The Battle of Alligator Creek (aka Battle of the Tenaru) was a formative moment in the American World War Two psyche. After making an unopposed landing on Guadalcanal and taking its mostly-completed airfield at minimal cost, the US Marines had to defend their permitter on the night of August 21st...

The ALKA model 93 is one of the nicest of the several dozen simple SMGs made in Croatia during the Homeland War of the 1990s. It was produced by the IM Metal company (later renamed HS Produkt) starting in 1991, was formally adopted by the Croatian armed forces in 1993, and produced until 1994 or ...

One of the lessons the British military took from the Great War was that without extensive training and practice, most people were not very effective with a large-bore revolver. So in 1922, they undertook a program (via Webley) to develop a smaller sidearm that could be used with much less traini...

The AKB-15 was a project developed by Arex Defense in Slovenia in 2015. The company received a request from a small country (they decline to reveal exactly who) to modernize a stock of AKM rifles with adjustable stocks, picatinny optics mounting, and new barrels among other features. Arex develop...

The Agram 2000 was originally developed in the 1990s in response to a Croatian Army need for a submachine gun during the Independence War. It is a closed-bolt, hammer-fired, simple blowback submachine gun. The initial prototypes used a top folding shoulder stock, but the production model omitted ...

With the end of World War Two, it was finally time for France to replace the Hotchkiss 1914 heavy machine gun with something more modern. The German universal machine gun concept had garnered a lot of attention with militaries worldwide, and the French opted to look for just such a design. They w...

I previously filmed one of the Model 1884 Luxembourg Gendarmerie Nagant revolvers, but I got my hands on one with the original bayonet, and I wanted to show you that. These are extremely rare revolvers, especially with the matching original bayonets.

The AutoMag was originally designed to use a rimless version of the .44 Magnum cartridge; the .44 AMP. Shortly after it was introduced, though, the company Brough out a second cartridge, the .357 AMP. This was simply the regular cartridge necked down to use .357" projectiles. It was a bottlenecke...

When Federal announced their new .30 Super Carry cartridge, I was really excited to see the rebirth of the 7.65mm French Long caliber. That round was originally developed for the Pedersen Device in late WW1, and then adopted by the French military for its 1935 pistols and MAS38 submachine gun. It...

The vz.52 pistol was originally adopted by Czechoslovakia as a short-term option, with an intention to quickly replace it with something better. The problem was that without a viable domestic pistol, the Soviet Union would have forced Czechoslovakia to start production of the TT-33 Tokarev. Out o...

Yesterday we looked at the new SIG Spear/M5 in detail, and today I'm taking it out to a 2-Gun match to try on the clock. The most suitable pistol pairing would naturally be the other recently-adopted new US Army weapon, the M17 pistol (in this case, a commercial M17).

The Spear/M5 is a really ...

This month's 2-Gun match was three pretty short stages, so my friend Tom and I decided to just play with a fun theme - he brought a pair of huge .50-caliber cannons (.50AE Desert Eagle and a .50 Beowulf AR) and I brought a pair of very quiet guns (SilencerCo Maxim-9 and Q Honey Badger, both shoot...

This month at the 2G-ACM match, I thought it would be interesting to try out a “Ring Sight”. This is the same style of optics used on the FN P90 – the manufacturer marketed it for a variety of applications and I came across one designed for use on an AR carry handle (thanks, Steve!). It is a trul...

I have been wanting to bring my new (to me) No5 MkI Enfield "Jungle Carbine" out to a match, and chose this month's 2G-ACM to do it. In addition I am joined by Tom, who is shooting an original Mk IV Martini-Henry, complete with black powder .577-450 ammunition.

This was a three-stage match, b...

In may last full-match opportunity to practice for Finnish Brutality, I brought my WWSD Commando (10.5" barrel) and an Arex Delta out (my guns for Finland are already on their way across the Atlantic). The stages today were truly awful (awfully fun!) to really push us as a last practice session. ...

I'm working on getting a Hotchkiss 1914 heavy machine gun up and running for some long range accuracy testing. It's not quite ready yet, but I saw a very interesting effect of the WW1 muzzle device (used on both the Hotchkiss 1914 and the St Etienne 1907 machine guns) in use...

Today we are looking at one of the surplus US Army M17 pistols that SGI put on the commercial market about 3 years ago. These were some of the very first M17s issued to Army units, and they were turned back in to SIG and replace in late 2019. The obvious difference between these and their replace...

Today I'm taking the PTR-44 Sturmgewehr out to the local 2-Gun match. I'm excited to get a chance to run it in a competitive environment - I have shot some original StGs, but only on very basic flat ranges. This should be a much more interesting experience.

For a pistol, I'm using an Arex Delt...

The Llama M82 was adopted as the new Spanish Army service pistol to replace aging Star Model B pistols. The design of the side is mechanically almost identical to a Beretta 92, while the frame and controls include a lot of DNA from the commercial Llama Omni. It was adopted in 1986, with the first...

Today we are taking a look at a German G1 pattern FAL. The initial purchased of the G1 were actual made by the German Border Guard (the Bundesgrenschutz). In the aftermath of World War Two, the western Allies decided to perpetually disarm Germany, and German security was provided by French, Briti...

Brno's ZB-26 was one of the best light machine guns of the 1920s, and it was widely adopted by countries that did not have domestic arms design and production capacity (and it would eventually become the British Bren gun as well). It was designed for the 8mm Mauser cartridge, and had a simple fix...

The United States was the only country to use shotguns in World War One in a substantial way. It was not the first time the US had used such guns either; shotguns were used in the Philippines against the Moros and on the Mexican Punitive Expedition. For use in the Great War, however, it was deeme...

It is often said that Hitler personally cancelled the Sturmgewehr development...could that really be true?

Yes! He actually nixed the program three separate times, and the German Army General Staff continued the project behind his back. They knew the rifle was what the Wehrmacht desperately ne...

The Al Kadesih (also sometimes spelled Al Kadesiah or Al Qadisiyah) is an Iraqi copy of the SVD Dragunov DMR/sniper rifle. It is not an exact copy, though, as it uses an AK-style stamped receiver and trunnions in combination with the fire control system and short-stroke gas piston of the SVD.

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