Early in World War One, a small number (less than 200) Berthier rifle and cavalry carbines were adapted to use Chauchat magazines for aerial use. They were employed as defensive arms in observation balloons and as survival rifles in powered aircraft - applications where the larger capacity was of...

The French Army had been planning a semiauto infantry rifle since 1921, but indecisiveness and bureaucracy delayed its development. A major trial was held in 1931, and elements of two experimental rifles were chosen to be combined into what would eventually become the MAS 1944. It was put throug...

As the MAS 44 saw combat service with French Marines in Indochina, some of its shortcomings began to reveal themselves. The rifle was reliable and durable, but it lacked some capabilities, most importantly rifle grenade launching and optics mounting. After a test series of MAS 44A rifles, a new p...

While the development of the MAS 49 had given France a very utilitarian rifle that could serve as both for both marksmen and grenadiers, it could still be made better. In large part, the change to the 49-56 pattern was motivated by the move to adopt NATO-compatible 22mm rifle grenades. With the n...

The MSE (Modified St Etienne) version of the MAS 49-56 was developed specifically for international competition shooting by French military teams. The standard MAS 49-56 service rifle was much more of a combat weapon than a target rifle, and the MSE improved several of its shortcomings in that ar...

Between 1909 and 1915, the huge French mail-order firm of Manufacture Francais d’Armes et Cycles de St Etienne (later called Manufrance) sold Luger pistols (as well as many other types of firearms). They were enough of a substantial customer that DWM was willing to roll-mark their pistol barrels ...

This is an example of a needle fire conversion of a French 1822 rifle based on the patent of L. Merckelbagh. The conversion was done in Paris, probably in the early 1870s. Other base rifles were converted as well, but like most upgrade conversion systems it does not appear to have been commercial...

A while back, I visited @CanadianGunLover, and we did a bit of shooting with an 1866 Chassepot. I lost track of the footage and only just now found where I had put it - so today is some Chassepot shooting! A couple things to note; the rifle sounds very quiet because my microphone was clipping it ...

I found this online and it was unusual enough I figured it would be a fun video to put together for you.

Today, we are taking the PGM Precision Hecate II out to the range. It is a rifle designed for use out to 1800m, but I have neither the skills myself nor the range facility to do something like that - instead I have a target set up at 200m.

I was quite surprising by just how soft-shooting the ...

The Galand was an innovative revolver design created by Frenchman Charles Francois Galand and patented in 1868. It is most notable for using a long lever system to eject cartridges by throwing the cylinder and a separate cartridge retention plate forward. It was also one of the early adopters of ...

Today we have a British Hotchkiss Portative machine gun in .303 caliber to look at. These were used by everyone on the Allied side in WWI, and were a reliable and effective gun, if not the simplest design.

The "Apache" was a combination knife, brass knuckle, and revolver made by several companies in Belgium and France, which became associated with a group of street thugs in Paris around the turn of the century.

I'm working on getting a Hotchkiss 1914 heavy machine gun up and running for some long range accuracy testing. It's not quite ready yet, but I saw a very interesting effect of the WW1 muzzle device (used on both the Hotchkiss 1914 and the St Etienne 1907 machine guns) in use...

The Perrin was an 1859 revolver design originating in France, which was initially an open-frame, double-action-only system. It went through some significant improvements in 1865, including a single action mechanism and a fully enclosed frame for greater strength. The Perrin used a quite modern ce...

The FAMAS was originally designed for iron sights only, as it predates the trend of issuing optics on standard infantry rifles (the marksman's rifle at the time of its development was the FR-F1). However, adaptations were made to mount optics, primarily the PGMP updated handguard, which locked mo...

This is an interesting single-shot breechloading system built by Kuhn of Besançon - a city near Switzerland in eastern France. It is clearly a sporting rifle, firing an 11mm black powder cartridge and probably dates to the 1870s or 1880s. It automatically ejects an empty case when opened and aut...

One of the very nice features of the FAMAS is that it can be swapped between left-hand and right-hand ejection in just a few moments without needing any tools or spare parts. I had this FAMAS out at the range in left-handed configuration and the owner asked me to return it as a right-handed gun, ...

The 1880s and 1890s were a fertile period of experimentation with repeating handguns. One such example is this design by Marius Berger, manufactured in France by St Etienne in 1880 and 1881. It uses a ring trigger and a 4-stage cycle in which pulling the trigger sequentially:

1) Opens the bree...

During 1944, the US and UK cooperatively ran a major effort to drop arms and equipment to French Resistance forces in preparation for the Allied landings in France. It began as Operation Carpetbagger with night drops from B24 Liberators in January 1944, and escalated into the summer. Eventually a...

In the aftermath of World War One, the French military instituted a plan to introduce a completely new roster of small arms. This would begin with the development of a modern rimless rifle cartridge, which was adopted in 1924. With the new cartridge in hand, programs were begun to develop a light...

The Lebel was a truly groundbreaking development in military small arms, being the first rifle to use smokeless powder. This gave it - and in turn the French infantry - a massive advantage in range over everyone else in the world at the time. This advantage was short-lived, but the French did the...

"Manufrance" was the common abbreviated name for Manufacture d'Armes et Cycles de Saint Etienne, a massive mail-order catalog company in France for many decades. Like Sears Roebuck in the United States, one could get pretty much anything from the Manufrance, including firearms. In the years leadi...

This is a commercial pump-action shotgun manufactured in France and proofed at the St Etienne proof house. I know basically nothing else of its provenance, including who designed it, who sold it (although I would assume Manufrance...) or when it was in production (assuming it did get into serial ...