Nathaniel is a history enthusiast and firearms hobbyist whose primary interest lies in military small arms technological developments beginning with the smokeless powder era. He can be reached via email at nathaniel.f@staff.thefirearmblog.com.
Is it Toggle Month, or what? Readers of TFB have so far been treated to several posts in April on the famous toggle-locked Luger pistol, but the fun’s not over yet! In the 1930s, the Japanese were – like many major powers at the time – looking to [Read More…]
For the prospective civilian AK buyer, there’s nothing quite as helpful as the experience of others. Most reviews (including most of the ones I have done) cover the experiences the reviewer has over tens or hundreds of rounds, as higher round-count reviews are [Read More…]
For as long as people have been fighting one another, it’s been self-evident that he who can avoid getting hit has the best chance of coming out of the fight alive, if not victorious. Warfare has come a long way from hunter-gatherers dodging atlatl-thrown spears, [Read More…]
Manufacturer of the Vector submachine gun, and parent company to Sphinx System AG, makers of high-end CZ 75 handgun derivative, may be in financial trouble. At the end of 2015, Sphinx System AG was declared bankrupt; now its parent company may be in danger as well due [Read More…]
Whenever anyone, regardless of their political views, asks me about guns, I talk to them openly and empathetically, and then I offer to take them shooting – and emphasize that we’ll do it safely. Out of those I’ve offered range trips to, most of [Read More…]
In the comments section of my recent article on the YouTube Channel Bloke on the Range, the subject arose of the AIA M10 Enfield series, one of which is used by Bloke in one of his videos. These were Australian-built rifles made roughly to the extremely venerable [Read More…]
The P.08 Luger is hands down one of the most well-recognized and distinctive firearms in the world. It’s distinctive profile, timeless legacy as one of the first truly successful semiautomatics, and intriguing reputation as the weapon of choice for both Imperial [Read More…]
I don’t consider myself more than a hobbyist when it comes to ammunition – I reload a little, play around in SolidWorks a bit, and read dry, dusty tomes full of other people’s hard work collating every minute detail about ammunition. I’m, [Read More…]
Well, it’s no secret that I am a sucker for early selfloading rifles. The sheer number of ideas that were being explored in the early decades when these rifles were undergoing military trials creates a fascinating body of work for us gun nerds in the modern day to [Read More…]
The Walther semiautomatic handguns of the mid-20th Century, including both the PP and P38 families, would become some of the most influential weapons of the latter half of the century. The PP and its smaller stablemate the PPK was perhaps the premier pocket [Read More…]
What happens when you shoot commercial ammunition through an M1 rifle? No, what really happens? Take a look at InRange TV’s video on the subject, embedded below. Ian and Karl go one step further than the average “let’s find out” video, and [Read More…]
Back in March, I wrote a post on caliber configuration, or the effort to create and standardize effective and economical ammunition for infantry small arms. As mentioned in the post itself, it was written as a more in-depth companion article for a podcast recorded by [Read More…]
The big name YouTube channels, like Hickok45 and Forgotten Weapons have gotten large followings for a reason, but from time to time I come across smaller channels with just a few followers that really deserve more attention. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been [Read More…]
One of the most criminally ignored elements of military small arms ammunition in the casual discourse is weight. Despite being one of the most important elements from a logistical and human factors perspective, the subject of weight rarely comes up in discussions about [Read More…]
Remington Arms Co. has just won a major court victory against the United States Government, regarding a 212 million dollar contract given to FN and Colt for the procurement of M4 Carbines. Back in September, Colt Defense, LLC, and Fabrique Nationale America were the [Read More…]
One of several interesting automatic individual weapon designs from World War I, the Winchester Machine Rifle was a concept for a dual-purpose anti-observation-balloon/ground weapon that featured several concepts that, for better or worse, were definitely ahead of their [Read More…]
The US trials that led to the adoption of the first standard issue military selfloading rifle are together one of my favorite parts of small arms history. Recently, Forgotten Weapons’ van Dyked and ponytailed founder and host Ian McCollum got a chance to handle [Read More…]
This is just a brief retraction, but yep, yesterday’s article on the MHS program advancing the Canik was an April Fools’ joke! Thanks to everyone who played along! -Nathaniel
Well, sort-of-not-really, although it makes for a pretty great title. The Bendix-Hyde Carbine was in fact one of the nine prototypes initially submitted to the Light Rifle program (not to be confused with the Lightweight Rifle program that is the subject of my [Read More…]
It’s not April Fools’ (we already did that, thanks for playing along!), German gunmaker Heckler & Koch has apparently won the US Army’s Compact Semi-Automatic Sniper System competition with its G28E incorporating a baffle-less OSS suppressor. This [Read More…]
The United Kingdom has become the first nation in the world to receive a modern cased telescoped ammunition (CTA) automatic weapon, the French 40mm CTCS, according to IHS Jane’s. The UK procured the weapons in July of last year to upgrade their Warrior IFVs, and [Read More…]
In the comment section of a couple of my recent articles on the challenges facing the bullpup concept, and the Lithgow Arms F90-LE, respectively, many of my commenters suggested that the Croatian VHS-2 bullpup assault rifle was one of the most important next generation [Read More…]
The US Army announced today that it is advancing the Modular Handgun System program ahead of its schedule. Due to pressure from Chief of Staff Milley, and a lack of entrants in the competition, the Army is dropping all solicitations for the existing 9x19mm NATO [Read More…]
The M1 is an old design, one of the very first successful selfloaders (certainly the first very successful one). That means that owning and shooting an M1 is an experience where almost anything can happen. Like, for example, the gun spontaneously disassembling itself [Read More…]
The Type 4 (sometimes also called the Type 5) was a clone of the US M1 Garand rifle developed by the Japanese Navy towards the very end of World War II. It’s a fascinating rifle for its combination of American engineering and Japanese style. Forgotten Weapons [Read More…]
Gun guru and MVD agent KardeN gets to play with all the best toys – this time, it’s the 9mm Kalashnikov-based submachine gun, the PP-19-01 “Vityaz”. Designed to handle high pressure 9x19mm Russian ammunition, the Vityaz is a more elegant weapon [Read More…]
The most recent episode of C&Rsenal is one you will not want to miss. In it, Othais and Mae take a look at the gargantuan Mauser Tankgewehr 1918, also known as the T-Gewehr: Now, in the video Othais notes that the 13.2x92mmR Tank und Flieger cartridge influenced a [Read More…]
The Lithuanian Land Forces have reached a decision: They will be keeping the Heckler & Koch G36, and will continue to buy the controversial rifles. In July of last year, the Lithuanian government halted procurement of the polymer-receivered German assault rifle amid [Read More…]
The world of early semiautomatic rifles is a wild, untamed one. The conventions that are virtually set in stone today as best practices didn’t exist, and a seemingly endless combination of requirements and ideas came together to produce some truly weird and [Read More…]
Hognose, over at his blog Weaponsman.com, has written a tidy rundown of the past, present (and probable lack of a) future for burst-limited automatic small arms. A sample, and further discussion, is below, but I encourage my readers to click through and read his article [Read More…]
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