Meet the newest member of IWI’s Tavor Bullpup Rifle Family: the Tavor 7 AR in 7.62x51mm.
“We are pleased to expand the Tavor family – the world’s most popular battle-proven bullpup rifles – with the new addition of a 7.62X51mm caliber weapon, based on requests from our customers,” said Shlomi Sabag, IWI’s CEO in a press release.
“The IWI Tavor 7 enables users from the military and law enforcement markets to operate in a wide variety of scenarios at short and medium range with enhanced firepower – efficiently, safely and easily, with only minimal maintenance,” Sabag continued.
“Based on what we have already heard from the field, we expect the IWI TAVOR 7 to become a leader in its category,” he concluded. “The weapon will be available from the first quarter of 2018.”
The skinny from the press release: The TAVOR 7 is a fully ambidextrous platform on which the ejection side and the charging handle can be switched quickly and easily from side to side by the user. The ambidextrous features include: safety lever, magazine release, and bolt catch similar to the X95.
The Tavor 7 comes in four different colors: Sniper Gray, OD Green, Black and Flat Dark Earth. (Photo: IWI)
The IWI TAVOR 7 also includes an M-LOK fore-end (2 M-LOK slots at 3 and 9 o’clock) as well as MIL-STD 1913 Picatinny rail at the 6 o’clock position, to allow the use of multiple devices and accessories. The rifle’s body is built from high-strength, impact-modified polymer, and has a hammer-forged, chrome-lined, free-floating barrel for enhanced accuracy and life cycle. Additional features include a short stroke gas piston with a 4-position variable gas regulator, (including an OFF position – a unique feature designed for special operation needs), a rotating bolt system that ensures maximum safety for the user, and a pistol grip that can be changed or modified. The IWI TAVOR 7 enables 100% interchangeability, reducing maintenance costs. It is available in four colors: Sniper Gray, OD Green, Black, and Flat Dark Earth, with replaceable barrels available in two lengths – 17″ (432 mm) and 20″ (508 mm) – for various uses. The rifle has an overall length of 28.4″ (723 mm) and a weight without a magazine of 9lbs (4.1 Kg).
No word on price. We look forward to seeing this new bullpup at SHOT 2018. Shop for a Tavor X95 on GunsAmerica.
From Mr. Free Market comes this gem from the past, a Westley Richards takedown rifle, based on a Mauser 98 action:
Westley Richards & Co. has been around since the early nineteenth century, making them one of the oldest gunmakers extant. They have made both rifles and shotguns, the latter including models designed by the brilliant gunsmith John Deeley (which I’ll talk about some other time).
But that’s not what I want to talk about today. Rather, I’d like to talk about their proprietary cartridge, the .318 Westley Richards (or as it’s more commonly known, the .318 Nitro), which came onto the market around 1907/08. Here’s a pic (from Wikipedia) which compares the .318 to other, more famous medium-game cartridges:
Note the long, thin(-nish) 250-grain bullet*, akin to the 7x57mm Mauser (a.k.a. .276 Rigby) and the 6.5x55mm Swedish bullets.
This gives the .318 exceptional penetration, and given the times it was popular, it should come as no surprise that the .318 Nitro has felled more elephant — in their thousands — than just about any other cartridge.
Walter “Karamojo” Bell used it to great effect along with his other elephant-killer, the .276 Rigby, as did many other Great White Hunters.
The.318 Nitro was superseded by later medium game cartridges (like the superb .375 H&H Magnum) which had “belted” cases to handle the extra pressure.
It will come as no surprise to Longtime Readers that this is of no concern to me, because I happen to think that many of the “older” cartridges are perfectly fine, thank you. (I have an old essay on this very topic, and as soon as I find it, I’ll re-publish it.)
I’ve never fired the .318 Nitro, nor have I ever fired a Westley Richards rifle, but I have to tell you all that after looking at Mr. FM’s picture… I have no idea what the rifle costs (several arms and legs, no doubt), but it’s irrelevant: it’s just drop-dead gorgeous. Sadly, though, Mr. FM’s following comment is quite true:
“Another one of those calibers that looks great on paper but trying to get ammo would be a nightmare.”
Sigh.
*In modern nomenclature, the .318 would be termed a .330 because nowadays we measure bullets from the inside-groove depth rather than from the “lands”, which was the British custom when this rifle was made.
4 COMMENTS
I couldn’t even afford the un-cut stock blank. If I could, I would put it in a well lit glass display case.
On the plus side, I lived in Chico, CA for near 30 years. At on time, it was a small town surrounded by vast orchards, a sizeable portion of which were walnuts. Times change, and the walnuts began to be changed out for citrus (oranges). A couple of enterprising lads got into the wood business, specifically gun stock blanks. Chico became world renowned in the gun industry for supplying AAA fancy walnut stock blanks to the finest gun makers on the planet. I was fortunate to have more than one opportunity peruse the inventory (no, I couldn’t afford them then, either).
Per the above comments, that stock is stunning. BUT around 30 yrs or more ago as I remember, there were numerous articles proclaiming the demise of old growth American and French walnut for gunstocks. This kindof was the time plywood and plastic stocks came into vogue. I suspect today is probably the last generation to be able to buy such superb wood stocks. At astronomic prices no doubt. Youngins I’ve talked too just don’t appreciate wood. Shooter games they play just can’t convey the beauty and feel of wood. Sad.
“Westley Richards & Co. has been around since the early nineteenth century, making them one of the oldest gunmakers extant.”
FWIW, I know the gentleman who own the oldest known surviving Westley Richards firearm. It’s a muzzle-loading shotgun. Serial number 4.
Shot: He shoots it.
Chaser: He’s won World Muzzle-Loading Championship events with that gun.
This is another gun as I could not find a good photo of this gun on its right side on the web. “The Colt New Police is a double-action, six-shot revolver (which can also be fired single action).
This gun was chambered in the .32 New Police, which is dimensionally identical to a flat-nose version of the .32 S&W Long, except for the nose shape.
In addition to the .32 New Police cartridge, the revolver was available in 32 Colt. The diameters of the two cartridges are not the same, with the 32 Colt being approximately 0.020 inches smaller in diameter than the New Police. Although the 32 Colt can be loaded and fired in the New Police chamber, it is not recommended to do so.
It is impossible to load the .32 New Police in a 32 Colt chamber. The later .32 New Police chambering was more popular than the 32 Colt chambering.
The Colt New Police was manufactured from 1896 to 1907 by Colt’s Manufacturing Company of Hartford, Connecticut.
The sights on the revolver were fixed with a round blade in front and a grooved rear sight. The revolver was available with a ?2 1/2-inch, four-inch, or six-inch barrel in a blued or nickel finish and hard rubber grips.
The Colt New Police was selected by New York City (NYPD) Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt in 1896 to be the first standard-issue revolver for NYPD officers.
A target version was made until 1905 with a 6-inch barrel and adjustable sights.
The New Police Revolver was replaced in the Colt catalog in 1907 by the improved Colt Police Positive, which featured an internal hammer block safety and better lock work.”
These models need no introduction, nor does the fact that Colt reintroduced their black powder revolvers a number of times due to popularity. Because they just look cool in my humble opinion!
Is the Pope a Catholic? Does the Left hate guns? People of the left hate guns more than almost anything else they remotely associate with the despised right, more than gas guzzlers, home school families, coal companies and coal miners, confederate flags and statues or pro-life protestors.
Mention the NRA and watch it trigger spasms of fury and outpourings of disgust from an over-stimulated SJW. The NRA for them is evil incarnate. No other organization is likely more detested and execrated.
What is it about guns that make people on the left hate them so much and harbor so much contempt for those people – not so much the criminals who use them, but the ordinary, law-abiding people who insist on owning them?
To begin with, guns are dangerous weapons, essential to the conduct of those human survival-occupations that were long in the exclusive domain of men – hunting, policing, war-making – activities that by their very nature involve violence and appeal to the most risk-seeking, masculine sorts of men.
The feminized, cult-Marx leftists who want little boys to be more like little girls and grow up to be latte-sipping pajama boys and metro-sexuals, instinctively recoil at just the thought of men with arms.
They seem to think that violence is just an old fashion sort of thing that unliberated (non-gelded) men still enjoy and employ in order to affirm their atavistic masculinity, sustain their corrupt institutions, and threaten the “vulnerables” who populate the victim classes, e.g. young black males shot by racist white policemen.
Consider also the power-dimensions of gun possession: a gun, even a very small one, is an amazing instrument of power. A ninety-pound woman physically confronted by a two hundred-pound man with a BMI of 25 has little power to resist his assault or aggression. A gun in her (non-feminist) hand completely changes the power equation.
By virtue of his superior size and relative strength, the man can seriously injure or murder the woman sans gun. With it, she can easily kill him if he attempts to harm her. His advantage-conveying, extra 110 pounds and bigger bones and muscles are instantly nullified by the discharge from her 25 ounce Ruger.
Guns enforce power-relations which is why police and soldiers carry them and which is also another reason why leftists hate them.
Police and soldiers are a class of human beings socialized in the use of institutionally sanctioned violence, making them foreign and threatening creatures to the sort of people preoccupied with micro-aggressions, correct gender pronouns, and safe spaces, the sort who protest outside a prison and break down in tears when a homicidal sadist strapped on a table inside gets a stiff dose of sodium thiopental.
Guns also can disturb power-relations, a fact that helps explain why guns are such a centerpiece of the raging culture war in America. Think of today’s red states, heartland USA, as America’s Vendée under assault from the Washington DC Jacobins.
Then recall candidate Obama’s 2008 condescending “bitter clingers to their guns or religion” slur before his San Francisco adulators directed at the white voters in western Pennsylvania.
The “religion” per Obama of these “bitter clingers” represents their intolerable spiritual resistance to the ruling, leveling ideology of transgenderism, gay rights and the anti-racism that has launched the lawless BLM and the Antifas.
The “guns” that Obama would like to take away are the material piece of the resistance of our own beleaguered Vendeans. Obama’s remarks were nothing less than a declaration of his intention to reduce in every possible way these people he had smeared as bigots to a powerless, atomistic mass of needy, compliant supplicants to the federal legions of panjandrums and faceless bureaucrats.
The left, of course, would love to confiscate all the guns in this country down to the very last BB gun claiming that it would it would end the rampages of psychotic shooters.
This is one of their phantasms of “progress.” Criminalize the possession of something in high demand and relatively easy to produce and you will see a dramatic spike in its price because of the seller’s criminal risk.
High prices attract high-risk entrepreneurs (aggressive young men usually) into the marketplace who form powerful, sophisticated crime syndicates that are (a) very competitive and hence extremely violent and (b) cater successfully to vast markets for their illegal product.
Does this sound familiar? The massive infusion of drugs into the U.S. with the accompanying violence dramatically illustrates how the unintended consequences of firearm confiscation, if attempted, would unfold.
Government confiscation of guns would drastically increase (criminalized) gun ownership and vastly increase gun violence, not to mention the exhaustion of law enforcement resources and the complete political alienation of large numbers of American citizens.
Self-defense, leftists sneeringly dismiss as a legitimate reason to own a gun – that is what the State is for.
Try not to choke on the hypocrisy. They are protected 24×7 by armed secret service personnel (Hillary, Obama and their families) or live in safe, posh suburbs with expensive, sophisticated security systems and reliable, predictable police protection.
But for those “folks” for whom they have so much compassion and about whom they know so little, those folks who have to worry about the muggers, rapists, wife-batterers, drug peddlers and strung out junkies who populate their neighborhoods?
Well, they are supposed to cherish how virtuous they will feel without those awful guns they don’t need and
hope a cop might show up before someone in the family gets raped or murdered.
We all know that there are large sections of some of the cities in the U.S. (governed by anti-gun Democrat politicians) where the police reluctantly go.
The State is quite selective in the protection it provides for its citizens and “the “State” for the “ruled-over” is a useless abstraction.
The pervasive cynicism and skepticism now aimed at those who operate it are completely justified. These “public servants” enjoy all of the perks of their offices that the rest of us only envy.
Our political class betters make onerous rules for their inferiors to live under, but not for themselves. To see how this works every single day, go to an airport.
Watch the sorry parade of ordinary, law-abiding citizens forced (coerced) to act like motley inmates of a county-jail work detail as they are made to strip off their clothes – jackets, belts, shoes, jewelry – and thrust their wrist-clasped arms above their heads in symbolic surrender before the scanners of their naked bodies.
Ordered about by the throngs of federal warders, the subjects – no longer citizens – must watch them paw through their personal belongings, pat down old women and young children, their hands intruding into very private parts of the body.
Do any of our esteemed legislators and executives endure these indignities?
At election time these vultures descend from their comfortable, lofty perches to perform tedious rituals of pretending to care when what they really want is just more power and the advantages and privileges that come with it.
The animosity of the left for guns is also about the special kind of snobbery they indulge that relates to the work they do and the way they live.
They tend to work in the realm of ideas and at activities intended to influence the thinking and actions of others. They teach in schools and universities, run media outlets and newspapers, manage and administer NGOs, market and sell products, process paper in government offices.
Some of them are “grievance specialists” at universities and other organizations, professional busybodies and scolds who operate under the rubric of “diversity”, a code word that permits them to hector and bully whomever they please.
These types don’t change the oil in their own cars,
fix things they own when they break down, make or grow anything they use or consume.
They pay “other people” to do things like this, and they mostly look down on them.
These “other people” tend to like guns. They live and think conservatively and work at jobs such as policemen, firemen, mechanics, truck drivers, construction workers and run small businesses.
They hunt, fish, bowl, fix their own cars, go to church, take care of their grandparents, join the military and do many other things that offend the sensibilities of the left.
For the Prius-driving, inequality-obsessed Sociology professor who campaigned for Hillary and rails against Trump, the gun-toting policeman he loathes and execrates in his 101 classes could not respond quickly enough to his summons when he thinks a burglar might be near.
The left will never relinquish their hostility toward gun owners and never abandon their efforts at gun control. “Gun control” is a euphemism, an essential piece of the larger picture that defines the essence of the left and what they aspire to, complete control of others.
Because they believe themselves to be uniquely entitled to order and manage the lives of everybody, they observe no restraints of honesty or fair play.
Be assured, they will relentlessly intrude themselves into every corner of our lives so as to make the rest of us into what they think we should be, pale, inferior imitations of themselves.
Guns are a huge obstacle to this goal. Viva the cold dead fingers!
M.A.V. I di Salvinelli Folding Companion 28Ga. Single Shot Shotgun.
This shotgun was made in Italy and imported by Dakin Gun Company San Francisco-USA. They were also sold by Beretta and Galef. These guns in 28ga are very rare.
It also just goes to show me. That even after 50 years of shooting that there is ALWAYS something new to learn about guns. As I had never even heard of this outfit before I saw this shotgun!
On the plus side, I lived in Chico, CA for near 30 years. At on time, it was a small town surrounded by vast orchards, a sizeable portion of which were walnuts. Times change, and the walnuts began to be changed out for citrus (oranges). A couple of enterprising lads got into the wood business, specifically gun stock blanks. Chico became world renowned in the gun industry for supplying AAA fancy walnut stock blanks to the finest gun makers on the planet. I was fortunate to have more than one opportunity peruse the inventory (no, I couldn’t afford them then, either).
FWIW, I know the gentleman who own the oldest known surviving Westley Richards firearm. It’s a muzzle-loading shotgun. Serial number 4.
Shot: He shoots it.
Chaser: He’s won World Muzzle-Loading Championship events with that gun.