Possibly a world-exclusive here at BotR? One of the very few factory semi automatic L85A1's ever produced, fitted with a SUSAT and tried at 300m with 69gn RUAG .223 Rem / 5.56 match ammunition. How does it perform?

And also, how does removing the SUSAT affect zero? What about pushing against the...

On 13 December it was confirmed that Czech CZ BREN 2 rifles are being assembled in Ukraine with future plans to expand to manufacturing the rifles.

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

Check us out on the History of Weapons & Warfare v...

The first iteration of the iconic German Sturmgewehr was developed by Haenel starting in 1938. It was a select-fire rifle chambered for the short 8x33mm cartridge, developed by the Polte company. It used a long-stroke gas piston and a tilting bolt patterned after the Czech ZB-26 light machine gun...

We've previously seen HK416s in use with a variety of Ukrainian units, but since mid-August there began to be sightings of small numbers of other Heckler & Koch rifles - HK G36s and the new HK433. In this video we'll examine which units are using, where they've been sighted and try and get to the...

When Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it was initially armed with a wide variety of miscellaneous small arms. They clearly needed a primary standardized rifle for the new armed forces. The one definitive criteria for making a selection was than the new rifle must b...

The Krása project (which translates as "beauty", but is also a shortening of "short assault rifle" - "KRÁtký SAmopal") is a fascinating piece of Czech small arms development. In 1976, the Czechoslovakian military requested development of a compact personal weapon for special troops (paratroops, a...

In 1958, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista ordered some 35,000 FAL rifles from FN, including both regular infantry rifles have heavy-barreled FALO light machine guns. Before any of them could arrive, however, Batista fled the country and his guns were delivered to Fidel Castro beginning in July 19...

From the Mauser bolt action to the AK and AR, all new military rifles take time to perfect. With the Bren 3, CZ is now on the third iteration of the Bren platform, having gone from the original 805 to the much-improved Bren 2 and now a collection of less obvious changes to create the Bren 3. Thes...

The SR-3 Vikhr is mechanically based on the AS-VAL and VSS Vintorez rifles, but built to be a very compact personal defensive weapon instead of a silenced rifle. Still chambered for 9x39, the Vikhr is intended for roles like executive protection, where the priority is being compact and concealabl...

Alongside their new 5.56mm R20 infantry rifles, Estonia has recently adopted the LMT 7.62x51mm MARS-H as its new designated marksman's rifle; the R20L. These rifles were part of a single rifle contract, with the vast majority of the rifles being the smaller 5.56mm ones. The larger 7.62mm rifles h...

In 2017, the Estonian military began the process of replacing its infantry rifles. At that time, the primary rifle in use was the Galil, which had been purchased from Israel shortly after Russian occupation ended and Estonia regained its independence in 1992. The Galils had made sense at the time...

Starting in 1960, China ran a program to develop an infantry rifle that would combine the accuracy of the SKS with the firepower of the AK. The result was the Type 63, which used the general layout of the SKS along with its short stroke gas piston and an SKS-like fire control system (with fully a...

After World War Two the Swiss needed a new self-loading military rifle to replace their K-31 bolt actions. Two major design tracks followed; one being a roller-delayed system based on the G3 at SIG and the other being a derivative of the German FG-42 at Waffenfabrik Bern. Bern, under the directio...

After World War Two the Swiss needed a new self-loading military rifle to replace their K-31 bolt actions. Two major design tracks followed; one being a roller-delayed system based on the G3 at SIG and the other being a derivative of the German FG-42 at Waffenfabrik Bern. Bern, under the directio...

As part of its effort to build out the AR-15 family of small arms, Colt introduced the Model 608 in 1965. This was intended to be an aircraft survival rifle, able to pack disassembled into a small space with four 20-round magazines for use by the US Air Force. With a 10 inch barrel, fixed tubular...

East Germany purchased a license for production of the AK-74 in 1981, but that license was for domestic use only. There was an apparent market for export production AKs in the western 5.56mm cartridge, and so the East Germans developed their own new rifle to fill that demand and bring in some muc...

In 2008, Ukrainian manufacturing conglomerate RPC Fort received a license from IMI to produce a variety of Israeli small arms, including the Tavor TAR and Tavor X95. In Fort's catalog, these were designated the Fort-221 (TAR) and Fort-224 (X95). A small number were allegedly produced for special ...

While the US never adopted a significant variation of the M1 Garand (excluding sniper models), testing continued on new iterations and features throughout the war. By the time the war ended, the US military had some specific ideas about what it wanted in a new service rifle. That being, something...

The FAMAS was the best bullpup rifle of its era, but it was a difficult platform to modernize with optics. In 1995, the "FELIN" (Fantassin à Équipement et Liaisons INtégrés; Integrated Infantry Equipment and Communications) was commissioned to create a next-generation weapons platform for the Fre...

Mitch, design engineer at Q, challenged me to a shootoff at Moons Out Goons Out 2024. If I win, I get a Boombox from Q. If he wins, I have to embarrass myself on the internet. Sounds like a risk worth taking!

The Boombox is essentially a Honey Badger scaled up to SR25 magwell size, chambered for...

Sorry for the poor audio - I was filming in an indoor range with a loud ventilation system running. But it was a chance to shoot a proper select-fire SIG-Manurhin 540, and I wasn't going to let that opportunity get away! It's a quite nice rifle, weighing in at 3.5kg / 7.75 pounds in 5.56mm. Frank...

In 2023 Beretta introduced their 'New Assault Rifle Platform' - the NARP. At SHOT Show 2024 I had the chance to examine the initial 5.56x45mm variant of the NARP. The rifle was developed with input from Italy's Special Forces and it represents a step away from the extensive use of polymer in Bere...

During the Balkan Wars, a great many oddball guns were built and used. One of them was a Bosnian conversion of the Yugoslav M59/66 SKS to have a select-fire trigger and to use modified detachable AK magazines. These are extremely rare today, as only a few of them (probably a dozen at most) came i...

When France was developing it's new suite of small arms in the late 1940s, there was a debate over whether to adopt an intermediate-power cartridge or retain the full-power 7.5x54mm round for the infantry rifle. Initially, a French 7.65x35mm cartridge was developed and used for several years of d...