The Knight's Armament Company 6×35mm PDW is an experimental

personal defense weapon Personal defense weapons (PDWs) are a class of firearms intended for self-defense and security rather than warfare and infantry. Most PDWs fire a small-caliber (less than ), centerfire bottleneck cartridge resembling a scaled-down intermediate ...

Knight's Armament Company Knight's Armament Company (KAC) is an American firearms and firearms parts manufacturer, best known for producing the Rail Interface System (RIS) and the Rail Adapter System (RAS) grips for firearms use. They currently produce a variety of fire ...

(KAC), firing a 6mm cartridge optimized for short barrel weapons. A variant chambered in

.300 AAC Blackout The .300 AAC Blackout (designated as the 300 BLK by the SAAMI and 300 AAC Blackout by the C.I.P. or 300 AAC Blackout'' C.I.P. TDCC sheet 300 ACC Blackout/ref>), also known as 7.62×35mm, is an intermediate cartridge developed in the United Sta ...

is also available.

Design

The KAC's lower receiver, holding the

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and

trigger Trigger may refer to: Notable animals and people ;Mononym * Trigger (horse), owned by cowboy star Roy Rogers ;Nickname * Trigger Alpert (1916–2013), American jazz bassist * "Trigger Mike" Coppola (1900–1966), American gangster ;Surname * Bru ...

assembly, is essentially a shortened

M16 rifle The M16 rifle (officially designated Rifle, Caliber 5.56 mm, M16) is a family of military rifles adapted from the ArmaLite AR-15 rifle for the United States military. The original M16 rifle was a 5.56×45mm automatic rifle with a 20-roun ...

lower receiver, which makes the basic operating controls familiar to many potential users. However, the cartridge, upper receiver, and operating mechanism are all new designs by KAC. The KAC PDW uses a completely side-folding

stock In finance, stock (also capital stock) consists of all the shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided.Longman Business English Dictionary: "stock - ''especially AmE'' one of the shares into which ownership of a company ...

, unlike the M16 and M4 designs which have their main operating spring in a tube in the stock, and therefore can only partially telescope, and not fold sideways at all, unless specialized hardware is installed. The KAC PDW has two gas pistons tapping hot gas from the barrel to operate its mechanism, located on the top left and right sides of the bolt carrier. The single mainspring is located on top, between the two gas pistons.Defense Review article on KAC PDW and competitors
accessed December 21, 2006.

Ammunition

The KAC PDW fires a 6×35 mm cartridge, which is over a centimeter shorter than the 5.56×45mm NATO round. The 6mm bullet is slightly wider, and the standard 6×35mm bullet slightly heavier, than the standard 5.56mm bullet ( versus ). Fired from a 10-inch (250 mm) barrel, KAC claims that the 6×35mm cartridge reaches a muzzle velocity of , slightly faster than the muzzle velocity of a 5.56 mm cartridge fired from a similarly short barrel. The larger diameter, shorter 6 mm cartridge is optimized for these shorter barrel lengths, and would perform less efficiently from rifle-length barrels. The round's muzzle energy is versus for a 5.56 mm bullet, again from the same 10" standard barrel.

History

The weapon was formally introduced at the 2006

NDIA Ndia or NDIA may refer to: * Ndia Constituency, Kirinyaga District, Central Province, Kenya *Alternative name for the Southern Kirinyaga dialect of the Kikuyu language *National Defense Industrial Association, an American trade association * Natio ...

Small Arms Symposium in

Albuquerque Albuquerque ( ; ), ; kee, Arawageeki; tow, Vakêêke; zun, Alo:ke:k'ya; apj, Gołgéeki'yé. abbreviated ABQ, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of New Mexico. Its nicknames, The Duke City and Burque, both reference its founding in ...

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ker ...

. Some writers were shown samples at the earlier 2006

SHOT Show The SHOT Show , which is an acronym for "Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show", is an American annual trade show for the shooting sports, hunting, outdoor recreations and firearm manufacturing industries. The show is owned and sponsored by ...

. The only KAC PDWs ordered by the U.S. Government were for the

United States Secret Service The United States Secret Service (USSS or Secret Service) is a federal law enforcement agency under the Department of Homeland Security charged with conducting criminal investigations and protecting U.S. political leaders, their families, and ...

. They were the only ones to order this weapon.

References

External links

* {{Personal defense weapons Personal defense weapons ArmaLite AR-10 derivatives AR-15 style rifles Trial and research firearms of the United States