The MKb-42(H), or Maschinenkarabiner-42 (Haenel), was the first production iteration of the German Sturmgewehr. It was chambered for the then-new 8x33mm kurz cartridge, and fired both semiauto and full-auto from an open bolt. Approximately 11,000 of these were made before production changed to th...

The SPIW program began in 1962 with entries from Colt, Springfield, AAI, and Winchester. The first set of trials were a complete failure, and both Colt and Winchester abandoned the project at that point. AAI pressed on, producing these second generation rifles - one for trials in 1966 and one aft...

The AR-15 rifle was originally developed by Armalite as an offshoot of the AR-10 rifle designed by Eugene Stoner. How that second-thought rifle became the US standard military rifle - and the longest-serving infantry rifle in US military history - is a winding story. From Armalite's sale fo the d...

(Unfortunately, Tombstone Territorial Firearms has closed up shop since this video was published).

I had a chance to do a video on a Portuguese contract AR-10 made by Artillerie Inrichtingen in the Netherlands a little while back. Unfortunately, it had just sold, and so we didn't have an oppo...

The CETME-L was Spain's replacement for the CETME Modelo C, which was the 7.62x51mm rifle that was essentially adopted by Germany as the G3 in the 1950s. By the 1980s Spain needed to move to the new NATO standard caliber, 5.56x45mm. A domestic design was preferred, so rather than but HK-93 rifles...

We lucked into a chance to disassemble and shoot a pretty rare black rifle recently - an SAR-21 bullpup made by Singapore Technologies (and this is why we take a camera everywhere we go). Singapore is another one of those countries with an impressive arms industry that most folks don't know about...

The FN FNC carbine was developed for military trials in the 70s and 80s, and saw some limited success.

We had the opportunity to disassemble and reassemble a Russian Fedorov rifle. The footage is a bit on the dull side, but I don't know when we'll have a chance to recreate it, so I edited this video together for the time being.

I offer our Facebook fans the choice of which video they would like to see today, and the result was overwhelmingly the British EM2 rifle. These were made in both .280/30 and 7.62 NATO calibers, and the one we had the chance to play with was in 7.62. I apologize in advance for the brief amount o...

Ruger introduced their semiauto Mini-14 rifle in 1973, and followed it in 1979 with the AC-556, a select-fire version intended for military and police sales. Offered with either an 18.5 inch barrel and solid wood stock or a 13 inch barrel and side folder, the AC-556 incorporated a selector switch...

Yesterday we took a look at the internals of Ruger's select-fire AC-556, and today we have it out at the range. The main question for me was, how does it compare to the M16/AR-15? And the answer is, not all that well. The AR is definitely a softer shooting platform in full auto. The AC-556, despi...

The M78 was Valmet’s RPK-style heavy barreled squad support weapon pattern of the Finnish AK. It was initially developed as the M74 cavalry machine gun for Finnish military service, but never adopted. Instead, that experimental design would serve as the basis for the commercial export M78 (using ...

The San Cristobal armory was a surprisingly large-scale arms manufacturer set up in the Dominican Republic in the late 40s. They produced several different weapons, but the most common was the Model 2 Cristobal carbine. Designed by Pál Király, it was a lever-delayed blowback mechanism chambered f...

The British Sterling firm designed the SAR-80 (specifically, their engineer Frank Waters) as a very simple rifle to sell to countries outside the main NATO/Warsaw spheres of influence. Sterling ended up getting a license to produce the AR-18 though, and didn't put Water's design into production. ...

When the Slovenian Army decided to adopt a new infantry rifle in the mid-2000s, the Arex Defense company decided to submit the F-2000 into the trials. The H&K G36 was widely expected to be the winner, but Arex had already been involved in making F2000 parts as a subcontractor for FN, and wanted a...

Make sure to check out the video on 9 Hole Reviews, with the SIG 550 on their 500yd course of fire, plus discussion with a Swiss infantry officer.

The AVS-36 was the first self-loading rifle adopted by the Soviet Union to be a standard infantry rifle, and it was not just semiautomatic, but also capable of fully automatic fire. Designed by Sergei Simonov over the course of about ten years, it would only last a short time in service before be...

When Colt decided to sell a semiauto-only civilian version of its AR-15 rifle, it had to make a number of changes to the design of the lower receiver to prevent full-auto fire control parts from being used. These changes would make a semiauto AR receiver legally distinct form a full-auto one, and...

Harrington & Richardson was one of the main contractors for the M14 rifle program, and they also had been a major producer of the M1 Garand rifle. In particular, H&R had produced a .22 rimfire training rifle to mimic the handling of the M1 Garand, which was adopted by the US military as the MC-58...

Yugoslavia began development of a Kalashnikov pattern rifle in 1959. The Yugoslav rifle would be distinct from the standard Soviet model, as evidenced by features like the gas cutoff for grenade launching and the early use of a true bolt hold open feature.

The first version was the M64, but t...

One of the very nice features of the FAMAS is that it can be swapped between left-hand and right-hand ejection in just a few moments without needing any tools or spare parts. I had this FAMAS out at the range in left-handed configuration and the owner asked me to return it as a right-handed gun, ...

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, France was seriously considering joining the NATO small arms standardization. They were equipped with the MAS 49/56 semiauto rifle at this point, and were looking at three possibilities:

1 – Convert the 49/56 rifles to 7.62 NATO. (This was actually tested wit...

Launched in 2016, the Bren 2 was a significant upgrade program over the original Bren 805 rifle. In addition to being offered in both 5.56mm and 7.62x39mm with user-changeable barrels, the Bren 2 was both simpler and lighter than the 805. virtually every part of the rifle was improved, from remov...

The Bren 807 is an interesting hybrid of the Bren 805 and Bren 2. It was introduced by CZ in 2016 as a lower-priced model than the Bren 2. It was offered in both 5.56mm and 7.62x39mm, although it was not intended to be user-changeable between calibers. Its introduction was done in part with hopes...