History
The first experimental rifle using a direct impingement system was the French ENT 1901 Rossignol B1 rifle followed by Rossignol's B2, B4 and B5. The first successful production weapon was the MAS 40 rifle adopted in March 1940. The Swedish Ag m/42 is another well-known example. Both the French and Swedish rifles use a simple system whereby the gas tube acts as a piston with a cylinder recess in the bolt carrier.
It is incorrectly believed that the AR-15/M16 rifle designed by Eugene Stoner uses a direct impingement action. In the Stoner system covered by U.S. Patent 2,951,424 Stoner specifically states that the action is not direct impingement saying ″This invention is a true expanding gas system instead of the conventional impinging gas system.″ Gas is routed from a port in the barrel directly to a chamber formed in the bolt carrier. The bolt acts as the piston and is sealed with small automobile-style piston rings. It is a gas piston system without an operating rod.
Read more about this topic: Direct Impingement
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“All history and art are against us, but we still expect happiness in love.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“The foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face; we, through their eyes. Why should not we also enjoy an original relation to the universe? Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and not the history of theirs?”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)