Specification

AM 180

History

AM 180

“AM180” - the worlds fastest shooting SMG
The first rifle with laser aiming device

In 1960 Richard "Dick" Casull developed and patented a small bore rifle with drum magazine (Casull Model 280).
The design was bought by the "American International Corporation", a company that was dealing with patents and licenses.
 
The head of the company, Mormonist bishop Charles Goff, Salt Lake City, wanted to market the rifle.
However the design of the rifle did not work plus estimated production costs were far to high.
The ideas of the design were therefore handed over to VOERE in 1972. VOERE was asked to do a re-design based on the original ideas. The target was to have one of the first anti terrorist guns so to speak as an answer to the Olympia terrorist attack in 1972.
The design was completly revised under supervision of VOERE's chief designer Brandstätter. Within 2 years the design was ready to go into serial production.

The central design element and break through of the rifle was an exchangeable unit with moveable magazine lips.
Finally the AM was equipped and world wide the first rifle with a laser aiming device. The laser was specially developped by an american company in Mountainview Vally.
At this time a laser pointer had the size of a shoe box weighing around 1,5 kg. Today a simliar laser has the size of the little finger weiging around 10 g.
The idea was that the terrorist or criminal gives up on seing the rifle and the red dot without anybody getting hurt resp. without the use of a single shot. The red dot was visible at a distance of around 40 m at daytime.
Nearly 10.000 pcs of rifles were produced at the VOERE plant. The rifle was used in movies and TV productions as for instance "MI5". It was also the central topic of crime stories, f.e. "The Red Pointer" 
A redesigned Version known as MGV 176 was later produced in Slovenia.