what an annoying sound track to that video -- otherwise nothing...

what an annoying sound track to that video -- otherwise nothing to really see here... move along folks... I mean really, how many incarnations of this mechanical multi-barrel gun do we need to see?

notice the small issue of recoil in the vid? -- did you notice each shot requires the wrist of a gorilla to keep this bad baby from snapping your hand off? The guy seems almost breathless after firing off a few rounds...

MST developed a handgun years ago using various names - the VLe, the Personalised Smartgun et al - that still hasn't reached commercial readiness, but it was a sweet little piece - (from memory there was also a concept multi-barrel version too) - back in 2003 the talk was all about Dynamic Grip Recognition, so no one gun could be used by two people - the grip was meant to only recognise the registered user - development with a partner Tauras who were designing the recognition tech for the grip crawled along over 2003, 2004 and into 2005, where MST announced further delays by Tauras leading into 2006 - this was a period where MST management thought they could get into bed with every weapons developer in the world, while also performing every military contract under the sun -- no concerted development focus, and not enough funds to spread ourselves so wide - we simply lacked the muscle to get momentum into too many development projects

then in a cutely named announcement in March 2006 - CEO Corner - the whole handgun thing simply dropped off the list of development projects - not a single mention of the development efforts with Tauras - but take a squiz at the last bit of the announcement, and tell me if you haven't heard the same hype repeated over the years:

"Over the past year we have progressively demonstrated the technical viability of our 40mm weapons systems and we are now busy putting that into a commercial context. We have a
number of contracts with leading defence organisations in the United States that we expect will lead to product orders in due course (Department of Energy; US Army Phase II SBIR for Crowd Control System; US Navy Phase II SBIR for Active Protection System) and we are currently working on several more opportunities for contracted development programs. We have several product development programs underway with defence industry partners (ARDEC; EOS; ST Kinetics) with the Redback™ Weapon System, 3GL grenade launcher, and a range of munitions being advanced.

We have never been in a stronger position to secure our objective of building sustainable revenue streams and profits for our shareholders."

- the last line is a real killer, and has been repeated ad nauseam for years...

anyway, the VLe handgun was never really heard of again, allowed to fade away with no specific announcement - just more development monies flushed away and unaccounted for... - it seemed apparent that behind the scenes interests didn't want this tech getting perfected and ready for commercialisation, as only MST without any moving parts could accomodate the needed grip recognition software/electronics without noticeably increasing the size of standard handguns, which no other handgun makers at the time appeared able to achieve - so MST was in a position of being able to corner the market, but then without explanation, the whole project disappeared... the big end of town got their way in my view, and had MST shelve the whole project -- which begs the question if I am right at all -- what was the payoff to MST for doing this?

I think 2006 was also when Terry O'Dwyer took over as Exec Chairman, and ever since 2006 the company appeared to spend more time raising capital than getting projects completed.

Some people like Terry O'Dwyer, but I dislike the guy a great deal, and am of the view he has been the main obstacle to successfully getting numerous projects finished and commercialised -- he rather seems to have accommodated the wishes of other interests that have not wanted to see MST tech brought to market too soon - and people should take note of the many resignations from the company while Terry was Deputy Chairman and circling to become Chairman - it's my view many of resignations on the 2000s had much to do with TOD forcing his style and agenda on this company... but one can only speculate

but back to the point - and placing my utter dislike of Terry O'Dwyer to one side - assuming current interest in other products deliver a few lucrative contracts, then we could get that VLe project back into development again, which would give Colt and many other handgun makers some serious competition

take a trip back into the company's archives to read a few of the announcements concerning the VLe, and you will see just another near-complete product/project of MST that promised so much at the time, but the company (under very different management) failed to deliver - but in saying that, that does not at all mean the VLe technology isn't needed or wanted by the market - it just wasn't the time back in 2003/2004/2005/2006 - for mine, I think Colt would very much like to cosy-up with us on this front, because it is unquestionably the only direction handguns can move next...

wow, what a trip down memory lane - I've been following this company since the mid 90s, and owning the stock for far too long -- sought of made me feel ill to think of all the broken promises and hype created around so many capital raisings that were meant to produce so mch revenue years ago -- damn TOD and his perpetual PR spin machine... the guy is full of it - time for some payback MST - show me the money...

good luck