Smith & Wesson 76

Smith & Wesson M76 - 9mm‎

Smith & Wesson M76 with stock extended - 9mm‎

The Smith & Wesson 76 submachine gun was originally developed by S&W for the U.S. Navy SEALS after Sweden imposed an arms embargo thereby depriving the SEALs of the Carl Gustaf M/45 (Swedish K) SMG. The Model 76 saw limited combat service in Vietnam and eventually S&W ceased production of the original weapon in 1974. Although the Model 76's military service was brief, it saw some popularity among Law Enforcement and civilian markets. Until the early 1980s, Smith & Wesson made a 16" barreled semiautomatic only carbine version of the same weapon for over the counter sales.

The Smith & Wesson M76 can be seen in the following:

Film

• Mobsters in Mr. Majestyk (1974)

• Tom Signorelli as Nick in Hickey & Boggs (1972)

• Shaft's Big Score! (1972)

• The Gauntlet (1977)

• Street Kings

• The Getaway (movie)

• We Own the Night

• Magnum Force

• Charlton Heston as Robert Neville in The Omega Man

• Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight

• Robert Shaw as Mr. Blue, Martin Balsam as Mr. Green, Hector Elizondo as Mr. Grey and Earl Hindman as Mr. Brown in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three

• John Cazale as "Sal" in Dog Day Afternoon (with chopped barrel)

• Ken Wahl in the opening scene of The Soldier (1982)

• Mobster in Last Action Hero

• Chinese Mafia in Hollow Point

• Robert Shaw in Black Sunday

• Paul Benjamin as Jim Harris in Across 110th Street (1972)

• Lee Marvin as Nick Devlin in Prime Cut

• Various terrorists in Invasion USA (some with shortened barrels)

Television

• Miami Vice (TV show)

• Tour of Duty

• Starsky and Hutch (TV Series)

Background history

The M76, much like the M3 "Grease Gun", was designed (Or rather the weapon that it is a clone of the C.Gustav M/45) to be an inexpensive wartime submachine gun. As a result, it was made of primarily rolled and stamped metal parts. Despite being inexpensive to mass produce the M76 can be a very effective weapon, even when compared with today's much more advanced and expensive submachine guns. The M76's 9mm round is still the most common round used in submachine guns, however the biggest difference in the performance of the M76 and more modern options is accuracy. Due to construction materials and design today's submachine gun offer much more pinpoint accuracy with single shots, however with submachine guns controllability is the name of the game-as they were created for, and are most commonly deployed in, fully automatic/burst fire. Controllability is one of the strengths of the M76, as it's 9mm round and cyclic rate of 600/rpm combine for a quite controllable weapon. Another advantage is the 20% increase in magazine capacity over most weapons of the type and caliber-which feed from 30 round double column box magazines, while the M76 feeds from a 36 round double column box magazine. While still a very effective weapon, there have been huge advance in weapons of the same type. In the 1980's two firms, MK Arms and Global Arms made variants of the M76 (called the Mk760) with minimal commercial success.