HOWW will be shutting down at the end of September, as it has simply not been able to grow enough to both pay for its own upkeep and also provide income to the member creators. At least some of the channels will be migrating to Pepperbox (pepperbox.tv), and all partial annual subscriptions will b...

In 1951, Czechoslovakia received the technical data package for the Soviet SPSh flare pistol. This was a simple single shot break-action 26.5mm signal flare launcher, and they put it into production from 1952 through 1958. However, it was made with mediocre materials and the guns wore out in as f...

Available from Chipotle Publishing:
https://chipotlepublishing.com/product/the-worlds-assault-rifles/

I am often asked about what books someone interested in firearms should get. That's a really hard question to answer because most good books have a pretty narrow focus, but there are a few that ...

Most of the transferrable Uzis in the US are not factory original guns, but rather semi autos that were converted and registered as machine guns in the US before 1986 (when such activity was legal). There were several different ways to do this, with the two main ones being the registered bolt rou...

Steyr has just released its first new handgun since the M9. This new design is call the AT (Austria), with a competition model (AT-C) and a service/carry/defense model (AT-D). The gun is a Browning short recoil system that takes a lot of cues from the original Sig P226 handling and design. In fac...

Japanese bayonets followed the same trend of simplification as Arisaka rifles towards the end of World War Two, culminating in what is today called the "pole bayonet". Abandoning even the fittings to mount to a rifle, these bayonets were intended to be lashed to a pole to create a spear. The Japa...

The “American 180 Security Briefcase” is the best execution of the operational briefcase concept that I have yet seen. The idea is simple; hide a submachine gun inside an ordinary looking briefcase so that it can be carried in the open by VIP security without arousing attention. Sometimes this is...

John Browning’s first machine gun design was a gas operated system that used a swinging lever instead of a linear piston. He presented the first prototype to Colt in 1890, and it went into production in 1895. The US Navy bought a couple hundred, but the Army opted not to adopt it (much to Colt’s ...

Jacques Sigaud-Barnerias ran a business in Theirs, France (in the south, east of Lyon) making a variety of cutlery and associated products. Among his various table knives, pruning knives, corkscrews, and pock knives he also sold some pinfire revolver knives. The revolver element was made under co...

The Soviet Union decided to adopt a 50mm light mortar in 1937 as a company-level armament. The first such weapon they used was the RM-38, introduced in 1938. It was a complex design, with a gas venting system to adjust range (200m - 800m), a bipod specifically set to either 45 or 75 degrees, and ...

EDIT: Please note that apparently the Priestel book I used as a major source for this video is partially incorrect, in that Pauly did create a traditional percussion system in France. The fire piston / diesel system was done slightly later after he moved to England, perhaps to avoid the Forsyth p...

SilencerCo announced the Maxim-9 pistol in late 2015. Having gone through some huge growth of the past few years, the company wanted to expand its capabilities and thought that the time was right for a modern integrally suppressed pistol. It was a unique new design of modern semiautomatic pistol ...

Today we are considering two late World War Two rifles: the American M2 Carbine and the German MP-44 Sturmgewehr. Which would you take into combat? The Sturmgewehr is certainly iconic, with a more powerful cartridge, easy controllability, and a solid combat record. The M2 Carbine is much lighter ...

One of the classic "pick one" debates of World War Two is the German MP-40 versus the Soviet PPSh-41. During the war, both sides often opined that the other's SMG was better, so which really was? The MP-40 is more compact, with a smaller magazine but also a lower rate of fire. The PPSh is larger,...

In early 1944, the Office of Strategic Services purchase 1,000 specialized pocketknives made by Schrade. Instead of regular blades and tools, these were lock picking knives, with one small blade, three different picks, and two rakes. Able to easily pass as a normal pocketknife on casual inspectio...

The story of the Tec-9 begins with a Swedish company called Interdynamic AB and their designer Göran Lars Magnus Kjellgren designing a cheap and simple submachine gun for military use. It found no interested clients, and so the company decided to market it in the United States as a semiautomatic ...

The British military decided to organize their disparate small units of riflemen into a single standardized group in 1800. The 95th Regiment - the British Rifle Corps - was founded and it was equipped with a pattern of rifle designed by one Ezekiel Baker. This was a .625 caliber rifle with a 30” ...

This is a custom rifle made by gunsmith P.E. Hall of Ashtabula, Ohio most likely between 1948 and 1854. It has a cluster of four .36 caliber rifles barrels (24 inches long) in an octagonal frame. The action is a quadruple set of mule ear hammers, two on each side, with a double set trigger. Prett...

Colt SMG: First of the 9mm ARs

With the expansion of SWAT teams throughout law enforcement in the 1980s, Colt realized that it was leaving a lot of sales on the table by not having a submachine gun it could offer alongside M16/CAR-15 rifles and carbines. They addressed this in the early 1980s by...

The Nielsen Device is a type of suppressor mount that allows a suppressor to move forward upon firing and thus allow a recoil-operated firearms to cycle reliably despite the added weight of a suppressor. Popularized by Doug Olsen in the 1980s, they allow pistols to be readily suppressed without n...

The Human Engineering Lab's HEL-E4A was the most commonly used suppressor used in the Vietnam War. It was the result of a series of suppressor designs from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds HEL which were developed to balance suppression and back pressure, so that they could operate reliably on a stan...

Penguin Brutality patch and t-shirt available from Varusteleka:
https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/forgotten-weapons-penguin-brutality-t-shirt/81986

The problem of the P320 has evolved past the actual mechanical issue with the pistol - which still hasn't actually bee identified. The problem ...

My book "Pistols of the Warlords" is available through Headstamp Publishing:
https://www.headstamppublishing.com/chinese-pistols

Today I am very happy to welcome Jason Clower as our Q&A guest. Jason runs the channel "Type 56: The Story of China's Army" (https://www.youtube.com/@Type56_Ordnance_D...

Adorable Penguin Brutality shirt available from Varusteleka:
https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/forgotten-weapons-penguin-brutality-t-shirt/81986?option=81709

I'm sure you've heard the one about how targeting an enemy soldier with a .50 BMG is a war crime, but targeting his belt buckle is ok...