HS Produkt

HS Produkt d.o.o. is a Croatian firearms manufacturing company, best known for design and production of the HS2000 and XDm, a semi-automatic pistol sold in the US market as the Springfield Armory XD.

History

HS Produkt was founded as IM Metallic d.o.o. in 1990, during the initial democratic changes in the Republic of Croatia. The company was situated in the town of Ozalj, Croatia, about 50 kilometers southwest of the capital Zagreb; in 2000 it was relocated to Karlovac.

At the beginning of 2001, following the success of the HS 2000 pistols on the world market, the company changed its name to HS Produkt.

HS Produkt's current production facility produces about 30,000 pistols per month with a trend of continued growth; ninety percent of production is exported to the United States. The number of employees rose from around 80 in 2000 to nearly 1000 in 2007, making HS Produkt the leading employer in Karlovac County.

Founders and co-owners of HS Produkt, Ivan Žabčić and Marko Vuković, are both mechanical engineers; Vuković is the chief designer behind most of the company's products. Vuković also has combat experience as a veteran of the Croatian War of Independence, in which he was wounded twice.

HS Produkt VHS

The VHS (Croatian: Višenamjenska Hrvatska Strojnica—"multifunctional Croatian machine gun") is a 5.56×45mm NATO bullpup assault rifle designed and manufactured by HS Produkt of Croatia. The VHS rifle was first introduced at the 2007 iKA exhibition, the annual Croatian innovation display that takes place in the city of Karlovac. The development was carried on following a request from the Croatian Army for a new infantry rifle to update the individual equipment to NATO standards.

A new and improved version of the VHS rifle, known as the VHS-2, was introduced in April 2013.

History

Development

The development of the new assault rifle began in 1992, during the Croatian War of Independence, when HS Produkt (then called IM Metal) created a bullpup variant of the 7.62 mm Kalashnikov assault rifle. This rifle had a number of flaws, partly caused by limited technological capabilities of IM Metal, but provided a valuable learning experience for the company. A delayed blowback model was tested in the mid-1990s, but the results were still not satisfactory, and it was superseded by a design similar to the M16 rifle. More prototypes followed in 1996, 1999 and 2004.

Assault rifle

An assault rifle is a fully automatic selective-fire rifle that uses an intermediate cartridge and a detachable magazine. Assault rifles were first used during World War II. Though Western nations were slow to accept the assault rifle concept after World War II, by the end of the 20th century they had become the standard weapon in most of the world's armies, replacing battle rifles and sub-machine guns. Examples include the StG 44, AK-47 and the M16 rifle.

The Germans were the first to pioneer the assault rifle concept, during World War II, based upon research that showed that most firefights happen within 400 metres (1,300 ft) and that contemporary rifles were over-powered for most small arms combat. They sought to develop a select-fire intermediate powered rifle combining the firepower of a submachine gun with the accuracy and range of a rifle. This was done by shortening the standard 7.92×57mm cartridge to 7.92×33mm and giving it a lighter 125 grain bullet, that limited range but allowed for more controllable automatic fire. A smaller, lighter cartridge also allowed soldiers to carry more ammunition "to support the higher consumption rate of automatic fire."