The French M1886 Lebel was the first smallbore smokeless powder rifle adopted by a major military, and was a game changer in the European arms race in the 1880s. It wasn't an outstanding design in many ways (like the slow-loading tube magazine and requirement to use a screwdriver to remove the bo...

The M47 Madsen "Lightweight Military Rifle" was the last military bolt action rifle designed to be a primary infantry rifle, and it is a bit hard to see just who Madsen thought they could sell it to. The rifle was designed in the late 1940s and was available for sale in 1951, evidently marketed t...

There is a long-standing urban legend about the Canadian Ross rifle, a straight-pull bolt action that was used in lieu of the SMLE by Canadian troops early in World War One. The story is that the Ross would sometimes malfunction and blow the bolt back into its shooter's face, with pretty horrible...

We took a look at this rifle with a few photos a while back at ForgottenWeapons, but I do now have some video of it as well - a VG-1 last ditch rifle with an inlaid plaque presented to the Volkssturm leader of the Wartheland district of Poland, one Arthur Grieser (convicted of war crimes and hang...

Most people who recognize the name Mondragon know it from Manuel Mondragon's model 1908 semiauto rifle, the first such rifle to be adopted on a large scale by a military (the Mexican Army, in this case). Well, Mondragon was designing arms for many years before that particular rifle. For example, ...

The M1895 Lee Navy was a rifle well ahead of it's time - a smallbore (6mm) straight-pull bolt action adopted by the US Navy at the same time that the US Army was adopting the Krag-Jorgenson. The Lee Navy was designed by James Paris Lee (the same man who designed the Lee Enfield action), and was a...

Jeff Cooper envisioned a few variation on the Scout Rifle, most notably a heavier-caliber type suited more for African dangerous (or large) game hunting, for which the .308 Winchester cartridge was not really suitable. Cooper had a rifle he called his "Lion Scout", chambered for the .350 Remingto...

Ethiopia is a fascinating and unique example of an African nation that was able to uphold its sovereignty through force of arms, and resist become a possession of any of the European powers during the age of colonial expansion. The defining event in this history was the Battle of Adwa in 1896, wh...

When the Lee magazine rifle was adopted for British military service, it was initially produced as a long rifle for the infantry. To accommodate the cavalry on horseback, a much more compact carbine version was produced. These were initially Lee Metford pattern, but changed to Lee Enfield pattern...

The Lee Metford MkI had scarcely been introduced when it was modified into the MkI* pattern, This was quickly followed by the MkII and MkII*, the Lee Enfield MkI, and Lee Enfield MkI*. In essence, the changes were:

Lee Metford MkI*: Change of sights to traditional barleycorn and V-notch, and r...

The British went into the 1880s with plans to adopt the Enfield-Martini as its new rifle, a single shot Martini-action rifle with essentially a sidesaddle of ready-access cartridges on the side of the receiver. It would be chambered for a new .402 caliber black powder cartridge. However, the Smal...

Today we are looking at a uniquely Ethiopian carbine, a hybrid M90/95 Mannlicher. It began life as an Austrian-issue M90 carbine proofed in 1892. It served through World War One, and was probably given to Italy as war reparations in the early 1920s. Italy then sent it to East Africa, where is ser...

In 1904, a man named Orlando Scott from Ontario filed a patent application for a safety device for breechloading rifles and shotguns. His idea was basically a spring loaded grip safety in the fore-end of the stock, which would have to be depressed in order to either cock or fire the weapon. His p...

Henri Lecorre was a French immigrant to Canada who enlisted in the 22nd Regiment of the Canadian Army in April, 1915. He had a knack for carving things in his rifles, which he started right in basic training, with a Ross rifle he named "Josephine". That got him sternly rebuked by his Colonel, but...

Finnish Brutality 2021 is going to be a tough match in the best case. But I will be running it in a 1940 uniform, with a Mosin. A Finnish M39 Mosin, sure, but still a Mosin. That means that I have a lot of things already working against me, and the last thing I want is to have the rifle not shoot...

Today we are looking at an interesting sub-type of Ethiopian Lebel short rifle. When InterOrdnance brought in the surviving Lebels from Ethiopian storage, eleven of one hundred were in this configuration, with barrels shortened to about 25 inches. Each rifle is a bit different - especially in fro...

In our continuing series on the development of the British Lee Enfield rifles, we are looking at the CLLE conversions today. In 1907 the British adopted a new universal short rifle (the SMLE) that used charger (aka stripper) clips. Previous models of the Lee in British service had to be loaded on...

In the aftermath of the Boer War, the British military needed to address critical issues of practical marksmanship with its troops. The Long Lee rifles it had deployed to South Africa suffered significant problems in making real-world hits on the battlefield. In addition to investing in better mu...

When the British adopted a new high-velocity spitzer bullet for the .303 cartridge, they had to update their rifles to use it. Specifically, the sights had to be recalibrated for the flatter trajectory of the new MkVII ammunition. In addition, the sight picture was changed form a barleycorn front...

This is a rifle I have not been able to find any specific documentation about or even reference to - but we can tell what it it, and that's a very interesting story. The rifle is mechanically a Schlegelmilch design, from Louis Schlegelmilch of the Spandau Arsenal in Germany. An earlier 1896 patte...

The Schultz & Larsen company in Otterup, Denmark was a venture formed by a gunsmithing shop and a very successful target shooter to make precision rifles. In 1919, they are able to purchase a bunch of German arsenal tooling for pennies because of the Treaty of Versailles. They made a number of ri...

There is a ton to go over in this video...I noticed the Fix when it first came out, but it didn't become really interesting to me until the version in 8.6mm Blackout hit the market. Fundamentally, the Fix is a very light, modular, and ergonomic bolt action utility rifle. In 8.6mm, I think it is a...

The Japanese military made the decision to move from a 6.5mm infantry rifle to a more powerful 7.7mm cartridge in the 1930s, with specifications for the new rifle proposed in 1938. In response, the Nagoya and Kokura Arsenals developed new models of rifle and carbine.

What we are looking at tod...

When the German Army announced in 1934 that it would be adopting a new standard rifle, the JP Sauer company jumped at the chance to submit a model for consideration. Auger has a complete production line for the Mauser pattern rifles, having produced Gewehr 98s during World War One, and it had acc...