Winchester 1964 SPIW: Flechettes and a Blow-Forward Grenade Launcher

Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! Today we are looking at the Winchester company’s entry into the 1964 SPIW (Special Purpose Infantry Weapon) trials. The SPIW program was an attempt to increase small arms lethality by increasing hit probability with ideas like hyper-velocity flechette cartridges and burst fire trigger mechanisms. In addition, the weapons were required to incorporate area-effect elements - aka grenade la