Nathaniel is a history enthusiast and firearms hobbyist whose primary interest lies in military small arms technological developments beginning with the smokeless powder era. He can be reached via email at nathaniel.f@staff.thefirearmblog.com.
We’ve all heard the line about how the AK-47 is so simple a child could use it (usually followed by a nod and a wink and a dark joke about child soldiers), but how does it really shake out as a simple-to-use weapon of poorly educated peasants? William of The [Read More…]
Dust, mud, dirt, sand: Ideally, a firearm should be kept clean and free of debris so that it functions optimally at all times. After all, the user’s life may depend on the firearm working properly! Sometimes, though, the worst happens and a firearm is exposed to [Read More…]
Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone who uses guns for long enough will make a mistake or two. Sometimes, though, they make those mistakes at the most cringe-inducing times (such as this famous incident from 2004 involving a DEA agent). Unfortunately, gunsmith and [Read More…]
The terminal effectiveness of modern bullets has been the subject of much study, but less well scrutinized have been the projectiles of rifles before 1900, fired by the blackpowder weapons that armed men throughout the age of empires. Fortunately, the Hungarian channel [Read More…]
Soon after SHOT 2015, Beretta announced a new striker fired, polymer framed handgun for civilian, LE, and most importantly military sales. A chassis-based handgun with interchangeable grips, the APX – as it was dubbed – was clearly designed with the US [Read More…]
When faced with large, dangerous game set on ending your life before you end theirs, there really is no substitute for raw power. That’s a fact that African big game hunters throughout history have recognized, and reflective of this are the huge, cannonesque [Read More…]
So you want to buy an AK, but don’t know where to start, eh? Well, don’t worry about it because as the kids say these days “there’s an app for that”. The famous Soviet Kalashnikov rifle has become something of a redheaded stepchild on the [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…]
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…]
After the Wednesday round of the 2016 SHOT Show, I sat down for an evening of quiet work, to finish up a few articles I had from the day’s show-trekking. Less than an hour later, I was standing in a crowd at Battlefield Vegas, watching a Chieftain tank crush a [Read More…]
The technology of 3D printing has begun to proliferate in the firearms world, and designs that were once essentially novelty project guns have evolved and been further refined into actual working, shooting firearms of reasonable effectiveness. 3D printed guns have come [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…]
It seems the Norwegian military is in financial trouble! The Norwegian Ministry of Defense has issued a statement saying that they will no longer be able to equip officers and other personnel with both a rifle and pistol, and therefore pistols issued to such personnel [Read More…]
The most consistent request I received in the comments of my Weight Omnibus posts (if you didn’t catch them, here are Part I, Part II, and Part III) was to continue to expand the content of this series, both in the guns measured and the analysis of them. Further [Read More…]
Since the announcement that Fabryka Broni is seeking to import the MSBS modular rifle into the United States civilian market, there has been a great deal of discussion about the relationship of the MSBS to the Remington ACR or Magpul Masada. The two rifles are very [Read More…]
The Fedorov Avtomat is an important milestone in the history of modern small arms. With the Federov, for the first time, an individual soldier could possess automatic firepower in a package small enough to move and fight with, while at the same time [Read More…]
Shopping for a new handgun is often a chore for those familiar with the market, and downright bewildering for those just being introduced to it. What should I buy, a striker-fired, hammer fired, DA/SA, SAO, DAO, semiautomatic, or revolver? Caliber? Is 9mm good enough, [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…]
The US Army’s Armament Research, Development, and Engineering Center (ARDEC) has developed an integral surface treatment for infantry small arms that could augment or supplant the existing applicated Cleaning, Lubricating, Preserving (CLP) lubricant on small arms [Read More…]
The Polish government has greenlit the adoption of the MSBS rifle platform, pending state tests of the weapon, ahead and independent of the larger scope rearmament program “Titan” (sometimes also rendered “Titanium”). The reason for this is the [Read More…]
In 2013, SMG Guns announced their reproduction Type II Fallschirmjägergewehr FG-42 paratroop rifles. These recreated the late-model German FG-42s with some improvements in semi-auto form. Now, SMG Guns has released a promo video for their new Type I FG-42, reproducing [Read More…]
Gardening and guns, they go together, right? Well, that’s apparently what Per Cromwell of Swedish “guerrilla” marketing group Studio Total thought when he came up with the idea of the “Flower Shell”, a 12 Gauge shotgun shell that shoots [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…]
Remington has met two major milestones in its agreement with Madison County, Alabama regarding its new facility in Huntsville. The new location will become the central production facility for Remington Arms, with only the original Ilion, NY plant remaining open. [Read More…]
The Czech Republic has announced that it will donate obsolete vz. 58 rifles, both new and used, to the Iraqi and Kurdish regional government. The vz. 58 is an unusual assault rifle often confused with the famous Kalashnikov pattern of rifles, but very different [Read More…]
Standard-issue pistol-making hopefuls have an extended deadline for their submissions to the future US Army handgun competition, the Modular Handgun System. The program, which will choose a new handgun to be the “M17 Modular Handgun System”, originally had a [Read More…]
The KAC Light Machine Gun is a weapon that appears in media often, but has so far existed in the real world as a prototype only. Knight’s Armament Company announced at the 2016 SHOT Show that the thirty-year development of the weapon was nearing its conclusion and [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…]
The SlideFire stock is an idea that pushes the boundaries of what the ATF considers acceptable for a Title I firearm. Without diving into the world of the National Firearms Act, a Slide-Fire stock is the closest you can get to a fully automatic weapon of your very own. [Read More…]
Your Privacy Choices