#MaDeuce

Looking for moments when a great photographer meets soldiers and their firearms? Look no further, TFB’s daily Photo Of The Day article series is where you will find these. Above, and around, you see the Browning M2HB with U.S. Marines with the Ground Combat Element, Marine Rotational Force – Darwin. They have taken a defensive position during the final live-fire range, to be able to destroy simulated enemy forces.

Photo Of The Day: Some duties in the military may be rather boring, but machine gun training must be on top of the list of how much fun you can have. Here we’re looking at U.S. Marines with the 2d Battalion, 2d Marines, as they conduct a live-fire with the M2 .50 caliber machine gun during Fuji Viper 21.4. The location is the Combined Arms Training Center, Camp Fuji in Japan.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of  The Rimfire Report! This ongoing series is all about rimfire firearms, ammunition, practices, and trends. This week we’ll be taking a look at a piece of rimfire belt-fed goodness in the form of a rimfire Ma Deuce or M2. No matter how you take it, belt-fed guns are just somehow more fun. I don’t know if it is just the mechanical complexity behind them or the whole operation of the firearm but I know that anytime I get a chance to shoot a belt-fed, I’ll immediately take it.

Being a defense show rather than a firearms industry show, there are a bunch of interesting products to see at AUSA that one might not get a peek at elsewhere. An example of this kind of product is the Modular Interlocking Ballistic Barriers from KF Armory. These barriers are made of a solid proprietary rubber-like material, can absorb impacts up to .50 cal (for the variant rated for that round), and can be assembled into walls and structures in very little time.

The US Army has begun a program to create a lightweight .50 caliber machine gun to replace the venerable M2 Browning. The program will, like the M240L machine gun, use titanium to reduce weight by 20-30 percent. Scout.com and NationalInterest.org both have stories on the subject. The following is from Scout.com: