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H&K MG4: Germany's New 5.56mm Squad Machine Gun
Heckler & Koch released the MG4, a new 5.56mm squad machine gun in 2001. It was adopted by the German army in 2005, and then by the Spanish and Portuguese armies in 2007. Alongside its sister weapon the 7.62mm MG5, it is H&K's current export machine gun.
The MG4 fires from an open bolt, with a 2...
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Small Arms History of the Falkland Islands Defense Force
Various militias existed on the Falkland Islands since its earliest settlement, but the Falkland Islands Defense Force of today traces its roots to the 1892 Falkland Islands Volunteer Corps. This force was equipped with Martini Henry rifles. With the outbreak of World War One, the Falklands were ...
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Field to Table: Harvesting, Butchering, and Preparing Game w/ Outdoor Solutions
You can get Outdoor Solutions' ebook and companion videos along with their whole upcoming class schedule at:
https://www.fromfieldtotable.com
My freezer is getting low, so it was time to refill it - and I chose to do that this year at one of Outdoor Solutions' "Field to Table" classes. Set up w...
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The End of the Mamba: A Tale of Manufacturing Incompetence
The Mamba was a pistol that had a pretty decent design, but failed because of incompetent manufacturing. Today we are taking a look at a handful of surviving Mambas including the only know Green Mamba, courtesy of Val Forgett at Navy Arms. In addition, we have the minutes of a June 13, 1978 meeti...
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Soviet Small Arms of WWII: Now Shipping!
Now in stock and shipping! Order your copy here:
https://www.headstamppublishing.com/ww2-soviet-unionPlease note: we will do our best to get as many preorders as possible out before Christmas, but we cannot guarantee everyone's arrival date. New orders should not be expected to arrive before Ch...
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Moons Out 2025 Launch: Prepare Your NODs!
https://practiscore.com/moons-out-25/register
Moons Out 2025 is a Brutality-style night vision rifle match. It consists of 10 stages physically and mentally challenging stages over two nights, all shot in the dark with night vision equipment (Gen 3 highly recommended).
For details on the Polena...
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ZB47: A Truly Weird Czech SMG
The ZB47 was developed at Brno as a contender for Czech military submachine gun adoption in the late 1940s. The Czech Army had technically adopted a submachine gun prior to World War Two (the vz.38; video on that is coming a bit later) but production did not begin before the arrival of German tro...
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Estonian Snipers: Enfields in 7.62x54R and Arisakas in .303 British
In the early 1930s, the Estonian military and Estonia Defense League had a rather eclectic mix of small arms. The Army had three divisions, and split different types of weapons between them to simplify logistics. Thus, there was one division equipped with rifles and machine guns in 7.62x54R, and ...
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B&T GL-06 Launcher: Reloadable Less-Lethal for Police on a Budget
The B&T GL06 (Grenade Launcher 2006) was developed in response to a French tender for a riot-control less-lethal weapon in 2006. B&T had actually already been working on a less-lethal projectile system, which they call SIR (Safe Impact Round). It is a rubber projectile with a hard plastic base an...
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Aimpoint's New COA: Clever Optics Advancement
Let me first mention something that I didn't cover in the video: what does "COA" stand for? Well, nothing. They just wanted a name that they could trademark that wasn't already in use. So go ahead and make up your own acronym.
It may be hard to see how a pistol red dot sight could be exciting, b...
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Virtual Tour: Estonian War Museum
The Estonian War Museum (Eesti Sõjamuuseum) is located at Mõisa tee 1, 74001 Viimsi, Estonia (just outside the capital Tallinn). For opening hours and entry fees, please check their web site:
https://esm.ee
The museum is housed in what used to be the residence of the Estonian Army commander, co...
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Latvia's Unique Charger-Loading Lee Enfield (CLLE) Cavalry Carbine
During the Latvian War of Independence, the nationalist forces receiver a fair bit of support form the British, including some 20,000 P14 Enfield rifles. These were great for the Latvian infantry, but the Latvian cavalry wanted something shorter. So in the early 1920s, they ordered 2200-2350 (the...
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AG42 Ljungman: Sweden Adopts a Battle Rifle in WWII
Sweden developed, adopted, and produced a new self-loading rifle during World War Two. The process began in 1938, with an attempt by the state rifle factory to convert Swedish Mauser bolt actions into semiautomatic; that did not go well. Trials for a ground-up semiauto followed shortly thereafter...
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Ljungman Updates: the AG-42 vs AG-42B
In 1953, the Swedish military launched a program to refurbish and refit all of the Ag m/42 rifles in inventory. Aside from replacing broken parts and worn barrels, the program also made a number of improvements to the rifles:
* Auxiliary front magazine catch added
* Large gripping lugs added to ... -
TOZ-36 and TOZ-49: Soviet Gas-Seal Target Revolvers
These two revolvers were developed for competitive sport shooting in the Soviet Union. They are usually described as variants of the Model 1895 Nagant, but they actually work on a different mechanism, despite both being gas-seal designs. The TOZ-36 was designed in 1962, and it was a single action...
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Steyr AUGs of the Falkland Islands Defense Force
The Falkland Islands Defense Force is a small organization independent of the British military, run directly by the Falkland Islands government. When it decided to update its small arms form the L1A1 SLR (aka British FAL) in the early 1990s, the British assumed they would purchase the new L85A1 r...
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2-Gun: Dillinger Gang Special! Winchester 1907SL and M1911
Yesterday we took a look at a reproduction of the Winchester 1907 Self Loader made for the Dillinger gang (and others) by Hyman Lebman. Today, I'm taking it out to a 2-gun match, paired with a Tisas M1911A1. Let's see how it'll do!
Lebman 1907SL Conversion video:
https://forgottenweapons.vhx.tv/... -
Beretta 93R: The Best Machine Pistol?
The Beretta 93R ("Raffica") was developed in the 1970s by Beretta engineer Paolo Parola at the request of Italian military special forces. It took the basic Beretta 92 pistol design and added a well-thought-out burst mechanism under the right-side grip panel. It does not have a plain full-auto se...
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India's FAL: The 1A1 Inch/Metric Hybrid
For political reasons, India decided to adopt the 7.62mm NATO cartridge when it needed to replace its No1 MkIII SMLE bolt action rifles with a modern self-loader. They chose the FN FAL as the rifle to adopt, but wanted a license to produce it domestically at the Ishapore rifle factory. FN insiste...
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Daniel Defense H9: The Hudson Reborn and Completely Reengineered
In 2017, Hudson released a new pistol that was the darling of the firearms industry. It purported to offer a radically low bore axis and 1911-style trigger in a striker-fired system that would be fast and simple to use.
In 2019, Hudson went bankrupt, out of money and having started to scavenge ...
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Praga I-23: Prototype Belt-Fed Predecessor of the ZB26
Vaclav Holek's first machine gun design for the Czech military was the Praga I, built in 1922 and based heavily on the Vickers/Maxim system. However, it became clear that the military wanted something lighter and more portable, and so the next year he heavily updated the design to this, the Praga...
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Dillinger Gang's Winchester 1907 Self-Loader: The Lebman Conversion
Hyman Lehman was a gunsmith in Texas who made a variant of firearms for some of the most notorious gangsters of the 1930s. One of his specialties was to take the Winchester Model 1907 Self-Loader and cut the barrel down, attach a Cutt's Compensator, and a Thompson gun vertical front grip on a rep...
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Rhodesian Mamba at the Range: Will it Work?
Today we are taking the Mamba out to the range to see just how badly (or how well) it works. This is one of the Mambas that was assembled in the US by Navy Arms - only a very small number of these went on the market before the whole project was abandoned.
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SIG P320 Flux Legion / Flux Raider: The Best Pistol-PDW System Yet
The Flux Raider is a chassis system designed to turn the SIG P320 into a very compact PDW. The design concept began as a desire to improve the practical accuracy of a handgun by adding a collapsing stock while keeping the weapon holsterable. Flux' first product, circa 2019, was a spring-loaded st...