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The End of the Mamba: A Tale of Manufacturing Incompetence
The Mamba was a pistol that had a pretty decent design, but failed because of incompetent manufacturing. Today we are taking a look at a handful of surviving Mambas including the only know Green Mamba, courtesy of Val Forgett at Navy Arms. In addition, we have the minutes of a June 13, 1978 meeti...
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Soviet Small Arms of WWII: Now Shipping!
Now in stock and shipping! Order your copy here:
https://www.headstamppublishing.com/ww2-soviet-unionPlease note: we will do our best to get as many preorders as possible out before Christmas, but we cannot guarantee everyone's arrival date. New orders should not be expected to arrive before Ch...
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Moons Out 2025 Launch: Prepare Your NODs!
https://practiscore.com/moons-out-25/register
Moons Out 2025 is a Brutality-style night vision rifle match. It consists of 10 stages physically and mentally challenging stages over two nights, all shot in the dark with night vision equipment (Gen 3 highly recommended).
For details on the Polena...
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ZB47: A Truly Weird Czech SMG
The ZB47 was developed at Brno as a contender for Czech military submachine gun adoption in the late 1940s. The Czech Army had technically adopted a submachine gun prior to World War Two (the vz.38; video on that is coming a bit later) but production did not begin before the arrival of German tro...
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Beretta 93R: The Best Machine Pistol?
The Beretta 93R ("Raffica") was developed in the 1970s by Beretta engineer Paolo Parola at the request of Italian military special forces. It took the basic Beretta 92 pistol design and added a well-thought-out burst mechanism under the right-side grip panel. It does not have a plain full-auto se...
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Daniel Defense H9: The Hudson Reborn and Completely Reengineered
In 2017, Hudson released a new pistol that was the darling of the firearms industry. It purported to offer a radically low bore axis and 1911-style trigger in a striker-fired system that would be fast and simple to use.
In 2019, Hudson went bankrupt, out of money and having started to scavenge ...
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Rhodesian Mamba at the Range: Will it Work?
Today we are taking the Mamba out to the range to see just how badly (or how well) it works. This is one of the Mambas that was assembled in the US by Navy Arms - only a very small number of these went on the market before the whole project was abandoned.
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SIG P320 Flux Legion / Flux Raider: The Best Pistol-PDW System Yet
The Flux Raider is a chassis system designed to turn the SIG P320 into a very compact PDW. The design concept began as a desire to improve the practical accuracy of a handgun by adding a collapsing stock while keeping the weapon holsterable. Flux' first product, circa 2019, was a spring-loaded st...
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P320 Flux Legion Raider at the Range
Today I am taking the SIG P320 Flux Legion (aka the SIG Legion edition of the Flux Raider) out to the range. I'm a big fan of PDW systems, and the Raider is one of the best - in my opinion it is better than some purpose-built PDWs, much less other pistol chassis conversions. Anyway, I registered ...
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So Many Ways to Fail at Making a Pistol
Making a successful and popular new handgun requires doing a whole lot of things right...today we are going to consider what happens when they don't go so well.
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Book Review: The U.S. Model 1917 Rifle - "America's Enfield"
Available from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Model-Rifle-Americas-Enfield/dp/1931464928Available from the publisher, Mowbray:
https://gunandswordcollector.com/product/us-model-1917-rifle-canfield/Bruce Canfield is one of the most prolific and prominent authors on American military small ...
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Enjoying Black Powder Episode 6: Berdan II
Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, and they are actually pretty easy to reload for. The unavailability of factory ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...
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Gear for Carrying DP27 Pan Magazines
Today we are taking a look at three different pieces of kit developed to carry Degtyarev DP pan magazines. These mags are really inconveniently shaped, and traditional magazine pouches just don't work for them. Instead, the Soviets initially fielded a stamped steel can that held three pans. This ...
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The Unique Challenges of Self-Loading Shotgun Design
I think a lot of people under appreciate the difficulty of making a reliable self-loading shotgun. Between the rimmed case, wadcutter-type cylindrical shape, varying shell length, and massive variations in loadings, the variability that a designer has to work around is insane...
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SPAS-12: Franchi's Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun
Franchi introduced the Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun (SPAS-12) for Italian military and police agencies in 1979 and it quickly because popular worldwide. Based originally on the gas-operated Franchi 500, that SPAS-12 was robust, reliable, and designed as a semiautomatic action with a backup p...
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Franchi SPAS-12 at the Range
Today I'm taking the SPAS-12 out to the range, to try a variety of ammunition and see what runs in it. The SPAS is a gas-operated shotgun that can be switched to manual pump operation for use with underpowered ammunition. This was originally intended as a way to allow things like beanbag and othe...
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P99: The Pistol that Rejuvenated Walther
For a couple decades after World War Two, Walther survived on legacy designs - the PP/PPK and P38 (eventually made with an aluminum frame as the P4) primarily. In the 1970s they developed the P5 for German police use, and this was a reasonably successful pistol, but expensive and complex. Somethi...
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New Imports: French MAS 49/56 and MAS 36/51 Rifles
Yeah, I'm a sucker for nice French rifles. So when Old Western Scrounger brought in another batch of them, I offered to do a video. These are rifles taken out of French long-term storage, having been rebuilt at French arsenals to like-new condition, and are in beautiful condition.
Full video on ...
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Legacy of the K5: Daewoo DP51 Through Lionheart Vulcan-9
The South Korean military was using old Colt M1911A1 pistols in the 1980s, and as they became worn out a new pistol was needed. This would be something designed and built domestically, and chambered for 9x19. The small arms division of the massive Daewoo industrial conglomerate, called Daewoo Pre...
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Semiauto MGs: How Are They Made?
Semiauto versions of machine guns are a way to have examples of historically significant and mechanically interesting guns without having to wrangle with NFA transfers and the astronomical price of transferrable legal machine guns. However, they are not particularly common. Very few OEM manufactu...
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Enjoying Black Powder Episode 5: The Remington Rolling Block
Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, and they are actually pretty easy to reload for. The unavailability of factory ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...
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Enjoying Black Powder Episode 4: The Mauser Gewehr 1871
Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, and they are actually pretty easy to reload for. The unavailability of factory ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...
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Degtyarev Upgrades: DP27 vs DPM
The Degtyarev DP (aka DP-27) was the subject of a bunch of experimentation during the 1930s, but none of the trialed modifications were actually adopted. It was only in 1944, after several years of combat experience, that the design was updated to correct a number of shortcomings. Specifically:
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The Infamous Klobb: Guns of GoldenEye N64
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=e0y2xl
We are really close to hitting the stretch goal to add a section on the Guns of GoldenEye N64 to Licensed Troubleshooter!
For a lot of people, James Bond was introduced not by Sean Connery, but by a 64-bit rendit...