Constitutional Carry is hot right now. The list of states officially supporting the practice has grown to nearly half of the US. Texas recently became the twenty-first such state, and this new legislation will go into effect as of September 1st of this year. Second [Read More…]
The United States Concealed Carry Association, or USCCA, is an organization focused on providing resources and benefits to responsibly armed Americans. They offer a variety of informational initiatives from training and education, legal guidance, digital tutorials and [Read More…]
The model of 1911 pistol is an American classic and has a long and illustrious history. While we can’t possibly cover everything about the 1911, today we’re going to look at some of the high points in the love affair that America has enjoyed with this iconic pistol. We make every effort to [Read More…]
On November 8th, the Buffalo Bill Center of the West, the organization that houses the excellent Cody Firearms Museum, announced that Timney Triggers has decided to donate $500,000 to CFM’s reconstruction effort. A little background here: Starting life in 1976 as [Read More…]
In the comments section of my recent Brief Thoughts article regarding caseless ammunition, there was a discussion about whether the cookoff issues of caseless would also be problem for LSAT-style polymer cased telescoped ammunition. Based on conversations I have had [Read More…]
Caseless: The ammunition designer’s holy grail, and the engineer’s worst nightmare. It would obsolete the cartridge case overnight, resulting in cheaper, lighter, and more compact ammunition. Weapons would be able to carry 50, 60, or more rounds in slim, [Read More…]
If we can make a round that is significantly better than the existing 5.56mm or 7.62mm ammunition, shouldn’t the military just bite the bullet and switch, to the benefit of the servicemen and women in harm’s way? What’s stopping the powers that be from [Read More…]
Previously, we compared the Russian 9x39mm subsonic sniper round to its Western counterparts, including the .300 AAC Blackout and the .45 ACP. As it stands now, the 9x39mm is a subsonic round only – no supersonic loads exist for it currently. But… What if [Read More…]
Today’s Modern Intermediate Calibers will handle something a little different. While virtually all rounds we have looked at so far were designed primarily for supersonic use, today we will be taking a gander at the Russian 9x39mm round – a dedicated [Read More…]
Although the Russian Kalashnikov assault rifle is the one that is most famous, it is arguably the Chinese Type 56 AK that made the bigger impression on the world in the 1960s and 70s. This rifle was initially developed with Russian technical assistance just before the [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 Russian PKM: Arguably the best general purpose machine gun in the world, it combines a robust reliability with best-in-class light weight. Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons recently released two video overviews of the weapon, giving us a good enough excuse as any to [Read More…]
The following is an article that was originally written in Russian by TFB contributor Maxim Popenker, and Andrey Ulanov, and translated to English by Peter Samsonov. With their permission, I have replicated the text here, and edited it, for the enrichment of you, our [Read More…]
The recent controversy regarding the drop safety characteristics of SIG’s P320 handgun has some taking a closer look at their handguns. Drop safety is something that – in theory – is so mature in modern handguns that it should be a non-issue, but with [Read More…]
The excellent firearms reference website Modern Firearms is undergoing a major move to a new location, with a much improved interface and look. Although the new site is still in beta, it already appears to include most if not all of the pages from the original, in an [Read More…]
In yesterday’s article, we took a look at examples of two different methods of design, which I called “preference-driven” and “process-driven”. For these examples, I supposed two engineers from two different cultures – called [Read More…]
If you were designing the next small arms round, how would you do it? What methods would you use to determine its physical characteristics and performance attributes? How would you know what was too large or too small, too powerful or too weak? Perhaps more critically, [Read More…]
In the comments section of my recent article Are We Gearing Up to Lose the Next War? Overmatch, Part 2: Bullets & Backbreakers, two of TFB’s readers shared documents that help us describe the problem of the modern soldier and Marine’s load. The first, [Read More…]
What do you get when you take the venerable speedster 7.62 Tokarev, and load it with a muzzleloader-style sabot and 50gr .22 cal projectile? You get one of the most interesting pistol, submachine gun, and personal defense weapon ammunition concepts there is! Today [Read More…]
It has been a little while since we visited the subject of modern personal defense weapon calibers, so to start it off again we’ll be taking a look at a new high velocity round that is only a few years old: Armscor’s .22 TCM. This round was reportedly [Read More…]
Does pointing your gun up or down affect its accuracy? The answer is “maybe” according to a recent US Army Armament Development, Research and Engineering Center (ARDEC) presentation released at the 2017 National Defense Industry Association small arms [Read More…]
Regardless of whether you own firearms for recreation, sport, or defense, it is a fact of life that any gun is an attractive target for theft. For the most part, gun enthusiasts would rather keep discussions within a comfortable zone of topics about technical and [Read More…]
The New Zealand Defence Force is conducting a rather unique campaign: They are taking their war materiel – including select-fire assault rifles – to primary schools in New Zealand, to teach kids about leadership, values, army life, and – of course [Read More…]
It is not only the West that has developed small caliber, high-velocity pistol-compatible personal defense weapon ammunition; in the early 1990s, the People’s Republic of China also developed such a round. Called the 5.8x21mm DAP-92, it fires an 0.229″ [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 the last installment, we talked about the trade-offs involved in increasing or decreasing the projectile’s diameter (and, thereby in convention systems, the bore’s diameter as well). One of the major pieces of the equation that we left out was how [Read More…]
Probably the most obvious element of ammunition design is the choice of caliber, or more specifically the choice of bore and bullet diameter. These two dimensions are of course closely linked in conventional ammunition systems (they can be decoupled with sabots, but [Read More…]
Looking at the 24 different calibers we’ve covered as part of the Modern Intermediate Calibers series, some patterns begin to emerge. We see that larger rounds with heavier bullets weigh more, and have more recoil, that more slender bullets shoot further for their [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…]
Your Privacy Choices