The Silver Shadow Gilboa Snake (previously reported as the DBR) is a double-barreled AR-style combat rifle. The end result is a rifle that fires two rounds with each pull of the trigger.
The rifle is chambered in 5.56 NATO and uses a piston system (not direct impingement). Both barrels are about 9.5″ long, are chrome lined and have a 1:7 RH twist.
Unloaded, the gun weighs about 9.4 pounds. According to the US Army, a standard M4 weighs about 7.5 pounds with a sling and loaded magazine. So, figure a little more than two extra pounds for the extra metal. Semi-automatic and full-auto versions are being made.
The upper and lower receivers of the Gilboa Snake are machined from aluminum alloy billet. The flat top upper has a full-length Picatinny rail for adding optics and iron sights as you like. The flip-up iron sights shown on this model are made by Troy Industries.
Silver Shadow is an Israeli manufacturer of military firearms. Many of their employees, from the executives on down, are former members of the IDF and Israeli police force. Needless to say, they bring a critical eye to the development of any new weapon platform.
It would be easy to dismiss this rifle as a gimmick, but I don’t think it is. I believe the Gilboa Snake is a legitimate product designed to increase the volume of firepower troops can bring to the fight. Whether the system proves to be effective is another story altogether.
Here are a few more photos of the Snake that Silver Shadow sent me, including some close-in detail shots.
Prior Information on the DMR
The Gilboa DBR, also called the Gilboa Snake, is a concept rifle being shown by Silver Shadow Advanced Security Systems this week. It uses a double barrel system to “…accurately deliver two rounds into a target without the delay of cycling and recoil.” With each pull of the trigger, two rounds are fired.
The idea is not new (see my article on the Winchester Salvo rifle here), but no one has managed to make a double barrel combat rifle into a commercially viable platform before. The Gilboa DBR clearly aims to change that.
From the photos, it appears the DBR uses an extra-wide lower with a dual magazine well configuration. A wide oval quad-rail wraps the dual barrels. The barrels are topped with proprietary muzzle brakes/flash hiders.
I have seen the DBR also referred to as the Gilboa Snake. It is unclear why there are two names, but I suspect the DBR is a working name, while Snake could be the commercial name of the rifle.
Silver Shadow Advanced Security Systems is an Israeli arms company that already makes a single-barreled version of the Gilboa that is similar in design to the M4/AR15/M16 line of weapons. The standard Gilboa is chambered in 5.56 NATO and takes standard M4 magazines.
The Gilboa uses a proprietary gas system that is said to run cleaner and cooler than the direct impingement found in the M4. Silver Shadow claims this system improves reliability.
Currently, the DBR is considered a concept weapon only – not something that is getting ready to ship to customers. When I get more information on the Gilboa DBR, I will have it here.
4 replies on “Gilboa Snake”
Lots of wasted weight created by essentially bolting two guns together. Mill a single “figure-8” barrel with two bores drilled in it and design a new bolt and you’d cut the width by an inch with corresponding weight savings.
As is, it’s a gimmick. the -loaded- M4 is 7.5, unloaded/unslung it’s closer to 6.5.
2.5 pounds with poor ergos and awkward manual of arms is a hell of a cost to pay for a “two shot burst”.
I’m wondering about the ballistics and bullet impact that two 5.56 rounds hitting parrellel to each other about 11/2 inches apart would have on whatever it hit. I can imagine the compression and tissue damage would be significantly more than doubled from one round. Even two rounds hitting microseconds apart in the case of auto firing may not have the impact that two rounds hitting parrellel at the same instant, effectively having an impact similar to a much larger caliber round, maybe in the area o f 75mm or higher. Impact and ballistics studies will be interesting with this type of gun. As for me, I’d love one to play with and to kill a few tin cans or a watermellon or two.
Straight to Hollywood prop department, just like the double 1911 and those goofy looking under barrel revolvers.
[…] Snake – A civilian legal version of the double-barrel AR-15 called the Snake is in development now. This gun will have two triggers so that each action is independently […]