Russell Turner was a Pennsylvania gunsmith and inventor who developed this semiautomatic conversion of an SMLE bolt action rifle circa 1940. It was intended for trial and potential sale to the Canadian military, as it would allow them to retrofit existing rifles into semiautomatic configuration a...

Russell Turner was a gunsmith and inventor in Pennsylvania who submitted a rifle design to the US Light Rifle trials (which would culminate in the adoption of Winchester’s design as the M1 Carbine). Turner’s entry into the first trial was a distinctive piece with a tubular metal stock and hand gu...

(Note: I misspoke regarding Roosevelt's letter; he was President at the time and writing to the Secretary of War)

The US military adopted the Model 1903 Springfield rifle in 1903, replacing the short-lived Krag-Jorgenson rifle. However, the 1903 would undergo some pretty substantial changes in 1...

When I heard about Hi-Point releasing a 10mm pistol (the JXP 10), I knew I needed to do something fun with it. Hi-Point is often derided - and often for good reasons - but fundamentally the Hi-Point design does exactly what it is advertised to. It is a functional and extremely inexpensive pistol....

Georg Roth's company in Austria presided over a wonderful variety of interesting handgun development, and this is one example of that lineage. Roth's licensed or purchased the patent for this pistol from its inventor, Wasa Theodorovic, and turned it over to his engineer Karel Krnka to develop (I'...

The General Liu rifle (named for its designer – it never received an official designation that we know of) was China’s closest approach to an indigenous self-loading infantry rifle before World War II. Mechanically it used the same principles as the Danish Bang rifle – a muzzle cup captured some ...

The Pritchard bayonet for the Webley revolver is one of the more photogenic and less truly practical weapons to come out of the Great War. Designed by one Captain Pritchard after he spent a year in France in 1915-1916 with the Royal Berkshire Regiment, the idea was to use the front 8 inches or so...

Sam Colt's very first work was done in Baltimore, but this ended fairly quickly, and it was with his subsequent move to Paterson New Jersey that the first true production Colt firearms were made. Colt set up a small shop there and introduced both handguns and rifles using his patented system in w...

The 1902 “Grandpa” Nambu is one of the first wave of successful military automatic pistols, developed by Kijiro Nambu and his team over the course of 5 years, from 1897 to 1902. It was the first automatic pistol to be used by the Japanese military, although it was a private-purchase sidearm for o...

France began working on developing military self-loading rifles virtually as soon as the 1886 Lebel was adopted, and they would pursue a pretty elaborate series of trials right up to World War I. One series was developed by Etienne Meunier at the Artillery Technical Section using gas operated mec...

When you think about early revolver patent infringement, the name that probably comes to mind is Rollin White. But Sam Colt had more than his share of infringement to deal with as well! Colt's most important patent was on the linking of the hammer and cylinder, so that cocking the hammer would au...

The JoLoAr pistol was a combination of a poor-selling and unremarkable Spanish blowback semiauto pistol called the Sharpshooter and an idea by a man named Jose Lopez Arnaiz (whose name is the source of the pistol’s name). Arnaiz conceived the idea of mounting a lever (palanca in Spanish) onto a p...

Whew - this was a long one! As usual, I had far more questions submitted by you awesome Patrons than I could answer, so if yours didn't get in this time please submit it again next time.

0:00:52 - What have been my favorite or most enlightening trips abroad?
0:02:55 - Systems like Blish that wor...

0:25 - FAMAS parts kits coming?

1:15 - Why heel magazine releases on European handguns?

3:07 - Are Continsouza Berthiers worth less than MAS and MAC ones?

5:10 - Having stronger FAMAS magazines made.

5:50 - Why were there M2 and M3 Carbines instead of M1A2 and M1A3 Carbines?

7:17 - What was...

Today's Q&A is all about French guns, because I am getting close to being finished writing a book on French military rifles - the first book to cover this subject in English from the Chassepot through the FAMAS!

01:34 - Favorite French pistol, rifle, and machine gun
03:13 - How did I get interes...

The Italian army actually adopted a semiautomatic rifle in 1939: this Armaguerra Model 1939. It was intended to supplant the M38 Carcano bolt actions, but ultimately never managed to get into mass production.

The rifle was adopted initially in the new 7.35mm cartridge, and then quickly cancelled...

Wall guns are the philosophical predecessor to today's anti-material rifles - large-caliber, high power rifles heavy enough that they cannot be fired from the shoulder realistically. Traditionally, they were used for defending walls or ramparts, as the name implies. They would allow defenders to ...

After making their big break with the adoption of the Model 1871 Mauser rifle by the newly unified German government, the Mauser brothers, took a shot at getting the handgun contract for the military as well, with this revolver, the Model 1878. It is often colloquially called the Mauser Zig-Zag b...

After getting his Model 1941 machine gun purchased in small numbers by the US military, Melvin Johnson continued to press for more sales and a general adoption. Following testing results and recommendations from soldiers in the field, he made a number of modifications to the gun and developed the...

Today's question topics:

0:00:36 - Have I considered designing the perfect gun?
0:02:38 - Dealer sample machine gun market
0:07:20 - Stocked pistols and pistol-carbines
0:10:53 - P14 & M1917 nomenclature
0:12:45 - Particularly good and bad manuals of arms
0:16:10 - CMP 1911s
0:18:57 - What could...

When the Danish Coastal Police was formed under German occupation to patrol the Danish shores, they needed rifles. Rather than use valuable military arms, the government turned to the noted sporting and target rifle manufacturer Schultz & Larsen to make a military version of the Model 36 target r...

In 1903, Danish engineer Jens Schouboe began developing an automatic pistol for the Dansk Rekylriffel Syndikat in Copenhagen (later to become the Madsen company). He made the guns in both .32ACP and also in a proprietary Danish .45 caliber based (I believe) on the centerfire conversion of Denmark...

When Denmark decided to replace its M1910/21 Bergmann service pistols, it did not have to look far for a very high-quality option. The Swiss military was just concluding several years of handgun trials that had culminated in the SIG P210. This was an extremely well-made weapon, arguably the highe...

Dozens of countries around the world received M1 Garand rifles from the United States in the decades after World War Two, and Denmark was one of those that not only got some rifle but went so far as to formally adopt the M1 as its post-war standard. The US and Denmark signed a mutual defense agre...