#HowItWorks

Revolvers are sometimes revered as being really simple self-defense tools compared to semi-automatic pistols, although, if you’ve ever seen the inside of one, you’d quickly notice that the operation is far from simple. I’ve enjoyed all sorts of wheelguns for decades now, but I was usually overwhelmed by trying to learn all of the internal components that make revolvers tick. Othais at the C&Rsenal YouTube channel has come to rescue me and those that have felt that same desire to know more, yet didn’t have a good 101 source, namely, Revolver 101, to lay it down in simple terms. Othais was generous in giving TFB permission to embed the video and to use some screenshots from it for TFB’s Wheelgun Wednesday.

A couple of months ago I had the chance to field strip a Heckler & Koch G11, the caseless ammunition-firing assault rifle. There are few experimental weapons that have cultivated myth and reputation like Heckler & Koch’s G11 and it was a privilege to take a look inside one.

The Russian PKM: Arguably the best general purpose machine gun in the world, it combines a robust reliability with best-in-class light weight. Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons recently released two video overviews of the weapon, giving us a good enough excuse as any to spend some time with the Soviet showstopper:

The following is an article that was originally written in Russian by TFB contributor Maxim Popenker, and Andrey Ulanov, and translated to English by Peter Samsonov. With their permission, I have replicated the text here, and edited it, for the enrichment of you, our readers!

The recent controversy regarding the drop safety characteristics of SIG’s P320 handgun has some taking a closer look at their handguns. Drop safety is something that – in theory – is so mature in modern handguns that it should be a non-issue, but with so many different variations on the same theme ( that theme being “Glock”) in the market today, how do we know these guns are really as safe as they could be? With that in mind, it’s worth taking a closer look at what makes a modern striker-fired handgun drop safe, and that’s just what Tom Jones of Pistol-Training.com has given us in a recent forum post. Jones lays out what makes a Glock a “Glock”, in other words, the carefully designed safety features of the company’s handguns which make them as difficult to accidentally discharge as possible:

Prior to taking the Glock Armorers course, I didn’t pay much attention to how a Glock functioned. I knew it worked and that was enough for me, but to understand how to diagnose the rare issues that might pop up with Glocks you need to understand how they work. During the class my instructor did a wonderful job of explaining how things work, but what took him close to a half an hour, Lone Wolf has done in about 7 minutes with their latest video.

Today we know the Kalashnikov family of rifles as one of the most successful and reliable weapon families ever designed. Even as the rifle’s legend has begun to be peeled back, the weapon’s reputation for reliability is still largely unquestioned, and many consider it to be the most reliable individual automatic weapon ever made.

Locking systems we have previously covered include tilting barrel locking, the most common pistol locking mechanism, and rotary bolt locking, the most common rifle locking mechanism. However, at one time another locking mechanism was widely believed to be optimum for military rifles, due to its simplicity of manufacture and compact design. This was the tilting bolt locking mechanism, and it was incorporated into many famous and successful designs, including the SVT-40, SKS, StG-44, and FN FAL.

Previously on Operating Systems 101, we discussed the straight blowback method of firearms operation; today we’ll be talking about its close cousin, API blowback. “API” stands for advance primer ignition, which refers to the chief way that the mechanism differs from its pure cousin. We’ll get to that in a bit, but first we need to discuss the concepts of open bolt and closed bolt operation.

In this 201-level post on the devices and mechanisms that automatic firearms use to do their work, we’ll be discussing a distinction between two very similar types of gas systems. These are what’s commonly known as the “Ljungmann-type” gas system (called so after a Swede, even though in reality a Frenchman invented it decades earlier) and “Stoner-type” gas system. Both are forms of what’s called “direct impingement”, a term which has two different meanings, one of which we’ll discuss today

We introduced you to the concept of locking in a previous one of our 201-level posts on how firearms work, and today we’re going to talk about what has become the most common locking mechanism for rifles: Rotary locking. If to lock an action, you need to create an interference between the breechblock and the barrel, one of the most intuitive ways to do this is the same way a barrel bolt latch works.

What makes an automatic (or semiautomatic) weapon work? How do these weapons accomplish being able to fire round after round through a single barrel with no interference from the operator? That’s what I aim to explain in this series, which hopefully will give my readers a brief and readily accessible foundation on firearms operating mechanisms. For some of you, many of these articles will not tell you anything you don’t already know, but be patient: I plan to be very thorough in my coverage of different operating mechanisms. The scope of this series will be the operating mechanisms of single-barreled firearms, minus their feeding mechanisms (which I will cover separately).

We posted up earlier on C&Rsenal’s awesome video on how the German Gewehr 1891 functioned. Turns out that C&Rsenal has been busy putting together similar information on the myriad of small arms that were used in The Great War.

Arguably one of the most simplistic handguns, Glocks are lauded for their ease of use and servicing, even for the individual. While most firearms enthusiasts can see how the handgun works by taking it apart (as I did), Glock does produce factory cut-away models, which 7.62x51n80 got his hands on and was kind to share with the world.

Most military members take the arcane workings of their rifle for granted. Even an avid shooter myself, I was NEVER allowed to do maintenance on my M-16 fire control group while I was in the Corps. While some might argue this is a good thing considering that many members of the military are not interested in firearms, I firmly believe that everyone should know their weapon inside and out – especially if there is an issue.