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Full Auto Glock 18 at the Range: Can I Hit...Anything?
I've fired a number of different machine pistols, but until today never a Glock 18. So, we're going to give it a try! This is an original factory example, not a conversion.
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Q&A With Jonathan Ferguson of the British Royal Armouries
Today I am joined by Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the British Royal Armouries for a Q&A session, with questions provided by the fine folks who support Forgotten Weapons on Patreon...
1:02 - Would the L85A1 have been better if Enfield wasn't being privatized while it was...
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Presenting Guns in Video Games w/ Jonathan Ferguson
Today I am joined by Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms and Artillery at the Royal Armouries in the UK, which houses a collection of thousands of iconic weapons from throughout history. We're talking about the representation of firearms in modern video games, in particular the changes in names...
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Electrolux Charlton: Washing Machine Company Converts Bolt Action to Semiauto
The Charlton was a conversion of a bolt action Lee rifle into a light machine gun, designed by New Zealander Phillip Charlton. Some 1500 were made in New Zealand, but a bit later it appears that there was an effort to also produce the gun in Australia. The Electrolux company (the same one that ma...
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Gilboa Snake: Is the Double-AR Really so Dumb?
The Gilboa Snake is an Israeli rifle (from the same designer behind the Cornershot) that essentially combines two standard ARs into a single unit. In its civilian configuration it has two of every part - barrels, bolts (mirrored, so one ejects left and the other right), triggers, buffers, etc. In...
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Two World Wars: Finnish C96 "Ukko-Mauser"
A decent number of C96 Mauser pistols were present in Finland's civil war, many of them coming into the country with the Finnish Jaegers, and others from a variety of sources, commercial and Russian. They were used by both the Reds and the Whites, and in both 9x19mm and 7.63x25mm. After the end o...
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Early Development of the MAC 1950 Pistol
Today we have a short look at two of the predecessors of the French MAC 1950 service pistol. The first is the Type SE MAS 1948, which retains many of the characteristics of the previous MAS 1935 pistols. After that is a preproduction MAC 1950 (serial number F 20), which has the same style of safe...
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2-Gun: AKM & Arex Delta (Lynx Brutality 2024 Prep)
I'm using this month's 2-Gun Action Challenge Match as preparation for Lynx Brutality this spring. Žiga, Bloke, Jari, and I decided to all use AK's at Lynx, and I've got this Romanian kit build that I riveted together myself many years ago. I have a sidereal on it with a Russian PK-A red dot, and...
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Zagi: Croatia HK's a Sten Gun
The Zagi is one of the more prolific of the Croatian homeland War submachine guns. It was developed with the intention of making substantial numbers, and a lot of capital was put into the PHTO (First Croatian Arms Factory, or Prva Hrvatska Tvornica Oružja) for its manufacture. This included polym...
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Denmark's m/75: A Lease-to-Own Rifle
Denmark's adoption of the H&K G3 is a rather odd story. First off, the Danes adopted the m/66 H&K as its sniper/DMR rifle in 1966, while retaining the M1 Garand as its standard service rifle. Not until 1973 do they decide to update the M1s, and when they do a. major rifle test, the M16 wins. Howe...
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Tale of a Heroic Sailor: Ensign Stannus' M1911A1
Robert "Dickie" Stannus was , in technical terms, a total stud. So much so that he was awarded an inscribed M1911A1 directly by Colt as a prize for being the top sailor in his Naval Academy class. He got the privilege of choosing what ship he would be assigned to, and chose the USS Bear, an assau...
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The Bosnian Full-Auto SKS with AK Mags
During the Balkan Wars, a great many oddball guns were built and used. One of them was a Bosnian conversion of the Yugoslav M59/66 SKS to have a select-fire trigger and to use modified detachable AK magazines. These are extremely rare today, as only a few of them (probably a dozen at most) came i...
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HK43: The 5.56mm "Paramilitary" Rifle
Before the H&K 90 series of rifles - the civilian semiautomatic versions - existed, there was the 40-series; the paramilitary rifles. Originally intended for German reservist purchase, the HK41 and HK43 were G3 and HK33 rifles made in semiautomatic only configuration. In the early 1970s, these w...
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Snipers Before Infantry: the Danish m/66 Sniper
The Danes adopted the M1 Garand after World War Two, and continued using it as their standard service rifle all the way until 1975 - and alongside it they used the M1D as a sniper or DMR rifle. The Danish Home Guard decided to upgrade those M1D rifles in the 1960s, however, and looked to H&K for ...
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Intro to Prism Scopes: What are they Anyway?
At SHOT Show this year I took some time to speak with Mike Branson of Gideon Optics (formerly of Primary ands 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, we are going ...
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Cheap vs Expensive Red Dots: What's the Difference?
At SHOT Show this year I took some time to speak with Mike Branson of Gideon Optics (formerly of Primary ands 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, we are going ...
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Token of Appreciation: a Presentation Sokac SMG
The Šokac was one of the more prolific Croatian domestic submachine guns of the Homeland War. This particular example is one that was specifically presented to the police chief of the town of Slavonsky Brod (the town where the guns were made). It is a mid-range production example, with the polyme...
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Inside the Trigger Mechanism of the Real-Life Halo M90 Shotgun
The real-life Halo M90 shotgun I featured previously was actually built on a left-handed 870 Wingmaster. When I did the Christmas "historical" video about it, I didn't show the actual internal mechanics, and I figured some of you folks would be interested to see how the trigger was relayed from t...
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Why Don't We Have Top-Loading Shotguns?
When I posted some video of the real-life Halo M90 shotgun, one of the most common questions I got was, "why don't we have top-loading shotguns like that?" Well, it's an intriguing question...so let's see if we can find the answer.
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Now Available: VHS-2 w/ 20-inch Barrel (aka Springfield Hellion)
Springfield Armory is now importing a version of the the VHS-2 bullpup (commercially named the Hellion here in the US) with a 20-inch barrel. This is the barrel length used in the most common military pattern of the rifle, the VHS-2D. In addition, Springfield's semiauto configuration has the prop...
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Armi Jager AP85: An Italian .22 Rimfire Faux-MAS
Armi Jager was an Italian arms-making company that was created in the early 1950s by Armando Piscetta. He initially made .22 rimfire sporting rifles, then transitioned into making Old West style revolvers, and in the 1970s began offering a series of military lookalikes (he was also heavily involv...
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M91/30 PU Sniper at the Range
Today we are out at the range with a 1943 Izhevsk M91/30 PU sniper rifle to see how it shoots...
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Modernized Mini-RPD at the Range
Today I am at the range with one of DSA's mini-RPDs. The RPD is a nearly 80-year-old design (doesn't that make you feel old!) and a really good candidate for modernization. DSA made a whole bunch of improvements - new dual-spring recoil system, fluted barrel, solidly fitted handguard with a nice ...
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Everything Wrong with the Sniper Rifles in "Enemy at the Gates”
One of the very few blockbuster American movies about the Eastern Front in World War Two is Enemy at the Gates, a film about the Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev. The movie is based around a duel between Zaitsev and the fictional German sniper Erwin König during the Battle of Stalingrad. There are lo...