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H&K MG4: Germany's New 5.56mm Squad Machine Gun (Ad-free)
🕑 Added 2025-06-07 12:00:01 +0000 UTCHeckler & Koch released the MG4, a new 5.56mm squad machine gun in 2001. It was adopted by the German army in 2005, and then by the Spanish and Portuguese armies in 2007. Alongside its sister weapon the 7.62mm MG5, it is H&K's current export machine gun.
The MG4 fires from an open bolt, with a 2-lug rotating bolt locking system and a long stroke gas piston operating system. It uses standard M27 NATO links for feeding, and does not have a semiauto selector setting. Mechanically, the MG4 uses a front trunnion into which both he barrel and bolt lock independently - meaning that the quick-change barrel can be removed with the bolt in either the forward or rearward position.
As one would expect for a 5.56mm machine gun weighing 18 pounds, it is very easy to control.
Thanks to Sellier & Bellot for giving me access to this modern machine gun to film for you!
Comments
Squid556
Unsure if it’s a pro / con having the bolt lock into a trunnion instead of the barrel for MG use.
Adam Schindler
I worry that HK is competing with German labor/energy costs and arms export restrictions more than anything else. SIG saw the writing on the wall and left, but HK was, IMHO, blinded by export success and local contracts and didn't grasp that economic/political current until it was too late. I think that for a long time, HK overcame smaller versions of those handicaps by being "the very best", but increasingly they are one of "many excellent options", which would've been fine if their costs were similar to their competitors. I wouldn't trade my Flux Raider 365 for an MP5K, or even a cheaper PTR clone of it, and that's one example of a far bigger problem. Perhaps the more generalizable name for the issue is "Widespread adoption of 6-axis CNC".
