Haenel, the company who won, then had their win revoked, then was sued for infringement by H&K, and at last known appearance had been caught with a suspicious number of allegedly cross compatible parts between the H&K 416 and their own submitted rifle, has entered a partnership with the Swiss B&T to bring the rifle to the US as the B&T-15.
This is highly curious. I wonder, quite honestly, if this isn’t a way to recoup on the loss of the German Bundeswehr contract after getting slapped down and hedge their legal fees. I don’t know enough about the case between the two German arms entities to know if this would be some sort of violation, or if H&K could shut this down with an S&D letter, or if they would even want to do that because it would or would not be in their overall best interest.
I just know that the B&T-15 is the H&K that isn’t an H&K but was sued for being an H&K and the suit produced a severe reversal of contract after the investigation.
H&K never stated the rifle didn’t run. They never stated that it didn’t match their submissions in performance. They said Haenel copied their homework, in so many words. They allege that Haenel made the HK416 to compete against the HK416, just with Haenel’s name on it and a couple superficial changes.
So, is this Haenel cutting their loss and dumping quality “H&K“ “clone“ stuff onto a hungry US Market?
I don’t know… but I bet they run.
