Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and I'm here today at the Rock Island Auction
Company taking a look at a Holloway Arms HAC-7.
And this video is not reversed, this is a reversed rifle.
So the HAC-7 was developed in 1984, produced in 1984, company was out of business in 1985. It didn't last all that long.
It was a product of a guy named Bob Holloway who had combat experience in Vietnam and Rhodesia,
and put this all together to come up with what he thought would be the ideal perfect infantry combat rifle.
And frankly, he had a lot of really interesting ideas in this design. It's sort of a hybrid.
There's elements of AK, there's sort of elements of FAL, there's some interesting 2 lug rotating bolt,
but with a relatively long receiver, long unlocking stroke. It's a pretty cool rifle.
In fact, I did a video on one of these many years ago now, and when I saw that Rock Island had this left-handed one
I went back to check on my old video to see like, "Ah, what do I need to update?"
And came to the conclusion there's really not anything that I need to update there.
If you want to know how this rifle works or basic history of its production,
I'm gonna recommend you check out that video, I'll link it from the end of this one.
But what I want to do here is show you the left-handed model, because
of about probably 280 HAC-7s made in total, 50 of them were left-handed, approximately.
30 of those being carbines with the short barrel, and 20 of them being rifles like this.
Not to be overly melodramatic about it, but handling the left-handed version of the HAC-7 to me, as a left hander,
feels vaguely akin to coming home from a long trip overseas in a country that doesn't speak English.
And you get home and you're like, "Oh, I just forgot how much less effort everything has to be
when everyone speaks the same language that I speak." And it's kind of like that with some left-handed controls here.
So the HAC-7 always had an ambidextrous magazine release, just a big ol' paddle on the bottom.
And it uses ... original waffle AR-10 magazines
that have this notch cut in the back of them to hook up to its ... AK style magazine paddle.
The selector lever is also left-handed. ...
The important part is going from safe to fire, which is nice and easy within thumb grasp. There we go.
Now the selector lever on the HAC-7 is only one- sided so we don't have a lever over on this side.
However, it was always interchangeable. So even if you had a right-handed gun
you could flip the selector lever to the ... right side if you wanted. By the way while we're here,
a quick point out at the markings. It's Holloway Arms Company, calibre's .308 Winchester.
This is serial number 47. And you'll notice the model is 7L. They were all Model 7s,
(to be honest, I'm not sure exactly where that came from),
but the standard right-handed guns were just Model 7 and the left-handed ones were 7L.
Where we get into some real changes for the lefties is in the upper receiver here.
So we have a charging handle on the right side. Very convenient for a left hander.
And if I flip this over we have an ejection port on the left side,
so I can shoulder this left handed and ejected cases are going to fly out away from me.
Now if I put that magazine back in and lock the bolt open,
what about a [bolt] release? Well the [bolt] release has been moved to the right hand side.
So on a standard gun, the [bolt] release will be on the opposite side, but for a lefty
you're gonna operate the charging handle, and then you've got
your bolt release right there. So it's not just the upper receiver that was modified on the 7Ls, it was also the lower to incorporate that.
And Holloway really went the extra mile in making the left- handed version, even the stock folds the opposite direction.
So on these guys the stock folds to the left under the ejection port.
On the standard right-handed model the stock folds over to the right.
Now the one other thing that I want to show you on here is the scope. All HAC-7s came drilled and tapped
for a scope mounting system, but this is the first one I've actually seen that has a scope mounted on it.
I don't know that this is quite the original style.
Normally, what you would have is this rail on the bottom and then you would use a Weaver,
I believe Weaver number 13 mounts to put a scope right on this bottom rail.
Whoever set this one up added an extension block, and then two more extension blocks, and then a pair of short scope risers.
And then of all things to choose a Bausch & Lomb scope. That's kind of cool, I haven't seen one of those,
I don't know I've ever seen one of those mounted on a rifle actually. So, neat.
If I'm going to be entirely fair, I have to say that the charging handle, well, it's a pretty darn good design for
actually kind of for operating ambidextrously, you know
it comes up vertically like this so you can reach it over the top of the rifle.
Not really designed to actually have a scope mounted with it, because this kind of gets the way.
You're really close to the optics mount, and it's really easy to stick your thumb out and
smack it into the the rear optics mount there when you charge the rifle.
But other than that, this is about as cool as it would get for a left hander in 1984 looking for a battle rifle.
So I realise this is sort of a repeat video because you've already seen the HAC-7 if you, well, watched every video I've done.
But I thought it was a good opportunity to actually show you the left-handed model and also how the scope mount fits on there.
So hopefully you guys enjoyed this, definitely not the sort of gun you run across every day.
It is of course in Rock Island's upcoming auction, you can check out pictures and more information about it on their catalogue page.
If you just want to see more about Rock Island themselves, check out the description text below.
You'll find links there to their Instagram page and their YouTube channel, where you can find a bunch of other cool stuff.
Thanks for watching.