#SingleShot

Dark Mountain Arms is a new firearms manufacturing company (founded in 2023) located in Asheville, North Carolina. The company’s first products are a takedown rifle and pistol called STOWAWAY that have a rather unusual action and chambering combination – these are single-shot bolt action firearms chambered in 5.7×28. Let’s take a quick look at the specs and features of Dark Mountain Arms STOWAWAY rifle and pistol.

Bond Arms introduced the Cyclops single-shot break action derringer at SHOT Show 2023. It was initially chambered in .45-70 Government only, however, when it was released, the company said that other big bore caliber options like .44 Magnum and .50 Action Express would be added in the future. Well, the second chambering for this mythical creature is now announced and it’s the .44 Magnum. Let’s take a quick look at the specs and features of the new Bond Arms Cyclops 44 Magnum derringer.

It has been three years since the Altor Pistol was announced. We saw it at SHOT Show 2020. I still have the leaflet with dealer pricing from that SHOT Show. I wanted one the moment I saw it. Well, I finally found one at a local gun store and purchased as an impulse buy. It was just over $100 but I had grand plans for this little unassuming single-shot pistol. Let’s dive in and take a look at this little pistol.

The catalog of Austrian luxury gunmaker Johann Fanzoj contains a variety of hunting firearms: single-shot break action and magazine bolt action rifles, side-by-side and over-and-under guns and even triple barrel rifles and shotguns. While any of their guns, even in the basic configuration, is a top-quality high-end firearm, from time to time, the company reveals a one-of-a-kind masterpiece that even gets its own name. We have covered many of these unique Johann Fanzoj firearms in the past (see the list below) and today we are taking a look at their latest creation, the Mountain Kingdom single-shot rifle.

KUGS is a firearms manufacturing company located in Geneva, Switzerland. The company was established in 2015 by a gun designer named Florian Kohli. Their latest product is a rather unusual-looking minimalistic single-shot rifle called FATBOY. The KUGS FATBOY rifle was designed to be a lightweight firearm for long-range shooting. Let’s take a closer look.

The Henry Repeating Arms Company has a long and distinguished history that includes many excellent and iconic firearms. Today, the company is still a leading manufacturer putting out a massive volume of guns. Unfortunately, any company that has been in business for that long, and whose model count grows into the dozens with production numbers reach into the millions, is bound to run into an occasional hiccup. They have published the following press release detailing an issue they have discovered with some of their single-shot guns, while explaining how they are committed to handling it properly and taking good care of their customers.

Coinciding with this Independence Day weekend, Savage Arms has announced a new version of their .22LR Rascal that screams “Hell yeah, ‘Merica!” Had rimfire bolt guns been a thing in 1776, no doubt the founding fathers would’ve been proud to arm their Minutemen with the Stars and Stripes pattern first created by the most celebrated seamstress in the US history, Betsy Ross. The press release for this Star-Spangled shooter reads as follows.

In this edition of the TFB Field Strip series, we will cover a break-action shotgun, which is made by Taurus under the Rossi brand.  The Rossi Tuffy in .410 gauge is a handy little utility shotgun that comes with synthetic furniture that can hold extra cartridges in the stock.  The disassembly of the Rossi Tuffy is generally quite similar to most break-action, single shot, shotguns, which are quite easy.

Trailblazer Firearms has introduced the .22 WMR version of their LifeCard folding single barrel single shot derringer. The first version of LifeCard pistol was introduced a little over a year ago and so far it was available in .22 LR only. This is a really compact and discreet little handgun. As the manufacturer states, it is “no bigger than a stack of credit cards“.

Russian media has reported on the recent acquisition of .50 BMG HS .50 patterned Anti-Materiel rifles by the Syrian Arab Army in the fight against the ongoing insurgent groups within Syria. The article claims that the rifles are assembled from Iranian components shipped to Assad’s army and are most likely to be used in upcoming offensives. From the three photographs we have available, there appears to be at least 120 within a single frame, taken from inside an armory with the HS .50, or more correctly the Iranian version with the nomenclature of AM50 or Sayyad-2. One item not present with the rifles is a powered optic, which will most likely be added at a later date. What would make this story interesting is if Iran is also supplying RU60G thermal optics to the rifles, enabling Syrian marksmen to make shots out to several hundred meters at night. Although the Iranian version and the original HS .50 are chambered in .50 BMG,12.7x99mm, one of the cases is clearly marked with the Russian 12.7x108mm cartridge, showing a different chambering of the design.

Today we are taking a look at another gem made by  Johann Fanzoj of Ferlach, Austria. This is a single shot break action rifle based on the Fanzoj Kipplauf KB-1. The variety of different iterations of this rifle is amazing: from the futuristic KB-1 TI CARBON which uses carbon fiber furniture and titanium action, to the classic and elegant works of art like the recently made “Scythians” rifle.

I saw this odd mini .50bmg rifle while roaming IWA in Nuremberg. However it was on display in a Chinese distributor booth. They had an information sheet but it shows a mini .50bmg pistol variant of this rifle. According to the info sheet this is made by Semtecx Mechanics UG. I went to the website listed on the left side of the page but was unable to find this mini .50bmg behemoth on their website.

Johann Fanzoj is one of the few premium hunting firearms manufacturers that manages to combine the over 200-year-old traditions of gun making with modern technologies and materials. Eight years ago they introduced a bolt action rifle called TI-3. It was a rifle which with the exception of the barrel had all other action parts made of titanium. That was a success which led to the introduction of other innovative firearms one of which is the KB-1 TI CARBON – a break action single shot rifle utilizing a titanium action and carbon fiber stock.

What usually makes it difficult to write about rare and obscure firearms is the absence of any visual content (photos, videos etc.) of reasonable quality. If you write about any particular firearm or mechanism and have the description only or a couple of poor images that barely let to visualize the description text, it becomes not a too interesting read.

An integrally suppressed variant of the AK called the Gopak was on display a recent demonstration at the Goncharivske trial grounds in the Chernihiv area of Ukraine. In two videos released via YouTube this week, the rifle is demonstrated firing and being inspected by the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, Oleksandr Turchynov. The rifle is visible in the video below, at 0:58 and 3:51: