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Glock 18 & 18C Machine Pistols: How Do They Work?
After the success of the Glock 17 in Austrian military trials, the company chose two specific markets to target for expansion. One was competition shooters, for whom the Glock 17L was released. The other was the international law enforcement and military market, for whom they decided to make a ma...
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Stamm-Zeller 1902: A Swiss Straight-Pull Converted to Semiauto
Today's rifle was designed by a Swiss inventor named Hans Stamm while working for the Zeller et Cie company in Appenzell Switzerland. The company originally made embroidering machinery, but turned to military rifle parts subcontracting to bring in additional revenue in the early 1890s. Stamm had ...
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Våpensmia NM-149S: Norway's Sniper Conversion of the Kar 98k
After World War Two, there were a lot of K98k rifles left in Norway. Like, a whole lot of them. So many that even in the 1980s they were still a popular basis for hunting and competition rifles. The Norwegian military contracted with the firm Våpensmia to make a batch of their VS 84S hunting rifl...
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Beretta Tries a Machine Pistol: the Model 951A
Beretta's first machine pistol was actually a full-auto variant of the Model 1923, complete with shoulder stock - but that did not sell well. They tried again in the 1950s with an automatic model of the new Beretta Model 51 (aka M951). This was a 9x19mm pistol using a P38 style locking wedge, and...
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Virtual Tour: Swiss Shooting Museum Bern
Today we are taking a virtual tour of the Swiss Shooting Museum (Schweizer Schützenmuseum Bern) in Bern, Switzerland. The museum has been in this building since just before World War Two, and focusses on the history of the Swiss competitive shooting culture and community. At the time of posting, ...
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Deckard's Pfläger-Katsumata Series D 5223
In the film Blade Runner, Deckard carries a pistol called a Pfläger-Katsumata Series D 5223 - a name created by the fan community to have the initials "PKD" after Phillip K. Dick, who wrote Blade runner's source material (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep). What we are looking at today is an ex...
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The Swiss Suomi: MP43/44 (With Bayonet)
During World War Two, the Swiss had adopted Adolf Furrer's toggle-locked MP41 submachine gun, and they found it too fragile, complex, and expensive. Looking for an alternative, one easy choice was the Finnish Suomi. Used and appreciated by the Finns, Danes, and Swedes it was reliable and availabl...
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A Beautiful Factory Semiauto SIG MKPO
During the 1930s, SIG Neuhausen made a series of really beautiful submachine guns. They were the MK series, offered in either 500mm / 19.7 inch barrels for military use or 300mm / 11.8 inch for police use. The first pattern was the MK-O, which had a rate-reducing system built into the action (whi...
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Aimpoint's Only Gun: The PC-80 Symmetrical Action
Today we are looking at the entire scope of Aimpoint's firearms development division...which is actually just this one firearm. Aimpoint was founded in 1975 as a partnership between Arne Ekstrand (a Swedish inventor with an idea for a brand new "red dot" type of optic) and Gunnar Sandberg (a weal...
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Type 56C: China's Last Military AK (And It's Totally Non-Standard)
The Type 56C is the final iteration of Chinese Kalashnikov, originally intended for export but primarily used by Chinese police and special forces. It is a short-barreled carbine with a folding stock, and remarkably few standard AK parts. The receiver takes a number of cues from the Type 81 rifle...
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Small Arms History of the Falkland Islands Defense Force
Various militias existed on the Falkland Islands since its earliest settlement, but the Falkland Islands Defense Force of today traces its roots to the 1892 Falkland Islands Volunteer Corps. This force was equipped with Martini Henry rifles. With the outbreak of World War One, the Falklands were ...
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Field to Table: Harvesting, Butchering, and Preparing Game w/ Outdoor Solutions
You can get Outdoor Solutions' ebook and companion videos along with their whole upcoming class schedule at:
https://www.fromfieldtotable.com
My freezer is getting low, so it was time to refill it - and I chose to do that this year at one of Outdoor Solutions' "Field to Table" classes. Set up w...
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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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Estonian Snipers: Enfields in 7.62x54R and Arisakas in .303 British
In the early 1930s, the Estonian military and Estonia Defense League had a rather eclectic mix of small arms. The Army had three divisions, and split different types of weapons between them to simplify logistics. Thus, there was one division equipped with rifles and machine guns in 7.62x54R, and ...
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B&T GL-06 Launcher: Reloadable Less-Lethal for Police on a Budget
The B&T GL06 (Grenade Launcher 2006) was developed in response to a French tender for a riot-control less-lethal weapon in 2006. B&T had actually already been working on a less-lethal projectile system, which they call SIR (Safe Impact Round). It is a rubber projectile with a hard plastic base an...
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Aimpoint's New COA: Clever Optics Advancement
Let me first mention something that I didn't cover in the video: what does "COA" stand for? Well, nothing. They just wanted a name that they could trademark that wasn't already in use. So go ahead and make up your own acronym.
It may be hard to see how a pistol red dot sight could be exciting, b...
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Virtual Tour: Estonian War Museum
The Estonian War Museum (Eesti Sõjamuuseum) is located at Mõisa tee 1, 74001 Viimsi, Estonia (just outside the capital Tallinn). For opening hours and entry fees, please check their web site:
https://esm.ee
The museum is housed in what used to be the residence of the Estonian Army commander, co...
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Latvia's Unique Charger-Loading Lee Enfield (CLLE) Cavalry Carbine
During the Latvian War of Independence, the nationalist forces receiver a fair bit of support form the British, including some 20,000 P14 Enfield rifles. These were great for the Latvian infantry, but the Latvian cavalry wanted something shorter. So in the early 1920s, they ordered 2200-2350 (the...
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AG42 Ljungman: Sweden Adopts a Battle Rifle in WWII
Sweden developed, adopted, and produced a new self-loading rifle during World War Two. The process began in 1938, with an attempt by the state rifle factory to convert Swedish Mauser bolt actions into semiautomatic; that did not go well. Trials for a ground-up semiauto followed shortly thereafter...
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Ljungman Updates: the AG-42 vs AG-42B
In 1953, the Swedish military launched a program to refurbish and refit all of the Ag m/42 rifles in inventory. Aside from replacing broken parts and worn barrels, the program also made a number of improvements to the rifles:
* Auxiliary front magazine catch added
* Large gripping lugs added to ... -
TOZ-36 and TOZ-49: Soviet Gas-Seal Target Revolvers
These two revolvers were developed for competitive sport shooting in the Soviet Union. They are usually described as variants of the Model 1895 Nagant, but they actually work on a different mechanism, despite both being gas-seal designs. The TOZ-36 was designed in 1962, and it was a single action...