The Type 80 is a general-purpose machine gun manufactured by Norinco in China, based on the Soviet PKM. The machine gun was certified for design finalisation in 1980 and entered the PLA service in the mid-1980s, specifically in 1983. The Type 80 was intended as a successor to the Chinese independently developed Type 67, doing well in tests conducted in the Chengdu Military Region before it was dropped and instead, opted to keep the Type 67 GPMG in use. Only a few Type 80s were used in the People's Liberation Army Marine Corps and airborne units, and a modified Type 80, named as Type 86, was then accepted by PLA armor units.
History
The development of the GPMG started when Chinese firearms engineers studied PKMs that were captured from Vietnamese forces during the Sino-Vietnamese War. Changfeng Machinery was subcontracted to create the CS/LM4 in order to have it chambered to 7.62 NATO caliber. The CS/LM4 has been marketed to countries that have used Soviet/East European/Chinese-made small arms, but have oriented to use NATO-based ammo.
Design
The Type 80 chambers and fires the 7.62×54mmR round. It is a gas-operated, air-cooled, belt-fed, fully automatic firearm. It can fire on both the tripod and the foldable bipod on the gas tube below the barrel. Belts are used from 100-round boxes in the light machine gun configurations, and from 200- or 250-round boxes in tripod-mounted applications. The machine gun uses an open iron sight, but can also be fitted with an optical or night-vision sight.
Variants
Type 80 - The copy of the PKM GPMG, chambered in 7.62×54mmR.
Type 86 - A machine gun only used for tanks as a secondary weapon.
CF06 - An export-only version of the Type 80, which is chambered for 7.62 NATO ammunition. A study on creating the CF06 started with an evaluation from July to December 2006 with a prototype review on February 2007. Production started from April to May 2007 before the CF06 was officially formalized in January 2008. It's equipped with polymer furniture instead of the wooden furniture used in the original Type 80. The barrel life consist of 25,000 rounds, with 12,500 rounds for each one of two barrels supplied. It's also known as the CS/LM4 GPMG in 2008.
: Manufactured locally as Mokhtar. Also Chinese-made Type 80s.
: In service with the Sri Lanka Army. Around 200 Type 80 GPMGs were supplied by Norinco as part of several defense agreements between China and Sri Lanka.
