The ROF submachine
gun
The ROF has a fairly standard
open-bolt type of action, and was designed and built primarily
as an exercise in building a complete gun, mostly from scratch.
The only parts which were bought and left unmodified are the flash
hider and the pistol grip. Those parts, as well as the trigger,
safety and barrel blank, are from an AR-15. Virtually everything
else, including the springs, was fabricated. The upper receiver
is made from 1.375 OD, .058 wall 4130 DOM tubing. The bolt is
made of 8620 which is case hardened to Rc 55-57, with a case depth
of .015. The lower receiver is a weldment made from a combination
of bent-up mild sheet steel and machined 1018 steel. The barrel
was made from a section of AR-15 9mm barrel, though any 9mm blank
would have worked just as well. The main recoil spring was wound
from .041 diameter music wire. The most unique feature of the
ROF is the magazine well arrangement. The vertical line just forward
of the trigger guard is where the magazine well may be separated
from the rest of the lower receiver. The bolt was designed to
accommodate a range of cartridges and magazines; the mag well
seen in the picture allows the ROF to use British Sten magazines.
The next magazine well to be made will accept a PPS-43 mag, which
holds 7.26x25mm ammo. Obviously, a barrel change is required to
complete the conversion. So what does "ROF" stand for?
Rate Of Fire. There's an implied "High" in front of
ROF. The idea is that this gun was designed for a high rate of
fire. At this it does okay; it fires 9mm ammo at around 1200 rounds
per minute. As of when these pictures were taken, the ROF has
had over 3,000 rounds of ammo fired through it. Since the ROF
was built after May 19, 1986, it's considered to be a "post-'86"
dealer sample machine gun which can only be bought by licensed
manufacturers, dealers, government entities or law enforcement.
Needless to say, there isn't really enough of a market to warrant
making the ROF a production gun.
NEW! Click here to view an MPEG video of the ROF firing!
Click to hear
a .wav file of the ROF firing!
Click here to see an enlarged
version of the bottom picture
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