(Article originally published on Breach Bang Clear)
Weapon Trivia Wednesday: The M6 Scout Rifle
Richard Kilgore
A number of unusual firearms were developed as survival rifles for aircraft crews by the US Military. Not intended as fighting weapons, they were more or less designed to help a downed pilot or crew forage for small game. One of our favorites has always been the M6 Aircrew Survival Rifle.
Basically it’s a superposed combination rifle barrel mounted atop a shotgun barrel. The rifle was chambered in .22 Hornet and the shotgun was designed for a .410 shotgun shell. Each barrel measured 14″ in length. The M6 could be folded in half for compact storage with nine rounds of .22 Hornet and four shotgun shells stowed in the butt stock.
More thought went into this simplistic design than you might think.
For instance, during the Cold War, many air crews found themselves flying over the Arctic. Extreme cold weather dictated the wearing of mittens as opposed to gloves. Not because zoomies could easily clip them to their parkas and not lose them, although that may be part of the equation, but because mittens keep your dick beaters warmer. Your booger hooks generate more heat when they are not separated from each other by fabric, as they are with gloves. You may give up manual dexterity, but can still maintain a firm grip on your fleshlight.
In the case of the M6, the engineers anticipated this and incorporated a trigger bar which must be depressed as opposed to a conventional trigger.
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