Yeah, I'm a sucker for nice French rifles. So when Old Western Scrounger brought in another batch of them, I offered to do a video. These are rifles taken out of French long-term storage, having been rebuilt at French arsenals to like-new condition, and are in beautiful condition.

Full video on ...

The South Korean military was using old Colt M1911A1 pistols in the 1980s, and as they became worn out a new pistol was needed. This would be something designed and built domestically, and chambered for 9x19. The small arms division of the massive Daewoo industrial conglomerate, called Daewoo Pre...

Semiauto versions of machine guns are a way to have examples of historically significant and mechanically interesting guns without having to wrangle with NFA transfers and the astronomical price of transferrable legal machine guns. However, they are not particularly common. Very few OEM manufactu...

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 ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...

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 ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...

The Degtyarev DP (aka DP-27) was the subject of a bunch of experimentation during the 1930s, but none of the trialed modifications were actually adopted. It was only in 1944, after several years of combat experience, that the design was updated to correct a number of shortcomings. Specifically:

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https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=e0y2xl

We are really close to hitting the stretch goal to add a section on the Guns of GoldenEye N64 to Licensed Troubleshooter!

For a lot of people, James Bond was introduced not by Sean Connery, but by a 64-bit rendit...

If you had to pick one, would you take a Sten MkII or an Ingram M10/9? This applies specifically to the guns in their original factory configurations; no Lage products allowed! It's hard to come up with a mass-production SMG that isn't obviously better than a MkII Sten, but the stock Ingrams migh...

If you had to pick one, would you take an early Beretta 38A (with bayonet), or a Finnish kp/31 Suomi? Both have semiauto selectors, although the Beretta's its easier to use. The Suomi has a higher rate of fire and larger magazine capacity, but is slower to use. Both have roughly equivalent sights...

The first iteration of the iconic German Sturmgewehr was developed by Haenel starting in 1938. It was a select-fire rifle chambered for the short 8x33mm cartridge, developed by the Polte company. It used a long-stroke gas piston and a tilting bolt patterned after the Czech ZB-26 light machine gun...

The development of the Dragunov designated marksman’s rifle was spurred by the NATO adoption of the 7.62x51mm cartridge. The Red Army had standardized on a new suite of infantry weapons using the intermediate-sized 7.62x39mm round, and feared being out-ranged in open terrain by NATO units. The So...

When the Germans took over control of the Czechoslovakian arms industry, they took some time to work out what out to be mass produced at the Brno factory. In the interim, they decided to restart production of the Czech vz33 Mauser carbine as the Gewehr 33/40 for German mountain troops. This was a...

American forces in the Revolutionary War took in a bunch of different types of surplus small arms, and one of the interesting ones was the French Model 1717 Rampart gun. When the French created the first standardized military rifle pattern in 1717, they made two versions - an infantry musket and ...

Webley introduced their No5 Express New Army model revolver in 1878. This was essentially a ruggedized and scaled up variation on the No5 RIC revolvers that was very popular with police forces. The RIC was chambered for just the .450 Adams cartridge, and its ejection system in particular was not ...

The Enfield MkI had only been in service for two years when the MkII was adopted in March 1882 to resolve some of its problems (and reduce its cost). At the same time, a new cartridge was adopted (the MkIII) with a heeled .477” bullet - also in hopes of resolving some o the problems with the Enfi...

Following Portuguese Army adoption in 1908, the Portuguese Navy adopted the Luger in 1909 as the m/910. The pattern they chose was a “new model” Luger in 9x19mm, with a 100mm / 4” barrel. A total of 650 were ordered in late 1909 and delivered between 1910 and 1912. The guns had Portuguese-languag...

The initial model of the Beretta 38A had a number of features that were dropped rather quickly once wartime production became a priority. Specifically, they included a lockout safety switch for just the rear full-auto trigger. This was in place primarily for police use, in which the guns were int...

When Germany took over Czechoslovakia, one of the things they did was buy out a controlling interest in what became known as Waffenwerke Brunn. Headquartered in Prague, the company had two factories; one in Brno (Czechia) and one in Bystrica (Slovakia). The Bystrica factory was already making vz2...

After World War Two, the Red Army moved from a full power infantry rifle cartridge to an intermediate one, and the 7.62x39mm RPD became the new squad machine gun. At the same time, the heavy Maxims were replaced by the new SG-43 Goryunov. This left a gap in capability, with nothing available with...

When the French took over control of the Mauser factory complex in May 1945, the plant had some 85 tons of pistol parts on hand - 7.3 million individual components in various stages of production. This was enough to make a whole lot of guns, even if many of them were not completed parts. So along...

When the German government bought up the controlling interest in Steyr in 1938, they made use of its production facilities to start making rifles for the Luftwaffe. Steyr had tooling for the Mauser 98, but not in K98k form - they had most recently made a Mauser-pattern carbine for Chile in 1934 (...

The German Wehrmacht was always hungry for more rifles during World War Two, and adopted substitute designs made in friendly (or subservient) countries when possible. Almost all of these were minor variations on the Mauser 98 system, but the Hungarian G98/40 was an exception. This was a Mannliche...

Of the seven revolvers Colt named after snakes, the rarest is the Colt Boa. Only a single production run of these were made totaling just 1,200 guns. They were made in 1985 as a custom order for the Lew Horton distribution company, which wanted something unique to offer its buyers. The Boa was an...

Allied troops occupied the Mauser factory complex in Oberndorf in April of 1945, right at the end of the war. The factory was put under French administration and by May that same year production lines were restarted to supply French forces (who needed as many arms as they could get). In total, ju...