The SIG MG 710-3 is a Swiss 7.62 mm

general-purpose machine gun A general-purpose machine gun (GPMG) is an air-cooled, usually belt-fed machine gun that can be adapted flexibly to various tactical roles for light and medium machine guns. A GPMG typically features a quick-change barrel design calibered fo ...

(GPMG) designed and manufactured by SIG - Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft (currently Swiss Arms AG). The weapon was developed as a commercial venture primarily for export, since the

Swiss Army The Swiss Armed Forces (; ; ; ; ) are the military and security force of Switzerland, consisting of land and air service branches. Under the country's militia system, regular soldiers constitute a small part of the military and the rest are ...

had already adopted the 7.5 mm MG 51 GPMG (chambered for the 7.5×55mm Swiss

Schmidt–Rubin The Schmidt–Rubin rifles were a series of Swiss Army service rifles in use between 1889 and 1958. They are distinguished by the straight-pull bolt action invented by Rudolf Schmidt and use Eduard Rubin's GP90 7.5×53.5 and GP11 7.5×55 Schmid ...

rifle A rifle is a long gun, long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a gun barrel, barrel that has a helical or spiralling pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus o ...

cartridge), produced by the federal arms factory W+F.

Development

Work on the SIG MG 710-3 machine gun (initially designated the Model 55, changed in 1957 to SIG MG 710) began in 1955 and its design was influenced by the MG 45, a late

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

development of the

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

MG 42 The MG 42 (shortened from German: ''Maschinengewehr 42'', or "machine gun 42") is a German recoil-operated air-cooled general-purpose machine gun used extensively by the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS during the second half of World War II. Enter ...

machine gun. These efforts resulted in the SIG MG 710-1 (adapted to use the 6.5×55mm round) and the SIG MG 710-2 (with the 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge), while the prototype for the final production version which would become the SIG MG 710-3 (chambered in a standard

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

7.62×51mm caliber) was completed by the mid-1960s. As of 2010, the weapon was in use by the armed forces of

Bolivia Bolivia, officially the Plurinational State of Bolivia, is a landlocked country located in central South America. The country features diverse geography, including vast Amazonian plains, tropical lowlands, mountains, the Gran Chaco Province, w ...

Brunei Brunei, officially Brunei Darussalam, is a country in Southeast Asia, situated on the northern coast of the island of Borneo. Apart from its coastline on the South China Sea, it is completely surrounded by the Malaysian state of Sarawak, with ...

, Chile and

Liberia Liberia, officially the Republic of Liberia, is a country on the West African coast. It is bordered by Sierra Leone to Liberia–Sierra Leone border, its northwest, Guinea to Guinea–Liberia border, its north, Ivory Coast to Ivory Coast–Lib ...

; despite being a Swiss design, the Swiss Army never adopted the gun.

Design details

The SIG MG 710-3 is an

automatic Automatic may refer to: Music Bands * Automatic (Australian band), Australian rock band * Automatic (American band), American rock band * The Automatic, a Welsh alternative rock band Albums * ''Automatic'' (Jack Bruce album), a 1983 el ...

, air-cooled

belt-fed An ammunition belt is a firearm device used to package and feed cartridges, typically for rapid-firing automatic weapons such as machine guns. Belt-fed systems minimize the proportional weight of the ammunition apparatus to the entire weapon ...

weapon operated by roller- delayed blowback and fires from an

open bolt A firearm is said to fire from an open bolt or open breech if, when ready to fire, the bolt and working parts are held to the rear of the receiver, with no round in the chamber. When the trigger is actuated, the bolt travels forward, feeds a car ...

. The machine gun's bolt differs from other contemporary designs employing the roller-delayed blowback method of operation (such as

CETME CETME () is a Spanish government design and development establishment. While being involved in many projects CETME was mostly known for its small arms research and development. The Spanish government hired former semiautomatic weapon designers f ...

and

Heckler & Koch Heckler & Koch GmbH (HK or H&K; ) is a German firearms manufacturer that produces handguns, rifles, submachine guns, and grenade launchers. The company is located in Oberndorf am Neckar, Baden-Württemberg and also has subsidiaries in the United ...

designed weapons), being a 3-piece design that consists of a bolt head with two locking rollers, a striker sleeve and the bolt carrier which is connected telescopically with the bolt head. When a round is chambered pressure from the return spring drives the bolt and carrier assembly forward; simultaneously both rollers engage

cam Cam or CAM may refer to: Science and technology * Cam (mechanism), a mechanical linkage which translates motion * Camshaft, a shaft with a cam * Camera or webcam, a device that records images or video In computing * Computer-aided manufacturin ...

ming surfaces which drive the rollers outward from their compressed travel position into recesses in the barrel extension. Upon firing, the bolt carrier and striker assembly recoil to the rear and the geometry of the fixed camming surfaces drives the rollers inward unlocking the bolt breech and increasing the speed at which the striker sleeve withdraws relative to the bolt. As the slower bolt continues rearward it impacts the returning striker sleeve (this impact decelerates the bolt). The bolt assembly also contains the spring extractor, while a lever case ejector is located at the base of the feed tray. Spent casings are ejected downward. The weapon has a striker firing mechanism, a trigger assembly for

fully automatic An automatic firearm or fully automatic firearm (to avoid confusion with semi-automatic firearms) is a self-loading firearm that continuously chambers and fires rounds when the trigger mechanism is actuated. The action of an automatic firear ...

only fire and a cross-bolt

safety Safety is the state of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings The word 'safety' entered the English language in the 1 ...

(the "safe" setting disables the bolt catch). The SIG MG 710-3 is fed from the left side by either

standard disintegrating M13 (United States) or continuous link German DM1 belt, but only after swapping several parts in the feed block. When used in a

light machine gun A light machine gun (LMG) is a light-weight machine gun designed to be operated by a single infantryman, with or without an assistant, as an infantry support weapon. LMGs firing cartridge (firearms), cartridges of the same caliber as the othe ...

role, the ammunition belt is stored in a sheet metal container that has a 50-round capacity and is attached to the left side of the receiver. The feeding mechanism resembles the one used in the

MAG Mag, MAG, Mags or mags may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * ''MAG'' (video game), released in 2010 * ''Mág'' (film), a 1988 Czech film * ''Mag'' (Slovenian magazine), published from 1995 to 2010 * '' The Mag'', a British music magazin ...

machine gun (a simplified version of the

's feed system) operated with a feed arm driven by the motion of the striker sleeve. The belt is fed in two stages during both the forward and rear movement of the bolt assembly. The quick-change barrel, ended with a slotted

flash suppressor A flash suppressor, also known as a flash guard, flash eliminator, flash hider, or flash cone, is a device attached to the muzzle (firearms), muzzle of a rifle that reduces its Muzzle flash, visible signature while firing by cooling or dispersin ...

, has a fixed handle used to remove it. The machine gun uses three types of

barrel A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden stave (wood), staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers ...

s: a light profile, heavy profile (in a

heavy machine gun A heavy machine gun (HMG) is significantly larger than light, medium or general-purpose machine guns. HMGs are typically too heavy to be man-portable (carried by one person) and require mounting onto a weapons platform to be operably stable or ...

role), and special type (used for firing

blank Blank or Blanks may refer to: *Blank (archaeology), a thick, shaped stone biface for refining into a stone tool *Blank (cartridge), a type of gun cartridge *Blank (Scrabble), a playing piece in the board game Scrabble *Blank (solution), a solutio ...

ammunition Ammunition, also known as ammo, is the material fired, scattered, dropped, or detonated from any weapon or weapon system. The term includes both expendable weapons (e.g., bombs, missiles, grenades, land mines), and the component parts of oth ...

). The firearm has a fixed

stock Stocks (also capital stock, or sometimes interchangeably, shares) consist of all the Share (finance), shares by which ownership of a corporation or company is divided. A single share of the stock means fractional ownership of the corporatio ...

(metal or wood), detachable

bipod A bipod is a V-shaped portable attachment that helps support and steady a device, usually a weapon such as a long gun or a mortar. The term comes from the Latin prefix and Greek root , meaning "two" and "foot" respectively. Bipods are design ...

and open-type sights (rear sight is a sliding tangent with settings from 100 to 1200 m with 100 m increments). Used as a static heavy machine gun the weapon is placed on a SIG L810

tripod A tripod is a portable three-legged frame or stand, used as a platform for supporting the weight and maintaining the stability of some other object. The three-legged (triangular stance) design provides good stability against gravitational loads ...

. It is also adapted to use an

optical sight A sight or sighting device is any device used to assist in precise visual alignment (i.e. ''aiming'') of weapons, surveying instruments, aircraft equipment, optical illumination equipment or larger optical instruments with the intended target. ...

(with 2.5× magnification) or a

night vision device A night-vision device (NVD), also known as a night optical/observation device (NOD) or night-vision goggle (NVG), is an optoelectronic device that allows visualization of images in low levels of light, improving the user's night vision. The ...

Users

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References

External links

Bellum.nuModern Firearms

MilitaryImages.Net
{{Sturmgewehr 45 derivatives 7.62×51mm NATO machine guns General-purpose machine guns Machine guns of Switzerland MG 42 derivatives Roller-delayed blowback firearms Military equipment introduced in the 1960s SIG Sauer machine guns

Development

Design details

Users

See also

References

Further reading

External links