Turkey Begins Mass Production Of Homemade Machine Guns: Undergoes One Million Fire Trials, Overcomes Natural Obstacles

Illustration of the CANiK 12.7mm machine gun. (Source: canikarms)

JAKARTA - Turkey's CANiK, one of the world's leading weapons manufacturers operating under the Samsun Yurt Savunma (SYS), has started mass production of the domestically produced 12.7 mm PMT (platform machine gun) machine gun for the first time.

Ismail Demir, head of the Defense Industry Presidency (SSB) announced the related news via his Twitter account.

"The 12.7-millimeter PMT machine gun, which was produced locally for the first time, goes into mass production," he wrote, citing Daily Sabah on August 4th.

Demir says Turkey didn't even have domestic rifles until six-seven years ago, "but today we are at the level of producing high-caliber weapons ourselves."

In his upload, Demir also included a video of himself doing a test shoot with a domestically produced machine gun, the CANiK M2 QCB.

Demir, who visited the facilities of Samsun Yurt Savunma, the project's contracting company, and inspected the project's progress on the spot, stated that the 12.7mm machine gun was designed to fire extremely fast on multiple platforms, and once the qualification process was successfully completed, the mass production phase began.

Illustration of a CANiK 12.7mm machine gun. (Source: savunmasanayi)

Stressing that deliveries to security forces will continue with mass production, Demir said, "This means our security forces are equipped with far superior weapons than their foreign counterparts. We have paved the way for a new chain of success in this regard."

According to a statement by the SSB, qualification tests for the rifle were completed after more than a month of hard work. The CANiK M2 QCB rifle successfully passed many tests such as high pressure, accelerated rain, salt fog, low and high temperatures, icing and chemical interactions during the qualification process of around 1 million shots.

From the results of firing tests and qualifications carried out, the barrel is manufactured with materials and production methods that have never been used before in Turkey. It was determined that the manufactured barrel has a higher service life than its foreign counterparts, and the firepower confirms that it is more durable.

To note, the 12.7x99 millimeter machine gun, which was used on land, air and sea platforms, was previously imported from abroad.