Spectre M4

The Spectre is an Italian submachine gun that was produced by the SITES factory in Turin. It was designed by Roberto Teppa and Claudio Gritti in the mid-1980s. Production ceased with the end of SITES in 2001. The Spectre is used by the Swiss armed forces and by Italian special forces, and has been exported elsewhere.

The Spectre is a compact and light weapon, designed for instant firepower in close combat at short ranges. The four models have top-folding buttstocks, and were available with or without a forward handgrip ahead of the magazine housing. The largely polymer Spectre has a stamped-steel receiver.

The Spectre is a standard blowback firearm operating from a closed bolt; however it has some unusual features. The barrel shroud completely hides the barrel. The bolt is designed to pump air through the barrel shroud to provide additional cooling. The Spectre is hammer-fired and the trigger group is double action with a decocker. This allows the shooter to safely carry a round in the chamber and fire immediately. As this eliminates the need for cocking prior to shooting no manual safety is provided. Unconventional 50-round capacity, four-column magazines are provided with the Spectre, but it can also use conventional magazines.

Civilian variants
Versions of the SITES "Spectre" M4 sub-machinegun specifically made for the civilian market have been around since the middle 1980s and up to the middle 1990s, when the US Assault Weapons Ban prohibited the import and sale of them on the American market, the biggest and most lucrative for this kind of items, thus causing them to go out of production. The civilian-grade variants of the SITES "Spectre" M4 have namely been a semi-automatic pistol called the SITES "Falcon" (marketed in the USA as the "Spectre-HC") and a semi-automatic sub-carbine called the SITES "Ranger". These weapons retain the main layout of the original "Spectre" sub-machinegun, are incapable of fully-automatic fire, and the original magazine capacity is reduced for marketing in countries where the law requires it (such as Italy). The SITES "Falcon" (or "Spectre-HC") pistol may and may not be encountered with the original upfolding stock and foregrip (the samples sold in the USA as the "Spectre-HC" generally feature none of these; the "Falcon" sold in Italy feature both, with the foregrip being removable). The SITES "Ranger" sub-carbine, which was a distinctly Italian market gun, features the foregrip (which is removable), a longer barrel, and the upfolding stock is permanently locked into open position to comply with the requirements of the Italian laws about the minimum allowed length for civilian-legal long arms. The upfolding stock on the SITES "Ranger" subcarbine was however engineered to be easily removable for storage. In the version of this carbine sold in Italy, the removal of the stock was made harder, requiring the use of tools, and proceeding to effectively shorten the weapon by this way could be persecuted as a criminal offense. In other countries (where legal), the removal of the stock in this and other versions was easier.