Heckler & Koch G11 The Heckler & Koch G11 is a German assault rifle produced by Hecker & Koch created to test the Flechette and caseless bulets . History . The development of the G11 rifle was started in the late 1960s , when West German government decided to replace existing G3 rifle with lighter weapon with much better hit probability . The initial studies lead to the idea of the small - caliber , rapid - fire rifle that fires caseless ammunition . To ensure sufficient stopping / killing power for small - caliber bullets used , the rifle should had have the three - round bursts capability and high capacity magazine . The new design , called G11 , was created by German company Heckler und Koch , with the Dynamit Nobel company in team . The HK was responsible for the rifle itself , while Dynamit Nobel had to develop caseless ammunition . The basic concept of the G11 is as follows : The rifle features unique cylinder breech / chamber system that rotates 90 degrees . The cartridges in the magazine are located above the barrel , bullets down . Prior to each shot , first cartridge is pushed down from magazine into chamber and then breech / chamber rotates 90 degrees to align the cartridge with the barrel ( see pic ) . After that , the cartridge is fired and the breech / chamber rotates back , ready for the next cartridge to be chambered . In the case of the cartridge ignition failure , the failed cartridge is pushed down from the chamber by the next cartridge . The breech can be manually " cocked " by the rotating handle at the side of the rifle , located beyond the pistol handle . The cocking handle does not move when gun is fired . Another interesting detail is that barrel , rotating breech , feed module and magazine are mounted in the housing that can move in the rifle back and forth . When firing single shots , the housing moves back and forward after the each shot . When firing the full - auto , the housing moves back and forward during each shot , resulting in moderate rate of fire of some 600 round per minute . But , when firing the three - round bursts , second and third cartridges are feed and fired as soon as the chamber is ready for it , and third bullet leaves the barrel PRIOR to the moment when the housing becomes to its rearward position . This results in wery high rate of fire with three - shots bursts - ca . 2000 rounds per minute . Also , this results in that the actual recoil affects the rifle AFTER the last bullet in the burst is fired . Rifle featured built - in 1X optical sight with simple circle aiming reticle . Early prototypes featured one 50 rounds polymer magazine , while latest versions featured 45 rounds magazines - one in the loaded position within the movable housing and two spare magazines on the top of the rifle , asides from the loaded magazine . The caseless ammunition in its early appearance was designed as a block of the propellant , coated with flammable lacquer , with bullet and primer " glued on " the propellant . Final ammunition design DM11 , that appeared in the mid - 1980s , featured " telescopic " design , when bullet was fully enclosed in the block of the propellant . The cartridge propelled the bullet that weights 3 . 25 gramms , to the 930 – 960 meters per second . Early prototypes were prone to the ammunition cook - offs during the sustained fire , but later Dynamit Nobel solved this issue . In the late 1980s the Bundeswehr ( West German Army ) began the field tests of the pre - production G11s . After the initial tests , some improvements were devised , such as removable optical sight , mounting of two spare magazines on the rifle , and bayonet / bipod mount under the muzzle . The modified variant , called G11K2 , was tested in 1989 , scoring at least 50 % better combat accuracy when compared to G3 rifle . Initial batch of some 1000 G11K2s was received by Bundeswehr in 1990 or so , but due to some reasons the whole programme was cancelled by German Government . Main reasons of this cancellation were , in my opinion , the lack of fundings after the re - union of the West and East Germanies , and the general NATO policy for unification of the ammunition and even magazines for the assault rifles . The slightly modified G11 was also tested in the USA under the ACR ( Advanced Combat Rifle ) programme , in 1990 . The ACR programme was not intended to result in adoption of the new rifle for the US Army , just to test new technologies and designs , and the G11 proved itself as a very accurate , comfortable to handle and fire , and reliable weapon .