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

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

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

7.62×39mm The 7.62×39mm (aka 7.62 Soviet, formerly .30 Russian Short) round is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate cartridge of Soviet origin. The cartridge is widely used due to the worldwide proliferation of Russian SKS and AK-47 pattern rifles, as ...

M43-round.

Development

The new cartridge was developed based on previous lessons learned from the development of the Night Fighting Weapon System. It was intended to offer improved lethality over 9mm 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 cartridge for which ammunition and/or firearms are not mass-produced. These cartridges are often created in order to optimize a certain performance characteristic (such as the power, si ...

" inspired by the

.300 Whisper The .300 Whisper is a CIP standard cartridge in the Whisper family, a group of cartridges developed in the early 1990s by J.D. Jones of SSK Industries. It was developed as a multi-purpose cartridge, capable of utilizing relatively lightweight ...

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 (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 Stat ...

, the Musang cartridge can be loaded into STANAG magazines (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 Weapons and ammunition introduced in 2012

Development

See also

Notes

References