- American-180
Infobox Weapon
name= American-180
caption=
origin=flagcountry|United States
type=Submachine gun
is_ranged=yes
is_bladed=
is_explosive=
is_artillery=
is_vehicle=
service=
used_by=
wars=
designer=Richard Casull
design_date=
manufacturer=Voere , Illinois Arms Company, Inc., American Arms International
production_date=
number=
variants=Short barrel version
weight=
length= 900 mm (35.5 in)
part_length=- 470 mm (18.5 in)
- 229 mm (9 in) (short barrel)
crew=
cartridge=.22 LR ,.22 Short Magnum
caliber=
action= blowback,open bolt
rate=- 1200 round/min (.22 LR)
- 1500 round/min (.22 Short Magnum)
velocity=
range= 100 m (330 ft)
max_range=
feed= 165, 177, 220, or 275 round detachable pan magazine
sights=Fixed open sightsThe American-180 is a
submachinegun developed in the 1960s which fires.22 LR cartridges from a high capacity magazine. The high capacity concept began with the Casull Model 290, which was the first weapon to use this flat pan magazine, although similar magazine designs were widely used prior to World War 2. Only 80 Casull M290s were created, and the weapon was very expensive to produce. Then the idea of the flat pan, high capacity magazine was re-introduced in the American-180 submachinegun. Weapons were mostly sold to police departments andprison s, particularly forriot control .Operation
This submachinegun is a conventional blowback weapon. It uses an open bolt with a flat pan high capacity magazine. The cartridges are pushed down into a chamber using springs and coils, then the bullet is fired with a fixed firing pin, launching out of the barrel. The gun is typically only effective within a 100 meter range, so it is not suitable for long range shooting.
Despite the relatively low power of the .22 LR round, testing demonstrated that automatic fire could penetrate concrete and even bulletproof vests from cumulative damage. Given the ultra-high magazine capacity and very high rate of fire (at 1200 rounds per minute, or 20 rounds per second) it is relatively easy to train the projectile delivery towards moving targets, especially slower moving targets such as people and vehicles. One concept that attempts to identify a drawback to this stategy is that the target would have to remain still for an improbable amount of time to allow the cumulative damage to amass in the same area, but this is fairly erroneous. It is highly unlikely that an individual could evade the fire of a 1200 RPM machine gun being trained on their position after being sighted in, almost no matter how fast they are, especially if they cannot get behind cover. 50ms per round is likely too fast of a response time for a typical person to move sufficienty, and stationary cover does not move.
Advantages
*very high firing rate
*littlerecoil
*lightweight
*high magazine capacity
*high effective range for a submachinegun
*low probability of ricochets
*no over-penetration
*inexpensive ammunitionDisadvantages
*low stopping power of individual 22 caliber bullets
*length of time required for magazine changes
*reliability problemsee also
*
.22 Long Rifle
*MGV-176 External links
* [http://world.guns.ru/smg/smg62-e.htm Modern Firearms: American-180 submachine gun]
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