Introduction

The MD-2 is a late Cold War era assault rifle of Brazilian origin. Development took place in the early 1980's after the Brazilian government expressed an interest in adopting the 5.56x45mm NATO round. The MD-2 was developed by IMBEL, which already had much experience producing the FN FAL battle rifle under license. The MD-97 is a further development of the MD-2 and is a much lighter design.

Design

The MD-2 is based on the design of the Belgian FN FAL battle rifle and looks very similar. The early prototypes used an exact copy of the FAL operating mechanism, but a rotating bolt design is found on production models. The MD-2 is made of steel and is a sturdy but heavy firearm.

Firepower

The MD-2 fires the 5.56x45mm NATO round from 30 round STANAG magazines. It is a select fire rifle with a cyclic rate of fire of about 700 rpm. The practical effective range is quoted as 300 meters. Since the MD-2 is quite heavy the felt recoil is limited.

Users

The MD-2 was adopted as the standard issue service rifle in the Brazilian army and navy. Many were acquired but not nearly enough to fully replace the older FAL. The MD-2 is also used by various police and military police forces throughout Brazil. It seems there were not export sales.

Note: there was an MD-1 model. This was a prototype using a tilting block for locking instead of a rotating bolt. Improvements during testing led to the development of the MD-2.