Pál Király (1880–1965) was a
Hungarian engineer and weapons designer.
Király was born in Budapest, Hungary, in 1880. In 1902 he earned a degree in mechanical engineering, and later joined the Austro-Hungarian army, where he rose up to the rank of Artillery Captain by the end of
World War I
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
. Pál was employed by
SIG Group
SIG Group AG is a Swiss multinational corporation and one of the biggest manufacturers in the packaging industry.
Originally founded 1853 as a railway car producer named ''Schweizerische Waggonfabrik'' ("Swiss Wagon Factory"), it was renamed ...
from 1921 to 1924, where he and
Gotthard End designed the
SIG KE7.
Király is best known for development of
lever-delayed blowback firearms, and being employed by the
Danuvia company in the 1930s and 1940s to design and produce weapons for the
Royal Hungarian Army
The Royal Hungarian Army (, ) was the name given to the land forces of the Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946), Kingdom of Hungary in the period from 1922 to 1945. Its name was inherited from the Royal Hungarian Honvéd which went under the same Hu ...
. He designed the Danuvia 39M and improved it into the
Danuvia 43M submachine gun. After he moved to the Dominican republic, he designed the
.30 Kiraly-Cristobal carbine, which was essentially a copy of his earlier work, specifically the 44M (an improved 43M). He made two more Cristobal carbine versions, the delayed blowback M2 in
.30 Carbine and the gas-operated M3 in
7.62×51mm NATO
The 7.62×51mm NATO (official NATO nomenclature 7.62 NATO) is a rimless, straight walled, bottlenecked, centerfire rifle cartridge. It is a standard for small arms among NATO countries.
First developed in the 1950s, the cartridge had first be ...
. He patented the latter in 1961 as a competitor to the Belgian
FN FAL
The FAL (, English: Light Automatic Rifle) is a battle rifle designed in Belgium by Dieudonné Saive and manufactured by FN Herstal and others since 1953.
During the Cold War the FAL was adopted by many countries of the NATO, North Atlantic Trea ...
.
Pál moved to the Dominican Republic in 1947, where he worked for the Armería San Cristóbal Weapon Factory and designed the
Cristóbal Carbine.
[https://www.forgottenweapons.com/rifles/san-cristobal-carbine-model-2/]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kiraly, Pal
1880 births
1965 deaths
Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I
Firearm designers
Engineers from Budapest
20th-century Hungarian inventors
Weapon designers from Hungary