The St. George Arms Leader 50 A1 was a 12.7×99mm caliber Australian-American bullpup anti-materiel rifle. The rifle is able to trace its roots back to the Leader 50 anti-materiel rifle designed back in 2011, although a number of issues led to the rifle being unable to come to the market in said form.
History[]
Originally designed as the Leader 50 by Australian arms designer Charles St. George, the Leader A1 actually had a bit of a troubled history when it came to its development. The weapon was originally designed as the Sabre Defence LSR-50 Leader in 2011; a company known as MICOR Defense appears to have acquired everything related to the rifle as of 2012 and renamed it the MICOR Defense Leader 50 (or MD 50 depending on the source).
MICOR Defense later obtained intellectual property on the rifle and terminated St. George's services after a year; the company would later sell the intellectual and marketing rights to Pallas Arms LLC, a company based in Decatur, Alabama and went out of business. Pallas Arms then renamed the weapon the Gatekeeper .50 and appears to have also gone out of business before any physical prototype could have been constructed.
St. George later decided to employ the services of K&M Arms of Chandler, Arizona to introduce the latest iteration of this prototype, the Leader 50 A1, in 2014.[1] The rifle was being designed and prototyped as late as 2019, advertised with the tagline "The World Belongs to the Leader";[2] no further development has occurred since. Only "a few" prototypes were produced, with all having some issues.
Development[]
The Leader 50 A1 was developed by the Australian firearms designer Charles St. George, intended as a lighter alternative to the Barrett M82.
Overview[]
The Leader 50 A1 uses a gas operation long stroke and triangular locking lugs. The receiver is made from extruded aerospace grade alloy. The gas piston comes with a three-position regulator. The unusual lightweight bolt carrier allows the weapon to be more compact and accurate. The Leader 50 A1 also comes with a number of Picatinny rails. The weapon uses St. George's signature triangular bolt design[3] and Serbu BFG-50A magazines (which are in turn Barrett M82 magazines).[4]
References[]
- ↑ https://www.all4shooters.com/en/shooting/pro-zone/st-george-arms-leader-50-a1-50bmg-semi-automatic-anti-materiel-long-range-rifle/
- ↑ http://stgeorgearms.com/
- ↑ https://modernfirearms.net/en/sniper-rifles/large-caliber-rifles/u-s-a-large-caliber-rifles/md-50-leader-50-eng/
- ↑ https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2016/10/19/knob-creek-2016-bullpup-50-bmg-leader-a1/
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