Voere SAM-180 – Semiautomatic American 180 SMG Made in Austria?

The American 180 is a .22LR machine gun that fires at a high rate (1300 rpm more or less) from a super-high-capacity magazine (177 rounds). Conceptually it was designed by Richard Casull in the 1960s, but he only produced about 70 of his original M290 design. He sold the rights to the design, and in 1972 an Austrian company called Voere bought a license to it.

Voere thought that a fast-firing .22 with a substantial magazine could be paired with a then-cutting-edge laser sight and offered to elite police and military units for counter terrorism work. This was spurred by the 1972 Munich Massacre, in which the German police response to a terrorist attack on the Olympic Games was badly bungled. It led to the formation of GSG-9, and a number of gun designs including the Walther WA-2000 and H&K PSG-1.

Well, in addition to marketing to the police, Voere also made a semiautomatic version for civilian sale, and these were imported into the US. Today we are looking at one of those, the SAM-180.