Colonel Isaac Lewis was an early pioneer in 20th-century machine gun design. His developments butted heads with John Brownings on numerous occasions, to include this peculiar case. Stemming from his work on the light machine gun, Lewis like others in his peer group saw the problems with the [Read More…]
Thanks to a recent leak exclusively to The Firearm Blog, we have now become aware of a new tender for rifles issued by the Pakistani government. According to the tender document, the Pakistani Army is looking for 75,000 “modern 7.62x39mm caliber weapons”, [Read More…]
I was planning to write about this firearm in the near future but it always was the last one in the list of such firearms (rare, experimental Soviet/Russian guns) to write an in-depth article about. And the reason is the extremely scarce information available about this [Read More…]
In an unprecedented turn of events, the Indian government has approved the building of a private sector small arms factory at Malanpur in the state of Madhya Pradesh. Previously, the Indian small arms industry has been entirely nationalized, with the Ministry of [Read More…]
The German Federal Office of Bundeswehr Equipment, Information Technology and In-Service Support (BAAINBw) has announced the long-awaited program to replace the Heckler & Koch G36 assault rifle in German Army service, reports the Polish gun magazine MilMag. [Read More…]
The Spanish National Police Corps (Cuerpo Nacional de Policía, or CNP) have captured a huge number of weapons during a series of raids conducted in the areas of Biscay, Girona, and Cantabria in Northern Spain. The raids recovered about 10,000 firearms including [Read More…]
As you know, Russia hasn’t yet made a final decision which one of the new AK-12 and AEK-971 assault rifles to adopt. Both firearms are being extensively tested and issued in small quantities and both seem to be adequate to be adopted. Recently, Russian [Read More…]
Quick: What’s the definition of “assault rifle”? I’ll give you a moment to think about it. Now, a good definition for “assault rifle” in my opinion comes from Anthony G. Williams, a British author, ammunition collector, and military [Read More…]
The US .30 cal M1 Carbine is one of the most important developments in the personal defense weapon story, being one of the very first* intermediate calibers to be adopted as standard issue by a nation, and arguably the first purpose-designed PDW caliber in history. [Read More…]
Today on Modern PDW Calibers we’re going to look at what might seem like a humdrum round, but which represents an important performance band for the modern personal defense weapon. That round is the 5.56x30mm MARS, a purpose built “micro assault rifle” [Read More…]
In January, just before the 2017 SHOT Show, I got the opportunity to travel to Cody Wyoming to visit the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, to see some of their rare firearms and bring photos of them to our readers. Today’s weapon is a [Read More…]
In January, just before the 2017 SHOT Show, I got the opportunity to travel to Cody Wyoming to visit the Cody Firearms Museum at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, to see some of their rare firearms and bring photos of them to our readers. Today our subject is one of [Read More…]
Earlier today, the United States Marine Corps Systems Command released a request for information (RFI) to manufacturers regarding the industry’s capability to fill an order for 11,000 new IAR-type rifles. You can read the RFI over at this link at FedBizOpps. [Read More…]
Even though the French government has adopted the Heckler & Koch HK416F assault rifle to replace the aging FAMAS, it seems “Le Clairon” will remain in service for at least the next decade. The reason for this is the recent re-establishment of the French [Read More…]
More and more, it seems like we are on the cusp of a break in the small arms “plateau”, and that major changes may be coming both in the technology and use of infantry small arms and ammunition. The biggest harbinger of this coming paradigm shift has been [Read More…]
The history of modern small arms is in part so fascinating because of how many firearms have been developed even in obscure circumstances, and how many of those obscure small arms still exist in museums and private collections around the world. Even though I make [Read More…]
Will Heckler & Koch’s HK416 rifle become the most successful assault rifle model of the early 21st Century? It’s starting to look that way. After the French adoption of the HK416F as their standard issue weapon to replace the FAMAS, and a likely [Read More…]
France has just adopted the HK416 as its new standard infantry rifle, replacing the FAMAS, and Germany is on a path to a new weapon, aiming to divest herself of the controversial G36. This raises the question: Will Germany and France adopt a unified arm? These two [Read More…]
Previously, we talked about the word “controllability”, and what it means in relation to the recoil and ergonomic characteristics of a firearm. If you haven’t already read that article, I recommend you click the link here and do so first, as this post [Read More…]
Yesterday, we took a close look at the AK’s operating group, to enumerate the details that make this pattern such a dependable design. Today, we’re going to be looking at some of the other elements of the AK that make it so reliable, but first I want to [Read More…]
Today we know the Kalashnikov family of rifles as one of the most successful and reliable weapon families ever designed. Even as the rifle’s legend has begun to be peeled back, the weapon’s reputation for reliability is still largely unquestioned, and many [Read More…]
Last weekend, I took the major arguments of Kalashnikov conspiracy theorists head on, and one of those – which I hear rather frequently – is why he did not design any other weapons besides the AK-47. The reason is… He did. Kalashnikov was a skilled and [Read More…]
It seems the Iranian small arms industry is experiencing a bit of a boom – just released last week is another new rifle, called the MASAF, following the Fateh, Nabi, and two other unnamed rifles. The MASAF is obviously based on the AR-15, with a short-stroke [Read More…]
The M1 Carbine is a lightweight, handy weapon that is well-liked by many. One of its weakest points for many people, however, is its cartridge: The .30 Carbine caliber is regarded by some as being too weak to be a true intermediate caliber round fully capable of [Read More…]
The AK-12 is dead. Long live the AK-12! That’s the song Kalashnikov Concern is singing this week at the recent ARMY 2016 expo in Moscow, Russia. The radical AK-12 prototypes that have dominated Kalashnikov’s press over the past two years are gone, replaced [Read More…]
In the last episode, we discussed how the most ballistically efficient projectiles are the longest, most slender ones, with the highest sectional density. This naturally leads to the idea of using a super long, rod-like projectile which would in theory have excellent [Read More…]
One of the problems of small arms ammunition is that of swept volume. That is, the most ballistically efficient projectiles are the longest and thinnest ones, which cut through the air more easily than squatter, fatter projectiles. Yet, the best projectiles from a [Read More…]
After World War II, the nations of the world retired to lick their wounds and rebuild, but their arms engineers also began thinking about the next war. The war have brought forth a storm of new technologies and inventions, and one of the most significant in the field of [Read More…]
Many would consider this next round to be the first intermediate cartridge ever, and while that isn’t really true, it is one of the most influential rounds of all time, and perhaps the most influential intermediate round ever developed. I am talking of course [Read More…]
Today on an extra special episode of Historical Intermediate Calibers, we’ll be taking a look at one of the most controversial experimental military rounds, one that many believe should have become the standard for the Western World at the beginning of the Cold [Read More…]
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