The SIG SG 530 was a Swiss assault rifle developed in the 1960s by

Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft 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 ...

(SIG) to take the then-new M193 ball and M196 tracer .223 Remington military rounds.

Development

Development of the rifle started in 1963 as a joint project between SIG and

Beretta Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta (; "Pietro Beretta Weapons Factory") is a privately held Italian firearms manufacturing company operating in several countries. Its firearms are used worldwide for various civilian, law enforcement, and military p ...

. The latter had already cooperated with SIG on the production of the SG 510-4 rifle for Chile. Initial prototypes of the 5.56 mm rifle used the delayed-blowback operating system of the SIG SG 510. However, this operating system proved to be problematic with the relatively "weak" 5.56×45mm NATO intermediate cartridge, and the designers were forced to use a

gas-operated Gas-operation is a system of operation used to provide energy to operate locked breech, Semi-automatic firearm, autoloading firearms. In gas-operation, a portion of high-pressure gas from the Cartridge (firearms), cartridge being fired is used t ...

, roller-locked system. In 1968, Beretta ceased development with SIG, and went to work on their own 5.56 mm rifle design resulting in the outwardly similar AR70, later known as AR70/223. Due to a lack of sales, SIG abandoned the SG 530 in the 1970s in favor of developing the SG 540 series.

Bibliography

* Hogg, Ian V. and Weeks, John S. ''Military Small Arms of the 20th Century''. Iola, WI, 7th edition, 2000. Pages 280–281. .

References

5.56×45mm NATO assault rifles Assault rifles of Switzerland SIG Sauer rifles {{Rifle-stub

Development

Bibliography

See also

References