After World War II, US Army analysts determined that the effectiveness of the infantryman was not as closely related to their marksmanship discipline as had been previously thought. It seemed that instead, the random environmental circumstances and effects, plus the [Read More…]
In the latest installment of the Indian next generation rifle procurement saga, the nation-subcontinent has decided to forgo their “Excalibur” rifle development program, which consisted of essentially a product-improved INSAS rifle, in favor of a new [Read More…]
When dealing with conventional automatic or semiautomatic man portable firearms, a failure to fire usually results in one having to manually clear the misfired round and chamber a new one. What if there were a firearm that would automatically eject the misfired round [Read More…]
Unknown belt-fed pistol. Anyone read Cyrillic? Looks like it is a 7.62mm and possibly 20rd belt? I think the hook protruding out the back might be the charging handle? Is this pistol semi auto or manually actuated? Perhaps it is like a revolver and the trigger advances [Read More…]
Previously, we looked at the incredible damage and penetration caused by the US Army’s new M855A1 Enhanced Performance Round (EPR), thanks to a video published by William of the Wound Channel. What happens, though, when that kind of performance is scaled up to .30 [Read More…]
A trend towards ever more powerful and longer-ranged ammunition was cut short by the realities of the First World War: Technologies not previously invented or accounted for, such as the man-reaping machine gun and the portable infantry mortar, made the existing infantry [Read More…]
Recently, the New Zealand Defence Force selected Lewis Machine & Tool Company to be the supplier of rifles to replace their aging Austrian-designed Steyr AUG bullpups. The exact model of rifle was not revealed in the press release regarding LMT’s selection, [Read More…]
A week ago, Alex C. and Miles Vining pitted the Russian Mosin-Nagant against the German Mauser Gewehr 98 in a battle royale shootout to see which was the best rifle. Unsurprising to some, and outrageous to others, Paul Mauser’s masterpiece took home the gold and [Read More…]
At this point, I’ve written relatively few articles about small arms design in general, due to my time going to a certain other writing project. However, small arms design and theory has always captivated me, since the beginning of my interest in firearms. Ian [Read More…]
On Saturday, I reported that the Bundeswehr has purchased 600 HK417/G27P rifles and 600 MG4 machine guns to replace/supplement G36 rifles on the front lines. The initial run of German language-articles, especially when translated, appeared to say that these purchases [Read More…]
In a surprising move, the German Defense Ministry has accepted an order of 600 new rifles and 600 machine guns to replace the troubled HK G36 that was savaged by scandal earlier this year. Their choice? The 7.62x51mm HK 417 rifle. The Local reports: Junior Defence [Read More…]
Gun writer Ronaldo Olive sends along these photos of an ammunition cache sunk in the waters of Paranoá Lake in Brasília. Ronaldo writes: Guess what, my friends! Some people fishing in the Paranoá Lake, in Brasília, last week started catching, probably in their [Read More…]
The New Zealand Army has been looking to replace their aging Steyr AUG rifles for some time. The New Zealand Ministry of Defense held trials to select a successor, competing in which were Beretta, CZ, Colt Canada, FNH, Steyr, SIG, H&K, and LMT. It was recently [Read More…]
Two weeks ago, Janes reported that production of the Turkish MPT-76 rifle had begun. The rifle is a 7.62mm caliber derivative of the German HK417 rifle, itself a derivative of the AR-15 series of rifles. The MPT-76 inherits the operating rod mechanism of the G36 through [Read More…]
At the NDIA conference, Nammo gave a presentation on their new lineup of armor-piercing ammunition. Nammo produces both the tungsten cored AP rounds in use with the US Armed Forces: The 7.62mm M993 and 5.56mm M995. Aside from data on these previously enigmatic round [Read More…]
Project SALVO’s experiments with multiple projectile ammunition did, surprisingly, result in the production of service ammunition. The 7.62mm M198 Duplex round was an attempt to improve the short-range combat effectiveness of the M14 rifle (so far as this author [Read More…]
Bob Holloway, then of Fort Worth, Texas, in the 1980s built on his experiences in Southeast Asia and Rhodesia to design a .308 caliber military rifle, what eventually became the HAC-7. His rifle was an amalgamation of Armalite, FN, and Kalashnikov designs, with a [Read More…]
SWR have published some interesting videos to their Youtube channel recently. In their latest video they use a balloon, a high-speed video camera and their new SWR Specwar 762 suppressor to show the difference in muzzle blast between a suppressed and [Read More…]
New Zealand Defence Force is switching from the 5.56mm FN Minimi to the 7.62mm FN Minimi as their standard Light Support Weapon (LSW). This continues the general trend across the globe of moving away from the 5.56mm round for everything but assault rifles. The [Read More…]
The H&K MR762A1 LRP (Long Range Package) is the civilian version of the H&K G28 rifle, Germany’s new Designated Marksmen Rifle. Taking an essentially standard MR762A1 (caliber 7.62 x 51 mm NATO) semi-automatic rifle, Heckler & Koch USA [Read More…]
Geissele is producing a special run of semi-automatic triggers for the HK417. They are modified Geissele HK417 SSF (Super Select Fire) triggers from a canceled order. If you have a H&K MR762, this trigger would be a good upgrade over the stock H&K trigger.
The legendary REMOV sent us photos of the new Polish UKM-2013 machine gun that is set to be unveiled later this week at the MSPO International Military Expo … REMOV says … There is a proposal of modernization of the Polish UKM-2000 general purpose machine [Read More…]
Later this month IWI will officially unveil their new NEGEV NG7 Machine Gun. It will be chambered in 7.62x51mm but retain the same size as the standard model IWI Negev. The company is calling it “the World’s Only 7.62mm Caliber Light Machine Gun with [Read More…]
I shot the new consumer 7.62mm HK762A1 (H&K417) for the first time at Media Day. There were so many people queuing to shoot it I only got to shoot about 7 rounds. I fired those 7 rounds off as fast as possible (as I usually do) and it felt good. It is heavy, like [Read More…]
FN Herstal is officially debuting the 7.62x51mm FN SCAR-H PR (Precision Rifle) at the MILIPOL Paris expo this week. The production version of this rifle looks slightly different from the prototype we saw last year. FN has replaced the awkward looking, but weight saving, [Read More…]
Turkish firm KALEKALIP has designed a nifty looking new battle rifle for the Turkish Army that will be manufactured by MKEK. The rifle is chambered in 7.62x51mm NATO and uses a gas piston and rotating bolt action. The barrel is 16″ in length. The total length is [Read More…]
David Crane of DefenseReview has confirmed the existence of the Colt CM901 (7.62mm Battle Rifle) whose existence was first revealed by Solider Systems a few days ago. David said in a comment on TFB … I test-fired the CM901 on both semi-auto and full-auto about two [Read More…]
Blain at ARFCOM reports … I felt the stiff recoil from the explosion at the same time as hearing the blast, and feeling the hot hair blow in my face, and through my hair. I knew what had happened. Something, I had heard of happening with bad rounds (Indian, [Read More…]
The Remington Semi-Auto Sniper System (RSASS) is a prototype 7.62x51mm rifle. It features a full length rail, uses Magpul 7.62mm magazines and has a left-side foldable charging handle. Nice! I stole these photos from the AAC Blog … I am a little surprised to see [Read More…]
Steve Adelmann of Shooting Illustrated discusses his quest to find a decent H&K G3 clone … Though the heavily seasoned G3A3 I carried wasn’t accurized, a few simple modifications reconfigured it well enough for mountain fighting without sacrificing [Read More…]