After World War One, Colt was the sole owner of license to produce Browning machine guns. With production tooling well established form the war, the company set about looking for international sales. The water cooled .30 caliber (the M1917 in US service, essentially) was designated the Model 1919...

After World War One, there was a lot of tinkering with the BAR by the US military. It was recognized as being a very good platform, but the original M1918 configuration left a lot to be desired. It was deemed to heavy to use effectively form the shoulder, but also not really well suited to sustai...

The Dutch Navy first acquired Luger pistols in 1918 specifically for its aviators. They has 12 German P04 Lugers taken from a German submarine stranded in the (neutral) Netherlands, and 28 more were purchased from DWM in 1918 to round out the 40 guns needed to equip the Naval Air Service. The pis...

The first rifle made in Sam Colt’s Paterson NJ factory was the 1837 “ring lever” rifle. These were rather fragile and underpowered and while they were used successfully in the First Seminole War, they needed improvement. Colt set about doing this with his 1839 pattern, which was more robust and m...

Isaiah Jennings patented an improvement to the Belton repeating flintlock system in 1821 - but we don’t know exactly what his idea was because the Patent Office lost his patent (and many others) in a large 1836 fire. Jennings' system was used by several gunsmiths, though. In 1828/9 the State of N...

When Germany occupied Belgium in the summer of 1940, the took over the FN factory complex and ordered production of the High Power pistol to continue. It was put into German service as the Pistole 640(b), and nearly 325,000 of them were made between 1940 and 1944. The first ones were simply assem...

The P38K is both a fantasy WWII concept and also a real pistol made in small numbers by Walther in the 1970s. The idea is simple; just cut down the barrel on a P38 to barely in front of the slide (2.8 inches on the real ones). This does make for a shorter gun, although it retains the large frame ...

In the 1890s, there was a lot of interest in small caliber, simple revolvers for self-defense by cyclists, primarily against dogs. This led to the creation of a whole category of “velodog” revolvers, and a Belgian designer named Herman patented this extension of the idea. It is a 6-shot, 5mm pinf...

As the main national armory, Springfield got a number of requests to make specialty rifles for commissioned officers and important dignitaries each year. These were essentially all custom sporting rifles, and the orders were duly filled. In 1875, however, the decision was made to standardize a fo...

The Fenian Brotherhood was formed in the US in 1858, a partner organization to the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The groups were militant organizations looking to procure Irish independence from the British, and they found significant support among the Irish-American immigrant community. In Novem...

The American 180 is a .22LR machine gun that fires at a high rate (1300 rpm more or less) from a super-high-capacity magazine (177 rounds). Conceptually it was designed by Richard Casull in the 1960s, but he only produced about 70 of his original M290 design. He sold the rights to the design, and...

This lecture was presented at the Spring 2025 meeting of the American Society of Arms Collectors. It was given by Joel Bohy, coauthor of a new book of the same name, published by Mowbray. You can find his book here:

https://gunandswordcollector.com/product/bullet-strikes-american-revolution/
or
...

Beaumont-Vitali clip file here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7007347

Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, and they are actually pretty easy to reload for. The unavailability of factory ammunitio...

In December 1944, the Haenel company received permission to produce a simplified version of the StG-44 Sturmgewehr. The idea was to keep the mechanical system and controls as similar as possible to the design in use, but simplify the design to reduce the cost and time of production. The design wa...

DS Arms got some billet titanium and decided to make a batch of titanium receivers and other parts. This turned out to be a nightmarish amount of work, and two of the receivers had to be scrapped, leaving only 10 completed. They also made a number of other titanium parts, including flash hiders (...

The Kuna is a delayed-blowback 9mm pistol/PCC/submachine gun developed by HS Produkt in Croatia and marketed int he US by Springfield Armory. Development on it began in 2020 as a commercial project, but probably also with an eye to military and law enforcement sales. The Croatian police are curre...

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This month's Q&A theme is competition shooting...

00:50 - Guns I'd like to shoot in BUG match but ha...

Everyone who gets a Kim Jong Un patch or t-shirt will also receive -100 social credit points in China:
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00:00 - Intro; overall match sponsor Q
03:27 - Stage 1: Rambo's Reading Rainbow, sponsored by TNVC
06:31 - Stage 2: Seal Team Extraction, sponsored by Nocturn Industries
08:10 - Stage 3: Mogadishu Marathon, sponsored by Polaris Logistics
10:22 - Stage 4: Home Invasion, sponsored by Refuge Medical...

00:00 - Intro; overall match sponsor Q
00:51 - Stage 6: Bound Forward, sponsored by Aimpoint
03:14 - Stage 7: Double-Wide of Death, sponsored by B&T
04:15 - Stage 8: Bakhmut Night Assault, sponsored by Varusteleka
08:41 - Stage 9: Radio Freq Out, sponsored by T-Rex Arms
11:22 - Stage 10: Assault ...

00:00 - Intro; overall match sponsor Q
02:30 - Stage 1: Rambo's Reading Rainbow, sponsored by TNVC
05:57 - Stage 2: Seal Team Extraction, sponsored by Nocturn Industries
08:07 - Stage 3: Mogadishu Marathon, sponsored by Polaris Logistics
10:40 - Stage 4: Home Invasion, sponsored by Refuge Medical...

Now Shipping! Order your copy here:
https://www.headstamppublishing.com/danube-book

At the end of the Second World War, Hungary was occupied by Soviet troops and soon fell into the Soviet sphere of influence, joining the Warsaw Pact in 1955. Like most other socialist countries behind the Iron Cu...

Varusteleka's Snow Camo Anorak that I was using today is available here:
https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/sarma-tst-l7-camouflage-anorak/58285

Finnish Brutality 2025 took the standard for practical shooting matches and raised it again - by making it a true winter match. Run by Varusteleka,...

Varusteleka's Patrol Coverall that I was using today is available here:
https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/sarma-tst-l5-thermal-patrol-coverall/76574

Finnish Brutality 2025 took the standard for practical shooting matches and raised it again - by making it a true winter match. Run by Varuste...