By: Russo Mike
Despite having in Brazil two large well-established firearms companies since the 70s, the State-owned IMBEL and the private Taurus, the most important designers were independent, the most important being Olympio Vieira de Mello Filho, who created the sub mekanika uru machine gun, and Nelmo Suzano, who created the project for the exotic LAPA FA-03 bullpup rifle.
The URU was late in to the era of the open bolt operated submachine guns, but further investment and development could have yielded an interesting design of the low cost, easy to manufacture, locked bolt pistol caliber carbine that has become so common for police and or the civilian market decades later. LAPA arrived too early for the reality of our country, despite the in the 5.56 caliber being becoming NATO’s standard ammunition, the Brazilian state-owned IMBEL had recently produced the FN FAL locally under license for the armed forces, while the quality of the polymer used widely in LAPA to this day is of low quality in our country’s arms industry. Both also arrived at a delicate moment in national politics, especially related to weapons, with deep budget cuts in the armed and police forces, in addition to the beginning of a great political persecution of the security forces and the arms industry, which consecrated the fate of the projects independents, with only IMBEL and Taurus surviving this dark period.
Taurus polymer poor quality in the 2010s
In the following decades, the Brazilian State company IMBEL started the development of rifles in 5.56 caliber adapted to the lower receiver and upper receiver of the FAL: MD2, an adaptation for the smaller caliber only, the MD97 a modification with a new bolt and piston, and the iA2 being a modernization with addition of polymers, which presented several problems; and also worked on the development of prototype submachine guns based on the FAL lower, but they didn’t reach the market.
The other Brazilian manufacture Gun Company, Taurus, after producing copies of the Beretta 92 pistol and the Beretta M12 submachine gun, began the development of its own pistol projects, such as the PT24/7, which soon had very bad and dangerous problems, and made the CT30 carbines in the .30M1 caliber in partnership with the Chilean FAMAE , which also malfunctioned and was quickly taken out of service. Soon Taurus started the development of the new submachine gun, the SMT, which also had problems, having made a pistol caliber carbine version of it, the CTT, with a little more success, despite several limitations in quality and ergonomics, the which Taurus tried solve in a new version of it, with some modifications such as a bizarre aesthetic adaptation to reduce the large trigger guard, for example.
Taurus SMT submachine gun had a lot of problems:
New version of Taurus SMT/CTT:
During the last 30 years crime has taken over the country, and the demand for illegal weapons has become so great that several small illegal artisanal weapons factories have sprung up in the country, ironically making copies mainly of the extremely simple design of the national Mekanika URU Submachine Gun, but also of other weapons like Mini uzi, MAC 10, TEC 9; reaching the point of 48% of the submachine guns seized in the country being handmade.
This illegal artisan submachine gun industry has evolved so much that a new national model was identified, with its own design and perfected finish in relation to the crude weapons made until then. This new weapon is already being manufactured in scale, although the nomenclature has not yet been identified, nor the manufacturer located, let’s call it “Brazuca”.
The Brazuca Submachine Gun differs from other artisanal models, not only for the more modern and well-made finish, but for the construction structure itself, both the upper receiver and the lower receiver. Several of the seized ones showed an evolution in the development of the magazine receptacle, but the upper receiver remained basically the same.
It slightly resembles the SMG/PCC B&T APC 9, It has a solid upper receiver that appears to be machined, and the lower resembles the lower receiver of the AR-15 family, very common in modern submachine guns and pistol caliber carbines. In different seized models, the evolution in the development of the lower receiver for the use of Glock type magazines appears, with the use of a wider AR-style receptacle in some, in others a rougher adaptation at a very tight angle in the design of the magazine, until the latest seized models in greater quantity, with a more better finish.
It appears to have a blowback bolt mechanism, but it is not possible to know whether it operates open or closed, having the ejection window strangely on the left side of the breech case, with the handling lever just above it, in a separate gap from the ejection window. The Brazuca follows the global trend of SMG/PCC to use Glock pistol magazines, which facilitates acquisition and exchange during routine use with pistols. It uses an AR-15 grip and an Airsoft gun butt, more specifically the “RAP4 UMP buttstock” model, items that usually damage weapons more often and the ease of replacement was a good idea for the designer. Most have a simple barrel with no flame arrester, although one seized weapon has a small flame arrester, which it is not possible to pinpoint the effectiveness. There doesn’t seem to be a fire selector switch, just a small lock button just above the trigger. Improvements may appear in the future, with the popularization of 3D printer lower receiver, for example.
In the photos above different models of the “Brazuca” seized in several brazilian states, mainly in Rio Grande do Sul and Santa Catarina.
Unfortunately, we dismissed the potential of our people to develop and undertake, with restrictive laws and high taxes to favor monopolies and inhibit free competition, from the URU to Brazuca, who ended up favoring organized crime that doesn’t care about laws and often seems even be favored or protected by the state, and who knows what else might come in the hands of criminality?
In the photos above the evolution of handcrafted rifles seized in Brazil in recent decades.
They are few, and with an open bolt mechanism inefficient, but how long will it take to improve something that has been made for decades?
Russo Mike.
Translated for English: BlitzDigital.
Read this article in portuguese:
A matéria traz uma confirmação de que a manutenção de monopólios, bem como, a restrição para o uso de armas por parte do povo, e pior ainda, a condenação cultural do armamento pessoal para fins de defesa pessoal, só cria problemas. A criatividade humana simplesmente passa por cima disso e, pior, os bandidos não respeitam leis, obviamente. A solução é implantar uma mentalidade armamentista no cidadão, treiná-lo desde tenra idade para saber o que é uma arma (eu fui treinado pelo meu pai com oito anos de idade). Um povo armado pode se defender até mesmo contra tiranos, como dizia Thomas Jefferson.