Canada's C6A1 machine guns have further defects, says newspaper report

While government and military officials dither over the replacement for the Browning Hi-Power service pistol, the Canadian Forces now faces another firepower problem. The Ottawa Citizen reports the military's C6A1 machine guns are in need of a second repair, after hundreds were sent back to the factory for an initial fix-up.

The C6A1 backstory

Canada's C6A1 is actually an FN MAG, mostly. Chambered in 7.62x51, this design was introduced by FN all the way back in 1958. Since then, the MAG and its many variants have served all over the world, from Cold War duty to dust-ups in the Middle East. It is a long-respected and reliable design, and served Canada for years designated as the C6.

Like other military firearm designs, FN licences other countries to produce the MAG design. Colt Canada builds the updated C6A1 design under that arrangement, tweaking the design to fit the Canadian Forces' specification, with M1913 Picatinny rails, adjustable gas tube regulators, and polymer buttstock (supposedly superior to wood stocks in biological and chemical warfare).

That adjustable gas regulator was a return to original MAG specs, as the CF had implemented a fixed-position regulator for the C6 for some years, which proved unpopular in field use. The C6A1 once again implemented an adjustable gas regulator, but it proved to be defective in several hundred of the newly-ordered machine guns. In summer of 2021, officials announced Colt Canada would recall 342 of the new weapons to fix the gas system, and also repair defective barrel nuts.

All this work is supposed to be done at no cost, as DND has already paid $139 million for its total C6A1 order.

A new problem

Since then, military officials have announced a new issue with the C6A1. The Ottawa Citizen reports the latest recall extends to even more guns built by Colt Canada. In an email, a DND official told the Citizen that "Some production weapons had failed the belt pull testing, which ultimately resulted in the need to replace all the feed channels for weapons manufactured from 1 Oct 2020 to 1 Oct 2021, which represents a total of 1,391 weapons.” So, these weapons are being repaired, but at least it's a relatively simple repair that soldiers themselves can do in the field. Colt Canada says a third-party vendor supplied faulty components for the C6A1's feed system, telling the Ottawa Citizen that military personnel can fit the replacement part into the C6A1, with no interruption in the weapon's service.

So, it doesn't sound like a big problem, and that's a good thing. With new ownership at Colt Canada (CZ bought it last year, as part of its Colt takeover), we expect to not only see the C6A1 sorted properly, but the new bosses might even start looking for export sales?