During the Second World War, Britain’s volunteer militia, the Home Guard, were extensively issued with American .30 calibre Browning M1917 machine guns. These water-cool medium machine guns contributed significant firepower to the Home Guard fighting units. They [Read More…]
In case you missed it, FN Herstal has a new ultralight machine gun called EVOLYS. The weight for the 5.56mm is just 5.5 kilograms and 6 kg for the 7.62mm. Compared to the FN Minimi and similar competitors, it is up to 30% lighter, and as you know, low weight is one of [Read More…]
The American-180 is a rare .22LR submachine gun developed in the 1960s which fires .22LR from a wind-up pan magazine. It originated with the Casull Model 290 that also used a flat pan magazine. Only 80 Casull M290s were built. The American-180 is an improved version of the Casull design. Today, [Read More…]
In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves discusses the history of the M60 machine gun and some of its little-known advantages and disadvantages. Moreover, James reviews reports from the U.S. Army that discuss the effectiveness, range, accuracy, and reliability of the M60. We also look at tests pitting [Read More…]
Hello and welcome back to another weekly edition of The Rimfire Report. This weekly series explores anything and everything rimfire. The guns, ammunition, sports, history, and stories from the rimfire world are discussed here, and what a vast and expansive subset of [Read More…]
Belgium’s own Fabrique Nationale Herstal, known as FN Herstal or simply FN for short, has produced some phenomenal and highly successful guns over its 131 year history. From their contributions in the handgun market with pistols like the Hi-Power and Five-Seven, [Read More…]
SIG Sauer have announced that their light weight medium machine gun, the MG 338, has been purchased by US Special Operations Command (US SOCOM). The guns weigh under 20lbs and are chambered in .338 Norma Magnum giving the gun an effective range out to 2000 metres. The [Read More…]
At the beginning of January Ruotuvaki, Finland’s armed forces magazine published a story about Hannes Tuovinen, a veteran of the Continuation War, who was reunited with the Finish Maxim M/32-33 after 76 years. As an 18 year old Tuovinen had been trained to use [Read More…]
German Machine Guns – that is the subject of this Photo Of the Day here at The Firearm Blog. The Machine Gun MG3, made by Rheinmetall, is probably one of the most iconic firearms of the Bundeswehr. In service since the 1960s and proven over the decades. The time [Read More…]
This great shot comes from a live fire exercise with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit, in Portugal. The photo was taken back in April and the official caption describes what’s going on: U.S. Marine Cpl. Lucas Cassabuan, a machine gunner with the 22nd Marine [Read More…]
Growing up, I often sat in an old dining room chair listening to my grandfather tell me stories about the war and his life experiences. As the years progressed, I started to hear the true versions of his stories that were unfiltered and raw. My grandfather had a busy [Read More…]
As the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference (SOFIC) starts today at The Tampa Convention Center (Florida) FN will be showing a prototype of a 6.5 Creedmoor Mk 48 Mod 2 Machine Gun. SOFIC is described as the premier venue for the SOF community to interact with [Read More…]
In anticipation of the release of Fallout 76 in November, we’re taking a look at the guns of the Fallout universe and comparing them to real guns. The Fallout series of games is set in a post apocalyptic alternate history universe that diverged from our history somewhere after 1945. The [Read More…]
The US Army Contracting Command, New Jersey, has issued a sole source notice to find potential future manufacturers of the Army’s 7.62x51mm M240 general purpose machine guns. This is an exercise in market research as the Army try to identify potential sources for [Read More…]
Generally speaking, firearms laws in the United States are better than those in the United Kingdom – except when it comes to museums. In the US, the Gun Control Act of 1968 offered a brief window for registration of prohibited items (Machine Guns, SBRs, SBSs, etc) [Read More…]
The Pakistani commercial firearms company Daudsons Armory or DSA is much more known for their handguns and historical reproduction shotguns sold in the United States through Cimarron. However, the company also has a 40x53mm High-Velocity Automatic Grenade Launcher (AGL) [Read More…]
@triplermunitions posted a video of a shorty 1919 being fired full auto. Given the barrel reduction and therefore weight reduction, this could be a great candidate for the steadicam rig. What barrel length do you think that shorty 1919 has? Looks like 12-14 inches? The [Read More…]
Clash of empires in the east The Liadong (Liaotung) Peninsula, China, 1904-5. The Russo-Japanese War. The Japanese are seeking to regain the use of Port Arthur and the Liadong Peninsula , given to them by the Treaty of Shimonoseki after the Sino-Japanese war. [Read More…]
As I had mentioned in the Brownells HK416 article, I got a chance to visit Zib Militaria and tour their facility while I was in Germany. Normally they do not offer tours to customers. They run a mail order business but they do allow local customers to come and pick up [Read More…]
The Israeli Dror Light Machine Gun was born during a time of necessity. What would later become the state of Israel was fighting off numerous enemies all around it and needed every weapon system possible. Through this endeavor, a sympathetic employer who formerly worked at Johnson Automatics helped [Read More…]
The AMELI light machine gun was Spain’s answer to what the Ministry of Defense needed in a squad automatic weapon, as a base of fire for the Spanish Infantry fire team. It was based on the late war German MG45 design, or as we see here, possibly just another version of the Mauser-CETME Light [Read More…]
At the tail end of SHOT Show, TFB writers Miles and Nathaniel received a very unique and rare opportunity to get hands-on with the Zakłady Mechaniczne Tarnów (ZMT) UKM 2000 in the United States while at the popular Vegas shooting range, Battlefield Las Vegas. [Read More…]
Cadex Defense had two recently introduced products specifically for the .50 BMG M2 Heavy Machine Gun on display at their booth at SHOT 2018. The first one was their KOLOS sight mount, meant as a lighter and less obtrusive alternative to the earlier SOLO sight mount. [Read More…]
Profense LLC is a defense company that has its origins in the aerospace industry. Their primary interest is trying to introduce a next-generation 7.62x51mm NATO M134 Minigun. The company is doing this through two different strategies. First, they are actually manufacturing their own version of the [Read More…]
At the 2018 SHOT Show Industry Day at the Range, Florida gunmaker FightLite Industries, best known for their SCR “ban state” lower receiver that allows “compliant” rifles to be made using AR-15 components. FightLite also is the manufacturer of [Read More…]
The golden age of polymer cased ammunition has probably already begun. Certainly, Norwegian-Finnish ammunition manufacturer Nammo seems to believe that, as they recently took a significant stake in American company MAC, LLC, makers of polymer-cased composite ammunition, [Read More…]
al Masdar News has recently shared photographs of so-called Islamic State fighters using belt-fed 12.7x108mm W85 (Chinese derivative of the Soviet DShK) Heavy Machine Guns mounted on commercial motorcycles. The machine guns appear to be using a standard pintle [Read More…]
A new remotely controlled weapon system has recently emerged from Syria. The Sham R3 is the third variation of the original Sham series of remotely controlled weapons stations that use a 12.7x108mm DShK Heavy Machine Gun to engage targets from a stationary position. One [Read More…]
The Pakistani Ministry of the Interior made an announcement in November of this year, that Pakistani citizens who have Prohibited Bore licenses with registered fully automatic firearms will have to either surrender their firearms or convert them to semi-automatic by [Read More…]
WarLeaks recently published a video on their Youtube channel showing Ukranian Paratroopers of the 1st Battalion, 95th Separate Airmobile Brigade in a live fire range shooting modified DShKs. This footage is actually U.S. DOD footage shot during Rapid Trident 2017, a [Read More…]