The Type 93 Chinese assault rifle is a development of the Type 56 Kalashnikov, produced by the People's Liberation Army of the PRC. While the Type 93 designation suggests that the design originated in 1993, there is no evidence of production before the mid 2020s at the earliest.

Fundamentally...

Many of the small arms developed in North Korea show substantial Czechoslovakian influence, and the Type 73 machine gun is no exception. Based on the concept of the Czech 52/57 light machine gun, the Type 73 is able to use both magazines and belts (although not both simultaneously). fundamentally...

All that is tactical is not necessarily new...and this shotgun is a perfect example. It was put together by a Tucson police officer in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and has all the elements of a very modern "tactical" combat shotgun. It is a Remington Model 11 semiauto shotgun (a licensed copy o...

Aimo Lahti was the premier firearms designer, and the m/26 was his first significant design. Lahti was a Civil Guard armorer, and upon seeing the Lindelof copy of the Bergmann SMG in 1921 he thought he could make something better and cheaper. He took on three partners and formed Konepistooli Osak...

In February of 1943, new production Suomi submachine guns began to include a 10-point compensator built into the barrel shroud. This pattern, really the only substantial variation in Finnish military m/31 production, was identified as the m/31 SJR, an abbreviation for muzzle brake ("suujarru"). S...

Today I'm taking a Skorpion Evo 3A1 out to the range...let's see how much fun it can be!

The CZ Skorpion grew out of a Czech Army request for a new 9x19mm SMG as the newly formed Czech Republic pivoted to a Western orientation in the 1990s. The CZ factory took a look at what it already had that might be suitable, and did in fact revisit the vz.61 Skorpion design in 9x19mm (originally...

The original Scorpion was adopted in .32 ACP caliber as the vz.61 by the Czechoslovakian military – but development of the Scorpion did not end there. Prototypes were also developed in .380, 9×18 Makarov, and 9x19mm. In particular, the 9x19mm version, designated vz.68, got as far as field trials ...

The NGSW (Next Generation Squad Weapon) program began in 2017 to find a replacement for the M4, M249, and 5.56mm cartridge. It came to a conclusion in April 2022 with the formal acceptance of the SIG M5 rifle, M250 machine gun, Vortex M157 optic, and the 6.8x51mm cartridge. SIG released a handful...

Following the adoption of the WF Bern MP41/44 by the Swiss military, SIG continued to develop its own submachine gun design in hopes of outside commercial and military sales. This is the MP48 pattern, which is a simplified blowback action, but using the same basic receiver geometry as the MK seri...

The SIG MP48 was the result of a series of successively cheaper and simpler iterations of the MKPS design. They kept the basic receiver geometry, but lost much of the finesse. The MP48 in particular was very compact, with its 8″ (200mm) barrel and collapsing stock. It kept the really high rate of...

After joining (formally) World War Two in the wake of Pearl Harbor, the United States endured a series of defeats at the hands of the Japanese. The Philippines garrison fell, Wake Island fell, Guam fell. British possessions in Southeast Asia teetered and fell as well - the campaign was not going ...

00:00:32 - What is the "elevator pitch" for Polenar Tactical?
00:02:26 - How did you get your channel name?
00:04:49 - What are the Slovenian gun laws like?
00:07:11 - How do EU rules impact an individual country's laws?
00:11:37 - What do you think will be the most prevalent rifle and cartri...

Today I am speaking to Len Antaris of Historic Investments, aka "Fireplace Guy". Len has a tremendous collection with an emphasis on unusual and prototype handguns, and he has been very generous in allowing me to film much of it for you over many years. So, I figured we should talk to him about s...

Today we have a bunch of questions about gun shops, and I am joined by Kurt Stancl, of Bear Arms in Scottsdale AZ. You can find him at:

https://www.facebook.com/BearArmsAZ
https://www.instagram.com/beararmsaz

0:00:00 - Introduction
0:02:02 - How have online sales impacted the business?
0...

I decided to try a bit of an experiment for this month's Q&A, and took questions from Forgotten Weapons Patreon and Utreon supporters to ask directly to exhibitors at SHOT Show 2022. It turned out quite a lot shorter than I was anticipating, but I think I got some good answers for you. Thanks to ...

Croatian engineer Marko Vukovic first developed his P38-based pistol in the late 1980s for the Yugoslav Peoples' Army. It was left unadopted at that time, but when Croatia declared independence in 1991 the gun found a new life. The newly formed Croatian armed forces needed quite a lot of small ar...

The MPi-69 was adopted by Austria to replace its aging MP40 submachine guns, and it included an unorthodox charging handle design connected to the sling. Clearly this didn’t turn out to be such a great idea, because when the questions of Austrian military SMGs was revisited in 1981, the feature w...

Designed in the 1960s by Steyr and adopted by the Austrian Army in 1969 to replace it aging MP40s, the MPi-69 is an economical and simple 9x19mm SMG. It uses many features seen in the Uzi, including the dual sear lugs, similar barrel nut, magazine in the grip, and telescoping bolt (first used by ...

Designed by Piotr Wilniewczyca and Jan Skrzypinski starting in 1936, the Mors was Poland's first domestic SMG. Polish police forces had purchased Thompsons and Suomi in the 1920s and 1930s, but the military still had no such guns by the 1930s. One of the main inspirations for the More was the Erm...

During the late 1920 and early 1930s, the Walther company worked on developing a military pistol in 9x19mm. They began from the basis of the PP/PPK design, and produced three separate designs, the first two designed “MP” (Military Pistol) and the third being the Armee Pistole (which was followed ...

After World War Two, the Belgian military wanted to replace its many Sten guns with a better standard SMG. The solution was designed by Colonel Georges Vigneron in 1953, and adopted by all branches of the Belgian military (as well as the Force Publique in the Belgian Congo) in 1954. This is a ver...

The Westley Richards "Monkey Tail" was a popular capping breechloader first designed in 1858. It was finally adopted by the British cavalry in 1866, and served until 1881. It was also a popular commercial rifle, especially in remote places like Australia and South Africa. It was named for the lon...

The Maden-Saetter was the Madsen (DISA) company’s entry into the GPMG arena. It Wass developed by Eric Larsen-Saetter in the early 1950s, although it did not enter production until 1960. The design was heavily German-influenced, with an MG34-like receiver, MG42-like recoil mechanism and feed syst...