The German company Erma (Erfurter Maschinenfabrik) developed a .22 rimfire kit for the Mauser 98 for the German Army in the 1920s. It was used for training, both to allow for more effective fundamental practice without the noise and recoil of full size cartridges but also to reduce ammunition cos...

Tony Neophytou developed this for Denel Land Systems, which has completely fallen apart as a company and left it now as his own independent design, with no manufacturer. I filmed this video in 2018, to show the prototype version of the Strike, which has since been improved and further developed. ...

Since I have the rather unusual opportunity to examine both the early Swedish m/45 and the improved m/45B at the same time, I figured this would be a good opportunity for a video. There were three substantial changes made to the m/45 when it was improved:

- Barrel proud holes made taller to m...

Johnson M1941 rifles were used in limited numbers by the US Marine Corps in the Pacific theater of World War Two, but they were used - and generally well liked. Interestingly, there was a fairly common field modification done by the Marines, and that was to cut off the front sight wings, and some...

Today I'm at SIG Sauer Parts (soon to be ModGuns) to play around with assembling a SIG 320. I've always been interested in stocked pistols, and so I'm going to take this opportunity to put together a USW (Universal Service Weapon). This originated as a complete pistol made by B&T (based on the CZ...

Today we are looking at a second Chinese Warlord-Era C96 Mauser carbine. These were made as fancy sporting or presentation arms for important people - just as the original Mauser-made C96 carbines were. This example was made at the Taku Naval Dockyard, a facility initially set up to maintain the ...

I recently spent a weekend taking a TCCC (Tactical Combat Casualty Care) course from Myles Francis at Archangel Dynamics. TCCC is a program originally developed by the Naval Special Warfare School to improve battlefield survivability by specifically modernizing immediate pre-evacuation care doctr...

Today we are looking at a high-end C96 Mauser pattern sporting carbine made by the Tsingtao Ironworks. Only a few dozen of these were made, and this one survives in excellent condition. It is a good example of how some guns in Warlord China were made by skilled craftsmen with excellent tools and ...

The UC-9 is a really interesting example of the market distortion caused by the 1986 Hughes Amendment. This is essentially an Uzi converted into a form factor than doesn’t look like a gun when folded up. It was designed (independent of the ARES FMG, incidentally) by one Utah Connor in the early 1...

Yesterday we looked at the development and mechanics of the UC-9 folding sneaky submachine gun. Today we are out at the range with it – how does this thing actually handle? Well, actually better than I expected. The laser is a pretty terrible main sighting system, but the gun itself shoots smooth...

One of the interesting implications of the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the potential for expanded legal civilian ownership of firearms, particularly rifles, in many of the smaller countries in Europe. We saw the Ukrainian government jump to legalize civilian arms ownership immediately after th...

Note: The combat zone photos are from 2017, not 2015.

Footage published by US DoD, from training exercises in September 2017 and February 2018. The appearance of U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) visual information does not imply or constitute DoD endorsement.

I have had several people send me this video, showing a Ukrainian shop converting PKT machine guns to an infantry configuration. The PK machine gun is used in a lot of Russian armored vehicles, but in vehicular form it uses a solenoid trigger, and doesn't have a pistol grip or shoulder stock. The...

SIG began making SMGs in the 1920s with a licensed copy of the Bergmann. In 1927 the license expired, and they began working on their own designs, the first of which was introduced as the Modell 1930. This was replaced in 1933 by a design from SIG engineer Gotthard End, using Pal Kiraly’s lever-d...

Today we have the SIG MKPS out at the range – and WOW! I did not anticipate just how fast-firing of a submachine gun this is. Calculating from the high speed footage, it is running at 1350 rpm – and yet it’s still very controllable. It’s a beautiful looking gun, a beautifully made gun, and a real...

Prior to World War Two, the Soviet Union had a rather lackluster interest in antitank rifles - a series of guns were developed, but slowly and without all that much success. The Barbarossa invasion gave a very immediate need for just this sort of weapon, however, to give Soviet infantry units an ...

When the German Army announced in 1934 that it would be adopting a new standard rifle, the JP Sauer company jumped at the chance to submit a model for consideration. Auger has a complete production line for the Mauser pattern rifles, having produced Gewehr 98s during World War One, and it had acc...

Today we are going to take a looks at a series of six prototype Roth Theodorovic pistols. These were a design that competed in Austrian pistol trials around the turn of the century, and eventually lost out to the Roth Krnka (adopted as the Roth-Steyr M.7).

The Russian M1910 Maxim was clearly obsolete in the 1930s, and the Soviet military developed a replacement for it – the Degtyarev DS-39. These performed well in testing, but several major flaws were revealed when they started seeing field use (including in the Winter War) and production ceased af...

https://www.instagram.com/scrome_optics/

The French Army used a single pattern of rifle scope from 1949 all the way until 1995 - the APX L806, which was essentially a German ZF-4. It was finally replaced officially in 1995, with the adoption of the Scrome J8 F1 for use on their FR-F2 sniper ri...

The FAMAS was originally designed for iron sights only, as it predates the trend of issuing optics on standard infantry rifles (the marksman's rifle at the time of its development was the FR-F1). However, adaptations were made to mount optics, primarily the PGMP updated handguard, which locked mo...

Romania adopted the PKM in 1966, and began manufacturing their own direct copy at Cugir. In the 1990s, the plant designed a model intended for paratroopers, with a shortened barrel and unique side folding stock. Romanian special operations and paratroop units tested them, but declined to purchase...

From Paul on Patreon:
"I’ve always thought there were a lot of older guns that deserve to be reproduced, many of which could be really simple to manufacture. PSA is planning the release of their StG44 repro which is exciting. But why don’t we see this sort of thing more often. I suppose not ever...

Rhett Neumayer is a guy with some really interesting and innovative thoughts on small arms training and handling. He runs Demonstrated Concepts, offering training classes on a variety of different firearms. You can check out his web site here:

https://demonstratedconcepts.com

Today, he is g...