The very early production MkI Bren light machine guns were made with two dovetail brackets on the left side of the receiver. The rear one was for the standard rear sight, and the front one was to accommodate two types of optical sights. A mounting for the No.32 telescopic sight (the same one used...

The British lost some 90% of their stock of Bren light machine guns in the disastrous Dunkirk evacuation, and in the following months rushed to rearm. Part of this program was a two-tiered simplification of the Bren design. First was a MkI Modified Bren (which was not marked any differently than ...

Just as World War One broke out in Europe, TC Johnson was working on a new Mauser-based sporting rifle design for the Winchester company. With the war, Johnson added options for military configurations (handguard, bayonet lug, etc) and presented the design (at this point called the Model A) to Wi...

In an effort to widen its potential marked for the C96 pistol, Mauser offered it in 9x25mm (aka 9mm Mauser Export) as well as the much more common 7.63x25mm cartridge. The 9mm cartridge was made by simply blowing out the bottlenecked 7.63mm case to a straight walled type and loading a 126gr bulle...

Franz Passler and Ferdinand Seidl formed a partnership to make manually-operated pistols in Austria in the late 1880s, but the arrangement did not last. Their design was initially patented by Passler in Austria, and then jointly by both men in Germany. It is a rotating barrel design similar in fu...

Edwin Reiger was an Austrian designer who took the basic mechanism of the Passler & Seidl ring trigger manual pistol and added a sort of revolver magazine to it. Reiger used a drop-in 6-round clip very similar to the Blake rifle clip. Only two examples of these pistols are known to survive, and t...

Thanks to the 1 Shepherd cadre for making Midnight Brutality possible! And thanks to our excellent match sponsors:

Tactical Night Vision Company (TNVC)
B.E. Meyers Advanced Photonics
Live Q or Die
Varusteleka

Midnight Brutality was a 6-stage all-nighttime match held at the Echo Valley Tr...

In 1867, a Russian delegation came to the United States to source new small arms for the Czar. In addition to purchasing Gatling guns, they met with Hiram Berdan and agreed to purchase a trapdoor single shot rifle he had designed. Berdan had been very active in the years immediately after the Ci...

The S&W No.3 revolver was originally designed for the .44 Henry Rimfire cartridge, but initial US military testing caused it to be changed to a centerfire cartridge, and all serial production would use centerfire ammunition. All serial production, that is, except a couple orders from the Ottoman ...

When Hungary separated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War One, it began to slowly rebuild its military equipment. The eventually led to carbine conversions of old M95 rifles using the new 8x56mm rimmed cartridge, which were designated the 31M. However, the Hungarians were not satisf...

There are few records I have been able to find on production of the original Mle 1866 Chassepot cavalry carbines. However, Royal Tiger / InterOrdnance just recently brought in a crate of 200 Gras and Chassepot-Gras cavalry carbines and I was able to help unpack and sort them. In the process, I fo...

Despite having early experience with the Madsen LMG prior to World War One, the Soviet military opted to follow the German path of machine gun development after the war. Valuing the sustained firepower of belt-fed guns like the MG08-15 and MG08-18 over the portability of guns like the BAR or Lewi...

I am excited to take an RPD out to the range today - I've wanted to try one for quite a while. The RPD is a very light and compact weapon for a squad automatic, and I'm curious how it will actually handle. This particular example is a Chinese Type 56, with many of the improvements that were made ...

Today Nicholas Moran (the Chieftain) and I are at Battlefield Vegas courtesy of Wargaming.net, to show you around a Soviet T-62 and all its various armaments. This particular T-62 was built in 1971 or 1972 and initially sold to Syria. It saw combat in the Valley of Tears in 1973, but survived as ...

Since you all seemed to enjoy the first installment in the series, today we have another of Ian's Customs...

This is my "Krinkov" - not a proper name for a short-barreled factory AK (the AKS-74U, specifically), but a word that I think fits this gun just fine. It is a registered SBR that I put ...

The Manurhin MR73 has always been one of the very best combat revolvers made, but they have been hard to find here in the US. That has now changed, as the Beretta group purchased Chapuis, manufacturer of the MR73. They are now importing both 4" and 5.25" versions, and I have a demo of the 5.25" S...

My opportunity to drive and shoot a T62 tank yesterday was a ton of fun - but there is so much more to that vehicle - and everything Battlefield Vegas is doing with their motor pool - than we could cover in one video. Today, I'm taking a moment to talk with Steve, who led the restoration of this ...

The No.5 MkI Enfield, commonly called the "jungle carbine" is nearly the shortest-lived rifle in British military service. Introduced in 1944, they were declared obsolete in 1947 as the result of insoluble accuracy problems. The guns were originally developed from regular No4 Enfield rifles with ...

Today we are taking a look at H&K's PDW, the MP7. Specifically, we're going to go over the changes made form the MP7A1 to the MP7A2 pattern...

The firm of Anitua Y Charola in Eibar, Spain (later renamed Charola Y Anitua) was founded in 1880 or 1881, and their first substantial product was a copy of the American Merwin & Hulbert revolver. They were made with hopes of getting Spanish military adoption, and thus were chambered for the .44 ...

This is a really interesting artifact of the First World War that I found in a collection and wanted to share (since the owner, understandably, wouldn't part with it!). All the major powers in the Great War set up aerial training schools to teach pilots and observer/gunners how to use their guns ...

I have previously filmed a semiauto Hotchkiss Universal, but until today I'd not had a chance to try shooting an intact, original automatic one. Thanks to Battlefield Vegas, I have the chance today!

Turns out, the French absolutely made the right choice taking the MAT-49 over the Hotchkiss Un...

It is a bit surprising that there has not previously been a significant book written on the M3 "Grease Gun" submachine gun - but Michael Heidler has corrected that empty space in the firearms literature. His new book "The US M3/M3A1 Submachine Gun" is 224 pages covering all aspects of the Grease ...

Yesterday we looked at the standard Polish service rifle, the wz.96 Beryl. Today we have the carbine version, the Mini-Beryl. Specifically, we have an early example, predating several of the mid-life improvements that were made by the time the first major contract for the Mini-Beryl was placed.