Earlier this week, we blogged about an AR-15 that had seen half a century of service; a weapon originally made by General Motors between January of 1969 and the end of 1971. Recently, pictures were circulated on Facebook of a rifle even older than that firearm: A Colt [Read More…]
Retro AR-15s seem to appeal on more than just a level of nostalgia. Of course, ’80s action movies, Clancy novels, and other media featuring the early Black Rifles activate a certain nostalgic fondness, but aesthetically these first generation guns have much to [Read More…]
When you travel abroad, there’s no telling what you might find. Tim of the Military Arms Channel was visiting the MKE factory in Turkey, when he stumbled upon an extremely rare original Stoner 63 rifle sitting in an arms locker. The very short video he made to [Read More…]
Though I’m spending most of my time this Saturday hitting a stack of thick books as part of my ongoing research, I wouldn’t want to leave our readers hanging. So, today we’ll take a look at an older – but still extremely impressive – video [Read More…]
Vietnam saw the introduction of the M16 rifle – the US Army’s first rifle of caliber smaller than .30, and its first automatic rifle issued to every man in the rifle squad. What was advertised as a huge step forward, however, has become one of the most [Read More…]
This week’s DTIC document is one well worth reading in the interest of understanding the AR-15’s early deployment and subsequent “fall from grace” later in the 1960s. It bears more detailed examination than I usually put into the Weekly DTIC, so [Read More…]
As in all Small Caliber Book Reviews here at TFB, I will be covering the area of relevance and strengths and weaknesses of the book, as well as whether it is more introductory or advanced. The recent mud and sand tests of the M14 by InRange TV have blackened the eye [Read More…]
After the Ichord report of 1967 identified the early failures of the M16 rifle in combat, particularly failures to extract, solutions to the problem of fouling were investigated by Colt, as well as Rock Island Arsenal (a government entity), and Olin/Winchester. [Read More…]
Following up on their previous interview segments with AR-15 designer Jim Sullivan, Forgotten Weapons and InRange have posted a video on Full30 of Sullivan describing his view of what went wrong with the AR-15 in Vietnam. Sullivan’s view essentially boils down to [Read More…]
The AR-15 family of rifles was accepted into US service under strange circumstances. In 1962, Ordnance – previously in charge of rifle and ammunition procurement – was abolished by Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, and the offices themselves [Read More…]
Bob Holloway, then of Fort Worth, Texas, in the 1980s built on his experiences in Southeast Asia and Rhodesia to design a .308 caliber military rifle, what eventually became the HAC-7. His rifle was an amalgamation of Armalite, FN, and Kalashnikov designs, with a [Read More…]
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…]
This article was written by Claymore. Hold onto your seats TFB readers you are about to see something that I’m 99.9% sure has NEVER been seen before. Like most people interested in firearms I was working under the incorrect impression that the first AK-47s came [Read More…]
Nguoiduatin.vn reports that Israeli Weapons Industry is looking to open a factory in Vietnam to produce weapons for the Far East market. They could invest up to $100 million int he plant. The Vietnamese military have adopted a wide range of Israeli small arms [Read More…]
Vietnam Navy Special Forces are now being equipped with IMI Tavor TAR-21 rifles. Skip to 01:00 in the video below … In the video above the optics mounted have been covered up, which is suspicious. A Vietnamese news website reports them as using EOTech sights. Some [Read More…]
Keen-eyed reader Lance spotted these photos on Wikipedia … They could be captured Colt Commando carbines, but given the condition that appear to be in, I think it is more likely that they have been purchasing Norinco CQ 5.56mm carbines. [ Many thanks to Lance for [Read More…]
In the upcoming November issue of Esquire, there will be an article entitled “How They Were Betrayed”. It is an adaption of a chapter from C.J. Chivers new book “THE GUN” … The unnecessary bloodshed and lives lost were tied to an American [Read More…]
This pistol, chambered in 6.5x50mm Arisaka, was purportedly found in a South Vietnamese rice paddy. I cannot tell if the photo it is real or a fake. The front sight is far to low, unless there is a hole drilled into that metal block above the chamber. [ Many thanks to [Read More…]
I came across Imperial Defense, a British company, who manufacturer M16 and M4 clones. According to this post at the MP.net forum, the guns are manufactured in Vietnam! This makes Vietnam the second communist country to manufacture M16s. I would guess that the guns are [Read More…]
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