armoury
G&G SMC-9 CARBINE
G&G SMC-9:
HYBRID
EXCELLENCE
EVERY SO OFTEN AN AIRSOFT MODEL COMES ALONG THAT STRIKES A CHORD WITH USERS, AND BILL HAS BEEN
FOLLOWING THE PROGRESS OF THE SMC-9 CARBINE FROM G&G SINCE HE FIRST SAW IT AT IWA A COUPLE OF
YEARS BACK. NOW THAT STOCK IS STARTING TO HIT THE STORES, HE GETS HANDS ON TO SEE IF THE WAIT HAS
BEEN WORTH IT!
P
istol-based carbines, what’s that all
about then? The fact of the matter
is that pretty much ever since the
inception of what I will call “the modern
pistol”, carbine variants have been tried,
discarded, and tried yet again! You only
need look back to models such as the
“Artillery Luger”, the “Broomhandle
Mauser”, and the “Stechkin” to
see what I’m talking about
- and going even further
back you could even include
“saddleguns” in this list! simply
put, the pistol calibre carbine has been
tried time and again with varying degrees
of success.
But with modern handguns proving
capable of greater, dependable
performance, and indeed ammunition that
has become more consistent and reliable,
once again we’ve seen a return to the
pistol “carbine kit” and in its current form
you can choose from a bewildering array
of accessories that will transform your
handgun into a halfway decent carbine!
Kits like the FAB Defense K-Pos, Hera Triarii
or CAA Roni do much more than just
adding a shoulder stock (as was the old
format),
as they add a forward grip for
added
stability, rails for mounting
optics
and taclites, and even allow
for
fitting
suppressors
in countries
legal.
I
having a
a few
an Israeli
carbine kits
onto the
not really
that in
where this is
remember
conversation
years back with
friend about the
that were coming
market at the time,
understanding then
Israel, although we
commonly see pictures
of folk going about their daily business
with an M4 slung across their back,
civilians can’t own SMGs under Israeli
law. So it could be argued that carbine
conversions are a solution to bypass a legal
problem, allowing users to own a short,
pistol-calibre platform
that is ideal
for home defence.
Of course,
that also
means
that
anywhere
SBRs or SMGs require extensive paperwork
for ownership, the carbine kit also
becomes of interest, and you can have
both a carbine and a pistol at a fraction of
what you’d pay for the even the semi-auto
version of an SMG!
So that’s all well and good then, in
the real world there is a desire for a kit
which can transform your pistol into a
carbine but where does this sit in relation
to airsoft, where we can legally own pretty
much anything from a Derringer to a Ma
“ALTHOUGH I’M A HALFWAY DECENT PISTOL SHOOTER, AT MUCH BEYOND 10M,
ESPECIALLY IN A WOODLAND SETTING, I’M BASICALLY WAITING FOR MY OPPONENT
TO COME CLOSER BEFORE I CAN ENGAGE… GENERALLY NOT A GOOD THING!”
52
APRIL 2020