Armscor R-4,R-5 and R-6 Assault Rifle

These weapons, along with the R-6 compact assault rifle, are the standard assault weapons of South Africa. They are based on the Israeli Galil, with some changes to suit local conditions: The buttstock is also lengthened, since the average South African soldier is bigger than the average Israeli soldier, and the fragility of the Galil has been fixed by using stronger plastics and a somewhat heavier 18.1-inch barrel. The sights and the gas tube have been likewise reinforced to prevent the damage that plagues the Galil. The R-4 assault rifle is the standard assault rifle and comes with a bipod; the R-5 assault rifle is a shortened carbine version, similar in concept to the Galil SAR.

R-6 assault rifle

The R-6 assault rifle is a compact assault rifle, radically shortened. There are three other versions, the LM-4, LM-5, and LM-6; these are semiautomatic versions of the R-4 assault rifle, R-5 assault rifle, and R-6 assault rifle built for police and civilian use. The normal magazine for the R-4/5/6 assault rifle series is a reinforced plastic 35-round magazine; steel 50-round magazines were also made when the R-4/5/6 assault rifle series was first introduced, but production of them stopped a short while after South Africa began producing them; the troops dislike them as they prevent the use of the built-in bipod of the R-4 assault rifle.

A few years after introduction of the R-4, the South African government also gave the authorization to Armscor to create a civilian version of the R-4. This weapon, the LM-4, was not meant as a mere walking-around or hunting rifle; at the time, violence at the hands of foreign countries as well as domestic terrorist groups was a big problem for outlying South African ranchers and their large amounts of land to patrol. The LM-4 generally conforms to the R-4, but is a semiautomatic-only weapon with a few other quirks. The biggest difference, other than the operation, is the fire selector – the LM-4 has, in effect, two fire selectors. The first is the standard AK-type fire selector, inherited from its Galil heritage; the second is an ambidextrous switch-type selector near the pistol grip.

For the switch to function, the AK-type selector must be set on “Fire;” a side effect of this arrangement is that the switch is backwards in operation compared to most rifles, with the switch pointing forward to fire and back to be on safe. The switch is said to be stiff, but there are workarounds to this problem. Production of the LM-4 stopped when Apartheid ended in South Africa. For game purposes, the LM-4 is identical to the R-4 except for the lack of automatic fire capability.