The rare HK GR3 with a scope whether you want it or not, with firearms expert Jonathan Ferguson 

I know Ian is considered the pinnacle of RU-vid firearms history, but I think you should just straight up do the exact same thing as him and not limit yourself to stuff he might not have already covered or video game guns. Even if you do all the same firearms he has in the past. You're a great presenter, you have amazing access to an incredible arsenal, and an audience that loves that kind of content.

It's not totally daft, given the context of the time. Mounting systems caused all manner of grief before Picatinny became standard, as we saw with the SUIT. A lot of procurement departments were quite reasonably averse to anything quick-detach, because of the risk of loss of zero (or indeed loss of the optic). This arrangement isn't too far removed from what Steyr did with the AUG, or indeed what H&K went on to do with the G36.

Just want to say that the audio is excellent on this episode. Whatever you did for this one, it's perfect. As for the idea of built in scopes, I can see why many companies decided to go with them but what I'll never work out is why they chose some of the worst sights you could imagine.

The fact that there are German proof marks on the "EN33" receiver, not just the barrel, must mean it was not only made in Germany but fully assembled, proofed and THEN disassembled and shipped to Enfield for the export trick. I doubt Enfield did anything more than install the trigger pack, handguards and buttstock etc.

I love that they called it the "German Rifle" 3 just abbreviated to "GR3". I work in manufacturing and I can tell you that the most amazing engineers can be utterly useless at the creative endeavour of naming something. A few years ago we released an updated version of a thing we sell and for the name we just slapped an "X" on the end of the old ones name because the new iPhone at the time was the iPhone X.

If I remember correctly, a lot of these developments (3 round burst, low magnification optics) came from experiments to improve the first hit capability for conscript soldiers. The epitome of this development was the G11. In a typical conscript army in Europe most of the soldiers hadn't a lot of shooting training and it was at least more than a year ago for a reservist.

The pictogram description is great, no bullets, one bullet, three bullets, all the bullets.

Commented last video, so wanted to follow up: audio is top-shelf here. Not sure if the setup has changed or if the multiple perspective component of the last video played a part, but this quality is fantastic. Great work (as always.) Cheers, RA crew!

I remember the GR series from when someone modded them i to the early Rainbow 6 games (i mostly played rogue spear). The 1.5x scopes were perfect for the typical map size in the first two games. The memories are still.strong of the difficult choice between a GR2 and one of the early Tromix AR insanities.

There's nothing like sipping a good cup of tea while watching Johnny after a long day of hard work.

I dont know what HKs deal was back then but they were really fixated on these kinds of optics. The whole idea of making the optic an integral part of the firearm. They did it to the G11 too and eventually it eclipsed in the G36 where the optic really is molded into the carryhandle.

I remember the old HKPro site had a section of photos of these guns with a note that they didn't have any details of the fixed-optic HK guns

the HK 33 is propably my favourite Assault Rifle in terms of looks it has all the sexappeal of the STG44 but in a modern gun (i know its not so modern by todays standarts) if you put the long 40 round magazine in it it looks even more like an STG44

Thank you for showing the scope view, the manual and also for the functioning sound on this video.

If they intended to make more than just a few of these the front sight is unlikely to be ground off. That's something you would do for a prototype or a very limited batch of something. But a new casting would be worthwhile for volume production.

The sound is perfect this time! And so is the content and delivery from the always outstanding Jonathan. Lively and scintillating as always, keep them coming!

Speaking as a mechanical engineer, I would imagine H&K would have had a significant stock of the front sight castings. Overruns were likely common, and it would be easy in drawings ("blueprints") to note to grab a piece from inventory grind it down and call it something new. However, they could have designed a flush fit "filler" into the castings so that it just wouldn't fill the space where the sight post/shroud would be, then just a simple clean up procedure on a grinder or by hand. The front sight casting also doesn't seem to be under any major loads other than inertia, so any re-engineering would be an unecessary effort, which if they could avoid doing would allow them to reduce engineering hours and reduce the cost of each piece. I can imagine it was very popular internally to push these GR weapons during contract bidding, they can likely be sold at significant margin thanks to the added optic and minimal cost to modify existing rifles or overrun rifles from other contracts. Many weapon "improvements" intended for governments are where significant margins/ROI can be secured, espeically since the NRE (Non-Recurring Engineering) costs are mostly done if any major redesigns aren't needed.

Great video! Best overview of the GR series I have ever seen.

Love your work mate, keep it up.

Brilliant video. FW Ian recently posted a picture on IG with him holding a 91 pattern GR series rifle, but he said HK wouldn’t let him disclose or make a video on the subject. Not sure what the information embargo is about, but any content on the GR series is great to see.

Another great video thank you Jonathan

I'm Glad it's not only Ian showing the internet the beauty of Firearms History, i mean there's a few out there but one on the same level as Ian, one of em are this

Given that G probably stands for Gewehr (rifle), the R might be for Rohr, meaning ’tube’ and referring to the sight tube (scope).

My god I miss those HK33 manual, I was not red because it translated into my native language. When we first saw we ask instructor "Sergeant ! Where is our scope and bipod ??" he replied, "You don't have enough responsibility to get it" And we love HK drum sight.

You better be at the museum in 3 weeks John. I'm flying halfway around the world to meet my spirit animal

Excellent '' Great Stuff ''💯 Thank you Jonathan 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

The optic was likely derived from their work on the G11 as well.

8:30 as a production engineer, addressing the question of whether or not you would make a new production line for top rails without iron sights or if you would just grind off existing iron sights. It would entirely depend on how many of these you were going to make. Let’s say for instance you have 100,000 HK33 rifles that need to be made by a certain deadline, and that has the factory in full production. And you only need to make 1,000 or even less GR3s without the iron sights. You would sacrifice too much machine time to write a new program to make a new fixture without iron sights and set several machines to produce those 1,000 GR3s over the next few weeks, or however long it takes. With such a small order it would be far more cost effective to remove those 1,000 iron sights without disrupting your production line. But if instead you were expecting to need a lot more GR3s then you very well might write a new program and set several machines to make separate parts. And also this is talking from a modern perspective using modern CNC manufacturing. Back in the 80s it would have been even more difficult. Hopefully this helps answer the question!

I remember seeing a scope like that back in the day that had that groove on the top. I believe the idea was to have a fiber optic thread that gathered light from the top and made a dot on the crosshairs or something like that. I remember thinking it was a dumb idea ad didn't bother thinking about it after that so I admit I could be completely off base with that but that is what I thought you were going to say when you first mentioned the groove from that memory. Lol

If I had to be stuck with a optic something in the 1.5-2x range would be my choice, especially with modern illuminated reticles, I'm a huge fan of low power scopes, massive relief and with low magnification and some practice you can get on target at very close distance about as quickly as a red dot.

I think it makes a decent amount of sense. At the time this was developed a lot of potential customer countries had armies largely composed of conscripts and reservists, and optical sights are pretty well-established to improve hit probability over irons, especially when given to shooters with limited proficiency. Making the sight fixed to the gun simplifies things, cuts costs, probably makes the overall package more rugged, and importantly prevents soldiers from taking the optic off the gun and ruining the zero in the process, the kind of thing that's always a concern with bored conscripts.

That is such a cool looking scope

I am just guessing here, but I can imagine that the idea of having a rifle with a fixed scope was also influenced by the outcome of the 1972 Munich massacre, where regular police officers had to engage terrorists at night at medium to long range with regular G3s with iron sights. I could imagine police forces learning their lesson and wanting an easy solution to implement "sharpshooters" that could reach out to longer distances using an off-the-shelf rifle with a scope.

I do love the look of the HK33

If it was for police use, it sort of makes sense to have a short range optic, zeroed at factory for pick-up-and-go use for some "less professional" forces that might need to fill a marksman role but might not necessarily have a dedicated training program for it

You could really add the MG42 to the list of roller locked weapons too. Slightly different but it still has 2 opposed rollers that the bolt forces into locking recesses as it goes forward into battery.

I wonder if that slit in the top of the optic mount isn't some sort of stress relief for the casing? A lot of plastics are actually quite sensitive to temperature and you wouldn't want the casing distorting your aim point on a hot day - or just cracking and falling off because it was too rigid. Anyway, the thing is reminding me of a video one of the 3d printing youtubers did a while back about designing for injection molding. Darned if I can remember what channel that was now, but I half-way remember them talking about needing stress relief cuts.

You should remove the bolt carrier and the fcg, and there should be fasteners in the top of the receiver. They probably hid the fasteners to cut down on bored troop tampering.

Love that scope tbh

Oh my, that's a beautiful H&K rifle.

I'm surprised you guys had one in inventory!!!

Fascinating how many minor differences or changes are made with no clearly visible benefit over alternatives. Have to say it looks sharp with the psuedo scope on though haha.

How fortuitous that Forgotten Weapons also uploaded about another HK today.

i got one book called "HK Assault Rifle Systems " By Duncan Long at 1991, it got detail about GR6 and HK IR laser device.

Any chance there's a HK36 in the collection? The one with the weird fixed mag with a loading door

I think this is the rifle depicted on the cover of "Sniping Pigz" by Plutocracy; if it's not just a drawing of what a sniper rifle looks like to people who don't understand firearms. It looks a lot like the GR3 with a G3-style Z24 4×24 scope and some weird kinda semi-waffle mag crossed with an SG550 mag

Btw, the rumor is that these were the reson why POF ended up with the tooling for the mp5 and 93.

the HK33 is a fun piece. quite an interesting optic too, very toobular

The sight has some resemblance to G11's 1x sight.

As a manufacturing engineer, I would probably mill it off for low volume production and make a new mold/etc for high volume

I think I haven't watched in a year. The audio, video, and lighting is a lot better.

Very much feels like early ideas that went into g36

You know, with green-brown polymers all round and a 5-10rnd Mag, this would make a great Retro-Futuristic sniper/DMR for a sci-fi movie, feels like a Late80's/90's prop.

With the first of the GR series being first designed for Police marksmen, could the GR stand for Gendarmerie Rifle?

So what is the earliest example of a telescopic weapon?

Small correction: "These are standard H&K sights and everybody EXCEPT IAN says they're very good."

I wonder if the sight is screwed from inside of the receiver?

Doesnt increasing the distance on the scope LOWER the crosshairs so the shooter has to raise the gun to get on target therefore lofting the shot?

Disassembly absolutely IS worthwhile, as it would allow you to look at the interior of the upper receiver and see if the scope is drilled and tapped or welded.

Great to see a H&K derivative I hadn't even heard of before and I'm quite a big H&K fan. If you field strip it you could probably tell how the scope is attached by looking at the inside of the upper receiver, or at least eliminate bolts, rivets and spot welds as methods used if no sign of them is present although they will be hard to see as I imagine they will have been polished down for clearance of the bolt carrier and recoil spring.

cool video

When the Swedish AK4 became AK4B the ironsights was cut also.

Could the scope be attached via the inside of the top of the upper receiver? Bolts going up into that polymer section below the scope? Definitely an odd decision to not make it removable, although it was something HK were trying in other rifles like the G11

My take on as to why the scopemania so to speak went over the European manufacturers could be traced to the early start of the US Weapons replacement programme. Where the Steyr ACR (Yes not a typo) HK G11 amongst others competed to replace the M16. One of the beliefs in that period was the lack of soldier of accuracy, so a lot of that blame was shifted to iron sights, as a result you got to see a lot of weapons come supplied with the scopes built in. Steyr AUG, HK G11, Steyr ACR and even FNC with the Swedish AK5 came with that scope bolted on as a "fix" for the accuracy problem. Of course they were crappy scopes as the more proper ones were a bit too expensive and certainly not fit to deploy to "GI Joe" according to military belief. So my take on the GR series is, it was an attempt to join the trend of the competitors with the FNC (Swedish AK5) and AUG to nab a few of those lovely 80-90s contracts.

screws through the top cover/reciever?

HK P11 on ForgottenWeapons and the GR3 here - the HK gods must be happy today.

0:17 Well, isn't it kinda the spirit of the game? Besides, today seems to be the best time for firearms & artillery museum curators to discuss less-known quirks of relatively well-known firearms, given that Ruslan Chumak from the Artillery Museum in St. Petersburg had already talked on the SVT family of rifles in quite some detail. 1:08 1985 seems to be about the time when the HK G41 was around already, and it was supposedly better suited for export market (with G11 still in the works for the Bundeswehr), so why were HK still tinkering with an older design? 2:14 I would argue that a night vision optic would be perhaps even more important, since the goggles+IR laser combination wasn't viable at the time. 3:43 Are they though? Denmark and Norway each adopted their own version of this sight which is different in some regard, and the Swiss who chose to use in on their Stgw. 90 had to write in the manual an instruction on how to modify the sight so as to avoid its drawbacks. Doesn't strike me as a successful sight, to be fair with you. Aperture sizes aren't great either, although this is sadly a very common problem outside the UK. 5:38 As a lefty, I greatly approve the use of scare quotes here! 😊 8:20 Given the sort of stories HK ends up embroiled in with their export deals these days, this doesn't surprise me, but I would like to know more. 11:50 This also doesn't have the greatest field of view, especially so given the low magnification. 13:59 If I were to speculate wildly, I would suggest that it perhaps could have been riveted or bolted or spot-welded from the inside or the receiver somehow.

I think roller delay is cool for intermediate and hot pistol rounds, why it wound up mostly on 308s and 9mm is beyond me.

Interestingly, Ian Mcollum did a video where he visted the Royal Armories and reviewed the H&K P11 underwater pistol.

I would have doubts about police marksman origin of the optic and rifle considering it because HK already had a very well established rifle set for police marksman in the from of the HK33 SG1 which came with a preloaded trigger, bipod, 4 or 6 power scope, and cheek rest. But who knows.

If you raise the reticle wouldn't it shoot lower? I could be wrong as I may have had some wine!

IMO a low power optical sight is a hindrance because it slows target acquisition right down...

that sure is large and with oddly short eye relief for a 1.5x

Can you react/review the mexican assault rifle FX-05??

Whilst I'm here, do you have an exhibition in Leeds that focuses on more modern firearms? I.e. Cold war era and later. The last time I was there I think the most modern stuff I saw was the police seized things but I I'm sure I missed a section or 2. I got to the WW2 stuff quite late on then spent way too much time ogling the FG42. I have been meaning to visit again and would love to see more of the firearm collection.

Apart from the M16 what was the best 5.56mm rifle available in the 1980s?

Pop open the receiver and see if there's some screws along the top/inside holding it in place. Also, I bet the GR part was someone over at HK trying to figure out how to get a rifle to be as popular as the AR. And someone mentioned that it must stand for American Rifle and a lightbulb went off 🤣😂🤣 (for the humor impaired: this has been a joke)

I’ve never used a gun in any way, but would it not be a lot easier to use a big sight like that than peering through a small iron sight like on the G33? It looks like it would be much easier to use and give you more visibility, but I’m coming at this with complete ignorance of what it’s like to use those small iron sight apertures.

13:05 - wouldn´t that range wheel on the scope actually lower the crosshairs to increase the range? If you want to aim higher manually, yes - you´d hold over, but changing the zero should be the reverse, shouldn´t it?

I guess the lack of modulator is why this has so little on it compared to the HK33/93

Whys the optic so long when it's only 1.5x? What's taking up so much space inside?

Whats that watch he's wearing??? And the wristband???

I am sure that Jonathan was the one that came up with that title!

I'm going to assume the GR meaning "German rifle" is an export name. As I know the G series (G3, G11 etc) the G stands for "gewehr" or "rifle" in german

Oh I DO WANT IT

Most of these weapons came from the MOD and the SAS, I have a picture of the SAS with the early 6 shot grenade launcher, testing it out it the killing house, they were firing CS gas and flash bang grenades threw the windows and doors lol

GR... I wonder if it wasn't something incorporating the German word 'rohr' (meaning tube) in the way that 'fernrohr' means telescope? Just some idle speculation...

I feel like the fixed optical sights were designed to be easily mass-produced, issued and trained in case of full-scale war with the Russians. Especially if conscripts are involved.

Was the HK-33 used in South American. Countries in the 70’s & 80’s?

The groove would fit a shotgun style "glowstick" type sight (optical fibre that is). But overall 1½X magnification wont really do for police sniping, objective of the scope wont work well in low light. More or less everyone got rid of the built in optics as you mention, because they dont do anything well anyways.

Oh I want, I definitely want 😅

Jonathan, strip it down and look up into the receiver the scope maybe screwed on from underneath!!

On the exact same day Forgotten Weapons did a video on the rare HK P11, and Johnathan Fergusson did a video on the rare HK GR3. Coincidence??

Awesome cameo by Gun Jesus himself! 🤘

where's ian? he was in the museum right?

👍

Morning gents!

Looks like the G11 scope.

HK did to my knowledge develop the PSG 1 since the 1970. (Available 1985) For the specific use of Police Marksman. So why should they brand the GR3 towards the same application? Price could be the reason. The GR3 could have been marketed as significantly cheaper PSG1 (10k). Of course not as capable. But maybe as a early form of Squad Marksman. Issued to those who where the best in a regular military squad. The camouflage and the full auto ability would indicate this.

Royal Armouries, :) 😀. God bless you. Please do in your next RU-vid videos, video of the Taiwanese Type T65 assault rifle and the Taiwanese Type T91 Carbine and the Taiwanese Type T81 Carbine and all their variants. Thanks.