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...

Understanding the tactical benefits of a firearm is not possible without understanding all the accessories that were used for operating it. We are quite good with the age of muskets starting from the middle of the 16th century, but we lack a huge amount of information regading the first decades o...

Replicating the tinder sticks for early 16th century snap matchlocks guns added a lot of details to the use of these firearms. This is probably what we can call experimental archaeology. But it also raised new questions, like which one was better? The match that existed for centuries before or th...

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 ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...

From 1871 to the 1920s France implemented a number of schemes to introduced military education, shooting theory and practice, not only as a way to boost patriotism but also in a bid to prepare boys and teenagers for military service after leaving school. For this, various scaled down rifles were ...

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 ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...

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 ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...

First time with a single-shot, in this case @neutral_af 's Martinistutzer single-shot Martini falling block target rifle from back in the day, chambered in 7.5x55 mm GP11!

How did we get on with this puppy?

(It's not a Martini-Henry and it's nothing to do with Battlefield 1 / BF1 )

Sorry about the wind noise! We did our best to deal with it in post-production.

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 amm...

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 ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...

During its Homeland War, Croatia manufactured a wide variety of ad-hoc firearms including a number of anti-material rifles. The RT-20 was the largest of these, and its development began with the discovery of a stash of Yugoslav M55 anti-aircraft cannon barrels chambered for 20mm Hispano in a ware...

Following its experience in the Russo-Turkish War, the Romanian Army was quite impressed by the Martini-Henry rifle in Turkish service. Unlike so many Western observers who were taken by the Winchester repeating rifles that actually didn't make much battlefield impact, the Romanians recognized th...

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 ammunition (for most, although not so much for the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...

The first Japanese exposure to firearms came from Portuguese traders in 1534, as the southern Japanese island of Tanegashima. They received a matchlock, and quickly recognized its utility and potential - within 10 years matchlocks were in significant production in Japan. The style of gun took hol...

There's all manner of Martini actioned single shot target rifles and hunting rifles around in Switzerland as left-overs from the era when they dominated the shooting sports. This is a fairly interesting one, converted from a target rifle to a scoped hunting rifle by Swiss Bubba (Bäbbu?). It's in ...

The culture of the double rifle come from the muzzle loading age, when repeating concepts were seldom available. Being able to fire a second or third shot required multiplying the number of barrels and actions. Today the side by side double rifle is still a capable arm. Many professional hunters ...

The Manda is a rifle that was designed for the Croatian Special Police at the beginning of the Homeland War in 1991. At that point, the Special Police (basically the SWAT teams) were basically the only really well-trained fighters in the country with combat experience. They wanted .50 BMG anti-ma...

The Confederate manufactured Sharps percussion breech loading carbines were manufactured by S. C. Robinson in Richmond. They were illegal copies of the famous Sharps Model 1859 carbines. They are extremely rare collectors items, that's why we are happy that Pedersoli is offering their faithful re...

On October 16, 1859 John Brown and 19 men left the Kennedy farmhouse and made their way a few miles south to the Harpers Ferry Arsenal. They planned to seize the Arsenal and use its arms - along with 200 Sharps 1853 carbines and 1,000 pikes they had previously purchased - to ignite and arm a slav...

In 1875 the Montreal City Police decided that they wanted to equip a riot squad in case of public disturbance. They initially requested funds for 50 revolvers, but this changed to 60 carbines instead, and these were purchased via broker in 1876 from the Whitneyville Armory. Whitneyville was a fac...

While I was at InterOrdnance unpacking French rifles, I took the opportunity to pull out a couple different examples of Gras Cavalry Carbines to show the differences between original French production examples and Belgian commercial conversions. What we will see today are how to recognize:

- Fre...

Shooting the Snider Short Rifle at longer ranges.

The bayonet exercise for the Martini-Henry

This year's challenge features the Snider Short Rifle