If you’re a gun person, John Browning probably makes the top of your list of “greatest firearms designers”, and for many, the 1911 handgun is his finest creation. There’s an argument to be made that (certainly for the time) the 1911 is as perfect [Read More…]
InRange has an excellent interview (and range video!) with Jim Sullivan, a designer of the AR-15, Ultimax 100, Mini-14, and other firearms. In it, they get to fire Sullivan’s improved M4, which is more tolerant of sustained fire and employs the “constant [Read More…]
Rock Island Auction time means we get to look at a bunch of really neat guns, thanks to Forgotten Weapons’ Ian. Today he examines one of the most important early selfloading rifles, the model 1908 Mondragon: The Mondragon is widely recognized as the first [Read More…]
The Gardner Gun is one of an entire generation of all-but-forgotten* manually operated proto-machine guns. GunLab has begun a series of posts documenting the effort of one Papa Joe (who receives a regular mention there) to reconstruct a Gardner Gun from scratch. Since [Read More…]
Zachary sent us this photo of the Walther P38 pistol and bayonet his grandfather brought back from WWII. The bayonet has its original Afrika Korps belt frog. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term “frog”, a frog is what holds the sheath onto the [Read More…]
This diagram shows the relationships of some of the larger companies within the gun industry and how they’re connected to whom, and what comprises different groups of companies. In other words the “Big Picture” of the origins of the firearms we all [Read More…]
Propper’s Blog posted up an excellent link on the early development of camouflage. As it turns out, the first impetus of camouflage in the modern era was from the development of optics… but not to target infantry. But before the First World War, camouflage [Read More…]
Ok, so its not really for home defense. This is the Iron Creations new 1919 custom mount. Houston H., the artist whose gun art adorns my office walls, sent us this photo of his M1919 machine gun. According to Houston, shooting the 1919 standing up is a lot more fun [Read More…]
Browning’s Model 1900 pistol was an icon and reasonably simple to manufacture. So when soldiers went looking for pistols in China, this one was an obvious choice.
First, a little background for you guys that weren't around for the last part of the Vietnam war and the first war in Afghanistan. The use of some type of chemical weapon by the soviets during the later part of the Vietnam on indigenous troops (there was no use on [Read More…]
As one of the younger members of the TFB staff, it allows me to have a unique perspective into our great hobby by regularly going shooting with people of all ages and backgrounds, and I really enjoy the diversity. When you go with the younger crowd, the name of the game [Read More…]
The Carcano rifle often evokes only two reactions in people. First, most remember the Kennedy Assassination. This is usually followed by a murmuring of how Oswald could have done the deed with such a sloppy, inaccurate, unreliable, rifle that has just as much a [Read More…]
Earlier this year a reader from the Balkans told me that he had found an old rusted Yugoslavian M56 submachine gun and asked how he might repair it. I told him I was sure it was rusted beyond the point of ever functioning again and he would never get the bolt out of [Read More…]
The assault rifle is the defining individual weapon of warfare in the latter half of the 20th century, and the 21st. It’s history is deeply intertwined with the political and war-making developments of the era. Fast, mechanized maneuver warfare, the decline of [Read More…]
STG 44 / MP43/44 rifles have been showing up all over the world in the last couple of years. An eagle-eyed reader spotted one at Ukraine’s newest and most popular tourist attraction, the private palace of their former President. The above image is a still from a [Read More…]
Defence & Freedom blog discusses the history of Infantry calibers … Why did we end up with a calibre of 5.56 mm (and others with 5.45 or 5.82 mm)? The understanding of modern infantry firearms calibres requires in part an understanding of their history. The [Read More…]
The Lahti pistol was the brainchild of Aimo Johannes Lahti, a Finnish soldier turned arms inventor. While there is some dispute it’s hard to ignore the fact that Lahti’s pistol uses a very similar locking block to the earlier Bergmann-Bayard pistols. The [Read More…]
At their SHOT Show booth Knight’s Armament Company (KAC) had an early model Armalite AR-10 with a post-WWII night vision system on display. I do not know which night vision system this is or even if it was a production system. The scope looked similar to the M2 [Read More…]
No seriously, don't...
The Charlton Automatic Rifle sums up the adage “necessity is the mother of invention.” These LMGs were produced for the New Zealand home defense forces beginning in 1941 from old Lee-Metford and Lee-Enfield bolt action rifles. For those familiar with the [Read More…]
Walking along the streets of south west London, just north of Buckingham Palace, a person will take a step into glamour and glance at the official store fronts of such luxury brands as “Louis Vuitton”, “Gucci”, and “Rolex” to name a few. It is among these [Read More…]
This guest post is written by German milblogger Sven who blogs at Defense and Freedom. Assault rifles typically use cartridges which are at most fine for shooting at 250 to 400 metres distant targets. This came into being based on ammunition maker (especially [Read More…]
Our friends at Forgotten Weapons published the Boys anti-tank rifle training film created by Disney for the Canadian Army. It is pretty hilarious. It starts off with Hitler complaining to the devil that they can’t win the war because of the Boys anti-tank rifle, [Read More…]
This video about a Chinese artist who “paints” with gunpowder (blackpowder) is worth watching. As usual, when linking to a Vice.com video, I have to point out that a lot of what is said in the video is total nonsense. Gunpowder is not natural, unless [Read More…]
The Providence Journal has a fascinating article about the many layers of subcontracting that took place during WWII. Richard Parker writes about his time as a driver for the Pantex Pressing Machine Company. During the war the company was sub-contracted to make clones [Read More…]
The Trapdoor rifle design is not one you hear about often. It was a breach-loading stopgap between the end of the muzzleloading era and the emergence of bolt actions. Most of the world went straight to the bolt action. Prussia adopted the bolt action Needle gun [Read More…]
English Russia have written a blog post about a little known Soviet laser pistol that they claim was developed for cosmonauts to shoot at enemy satellite optics. The english description they gave on how it works does not make a lot of sense. From what I understand [Read More…]
The Hole Book was written and illustrated by Peter Newell in 1908. The delightful books teaches children the consequences of mishandling firearms. It is notable for being the first book to use a hole punched through the pages as a storytelling gimmick. The book is now [Read More…]
Given the growing fascination with crude 3D printed firearms, it may be worth looking into the original “Liberator” pistol. During WWII the Joint Psychological Warfare Committee sought a means to arm civilians in occupied territory, sowing panic and tying [Read More…]
One time when I was off training duty, while my friend took over teaching for an hour, I was walking the area scoping out any and all firearms I came across when this beauty caught my eye as it was the only "American type" weapon we had seen other than a few M1 [Read More…]
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