With so many new shooters joining our community over the past few years, it’s important to have options to accommodate them all. Many of the new shooters are women and young people, both of which are oftentimes smaller in stature. This was likely not something [Read More…]
The Army Marksmanship Unit’s .264 USA – a medium-sized 6.5mm round in-between the 6.5mm Grendel and 6.5mm Creedmoor in size – is not yet dead, it seems. The round, about which little had been heard in official channels for a couple of years, is the [Read More…]
Those eagerly awaiting the market for the new .224 Valkyrie round have something to celebrate. Gunmaker JP Enterprises recently announced that they are now offering three different barrels for the new cartridge, in 20″ light, 20″ medium, and 22″ medium [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…]
Ammunition maker Federal Premium recently released its full bundle of press info on their new .224 Valkyrie round, coming on the heels of teasers released at Big 3 East. The .224 Valkyrie is a high performance .22 caliber round for the AR-15, which uses heavy, low drag [Read More…]
Let’s start off with a question: What is the best round for the AR-15? At the Big 3 East conference this week, a new caliber was unveiled for the AR-15. Called the “.224 Valkyrie”, it is based on the .30 Remington/6.8 SPC case, necked down to .22 [Read More…]
With the recent push for small arms ammunition with increased range, power and capability, are military customers in danger of being taken for a ride by industry marketeers working to sell rifles in new calibers? Is the primary driving force behind new infantry [Read More…]
The following is a guest article written for TFB by reader Tim about his efforts with his friend Paul to recreate the historical .280 British (7x43mm) round developed for the EM-2 and FAL rifles during the early pre-NATO rifle trials of the late 1940s. Enjoy! [Read More…]
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…]
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…]
We’ve discussed a lot of different rounds in this series so far, but today we’re going to discuss a round that actually has a shot of being adopted (at least in some form) by the United States military as a next-generation small arms ammunition [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…]
Up to this point we’ve looked at calibers ranging from 5.56mm to 7.62mm, but today we’re going to look at something smaller… A lot smaller. The smallest caliber size that is feasible for a given current barrelmaking and projectile manufacture [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…]
The 6x35mm TSWG, also commonly called the 6x35mm KAC, is a round shrouded in mystery. Apparently designed by Knight’s Armament Company for the interagency counterterrorist program cryptically named the “Technical Support Working Group” alongside the [Read More…]
One of the most ballistically interesting intermediate calibers ever developed is the 6.5 Grendel, developed by Arne Brennan with the assistance of Bill Alexander, and promoted heavily by the latter’s company, Alexander Arms. The 6.5 Grendel is interesting because [Read More…]
Locking systems we have previously covered include tilting barrel locking, the most common pistol locking mechanism, and rotary bolt locking, the most common rifle locking mechanism. However, at one time another locking mechanism was widely believed to be optimum for [Read More…]
Now, based on the four previous articles on gun operating mechanisms, some of my readers may be thinking “jeeze, Nathaniel, we already know all this stuff! Why are you telling us this?” Don’t worry! I haven’t forgotten about you, and that’s [Read More…]
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…]
This post was written as a companion to an upcoming Gun Guy Radio podcast, hosted by Ryan Michad. The discussion below will be expanded upon in the show when it’s released later this month, but for now, read on to learn more about the past, present, and future of [Read More…]
When researching historical weapons and ammunition, it is sometimes helpful to know what sort of ballistics a round produces. However unfortunately not every cartridge in history comes to the historian complete with a set of period ballistics tables, and in some cases [Read More…]
Previously here at TFB we discussed a well-designed and well-manufactured Czech rifle that made a big difference in the early history of selfloading rifles, the ZH-29. Tim of the Military Arms Channel discusses another Czech rifle that was a particular example of good [Read More…]
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