The American-180 is a submachine gun developed in the 1960s which fires the .22 Long Rifle or .22 ILARCO cartridges from a pan magazine. The concept began with the Casull Model 290 that used a flat pan magazine similar to designs widely used prior to World War II. Only 87 Casull M290s were built, as the weapon was expensive to manufacture. The American-180 is an improved version. A semi-automatic only variant called the American SAR 180/275 is still produced on a custom basis by E&L Manufacturing of Riddle, Oregon.

Operation

The weapon operates through a conventional blowback mechanism. It uses an open bolt with a flat pan magazine. It fires at a very high rate of fire of approximately 1,200 rounds per minute. The American-180 was purchased mostly by private parties prior to the Hughes Amendment in 1986, which banned the production of automatic weapons for the American civilian market. The A180 was adopted by the Utah Department of Corrections to arm prison guards. Despite the low power of the .22 Long Rifle round, testing demonstrated that automatic fire could penetrate even concrete and bulletproof vests from cumulative damage. However, the target would have to remain still for some amount of time to allow the cumulative damage to amass in the same area to achieve this.

Variants

Users