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…]
DPM Systems Technologies showed its new AK-platform recoil reduction system at the recent SHOT Show in Las Vegas. Called the Telescopic Recoil System, the unit is designed as a direct replacement for the stock guide rod assembly. DPM Systems Technologies advises the way [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…]
Kit sent us photos of his customized Century Arms Mini Draco …. This gun started out as a Mini Draco pistol. I added a Midwest Industries quad rail and a Texas Weapons Systems top cover and stuck a Bushnell TRS-25 red dot on the TWS rail for lower third [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…]
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…]
For the last few months, I have been using Magpul AK polymer furniture on my Kalashnikov rifle. The Magpul polymers transformed my Krebs special edition Early Afgan War pattern AK74 to something a bit more modern looking. My AK74 originally came with orange color [Read More…]
Gun safes have been on our minds as of late thanks to a recent rush of said safes on the market. Among those recently announced: Winchester’s 150th Anniversary safe and Realtree’s under-the-bed and stackable safe. Just how theft-proof is your safe? [Read More…]
After 4 years of inspection by the RCMP lab, they’ve determined that the Type 81 is definitely not an AK. While at first glance you might be forgiven in thinking this Chi-Com creation is a descendant of the Kalashnikov, it actually uses a short stroke piston and [Read More…]
There is some shooting gear that just doesn’t receive the attention and press it deserves, and the shooting mat is one such product. It may not be exciting but it’s extremely useful; if you have ever found yourself without one when one was needed then you [Read More…]
Tim from Military Arms Channel was able to get his hands on a Daewoo K2, an interesting derivative of the base AR-15 that has some features reminiscent of the venerable AK platform. The rifle itself has an interesting history, which ends with it still being in service [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…]
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…]
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…]
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…]
Gun storage is something that comes up with increasing frequency in my house thanks to the way our firearms seem to multiply like rabbits. Efficient organizing is something else I, personally, attempt to carry out, and that certainly comes into play with storing [Read More…]
Huffington Post is reporting that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit said: Maryland’s prohibition on what the court called “the vast majority of semi-automatic rifles commonly kept by several million American citizens” amounted to a [Read More…]
Century Arms, Inc. is now subject to a class-action lawsuit filed on January 19th over defective AK-47 safety / selectors. In short, the lawsuit claims that the safety / selector used on most Century Arms AK’s after 1995 are capable of moving past safe and when [Read More…]
So this video came out on Youtube recently, and it shows a fellow demonstrating a technique to hold open the bolt of a Kalashnikov operating system to the rear. In the way that he describes it, this technique would really only be applicable to keeping the bolt to the [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…]
Winchester was founded in 1866 and as you all know the legendary company is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. That celebration kicked off at SHOT and will be continuing throughout the year. Next on the celebration agenda is an anniversary safe which was part [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…]
An artist by the name of Lorin Michki has been making pen drawings of firearms for some years now, to combine his passion of shooting with his passion of art, and expressing the two together. I first heard of him through the various Facebook groups I’m apart of [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…]
While it is true there are a number of cleaning and lubricant products for firearms on the market, it is also true they are not all created equal. Some work better than others, some do not work at all, and some actually create the opposite effect the user is hoping for [Read More…]
I am not really sure what the point of this was. Mythbusters debunked this a while ago and proved that bullets fired into water and fired under water do not have the energy to cause damage. However it is still interesting to watch. Andreas Wahl uses what appears to be a [Read More…]
The vz. 58 is a rifle well-known for being easily mistaken for – but totally different from – an AK. Everything down to the locking mechanism, fire control group, and operating mechanism is different from the famous Kalashnikov, despite appearances. In fact, [Read More…]
We all know that when the importation of Saiga rifles and shotguns was halted as a result of some political nonsense that we aren’t going to dive into several companies made a go at filling that void. Sadly nothing was quite what the market wanted as a replacement [Read More…]
EAA (European American Army) Corp. has some new items and some updated items at SHOT Show 2016. EAA has a polymer 1911 in 45 and soon in 9mm. The .45acp version retails for $580. Last June I posted about the ABDO conceal carry box. It is a large box disguised as [Read More…]