Sometimes militaries move backwards in tactics and training. The handgun is a classic example. When I was in the Corps, we trained with live weapons only on static ranges at fixed distances and only in my last year did we finally get a “combat” type Table II [Read More…]
The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is opening up a musket range to the public in Williamsburg, Virginia, on March 19th and 20th. That’s right, if you are visiting the Revolutionary War re-enactor/museum complex in Williamsburg, you can attend the public range, [Read More…]
Hardcore Collectors are some of the most peculiar sorts of gun owners that we’ve all probably ran into. I mean, the guys will literally have dozens and dozens of the SAME rifle/pistol/shotgun. I mean, I’m all for a huge gun collection, but wow, diversify a [Read More…]
The Automag was originally coming back to market in 2010 after a hiatus from 1982, by a company called Auto Mag Company in Alaska. They were going to come out with a Polished Stainless and a Parkerized version, using the original design. However, that company has since [Read More…]
The next few installments of my Light Rifle series of articles will cover in detail the development of the two calibers that shaped the NATO rifle trials until 1953: The .280 British and the .30 Light Rifle, the latter of which – spoiler alert – subsequently [Read More…]
By the mid 1860s, the British had been using a rifle of the same basic pattern (with the proverbial lock, stock, and barrel) for over one hundred and forty years. The famous Brown Bess, having been largely supplanted by the 1853 Enfield, was obsolete, but the basic [Read More…]
I don’t usually read The Daily Mail for its authentic and informative stories about the world, but some pretty interesting stuff does sometimes come out of it. Such as this story about a British parish council chairman in Suffolk who amassed over five hundred [Read More…]
Captain Fedorov, a member of the Artillery committee of Imperial Russian Army General Artillery Department (GAU), began his work on self-loading military rifles around 1905. By 1911, he perfected a self-loading rifle of his own design that fired standard issue “three [Read More…]
What if the Mini-14 had arrived over a decade earlier, and been a pound lighter? Would it have still played second-fiddle to the AR-15, or would US troops be using classically-lined rifles of wood and steel right up until today? Was there really an alternative to the [Read More…]
Craig Harrison, otherwise known as the current Guinness World Records holder of the longest confirmed kill, has recently come out with his account of his time in the service, “The Longest Kill”. I first learned about it at SHOT while talking to him at the [Read More…]
If you read the previous two installments on how to order from the CMP, then you have a good idea about how to get eligible, fill out your paperwork, and send in your packet for a Field- or Service-Grade M1 Garand rifle. Now what? Once the waiting is done, and your [Read More…]
This week, C&Rsenal takes a look at the Italian Bodeo revolver, an interesting transitional type that served all the way through the 1960s. Today, the revolver is a gun that has been virtually perfected for well over a century. While it may seem like this was always [Read More…]
Earlier on TFB we covered the origins of the name Krinkov, and the fascinating etymology of the word from Afghan Mujahdeen fighters, to the gun markets of Dharra, and then on to how we use it today via “Krink”. In this piece, we’ll look at some of the [Read More…]
Probably the biggest reason firearms history is so charming to someone like me is the virtually endless number of different designs that exist. The ceiling for entry to become a firearms designer has historically been extremely low, and with that comes a plethora of [Read More…]
These aren’t the Indian Ishapore 7.62x51mm rifles that served the Indian armed forces and we have so many of in the U.S. These are 8x50R Mannlicher chambered Lee Enfields that are available to the public. The choice of cartridge, or otherwise known as .315 [Read More…]
This video came out in 2012, so it has been out for a while, but this is the first time I’ve come across it. I can’t find much information about it, other than it is called the “Thunder” and appears to have been made by a company called Triple [Read More…]
The M1 Carbine is a weapon that, although popular with shooters and soldiers alike, has been unfairly dismissed in the broader context of the development of the modern assault rifle. Although initially fielded without select-fire capability, the lightweight and handy M1 [Read More…]
In what is looking to be a real blast from the past, a group of individuals are putting together something called Resurgence 3-Gun. It is a 3 gun competition, but the similarity with current 3 gun competitions is where it ends. Unbeknownst to me, the sport of 3 Gun as [Read More…]
Unlike the previous hysteria and excitement about the 1911s from the CMP earlier, this news is actually quite concrete. I asked the CMP booth about the 1911s while at SHOT, and the answer was that even though the President signed that act into place that allows the CMP [Read More…]
What was the first intermediate cartridge? Who designed it, and why? How did the concept evolve? These are all good questions deserving of thorough, thoughtful answers. Sadly, to give a comprehensive history of the intermediate cartridge concept would require a project [Read More…]
In Part I and Part II of the TFB Weight Omnibus, we published the weights of 58 rifles and submachine guns, and their magazines. Now, we’re going to take a look at that data, and do a little analysis to them to see what we can learn. First, my methodology when [Read More…]
Reproduction firearms have always occupied a portion of the shooting market, for a variety of reasons. Many competitions are based around old firearms, such as the Single Action Army Shooting Society in the sport of cowboy action shooting. Other shooters simply want to [Read More…]
Samco Global was a firearms importer and distributer that has been around for decades. Recently the company got into a large legal battle in July of 2015. This was between two of the owners both arguing over how much of the company the other owned and who owed whom. [Read More…]
This article on TFB will be the first in a number of articles I’ll be completing about the Russian AKS74U, to include an upcoming TFBTV episode about the carbine. Essentially I want to fill a void in research about the AKS74U, that isn’t there in our [Read More…]
This article is an English-language translation of an article written for Мир увлечений: Охота & Оружие (World of Hobbies: Hunting & Weapons) magazine, by Andrey Donets and Dmytro Adyeyev. TFB reader dnepr0mike graciously aided the [Read More…]
NRA Blog has an entry this week that is showing the last donation to the NRA Museum in Fairfax, VA of 2015. It is an absurdly looking contraption of a prototype rifle that was designed along the same lines as the AN 94, with the aim of reducing felt recoil. The inventor [Read More…]
Courtesy of The AK Guy, this image has been making its way around the internet. It is an experimental 5.45x39mm drum contraption that takes a belt of 5.45x39mm rounds and allows them to work in a standard AK74 receiver without any modification to the actual rifle or [Read More…]
The Turkish Defense Ministry has announced the continued acceptance of their new service rifle, the 7.62x51mm MPT-76 in a new batch of 15,014 rifles for their armed services. This is out of an initial order of 35,014 rifles that was placed in June of this year. Now, the [Read More…]
Special Operations Forces the world over are uniquely appealing to firearms enthusiasts for a number of reasons. For me, the sheer diversity of what they carry is fascinating enough. When you study military history, or examine a large number of military photos, the [Read More…]
This Youtube clip was published in 2011 but it shows some very serious safety precautions to be taken when using muzzleloaders. The shooter has an inline muzzleloader, but left his powder charge open on the table, directly underneath the rifle as it was being fired. As [Read More…]
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