When Germany occupied Belgium in the summer of 1940, the took over the FN factory complex and ordered production of the High Power pistol to continue. It was put into German service as the Pistole 640(b), and nearly 325,000 of them were made between 1940 and 1944. The first ones were simply assem...

This short arquebus was found in a bog in Hungary and now it is in the collection of the Royal Armouries in Leeds, UK. This is one of the very first wheellocks we know about today, and one of the very first pistols. First part of a series by Capandball.

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of visiting my friends at the Cody Firearms Museum and while having a look through their collection we came across a really interesting rifle. A Winchester prototype developed at the turn of the 20th century which had a T-shaped charging handle, something whic...

Beaumont-Vitali clip file here:
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:7007347

Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, and they are actually pretty easy to reload for. The unavailability of factory ammunitio...

The Type 79 is an overly-complex submachine gun that uses a scaled-down AK operating system chambered for 7.62x25mm Tokarev. In many ways, this is akin to the H&K MP7 - it's a miniaturized combat rifle. The locked breech system allows the reciprocating parts to be arather lighter than a simple bl...

In this video we look at German Medical Services of the Second World War, particularly how a wounded or ill-soldier was moved through the various station of medical care from the front-line to the home front.

Cover Images:
Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-2008-0316 / Hermann / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 D...

The first rifle made in Sam Colt’s Paterson NJ factory was the 1837 “ring lever” rifle. These were rather fragile and underpowered and while they were used successfully in the First Seminole War, they needed improvement. Colt set about doing this with his 1839 pattern, which was more robust and m...

Mark your calendars; Moons Out 2026 will be March 6-8 at the Echo Valley Training Center, in WV. Practiscore registration will open December 1:

https://practiscore.com/moons-out-26/register

Here we examine the "smallbore paradigm", the functioning of this type of Rifle, the details of the Shooting Box and yes, even some shooting.

After World War One, there was a lot of tinkering with the BAR by the US military. It was recognized as being a very good platform, but the original M1918 configuration left a lot to be desired. It was deemed to heavy to use effectively form the shoulder, but also not really well suited to sustai...

Awfully obsolete at the time of acceptance but still a very interesting cavalry arm from the American Civl War. The M 1855 pistol-carbine was adopted the same year as the M1855 rifle musket. In a time when wide variety of breech loaders were already accessible, including a few firing metallic car...

"Ada Blackjack: A True Story of Survival in the Arctic" by Jennifer Niven:
https://amzn.to/42UBKpG

In the past couple days, I have had two people send me two different images, asking me to identify the odd rifles in them. Both were posted claiming to be Ada Blackjack, and Inuit woman who survive...

As the main national armory, Springfield got a number of requests to make specialty rifles for commissioned officers and important dignitaries each year. These were essentially all custom sporting rifles, and the orders were duly filled. In 1875, however, the decision was made to standardize a fo...

In the 1890s, there was a lot of interest in small caliber, simple revolvers for self-defense by cyclists, primarily against dogs. This led to the creation of a whole category of “velodog” revolvers, and a Belgian designer named Herman patented this extension of the idea. It is a 6-shot, 5mm pinf...

From imagery shared by Ukrainian armed forces personnel over recent months it appears that Italy has provided an unconfirmed number of Beretta SC70/90 5.56x45mm rifles. The SC70/90 is part of the AR70/90 family of rifles which has been in service since the 1990s.

Be sure to check out our accompa...

The Mk20 SSR / SCAR-H PR / TPR was a variant that FN had continued to capitalize on their initial success with SOCOM's adoption of the Mk16 (SCAR-L) and Mk17 (SCAR-H). While the SCAR-H (17) was an adequate DMR, there a few other improvements (outside of extending the receiver and barrel) that FN ...

The American 180 is a .22LR machine gun that fires at a high rate (1300 rpm more or less) from a super-high-capacity magazine (177 rounds). Conceptually it was designed by Richard Casull in the 1960s, but he only produced about 70 of his original M290 design. He sold the rights to the design, and...

No it's not from Star Wars, but it *might* fire lasers?

That is, in the film it's likely from - 1984. Based on George Orwell's famous novel, this firearm has a star-studded history.

The FAMAS began being rolled out in earnest to troops in the early 1980s. To coincide with this, Unique rolled out a 22 carbine very closely following the profile and general handling of the FAMAS, the F-11. Closer inspection of this now quite rare beast shows that it is in fact an X-51Bis carbin...

The Kuna is a delayed-blowback 9mm pistol/PCC/submachine gun developed by HS Produkt in Croatia and marketed int he US by Springfield Armory. Development on it began in 2020 as a commercial project, but probably also with an eye to military and law enforcement sales. The Croatian police are curre...

Circa 1954, Sweden was starting to look for a new self-loading rifle to adopt for its infantry. The 6.5x55mm cartridge was a good round, but the idea of having ammunition compatibility with its neighbors was appealing, and NATO was standardizing on the new 7.62x51mm round. This rifle is an experi...

Ransom rest tests of original, Uberti and Pietta 1861 Colt Navy .36 revolvers shot with repro of original service charges. Which is more accurate?

Ukraine's United Assault Brigade of the National Police of Ukraine of the Special Purpose Police Department - the “Lyut” Brigade appear to have been equipped with Turkish-made KaleKalip KMG556 FN Minimi clones.

Be sure to check out our accompanying article for this video here -
https://armourer...