In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves visits FK Brno at IWA to discuss their newest ammunition. While it’s not quite out yet, FK Brno has successfully developed prototype 7.5mm FK rounds that will defeat Level IV rifle-rated body armor … out of a handgun. This new AP ammo works in the [Read More…]
Finnish Hydraulic Press Channel is a well-known YouTube channel that puts various objects under the intense stress and pressure of a 150-ton hydraulic press for no other reason than to see what happens. Just last weekend they decided to see what would happen if they [Read More…]
Austin Thomas Jones is an Aerospace Engineer with a less than favorable view of Federal Firearms regulations. It is this attitude that caused Austin to depart from the aerospace industry and enter the firearms industry with the goal of resurrecting armor-piercing [Read More…]
The first photographs of the tungsten carbide cores for the US Army’s new XM1158 round have surfaced. The Army’s 7.62x51mm XM1158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round featured in the US Army’s Manufacturing Technology program 2018 Fiscal Year [Read More…]
A key part of the capability brought to the table by the US Army’s new Squad Designated Marksman Rifle is its chambering for the 7.62mm round. Specifically, this chambering allows the SDMR to fire the (also brand new) XM1158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round, [Read More…]
Until now, the US Army’s 7.62mm XM1158 Advanced Armor Piercing (ADVAP) round has been a mystery. The round, which was rumored to be the basis for the now-cancelled Interim Combat Service Rifle (ICSR) program, is supposed to allow existing weapons in the 7.62x51mm [Read More…]
At an AUSA breakfast conference yesterday, US Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley gave us a hint at exactly what the US Army’s next rifle could look like, and the focus was on extended range capability. The rifle, Milley said, will give a 10x improvement in [Read More…]
Is the US Army pushing for a new high-powered 6.Xmm caliber with their new NGSAR program? Recently, the listing for the NGSAR industry day in December was updated with a document describing in part the agenda of the second conference. Scheduled for 9:45 in the morning [Read More…]
Earlier this month, the Serbian Army debuted a new 6.5 Grendel weapon system, developed by Zastava. The rifle, called M17, is a heavily modified variant of the M70 AK family that has been developed by the company for decades. It incorporates a number of significant new [Read More…]
With Level IV armor rising in availability, calls for “overmatch”, and the increased presence of urban warfare, will designers be able to meet the requirements for future small arms? Forumgoer Poliorcetes raised this question in a discussion at the Military [Read More…]
Being a defense show rather than a firearms industry show, there are a bunch of interesting products to see at AUSA that one might not get a peek at elsewhere. An example of this kind of product is the Modular Interlocking Ballistic Barriers from KF Armory. These [Read More…]
In the coming decades, it is likely that one of the biggest challenges facing small arms ammunition designers will be solving the problem of how to deal with advanced body armors. The problem is already percolating to the surface, as Level IV body armor – which is [Read More…]
The effort to deregulate of silencers has reached an important milestone: The Hearing Protection Act has made it out of committee, and been incorporated as part of another larger bill. House Resolution 3668 – the Sportsmen Heritage and Recreational [Read More…]
The defense magazine European Security & Defence has published an article detailing for the first time Glock’s Modular Handgun System submission and its Federal-engineered ammunition. The article – part technical overview, part interview, details the [Read More…]
It’s natural for a manufacturer to want to portray their product in the best possible light. But when the capabilities of your product are technical in nature, it can be tempting to advertise in such a way that less informed consumers might get the wrong idea. [Read More…]
In an era of increasingly resilient body armor, new small arms ammunition solutions are required to even the odds between the shooter and shootee. The company Stiletto Systems, based out of the UK, is advertising its new bullet as a possible solution for this problem. [Read More…]
Aside from huge rifles like .50 BMG and the like, that is. NIJ 0101.06 Level IV specifies that the plate must be able to stop .30-06 M2AP at 2,880 fps. I’m case you’re not familiar with M2AP, it is a copper jacketed projectile with a hardened steel core. It [Read More…]
The US Army Armament Research, Development and Engineering Center (ARDEC) is developing a new kind of .50 caliber ammunition called the All Purpose Tactical Cartridge, according to a presentation given at this years National Defense Industry Association small arms [Read More…]
In the wake of Army Chief of Staff General Mark Milley’s testimony to Congress on the present and future state of the US Army, there has been a significant amount of speculation and in some cases misleading reporting regarding his statements on small arms and [Read More…]
During Thursday’s hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley spoke before the Senate and answered questions about the Army’s readiness and future modernization efforts. One of the concerns raised by the [Read More…]
The First World War was a nasty conflict. It’s slaughter is something we often fail to comprehend if only on the sheer scale. Working to avoid direct trench assaults, the Entente developed the first tanks, which when employed struck terror into the German troops. [Read More…]
One potential solution to the problem of a suitable anti-armor pistol and submachine gun round is to take the existing ammunition system and introduce one or more new kinds of ammunition which provide additional armor piercing capability through higher muzzle velocity [Read More…]
In what appears to fly in the face of the Bureau’s prior attitudes towards enforcement of gun laws, a white paper by BATFE Associate Deputy Director Ronald Turk was recently leaked which proposed loosening or modifying gun regulations in sixteen ways, to be [Read More…]
War History Online posted this photo on their Facebook page. 26-inch thick armor from Japanese Yamato class battleship, pierced by a US Navy 16-inch gun. The armor is on display at the US Navy Museum. I found this Ballistic Test Report which I believe to be about this [Read More…]
Close your eyes and allow me to take you back to a time when ammunition was cheap and plentiful. Crates of Comm Bloc surplus ammo could be had for the price of a night at the movies. Where ammo shelves were stocked to the brim, and retailers were handing out ‘buy [Read More…]
According to sources at the Eurosatory exposition in Paris, France, the Russian Army has nearly completed tests on the new pistol design likely to be adopted to replace the 9x18mm PMM Makarov and 9x19mm PYa Yargin pistols currently in service. The Udav (Russian for [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…]
Russian forum poster Epizikl has great skill with computer assisted drafting software: He has rendered in great detail a veritable multitude of different ammunition types and loads, including rare and obscure types that are rarely if ever seen constituted in the [Read More…]
At the NDIA conference, Nammo gave a presentation on their new lineup of armor-piercing ammunition. Nammo produces both the tungsten cored AP rounds in use with the US Armed Forces: The 7.62mm M993 and 5.56mm M995. Aside from data on these previously enigmatic round [Read More…]