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RT20: Croatia's Insane Kludged 20mm Anti-Material Rifle
During its Homeland War, Croatia manufactured a wide variety of ad-hoc firearms including a number of anti-material rifles. The RT-20 was the largest of these, and its development began with the discovery of a stash of Yugoslav M55 anti-aircraft cannon barrels chambered for 20mm Hispano in a ware...
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MACS M2: Croatian Anti-Material .50 Cal
Among the many firearms designed and built in Croatia under the duress of the Homeland War was the MACS M2, a single-shot anti-material rifle chambered for .50 BMG. Designed by an engineer named Jankovic, these were in the field with Croatian units starting in 1994, and were used effectively in O...
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Agram 2002: Little brother to the Croatian 'gangster' gun
A compact take on the Agram 2000 this week. Join Jonathan Ferguson as he takes a look at a reputedly improved, stock-less version of the Croatian-made firearm coveted by criminals.
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Zagi: Croatia HK's a Sten Gun
The Zagi is one of the more prolific of the Croatian homeland War submachine guns. It was developed with the intention of making substantial numbers, and a lot of capital was put into the PHTO (First Croatian Arms Factory, or Prva Hrvatska Tvornica Oružja) for its manufacture. This included polym...
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Token of Appreciation: a Presentation Sokac SMG
The Šokac was one of the more prolific Croatian domestic submachine guns of the Homeland War. This particular example is one that was specifically presented to the police chief of the town of Slavonsky Brod (the town where the guns were made). It is a mid-range production example, with the polyme...
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Now Available: VHS-2 w/ 20-inch Barrel (aka Springfield Hellion)
Springfield Armory is now importing a version of the the VHS-2 bullpup (commercially named the Hellion here in the US) with a 20-inch barrel. This is the barrel length used in the most common military pattern of the rifle, the VHS-2D. In addition, Springfield's semiauto configuration has the prop...
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Tour: Croatian Homeland War Museum Vehicle & Artillery Park
While in Croatia for filming, we stopped in at the Homeland War Museum (Muzej Domovinskog Rata) in Karlovac. Built in the preserved ruins of the "Hotel California", it houses a small but pretty comprehensive collection of small arms form the Croatian Homeland War, in addition to many other artifa...
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The Manda: Croatia's Minimalist .50 BMG
The Manda is a rifle that was designed for the Croatian Special Police at the beginning of the Homeland War in 1991. At that point, the Special Police (basically the SWAT teams) were basically the only really well-trained fighters in the country with combat experience. They wanted .50 BMG anti-ma...
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Vila Velebita: Croatian Submachine Gun Made in a Shed
At the beginning of Croatia's Homeland War, a severe need for small arms led to a whole plethora of simple submachine gun designs. Some were made in proper factories with professional tooling, and some were made by a couple blokes in a shed - and the Vila Velebita we are looking at today definite...
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Ero: The Croatian Uzi (With Israeli Help?)
The best of the submachine guns made in Croatia during the Homeland War was the Ero, made by a company called Arma. The Ero is a basically perfect, parts-interchangeable copy of the Israeli Uzi that was developed in 1992 and adopted into Croatian Army service in 1993. The only really distinguisha...
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Croatian Improvised Weapons: From Obrez to Single-Shot Yugo M70 Hybrid
During the Croatian Homeland War - as in all wars of independence - a wide variety of cobbled-together firearms were used by people who could not access proper factory arms for one reason or another. Today I'm as the Sisal Municipal Museum looking at four different examples from specifically the ...
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The VHS-2 In Iraq
The VHS-2 bullpup manufactured by Croatia's HS Produkt became one of the most frequently seen rifles during the Iraqi counter-offensives against ISIS during 2015-17. The rifle regularly appeared in news reports and social media posts and became somewhat synonymous with the fighting for Fallujah a...
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Vugrek's Cell Phone Gun for Organized Crime
The Vugrek family of Croatia (Marko Sr, Marko Jr, and Ivan) were talented firearms designers, who ended up supplying organized crime. Their best-known development was the Agram 2000 submachine gun, a very well-built weapon submitted to Croatian military trials in the early 1990s. In the wake of p...
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New Springfield Echelon: Croatia's Chassis System Pistol
The Springfield Echelon pistol was released today, and it's a significant step forward for Croatian manufacturer HS Produkt. In an effort to appeal to new military and police tenders as well as introduce a forward-looking new design, the company has brought out a pistol based on a serialized chas...
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Military machine pistol used by gangsters: the Agram 2000
The Croatian made Agram 2000 is a unique design featuring space-age furniture. It was used during the break up of Yugoslavia in the early 90s and saw continued use after the conflict by elements of the criminal underworld across Europe.
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Springfield Hellion at the Range: The Most Modern Bullpup
My previous experience shooting a VHS-2 was limited to a small indoor range, so I’ve been really looking forward to getting this Springfield Hellion out to a proper range. First up, we have a 2-Gun match with it – one with stages specifically written to fit bullpups. So we have lots of maneuverin...
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VHS-1: Croatia Copies the FAMAS (But Not Really)
The VHS-1 was heavily influenced by the French FAMAS, albeit with a short stroke gas piston operating system. Early development began in the late 1990s with the prototype designs we looked in over the past few weeks, and the VHS-1 itself really emerged between 2003 and 2005. It was formally annou...
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Pleter M91: Croatia's High Quality STUzi
The Pleter M91 is a simple design, but a high-quality one that was manufactured by a proper factory production line. The company making it was planning on (hoping for?) large-scale production, and they invested to proper polymer molds and other tools to make the gun. A total of about 4500 were ma...
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Story of the Alar: A Simple Student-Made SMG
The Alar is an interesting very rare Croatian domestic SMG. It is called the "Alar" after it's designer, Stipe Alar. He first came up with the design in 1971 and built one illegally - which resulted in him going to prison for a time. When the Croatian Homeland War broke out and guns were urgently...
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MAC/Skorpion Hybrid at the Range: the Alka M93
The Alka M93 was a very simple SMG made by IM Metall (which later became HS Produkt) during the Croatian Homeland War. It is essentially a MAC M11A1 with a long barrel and a vz61 Skorpion stock, feeding 9mm ammunition form MP40 magazines. I did a video on this piece previously, but on a recent vi...
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Crogar M91: MP40 Meets Yugo M56 in the Croatian Homeland War
SKM was a small industrial manufacturing company in Croatia that began making submachine guns in 1991 to equip Croatian fighters in the Homeland War. Their product was the M91 Crogar, which is a selective-fire, open bolt SMG chambered for 7.62mm Tokarev. It uses the magazine from the Yugoslav M56...
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Krešimir: Croatia's Truly Insane Grenade Launcher
The Kresimir is honestly the most bonkers weapon I have come across in a long while. Made by IM Metall in Croatia at the beginning of the Croatian Homeland War circa 1991, this is a semiautomatic grenade launcher. Most grenade launchers fire a big cartridge with an explosive warhead, but not this...
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Croatian HS-91: A Mystery Hybrid of M56 and PPSh-41
The HS-91 is a Croatian-made submachine gun form the Homeland War period of the early 1990s. This is the only example known, and it was seized well after the war by the Croatian Police (and currently resides in the Police Museum in Zagreb). Nothing is known about the details of its origin or prod...
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Marko Vukovik's Prototype Machine Pistol: the V.M.18
Today we continue our series on the development of Croatian pistols towards the XD line. Last week we saw Marko Vukovic's first design, and today we are looking at his second. This was the V.M.18, a step towards a more proven system instead of the really unusual flapper locking of the Kordun. The...