Firearms News December 2023 — Issue #24: Retro Guns Special Issue

This Month in Firearms News

On the cover: The Sites Spectre HC By Will Dabbs, MD 

The SITES Spectre HC is what would happen if a Glock pistol had a baby with an Uzi submachine gun and that baby was stolen from the hospital and raised in Finland by a gang of art deco biker thugs. Radical and innovative yet in its semiauto form grievously flawed, the Spectre HC is as ugly as Yasser Arafat first thing in the morning after a hard night out on the town. Origin Story The Spectre HC was the semiauto pistol version of the SITES Spectre M4 submachine gun. SITES stands for Societa Italiana a Technologie Speciali SPA. Designed by Claudio Gritti and Roberto Teppa in the 1980’s, the M4 was originally produced at the SITES factory in Turin, Italy. The SITES facility closed in 1997, but small-scale production continued through Greco Sport S.A. in Switzerland. Swiss manufacture finally wrapped up in 2001.

SITES produced several different semiauto versions of the Spectre for civilian consumption, each particular weapon crafted to comply with the vagaries of the gun laws in the target countries. The American version was titled the Spectre HC and lacked both a forward handgrip and a folding stock. These weapons were imported as pistols with short 5.12-inch barrels. An 8.4-pound carbine version, with 16-inch barrel, was produced, but less than a couple hundred were imported into the USA according to some sources. Both versions were brought in by the Florida importer F.I.E.. The SITES Falcon was a pistol version crafted for sale in Europe. These variants came with a removable foregrip and a top-folding stock for those places where this was allowed. The SITES Ranger was a sub-carbine version of the gun intended for the quirky Italian market. This variation came with a slightly longer barrel and had the folding stock secured in the open position. In markets where it was allowed, the stock was readily removable. The Italian variant re-quired tools to remove the stock as that would make the gun shorter than the legally allowed minimum.

[Continue reading "The Sites Spectre HC" in December 2023 Issue #24]

Also inside:

• Fearsome Firepower: From the days before disco to the wild 1980s. The Military Armament Corporation .45 ACP M-10 Submachine Gun. By Will Dabbs, MD
• The USAS-12 Full-Auto Shotgun: Did Daewoo make the scattergun even more deadly? By Leroy Thompson
• AL.GI.MEC. AGM-1: Italy's PCC ahead of its time. By Pierangelo Tendas
• THE DAEWOO AR-100: The amazing Asian sporting rifle you've likely never heard of. By Will Dabbs, MD 
•   The Fox Pistol Caliber Carbine by Leroy Thompson

Pick up a copy at your local magazine stand, Walmart, Barnes & Noble, or major book retailer. Firearms News prints two exciting issues per month, so be sure to get both copies or subscribe!