Since we’ve covered the two most prominent PDW rounds of today, I want to take a quick detour and look at an interesting – but obscure – personal defense weapon/assault rifle round from history. After World War II, the apparati of the German war [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…]
If the 5.7x28mm FN is the first successful modern PDW round, then the 4.6x30mm HK is the second, and its biggest rival. German firm Heckler and developed the microcaliber 4.6mm in the 1990s as a response to a NATO solicitation for a Personal Defense Weapon, to which [Read More…]
Today we’ll be looking at a round with one of the strangest-looking projectiles ever designed for a military weapon: The joint Heckler & Koch-CETME 4.6x36mm round designed for the HK36 en-bloc clip fed assault rifle. The rifle was, as the name suggests, [Read More…]
If any of you still had doubts about the HK416’s rumored win of the French AIF (Arme Individuelle du Futur – Future Individual Weapon) contract, doubt no more. The French DGA (Direction Générale de l’Armement, their defense procurement office) has released [Read More…]
In May of this year, I got the rare opportunity to travel to Heckler & Koch’s headquarters in Ashburn, VA, to take a look at some of the experimental and prototype firearms they have located there in their famous “Grey Room”. It wouldn’t be worth as much for [Read More…]
We haven’t done a Historical Intermediate Calibers post in a while, mostly because most of the stuff that’s interesting enough to cover is difficult to find real world examples of. Today, we’ll be looking at one round I had planned to do ever since the [Read More…]
According to an as of yet uncorroborated report from the French publication RETEX MAG, the next French rifle will be a variant of the German-made Heckler & Koch HK416. The report cites notices sent out to the five participants in the French Army’s AIF (Arme [Read More…]
The Glock 19, along with its close clones and equivalents, is in my opinion the ideal “universal” civilian pistol. Small enough to carry concealed, but large enough to shoot well, the Glock can serve equally well as an every day carry gun or as a home [Read More…]
Heckler & Koch continues to expand the VP line of pistols. After the initial introduction of the VP9 in 9mm, the company has added the VP40 in .40 S&W and introduced FDE colored frames to the mix. The most recent addition to the VP line are the VP9 and VP40 [Read More…]
TFB has written several articles about the H&K SP5K, and it’s easy to understand why. We reported about it when it was released officially at IWA in Germany earlier this year. It is now available in the USA according to H&K. The new SP5K was developed by [Read More…]
Update: The owner of MAG contacted me after the publication of this article to remind me that “there are thousands, not hundreds” of guns in the vault. Somewhere close to 4000 with 1000 of those being handguns and 2000 being machineguns. Clearly my urge to [Read More…]
It has been awhile since we’ve shown the MP5SD any love. So, in case you missed our piece on the TP5SD from TPM Outifitters, who makes one of the best semiautomatic MP5SD variants on the market, here’s a nine-minute video from Machine Gun Mike on YouTube. In [Read More…]
The H&K MR556 rifle is essentially a 416 without select-fire capability, but this video showcases an MR556 that has been brought up to near 416 specs. With a chopped barrel and a few other modifications, the gun could fool all but the most discerning onlookers. So, how does it shoot? Transcript [Read More…]
I saw a video promoting the Polish Special Forces. The Jednostka Wojskowa Komandosów, commonly called JWK, was formed in 1961 and is the oldest Polish special operations unit. This video shows some JWK soldiers watching over an elderly lady as she walks through the [Read More…]
France, one the world’s first adopters of the bullpup rifle, will officially be abandoning the stockless rifle concept for good, it seems. The competition to replace the venerable FAMAS bullpup rifle has moved forward, and the only competing bullpup design, HS [Read More…]
Thanks to Dickson L. of North Sylva for sharing these. He shared the regular MR308 pics with us before. Click here to see those images. RAL8000 is the official color of Cerakote. Click here for more info of this color. This time H&K has the SFP9 and MR308 in [Read More…]
Heckler and Koch made a name for themselves when they began producing rifles, but in the mid 1960s they decided to expand their product line to include pistols. The result was a caliber convertible, small handgun that could fire .380, .32, .25, and .22 cartridges by having the end user do a quick [Read More…]
Heckler and Koch has won a major victory against the German government this week, regarding the sale of G36 assault rifles to Saudi Arabia. In the mid-2000s, Heckler and Koch sold tooling for the G36 to the Saudi government capable of producing 14,000 rifles per year. [Read More…]
Previously, we looked at the most common type of locking mechanism for rifles, but what about handguns? Well, today we’ll be looking at tilting-barrel locking, a method used in virtually every modern locked-breech handgun today. Tilting barrel locking was [Read More…]
H&K became a household name because of their rifles, but their innovative pistols certainly shouldn’t be overlooked either. In this episode of TFBTV we shoot the VP70 pistol, the first handgun ever to make use of a polymer frame.
On the heels of Heckler & Koch announcing their suit against the German government regarding statements about the company’s G36 assault rifle, comes news that the German court in Koblenz has issued a statement that the German gun manufacturer cannot be blamed [Read More…]
The firestorm over the Bundeswehr’s G36 assault rifle has reached a new fever pitch: Heckler & Koch, maker of the embattled rifles has sued the German government in an effort to clear its name of any wrongdoing. The company’s G36 rifles have come under [Read More…]
With the recent announcement by Heckler and Koch USA that the SP5K (MP5K-ish) will be available to the U.S. market, also comes a flood of consumer emotions. Excitement: “This is awesome!” Euphoria: “Yipee Ki Yay, Mother F******!” Anxiety: [Read More…]
HK has a multi tool for their 416. According to one post on HKpro.com, it costs $863! That is a bit high for what looks like just a castle nut wrench, spanner wrench and muzle device wrench all in one. It does not even have the torque wrench or a socket wrench with it. [Read More…]
Thanks to Dickson L. for sharing these with us. This is the H&K P8 A1. Looks like a USP doesn’t it? It is a modified USP for the Bundeswehr. The safety/decocker has been modified. The P8A1 safety is raised parallel for fire and lowered for safe. H&K also [Read More…]
Thanks to Dickson Ly for sending this our way. The MR308 has an interesting handguard. It looks like the MR556 handguard extrusion but just a lot longer. The bare section at the front of the hand guard is an odd choice. I do not understand why a shooter would want the [Read More…]
Three years ago, we broke the news that Heckler & Koch was introducing a new 9mm pistol based on the MP5K short submachine gun. Now, word has broken from Kentucky Gun Co. on their Facebook page that the pistols are headed to the States in July! This is a pistol [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 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…]