www.China-Defense.com

The Type 67 is a gas operated, belt-fed, air-cooled, automatic firing-only General Purpose Machine Gun. The Chinese designers used a well-worn philosophical design approach by using as their starting point a battle-proven design. In the case of the Type 67, it was the Type 26 (Czech ZB26) Light Machine Gun. The top-loaded magazine-fed Type 26 Light Machine Gun was popular with Chinese troops on all sides during World War II, the following Chinese Civil War and the Korean War. China was also the biggest user and licensed producer of the Czech designed Light Machine Gun. In addition, the production tooling and design knowledge for the Type 26 were still available at the time the Type 67 was designed. This is likely to be why the Type 67 gas system and bolt were based on the Type 26 long-stroke tilting bolt design. The Type 67 gas system was further enhanced by adding a Type 56 RPD-style adjustable gas regulator. The whole system works by first chambering the cartridge, then the bolt is locked into place by raising its rear portion into a recess that is machined into the top of the receiver. After firing, the gas piston drives the bolt carrier backward and releases the bolt from it's locking position. The spent ammo case is ejected downward through a machined rectangular opening on the bolt carrier.

Unlike most Chinese made small arms with stamped parts, the Type 67 Machine Gun uses a milled receiver. Milled components contribute to the improved accuracy and durability of the Type 67 but it also increase the production costs. The milling process also makes the weapon heavier than most contemporary infantry GPMGs.

The Type 67 Machine Gun uses a proprietary metallic non-disintegrating link ammo belt that resemble the one used by the Russian PK GPMG series. However, the Chinese belt has an opening on the bottom of each ammo pocket. The Type 67 also uses the same 7.62x54R rimmed cartridges as the PK series. Because the rimmed cartridge cannot be removed from the belt by using the forward moving bolt (the method that all NATO machine guns use with their rimless cartridges), a more complex method is needed by the Type 67. Instead of using the typical pull back then forward method in use with Russian designed machine guns, the Type 67 feeding mechanism uses a cam to push each round downward and out of the belt through the opening at the bottom of each ammo pocket just before the bolt moves forward to chamber the cartridge. Also unique to the Type 67 is the feeding mechanism is driven mainly by the gas piston rod. While almost all other GPMGs in the world use their bolt or bolt carrier to drive feeding mechanism.

The Type 67 uses a semi-floating tripod mount to soften up the recoil and reduces vibration during firing. Floating mountings are commonly found on many automatic cannons but are uncommon on small caliber machine guns.

The Type 67 normally feeds from either the 250-rd, 100-rd or 50-rd metallic non-disintegrating links. By the mid 1980's, a less clunky 25-rd segment link became available. The shorter link is more ideal in assault or firing-on-the-move type of maneuvers. An additional added feature of the new 25-rd segment is that it can be easily links together with another 25-rd segment and therefor it allows the weapon to fire continuously.