By Chris Dumm
Saying this may risk pushing me outside of the MSNBC target demographic, but I can’t think of a better way to spend Christmas Eve than touring the factory of a firearms importer and SOT manufacturer. Joe Grine wrangled us a Yuletide invitation to the rural headquarters of TNW Firearms, and I was in gun-guy Nirvana all day. What we saw was literally mind-boggling. This rack of 9mm takedown carbines are waiting for their lower receivers, but TNW’s Aero Survival Rifle production line was only the tip of the iceberg of what we saw yesterday . . .
The massively-fun ASR is not TNW’s only indigenous design. Their other flagship product is this switchbarrel piston-driven AR, called the SGBQCB. It’s at the top of this photo in pistol and rifle configurations, above a tan-anodyzed ASW. TNW Owner Tim Bero pulled out all the stops for our visit, and we sent some lead downrange with all of these guns before the shadows grew long and we had to head home. We’ve already lined up an ASR and SGBQCB for full testing after the holidays. That’s quite a mouthful of acronym, but I digress.
This is the real thing, a wartime 8mm MG42. It’s actually much lighter than I expected. In addition to making its own lines of rifles, TNW imports and converts several vintage machinegun patterns to civilian semi-auto configuration. I’ll hand the rest over to Joe Grine for followup in a future article, because he’s the machinegun expert and because he takes much better pictures than I do.
Merry Christmas, and may your holidays be as awesome as mine have already been!
Why don’t I ever get invited to these things?
Videos please? It’s really the least ya’ll can do after making us all jealous.
Is that a AR pistol with a G36 type upper? Never seen something like that before
It looks like a regular XM16 or whatever upper with a weird lo profile carry handle dot sight adapter.
ASR + SBR + can + Tactical Fire Control trigger = poor man’s MP5?
ASW pistol + arm brace = OMFG non-SBR! Even without the arm brace, the mil-spec buffer tube lets you stabilize the gun pretty well against your (not shoulder) (yeah, right). Unlike stockless ‘pistol’ non-SBRs, you can actually hit with an ASR pistol.
Who manufactures the forend on the 3rd AR-15 from the top in the second photo? It’s the all black pistol model.
AB (American Built) Arms.
I wish santa was that good to me. 🙂
With the Oregon home base, I’m figuring that the “NW” in TNWTNW stands for Northwest, but what about the “T”?
Goofy looking guns, ho!
I’m jealous.
I’ve seen their stuff at gun shows. It looks pretty good.
You surely made many envious! I think it would be great to witness how firearms are made.
Pistol caliber carbine, and MG42 reviews, right meow!
For those of you that may have forgotten look at this.
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2012/10/foghorn/new-pistol-caliber-carbine-aero-survival-rifle/
First time I heard of this is on TTAG.
It gives my really cool idea about it! I think it would be great to witness how firearms are made.