Bullpup Rifle

The Bullpup Rifle was the standard issued rifle of the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces. A fully automatic weapon built for line infantry, it armed the Legionaries who garrisoned the secret installations on Tau Volantis, and it remained in use generations later in the hands of soldiers and fanatics fighting over the same frozen world.

Design and service#

The Bullpup Rifle was the weapon the Sovereign Colonies Armed Forces issued to its rank and file. It was fully automatic and favored a high rate of fire over raw power, firing in rapid, accurate bursts that suited engagements at range. Where it could put a heavy volume of fire onto a single point, it was at its most useful, cutting down all but the largest Necromorphs in short order, and its precision made it especially dangerous against human opponents. Its lighter strikes told against the heaviest creatures, those that could only be brought down by tearing apart specific points, where its fire was less suited to the task.

Use around Tau Volantis#

The rifle armed the Sovereign Colonies Legionaries during their expedition to Tau Volantis. It was seen in the hands of S.C.A.F. Privates Tim Caufman and Sam Ackerman during the collapse of the flotilla in orbit, in the era when the Sovereign Colonies first tried and failed to contain what they had found on the planet.

Two centuries later the weapon was still in circulation. The abandoned installations and the debris fields left by the flotilla held great stores of old S.C.A.F. equipment, and survivors and zealots alike recovered and reused it. The EarthGov soldier John Carver carried the same rifle throughout the Tau Volantis crisis, and many soldiers of the Circle wielded it as they hunted Isaac Clarke across the planet. The Circle also fielded a near identical weapon, the Assault Rifle, which closely resembled the old service rifle apart from its coloring.