The Dagger of Men with Green Faces

The CAR-15（Colt Automatic Rifle-15 Military Weapons System）was developed by Colt in the 1960s based on the design of the AR-15, its XM177 series was active during the Vietnam War. Before the XM177 series was used in the U.S. Army, it was called the CAR-15 Commando. It was a "submachine gun" launched in response to the request of the US military in 1966. The CAR-15 Commando is similar to the Colt M607 submachine gun and the shortened version of the M16 rifle with notable differences: It is designed with an aluminum alloy two position retractable buttstock, the old handguard was replaced with a shortened round handguard, and it is equipped with a 4.25-inch muzzle device. However, the size of the upper and lower handguards are exactly the same.

The U.S. Army launched the CAR-15 Commando in 1966 and named it the "Submachine Gun, 5.56 mm, XM177E1". After feedback and suggestions from users, Colt improved the XM177E1. In 1967 the U.S. Army purchased it for the Its Military Assistance Command, Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group (MACV-SOG) in the new CAR-15 assault type variant and named it XM177E2.

Although the new flash hider could effectively reduce the muzzle flash, there were other serious problems. Due to the short muzzle and barrel length of the XM177E2, the gunpowder that has not been fully burned when firing will quickly block the flash hider. The flash hider, if it is not cleaned, will significantly lose its sound reduction benefits. In addition, the flash hider would also cause problems with the shooting accuracy of ordinary bullets, which was even more serious when using tracer bullets.

After the improvement failed due to these issues, the U.S. Army canceled many XM177E2 orders in 1969. Because the gun could not be officially deployed in the U.S. military, the prefix "X" representing "eXperimental" in front of the XM177 series has never been removed.

The XM177E2 was not favored by regular troops in the Vietnam War, and some veterans of MACV-SOG have different evaluations in their memories. Many think in retrospect that the XM177 series is the favorite of "SOG".

And although the ballistic condition of the 11.5-inch barrel is relatively low, both its effect used on close combat in the jungle, and the unstable trajectory that makes the bullet enter the enemy's body off balance and cause considerable damage made it an effective tool for those special operations.

Another special forces unit that also liked to use the XM177 series in the jungles of Vietnam was the US Navy SEALs. After the Vietnam War, the SEALs and Army Special Forces continued to use the XM177 series until the production of Curt 635 as they were beginning to phase out this “legend” of Vietnam War.

VFC AR GBBR SYSTEM

VFC has been dedicated to listening to the feedback from our customers and users, and all of this feedback has gone into this V3 version of out GBBR system.

Using the upgraded system, we launched the classic Vietnam War series of Airsoft, allowing users to use it directly on the Airsoft field, tune and modify or to add to their replica collection... or all of the above! And, stay tuned for more Vietnam War classic Airsoft products from VFC to be released soon!