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.

...

Fabryka Broni originally dates to 1925, when it was set up as a factory to make small arms for the Polish military. It was occupied be German forces during World War Two and on the post-war Communist years it was designated Factory 11 - it's products are identified by an oval around the number 11...

The Finns developed several difference scopes rifles in the 1930s, but none were made in large quantities, and they were not really much used during the Winter War or Continuation War. The first post-war consideration was given to a new model in 1954, but that led instead to a decision to make a ...

Today I'm visiting the Solomon Islands War Memorial Museum in Honiara (the capital city on Guadalcanal). This is a private museum run by two brothers on the island, and it is filled to the brim with artifacts recovered from the jungles and battlefields, both American and Japanese. From Coke bottl...

While the Italian military did adopt the AR-70, it did not actually issue them to all troops. Most continued to use the 7.62mm BM-59 until 1990 when the Beretta AR-70/90 was adopted. This rifle was a substantial rework and improvement of the AR-70, using AR-pattern magazines and a 1:7" twist barr...

The USAS-12, made by Daewoo in South Korea, is one of the better box-fed shotguns available (I use that term loosely; there are not that many of them around). It was available as both a semiauto and a fully automatic model - although the semiautos were arbitrarily defined as Destructive Devices i...

The SIG 320 was adopted by the US Army as its new M17 full-size service pistol, but that was only have of the Modular Handgun System. The other half was the M18, a compact version of the same pistol, with a 3.9" barrel (compared to the 4.7" barrel of the M17). The Army did also adopt the M18 for ...

Bernardelli is (was) an Italian firearms manufacturer in the Val Tromp dating back to the 1600s...but whom few people have ever heard of. They produced 1889 Bodeo revolvers between the World Wars, and after World War Two they had a line of pocket pistols that were never particular popular or resp...

When Estonia declared independence from Russia in 1918, it had no formal military. After winning a 2-year War of Independence, the nation needed to set up its own armed forces. The rifles available in Estonia were a mix of Mosin Nagants, Arisakas, Pattern 1914 Enfields, and German Mausers. The mo...

The Llama M87 was Gabilondo y Cia's high-end competition pistols based on the M82 action, and made in both 9mm Parabellum and 7.65mm Parabellum. This was mechanically a copy of the Beretta 92 system, and it was adopted in basic form by the Spanish Army. For the commercial market, Gabilondo took a...

The rarest pattern of factory-made Chassepot is the fusil modèle 1866 pour la cavalerie d'afrique - the Model 1866 rifle for African cavalry. Just 12,000 of these were made by St Etienne in the spring of 1869, as a way to equip the mounted French troops in Algeria with the new needlefire rifle th...

The SITES Spectre was imported into the US primarily as a semiautomatic pistol - but it was really designed to be an SMG. It has an interesting closed-bolt fire control system, and in SMG for a metal top folding stock. Thanks to DSA, I have the opportunity to take one of these out to the range to...

Argentina was one of the first countries to adopt Mauser rifles, with the Model 1891. These were replaced by newer Model 1909 rifles a couple decades later, and in 1913 they bought 500 telescopic sights to make sniper rifles. All of them appear to have been put on cavalry carbines like this one, ...

In 1927, the Imperial Japanese Army purchased a 105mm field gun from the French company Schneider as a potential replacement for their rather underwhelming Type 14 105mm field gun. The Schneider design was quite good, and the Japanese put it into service in 1932 as the Type 92. It was manufacture...

The Chang Feng is named for the company that developed it, the Chongqing Chang Feng Company Ltd in (you guessed it) Chongqing. It was designed by one Qing Shangsheng, who had ample prior firearms design experience (including the Type 64 and 67 pistols and Type 80 SMG). The design is based around ...

The Alar is an interesting very rare Croatian domestic SMG. It is called the "Alar" after it's designer, Stipe Alar. He first came up with the design in 1971 and built one illegally - which resulted in him going to prison for a time. When the Croatian Homeland War broke out and guns were urgently...

Today we are taking the Remington M1903A4 out to the range for some shooting. This was the standard US sniper rifle during World War Two, and I'm curious to see how one actually handles...

"The Formidable" was the name given to one of many different civilian pocket-carry revolvers made by the French Manufrance firm in St Etienne. This particular model was introduced in 1895, although it went through a significant redesign in 1902. The example I have here is the later pattern, which...

This rifle was brought back to France from the Balkans (probably Kosovo) by a French military team in the late 1990s. It's a neat example of a mix-master build (what is "bubba" in Albanian?), with several cool elements. The base gun is an Albanian AKM, with its bayonet missing. The front sight bl...

Continuing our look at the French submachine gun designs from the Chatellerault Arsenal, today we have the MAC48 and MAC48LS (lightened and simplified). In the development program that would eventually lead to adoption of the MAT-49, Chatellerault began with a couple of very light delayed blowbac...

The Alka M93 was a very simple SMG made by IM Metall (which later became HS Produkt) during the Croatian Homeland War. It is essentially a MAC M11A1 with a long barrel and a vz61 Skorpion stock, feeding 9mm ammunition form MP40 magazines. I did a video on this piece previously, but on a recent vi...

SKM was a small industrial manufacturing company in Croatia that began making submachine guns in 1991 to equip Croatian fighters in the Homeland War. Their product was the M91 Crogar, which is a selective-fire, open bolt SMG chambered for 7.62mm Tokarev. It uses the magazine from the Yugoslav M56...

The Kresimir is honestly the most bonkers weapon I have come across in a long while. Made by IM Metall in Croatia at the beginning of the Croatian Homeland War circa 1991, this is a semiautomatic grenade launcher. Most grenade launchers fire a big cartridge with an explosive warhead, but not this...

While helping to unpack a new shipment of French rifles at IO Inc / Royal Tiger Imports, I came across several examples of Berthiers that were modified to not use clips. There were a couple different ways the Ethiopian gunsmiths did this, so let's have a look...