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Pakistani CW39: Rifle development is a flat circle

CW39 and a Type 56 by The Firearms Blog

Development of the military rifle has stagnated mostly into tweaking three different basic platforms into different ergonomics layouts. For the past 30 years, most of the new service rifles have been either attempts to breathe life into the AK.47 carcass, fine tuning the AR-15 or hiding the AR-18/180 into different shells. This has brought us some excellent rifles and capability upgrades from the likes of M4A1, Steyr AUG, FN SCAR to SAKO RK-62M2.

Pakistani G3 and Type 56

One rifle program that is swimming up the mountain river is the Pakistan Army’s rifle trials and subsequent development of their upcoming assault rifle the CW39. The initial trials pitted most of the usual suspects in modern rifles against the two existing service rifles of the Pak Army Chinese Type-56 a 7.62x39 AK variant and the H&K G3, a 7.62x51 battle rifle built under license by the Pakistani Ordnance Factory, POF.

In their testing the Pak Army came to the conclusion that when it comes to reliability, ease of maintenance, accuracy and the ease of manufacturing in their existing factories, nothing could match the G3. Being a full power Cold War battle rifle, the G3 is limited by its choice of caliber. The heavier 7.62x51 (7.62 NATO) isn’t controllable in full auto for the average soldier and the ammunition load is limited compared to the smaller rounds.

This led the Pak Army and POF to the obvious conclusion that the G3 in an intermediate caliber with modernized ergonomics and optics mount would be the ideal rifle for them. H&K has developed their own moderately successful line of intermediate 5.56x45 assault rifles known as the HK33 family. There was only one issue, this would leave the Pak Army dealing with three different rifle cartridges for quite a long time. In addition the army already had huge stocks of ammunition and magazines for the other primary intermediate cartridge in the world, the 7.62x39.

CW39 endurance testing, pic by POF

This led to the brand new concept of the CW39, a G3 roller delayed system in 7.62x39 that would mate the AK magazine and cartridge with the G3:s legendary reliability and accuracy provided by the free floated barrel without any kind of a gas system. This should result in a smooth soothing system that the POF is perfectly equipped to manufacture. Unique situations create unique solutions.

Except of course a 7,62x39 G3 is hardly a new idea, the CETME/H&K Model B was submitted to the Finnish assault rifle trials in the late 1950’s. It featured an AK magazine and 7,62x39 caliber with a G3 like roller delayed blowback action. So in an alternative timeline we could have had Pakistan adopting the Finnish H&K Model B m2, instead of developing the CW39.

Finnish trial version of the Model B

In the end I expect the CW39 to become a decently good rifle for Pak Army for the next few decades. It will also maintain the option of shifting to the 5.56 or some other new caliber with moderate modifications. And it makes me happy as I really like the delayed blowback action and like to see diversity in the firearms engineering.

-Petri Mäkelä


Source for the cover pic: The Firearms Blog

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