Mini uzi

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Mini Uzi

The Mini Uzi

Type Submachine gun
Place of origin Israel
Service history
Used by See Users
Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War,
Sri Lankan Civil War,
Portuguese Colonial War, South
Wars African Border War, Rhodesian
Bush War, anti-guerrilla
operations in Colombia and the
Philippines
Production history
Designer Uziel Gal
Designed 1948
Israel Military Industries, FN
Herstal, Norinco, Lyttleton
Manufacturer Engineering Works (under
Vektor Arms), RH-ALAN, Ka
Pa Sa State Factories
Produced 1950
Specifications
Weight 3.5 kg (7.72 lb)
600 mm (Stock collapsed) 360
Length
mm
Barrel length 197 mm
Cartridge 9x19mm Parabellum, .22 LR, .
 45 ACP, .41 AE
Action Blowback
Rate of fire 600 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity ~400 m/s (1,312 ft/s)
10 (.22 and .41 AE), 16 (.45
Feed system ACP) 20, 32, 40 and 50-round
box magazines
Sights Iron sights
The Mini Uzi, a scaled-down version of the Uzi, first introduced in 1980.
The Mini Uzi is 600 mm (23.62 inches) long or 360 mm (14.17 inches)
long with the stock folded. Its barrel length is 197 mm (7.76 inches)
and its muzzle velocity is 375 m/s (1230 f/s).

Uzi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

For other uses, see Uzi (disambiguation).
Uzi

The Uzi
Type Submachine gun
Place of origin Israel
Service history
Used by See Users
Six-Day War, Yom Kippur War,
Sri Lankan Civil War,
Portuguese Colonial War, South
Wars African Border War, Rhodesian
Bush War, anti-guerrilla
operations in Colombia and the
Philippines
Production history
Designer Uziel Gal
Designed 1948
 Israel Military Industries, FN
Herstal, Norinco, Lyttleton
Manufacturer Engineering Works (under
Vektor Arms), RH-ALAN, Ka
Pa Sa State Factories
Produced 1950
Variants See Variants
Specifications
Weight 3.5 kg (7.72 lb)
650 mm (25.6 in) stock
Length extended, 470 mm (18.5 in)
stock collapsed
Barrel length 260 mm (10.2 in)
9x19mm Parabellum, .22 LR, .
Cartridge
45 ACP, .41 AE
Action Blowback
Rate of fire 600 rounds/min
Muzzle velocity ~400 m/s (1,312 ft/s)
10 (.22 and .41 AE), 16 (.45
Feed system ACP) 20, 32, 40 and 50-round
box magazines
Sights Iron sights
The Uzi (Hebrew: ‫עוזי‬, officially cased as UZI) is a related family of
submachine guns. Smaller variants are considered to be machine
pistols.
The first Uzi submachine gun was designed by Uziel Gal in the late
1940s. The prototype was finished in 1950, and initial service issue
began in 1954.
Over its service lifetime, the Uzi was manufactured by Israel Military
Industries, FN Herstal, and other manufacturers.
Contents
[hide]

• 1 Design
o 1.1 Overview
o 1.2 Design drawbacks
• 2 Operational use
• 3 Worldwide arms sales
• 4 Variants
• 5 Caliber variants
• 6 Users
o 6.1 Former users
• 7 In popular culture
• 8 Gallery
• 9 References
 • 10 See also

• 11 External links

[edit] Design
[edit] Overview

The Uzi uses an open-bolt, blowback-operated design. It and the

Czechoslovakian series 23 to 26 were the first weapons to use a
"telescoping" ("overhung") bolt design, in which the bolt wraps around
the breech end of the barrel (Hogg 1979:157-158). This allows the
barrel to be moved far back into the receiver and the magazine to be
housed in the pistol grip, allowing for a heavier, slower-firing bolt in a
shorter, better-balanced weapon.
The weapon is constructed primarily from stamped sheet metal,
making it less expensive per unit to manufacture than an equivalent
design machined from forgings. With relatively few moving parts, the
Uzi is easy to strip for maintenance or repair. The magazine is housed
within the pistol grip, allowing for intuitive and easy reloading in dark
or difficult conditions, under the principle of 'hand finds hand'. The
pistol grip is fitted with a grip safety, making it difficult to fire
accidentally. However, the protruding vertical magazine also makes
the gun awkward to fire when prone.
When the gun is decocked, the ejector port closes, preventing entry of
dust and dirt. Though the Uzi's stamped-metal receiver is equipped
with pressed reinforcement slots to accept accumulated dirt and sand,
the weapon can still jam with heavy accumulations of sand in desert
combat conditions when not cleaned regularly.

[edit] Design drawbacks

The Uzi has been criticized for its open-bolt design. Open bolt,
blowback firearms tend to have reduced accuracy, because as the
trigger is pulled, the bolt slams forward and hits the breech, interfering
with the shooter's aim. Since the bolt is held to the rear when cocked,
the receiver is more susceptible to contamination from sand and dirt
ingress. The open bolt design does expose the breech end of the
barrel, and may improve cooling during periods of continuous fire.

[edit] Operational use

The Uzi gun was designed by Major (Captain at the time) Uziel Gal of
the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) following the 1948 Arab-Israeli War. The
weapon was submitted to the Israeli army for evaluation and won out
over more conventional designs due to its simplicity and economy of
manufacture. Gal did not want the weapon to be named after him, but
his request was ignored. The Uzi was officially adopted in 1951. First
introduced to IDF special forces in 1954, the weapon was placed into
general issue two years later. The first Uzis were equipped with a
short, fixed wooden buttstock, and this is the version that initially saw
combat during the 1956 Suez campaign.[1] Later models would be
equipped with a folding metal stock.
The Uzi was used as a personal defense weapon by rear-echelon
troops, officers, artillery troops and tankers, as well as a frontline
weapon by elite light infantry assault forces. The Uzi's compact size
and firepower proved instrumental in clearing Syrian bunkers and
Jordanian defensive positions during the 1967 Six-Day War. Though the
weapon was phased out of frontline IDF service in the 1980s, some
Uzis and Uzi variants were still used by a few IDF units until December
2003, when the IDF announced that it was retiring the Uzi from all IDF
forces.[2]
In general, the Uzi was a reliable weapon in military service. However,
even the Uzi fell victim to extreme conditions of sand and dust. During
the Sinai campaign of the Yom Kippur War, IDF army units reaching the
Suez reported that of all their small arms, only the 7.62 mm FN MAG
machine gun was still in operation.
The Uzi proved especially useful for mechanized troops needing a
compact weapon, and for infantry units clearing bunkers and other
confined spaces. However, its limited range and accuracy in automatic
fire (approximately 50 m) could be disconcerting when encountering
enemy forces armed with longer-range small arms, and heavier
support weapons could not always substitute for a longer-ranged
individual weapon. These failings eventually caused the phaseout of
the Uzi from IDF forces.[3]
The Uzi was also used in various conflicts outside Israel and the Middle
East during the 1960s and 1970s. Quantities of 9 mm Uzi submachine
guns were used by Portuguese cavalry, police, and security forces
during the Portuguese Colonial Wars in Africa.

[edit] Worldwide arms sales

Total sales of the weapon to date (end 2001) has netted IMI over $2
billion (US), with over 90 countries using the weapons either for their
armed forces or in law enforcement.

• The German Bundeswehr used the Uzi since 1959 under the name MP2
(especially for tank crews) and is now changing to the Heckler & Koch MP7.
 • The Irish Gardaí Emergency Response Unit (ERU) are replacing the Uzi with the
HK MP7.
• In Rhodesia in the late 1970s the Uzi was produced under license, from Israeli-
supplied, and later made in Rhodesia, components. It was commonly called the
"Rhuzi" (although the title was also applied to some indigenous submachine gun
designs).
• Sri Lanka ordered a few thousand Mini Uzi and Uzi Carbines in 1990s. Currently
those are deployed with Sri Lanka Army special forces regiment and Sri Lanka
Police Special Task Force as their primary weapon when providing security for
VIPs.
• The United States Secret Service, the agency that guards the President of the
United States, have used the Uzi to provide covering fire while agents evacuated
the President out of an area. When President Ronald Reagan was shot on March
30, 1981 outside of the Washington Hilton Hotel by John Hinckley Jr., a Secret
Service Special Agent pulled an Uzi out of a briefcase and covered the rear of the
presidential limousine as it sped to safety with the wounded president inside.[1]

[edit] Variants
• Uzi Carbine, standard size Uzi with a longer 450mm (16 inch) barrel, designed to
meet minimum legal rifle overall length requirements for civilian sales in the
United States when the stock is folded.
• Mini Uzi, a scaled-down version of the Uzi, first introduced in 1980. The Mini
Uzi is 600 mm (23.62 inches) long or 360 mm (14.17 inches) long with the stock
folded. Its barrel length is 197 mm (7.76 inches) and its muzzle velocity is 375
m/s (1230 f/s).
• Micro Uzi, An even further scaled down version of the Uzi, introduced in 1982.
The Micro Uzi is 436 mm (19.13 inches) long or 240 mm (9.45 inches) long with
the stock folded its barrel length is 134 mm (5.28 inches) and its muzzle velocity
is 350 m/s (1148 f/s).

• Micro Uzi Para

• Micro Uzi Pro

• UZI Pistol, a semi-automatic pistol derived from the Micro Uzi.

Recent models of Mini-Uzi and Micro-Uzi are fitted with closed-type

bolts.[4]

[edit] Caliber variants

Most Uzis fire the 9x19mm Parabellum cartridge, though some fire .22
LR, .41 AE, or .45 ACP. Caliber conversions exist in .40 S&W and 10
mm auto [2].
Available magazines include 20-, 25-, 32-, 40-, and 50-round
magazines (9x19mm Parabellum), 10-round magazines (.41 and .22
LR), and 16-round magazines (.45 ACP). All of the above are
manufactured by IMI. Other high-capacity magazines exist (e.g. 50-
round magazines and 100-round drums in 9 mm) which are
manufactured by companies such as Vector Arms.