The
Stoner LMG is a
light machine gun system developed by
Eugene Stoner and manufactured by
Knight's Armament Company (KAC). It is also known as the
KAC Stoner 96 LMG to differentiate it from the earlier
ArmaLite Stoner 63 LMG and
Ares Stoner 86 LMG it is derived from.
The Stoner LMG is billed by KAC as the lightest
5.56mm machine gun. It weighs 10 pounds with magazine and has a length of 35.25 inches. The Stoner LMG is belt-fed, gas operated, air-cooled, and fully automatic; firing at a rate of 550 rounds per minute.
Stoner designed the weapon as a replacement for the
Stoner 63. Neither weapons system gained much popularity as the
FN Minimi would become the LMG adopted by the
United States military, which dubbed the FN weapon the
M249. Currently, the weapon has seen only limited production which makes the Stoner LMG commonly used by private military contractors (PMC's) because of its compact size, weight.
A modified variant of the Stoner LMG is the Knight's Armament Company ChainSAW. This weapon has the ergonomics of a Chainsaw hence the name and is basically a show-off piece rather than a serious issue weapon.
Users