The Heym SR30 is a modern hunting rifle produced in Thuringia, Germany using a rather clever and interesting locking system. It is a straight-pull rifle with six ball bearings around the circumference of the bolt head. When the bolt handle it forward, it forces a central plunger down the interior...

This is a fascinating experimental Remington Keene rifle, build in an attempt to alleviate concerns about magazine tube detonation. With centerfire ammunition in a linear tube magazine, there was an ever-present (if very slim) risk of a bullet detonating the primer ahead that it was resting again...

The Thorneycroft was the first military bullpup rifle, developed in the United Kingdom in response to combat experiences in the second Boer War showing the British infantry rifles to be overly long and cumbersome. Scotsman James Baird Thorneycroft figured he could address this by moving the actio...

Among the many Swedish Mauser carbines imported into the United States is an interesting batch of guns marked "InterArms G33/50". What are these actually?

They are rifles imported by InterArms, of course, and they began life as proper Swedish m/94 and m/94-14 carbines. Upon import, though, the...

As World War Two expanded to encompass the whole US economy, it became clear to the Army that some cost cutting measures would be required. One place that was a clear choice was in rimfire .22 caliber training rifles. Since the 1920s, the US had used training and competition rifles from Springfie...

At the end of When Germany capitulated in 1945, there were nearly 400,000 German soldiers in Norway (largely thanks to the efforts of the Norwegian Resistance to prevent them from being transferred south). This provided Norway with a massive supply of K98k Mauser rifles to reequip their armed for...

Jeff Cooper was an icon of the American firearms community, best known for his work with the Southwest Pistol League and father of modern practical handgun competition. Cooper was a Marine Corps veteran and avid hunter in addition, and in the mid 1980s he began to codify a concept he would call t...

The effort to create a .22 rimfire training and competition version of the 1903 Springfield rifle began just after World War One, as a project of the esteemed then-Major Julian Hatcher. His work would result in the M1922 rifle, of which about 2000 were made. However, the design would go through s...

When Sweden decided to replace its Remington Rolling Block rifles with a more modern repeating rifle design, they tested models from Mauser, Mannlicher, Lee, and Krag. The Mauser 1893 was chosen as the winner of the competition, with a few modifications (most notably a change to allow the safety ...

Finland found itself with nearly 200,000 Mosin Nagant rifles in its possession after breaking away from Russian rule in 1917, and those rifles would for the basis of Finnish infantry arms until the adopted of a semiautomatic rifle many decades later.

At first, Russian rifles were simply refurb...

While many people are familiar with the Ishapore 2A1 rifles chambered in 7.62mm NATO (largely thanks to their importation and sale in the US in large numbers), production of Indian Enfield rifles actually dates back to 1905, when the Ishapore arsenal was opened. The first rifles produced there we...

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 last batch of Mauser K98k rifles made by Brno after World War Two was a run in 1950 for East German border guards. These rifles have receivers marked “tgf 1950” in a style just like the wartime German arsenal codes, but where the codes were random letters, this one stands for “Tschekoslovakis...

Cooey is a brand name that will be immediately recognized by Canadians, but pretty much unknown everywhere else. Founded in 1903 by Herbert Cooey, the company would produce a series of simple and practical firearms that became hugely popular and common in Canada. The basic models were the single-...

After World War Two, the Czech economy was in serious need of money to recover from the ravages of war. The arms factory at Brno was not bound by the same restrictions as German manufacturers, and still had a production line for the Mauser K98k, which they had been making for the Wehrmacht. Eager...

In 1930, Haile Selassie I became Emperor of Ethiopia (aka Abysinia), and would rule for almost 45 years, with a brief exception when the country was occupied by fascist Italy. During that time, he paid particular attention to Ethiopia’s military strength. As part of his coronation celebration he ...

After the disaster of the Franco-Prussian War, it was clear to the French military that the rationale for using paper cartridge in the Chassepot was no longer valid - a future rifle would need to use brass cartridges. A competition to design a conversion of the Chassepot to use modern ammunitio...

In 1889, Emperor Menelik II ascended to power in Ethiopia, and would rule for 20 years, moving Ethiopia (aka Abyssinia) forward into the modern age. He brought railways, sewer systems, telegraph lines, and other modern amenities to the country, particularly the capital of Addis Ababa. In addition...

This is a conversion of a French 1822 rifle to a single shot bolt action, using a newly manufactured receiver. It is unfortunately not marked with a patent name or date, and I have been unable to find any additional information about it. It actually seems like a pretty solid system, compared to m...

When the Belgian military decided to adopt a new rifle in the late 1880s, they attached a wide variety of competitors. The best of the batch were Mauser and Mannlicher, with Mauser ultimately winning - but among the other entrants was Belgian Captain Uldarique Marga and his bolt action rifle desi...

Louis Schlegemilch had been one of the contributors to the Gewehr 1888 and when the German military decided to replace it, Schlegemilch was there with a design he hoped would win. His model 1896 rifle was a two lug bolt action design with a number of clever machining details, and a distinctive ma...

The Mauser 98 may have been the best bolt action design of all time, but it did not spring forth from Paul Mauser’s head fully formed. The Mauser took nearly 10 years of development and iteration to reach its full potential, and the 1892 pattern Spanish Mauser we are looking at today is one of th...

The Jameson Raid in December 1895 was one of the key events in the lead to the second Boer War. Leander Jameson took a force of about 600 men on December 1895 to make a surprise attach on Johannesburg, incite support form the multitude of British miners who felt oppressed by the Boer government, ...

The US Navy held a trial in 1894 to adopt a new rifle, one to finally replace the .45-70 black powder Trapdoor Springfield. The rifle was to be chambered for the .236 Navy cartridge, a radically modern small bore round firing a 135 grain bullet at a remarkably fast 2500 fps. This was a lightweigh...