Until the mid 20th century the method used to produce lead shot was to drop molten lead from a great height into water. The liquid lead’s surface tension would form it into almost perfect spheres and it would cool as it fell. The water would break the fall and the [Read More…]
In 2003 a British Colonel found two British WWI 18 pounder field guns hidden in the desert sand at an Iraqi Army base. The guns were taken back to Britain and BAE restored them back to “service condition”.
This article was written by Claymore. Hold onto your seats TFB readers you are about to see something that I’m 99.9% sure has NEVER been seen before. Like most people interested in firearms I was working under the incorrect impression that the first AK-47s came [Read More…]
The photo of the captured Georgian Bushmaster M4 Carbine was apparently taken in the Central Armed Forces Museum, Moscow, Russia. A reader emailed us photos be took of the many interesting firearms on display at the museum … I hope to visit Russia myself one day. [Read More…]
One of our readers sent us this photo of a Permuras Aceh (Malay/Aceh Style Blunderbuss) from the 19th century. Looks like those things could be a loaded with a lot of shot (or stones or whatever else was available). I also like the interesting mix of weapons in the [Read More…]
Back in 1892 the U.S. Army held trials for a new service rifle with entrants from around the world. The ultimate victor was the Krag-Jørgensen but some of the best rifles in the most rapid period of small arms development made an appearance. One humble entry from a [Read More…]
I apologize to those readers who clicked through hoping to read that Andrew Tuohy had taken up figure skating, the rest of you can breath a sigh of relief that you won’t be seeing Andrew in a lycra skating outfit. This post is instead about two curious photos of [Read More…]
NBC published this photo of Osama Bin Laden’s AK that is housed in the CIA museum. The rifle is completely unremarkable. It is no different to the millions of other AKMS specimens in use all over the world and, at least to my eye, reveals nothing about its owner. [Read More…]
With the US firmly in the fight of WWII and Russia turning the tide on the Eastern Front, the British finally had a chance to properly reinforce their former holdings in the Far East. Part of this effort was the lightening and shortening of the Short, Magazine [Read More…]
The director of the Sidecar Museum in Italy emailed me asking if I knew where he could find a replica Japanese Type 11 machine gun to mount on a Japanese World War II military sidecar that he is restoring. Does anyone know where he might obtain one? I could not find [Read More…]
Lindy Beige, archeologist and military reenactor, discusses Hollywoods portrayal of swords … I had not come across Lindy’s YouTube channel before. He has a lot of very interesting videos on medieval weaponry and armor. Thanks to WhaleOil for the tip.
It is easy to forget that the Colt once experimented with many variations of the AR-15 platform. Over the years they made many attempts to develop what we would call today a PDW. TFB writer Ethan has cataloged every 9mm Colt SMG-style sub-carbine they developed over the [Read More…]
Inside the X Ring is blogging a seven part series on the AR-15. So far the first two parts have been written. Part 1 is on the history, and Part 2 is on the civilian appeal of the platform.
Back in 2007/08 a company called Monolith Arms was promoting a pump-action 12 gauge shotgun they designed. The shotgun was notable because it fed from a horizontally mounted magazine inspired by the FN P90. They shotgun was promised to be on sale in 2007, when [Read More…]
Yesterday I posted a photo of Jordanian Special Forces with truck-mounted Barrett anti-material rifles and in the comments a reader shared this photo of the The Long Range Desert Group operating a .55 caliber Boys Anti-Tank rifle mounted on a truck. The The Long [Read More…]
Our friend Ronaldo Olive was kind enough to share another piece of firearm history with us. The Brazilian LAPA FA-03 was a prototype rifle built in the 1980s. It had a surprisingly modern design that reminds me of the VHS Bullpup (minus the picatinny rails which had [Read More…]
When General John Thompson completed his iconic submachine gun design in 1919, the world’s governments were weary of war and strapped for cash. With millions of rifles and pistols in their inventories and surplus, there was little room for an unproven, expensive, and [Read More…]
The Buffalo Bill Center of the West of Cody, Wyoming have just opened a new exhibition that showcases 64 fascinating guns from the Smithsonian’s National Firearms Collection. The guns will be on display at the Cody Firearms Museum until fall 2015. [Read More…]
The video below, which was released in 1990, shows the four rifles that were battling it out become the Army’s next generation Advanced Compact Rifle. It is amusing to see what was considered a good idea back then, like the high sight rib on the Colt ACR [Read More…]
Readers of TFB wanted to see how well a Soviet WWII-era helmet would fare against weapons from around that time. They produced a video showing a soviet helmet shot at by an SKS and a Mosin-Nagant. The video is embedded below … They concluded the helmets were [Read More…]
The hand grenade catapults being used by Syrian rebels are fascinating and apparently not a new phenomenon. Defence & Freedom blog has written about the history of hand grenade catapults.
Earlier this month I wrote about Argentina’s experiments converting the FN FAL from 7.62mm to 5.56mm. Ronaldo Olive sent me an article he wrote back in the mid-1980s about a FN FAL 5.56mm kit developed in Brazil … … from the November 1986 issue of the [Read More…]
Nepal’s Bira gun is a fascinating steampunk-esque hand-cranked machine gun that is notable for being developed and manufactured at a time when true machine guns were being adopted around the world. It is also notable for being the first (or one of the first) [Read More…]
Mounting cameras, like the GoPro, on firearms may seem like a recent trend but it is not. Back in in at least the 1930s inventors were experimenting with small film cameras attached to pistols. The photo above, dated 1938, is in the National Archive of the [Read More…]
One of the most interesting firearms to come out of World War II is the Fallschirmjaegergewehr 42 – the FG-42. There are so few of them still in existence that they often don’t get the attention they should, but that will all change now. SMG Guns of Decatur, [Read More…]
The official SHOT Show GunBroker Pistol Auction this year is for a S&W 1913, their first automatic pistol, and an engraved S&W Model 1911. They commemorate 100 years of S&W making automatic pistols. Smith & Wesson introduced its first [Read More…]
During this holiday season, perhaps you would like to take a break from visiting with your spouse’s parents – so how about getting to know your rifle’s parents? For a long time, the whole line of long guns made by H&K was all based around a [Read More…]
Over at Forgotten Weapons, Leszek Erenfeicht and Jan Skramoušský write about a forgotten German machine gun designed by the prolific gun designer Louis Stange. It was fascinating to learn that the German military in the 1920s and 30s had an irrational fear of gas [Read More…]
A World War 2 Sturmgewehr 44 was handed in at a gun buy back event in Hartford, Connecticut. The police officers were kind enough to tell the owner who handed in the gun that it was worth up to $30,000 and they will allow her to sell it, rather than send it to the [Read More…]
Nick was exploring Chatsworth House, a palatial house in Derbyshire, England, when he noticed an interesting sculpture tucked away in a corner that looked out of place among the grand oil paintings, murals and tapestries. The sculpture is of a Bren Light Machine Gun [Read More…]
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