This Lorenzoni-pattern rifle was presented to King Louis XV of France in the mid 1700s, and is an exquisite example of firearms deemed suitable for royalty at the height of the European kings. It is .38 caliber and rifled, with remarkably usable sights and a repeating mechanism with the ball and ...

In the days when market hunting was a normal practice, hunters would use pretty huge shotguns to harvest large numbers of waterfowl. These were called punt guns, named after the small shallow-draft boats which they were used on - punts. The largest punt guns had bores of up to 50mm (2 inches) and...

Patrick Hernandez is a noted collector of French rifles here in the US, and a moderator of several French firearm discussion channels - so when it comes to deciphering the markings on a French rifle he is an excellent person to ask. So today, we will go through each of the markings that is found ...

Today I am joined by my friend Edouard for a discussion of French gun laws, as part of our continuing series on how firearms laws vary across the world. The French system is...bureaucratic.

While on the road with Military Historical Tours visiting American battlefields of World War One, I was asked to explain the French mutinies of 1917. This was an extemporaneous lecture, so please forgive any factual errors I may have made (and such errors are entirely my fault, not that of MHT). ...

Until now, there has really been nothing substantial and scholarly printed on the Chassepot needle-fire rifle in English - but now that has changed, thanks to Guy & Leonard A-R-West. Their just-released book on the system covers everything from the development (including several competing systems...

Well, my 8mm French Chauchat finally cleared transfer, as did my application to reactivate it. This was a "dewat", or "Deactivated War Trophy" - a machine gun put on the NFA registry but modified to be non-firing. This is not the same as legal destruction, as the receiver of the gun remained inta...

Colonel Jean Alexandre LeMat was a native Frenchman who emigrated to the United States and in 1856 secured a patent for a "grapeshot revolver", which had both a 9-shot .42 caliber cylinder and a 20-gauge smoothbore barrel acting as the cylinder axis. A moveable striking surface on the hammer allo...

During WWII, the Turkish government wound up in possession of several thousand (between 5k and 10k) French Berthier rifles, mostly 1907/15 models, but also some Mle 1916s. There is some question as to exactly how, but the most likely explanation appears to be a shipment of arms from Syria to Iraq...