Angstadt Arms Introduces SCW-9 Sub Compact Weapon
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Six companies were chosen to submit prototypes to the US Army in their search for a new sub compact weapon. They are SIG Sauer, Trident Rifles, B&T USA, Global Ordnance, Shield Arms and Angstadt Arms of Charlotte, North Carolina. Angstadt’s just revealed the prototype they’ve submitted for evaluation, the SCW-9 Sub Compact Weapon. It features a four-inch barrel and takes GLOCK 9mm mags.

Here’s their press release:

Angstadt Arms Introduces SCW-9 Sub Compact Weapon

Awarded Prototype OTA by U.S. Army Sub Compact Weapon Program

Charlotte, NC, (November 14, 2018) Angstadt Arms is proud to introduce the SCW-9 Sub Compact Weapon. The SCW-9 was designed to meet the strict requirements of the U.S. Army Sub Compact Weapon program. At just 14.7” long and 4 lbs., the SCW- 9 provides greater lethality than pistols and much greater concealability over standard rifles. With a rate of fire of 1,110 rounds per minute, the SCW-9 is capable of accurately engaging threats with a high volume of lethal force.

Angstadt Arms Introduces SCW-9 Sub Compact Weapon
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SCW-9 Key Design Elements

    • Fully ambidextrous controls, including magazine release, safety selector, charging handle and bolt catch and release
    • Accepts GLOCK® 9mm magazines
    • 4” barrel with 3-lug adapter for sound suppression
    • Ability to fire UTM marking and training rounds
    • Overall length collapsed: 14.7”
    • Collapsed stock length: 2.5”
    • Weight: 4 lbs
    • Rate of Fire (approximate): 1,100 rounds per minute
Angstadt Arms Introduces SCW-9 Sub Compact Weapon
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The Shortest Sub Compact Stock System

In addition to 9mm, the shortened stock system developed for the SCW-9 has been tested in both 5.56 NATO and .300 AAC Blackout calibers. This allows any M4 style rifle to reduce its overall collapsed stock length from 7” to just 2.5”. Making it the shortest telescoping AR-15 stock system available.

Angstadt Arms has plans to offer the shortened stock system to other manufacturers who wish to incorporate it into their firearms. A pistol brace version of the shortened stock system is currently in development for the U.S. commercial market.

About Angstadt Arms: Angstadt Arms designs innovative weapon platforms for military, law enforcement and responsible citizens. Their flagship UDP-9 9mm AR and sub-machine guns are currently deployed in over 25 countries worldwide.

For more information please visit: www.angstadtarms.com/scw9

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52 COMMENTS

  1. “takes Glock mags”…
    Nope. I refuse. I flatly will not accept that Glock is the gold standard for combat handguns.
    Even if they are. I’m perfectly okay with being wrong.
    🤠

    • You aren’t wrong. Glocks are far from the gold standard combat handgun. But that’s not what this is about, this is about magazines. And Glock magazines are the gold standard for reliable, durable factory magazines. Not to mention, no one that I know of makes factory 9mm fun-sticks.

    • Glock mags are an affordable baseline in reliability. Of course there are better alternatives, but logistics win wars. I can find glock mags just about anywhere, not so for a niche brand.

      Likewise with calibers. 9MM can be found anywhere in the world. 7.62×25… most people will not have a clue what it is.

      • 7.62×25 is still fairly plentiful in Asia. But it is on its way out. It used to be way more common during the Cold War.

    • Sub-2000 is a far better design. Additionally, I don’t particularly like “9” mm lowers that are based on kludged 5.56 hardware.

      • I am a huge fan of George Kellgren designs… and definitely a fan of the Sub2000 PCC design. I own and use this weapon (both the 1.5 and second generations). But, truth be told, it is not a better subgun design for military/LEO application than an AR-patterned 9×19 PDW… and it has serious flaws that have to be addressed before it can be deployed in any combat/tactical situation.

        For one thing– notwithstanding that almost any hinged-at-the-halves design has inherent weakness at the joint– the folding design creates immediate optic limitations that other systems just don’t have to deal with. True, the design gives the PCC some key advantages regarding compactness with the power and accuracy upgrade of a 16″ rifle barrel, and sight radius with irons. But folding it over means that you just can’t mount fixed, centered optics to the rail– and if you do that, it totally defeats the folding compact design, leaving just a long gun with a weak hinged center, loosely clamped at the trunnion. One could say that this is a “flaw” in accessories and mount designs that don’t accommodate the basic firearm design– but still, as it is right now, any mount has to be hinged in some way, either pivoting or swinging out of the way so the rifle can be folded. This creates new problems. The Midwest pivot mount has had reports of problems holding zero (…and that ridiculous bolt-hold knot from charging handle to sling loop is just a dumb, cheap spit rig…). If one mounts a hinged 30mm clamp and folds over a large tube optic, the iron sights then obscure the optic (i.e., there’s no “cowitness,” even if you drill out the microscopic rear aperture), and then the weight added to the system is substantial (and substantially stressing one half of the folded firearm in a totally imbalanced way). The initial advantage of the clever auto-deployed iron sights suddenly becomes a pain. The best solution seems to be mounting a fixed offset mount, with a smaller red dot making an imbalanced platform (“hanging off the side”)… you get problems with cant and accuracy at distance (and eye-relief/parallax) and the slim profile of the folded rifle now has a huge imbalanced wart off to its side, with an exposed optic being knocked around in storage… again serving up more holding-zero concerns. This is all apart from the irons themselves being not especially fast to pick up in any fighting conditions, and in low-light or dark, forget it… the first generation sights are just cheap toys, and the second gen, while infinitely improved real sights, are still only practical to 100yds with a fair amount of training and familiarity. The carbine has potential beyond the practical sights, with a decent BDC optic. Either way, the current iron sights certainly are inferior to almost any red-dot or reflex optic, which this kind of weapon sorely needs to be a realistic gun for combat/tactical use.

        Like many weapons, the Sub2000 can be upgraded, and a few of its out-of-the-box flaws improved (e.g., with MCarbo parts… the tube cheek weld, some better trigger parts, better iron sights, etc. …they even have/had a folding picatinny optic mount being developed). Alas, all that is more cost and complication for a single user, never mind a whole military or LEO force. And all to compensate for design weaknesses.

        Then, after heavy use, the blowback design tends to get seriously gunked up and filthy… not really a “problem,” except that the field stripped firearm gives limited access to certain places where the gun experiences thick build-up that definitely can render the Sub2000 susceptible to repeatable reliability problems. The barrel is easy to clean, but its linear tube design has relatively tight tolerances that lack cleaning access to spaces that put the gun at risk for predictable failures (e.g., FTE or to cycle properly). We regularly see our Sub2000s “acting up” after a few hundred rounds of plinking ammo, regardless of the brand. In the civilian world, this is no more than a pain in the ass… in the military or law enforcement duties, this could be very bad.

        Anyway… I love the design. The serious punch and accuracy the 16″ barrel can deliver (say…with a +P TacXP copper round) is a notable level above other PDW of a similar size. I think the Sub2000 should be developed, improved, and honed to its excellent potential. In many ways, it is a typically brilliant Kellgren design– an extremely compact PCC that is as small or smaller than (and lighter than) a submachine gun, but with the power and accuracy of a true rifle-length carbine. Its simplicity is fantastic… it has the spirit of a modern Sten gun, and resembles a pistol that was stretched into a rifle, with the slide neatly tucked away in the tube stock. But a better design for real-world fighting done by military and LEO forces… especially, better than an AR-patterned PDW? It isn’t, at least not yet.

        And mine even use the amazingly reliable and ubiquitous Glock magazines. ☺ After seeing the Sub2000 perform with M&P pairs and Beretta pairs (i.e., Sub2000 and sidearm using the same magazines– another advantage of the design), I still use the Glock magazines for their reliability/durability and capacity variants, even though my sidearm is not a Glock, and is usually a Sig or Beretta paired with the Glock-magged Sub2000. I’ve seen the M&P and Beretta mags fail in the Kel-Tec, but the Glock mags just don’t, at least for me… I have, however, in seen Magpul GL9 Pmags mildly burning/melting at about 1/8″ down on the right feed pop. This could potentially cause Pmag magazine failure… watching this. But it does not seem to happen with Glock factory magazines.

        Well, perhaps it is obvious by my yapping… I love the Kel-Tec design, and I like to talk about it. So, even a quick comment about it can evoke my opinions. As a motorcycle camper and backpacker, I choose to run this system over AR SBR/pistol PCCs/PDWs, but then again I am not room-clearing terrorists or doing first-line protection detail for VIPs. This weapon is a good standoff defensive PCC, but I tend to think if I was doing more complicated tactical things, I would choose an AR-patterned PCC/PDW without a doubt. I love to hear other people’s experiences and opinions with this system, so feel free.

        Be safe.

  2. I don’t see the point of having such a gun with a short 4″ barrel. If you are going that route, there are better designs that use pistol mags.

  3. The kind of gun we need at home. Gee, I wonder why it is that ‘the government’ gets all the good stuff, at our expense, of course. All the good stuff for them, take away more and more of our stuff, and will you look at that — we can’t get rid of them when they completely and totally betray the Constitution and their oath to uphold it!

      • Not with a proper stock on it. Those are restricted like in Canada. Some states you can’t get them at all.

        Everyone that is legally able to buy a gun should be able to buy a SBR without extra effort and have it at home and in their car. They don’t want that because it allows Americans to more effectively fight the government in the places they are more likely to have an interaction with government.

        Imagine this guy had such a gun, cops don’t want to:

  4. “A high volume of lethal force.”

    As opposed to all those other firearms that only deliver a little tiny dollup of lethal force…

  5. If the military is going to the Sig P320, wouldn’t it make sense to share a magazine with that platform, rather than a pistol that the military doesn’t use?
    That was one of the cool things about the M249: it could take M16/M4 magazines.

      • M249 from a mag is pretty much an emergency feature, its not going to work right with any mag… but if its all you got.

        The M249 was a disaster of a weapon, Jamomatic.

        • As great as the M249 looks on paper, it really isn’t the best performer. I remember way back in the day our 0311s had the hardest time keeping those things running. The 0331s in my platoon had the M240G (which is admittedly an entirely different platform, but same basic design), which ran like a scalded ape all the time. It really was a night and day difference. Our machine gunners knew enough to tweak the gas system on the M240G to where they ran scary fast, and we still rarely had issues.

      • I did. If I pulled the mag back towards me once it was inserted, I could shoot 3-5 round bursts pretty reliably. As long as I kept the bursts short and kept pressure on it, I rarely had a problem. But hey…emergency feature. I could count on my hands how many times I even tried it.

    • I’m not sure it’s fair to compare the usefulness or reliability of having your belt-fed LMG accept 30-round rifle mags to the idea that your mag-fed SMG would share them with your sidearm. I think SIG actually has a big opportunity here though – put together a select-fire slide assembly for the P320 with some kind of folding or collapsible stock, design some 20-30rd mags, and sell it on portability and compatibility with the existing handgun.

      • That would be wicked, and we would get factory fun-sticks like Glock did for the G18.
        Their other option, of course, would be to redesign the MPX to take P320 mags, but that would be ugly.

  6. Why? A high rate of fire in a sub compact design always means control and accuracy issues. Especially if this is intended for rear area types that don’t get much trigger time.

    Dust off the m3 grease gun. Make it in 9mm and limit its rate of fire to 300 rounds a minute.

    • It’s not for the REMFs. It’s for a tiny little group of people, probably not more than a couple hundred of these things total, if that. lots of other companies were going to submit, but when potential purchase order numbers were released, a lot of folks dropped out.

      • Not nitpicking, just looking for an education:
        Vet buddies of mine usually used REMF as a derogatory term to describe mid-level brass that made decisions detrimental to front line guys because they’d never been front line guys. Is this just a catch-all term for men in non-combat roles?

        • Yes, although it really should be reserved for those particularly assholeish.
          Grunts and POGs don’t mix. At the beginning of my first tour, my ncoic told me the Taliban is our opponent, but The POGs are our enemy. Truer words have never been spoken.

  7. The 4″ barrel limitation gets me questioning. Why have an SMG with a barrel the same size as a G19? I get the ergonomics and accuracy part but if the goal is to conceal it and have it be lightweight I don’t see what they’re gaining by going with an AR variant. The STRIBOG makes more sense to me.

  8. Why not just buy the currently available Glock 18 with the folding wire stock? I have shot the crap out of it and it is crazy fast and surprisingly controllable.
    Wait, sorry. I now realize I thought the dod would do something that makes sense. You would think I would have learned by now.

  9. I don’t get why the military laid out the guidelines it did, its downright stupid. I’ve been keeping up with this program out of curiosity. For what they want, they should want an SMG in a P90 or MP7 style weapon. Instead they’re going to get something that’s bassically an M4 with short barrel and in 9mm. The whole current “manual of arms argument” is laughable. If soldiers can transition between a belt fed, a pump shot gun, and an AR platform, they can easily learn to use an SMG in a superior platform. The shear amount of gear modern soldiers carry proves this. It’s not like soldiers are retarded and will pick up a new weapon and immediately slam the new shiny magazine into their forehead and scream “DUR!”. Though the brass at the pentagon may believe that.

  10. Why do people keep on using an AR format for these things?

    Why not move the spring/buffet forward and/or up for a shorter overall length? Why not move the action further to the rear to allow the magazine to feed through the grip and have a longer barrell?

    The B&T TP9 seems ideal for a compact 9mm SMG.

    Isn’t there a B&T chassis for the P320? Instant commonality of magazines and manual of arms.

    The Stribog at least doesn’t use a buffer tube. A buffer tube for a handgun round doesn’t make sense to me.

  11. This is really for concealable full auto for “special people” guarded by operators. The AR platform makes sense as everybody knows how to use one.

    It’s a small buy as this is not an Army contract.

    The Army contracting folks are just vehicle for evaluating but the real evaluators will be the operators.

    Small as they want 9mm, full auto concealed under a sportscoat.

  12. How is it more lethal than a 9mm pistol?

    Is it a super-dooper 9mm and and not just 9mm (9mm Luger – I should say)?

    It may be more effective, but not more lethal.

  13. Interesting sub gun, I’d like to see this compared to the Global Ordnance’s entry into the SCW Program, Grand Power STRIBOG AP9A3S. The A3 has delayed blowback and is supposedly very controllable in full auto. I think it may do better in tbe live fire user evaluation portion than this 1,110 rounds per minute blowback gun.

  14. I bought the UDP-9 brand new and it failed miserably the first time I shot it. I almost sent it back for tooling marks on the lower, but instead took an extended mag release, and I would live with the tooling marks. My tune changed, the first day I shot it suppressed with an SilencerCo Octane 45. Literally malfunctioned on the first or maybe second trigger pull and the longest it ran was maybe 4 shots. It was failing to extract, and loading a live round at the same time. Contacted David at Angstadt Arms and he suggested that I run it like it came from the factory, so I did just that. He also suggested using an 8oz buffer when shooting suppressed. With that said, I shot the gun just like I got from the factory, and it MALFUNCTIONED in the same fashion, failure to extract and loading a live round with the spent brass in the chamber. The average was, a malfunction every other shot, and sometimes I would get 4 shots with a malfunction. This gun has NEVER been able to shoot more than 4 shots. They emailed me a shipping label and it is on the way there. I asked for a new gun because of the shit storm I was hit with. Hopefully this was one of those one in a million events, but it left a bad taste in mouth.

    • My first video showed me shooting the Angstadt Arms UDP-9 for the first time. It was brand new and failed constantly with failures to extract. It was shot suppressed with factory new Blazer Brass 9mm 124 grain FMJ ammo and through a SilencerCo Octane 45. I was told to run the gun without the suppressor and back to factory condition. I put the factory muzzle device back on and restored it to how I received it. Needless to say, the gun FAILED just as bad without the suppressor and factory condition. The firearm is currently in transit back to Angstadt Arms. Needless to say, this is probably the worst experience I have ever had with a “high end” firearm. The firearm also had tooling marks on the lower receiver and the castle nut came loose with less than 50 rounds through it, on top of not working. Maybe I got that one in a million POS??? I asked for a brand new gun, and to make sure it works. Sadly, they refused to send a brand new gun. At this point I am hoping that they send it back and it actually works. I will post a third and hopefully final video of the gun actually working. Thanks for watching and thanks for reading.

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