As the living embodiment of coolness itself, Brownells Gun Techs Keith and Caleb are the right guys to be at Rock Island Auction Company to show us a gun with a high Coolness Factor: the Egyptian Hakim service rifle. The semi-auto Hakim started life in Sweden as the AG-42 rifle (the Automatgevär m/42) designed for the Swedish army and manufactured 1942-45, before the tooling was sold to Egypt in the 1950s. Chambered in 8mm Mauser (aka 7.92x57mm Mauser), the Hakim served as Egypt's main battle rifle until it was supplanted by the Soviet / Russian AK-47. (The Hakim even had a "little brother" - a scaled down carbine version chambered in 7.62x39mm and called the Rashid.) Like the AG-42, the Hakim has a direct-impingement gas system, but the Egyptians added a gas flow adjuster because Egypt got its ammunition from many different sources and needed a rifle that would work with the "ammo du jour." A big part of the Hakim's high Coolness Factor is its unique, robustly engineered operating system. Keith does a little field strip to demonstrate it for us - and he explains how the Hakim can give you an ouchy far worse than Garand Thumb! The massive steel receiver should ensure excellent accuracy, but due to stock bedding problems, the Hakim's accuracy can be variable. The muzzle device does a good job of taming recoil but is painfully LOUD. Even so, the Hakim is a solid, well-built, reliable rifle.