to continue their work on the project under government patent. By 2004, they had a functional prototype and had formed Trident Enterprises Ltd. In 2003, they achieved a breakthrough and were able to convince fellow writer and firearms enthusiast Captain Monty Mendenhall to finance their research effort. Improvements and contracts Īn effort to produce an improved version of the weapon began in 1992 when Samuel "Dutch" Hillenburg, a firearms writer specializing in military weapons, teamed up with master machinist Brian Fauci. One additional launcher is on limited display in a military restricted US Navy facility at NSWC Crane.
Fallout 4 40mm grenade serial number#
Serial number 2 is stored at the Naval History and Heritage Command in Washington DC. Serial number 4 is at the National Navy UDT-SEAL Museum in Fort Pierce, Florida while serial number 13 is on display in the War Remnants Museum in HCMC, Vietnam. Īll four remaining original China Lake Model grenade launchers are on display in museums.
Thus the SEALs referred to the experimental weapon as the "China Lake grenade launcher" in reference to the facility which produced it. Since it was made on an ad hoc basis for special operations forces, it was not formally adopted and has no official military designation. The China Lake NATIC designation is also erroneous as the weapon was never known by that designation. The EX-41 was only produced as a single prototype as a follow-up design created two decades after the China Lake Model was produced. The EX-41 was a design prototype created in the mid-1990s based upon the earlier China Lake Model pump 40mm. The China Lake Model is sometimes mistakenly referred to as the "EX-41" or as the "China Lake NATIC". Only three originals currently remain under US Navy control the rest have been demilitarized. SEAL historian Kevin Dockery has confirmed 22 completed guns being carried on Navy records. The highest original receiver number found is 50, but it may never have been made into a functional weapon.
However, according to another source, only 16 were made. One claims that between 20 and 30 were made. Sources differ as to how many weapons were produced. The larger screw on the left side of the receiver was designed for a quadrant sight to be mounted. Depending on if the leaf is folded or not, the rear square notch is either fixed or adjustable from 75 to 400 m in 25 m increments. The pump-action grenade launcher features leaf iron sights similar to the M79. Submitted for field trials in Vietnam, this weapon apparently performed quite well with HE-Frag ammunition. The grenade launcher was extremely light for its size, since a significant portion of it was made of aluminium.
In fact, a skilled operator could fire four aimed shots before the first one landed. The tubular magazine held three 40x46mm grenades, and so with one grenade in the chamber, four grenades could be fired rapidly before reloading. Navy SEAL teams were pleased with the resultant pump-action grenade launcher. The M79 and XM148 grenade launchers were single-shot, and the repeating T148E1 grenade launcher was unreliable, so a request was made to China Lake engineers. The China Lake Model (or China Lake pump-action grenade launcher) is a pump-action grenade launcher that was developed by the Special Projects Division of the Naval Air Weapons Station China Lake, which provided equipment to United States Navy SEALs. Open, rear sight is the M79 ladder elevation sight system marked 375 meter ladder, front is a M79 square-notch/blade Total known China Lake Grenade Launchers is 13 with this information.ģ-round tubular magazine(+1 In the chamber) Late manufactured reproduction CSG/Trident China Lake Launchers are said to number at nine in total during a manufacturing run from 2003-2009. Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS) China Lake Facility.ġ968 Naval Air Weapons Station (NAWS), 2007-2009 Airtronic/Trident, 2003-2009 CSG/Trident.ĥ0 original 1968 receivers, only four are known to still remain intact in museums in the U.S. CSG/Trident Reproduction China Lake Grenade Launcherġ967-1968 NAWS 2003-2009 Trident/Airtronic