Colonial Marines M41A
Pulse Rifle

Guns are undeniably cool and it’s the reason you’re currently viewing this hallowed digital shrine to them all. However, amongst countless makes, models, barrel lengths and calibers, there is a single firearm eclipsing all others — the Armat Battlefield Systems M41A Pulse Rifle.

“I want to introduce you to a personal friend of mine. This is an M41A Pulse Rifle. Ten millimeter, with an over-and-under 30mm pump-action grenade launcher … feel the weight.”

Screen Time

Thus Corporal Duane Hicks acquainted Ellen Ripley with the standard Infantry weapon of the U.S. Colonial Marines in the timeless James Cameron sci-fi combat epic Aliens. If you haven’t seen this movie, put down the magazine and go watch it immediately. I don’t care if you are managing an international crisis, delivering a baby or flying an airplane. I’ll wait.
Aliens is the coolest movie ever filmed. I appreciate some might disagree with this assertion but those people would be wrong. I can quote the whole thing.

Aliens was the last of the top-flight analog action films shot before the widespread advent of CGI effects, meaning the guns were operational, the muzzle flashes were captured directly on film and the action took place in the Real World. The creature effects were masterfully executed by SFX virtuoso Stan Wilson when he was at the top of his game.

The Gun

According to the backstory, the Armat M41A Pulse Rifle fires M309 10x24mm explosive-tipped caseless, light armor piercing rounds from a 99-round detachable box magazine. The underslung pump-action U-1 30mm grenade launcher carries four rounds and fires a variety of high explosive payloads.

The weapons were designed by James Cameron and crafted by Simon Atherton, the head armorer at the British prop company Bapty and Co. The prop M41As were actually bodged-together amalgams of three real firearms. The heart of the gun was an operational M1A1 Thompson submachinegun, the U-1 grenade launcher was a cut-down Remington 870 pump shotgun and the forearm came from a Franchi SPAS-12 shotgun. There were either three or four live-firing weapons manufactured for the film, though only one had an operational grenade launcher. I would willingly trade my entire retirement portfolio for that gun today.
Bapty armorers custom machined the metal bits holding these guns together in-house. The aluminum shells were hand built by a racecar manufacturer. The LED ammunition counters were crafted by the movie’s special effects department.

The original concept art had the M41A built around HK MP5 rather than Thompsons but the 9mm muzzle flash was inadequate for Cameron’s vision. The gun nerd truly committed to his craft can glimpse the MP5-based pre-production version printed on the “Peace Through Superior Firepower” T-shirt worn by PFC Ricco Frost in the film. The fact I know this should lend insight into why I have so few normal friends.

“Aliens is the coolest movie ever filmed. I appreciate some might disagree with this assertion but those people would be wrong.”

Denouement

It seems I am not the only person in the world to be taken with the M41A Pulse Rifle. Ebay offers a wide variety of replicas ranging from unpainted kits for $90 to 3D-printed versions for $155. Licensed replicas taken from the original props run $600 while the same gun signed by the actors in the film will set you back $12,500.

The artists at Lage Manufacturing built a fully-operational version out of a short-barreled Remington 870 shotgun and a custom full-auto submachinegun. Their gun feeds from 50-round Suomi coffin mags. You can see it run on YouTube.

Forget the MP5SD, the MP44, the SCAR16, the elusive FG42 paratroop rifle or John Browning’s handcrafted 1911 prototype. For the truly committed gun geek the USCM M41A Pulse Rifle eclipses them all. In my humble opinion it’s the coolest firearm ever made.

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