Springfield Armory Hellion: Croatian design, and coming to North America

Are bullpups declining in popularity? Maybe, maybe not, but Springfield Armory is certainly happy to keep the idea alive with the new Hellion rifle, unveiled at SHOT Show last month. Except, it's not really new: It's a Croatian-made rifle, and it already has its fans overseas.

The new Springfield Armory Hellion is based on the Croatian VHS-D2 service rifle, which is itself an improvement of the VHS-D design. Wait, Croatia has an arms industry? Yes, and apparently they're ready to start exporting.

The Hellion is semi-auto only, of course. It's chambered in 5.56x45mm, NATO's standard service cartridge. The action is gas-operated, with ambidextrous controls. The ejection system is also reversible, so lefties don't have empty brass flying in front of their face.

The rest of the rifle has similar modern styling, with M-LOK slots on the forend for accessories (three each at the 3 o'clock, 6 o'clock and 9 o'clock positions). While some previous service-issued versions of the rifle comes with an integrated optical sight (shades of the Steyr AUG!), the Hellion comes with flip-up iron sights and an integrated Picatinny rail that runs along the top of the rifle.

It's not an AR-15, far from it, but AR-15 grips will fit this rifle, as well as AR-pattern mags. In the US, the rifle ships with 30-round PMAGS. If it ever comes to Canada, that obviously won't be the case―but will it come to Canada?

Springfield Armory is aware of our market, but don't expect to become a priority, especially since the rifle's 16-inch barrel would automatically rule it restricted. Retailers can't be overly excited about the idea of importing new semi-autos, either, as more hijinks from Public Safety could see them banned overnight.

Tactical Imports did look at bringing the first-generation rifles to Canada wayyyyy back in 2011, direct from the manufacturer, but at that point the Croatian factory was focused on military sales and had no semi-auto version. Last year, when the semi-auto rifle started to look like a reality for North America, Tactical Imports told online customers "Rights to this rifle in Canada and USA belong to Springfield Armoury, who import the HS Produkt Pistols under their brand name XD. Not sure it's really worth our time and effort to re-design this for our market if it has to be done through another company who would most likely want a cut to bring these to our market -if they'd even want to do so in the first place." There you have it―that doesn't mean it won't ever come here, but the industry is more likely to consider other options first.

It's too bad. The Hellion would be expensive (American MSRP is $1,999 US), but there would certainly be interested customers even at a high price.