American forces in the Revolutionary War took in a bunch of different types of surplus small arms, and one of the interesting ones was the French Model 1717 Rampart gun. When the French created the first standardized military rifle pattern in 1717, they made two versions - an infantry musket and ...

Webley introduced their No5 Express New Army model revolver in 1878. This was essentially a ruggedized and scaled up variation on the No5 RIC revolvers that was very popular with police forces. The RIC was chambered for just the .450 Adams cartridge, and its ejection system in particular was not ...

The Enfield MkI had only been in service for two years when the MkII was adopted in March 1882 to resolve some of its problems (and reduce its cost). At the same time, a new cartridge was adopted (the MkIII) with a heeled .477” bullet - also in hopes of resolving some o the problems with the Enfi...

Following Portuguese Army adoption in 1908, the Portuguese Navy adopted the Luger in 1909 as the m/910. The pattern they chose was a “new model” Luger in 9x19mm, with a 100mm / 4” barrel. A total of 650 were ordered in late 1909 and delivered between 1910 and 1912. The guns had Portuguese-languag...

The initial model of the Beretta 38A had a number of features that were dropped rather quickly once wartime production became a priority. Specifically, they included a lockout safety switch for just the rear full-auto trigger. This was in place primarily for police use, in which the guns were int...

When Germany took over Czechoslovakia, one of the things they did was buy out a controlling interest in what became known as Waffenwerke Brunn. Headquartered in Prague, the company had two factories; one in Brno (Czechia) and one in Bystrica (Slovakia). The Bystrica factory was already making vz2...

After World War Two, the Red Army moved from a full power infantry rifle cartridge to an intermediate one, and the 7.62x39mm RPD became the new squad machine gun. At the same time, the heavy Maxims were replaced by the new SG-43 Goryunov. This left a gap in capability, with nothing available with...

When the French took over control of the Mauser factory complex in May 1945, the plant had some 85 tons of pistol parts on hand - 7.3 million individual components in various stages of production. This was enough to make a whole lot of guns, even if many of them were not completed parts. So along...

When the German government bought up the controlling interest in Steyr in 1938, they made use of its production facilities to start making rifles for the Luftwaffe. Steyr had tooling for the Mauser 98, but not in K98k form - they had most recently made a Mauser-pattern carbine for Chile in 1934 (...

The German Wehrmacht was always hungry for more rifles during World War Two, and adopted substitute designs made in friendly (or subservient) countries when possible. Almost all of these were minor variations on the Mauser 98 system, but the Hungarian G98/40 was an exception. This was a Mannliche...

Of the seven revolvers Colt named after snakes, the rarest is the Colt Boa. Only a single production run of these were made totaling just 1,200 guns. They were made in 1985 as a custom order for the Lew Horton distribution company, which wanted something unique to offer its buyers. The Boa was an...

Allied troops occupied the Mauser factory complex in Oberndorf in April of 1945, right at the end of the war. The factory was put under French administration and by May that same year production lines were restarted to supply French forces (who needed as many arms as they could get). In total, ju...

The Pettengill revolver is a 6-shot, muzzleloading double-action-only system designed and patented by C.S. Pettengill in 1856, and improved by Edward Raymond and Charles Robitaille in 1858. In 1859, the Rogers & Spencer company was contracted to put them into production as a .31 caliber pocket mo...

In 1942, the SS devised a plan to rent out concentration camp labor to companies in the German armaments industry. Several different rifle production lines were set up to make use of this source of cheap labor, and the one we are looking at today is Steyr’s plant at the Gusen camp (a subsidiary o...

Czech Combat is a 2-day, 12-stage practical match using rifle and pistol, sponsored by CZ and Sellier & Bellot. It is not a Brutality match, although it shares a lot of elements with Brutality. There is not as much physical challenge to the stages, instead having a mixture of tactically-oriented ...

Czech Combat is a 2-day, 12-stage practical match using rifle and pistol, sponsored by CZ and Sellier & Bellot. It is not a Brutality match, although it shares a lot of elements with Brutality. There is not as much physical challenge to the stages, instead having a mixture of tactically-oriented ...

The standard German light mortar in World War Two was the model 1936 5cm Leichter Granatwerfer. It was a very precise (Germanic, one might say) machine, and a bubble lever for careful aiming, and it threw a roughly 2 pound projectile out to a maximum range of 550 meters. Today I have the chance t...

The Uzi was originally designed in the 1950s, and it was on the technological cutting edge at the time. The stamped receiver, telescoping bolt, and compact magazine-in-grip layout made it an inexpensive and effective weapon. Its sedate 600 round/minute rate of fire helped as well, making it easy ...

This is a copy of the M1 Carbine made in China late in the Chinese civil war - likely between 1945 and 1949. While there was an attempt at factory production of a true M1 Carbine copy in northern China later, this example is actually a bolt action which simply copies the look and handling of the ...

The Praga I was the first machine gun design from noted Czech arms designed Vaclav Holek. Three examples were made for Czech military testing in 1922, but they were not acceptable. Instead, this design served as the first stepping stone to the eventual development of the ZB-26, perhaps the best o...

When Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it was initially armed with a wide variety of miscellaneous small arms. They clearly needed a primary standardized rifle for the new armed forces. The one definitive criteria for making a selection was than the new rifle must b...

Today I decided to do a Gothic Serpent memorial 2-gun match, using my Shughart M14 clone and a surplussed Delta 1911. This was a 5-stage match at the Rio Salado Sportsman's Club, and it was a complete dumpster fire for me. I don't know what changed, but the reliable-in-testing M1A became a comple...

B&T owner Karl Brügger is a big fan of 9mm PCCs and SMGs, and decided that his company ought to offer an alternative to the MP5 and this was the Advanced Police Carbine (APC). In order to compete effectively, it needed to be simple to manufacture, since manufacturing costs in Switzerland are exor...

Chartered Industries of Singapore was founded in 1967, and started making M16 rifles under license in 1970. These were sold to the Singaporean military as well as Thailand. To get out of their licensing agreement with Colt, the company purchased the rights to Frank Waters' the SAR-80 rifle, and t...