There is a common assumption that the MAS-36 was a fool's errand from the outset - why would a country develop a brand new bolt action rifle in the mid 1930s, when obviously semiautomatic combat rifles were just on the cusp of widespread adoption? Well, the answer is a simple one - the French wer...

Following up on yesterday's discussion of the history and mechanics of the French Pistolet Automatique Modele 1950, today I am running it in a run-n-gun pistol match.

The gun worked well for me, not having any malfunctions, but did present a couple issues. One was hammer bite, and the other wa...

With the end of World War One, it was finally possible for the French military to replace the 8mm Lebel cartridge with a modern rimless cartridge, and they wasted no time in doing so. By 1924 a new round had been adopted, and along with it a new modern light machine gun. Next, the arsenals would ...

The French military had investigated the possibility of a Lebel carbine in the 1880s, but by the 1930s a different set of priorities was in place. In an effort to make some use of the vast stockpiles of obsolete Lebel rifles France had, a plan was put in place to shorten then into carbines for au...

The RSC 1917, aka FSA1917, has the distinction of being the only true semiautomatic service rifle to see significant frontline infantry use during World War One. It was introduced in 1917 as a long rifle, and about 75,000 were made in that configuration. An improved carbine model was developed in...

When the French first began testing machine guns in the late 1890s, they were one of the few countries that did not purchase quantities of Maxim guns. One of the reasons was that in France’s North African colonies, transporting water for guns was considered an unnecessary liability. Instead, Fran...

The French military during World War One used a number of American-made small arms, including both the Winchester Self-Loader and the Winchester Model 1894. A total of 15,100 Model 94s were purchased by France in 1913 and 1914, and they were used as a supplemental arm for drivers and airfield gua...

This rifle design was developed by the Gevelot cartridge company to compete with the Modele 1866 Chassepot for French military use, although it was not successful in that attempt. The weapon has an uncommon sliding chamber mechanism in which the cartridge does not move forward into the chamber, b...

Today we are going through the French rifle ammunition used in the Lebel, Berthier, and MAS series rifles - 8mm Lebel and 7.5mm French.

The 8mm Lebel cartridge began as simply a necked-down version of the 11mm Gras cartridge, because that cartridge was already in use in the French Navy Kropats...

The sharpshooters of the French colonial forces in Indochina (the Tirailleurs Indochinois) had never been issued Lebel rifles, and were still using single shot Gras rifles at the turn of the century. The Indochinese soldiers were rather short statured, and the Lebel was simply too long of a rifle...

The "Modifié 1916" update to the Berthier system of rifles and carbines marked a major improvement in the guns combat effectiveness - really the first substantial overhaul to the design since it was developed in 1890. The two main elements of the upgrade were the addition of an upper handguard an...

When World War One broke out in 1914, France mobilized millions of men into military service - and it became abundantly clear that a lot of new rifles would need to be manufactured. The 1886 Lebel was no longer in production and was a slow rifle to make in any case - but the 1907 Colonial Berthie...

When the Modele 1890 Berthier carbine was adopted for the French cavalry, the decision was made to produce a special version for the Cuirassier troops. These were the elite heavy cavalry, equipped with steel breastplates and elaborate plumed helmets. They existed in that very brief window where t...

The original 1890 Berthier carbine was designed for cavalry, but a slightly modified version was produced (in small numbers) with a bayonet lug, for use by the Gendarmerie. In 1892, the French military would adopt that same carbine for use by an assortment of troops who were better suited with a ...

Louis Marie Daudeteau was a persistent and prolific arms designer in France in the late 19th century. Born in 1845, he gained substantial military experience in the Franco-Prussian War, and afterwards turned to weapons design. He built a variety of different arms for military consideration, from ...

The Berthier was adopted in 1890 as a new repeating rifle for the French cavalry, who were at that time still using single shot Gras carbines. The Lebel rifle had been adopted in 1886 for the infantry, but because of its tube magazine it was not conducive to being shortened into carbine form. And...

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One of the single largest actions of the French Resistance during World War Two was Operation Montagnards - the plan to drop about 4,000 Allied paratroops onto the Vercors Massif when the resistance was activated in support of the...

Paul Ribeyrolles was the manager of the Gladiator bicycle factory, and by 1918 he had significant experience in small arms design, having been a core member of the team that designed and built the 1915 CSRG Chauchat automatic rifle and the RSC-1917 semiautomatic rifle. These were forward-looking ...

A new very light and portable mortar to replace the V-B rifle grenade was one of the facets of the French plan for rearmament and modernization after World War Two. The concept for the weapons that would become the L.Gr. Mle 37 was first requested in 1924 - but like so almost all the other parts ...

I have been getting a lot of comments asking when there will be a shooting video with my MAS-38 submachine gun. If has cleared the NFA transfer process, so it's not actually in my possession. So, the next hurdle is finding ammunition. The 7.65 French Long cartridge it uses has been out of product...

Take 2! I have some ammunition loaded up for me by awesome viewer Cameron, and we're going to try it out in the MAS-38 submachine gun. This is loaded hot enough to properly cycle Mle 1935 pistols, unlike the ammunition available from Reed's and Buffalo Arms. However, it is a bit shorter than the ...

Today I am testing out a new .30-06 Chauchat magazine converted from a Johnson M1941 machine gun magazine. The workmanship on this new mag is excellent, and much more extensive than I had initially realized would be necessary. This had the side effect of also making is a very expensive magazine t...

This M1918 Chauchat is still awaiting NFA transfer, but my dealer was able to bring it out to a public range where I could do some initial testing on it. I was expecting to get extraction problems as soon as it got warm, as that is what the literature suggests will happen. The .30-06 American Cha...

Unlike Great Britain and Germany, the French military never developed a formal sniper doctrine during World War One - they had no dedicated schools or instruction manuals for that specialty. The three major arsenals did produce scoped sniping rifles, however, with models of 1915, 1916, and 1917 (...