with Luigi Franchi. Franchi eventually developed their own weapon. United States market The Leader was originally imported into the U.S. by Ed Hoffman and Tim Painter of World Public Safety, California. The Leader was exhibited at the New Orleans Shot Show and orders in excess of $3,000,000 were written. The original buyers/distributors were John Giovino NY, Bumble Bee CA and Ellett Brothers. These weapons are quite rare in the US as very few (fewer than 2000 rifles) made it into the country. Design and manufacturing features The cocking lever, like that of the Heckler & Koch G3, ran from the forend to the bolt, was non-reciprocating, and could fold forward out of the way. It was mounted over the left action rod and supported by the barrel extension. The cylindrical flash hider was similar to that on the early model Colt Commando models (and suffered from the same problems). It had a diopter rear sight that could be set to 100, 200 and 300 meters and a hooded post front sight. The selector switch was similar to that of the AR-18 and was set for Safe-Fire in semi-automatic or Safe-Fire-Auto in selective fire. The weapon is quite simple and tooling cost was kept to a minimum. The receiver was a simple 16 gauge steel square tube readily available and saved thousands of dollars in die costs. Charles St. George had to convince Australian engineering companies that it was possible to make gun parts and that close tolerances were not imperative, as is the common belief. Barrels from Lithgow were too expensive so St. George designed and built his own button rifling machine using a self-rotating button with a pushing motion. The barrel blanks were imported from Parker Hale in the United Kingdom with H&K providing the chamber machining details and Chartered Industries of Singapore supplied the 20-round M16 magazines. The Leader actually had a self-cleaning gas system without the need for a gas regulator. The bolt carrier group was derived from that of the AR-18 but was assembled into a modular system such that the bolt, carrier, and guide rods were a self-contained unit, obviating the loss of parts during dis-assembly. Simple spot welds were used throughout the fabrication and full use of early powder-metal parts that were used for the rear sight system and magazine latch. Faults and defects The cylindrical flash hider was rated as either insufficient or