There were many different versions of the Ross straight-pull bolt action rifle made and adopted by the Canadian military. However, the version that Sir Charles Ross thought would be best was only ever made as a small run of prototypes. this rifle was called the Military Match M10, in .280 Ross ca...

In the 1930s, Portugal was looking to update its small arms, and wanted to get some top-shelf K98k Mausers to replace its 1904 Mauser-Vergueiros. The country was on good terms with Germany, and so Portugal placed an order for 100,000 K98k rifles in 7.92mm Mauser caliber from Mauser Oberndorf in 1...

When the Finnish Army adopted the m/27 improved pattern of the Mosin Nagant rifle, there was one group of soldiers who were not really satisfied with it. Finland had a cavalry brigade - one of the elite elements of the force - who wanted something more like the German Kar98AZ carbines they had be...

The rarest pattern of factory-made Chassepot is the fusil modèle 1866 pour la cavalerie d'afrique - the Model 1866 rifle for African cavalry. Just 12,000 of these were made by St Etienne in the spring of 1869, as a way to equip the mounted French troops in Algeria with the new needlefire rifle th...

While helping to unpack a new shipment of French rifles at IO Inc / Royal Tiger Imports, I came across several examples of Berthiers that were modified to not use clips. There were a couple different ways the Ethiopian gunsmiths did this, so let's have a look...

When Estonia declared independence from Russia in 1918, it had no formal military. After winning a 2-year War of Independence, the nation needed to set up its own armed forces. The rifles available in Estonia were a mix of Mosin Nagants, Arisakas, Pattern 1914 Enfields, and German Mausers. The mo...

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...

During the Russo-Japanese War, the Japanese government helped smuggle arms to potential revolutionaries in Russia, in hopes of provoking a domestic crisis that would divert Russia military force form the war. This included a plot to buy many thousands of surplus Vetterli rifles (as well as C96 Ma...

Greenland is a remote and desolate land without a significant industrial base, but there is a demand for hunting rifles there. As the place has long been a Danish colony since 1814, its trade was restricted to Denmark - including rifles. The Danish military received a substantial number of M1917 ...

Correction: The SRT used the Sako AII action, an updated L579 (not the L357) action.

George Kellgren is the brains behind KelTec and all their unorthodox designs. But before he formed KelTec, he created Grendel Inc, where he began his long career in the firearms industry. The first gun that Gr...

The Kholodovskii Mosin was the result of a Russian ordnance project begun in 1912 to improve the M91 Mosin Nagant rifle. Lieutenant-General Nikolai Kholodovskii and the Tula Arsenal were to cooperate to develop rifle that was lighter, more accurate, and more shooter-friendly than the M91. This wo...

As the end of World War Two loomed close, the German arms industry turned to a number of Volkssturm rifle designs. These were the crudest and simplest rifles that could be made to work with minimal time, labor, and raw materials. Most were bolt action rifles chambered for 8x57mm, like the Walther...

The creation of a short and handy Mosin Nagant carbine to complement the standard M891 was prompted by the Russo-Japanese War. Lots of Russian troops with roles other than infantry - machine gun and artillery crews in particular - were unnecessarily burdened with full length rifles, and the Model...

When World War One began, German armies roared through Belgium, occupying all but a small corner of the nation. Belgium still had an army to defend that last bit of territory, but it no longer had any of its manufacturing base. The Belgian State Arsenal was evacuated, but took several years to re...

Here's a rifle with an interesting twisting history...

This began life as a German military Gewehr 71/84, made in 1888. It was issued to a unit, but eventually replaced by the Gewehr 1888. It was sold to the Francis Bannerman company at some point around 1900, as part of a big batch of surplus...

After the British adopted the FAL as the L1A1 rifle, there was still an interest in converting stocks of existing No4 Enfield rifles to the new 7.62x51mm cartridge for reserve and training use. A conversion system was developed using a new barrel, bolt, and magazine - although the Sterling compan...

When Italy surrendered in late 1943, German troops disarmed the Italian forces in areas under German control, and came away with nearly 400,000 Carcano rifles. These would form the core armaments of the Volkssturm forces in 1944 and 1945. Most were simply left as captured and issued with capture...

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...

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...

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 SMLE No1 Mk3 was the iconic British infantry rifle of World War 1, but not the final evolution of the Lee Enfield design. By World War 2 it had been replaced by the new No4 Mk1 Lee Enfield, and this is the story of the interim models.

At the end of WW1, the British recognized several areas...

One of the British lessons form the Boer War was that the distinction between infantry rifles and cavalry carbines was becoming obsolete. In 1902, they would initiate troop trials on a new short rifle pattern, intermediate in length between the old rifles and carbines, and intended to be issued u...

Serbia in the 1890s was not a large or wealthy kingdom, and they had no domestic arms manufacturing capacity - but they did appreciate a good rifle and a good cartridge. The Serbian Army was armed with their M1880 rifle, which was a slightly improved Mauser 1871 single shot design, chambered a th...