 to 35 demo that means
demographic and people in our 45 to 65 demo think balashnikov sounds way too much like kalashnikov
and just hearing the word really triggers them basically the idf really didn't want their new
primary weapon to sound like it was being supplied from the soviet union which is understandable and
it just so happened that israel balashnikov wanted to change his name to something that reflected his
new life in israel anyway so he changed his name to the location of his new hometown the lily wait
so are you saying that the golil is basically just a carbon copy of the ak-47 is my whole life a lie
the whole time i was just a fan of the ak-47 not the galil well the answer to that is yes and no
sometimes in firearms development being able to come up with a way to manufacture at scale
and being able to make small changes can make all the difference the changes that differentiate the
galil from the ak are where it gets really interesting you see one of the most visually
unique aspects of the galil and the easiest way to tell it apart from an ak just at a glance is
its charging handle it's angled up and extends above the receiver which makes it intuitive to
operate with your left hand while keeping your right hand on the pistol grip the bottle opener
located near the magazine port was apparently added because soldiers were frequently damaging
their uzi magazines by using them to open bottles how lucky is the idf that they get to crack open
a cold one in the field when i was deployed to iraq everyone in the us military had to drink
fake near beers just to feel alive for a minute stay hydrated huh but manufacturing the galil was
delayed by the outbreak of the yom kippur war in 1973. when it finally reached the soldiers hands
just in time for 1975 that's when the usa's war in vietnam was coming to a close the us military
at the time was looking to get rid of a ton of surplus m16s so they started selling them to
israel at a very cheap cost so cheap that it was much more cost effective for the idf to buy m16s
instead of mass producing the relatively expensive galil hey spare parts army please remember to hit
the like button the one thing i didn't like when shooting it was that the bolt doesn't stay open to
the rear after the last shot i also found myself confused when looking at the fire selector switch
it has three letters s a and r at first i had no idea what the r stood for does it stand for
reverse can i shoot this gun like in tenant a range safety officer at the heritage guild
was kind enough to inform me that it actually is british terminology which stands for repetition
which means single fire in american i'm not as familiar with the ak style selector switch so
personally i found it difficult to know for sure which firing mode i was on at any time it's hard
to feel the difference because the increment between each firing selector is very small
by the year 2000 the israeli defense forces had completely phased out the galil in favor of the
m16 and then they moved on to their own tavr bullpup just when you thought the galil was dead
iwi resurrected it and this upgraded version tried to fix all the complaints that were
leveled against its grandpa the whole thing is about a pound or two lighter at 7.9 pounds or 3.6
kilograms this is thanks to its receiver now being made out of a mix of lightweight polymer and steel
it's got an increased rate of fire at 880 rounds per minute the new galil loses some
of its visually distinguishing trademarks in favor of practicality so now it has a simple left side
charging handle they added a picatinny rail system as is tradition and they even fixed my pet peeves
of adding a last round bolt catch the galil ace has already been adopted by the people's army of
vietnam as their primary weapon the galil and the uzi put the israeli weapons industry on the map
and proved that israel had some talented weapons designers it did have some original problems that
have since been addressed with its recent upgraded ace version which seems to show that the galil
will continue to have a promising future in the military thank you for watching happy new years
guys i'm excited to show you about what we have in store for you next year like a consistent posting
schedule i'm your average infantryman chris cappy if you get a chance please check out this video
here that i made about the us navy seals versus the green berets i think you guys will like it