#Britain

A university student in the UK has been convicted of firearms offences after being found in possession of two 3D printed guns. Tendai Muswere, 26, a student at London South Bank University and Zimbabwean national admitted printing a Washbear PM522 revolver and a Hexen .22 pepper-box using a 3D printer at his flat in Pimlico, south London in October 2017. According to him he printed the guns for the purpose of being used in a dystopian film project related to a film, cinema and video studies course he had attended.

After World War II, the UK sought to modernize its small arms, many of which were based on designs originating from before the First World War. For its medium machine gun, the British were still using the reliable but increasingly obsolete Vickers water cooled gun in .303 caliber. With the adoption of the 7.62 NATO by the UK, trials were held to select a new air-cooled general purpose machine gun, which resulted in the adoption of the excellent Belgian MAG. In these trials, however, was tested a belt-fed variant of the magazine-fed Bren gun, called the X11E4. This gun is the subject of an article over at The Armourer’s Bench, as well as an accompanying TAB video, embedded below:

Dan Fritter took this photo of the Canadian Historical Arms Museum’s EM-2 rifle.

The Sten machine carbine was one of the most hastily completed and most expediently made submachine gun of the Second World War. Although it was reliable, a number of users didn’t like it simply because they saw it as a cheap pipe gun created as a last ditch effort. Nonetheless, there were a number of suppressed versions of it, two of the most prominent featured here, the Mk. II(S) and the Mk.VI with the wooden stock and furniture. Initially, the first suppressed version created for SOE was a Mk. II with a suppressor that was 22 inches in length, horribly heavy and unwieldy for the operations that the British clandestine service found themselves in most of the time.

Recently we’ve been looking at a number of high-profile developments that came out of Special Operations Executive. Namely the infamous Welrod and Welwyn suppressed devices, and the Norm and Welgun experimental submachine guns. In this video, we take a look at some of the much lesser-known developments of the spy organization during the Second World War. A fully automatic .22 LR Colt Woodsman that had an excessive rate of fire, a hip mounted handgun that was designed to be shot while the user had their hands in the air, some fascinating cover stories that allowed the gunmaker John Wilkes Brothers to modify and repair small arms for SOE, and finally a highly modified and integrally suppressed M1 Carbine. Some of these small arms armed the agents parachuting into Fortress Europe and across lands captured by Imperial Japan, while others barely left the drawing board and served more as experiments of curiosity. However, all of these weapons were indicative of a time when the Allies were willing to throw any amount of effort at even a half-baked idea that would get Hitler or Tojo to surrender their empires quicker.

The Welrod and Welwand are fascinating objects of a bygone era of espionage. Invented specifically for the British Special Operations Executive, they were purely weapons of assassination for use inside Fortress Europe or against Imperial Japanese Military officers. So effective and reliable were these weapons that the Welrod is reported to have been in active service until very recently behind the closed doors history of the British Special Air Service.

The De Lisle Commando Carbine has fascinated small arms enthusiasts since knowledge of it became widespread after the Second World War. Almost entering myth like lore, it is claimed to have been the quietest weapon ever issued and used by Allied forces both in the European and Pacific theaters of war. Only 129 are known to have been produced on a production line (there might have been more but we only have 129 recorded) and were mostly issued to Special Operations Executive (SOE), Royal Marine Commandos and in very rare cases some American special operations forces during the war.

Unlike in the United States, Britain requires that every single firearm imported, produced, or modified on the isle to be “proofed”. This means that at least two high-pressure charges be fired through that firearm before it can be allowed for public sale or usage. Proofing has been an official regulation since the 1600s when numerous Gunmakers put their heads together and asked that a standard be set for their industry. The problem they were trying to solve was that there were too many inconsistencies within firearms of the period and customers were suffering from this through improperly made guns. Today Britain follows the CIP standards set forth by a number of European countries. In the United States we have SAAMI which although is very similar, it isn’t government sanctioned as CIP is.

Burgeoning channels The Great War and C&Rsenal continue to expand their partnership on coverage of the First World War in ever more interesting ways. While C&Rsenal focuses on individual weapons in their deep-dive “Primers”, The Great War continues to put their use into an extremely large picture perspective. Fortunately for us, we do not have to parts the micro and macro by watching both and the two channels partner on live streaming episodes that give a broader view with details of weapons from individual countries in World War One.

William Evans is one of the London Gunmakers and has been around since 1883. Their primary gun room is located in the Mayfair district of London, just down the road from some of the other Gunmakers, such as Holland & Holland and James Purdey & Sons. The company sports an outstanding array of high-end shotguns and rifles for the discerning customer. Being in business for over a century, the staff at William Evans Ltd, knows how to take care of a customer’s needs when it comes to choosing a shotgun or rifle. But not only does the company have firearms, but an entire line of clothing, shooting accessories, ammunition, and all sorts of outdoors equipment needs to stay comfortable afield.

Our first episode with Callum from English Shooting covered the intricacies of the laws and regulations that govern firearm and shotgun ownership in the United Kingdom. But in this episode, we discuss the growing sport of Practical Shooting. Essentially based on Three Gun, or Two Gun in the United States, the sport is appealing to British shooters for a number of reasons, one of which is that it offers a diverse and changing environment for shooters to compete in, unlike anything that has been available before.

TFB TV pairs up with Callum from English Shooting, a British Channel devoted to discussing the shooting sports in the United Kingdom. Callum talks about the differences between a Firearms and Shotgun Certificate, the various options out there when it comes to semi-automatic, pump action shotguns in addition to all things .22 LR which is very popular in Britain due to the laws not covering the cartridge. In addition we receive some excellent information on the cap & ball firearms in the UK, which are also extremely popular.

Images from a joint European/ U.S. lead paratrooper training exercise named Swift Response in June of 2016 have shown that the Rheinmetall Defense Light Laser Module Mk.3 is being used on operations with the British Paratroopers, aka “Paras”. Initially the LLM Mk.3 was procured by the Ministry of Defense for the Royal Marines in 2014 under a £53 million purchase of a number of other items. However, it appears that the Marines haven’t been using the picatinny mounted ATPIAL on operations outside of Britain, or at least images and news reports of the branch do not show them being used. Their issue among the Paras could possibly be because the Marines ended up not liking the devices, and transferred them to the Parachute Regiment, or this could possibly be a completely different purchase altogether. We have some reports of the Marines using the device in training with this sketch from a Commando Course blog entry recently-

It’s not just the Yanks that are getting improved ammunition: Our friends across the pond have developed their own firepower upgrade for 5.56mm and 7.62mm weapons alike. Jane’s has a modest article on the subject, while The Register provides a quite good overview of exactly what the new rounds are and what they mean for today’s Tommy:

Scotland Yard publicly showcased its latest Counter Terrorism Unit dubbed C-Men in an article by the Dailymail.