Jz-1 Rifle

Standard-Pattern Multifunctional Rail Rifle

Less a formally adopted model of weapon system and more an expedient set of guidelines for military procurement, the Jz-1 series of weapons was originally developed to save time and effort for UIP armourers suffering under the weight of many conflicting coilgun parts.
In its present form, the Jz-1 offers both personal flexibility and remarkable modularity. Users often are issued with their local style of chassis, or choose one which suits their ergonomic requirements best. Affiliate species living in UIP space or associated with Rupeean worlds can also reliably find a rifle chassis developed with their needs and body type in mind.

Mechanics & Inner Workings

Jz-1 guidelines lay out a standard attachment format, size, power rating, quality, ammunition type and barrel arrangement for any coilgun to be accepted into military service. While the rifle chassis tends to vary with manufacturer, series, point of origin and more, the majority of important or valuable parts are entirely interchangeable with any other weapon.
As per Rupeean infantry weapon doctrine, the Jz-1 carries two general ammunition types, named for the chemical-propellant shotgun ammunition common before electromagnetic weapons became common. 'Slug' is an all-purpose term used (imprecisely) for single darts or bullets relying on kinetic energy to damage a target at long range. 'Shot' or 'Canister' refers to a potentially wide array of spreading submunitions, but normally small silicate beads for close range stopping power or copper microspheres for depleting most light shields.
The Jz1 is clip-fed and semiautomatic by design, a compromise due to the heat exchange and power constraints of what is a relatively powerful coilgun for handheld use. Fully automatic variants have been developed, either reducing total velocity or accepting a fire rate around 180 rounds/min as an acceptable cost, and these are both possible while staying within the Jz-1 standard (if considered a waste of good ammunition unseemly for a proper Rupeean).

Manufacturing process

The authors of this classification considered Jz-1 to be a best-case compromise between two pressing problems. On the one hand, the armies of the Rupeean global Coalition were incredibly diverse, often favouring weapons shipped in from their home nations or tribes, and supplying so many different subtly different coilgun parts by manufacturer was considered actively detrimental to the war effort especially in the final conquest of the arctic hemisphere. On the other hand, the limited industrial capacity of the newly liberated Rupeean homeworld often hand-finished their guns, and very few gunsmiths had the capacity to retool for a new rigid standardisation.
The solution, to standardise as little as practically possible and still have a rationalised supply system for infantry weapons, was widely considered fantastical at first and took almost 4 years to roll out satisfactorily. By the project's completion, reached as much by giving manufacturers a chance to adapt to the new standards as tweaking requirements to match reality, the Jz-1 rifle pattern had reached some form of acceptable maturity.

Significance

Besides surprising reliability and the stopping power of a coilgun originally developed from intermediate-bore shotguns, the infantry rail rifle concept exists mainly due to its suitability for the ambushes, rapid small-scale assaults and defence in depth tactics that come most easily to Rupeean sensibilities.
Some foreign military or security services, especially those influenced by the cosmopolitan sister world Rasaan, sorely feel the lack of any bridge between marksman's rifle and PDW, and so use the Jz-1 as a squad-scale anti-material weapon alongside more rational pulse rifles or light laser weapons.

Item type

Weapon, Ranged

Owning Organization

Uen Imperial Protectorate

Rarity

Very common in the Rupeean Armed Forces. However any single variant is next to unique.

Weight

3.5 to 16 kg, unloaded

Dimensions

length - usually 84 to 210 cm (heavily dependent on barrel length). Some confidurations can be as short as 31 cm.