The 7.62×37mm Musang is an assault rifle cartridge introduced in 2012 developed and manufactured in the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

by the

Government Arsenal The Government Arsenal (GA) is an agency of the Philippine government under the Department of National Defense, responsible for the production of basic weaponry and ammunition for the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the Philippine ...

for use by the military in special operations and

close quarter battle Close-quarters battle (CQB), also called close-quarters combat (CQC), is a close combat situation between multiple combatants involving ranged (typically firearm-based) or melee combat. It can occur between military units, law enforcement and cr ...

. The 7.62×37mm Musang round is unrelated to the Soviet 7.62×39mm M43-round.

Development

The new cartridge was developed based on previous lessons learned from the development of the

Night Fighting Weapon System The Marine Scout Sniper Rifle (MSSR) is a Philippine semi-automatic rifle, semi-automatic designated marksman rifle developed by the Philippine Marine Corps for their Philippine Marine Corps#Marine Scout Snipers, Marine Scout Snipers. Designed in t ...

. It was intended to offer improved lethality over

9mm This is a list of firearm cartridges that have bullets in the to caliber In guns, particularly firearms, but not #As a measurement of length, artillery, where a different definition may apply, caliber (or calibre; sometimes abbreviate ...

and 5.56mm rounds in subsonic loads for use in CQB and suppressed weapons with a range of 300 meters. The Musang is a "

Wildcat cartridge A wildcat cartridge, often shortened to wildcat, is a custom-made cartridge (weaponry), cartridge for which ammunition and/or firearms are not mass-produced. These cartridges are often created as experimental variants to optimize a certain ballis ...

" inspired by the .300 Whisper concept and made from components already produced or procured by the Government Arsenal. It uses a 5.56×45mm NATO cartridge case, necked-up to accept a Cal .30M2 flat base bullet, a 7.62mm boat tail bullet, or a Sierra Match King bullet for an overall cartridge length equivalent to that of the 5.56×45mm NATO. The cartridge can be loaded for either subsonic or supersonic muzzle velocities. Much like the

300 AAC Blackout The .300 AAC Blackout (abbreviated as 300 BLK by the SAAMI and 300 AAC Blackout by the C.I.P.), also known as 7.62×35 mm, is an intermediate cartridge developed in the United States by Advanced Armament Corporation (AAC) for use in the M4 ca ...

, the Musang cartridge can be loaded into

STANAG magazine A STANAG magazine or NATO magazine is a type of detachable firearm magazine proposed by NATO in October 1980. Shortly after NATO's acceptance of the 5.56×45mm NATO rifle cartridge, Draft Standardization Agreement ( STANAG) 4179 was proposed i ...

s (with 25 rounds able to fit into a standard 30-round M16 magazine) and requires only a barrel change to be used on an AR-15. The cartridge is used on the Government Arsenal's 10-inch barreled Musang PDW, which is based on the M4/M16 platform.

Notes

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:7.62x37mm Musang Pistol and rifle cartridges Military cartridges Wildcat cartridges Weapons and ammunition introduced in 2012

Development

See also

Notes

References