The Gerat 03 was the first prototype roller-locked rifle developed by the Germans during WWII. Only a few were made, and the rifle was never put into mass production. This is the direct ancestor of the HK91 family of roller-delayed firearms.

Quick, think of the first thing that comes to mind when I say "riot shotgun"!

Does it have a brass buttplate? A tangent rear sight? Is it a single-shot weapon? Does it use a shotshell smaller than 28ga?

No? Well, I guess you have a different notion of riot gear than the Indian military. Huh...

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.

This past weekend was another 2-Gun Action Challenge Match, and this time I decided to shoot my Hakim in it. The Hakim is an Egyptian license-built copy of the Swedish AG-42 Ljungman (you can find more info on the Hakim and other Egyptian rifles here), chambered in the standard 8x57 Mauser cartri...

The Mannlicher was one of the early automatic pistol designs. Like most such guns, a small number were made as carbine variants. This particular one is the first prototype 1901 carbine (you can see the number '1' stamped on the bolt).

We take a 1940 Bren gun to the range to demonstrate function, disassembly, and shooting from a variety of positions.

Forgotten Weapons is joined by author Bin Shih, an expert on Chinese firearms of the second Sino-Japanese War (aka World War 2). We discuss the state of Chinese weapons manufacture in the 1930s and 40s, as well as several specific weapons including Mauser-type bolt action rifles, grenade launche...

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

German ordnance began looking for a military selfloading rifle to augment the K98k as early as the 1930s, although the pressures of war initially made that development a second priority. By 1941, though, two competing designs from the Walther and Mauser companies had been developed to the point o...

I borrowed this book from a friend to take a look through, and not I really don't want to give it back. I always buy myself a book or two after Christmas, and this is definitely what I'm getting myself this year. It's expensive, but worth every penny. Everything in here is excellent - the depth o...

I was at a gun show recently and found some unusual Mosin-Nagant rifles, but didn't know enough to identify them and gauge their value. So I bought them just in case, and then I picked up a copy of Terence Lapin's The Mosin-Nagant Rifle. It was a pretty useful book to me (and my Civil Guard marke...

We have another interview segment with Bin Shih today, this time discussing the commonly used bolt action rifles that were the backbone of the Chinese infantry during the war with Japan. Specifically, Hanyang rifle, the Manchurian Mauser, and the Chiang Kai-Shek rifle (aka Type 24).

When we spoke to Bin Shih about his recent book and Chinese firearms in general, he brought several interesting guns along to show us. By far the rarest was a General Liu rifle, and we decided to devote a complete episode to it. It's definitely a forgotten weapon, and we appreciated having the ch...

I've discussed the much-maligned CSRG machine rifle (the Chauchat) previously - it was not the utter disaster that common knowledge would lead you to believe. You won't find much literature on the Chauchat, but fortunately what has been written is of top-notch quality: Gerard Demaison's and Yves ...

We've all seen the books of compiled articles at gun shows, printed by Gun Digest or other sundry magazines. I usually don't give them a second glance, at least until now. I had a friend point out this one in particular, International Arms Review 1. Printed in the late 1970s, it is a lot more int...

Simpson Ltd is a great gun shop with an impressively extensive selection. In addition to a wide variety of military and sporting rifles, they are also the largest Luger dealer in the country, if not the world.

The Spencer repeating rifle was a major leap forward in infantry firepower, and more than one hundred thousand of them were purchased by the US military during the Civil War. The Spencer offered a 7-round magazine of rimfire .56 caliber cartridges in an era when the single-shot muzzleloading rifl...

1852 Slant-Breech Sharps

The M6 Gun Motor Carriage was the first American tank destroyer of WWII - a 37mm antitank gun (basically identical to the M3 gun) mounted on the back of a Dodge 3/4 ton weapons carrier. A large armor shield protected the gun crew from small arm fire, but the vehicle was otherwise highly exposed. ...

The Frommer/Femaru 37M was the last in the line of handguns designed by Rudolf Frommer. The 37M was a single-action blowback pistol chambered for .380, although it was also purchased by Germany in .32 ACP caliber (and with the addition of a manual thumb safety). It was adopted by the Hungarian mi...

This month for the 2-Gun Action Challenge Match, Karl and I square off with WWII snipers' rifles. I have a No4 MkI (T) Enfield sniper with a 3.5x No.32 scope, and Karl has a Mauser K98k with a 1.5x ZF41 designated marksman's optic. Both rifles are authentic, although both scopes are reproductions...

For this month's 2-Gun Action Challenge Match, I decided to shoot my Remington Model 8, in .300 Savage. It's a semiauto sporting rifle designed by John Browning, which went into production in 1906. It's a long-recoil action, and has pretty hefty recoil from the prone position. I incorporated use ...

This month I chose to shoot the 2-Gun Action Challenge Match with a French MAS 49/56, in the original 7.5x54 caliber. I really like the handling of the rifle, and I was curious to see how the sights (rear aperture and a large front post) would work in a practical setting like this competition. As...

This is an update to out previous video on the Webley-Fosbery, which was taken on a low-res camera in a dark room - hopefully this will be a big improvement!

The Webley-Fosbery was an early automatic handgun based on a revolver design. The top half of the frame slides back under recoil, recock...