The Ruby is simple and of barely adequate quality for a service pistol but nonetheless rugged and reliable. It is often the case however, that the user can't disassemble it for cleaning.
Why is this and what can be done about it?

While most countries are still messing about with single shot percussion pistols or tentatively trying out newfangled percussion revolvers, the French navy blows caution to the wind by adopting a metallic cartridge revolver patented by Eugène Lefaucheux in 1854 using the pinfire ammunition patent...

Retrofitting an optics mount for the FAMAS was no easy feat considering the wobbly top cover construction. The designers finally came up with a novel if somewhat bulky solution.

Chap goes full nerd on the MAT49, including history, features, a major design fail and accessories. For those patient enough there's a bit of dakka at the end, or just skip to 23:28!

Big THANK YOU to http://armesfrancaises.free.fr/ for letting us use his photos!

Chap does a show and tell covering the MAS45, a nice simple .22 universal traininer used by the French armed forces for 35+ years. Aside from the unique rear sight it shares many similarities to Mauser .22 rifles of the 1930s and 40s, including the KKW, and from it's interesting history it's clea...

The advent of the percussion era and developments in gun carriages brings about the design of a new short handy musketoon for French artillery crews. Issued from 1829 onwards, initially as a smoothbore flintlock, the musketoon evolves through the final stages of muzzleloading technology.

LEGAL...

BotR jumps on to the Manurhin MR73 love-fest bandwagon, well almost. Instead of gushing about the new production models now being distributed by Beretta, Chap will introduce his vintage original 80s 4” target model MR73 and reveal the most important feature of its lockwork, the key to the excelle...

In early 1937 France adopts not one, but two service pistols, both in 7.65 Long for ammunition compatibility with the upcoming SMG (MAS38). The most widely known is the 1935A mostly due to being the template for the SIG P.49, but the other pistol, the 1935S, is usually dismissed as being somehow ...

The FM24-29 is one of the crowning successes of the France's post WW1 rearmament program. Gone is the requirement to feed archaic 8mm Lebel which frees the designers to adopt a modern design. Clearly inspired by the BAR, the FM24-29 is the precursor to the ZB-26 and eventually the BREN. Despite r...

MAB was a successful firearms manufacturer in France for nearly 70 years, focusing on small carry pistols for civilian and police use, as was popular in Europe until the late 1970s. From the late 1960s though MAB developped a big all-steel 9mm service type pistol, the lost "wonder 9", which is st...

The SACM 1935A pistol, developped by Charles Petter, is a pistol mostly famous by association due to it's infamous offspring the SIG P.49 / 210 and myth sometimes blurrs fact as features of the later are attributed to the former. Let's have a closer look to filter fact from fiction.

As requested in the teaser comments, the Chap shows his journey to bringing his previously mummy-wrapped arsenal new MAS44 up to shooting form with hopefully a few interesting anecdotes about the rifle along the way.

Deep dive into one of Chappie's many perversions, namely his obsession with French Ruby pistols. Despite their somewhat undeserved tarnished reputation, they do offer a very interesting and economical collecting subject with a huge number of manufacturers to look out for and as we discover, they ...

Further research has enabled us to guestimate the composition of the cartridges for the 1837 chasseur carbine. We have both the extensively trialed (but never adopted) Brunéel cartridge and the cartridge for the 1840 chasseur carbine, a carbine using the same Delvigne breech, calibre and rifling ...

Manurhin continued to try any offer new revolvers after the MR73 with various interpretations of Ruger pattern revolvers stemming from the tech transfer agreements between the two companies. In 1993 though they decided to bravely challenge the traditional revolver configuration and try something ...

The experience of WW2 made it obvious to the French that a modular GPMG was a far more sensible concept than the role specific MGs and LMGs used until 1940 and that the advances in firearms manufacturing provided an ideal opportunity to fully embrace the concept. The fruit of the project came in ...

Deep dive into one of the very first military purpose built percussion firearms and boy did they go to town on it. Not content with simply altering the ignition mechanism, they spared no expense and included all the best aesthetic and technical features of the time, including the very latest in a...

In the 1870s and 1880s, France experimented with a huge variety of repeating rifle designs, including tube magazines hopper magazines, box magazines, and all sorts of other unique systems (more than 40 different types in total). These experimental rifles appear from time to time, but only a small...

The Chap takes a look at Ian McCollum's first book on his favourite subject. There is of course much praise for Ian's efforts not only to bring more understanding of French firearms to the average collector but also to dispel some of the more negative stereotypes associated with them. There are n...

In the left corner a purely functional defensive pistol and in the right corner a beautifuly crafted military/target pistol. When it comes to relatively fast defensive/combat shooting, does one actually have an advantage over the other?

Huzzah! I finally have a chance to take a proper full-auto FAMAS F1 out to the range. My conclusions? It's very nice, just like the semiauto civilian model. It has a limited 3-round-burst option for those who need it, but also unrestricted automatic for those with enough practice to use it. The g...

This is a really interesting artifact of the First World War that I found in a collection and wanted to share (since the owner, understandably, wouldn't part with it!). All the major powers in the Great War set up aerial training schools to teach pilots and observer/gunners how to use their guns ...

The Manurhin MR73 has always been one of the very best combat revolvers made, but they have been hard to find here in the US. That has now changed, as the Beretta group purchased Chapuis, manufacturer of the MR73. They are now importing both 4" and 5.25" versions, and I have a demo of the 5.25" S...

There are few records I have been able to find on production of the original Mle 1866 Chassepot cavalry carbines. However, Royal Tiger / InterOrdnance just recently brought in a crate of 200 Gras and Chassepot-Gras cavalry carbines and I was able to help unpack and sort them. In the process, I fo...