In the mid 1990s, UMC Cugir began looking at ways to adapt its AKM production tooling to make a 9mm submachine gun. What would become the LP7 was first prototyped in 1998, and went into limited production in 2003, with an order of 200 made for the Romanian Interior Ministry. Romanian Gendarmes de...

Between 1994 and 2004, there was a national "assault weapon" ban in place int he United States, along with some related importation restrictions on military-looking rifles. Most semiauto rifle importation continued by adjusting various cosmetic features to not fall under the provisions of the var...

The Sten MkI had barely been approved for production when the Sten MkII was born. Initially requested to produce a version of the gun suitable for paratroopers, in March 1941 Harold Turpin redesigned the front end of the Sten to have a quickly detachable barrel and a rotating magazine well (for c...

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Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier & Artemas Wheeler reveals the first attempt to put a multi-shot firearm in the hands of the common soldier and sportsman. This novel device—patented in America in 1818 by A...

The Sten gun was designed by RSAF Senior Draftsman (sorry, Draughtsman) Harold Turpin in December, 1940. He sketched out a simple trigger mechanism on December 2, showed it to Major Reginald Shepherd the next day, and then finished out the rest of the submachine gun design that week. The first pr...

At SHOT Show this year Ian took some time to speak with Mike Branson of Gideon Optics (formerly of Primary Arms and Swampfox). Mike's a friend and a true optics nerd, and I figured he could help give folks an understanding of some of the fundamentals of modern firearms optics. Today the topic of...

In the 1970s and 80s, Colt offered a 4x20 fixed power scope for its commercial AR (the SP-1). These replaced the earlier 3x scopes, and were designed to fit directly to the rifle's carry handle. They are a simple design, with a duplex reticle, BDC calibrated out to 500 yards in 100 yard increment...

Ever since I first saw Blk Lbl at SHOT Show many years ago I've really liked their handguard-integrated bipods. They are completely slick and unobtrusive when folded up, but offer a good range of motion, stability, and adjustability when deployed, while being lighter than all but the lightest pol...

The MG08 was the German Army standard Maxim gun in World War One. The Germany Navy adopted the Maxim first in 1894, followed by the Army in 1899, then a new pattern in 1901, and finally the MG08 in 1908. This was actually a somewhat old-fashioned pattern of Maxim when it was adopted, as the Germa...

Today Ian is back with NFA specialist John Keene of the Morphy Auction Company to talk about US military machine guns. Specifically, how intact and original examples end up in the civilian market. Some models, like the Reising, as very easy to find in completely original condition (almost hard no...

One of the particularly popular transferrable machine guns out there is the H&K auto sear. Since H&K grip and trigger assemblies are interchangeable between 9mm, 5.56mm, and 7.62x51mm guns (ie, MP5, HK33, and G3) a single registered full-auto grip assembly can allow someone to effectively have th...

The Rupertus Patent Pistol Manufacturing Company was founded in Philadelphia by Bavarian-born Jacob Rupertus. The company made a variety of derringers, pepperboxes, and revolvers and today we are looking at an 8-shot, .22 rimfire pepperbox patented by Rupertus in 1864. It’s a tiny civilian pocket...

In the summer of 1918, the US government wanted to increase production of M1911 pistols, but all current manufacturers were working at capacity. So they looked to issue new contracts, and someone realized that the Ross rifle factory was a potential option. Now, the Ross Rifle Company was bankrupt...

The first Japanese exposure to firearms came from Portuguese traders in 1534, as the southern Japanese island of Tanegashima. They received a matchlock, and quickly recognized its utility and potential - within 10 years matchlocks were in significant production in Japan. The style of gun took hol...

The "Tom Thumb" is a tiny .22 rimfire revolver made in Belgium by an unknown shop and imported into the US to be sold by the Daly Arms Company of New York. These are antique guns, probably made in the 1870s or 1880s, chambered for the original black powder .22 rimfire cartridge. There are other s...

The Swiss were one of the first countries to test Hiram Maxim’s new automatic machine gun in 1887, and they found it far superior to their just-recently-purchased Gardner guns. The first Swiss maxims were delivered in 1889, and the country came back three more times for newer models. The MG94 was...

Line-throwing devices have long been an important part of maritime safety, and many different have been guns adapted to launch ropes from shore to ship or ship to ship. Usually they are inexpensive obsolete surplus of the era, but a change in law in 1918 led to a spike in demand for line-throwers...

As soon as the MG08/15 "light" machine gun was adopted by Germany, it was recognized as an ideal basis for an aircraft gun. Weight was of the essence for WW1 aircraft, and a lightened Maxim was just the thing to use. So the Spandau Arsenal began producing the LMG08/15 (the "L" in which might stan...

While the US never adopted a significant variation of the M1 Garand (excluding sniper models), testing continued on new iterations and features throughout the war. By the time the war ended, the US military had some specific ideas about what it wanted in a new service rifle. That being, something...

The Japanese never really embraced submachine guns during and before World War Two. A series of development programs in the 1920s and 30s led nowhere, and there never really seems to have been much motivation behind them. Some small batches of guns were purchased from abroad for units like the Sp...

When the US entered World War One, the country had a grand total of 1,453 machine guns, split between 4 different models. This was not a useful inventory to equip even a single division headed for France, and so the US had to look to France for automatic weapons. In June 1917 Springfield Armory t...

In 1936 and 1937, Siam purchased a batch of several hundred new Luger pistols for the Bangkok Police, including 100 long-barreled lP08 Artillery Lugers. These were new production gun, but made with surplus WW1-era barrels, sights, and stocks. The Siamese serial numbers range from 3450v to 3553v. ...

Several patents were taken out on the BAR during World War One, but they were all kept unpublished and secret during the war. Just days after the Armistice, Colt patent attorney CJ Ehbets wrote to the US Patent Office requesting release of the secrecy restrictions. They responded just two days la...

The Thompson submachine gun struggled to find a market when it was originally produced, with the first batch of 15,000 Colt-made guns not finally all selling until the late 1930s. By that time, the clouds of war were gathering, and demand for submachine guns finally began to really grow. The US m...