When France decided to adopt a new 9x19mm submachine gun after World War Two, all three of the main French arsenals (St Etienne/MAS, Chatellerault/MAC, and Tulle/MAT) developed designs to compete for adoption. Tulle would eventually win and their design became the MAT-49, but the other lines of d...

Developed in Italy as a take on the Light Machine Gun, the British Villar Perosa was chambered in .455 Webley and was considered to be mounted on an unusual form of transport.

As the war began to turn against Mussollini's Italy in the Second World War, they turned to the cheap, easy to produce TZ45.

Join Jonathan Ferguson as he brings you a quintessential What is this Weapon. This 'almost' bullpup design was created against the background of the looming war in Europe, drawing heavily on Italian sub machine gun designs. But, it also features some unique features which range from the inventive...

The ultimate in hidden, personal defence weaponry, the 'Zerfallkoffer' was developed in a time when the briefcase was a common accoutrement to the discerning businessman.

Design by the somewhat unfortunately named Adolf Furer, this early example of a submachine gun sought to re-use the venerable Luger toggle-lock mechanism, but on its side.

The S-11 was Sterling's Chief Weapons Designer, Frank Waters attempt at competing with the huge commerical successes of the MP-5 and the Uzi.

Designed to replace the somewhat last-ditch Sten gun imn the Belgian Army has a troubled history with extensive by the infamous para-commandos to suppress uprising in the Belgian Congo and were famously used in the assassination of President Patrice Lumumba.

Accuracy and penetration tests with some high frame per sec filmings! My impression about the thompson M1A1 submachine gun. Although I could only try this semiauto conversion I am sure that the gun handles well in burst mode as well. Magyar szöveg: http://kapszli.hu/a-thompson-m1a1-geppisztoly/ I...

Please support us at: https://www.patreon.com/capandball I always wanted to make a series about the most common military arms of the 1956 revolution in Hungary. Now I am happy to announce that we are remembering the heroes with a mini series about these firearms, starting with the PPSh 41 soviet ...

The Croatian made Agram 2000 is a unique design featuring space-age furniture. It was used during the break up of Yugoslavia in the early 90s and saw continued use after the conflict by elements of the criminal underworld across Europe.

The Czech-made ZK-383 submachine gun is a bit of an oddball in the world of submachine guns. It has several design features typically associated with rifle-caliber light machine guns - an integral bipod and a quick-change barrel. In fact, the ZK-383 was designed to be a hybrid gun, usable as eith...

The MP 3008, aka Gerät Neumünster, was one of two German efforts to copy the British Sten gun. The first was the Gerät Potsdam ("gerät" meaning device or project; basically project code name), which was a direct copy of the Sten distinguishable only by a marking details and a few differences in m...

The Villar Perosa is one of the first small machine guns developed and used by a military force. It was designed in Italy and introduced in 1915 as an aircraft weapon, to be used in a flexible mount by an airplane's observer. The gun consists of two independent firing actions mounted together. Ea...

The K-50M was a North Vietnamese modification of the PPSh-41 submachine gun to mimic the handling of a French MAT-49. Made from Chinese Type 50 guns (which were direct copies of the original PPSh-41) in small shops, the K-50M used a wholly new lower receiver assembly. This new lower fitted an AK ...

The T2 submachine gun was Auto-Ordnance's entry into the ongoing competition to replace the classic Thompson submachine gun with something more economical to produce. It was a closed-bolt, select-fire design using a progressive trigger and a tubular receiver, along with stand Thompson gun magazin...

George Hyde was a gun designer who is due substantial credit, but whose name is rarely heard, because he did not end up with his name on an iconic firearm. Hyde was a German immigrant to the United States in 1927 who formed the Hyde Arms Company and started designing submachine guns. His first wa...

Yesterday we looked at the short-lived Bernardelli VB submachine gun made a few years after World War 2, and compared it to the post-war Beretta Model 4 SMG. Having seen how different the two guns really are, it's time to take them to the shooting range and see how they compare in actual firing...

The Bernardelli company, known mostly for sporting arms, made an effort to break into the law enforcement/military/security market in the year after World War Two. This Model UB submachine gun was manufactured in 1948 and 1949, with a total of about 500 made. While it looks like a copy of the Ber...

Developed by CETME in the 1960s, the C2 (aka CB64) submachine gun was clearly inspired by the Sterling, but includes several clever mechanical safeties. The charging handle is non-reciprocating and integrates a bolt lock which it automatically deactivated when the charging handle is used. This al...

This cut-down Beretta Model 38/44 submachine gun was made by the EOKA (Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston) independence group, which fought in the late 1950s for Cyprus to be reunified with Greece, instead of being a British colony. It shows a clever use of a Bren gun barrel handle as a front gr...

Introduced in 1957, Franchi's LF-57 submachine gun has a very distinctive sci-fi look to it, but was never able to become a major player in the Cold War arms market. It is in all ways a fully satisfactory design, including a grip safety, bolt lock to prevent accidental discharge, reasonably stabl...

The Owen Gun is one of the really good submachine guns fielded during the Second World War, but is a very scarce gun to find today. I had a chance to briefly shoot one year ago, and when I had the opportunity to try one out at Morphy's, I jumped at it. Feeding from the top and ejecting out the bo...

When the US military released a request for what would become the M1 Carbine in 1940, the Auto-Ordnance Corporation offered up a Thompson submachine gun simply rechambered for the new .30 Carbine cartridge. This entailed a new magazine, a receiver modified for the longer magazine, and a new barre...