Forjas Taurus M-33 Tayra 4.5mm Caseless Automatic Pistol

Weapons

Forjas Taurus M-33 Tayra 4.5mm Caseless Automatic Pistol

by Tim Wing

General Characteristics

  • Designation: M-33 “Tayra” 4.5mm Caseless Automatic Pistol
  • Year Introduced: 2018
  • Designer: Forjas Taurus
  • Acquiring Military: UEDF Civil Defense Unit (CDU) and Civil Defense Flying Corps (CDFC)
  • Capacity: 15 round magazine (typical)
  • Rate of Fire: semi-automatic
  • Weight: 1.17 kg (loaded)
  • Effective range: 80 meters

The M-33 was a light weight pistol constructed primarily of composites, designed and manufactured by Forgas Taurus of Brazil. Originally produced with the domestic police market in mind, the M-33 was soon adopted by the United Earth Defense Forces (UEDF) Civil Defense Unit (CDU) and Civil Defense Flying Corps (CDFC). The 4.5mm caseless ammo was unique to this weapon and continued with the UEDF’s proliferation of ammunition types. It is a shame that the 4.5mm round was never adopted as a sub-machine gun round, as its high velocity light weight bullet had excellent armor piercing capabilities.

Early in its career, the M-33 was plagued with reliability problems. Many suffered failure to feed issues after prolonged firing. This was caused by heat buildup which caused the caseless ammunition to expand, and thus not chamber properly. This was no fault of the pistol, but rather poor quality control at Companhia Brasileira de Cartuchos, the primary ammunition manufacturer in Brazil. The contract was later taken over by Monument Arms in North America, whose ammunition never suffered from such issues. Still, like the M-16 before, the reputation stuck and the Tayra never saw widespread adoption by other branches of the UEDF. This is a shame, as the M-33 itself was a tidy package which lent itself well to use by pilots as a survival pistol. It was also very accurate for such a small pistol. Though only adopted officially by the CDU and CDFC, the pistol was also found in use by pilots in their survival kit throughout the UEDF.

 

 

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Original artwork by: Kogawa Tomonori, Hiroyuki Kitazume, Miyo Sonoda, Hiroshi Ogawa, Hirotoshi Ohkura and Takashi Ono

Images from – Robotech the Masters Saga Sourcebook

Content by Tim Wing

Copyright © 2018 Tim Wing