Development of the .50 caliber Vickers guns began during World War One, but stagnated after 1918, and was not really completed until the early 1930s. At that point, Vickers produced a series of the guns for use primarily as armored vehicle armament and for antiaircraft use. It was formally adopte...

When the Stemple STG-76 was designed, it used internal parts from the Finnish kp/31 Suomi submachine gun. Since the whole point of the Stemple was to have a modular and interchangeable gun, it would make sense for BRP to make a version that duplicated the Suomi as closely as possible. This is esp...

This rifle is a Winchester semiauto prototype that has no documentation I could find in any source. So, today we will take a look at what we can possibly extrapolate from its various features. It will be a fun exercise, and if any archival record of it ever comes to light we will get to see if an...

Tacticool is not a modern creation - people have been making arms that are impractical but cool looking for centuries. As a case in point, I present this Model 1864 Milanese style saber-revolver. Several different variations on this theme were made in the mid 1800s, but this one closely follows t...

I have been doing a bunch of filming with this Finnish collector, who has been very generous with his time and giving me access. He thought it would be fun to show folks a full tour of the collection he has assembled, and I though that would be a fine idea! So enjoy - this is the sort of fantasti...

Someone left a comment about my casual use of a stamped Chinese AK magazine in my little Krink build, and it prompted me to consider where that magazine came from. I got that magazine as part of what really was a magnificent treasure trove of AK magazines that were imported by Sportsman's Guide b...

One of the early combination self-defense guns was the "Sure Defender", with a combination of brass knuckles, a small and finicky wavy-bladed dagger, and a single shot percussion pistol barrel. The rather complex process for making the knife or pistol components ready to actually use suggest that...

Portugal first tested the Luger pistol in 1901, and its commission on self-loading pistols recommended the design for adoption in 1904. No money was available at the time, but a second commission again recommended the Luger in 1907, and it was formally adopted and purchased in 1908. The initial b...

The British entered World War One with a technically excellent rifle, with lots of bells and whistles. By 1916, the war was taking a previously unimaginable toll on the industrial capacity of the Empire and rifle production had to be economized. This led to the adoption of the MkIII* pattern of t...

Matt Haught joins me one more time to try out some practical testing of the Diverter and Duckbill shotgun chokes. We are using a 2-liter bottles of seltzer water on strings at 10 yards, and testing the A&W Diverter and Duckbill, using a standard cylinder bore riot gun as a control. So, it's not r...

The kp/31, aka M31 "Suomi" submachine gun was adopted by the Finnish Army in 1931. It was produced by the Tikkakoski company (more commonly known today as Tikka), and in addition to Finnish military contracts they were eager for international sales, either commercial or military. To that end, the...

Prior to the Winter War, Finland had just a few armored vehicles; mostly armored cars. These needed some armament, and one idea put forth was to fit an m/31 Suomi to a ball mount inside a vehicle. This required simply designing a specific shroud for the barrel to fit the mount (as well as the pis...

This revolver is a bit of a mystery. It is a Gasser-produced, Montengrin pattern model 1874, but it has been converted to use rimfire cartridges - and the specific caliber of rimfire cartridge is unclear. This specific example was proofed in Vienna in 1905, making it a very late-production exampl...

Having spent quite a long time yesterday exploring the origins of the Stemple/BRP STG-76, I figured I should take it out to the range. So, let's see what sort of groups I can make with a bipod-mounted open bolt 9mm...

Introduced in 1925 as a major change to the target pistol market, the Straight Line Target used an automatic-style straight grip instead of the traditional revolver frame. S&W had been a market leader in this sort of single shot competition .22 pistol, but was under pressure from the popular new...

The standard Canadian sniper's rifle of World War One was the MkIII Ross fitted with a Warner & Swasey "musket sight" purchased from the United States. However, armorers in the field did create sniping rifles using other scopes - in particular the Winchester A5. The A5 was a popular commercial ri...

The STG-M1A certainly looks and feels like a Thompson, but does it shoot like a Thompson? Let's find out!

The Ross MkII (aka Ross 1905) was a reasonably successful rifle design, but it lacked a few elements that the Canadian military would have preferred. Most significantly, it was not compatible with the charger clip that was introduced for the Lee Enfield rifles in 1907. The rifle we have today is ...

Yesterday we took a look at the Stemple-Suomi on the bench - today it's time to find how similar it is in handling to the real thing! I have a Danish M41 Suomi, a Stemple-Suomi, and a couple of 71-round drums all ready to go...

The result? The Stemple pattern is virtually indistinguishable fro...

Today's video is the Stemple STG-34k at the range...but if I'm going to be honest, it was mostly just an excuse for me to try it out for fun. :) It's definitely the least practical version of the Stemple, but still the coolest looking one.

My interview with Christian Prouteau focused on the MR-73 revolver and how his men in GIGN trained with it. However, I did also ask him about the FR-F1 rifles, and figured I would separate that brief conversation out since it was on a different subject. Specifically, I asked why the FR-F1 used su...

There were many different versions of the Ross straight-pull bolt action rifle made and adopted by the Canadian military. However, the version that Sir Charles Ross thought would be best was only ever made as a small run of prototypes. this rifle was called the Military Match M10, in .280 Ross ca...

Standard Arms was an early (circa 1909) manufacturer of self-loading hunting rifles in the US. The made the Model G, a rifle which could function either as a self-loader or a pump action manual repeater. Unfortunately, is was tremendously unreliable and prone to breakage. In an effort to salvage ...

I really don't know if this sort of format will be interesting to anyone, but I figured I might as well record it and see what you think. This is about 40 minutes of me cleaning up the Laugo Alien after its dust test, rambling about the gun and the testing as I do. Plus intermittent silent gaps w...