Schiffer Military History has a line of short (80 page) hardcover books they call "Classic Guns of the World", and one of the recent additions to it is Llc Guillou's "The MAT-49 Submachine Gun and Preceding French Submachine Gun Designs Including the MAS-35". It really should be called just "Fren...

Today I'm at the BackUp Gun Match in Tucson with a first model Le Français made in 1923. This is an early French semiauto pistol design intended for pocket carry. It has a 7-round magazine and a tip-up barrel, so that one need not ever manually rack the slide. It's very compact, very light, and s...

It's time for Desert Brutality 2021! This match is a bit different form previous Brutality matches; it required three guns: pistol, rifle, and precision rifle. I chose to enter the Cold War division (all guns dating form 1946-1991) using a couple of French classics: my FAMAS and new FR-F2. For a ...

Bloke's French cousin and his mate galliantly offered to talk about the French 8mm revolvers. The was an offer the Bloke could not refuse. There may have been red wine involved These revolvers, both the French-not-a-Lebel ones and the Spanish "Eibar" ones, stayed in military service until at leas...

After the failure of the SIG 530 rifle (a gas operated, roller locked design), SIG looked for a much simpler rifle design, in both operation and manufacture. What they came up with was fundamentally AK-like, with a two-lug rotating bolt in a very AK-like carrier and a long stroke gas piston. The ...

In the immediate aftermath of World War One, it appears that the French government purchased 2,000 Mauser C96 pistols for use by occupation forces who were to be stationed in Germany. While the direct link to the French military is missing, a sale of 2,000 C96 pistols through German dealer Albrec...

Courtesy of PGM Precision USA, we have a chance to take a look at a Hecate II sniper rifle today. This rifle's story begins with the Ultima Ratio, a classic-based 7.62mm precision rifle designed by Gilles Payen in France circa 1991 for the French RAID police unit. The rifle was very well-received...

My MAS 38 submachine gun is finally running properly and with the 7.65mm French Long ammunition now being made by Steinel Ammo, I can finally take this out to the range! What to shoot at?

A spinner, naturally.

The FR-F1 was adopted in 1967 as the French Army's marksman or sniper's rifle. It was based roughly on the MAS-36 bolt action system, but with a heavier receiver and 10-round detachable box magazine. It used the same scope as he MAS 49-56; the APX L806, a 3.85x optic largely modeled after the Ger...

When St Etienne developed the FR-F1 sniper rifle, all the branches of the French military were given the opportunity to purchase them - and the Army, Navy, and Gendarmerie did. The Air Force, decided that it didn't need any, though. Until about 20 years later, when they decided that they did, in ...

Next week is Desert Brutality 2020, the big annual 2-Gun "nationals". I'll be shooting it in the Classic division (guns from 1946 and earlier) this year, with an SMG semiauto FG-42 rifle and a French Modele 1935A pistol. This is my last chance to practice with the gear, so I'm shooting the regula...

France was in an interesting position during World War One of being a primary supplier of rifles and machine guns to its allies, but a major importer of handguns. In addition to a great many Spanish pistols of several types, the French government purchased both revolvers and Government Model 1911...

The FAMAS rifle was originally adopted for use with 55 grain ammunition, with a 1:12 inch rifling twist rate and, of course, a proprietary 25-round magazine. This was the F1 pattern. Further development of the rifle with an eye toward international sale led to the G1 pattern, with a 1:9 inch twis...

Unlike most countries that adopted bullpup rifles, the French military never had a short-barreled version of their standard FAMAS. However, GIAT created several prototypes as part of their (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to market the FAMAS internationally. Today, we have two to look at, both wi...

The Arcelin system was a capping breechloader provisionally adopted by the French military in 1854. It was a bolt action system with a folding bolt handle, firing a paper cartridge. It impressed Emperor Louis Napoleon III in initial trials, and he directed it be used to arms his elite Cent Gardes...

I am very excited to finally be able to formally present to you Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866-2016! After about 3 years of work, it's finally here and shipping. My goal with this book was to create a reference guide that would allow someone to identify any French military rifle ...

Today I am out at the range to put the first shots through a completed replica of the French Chauchat-magazine Berthier conversion. The real versions of these guns were made on Mle 1890 cavalry carbines and Mle 1907-15 long rifles, as survival rifles for pilots and observers early in World War On...

After World War One, the French military set up a program to modernize all of its weaponry, and that included a replacement for the Mle 1916 light infantry cannon. An anti-tank gun had not been necessary during the Great War, as Germany never fielded tanks in substantial numbers - but as a pionee...

The French Model 1917 RSC rifle has a rather unusual gas system, and without some experience it can be difficult to know what one is looking at in one. So today, we're taking a quick look at how to be sure all the essential parts are in place in an RSC.

This is a conversion of a French 1822 rifle to a single shot bolt action, using a newly manufactured receiver. It is unfortunately not marked with a patent name or date, and I have been unable to find any additional information about it. It actually seems like a pretty solid system, compared to m...

Hidden away up on the 4th floor of the Paris Army Museum (in Les Invalides) is the rather unexcitingly-named Musée de Plans-Reliefs. Up here in the dark is a collection of strategic dioramas dating back some 350 years. French King Louis XIV created a workshop to build these 1:600 sale models of t...

Courtesy of the French Ministry of the Interior, we have a chance to take a look at an authentic GIGN sniper model MR73 revolver today. GIGN is the elite intervention element of the French Gendarmerie, akin to GSG9 in Germany or the FBI Hostage Rescue Team in the US. Back in the 1970s, the servic...

The Hotchkiss was the primary heavy machine gun for the French and American forces in World War One, and this 1918-production example was just begging to be given a workout. So we took it out to the range to run a few strips of ammunition through it. Compared to my previous shooting experience wi...

The gun that became the Hotchkiss 1914 and served as the bulwark of French and American forces in World war One was actually first designed and patented by an Austrian officer; Adolph von Odkolek. He took his idea to the Hotchkiss company in Paris hoping to arrange for them to produce it under li...