The Knight's Armament Company Light Assault Machine Gun is a light machine gun system developed by Eugene Stoner and manufactured by Knight's Armament Company. It was previously known as the Knight's Armament Company LMG as well as the KAC Stoner 99 LMG which was used to differentiate it from the earlier ArmaLite Stoner 63 LMG and ARES Stoner 86 LMG it is derived from.
Development
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 because of its compact size and comparatively light weight.
Design
The Knights Armament Company LAMG was intended to be a lightweight but reliable. At its core it is an open bolt, belt-fed, gas operated, air-cooled light machine gun utilizing the Constant Recoil system found on other machine guns such as Ultimax 100, designed by Stoner 63 contributor Jim Sullivan. In this system the bolt carrier group is full decelerated by the return spring before hitting the housing to minimize felt recoil and improve controlability. For this reason, the KAC LAMG lacks a bolt buffer. The belt feed has an unusual exposed lever hinged at the side of the receiver. The top cover above the feed tray is very short to allow for quicker reloading and the mounting a receiver-integral optics rail. The KAC LMG is extremely accurate due to the secure mounting of the “quick change” hammer forged chrome lined barrel.
Variants
Model 86
The first variant, came with a magazine feed device and fixed tube stock.
Model 96
Simplified derivative lacking the magazine feed device. Has shorter barrel and M4 carbine type retractable stock for CQB and Picatinny rails for sights/grips/bipods etc.
ChainSAW
The Chain SAW was originally developed as a technical exercise to test new ergonomic designs for light machine guns. The Chain SAW was designed to only be fired from the hip, with a handle along the top to hold the firearm meaning the user would wield the Chain SAW as if they were using an actual chainsaw. As the Chain SAW is intended to be hip-fired, various targeting aids were developed alongside it to aid the aiming and accuracy, although KAC admits that more work on targeting aids will have to be made before the Chain SAW could be produced and used effectively.
LW-AMG
The Lightweight Assault Machine Gun is a scaled-up version of the LAMG offered in 7.62x51mm NATO
