Cristobal M2 and Cristobal M-1962 Assault Rifle

Cristobal Model 2 Assault Rifle and Cristobal M-1962 Assault Rifle Made Dominican

The Cristobal Model 2 Assault Rifle first version, the Model 1, was essentially a test weapon and regarded as a failure; it was never issued out to troops. The Cristobal M2 Assault Rifle was the successful version; it had a wooden stock with a pistol grip-wrist and an action encased in the wooden furniture; the stock, receiver housing and fore end are one piece. The receiver is of tubular metal, and is closed on the rear end by a screwon end cap. Case ejection is almost straight upward, preventing the mounting of most optics. The charging handle on the right side includes a shield that moves with the handle and helps keep dirt out of the mechanism.

The selector does not include a semiautomatic setting, allowing for automatic fire and safe settings only. However, a second trigger inside the trigger guard allows the shooter semiautomatic fire; for this, the selector lever is set to automatic, but that second trigger is used instead. The safe setting locks both triggers. The Model 2 has a 16.1-inch barrel.

Cristobal Model 2 Assault Rifle

Cristobal M-1962 Assault Rifle

A slightly improved and more compact version, the Cristobal M-1962 Assault Rifle, was produced from 1962 to 1970. This version differs primarily in a slightly slower cyclic rate of fire (unimportant in game terms), and in having a shorter 12.2-inch barrel. The Cristobal M-1962 Assault Rifle has a short perforated metal handguard; a swivel band and sling swivel is attached to the end of this handguard; the rest of the furniture is almost identical to that of the M-2. A second version of the M-1962 Assault rifle has a folding tubular metal stock with a rubber sleeve at the butt to prevent the stock from slipping from the shooter’s shoulder. The folding-stock version has a true pistol grip instead of a pistol grip-wrist. The M-1962 is, in essence, a submachinegun rather than an assault rifle, but is included here for completeness. (It is also arguable whether the M-1962 is a submachinegun or a short assault rifle.)

One of the few home-grown weapons of the Dominican arms industry, the Cristobal was designed in 1948 by a Hungarian immigrant to the Dominican Republic named Pal Kiraly. He based it on a submachinegun he had designed before World War 2 called the M-39M (which was itself based on Beretta M-1938), rebarreled for the .30 caliber Carbine cartridge and fitted with a longer barrel and stock. This weapon was subsequently supplied to Cuba before the revolution, and many of them can still be found in the hands of Cuban farmers and hunters, usually modified for semiautomatic-only fire. It could likewise still be found in the hands of Dominican farmers and hunters, and occasionally police and rebel forces.

Cristobal M-1962 Assault Rifle

Production of new Cristobals stopped in 1957; by then, some 84,000 had been built, with only 19,000 employed by the Dominicans themselves most had been exported to the aforementioned Cuba, sold to civilians, or sold to other Latin American countries. By 2003, the remaining Cristobals are generally in poor repair, but any weapon can be dangerous in the right hands. The Model 2 Assault Rifle is more commonly called the "San Cristobal Carbine."

These Cristobal Model 2 Assault Rifle and Cristobal M-1962 Assault Rifle were largely replaced by M-16A1s from the US and L-1A1s from Great Britain shortly before the Twilight War, mostly to provide a better-armed military force as a bulwark against Cuban and Russian troops. The remaining Cristobals were then handed down to folks who were normally not found with weapons in peacetime, such as the elderly, women, and children than were not yet even in their teens.