User Experience With The Gyrojet Pistol
During the war in Vietnam, SOG recon troops were sent a lot of unique and experimental weapons and gadgets to play around with and report back. One of those items is the famous Gyrojet pistol. You can see MOH Franklin D. Miller holding one tht belonged to MOH George Sisler after he was KIA. The gyrojet fired a rocket like round and reports on it are mixed. I posted the above picture in the private SOG group a few days ago and got some feedback on it from the men who tried it out.
“I thought the gyrojet was a POS, low quality manufacture, not very accurate. Just poor performance over all.”
“Interesting piece of kit. We had them available for carry at South, but I don’t know anyone who did. Its “Mattey Mattel” construction was a huge put-off. No thank you.”
“I ran Recon at B-56 Project SIGMA in 1968, and I was given one of those to take on a mission. However, before I left, I shot the weapon at a sandbag that was ten yards away. It did not penetrate the bag, but it was fun to shoot. And no, I did not take it on a mission.”
I should add a note to that comment above, the fellow was indeed in SOG, project B-56 SIGMA was a project from 5th special forces group in an attempt to be assigned the mission for cross border recon missions into Cambodia and steal the mission from SOG. The joint chiefs just transferred poject SIGMA and OMEGA personnel to SOG, which then became Command & ControlSouth codenamed Daniel Boone for Cambodian operations whereas Shinning Brass was the conde name for Laotion operations.
“We had those plus the Welrod. Also a Browning and a Walther PP with a threaded barrelThe 22 was better to wound in the legs, so they couldn’t run away.”
“I remember this and the feedback was when used at night the gas released on the sides of the barrel lit up the night. Single shot if I remember it correctly. Also, very accurate since no recoil due to gas ventilation.”
I asked the man above if it was loud when it fired-
“Shawn M Thompson Good question, been a while but I would say no more than others. However, I really don’t remember.”
“The only one I know of personally that used a gyrojet in a POW snatch was Squirrel Sprouse. He said it basically took the leg off the NVA he shot,and set fire to the jungle.”