This put this Vektor CR21 rifle I asked a lot of people how to see, some people said that it is quite good-looking, quite sci-fi... Some people say that the ugly ball is out of the ball, and it looks like a fish...
I belong to the latter...
As usual, the name is explained first, vektor is actually Vector, the difference between Dutch and English. This is a small arms and light weapons company in South Africa, which belongs to the Daniel Group, a state-owned military enterprise in South Africa. CR21 is an abbreviation for Compact Rifle - 21st Century.
The gun was developed in the early 1990s, and earlier the standard rifle in South Africa was the R4 rifle of the Galil in Israel.
But Galilee has an ancestral problem is too heavy, after all, Israel's Galil learned the movement when he was copycating AK, but the lightweight stamping receiver did not learn, and the South African R4 also had the same problem.
In addition, the late 80s and early 90s also happened to be the most popular period for rifles. France, Britain, Austria, etc. are all helpless, so South Africa's little brain is spinning wildly
But they lack experience in designing small arms, so wouldn't it be fatal for them to design a gun from scratch? So this cr21, which looks like a fish, is actually a plastic case and then changed to a supportless R4 rifle... You can understand it as a 5.56 caliber trustless AK.
(Here I first comb through the relationship, AK47 ← plagiarism Finland RK62← plagiarism Israel Galil ← Cottage South Africa R4)
Of course, some structures will change after the support is gone, such as pulling the handle. The AK series, including Galil's follower pull handle, was originally on the right side of the receiver. But the no-show certainly couldn't do that, so they put the pull handle above the front grip and to the left of the gun. But it can only drive the bolt backwards through a guide rod, and he is not connected to the bolt, just pushes the bolt backwards, but cannot be pulled, which belongs to the pull handle that does not move. This design is a bit of a loss of AK's soul... When the bolt is not in place, you can no longer rely on the foot...
Other structural aspects, that is, trigger-to-receiver trigger units need to be connected by a set of connecting rods, and there is not much difference. When Vektor built this batch of guns, it almost only needed to produce this plastic shell and a few connecting rods, and then dismantled and threw an R4 into it, even the magazine was universal (although South Africa developed a 30-round and 20-round magazine for the SR21, while the R4 was a 35-round and 50-round magazine).
The CR21 also interestingly integrates a reflective sight, but the goods are not doubled... And there's no mechanical sight above its curved gun body, and I doubt how reliable it really is... I don't know where the significance of their installation of such a sight is, it may be that the dividing board looks more joyful...
In general, cr21 can basically be regarded as a trustless version of Galil. Although this plastic gun body has lost a lot of weight (such as handguards, stocks, grips, etc.), its receiver is still the milling kit of the R4, so the overall weight is still 3.72 kg, so it is not very successful.
And although it uses the structure of R4 for the purpose of cost saving, every time a CR21 is born, an R4 is killed... So its total price is still on the high side. So the South African military did not adopt it, but only equipped the police on a small scale...
By 2010, Vektor had changed the R4 to continue using it. And CR21, which produces a small number of hundreds, has become a collectible...
(Vektor 21st Century R4↓)
Then again, this gun is quite eye-catching in the movie