The Pettengill revolver is a 6-shot, muzzleloading double-action-only system designed and patented by C.S. Pettengill in 1856, and improved by Edward Raymond and Charles Robitaille in 1858. In 1859, the Rogers & Spencer company was contracted to put them into production as a .31 caliber pocket mo...

In 1942, the SS devised a plan to rent out concentration camp labor to companies in the German armaments industry. Several different rifle production lines were set up to make use of this source of cheap labor, and the one we are looking at today is Steyr’s plant at the Gusen camp (a subsidiary o...

Czech Combat is a 2-day, 12-stage practical match using rifle and pistol, sponsored by CZ and Sellier & Bellot. It is not a Brutality match, although it shares a lot of elements with Brutality. There is not as much physical challenge to the stages, instead having a mixture of tactically-oriented ...

Czech Combat is a 2-day, 12-stage practical match using rifle and pistol, sponsored by CZ and Sellier & Bellot. It is not a Brutality match, although it shares a lot of elements with Brutality. There is not as much physical challenge to the stages, instead having a mixture of tactically-oriented ...

The standard German light mortar in World War Two was the model 1936 5cm Leichter Granatwerfer. It was a very precise (Germanic, one might say) machine, and a bubble lever for careful aiming, and it threw a roughly 2 pound projectile out to a maximum range of 550 meters. Today I have the chance t...

The Uzi was originally designed in the 1950s, and it was on the technological cutting edge at the time. The stamped receiver, telescoping bolt, and compact magazine-in-grip layout made it an inexpensive and effective weapon. Its sedate 600 round/minute rate of fire helped as well, making it easy ...

This is a copy of the M1 Carbine made in China late in the Chinese civil war - likely between 1945 and 1949. While there was an attempt at factory production of a true M1 Carbine copy in northern China later, this example is actually a bolt action which simply copies the look and handling of the ...

The Praga I was the first machine gun design from noted Czech arms designed Vaclav Holek. Three examples were made for Czech military testing in 1922, but they were not acceptable. Instead, this design served as the first stepping stone to the eventual development of the ZB-26, perhaps the best o...

When Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it was initially armed with a wide variety of miscellaneous small arms. They clearly needed a primary standardized rifle for the new armed forces. The one definitive criteria for making a selection was than the new rifle must b...

Today I decided to do a Gothic Serpent memorial 2-gun match, using my Shughart M14 clone and a surplussed Delta 1911. This was a 5-stage match at the Rio Salado Sportsman's Club, and it was a complete dumpster fire for me. I don't know what changed, but the reliable-in-testing M1A became a comple...

B&T owner Karl Brügger is a big fan of 9mm PCCs and SMGs, and decided that his company ought to offer an alternative to the MP5 and this was the Advanced Police Carbine (APC). In order to compete effectively, it needed to be simple to manufacture, since manufacturing costs in Switzerland are exor...

Chartered Industries of Singapore was founded in 1967, and started making M16 rifles under license in 1970. These were sold to the Singaporean military as well as Thailand. To get out of their licensing agreement with Colt, the company purchased the rights to Frank Waters' the SAR-80 rifle, and t...

The first Estonian sniper rifle built on the M14 was the "TP" - a very poorly done model with a lousy scope, worse mount, and unhelpful stock. These were made in 2000, and in 2008 a new iteration came out. This was the TP2, which now used a B&T mount, standard stock (with cheek riser), and excell...

Steyr introduced their TMP (Tactical Machine Pistol) and its semiauto SPP counterpart in 1989, but it was never a very popular item. After the company was purchased, the new ownership decided to scrap the TMP (along with other low-performing product lines). At that point, Swiss firm B&T purchased...

The Krása project (which translates as "beauty", but is also a shortening of "short assault rifle" - "KRÁtký SAmopal") is a fascinating piece of Czech small arms development. In 1976, the Czechoslovakian military requested development of a compact personal weapon for special troops (paratroops, a...

I figured it might be worthwhile as a bonus video to document the process of putting together my clone of Randy Shughart's M14 from 1993 Mogadishu...so here we go.

The Ruger P85 - like so many of Ruger's products - is not particularly attractive or exciting. It introduced no particular mechanical innovation besides the casting-based manufacturing that would actually probably be seen as a detriment if it were advertised. And yet, the gun (and those developed...

At the end of Estonia's war of independence in 1920, the new nation's government began working on military infrastructure. One thing it would need was a repair depot to maintain military equipment, everything from barracks furniture to arms and vehicles. A large building was obtained in Tallinn (...

Romania had more than a million rifles in its inventory after World War One, but they were mused between Mannlicher 88/90, Mannlicher 95, Mosin Nagant, and Berthier patterns - and they were almost all rifles and not carbines. In order to make practical use of all these arms, it was decided to all...

Today I'm at B&T in Thun, Switzerland taking a look at the whole history of the company's suppressors. They began back in the 90s when founder Karl Brügger was working as a machinist and had spare time available - so he started making silencers for himself and his friends. That grew into a small ...

When Estonia took its independence in 1991, it had to form a new military essentially from scratch. Keeping the structure that existed before Soviet occupation in 1940, two separate forces were reinstituted. One was the Defense Forces - the formal Army, with a cadre of professional soldiers and a...

The S2-200 was developed by Louis Stange at the Rheinmetall company in Germany in the late 1920s. Because Germany was not allowed to be doing this sort of arms development at the time, Rheinmetall bought a controlling stake in the Swiss firm Solothurn AG, to make the product deniably Swiss. The g...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=3kto24

Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond is live on Kickstarter now - check it out for lots of super cool exclusive options!

Today Caleb Daniels - author of Licensed Troubleshooter - is back with me, to dis...

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=7eq2r0

Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond is live on Kickstarter now - check it out for lots of super cool exclusive options!

Today Caleb Daniels, author of "Licensed Troubleshooter", is joining me to talk a...