Faxon Firearms is showing the new ARAK-21 uppers at the 2014 SHOT Show in Las Vegas. The units are piston AR uppers designed to be used with any milspec lower. The ARAK-21 has a folding charging handle (non-reciprocating) that can be user-located on the right or [Read More…]
With $700 AR15 rifles everywhere, it is hard to sell the American public on more expensive semi-automatic modern sporting rifles no matter how many bells and whistles said rifles may have. As such, the Robinson XCR is a rifle that you do not see too often at the range, [Read More…]
Who doesn’t love a sub-gun? Blasting through cases of cheap pistol ammo is my favorite way of turning money into noise, and I imagine with the new Sig MPX series that amount of fun would be amplified. The MPX is an extremely compact, magazine fed, selective fire [Read More…]
Kel Tec is revealing two new bullpups at Shot Show this year with their RDB and M43. Scaling down from their successful RFB .308 rifle, the RDB and M43 are both .223 bullpup rifles using downward brass ejection system rather than the forward system of the RFB. The RDB [Read More…]
When I first started shooting AR’s I was more than satisfied to buy one off the shelf. In the last few years I was leaning more and more toward building my own. What I really wanted was an AR that I built using parts I thought to be some of the best on the market. [Read More…]
ATI has been competing with a number of other companies to create a true polymer lower for over a year now. ATI had created the first OMNI polymer lower, which was reviewed here at TheFirearmBlog in February of 2013. While the reviewer here had no problems with the [Read More…]
Despite a previous ban, the Norinco T97 is quickly becoming one of the most popular black rifles in Canada. It is a .223 bullpup with a 19” barrel that uses a short stroke gas piston and a rotating bolt, along with a reciprocating charging handle. At its core, the [Read More…]
Taurus has released a new 9mm carbine onto the US market, which prompts the question: why do people buy 9mm carbines? As I see it, the interest in this type of gun comes from two main groups: folks with tactical reasoning in mind, and purely recreational shooters. For [Read More…]
The DPMS LR-308 is not a new rifle by any means. In 2005 the original LR-308 was named “Gun of the Year” by the NRA publication, American Rifleman. Since 2005 DPMS has released 8 different rifles built on the same receiver in various in different [Read More…]
The Romanian Army has publicly unveiled the prototype of their new 5.56x45mm service rifle at the Expomil 2013 military exhibition in Bucharest. The rifle does not yet have an official name and is just being referred to as the “New 5.56mm Army Rifle”. [Read More…]
At a recent event in Liberec, Ceska Zbrojovka unveiled three new rifles. The upgraded CZ 805A2 BREN (photos below) has a number of external and internal changes including a new charging handle, selector switch and flash hider. The BREN will now be available in a [Read More…]
The Masterpiece Arms MPAR 556 is now shipping and can be purchased from your local dealer. For those not familiar with the rifle, it is a piston-driven rifle that looks similar to the AR-15. Some parts are interchangeable with AR-15 rifles, such as the magazines, [Read More…]
DRD Tactical has updated their branding. Their Generation 2 takedown 7.62mm rifle (pictured above) will be called the Paratus P762 Gen-2. I am not sure what the changes are, but I can see that the handguard design has been changed and the receiver is slightly [Read More…]
I was cleaning my guns the other day and came to the end where I was packing away my tools, and throwing away dirty patches. When I was folding up my cleaning pad, to my dismay I saw a tiny spring and had no idea which gun it came from. A felt a small sinking […] [Read More…]
Last month we announced that Taurus was shipping their new 9mm Taurus CT9 carbine. The company has just announced they are now shipping both the CT9 and the .40 S&W version the CT40. These guns have been a long time coming. From the press release … Taurus®, [Read More…]
VLTOR has built quite a name for themselves by producing quality products for the firearm industry for quite a while, and we here at The Firearm Blog were very excited when we learned that they would now be producing their own rifle to sell in house (albeit using some [Read More…]
Amalgamated Ti is a new AR-15 receiver and parts manufacturer who plan on bringing their products to market later this year. As their name suggests, their parts will all be made from titanium. The benefit of using titanium it has a much better weight to strength [Read More…]
Introduction: In 2010, prominent AR15 manufacturer Bushmaster Firearms announced that it was moving its manufacturing operations from Windham, Maine to Ilion, New York. This relocation came at the behest of Freedom Group, Inc., who had acquired Bushmaster (with a host [Read More…]
The Taiwanese military have been developing a modern assault rifle since 2008. Four years ago they unveiled their first prototype, named the Type XT97. The latest prototype has just been unveiled and we were lucky enough to have been sent detailed photos of the new [Read More…]
Introduction: As a long-time Arsenal fan and owner, I was thrilled to discover that I would be reviewing the Arsenal SAM7SF, which Arsenal has ambitiously termed the “Game Changer.” Much of this excitement derived from the fact that this new AK-pattern [Read More…]
Semiauto rifles are taken for granted today – every military in the world uses them, they are the mainstay of many types of competition, most police forces, and a great many hunters. And yet, the self-loading rifle in a full size military cartridge only became [Read More…]
UPDATE: I got this one wrong. It is the Beretta 1301 Competition. I want! (Thanks Tyler for identifying it). About 20 minutes ago someone at @Beretta_USA, the official Beretta USA twitter account, tweeted the above photo with the message “Having dinner with the [Read More…]
Al Jazeera has published a video (embedded below) on the attacks on moderate Muslim clerics in Afghanistan who criticize the Taliban and the violence the Taliban inflict on the population. One of clerics profiled shows his three gun arsenal. Along with a pistol and a [Read More…]
The GFG Side Charger is a replacement charging handle for the AR-15 that wraps around the receiver allowing it to be manipulated from the side of the receiver rather than the rear of the receiver. Its main advantage over an extended latch charging handle, such as [Read More…]
Swiss manufacturer Brügger & Thomet has a civilian model of the APC9 SMG currently available in Finland. Designated the APC9 Suomi (literally Finland or Finnish), this 9x19mm semi-auto sub-carbine has one distinct feature for the Finnish market – a fixed [Read More…]
I wouldn’t hesitate at all in saying the Tavor is one of the most anticipated guns to come down the pike in a good while. We have had a pretty good wait before they finally arrived on the market but as I write this distributors are beginning to get them in quantity. [Read More…]
I somehow missed the Beretta ARX100 at the company’s NRA Show 2013 booth the first few times I visited – I saw the Pico due to word of mouth, but no one really seemed to talk about the ARX100, the US-made semi auto version of their ARX160 select fire 5.56mm [Read More…]
Magpul announced a slew of new products last week, and I had a chance to examine them firsthand at the NRA show in Houston, Texas. Probably the most notable were the MBUS Pro backup sights made of metal, not Magpul’s signature polymer. At first I wasn’t sure [Read More…]
Matthew Cox at Military.com has broken the news that the Pentagon has finally got its way and the Individual Carbine Competition will be cancelled. The U.S. Army plans to cancel its Improved Carbine competition before conducting the final, soldier-evaluation portion of [Read More…]
(This Article first appeared in Small Arms Review in 2012) Miles Vining This is the first part of a two-part article on the new M27 automatic rifle, now in service with the United States Marine Corps. The first part will cover initial use and training while the second [Read More…]