General Purpose Infantry Rifle

Foreword

I have written this page in a personal manner for a number of reasons.  This page is for my friends and those who have encouraged me over the years; believing in the value of the ideas I was pursuing with respect to an ideal general purpose infantry rifle.  It is also to fully document what happened with this invention and to illustrate how difficult it is to have new ideas accepted; particularly in the Australian Defence Force.  It seems to be something cultural, dating back to the early days of settlement where the best crockery or furniture always came from the "old country" and one gained one's social status, not by using the local product, but by showing off imported acquisitions.  I have also been amazed at how many web-sites have posted information about the KAL1 GPIR (including Wikipedia!) and so I thought this audience would like to hear the full story.  As much as I can, without harming the reputations of some people, or betraying confidences, I have provided copies of original correspondence. 

At the end of this "journey", there were two rifles.  Both of them working.  The one at the top, RMC No2, had fired over 20,000 rounds; the KAL-1, a couple of hundred before the project was closed at the direction of Army Headquarters as a result of pressure brought to bear by Army Design Establishment.  Both rifles were in working condition when they were handed over to the Infantry Centre.  With comparatively little engineering effort, the KAL-1 could have been transformed into a polished operational weapon of any desired calibre.  It was a great opportunity lost to the Australian Defence Force because of a profound lack of leadership and imagination on the part of some very senior officers.

Background

I have always from childhood been an inventor.  I had three older brothers, John, Blair and Peter and we spent a great deal of our time in the bush surrounding the village of Dinmore around 20 miles West of Brisbane.  By the time I was 15 years of age, I had 5 rifles.  Two air-rifles, a Gecado 25 and a Gecado 50 target rifle, I bought from the money I earned doing paper rounds in the morning and evening for my father who owned the local grocery store, Newsagency and Post Office.  I also had two .22 rifles, one of which was a semi-automatic and one bolt action.  The semi-automatic was actually my brother John's and so was the .303/25 that he entrusted to my care when he couldn't take it with him wherever he was living at the time.  My brothers were all highly inventive.  We did the usual "Huckleberry Finn" things like make rafts, model aeroplanes, crystal (radio) sets, cracker guns, bombs, bridges and so on.  All three of my brothers, went on to science based educations and professions.  John gained a number of degrees the last being in Medicine and Surgery.  Blair gained a degree in Industrial Chemistry whilst Peter became a civil engineer and has worked on many of the largest engineering projects in the world; including Australia's Parliament House. 

This rifle (or rifles as it turned out to be) is not really as much an invention but the amalgamation of the ideas of others.  It was built from L1A1 parts only as a matter of expedience.  As to the final calibre, I figured that would be a matter of policy, largely determined by Australia's need to have interoperability with its Allies; primarily the US.  The design of modern small arms can be traced back to the 1800's.  If there have been substantial advances in more recent times, they mainly apply to things like materials, propellants and sights.  Locking mechanisms come in many forms but essentially, they all perform a similar role.  When unlocking, some of the more refined designs have a primary extraction stage, to loosen the stiction of the cartridge against the chamber wall, and then the rude extraction to fully remove the cartridge; this two stage process helping to reduce the instances of separated cartridge cases and allowing the walls of cartridges to be made thinner and hence lighter.  I made two rifles against a significant amount of entrenched resistance and, at times, risked my career in doing so.  I would really like before I finish my engineering days and hang up my vernier to make the final model; built the way I think a rifle should be.  What would that consist of:

• Most probably a bull-pup butt design so as to have the shortest, lightest possible rifle with the longest possible barrel.
• Ambidextrous operation by having:
  • the cocking handle on the top
  • the safety catch in front of the trigger (bringing other benefits besides that of ambidexterity)
  • large magazine catch that is equally accessible from both sides of the weapon and uses the strong gripping action of the hand to release it as the magazine is simultaneously pulled downwards
  • easy adjustment of sights from both sides of the weapon
  • ejection of the round downwards or to the left and right by:
    • having a moveable stationary ejector linked to the slide cover, or (and most probably the best and simplest solution)
    • having a cowling on the slide cover that simply deflected the round downwards and protected the firer's face from any detritus being blown out of the breech by residual pressure when the bolt retracts.
• Large parts and few of them such that stripping and cleaning the weapon is quick and easy and the parts are hard to lose in poor light or chaotic, difficult surroundings.
• A simple, crude, self cleaning, hard-to-jam, locking action, say, like the AK-47.
• A single return spring that also returned the piston.
• A design which, to the most practical extent possible, utilised common components across a range of weapons.
• An integrated noise suppressor so that firer's did not harm their hearing when operating the weapon without ear protection.(See Silencer Project)
• An adjustable stock length with built in shock absorber so as to provide maximum comfort to firer's with differing anthropometrics.
• An extensible pistol grip so as to assist the use of the basic prone position (see Figures 7&8).
• A smooth exterior to ensure the weapon is comfortable to carry and operate and will not snag on clothing or surroundings.
• Picatinny rails on the top and the bottom of the barrel so that a variety of devices (such as night vision sights, torches and grenade launcher) can be fitted as required.
• Optical and open battle sights.
• A round that was hard hitting and accurate against lightly armoured personnel out to 500 metres with the ammunition being common across a variety of weapons.
• And finally, mechanicals that are easy to fabricate such that the weapon can be mass produced at low cost should there be a national emergency requiring that.

I'm far from being the first person to have experienced resistance from an entrenched and unimaginative bureaucracy when trying to get a new type of small arm accepted by the Australian Army.  Evelyn Owen experienced the same problems with his Owen Gun.  See "The Owen Gun Chronological Bibliography and Catalogue of Memorabilia and Published Documents" by Alan Stein dated 28 October 2008.  ( the following year when he attempted to interest the military, Owen was rebuffed, being told that neither the Australian or British armies had any need for such a weapon.")   In the following, I have included scans of original letters.  In pursuing this idea, my first really big idea, I met all sorts of people.  Some were devoid of ideas, delighting in obstructionism, others were helpful just because they knew it was the right thing to do and others gave me the benefit of their skill, imagination and intellect with no expectation of reward.  It's been an education.  I now appreciate why, in every major conflict, Australians have gone into battle with second-rate equipment led by decent, brave officers, often lacking in science and materiel ingenuity; the one most prominent exception to this probably being Sir John Monash. 

The Beginning - RMC Duntroon

In 1969, I gained entrance into the Royal Military College Duntroon and commenced a degree in Mechanical Engineering.  At the end of each year a field exercise was held. This consisted of 4 solid weeks of Infantry Minor Tactics with the "Corps of Staff Cadets" participating as a Battalion in a make-believe Divisional exercise.  In 1969, the exercise was held in the Brindabella Mountains, its theme being Counter Revolutionary Warfare; influenced by the fact that Australia was, at that time, heavily engaged in operations in Vietnam.  During that exercise it rained, then hailed, then sleeted and finally it snowed; all the time whilst we chased "enemy" in black pyjamas pretending to be Viet Cong!  I spent my time, when sitting in foxholes, freezing and waiting for the "enemy" to attack, distracting myself from my miserable state by thinking of ways by which the standard issue rifle, then a 7.62mm L1A1, could be adapted to be a better weapon for the infantry.  There were quite a few things wrong with the L1A1.

• It was too long to use in close bushland and jungle.
• The rifle could not be easily operated by people who were naturally left-handed and, even if right-handed, to shoot around the left side of a corner, right handed, in urban warfare requires that the firer totally expose themselves if they wish to take an aimed shot.
• It was heavy and uncomfortable to carry with a tendency for people, when patrolling for a long of time, to let the weapon "droop" towards the ground; thereby making it slower to bring to the ready in a contact.
• The foresight of the weapon was separated from the rear sight by a flexible joint which significantly affected its ability,once zeroed, to maintain its point of aim and hence its accuracy.
• The weapon was primarily black and so stood out against a light green uniform, particularly in grassland, making it easy to spot armed troops.
• When cleaning the weapon, it was possible to jam cleaning cloth in the gas tube and this effectively put the weapon out of action until an armourer could be summoned to remove the blockage or replace the tube.
• Some of the parts of the weapon, when it was disassembled for cleaning, were easy to lose, especially if cleaning was done in poor light or on the leafy floor of a forest.

After exercises were finished I drew up plans and tried to interest the Engineering staff at the University laboratories in my ideas. In June of 1970, I finally wrote a very untidy and poorly worded minute to my Commanding Officer, LtCol Stewart asking that I be allowed to take L1A1 rifle parts and construct a working model of the rifle.  To my amazement, my Company Commander was directed to pass me to Captain John Scully, the OC of the workshops at Duntroon.  John Scully passed my plans to a Citizen Military Forces(CMF) Officer, Capt John Sankey. His opinion was aimed at discouraging me from further attempts to proceed with this idea and so his written opinion was fairly negative.  (For details see Sankey's Report) 

In my life, I have learnt there are two ways of building things.  One is to specify in great detail a set of requirements, draw detailed plans and then build that which you have specified. Invariably, those that follow this path on anything but a routine project, such as building a standard bridge on a main road, will find themselves with something they didn't actually want or that they had overlooked, in the process of the specification, some crucial point. The other is to treat the idea like a piece of clay and mould it, listen to the views of users and continue to change your ideas until you have something that is the best that can be.  As can be seen from Sankey's report, he was definitely in the camp of specifying everything to the finest detail.  On the other hand, it may have simply been a ploy, believing that if he made onerous demands I would lose interest and look for something easier to do. Scully's comment of, "It is recommended Staff Cadet Loughrey direct his energies towards a more profitable project.", encapsulates this view.

This rejection had exactly the opposite effect.

The Scientific Advisor, et al

One evening in 1971 (my third year at RMC), while running back to the barracks from sport, a classmate of mine, Rick Davies, enquired about the progress of "the rifle".  I told him about the Scully/Sankey report and he said he might be able to help.  His girlfriend at the time was the secretary to Mr Max Nesbitt, the Scientific Advisor to the Army and he thought he could obtain for me an interview.  I was sceptical but said I would welcome the opportunity.  True to his word, Rick organised a meeting.  At that meeting I was told, there had been numerous complaints from the Infantry about the unsuitability of the L1A1 Rifle for use in Viet Nam because of its weight, inherent inaccuracy through having a flexing hinge between the fore and rear sights and its long length which made it unsuitable for use in thick vegetation or close quarter combat. Consideration had been given to copying the AK-47, but for political reasons, this was not thought to be a good idea. The idea of building a better, shorter rifle therefore had some appeal.  Max Nesbitt was an amazing and kind person and he had lots of useful contacts; one of which was Mr Eric Duve of the Department of Supply.  In those days the Dept of Supply owned and operated the Small Arms Factory at Lithgow.  I was introduced to Mr Peter Gardiner and his team who worked from offices in Canberra.  Great people to work with.  Highly creative, open to ideas and very helpful.  I met with these people on 25th of June 1971.  From that meeting came agreement to draw up plans for RMC No2; RMC No1 being the original plans for a rifle with a locking action and return spring arrangement modelled on the AK-47.  The Dept of Supply team (rightly) concluded it was too big a step to go immediately to making a totally new rifle.  They felt the best approach was to test the concept of having a bullpup butt design as this was revolutionary at that time.  (Of interest, just after the WWII, the British had developed a bullpup rifle called the EM2.  It was a rifle that was well ahead of its time.)  To do this they would build a working mockup using L1A1 parts.  I visited the SAF Lithgow in late July to meet with the team that was fashioning RMC No2.  They too were a great bunch of practical, "can-do" craftsmen with a sense of humour you only find in a machine-shop full of creative, motivated people.  I loved it there.  From that effort came RMC No2. 

A Different World.  Looking back it was a totally different world in which Australians used to live compared to the one of today with mass shootings in public places, terrorists and suicide bombers.  When I was an Army cadet at High School, I used to be allowed to take a .303 rifle home on the train in order that I could shoot at the Redbank Rifle range over the weekend.  After I had finished testing the RMC No2 at SAF, it was sent from Lithgow to the Q Store at Duntroon.  Shortly after it arrived, I went to the Q Store, signed it out and walked from the Military College at Duntroon around to Army Headquarters.  I arrived at G Block, rifle in hand, and spoke to the Commonwealth Policeman on guard, saying I was there to see the Scientific Advisor for the Army.  He rang the Scientific Advisor's PA, she came down, greeted me and took me up to his office.  No one blinked or challenged me.  After the meeting I walked, with rifle, back to Duntroon.  Today it would be totally inconceivable for anyone to walk around with a rifle in public, let alone take one into Army Headquarters in such an informal manner.

Army Design Establishment(ADE) - A Negative View
ADE Report of RMC No2 Rifle 28 Apr 1972 (Click to read)	RMC No2 was sent to ADE in early 1972 and a report was issued by them on 28th of April.  The report, written primarily by a public servant, LtCol Mike Chivers (Retd British Army), was entirely negative; the author being unable to see beyond what was to what could be.  It was badly written and riddled with errors of technical fact.  A later assessment by the Special Air Service Regiment also confirmed that the author had little understanding of user requirements relating to such things as weapon balance and the ergonomics associated with the immediate actions necessary when there was a weapon stoppage. I had already met Chivers during one of my visits to ADE.  An ex-British officer, with the typical grey nicotine stained moustache, who lacked an engineering degree but had somehow insinuated his way into the business of small arms design and development.  During my meeting with him, he thrust forward a book on small arms design that he had compiled over the years and about which he was very proud.  It resembled something very much like W.H.B. Smith's, "Small Arms of the World" and I remember being very impressed with the size of it and the effort it must have taken him to compile.  All in all though, I found it disappointing to meet someone who held no tertiary qualifications in engineering, had no imagination and could not see the possibilities this development offered him personally.  I went to some length to explain to him that this was a wonderful opportunity, for him, for ADE and for the Small Arms Factory at Lithgow, to do something really interesting and creative.  He could take this working mockup and turn it into anything he wanted provided he stuck to the concept of building a rifle with a bull-pup butt that was capable of being operated with equal ease by left and right handed people.  Even though the Australian Army had no immediate intention of introducing a new rifle, it made sense to develop the plans for one now and continually refine those plans.  When, finally, a decision was made to phase out the L1A1, it would be possible to bring out the developed plans and take the rifle immediately into production.  He really wasn't interested in this; his desire to jealously keep the business of small arms design all to himself verged on manic.  I remember during this discussion of what could be possible, I intimated that I felt the EM2 was a brilliant piece of work but to my surprise he was luke-warm about it, saying it could not be converted from .280" to 7.62mm.  About this I remember there was a strong disagreement.   I knew for certain that it would be possible to design the weapon to take a different calibre of round, and it would be possible to use a better, simpler locking mechanism.  Chivers was annoyed that someone so "ignorant" would question someone as knowledgeable, as he thought he was, on this point.  I had studied a captured AK-47 at the Royal Military College and I was very impressed with the locking mechanism and the overall simplicity of the design; particularly the trigger mechanism.  (This admiration of the AK-47's design remains with me to this day!)   I suggested to him that it would be easy to use the same locking mechanism that was used by the AK-47 with the same piston-breechblock and return spring system.  The conversation went nowhere.
Responses to ADE Rpt 28 Aug 1975 (Click to read)	Clearly, the Dept of Supply had hit a nerve.  I was in my final year at the Royal Military College when I was informed that ADE had found there was no merit in the rifle's further development.  At RMC I had come under the administration of LtCol Dick Flint (who was a friend of my future father-in-law, so there was a bit of a personal connection between us that went beyond Staff Cadet & Supervising Officer.  LtCol Flint and his wife were guests at my wedding a few days after I graduated from the college in December, 1972.)  I remember him consoling me by saying that ADE had a reputation for "NIH", standing for "Not Invented Here".  I was not shown the report and it was only later, when I was serving as a staff officer responsible for the maintenance policies related to Small Arms and Weapons that I found out there was a file on the rifle and that it had been marked, "Not to be shown to Loughrey". In the course of my work I had dealings with the School of Infantry and it was there that an officer arranged for the file to be sent to him.  He then took copies of key documents and sent them to me.  I finally found out what had happened.   If you click on the thumbnail images to the left, it will bring up the scans of those documents with typed verbiage next to it both to assist in their reading and also for the benefit of search engines.  The top image will show the report which was Chiver's negative assessment of the rifle.  The bottom image provides two evaluations; one by the officer that sent me the documents, the other by Mr Peter O'Dwyer, the senior mechanical engineer working in the Department of Supply.  Chiver's inability to "imaginate" is clearly evident in these documents and is in stark contrast to the opinions of Peter O'Dwyer and those which were given by the Special Air Service Regiment four years later.