In 1947, Yugoslavia received about 4600 Russian M91/30 PU sniper rifles as military aid, which were basically not used, as Yugoslavia had standardized on the 8mm Mauser cartridge. In 1952, however, a new sniper rifle was requested and the 91/30s were put to use. The Zastava factory took 4,618 M48...

In November of 1950, the US Ordnance Department requested an improved version of the Browning 1919 air cooled machine gun for use in tanks. The new version was to be able to feed from either the left or right, a feature which was unimportant for an infantry gun but much more relevant when mountin...

This is a handmade, single shot needle fire pistol (zündnadelpistole) made by a German gunsmith named A. Knoch in Munich in 1850. I have been unable to find any documentation about the man, but the gun is an interested example of the needle fire system that existed as one of the intermediate tech...

Benjamin Joslyn patented this .44 caliber, 5 shot, side-hammer revolver in 1858. He initially contracted with one W.C. Freeman to act as manufacturer and sales agent, but Freeman was unable to actually fulfill the first 500-unit order received from the US military. The contract was cancelled, Jos...

Heinrich Genhart was a Swiss designer working in Liege, Belgium in the 1850s making horizontal turret rifles. His design was actually pretty decent, and included recessed chamber mouths and a calming barrel which would lock more or less solidly into each chamber for firing, thus minimizing cylind...

The Forehand & Wadsworth company was a better firearms manufacturer than most people tend to give them credit for. It evolved from Allen & Wheelock, with Sullivan Forehand and Henry Wadsworth both having married daughters of Ethan Allen. When Wheelock died in 1863, the two were made partners in t...

In 1927, a Berlin resident named Richard Kulisch patented a .22 rimfire conversion kit for the Luger pistol. Kulisch’s conversion used a magazine and fired semiautomatically, which made it a much more practical conversion for military and police training than the 4mm single shot conversions than ...

Would you believe it? Factory engraved Glocks are actually a thing! They have not made all that many, but they do turn up from time to time, recognizable by their ELP serial prefixes. These three were displayed by Glock at the 2002 SHOT Show, and are now on the civilian market. They were made as ...

In 1951 and 1952, Colt supplied a small number of extremely lightweight revolvers to the US Air Force, designated the M13 Aircrewman. These guns were very similar to the commercial Colt Cobra; .38 special 6-shot guns with aluminum alloy frames and cylinders with a loaded weight of just 11 ounces....

One of the rarest versions of the Thompsons Submachine Gun is the Model of 1927 Thompson Semi Automatic Carbine. These were regular 1921 machine guns that had their fire control groups slightly modified to only firm in semiauto and their receivers remarks to show Model 1927 instead of 1921. The r...

While the standard Rhodesian Army rifle was the FAL, their next most common rifle was the G3. These were mostly of Portugueses origin, and had the thing and narrow style of G3 handguards. In an effort to counteract the rapid heating of these handguards, a domestically designed and produced clamp-...

One of my pet peeves is when people buy collectible guns because they have been stuck with clickbait sorts of gimmicky names. In particular, the "Grey Ghost" P38 and the "Black Widow" Luger - especially the Luger.

Thanks to Milkor USA, I have a chance today to do some shooting with both the M32 and M32A1 rotary grenade launchers they make for the US military. I'm using 40mm chalk training ammunition, with some steel targets at about 75-85 meters. In live fire, it's quite clear how much of an improvement th...

We are joined today by Max Popenker to answer your questions about Soviet and Russian firearms:

00:32 - Russian-contract Colt 1911 pistols
01:33 - Clarification on SVD accuracy standards
02:57 - Is the PSO-1 BDC calibrated for LPS ball or 7N1?
03:57 - What was the purpose of the IR detectio...

Questions for today's Q&A, as always, come from my Patrons, who are noted for their classy good looks and excellent taste. Specifically:

00:22 - First Polish purchase for a C&R licensee
04:00 - What's the deal with the black powder .50 BMG Hotchkiss revolving cannon reproductions?
05:35 - Ta...

For this month's Q&A, we go back to a wide variety of questions, without a single specific theme. They are:

0:00:30 - Rifle, pistol, and machine gun for a modern squad
0:04:35 - Favorite non-firearm historical site
0:08:50 - What is my daily schedule like?
0:10:47 - Advantages of toggle loc...

For today's Q&A, I am joined by John Keene, retired US Army Master Sergeant and NFA specialist for the Morphy auction company (and for the James D Julia company before their acquisition by Morphy's). John has a tremendous knowledge of machine guns, the machine gun collecting community, and the le...

More Q&A! No specific theme this time, but a combination of SHOT Show news, what-ifs, and some specific questions about me…

0:00:34 - SHOT Show Report
0:05:22 - 1895 Lee Navy destructive testing
0:07:40 - Opinion on the L85A2
0:09:25 - How did NATO adopt the 5.56x45mm?
0:11:32 - Cold War s...

Today I would like to introduce you to Jack, who runs the Cartridge_Gram account on Instagram. Ammunition researchers and collectors are a somewhat rare subset of gun collectors, and theirs is a subject that is often overlooked. Jack is posting some pretty cool stuff, and I look forward to seeing...

Arsenals of History is an annual symposium of firearms museum, and met this year at the newly renovated Cody Firearms Museum. The theme of this year's symposium was social media and museums. This presentation was given by Danny Michael, Assistant Curator for he Cody Firearms Museum. Video games t...

Arsenals of History is an annual symposium of firearms museum, and met this year at the newly renovated Cody Firearms Museum. The theme of this year's symposium was social media and museums. This presentation was given by Logan Metesh of High Caliber History on the topic of museum staff and visit...

Arsenals of History is an annual symposium of firearms museum, and met this year at the newly renovated Cody Firearms Museum. The theme of this year's symposium was social media and museums. This presentation was given by Scott Gausen, an Education Specialist for the Springfield Armory National H...

Whether it is described as a machine pistol, a submachine gun, or a personal defense weapon, the PM63 Rak is really not the best examples of this sort of thing to actually shoot. The open-bolt/slide mechanism is very cool from an engineering and design perspective, but does in fact have a tendenc...

The PM-63 Rak is a pretty interesting Polish Cold War machine pistol or personal defense weapon. It fires from an open bolt, but uses a slide like a pistol rather than a bolt in an enclosed receiver like a typical SMG. There are several other interesting elements to the design, so let's take a cl...