Knights Armament PDW
- Category
- Personal Defense Weapon
- Barrel
- 254 mm
- Weight, empty
- 2.00 kg
- Introduced
- 2006
About
What it is, and why it matters
The Knight's Armament Company PDW is a select-fire personal defense weapon designed around the proprietary 6x35mm KAC/TSWG cartridge. Developed beginning in 2005 for the U.S. interagency Technical Support Working Group (TSWG), it was intended to bridge the gap between submachine guns and short-barreled assault rifles, delivering rifle-class terminal performance from a barrel as short as 8 inches with substantially less recoil and muzzle blast than 5.56 NATO from a comparable barrel length. The design uses dual gas pistons flanking a single central recoil spring and an AK-style rotating bolt mounted in an M4-pattern receiver, allowing operators familiar with the AR platform to transition without retraining.
The KAC PDW is the gun the U.S. counterterrorism community wanted in the mid-2000s - rifle lethality from a stockless platform that could be drawn from a chest rig and put rounds on target inside a building or out to 300 metres. The proprietary 6x35mm cartridge was about a centimetre shorter than 5.56 NATO yet hit harder from short barrels, but the program never broke through to procurement and the round remained a Hornady-exclusive curiosity.
Never adopted in significant numbers. Public test-fire and prototype demonstrations occurred from 2006 through the early 2010s. The proprietary 6x35mm cartridge was made exclusively by Hornady for KAC and is not commercially available. The design influenced later small-frame PDWs and intermediate cartridge programs.
Specification
Everything measured
IdentityWhat it is, who built it and when.
- Manufacturer
- Knight's Armament Company
- Category
- Personal Defense Weapon
- Country
- United States
- Status
- Prototype
- Produced
- 2006
DimensionsAs issued, without a magazine or an optic.
- Barrel
- 254 mm
- Overall length
- 711 mm
- Weight, empty
- 2.00 kg
ActionHow it cycles, what trips it, and what feeds it.
- Action
- Gas operated short stroke
- Firing mechanism
- Hammer fired
- Trigger
- Single stage
- Capacity
- 30
- Magazine
- Detachable box
MaterialsEach swatch is the material itself, not a colour chosen to stand for it.
- Frame
- Aluminum
- Barrel
- Steel
- Stock
- Polymer
- Finish
- Anodized
BallisticsFrom the service cartridge, not a handload.
- Muzzle velocity
- 750 m/s
- Muzzle energy
- 1127 J
- Effective range
- 300 m
- Rate of fire
- 700 rpm
Trajectory
What the round does downrange
Solved from the muzzle figures and the bullet. The dashed rule is the effective range on the record, and the crosses are the steps the solver returned.
No load solved for this record yetThe flight path is computed from a cartridge and a bullet. This record has no ammunition filed against its chambering, so there is nothing to solve.
Features
What it has
What the record lists as fitted, drawn from the catalogue.
Dual gas piston system
Single central recoil spring
Ak style bolt group- M4 pattern ergonomics
Telescoping stock
Ambidextrous controls
Free floating barrel
Picatinny top rail
Standing
How it compares
Each figure against the firearms of the same type and cartridge that record it, or of the same type where that cartridge has too few. Positions are read to the nearest tenth.
| Measurement | This firearm | Median | Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Empty weightAmong 54 personal defense weapons | 2.00 kg | 2.23 kg | Lighter than about 70% |
| Overall lengthAmong 53 personal defense weapons | 711 mm | 582 mm | Longer than about 80% |
| Barrel lengthAmong 55 personal defense weapons | 254 mm | 168 mm | Longer than about 80% |
| Magazine capacityAmong 57 personal defense weapons | 30 | 30 | Holds more rounds than about 70% |
Answers
Questions about the Knights Armament PDW
How much does the Knights Armament PDW weigh?
The Knights Armament PDW weighs 2.00 kg (4.41 lb) empty.
What caliber is the Knights Armament PDW?
The Knights Armament PDW is chambered in 6x35mm KAC.
How many rounds does the Knights Armament PDW hold?
The Knights Armament PDW holds 30 rounds, fed from a detachable box magazine.
How long is the Knights Armament PDW?
The Knights Armament PDW is 711 mm (28.0 in) long overall, with a 254 mm (10.00 in) barrel.
Who makes the Knights Armament PDW?
The Knights Armament PDW is made by Knight's Armament Company (United States). It was designed by C. Reed Knight Jr. / Knight's Armament Company.
When was the Knights Armament PDW introduced?
The Knights Armament PDW was introduced in 2006.
How does the Knights Armament PDW operate?
The Knights Armament PDW uses a gas operated short stroke action, and its firing mechanism is hammer fired.
Compatibility
Which parts fit this firearm
Studio
Every part that mounts on this, resolved
Not a list the maker typed out: the answer comes from the mounts this firearm exposes and the interface each part needs, so it stays right when either one changes.
- Every part that mounts on any firearm in the catalogue
- Interface standards, platforms and fit overrides
- The same answers through the API and the MCP server
Requires a signed-in GunSpec account on the Studio plan. The answer is computed per part, so it is not part of the public record.
Provenance
What the record holds
Every figure above was taken from one of these pages. The confidence reflects how much of the record came from a page a claim can be checked against.
Provenance
Confidence in this record
65%
Stockists
Where to buy
Offers link straight to the shop. GunSpec never takes the order.
No shop has listed this firearm yet
Stock and prices come from the shops themselves. If you sell this firearm, you can list it and it appears here.
List a firearmMCP
Ask an assistant about it
The same record, reached the way a person asks for it rather than the way a program does.
Ask GunSpec
Works with
Point an MCP client at GunSpec and it answers from the catalogue rather than from memory. A free key covers the read tools.
API
The call that returns this record
The same fields, in the same units, from the same endpoint the page reads.
curl --request GET \ --url 'https://api.gunspec.io/v1/firearms/knights-armament-pdw' \ --header 'X-API-Key: your_key'{ "id": "knights-armament-pdw", "name": "Knights Armament PDW", "manufacturer": { "id": "knights-armament", "name": "Knight's Armament Company", "countryCode": "US", "foundedYear": 1982, "website": "https://www.knightarmco.com", "logoUrl": null, "description": null, "status": null, "defunctYear": null, "stateOwned": null, "makesFirearms": null, "parentId": null, "predecessorId": null, "createdAt": "2026-02-11 23:44:38", "updatedAt": "2026-02-18 03:40:45", "version": "0b3c3f0a0149c800488fc669f0c106012c0171e0595be976331646ae4580d317" }, "category": { "id": "personal-defense-weapon", "name": "Personal Defense Weapon", "description": "Compact firearms designed for non-frontline military personnel" }, "country_of_origin": "US", "year_introduced": 2006, "barrel_length_mm": 254, "weight_empty_g": 2000, "action_type": "gas_operated_short_stroke"}