August Coenders was an independent arms designer in Germany. During the 1930s he spent several years working in England and at the French Puteaux Arsenal, which contributed to a general lack of trust and interest in his designs by the German high command (the man's generally adversarial nature di...

In the days when market hunting was a normal practice, hunters would use pretty huge shotguns to harvest large numbers of waterfowl. These were called punt guns, named after the small shallow-draft boats which they were used on - punts. The largest punt guns had bores of up to 50mm (2 inches) and...

The Boys Anti-Tank Rifle was adopted by the British military in 1937, and remained in production until 1943 when it was replaced by the PIAT. During that time more than 114,000 were made, both in the UK and in Canada. Canadian engineers at the John Inglis company devised a number of improvements ...

The Beretta 38A is not a gun that comes to mind for many people today when discussing World War Two submachine guns, but at the time it was one of the most desirable guns of its type. So - does it live up to that reputation?

Sport Systeme Dittrich in Germany is a manufacturer of a remarkably wide range of reproduction German World War Two small arms (including the FG42, StG-44, G43, MP-3008, MP-35, and VG1-5 as well as the MP-38). They have a mixed reputation, as they are magnificently accurate looking reproductions,...

The Armstrong & Taylor carbine is a neat single shot breechloading carbine patented in 1862. It operates by way of a button on the top of the rear tang, which allows the barrel assembly to rotate open around a pin located below the barrel. An extractor is mechanically camel to the pin, and pushes...

The AVS-36 was the first self-loading rifle adopted by the Soviet Union to be a standard infantry rifle, and it was not just semiautomatic, but also capable of fully automatic fire. Designed by Sergei Simonov over the course of about ten years, it would only last a short time in service before be...

There were probably less than a hundred of these Pryse-Patent break-action .577 revolvers made in total, and this one has managed to maintain an excellent nickel finish. Pushing approximately a 400 grain bullet at about 725 fps, these 5-shot revolvers were made as last-ditch “stopping” guns in ca...

This is a very interesting WW1 heavy machine gun. It is a Russian M1910 Maxim that was repaired at some point using the brass jacket from a 1905 Russian Maxim. This may have been done by Russians or buy Germans, as the gun was also captured by German forces at some point and refitted to use Germa...

This 4mm “Zimmerstutzen” conversion kit was patented by one Karl Weiss in 1921, and produced by the RWS company in Germany. Versions were made for several different types of pistol, but the Mauser 1914 was a particularly suitable base thanks to its very easy removed barrel. The kit consists of a ...

Covid restrictions forced the cancellation of the main Finnish Brutality 2021 match - but in its place we are running Remote Brutality 2021!

What you'll need:
• A kettlebell, rock, backpack, or another item you can throw around weighing 20 kg (44 lbs). In the instructions, this item will be r...

Historically speaking, the AutoMag 180 pistol has been a reaper of investors. Between 1971 and 1982, no fewer than six different companies went bankrupt trying to make a profit building Auto Mags. However, we may have finally reached the end of that streak...

In 2015, all the existing tools, par...

I spend all of the past week at SHOT Show 2023, and had a thoroughly exhausting time. I got a whole lot done though, including locking in about $60,000 in sponsorships for the Midnight Brutality prize table - we are going to have an amazing experience for our competitors! Anyway, a few of the hig...

Today I'm taking an original (made in 1918) Artillery Luger rig out to a 6-stage USPSA match. I'm entered in PCC (pistol-caliber carbine) division using the detachable shoulder stock (note that this is exempted from the NFA, so it does not need to be registered) and the snail drum magazine. Happi...

Don't have medical gear or training? Code "IAN" gets you 10% off med kits and training classes:

https://www.refugemedical.com

About 6 years ago, I had an accident at the range. We talked about it at the time, but didn't say what the gun involved was, in order to keep the discussion focused ...

Make sure to check out the video on 9 Hole Reviews, with the SIG 550 on their 500yd course of fire, plus discussion with a Swiss infantry officer.

In its continuing effort to provide everything for the US military from shoelaces to fighter jets, SIG has developed an optic which resolves a challenge with .300 Blackout and other calibers which offer both supersonic and subsonic loadings. Namely, how does one zero an optic for such a rifle? SI...

Today we are going to take a look at how Private Jackson's sniper rifle is portrayed in Saving Private Ryan. It's a great movie, and I enjoyed it a lot - but this sniper rifle is incorrect in every scene...

At the beginning of the film, the rifle is shown as an M1903A4 (which is appropriate) b...

One of the really interesting variations on the AK to come out of Russian military development and testing is the balanced-recoil system, as exemplified on the military AK-107 and the commercial Kalashnikov SR-1 rifles. Contrary to common assumption, this is not a system to counteract to recoil c...

In 1970 and 1971, China experimented with a stamped-receiver version of the SKS. About 6,000 of these rifles were made each of the two years, and a number of them have come into the US as commercial exports.

We don't have any official records from China about this program, but it seems clear t...

Asked by Tyler on Patreon: "Why are there so few double stack/double feed handguns? I can only think of a couple off the top of my head. It makes the worst part of handgun shooting (loading the magazines) a complete non-issue."

There are a series of interacting considerations when choosing bet...

Yesterday we looked at the development of the Skorpion PDW/SMG in 9x19mm Parabellum both in the 1960s and then when it was revisited in the 1990s at CZ. Today I have the chance to take one of the 1990s Skorpion 9×19 models out the the range for some firing. I was expecting it to be a fairly viole...

When the Slovenian Army decided to adopt a new infantry rifle in the mid-2000s, the Arex Defense company decided to submit the F-2000 into the trials. The H&K G36 was widely expected to be the winner, but Arex had already been involved in making F2000 parts as a subcontractor for FN, and wanted a...

Time for another practice session on the spinner...I am improving!

This time, I stopped trying to make double taps, and focused instead on getting a single properly timed hit at each presentation. Hitting twice is good, but not if it causes me to miss a following shot - perfect consistency is ...