Today, I have the opportunity to take a look inside PGM Precision, in Annecy France. Ever been curious about where the Ultima Ratio and Hecate II come from? Let's have a look!

Today we are taking a look at the Springfield Hellion, the semiautomatic US version of HS Produkt's VHS-2 bullpup rifle. The VHS-2 development goes back almost 20 years, with a first VHS rifle and then the revised second model entering production in 2014. These were trialed by the French, and cam...

The DWM company in Germany had a license on the Maxim gun design prior to World War One. They produced the rather old-fashioned MG08 for the German army, but also wanted to have a modernized type of gun for commercial sales. This was the Model 1913 Parabellum, with the design improved by Karl Hei...

Thanks to MagPul for sponsoring this video! I was happy to use one of their new Daka Grid rifle cases today - it's a very cool system that will be of great use for me both because of its modular configurability and its excellent security.

The AR-57 is a system developed by Rhineland Arms in th...

With the HS95, Croatian manufacturer IM Metal (later to become HS Produkt) had learned how to effectively manufacture a good pistol. However, the design had some shortcomings and had not been accepted by Croatian police forces, nor had any commercial export contracts materialized. The company rec...

One of the cool new products we found at SHOT Show this year was the CR9T from Carbon Research. This is a small research company that has figured out how to bond metals to carbon fiber in a way that allows them to build a complete suppressor body and baffle stack out of ultralight carbon fiber an...

The Darne company was one of relatively few private arms manufacturers in France, best known for shotguns. During World War One they got into the machine gun trade, making licensed Lewis guns for the French air service. After making a few thousand of those, Regis Darne designed his own belt-fed m...

Back in 1975, Beretta introduced a line of mid-size semiauto pistols. The Model 81 was in .32 ACP (intended for the European market) and the Model 84 was chambered for .380 ACP for Americans. These both used double-stack magazines, and single-stack versions followed a few years later (the 82 and ...

Edward Felk was an Australian who decided to produce semiauto pistols in Australia. In 1994 he patented a couple features of his new design, and set about finding a way to produce it. He ended up subcontracting with Star of Spain to produce barrels and slides, while the polymer frames were produc...

The simple truth is that short rifles and short shotguns were never a problem, and continue to not be a problem today. The 1934 National Firearms Act originally wanted to restrict handgun ownership, and the clauses relating to SBRs and SBSs were simply to close the loophole of a person cutting do...

Social media is very excited these days about "exploding" SIG 320s...so let's consider what might actually be happening.

Of course, this discussion is invariably clouded by the fact that the P320 did have a legitimate drop-safety problem a few years ago. It was fixed, but many people don't bot...

The R-5 was a French-made copy of the Sten produced after the 1944 liberation of France. It was built by Gnome et Rhône, a French company best known for making aircraft engines. The Sten was familiar to French forces, as many had been supplied as military aid to the Free French as well as Resista...

Note: The New Jersey law that would ban sale of regular guns once "smart guns" were deemed commercially viable is no longer on the books.

Biofire is a Colorado company that has spent the last 5 years or so developing a biometrically authenticated pistol, using both fingerprint and facial reco...

**THIS WAS AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE**

I have been privileged to be part of an original research project in collaboration with Dr. Jackson Crawford studying the early medieval origins of firearms in Europe. Studying manuscripts in the National Museum of Iceland, Dr. Crawford unearthed records of eve...

When I visited Biofire, I was able to spend several hours discussing the history of the gun with its creator, lead designer, and lead engineer. We also completely stripped one of the guns down to its component circuit boards and pins - but much of this information is still under NDA until the gun...

Previously, I did a Totally Scientific (tm) comparison between Bruce Gray's personal SIG P220 Elite and a flock of six of Hi-Point's new 10mm JXP pistols. Today, I want to see how the two compare in a more practical test, so I brought them out to the monthly BackUp Gun Match.

Note 1: What I re...

A few months ago FN America was able to import 400 parts sets from original Belgian Gendarmerie FAL rifles. I got one of them, and had it completed by DSA. They made receivers with Gendarmerie markings, as well as the barrel and other parts not included with the kit. So today we'll take a look at...

Swords of the Emperor: A Guide to the Identification of Imperial Japanese Swords, 1873 – 1945 is a comprehensive reference work examining a little-studied period in the Japanese swordmaking tradition.

Japan is internationally renowned for its traditional swords, but comparatively little has be...

Dr. Jackson Crawford and I got the idea for our collaborative April fools videos on Viking firearms and gunpowder almost 8 months ago, when we visited Iceland together on the way to Finnish Brutality 2022. We took some time this week to talk about the origins of the videos and some of the Easter ...

From Thunderchild on Patreon:

"How would you see a modern major nation (US, USSR/Russia, China, etc) simplify their small arms in a large scale war, WW3 or Cold War gone hot? You've mentioned in the past how most nations end up having to simplify to meet demands, so why not start simplified?"
...

Lots of people put together significant gun collections over a lifetime, and want to see those collections preserved after they pass. This often manifests as looking for a museum that will keep a collection intact and display it - which is unfortunately a nearly impossible goal.

First, it is v...

Hi-Point has chosen to release a new carbine, the Model 3095 - in 7.65mm French Long! Well, not quite...it's actually in .30 Super Carry. But it will run 7.65mm French Long, so I clearly need to have one...

If you are familiar with the other carbine Hi-Point makes, you will find no surprises i...

The Midnight Brutality match was only feasible because of the assistance of the 1 Shepherd Leadership Institute cadre, and so I want to take a few minutes today to talk about just who they are. It is an organization founded in 1981 that uses infantry tactics and exercises to teach leadership. Int...

Greenland is a remote and desolate land without a significant industrial base, but there is a demand for hunting rifles there. As the place has long been a Danish colony since 1814, its trade was restricted to Denmark - including rifles. The Danish military received a substantial number of M1917 ...