In the late 1970s, H&K decided that it wanted to offer a tactical shotgun for the police and security market. Having no experience with shotgun manufacture, they turned to Franchi in Italy - for whom they already handled sales outside Italy. Franchi produced a gas-operated semiautomatic shotgun ...

Before World War One, the Mauser company tried to make a follow-up automatic pistol to replace its famous C96 "Broomhandle" design with something more modern. The result was a very successful pocket pistol in .25ACP and .32ACP, and a series of unsuccessful blowback and delayed blowback service pi...

Today's rifle is a German Karabiner 98k, made by JP Sauer in 1944 and marked with the appropriate receiver code, "ce". This is from the final year of JP Sauer production of the K98k, before they transitioned to making the MP44 instead. It gives us a chance to look at how production standards chan...

This is a great example of an interwar single-shot fancy target pistol. It is chambered for basic .22 rimfire, and uses a Martini system of dropping breechblock to operate.

Today we are taking a look at H&K's PDW, the MP7. Specifically, we're going to go over the changes made form the MP7A1 to the MP7A2 pattern...

In an effort to widen its potential marked for the C96 pistol, Mauser offered it in 9x25mm (aka 9mm Mauser Export) as well as the much more common 7.63x25mm cartridge. The 9mm cartridge was made by simply blowing out the bottlenecked 7.63mm case to a straight walled type and loading a 126gr bulle...

One of the scarce, small-production manufacturers of the Luger is Krieghoff - Heinrich Krieghoff to be exact. Kreighoff Waffenfabrik was a smallish arms company that wanted to get into major contracts with the rearming German military in the 1930s. They began by bidding on a contract for 10,000 L...

The DWM company in Germany had a license on the Maxim gun design prior to World War One. They produced the rather old-fashioned MG08 for the German army, but also wanted to have a modernized type of gun for commercial sales. This was the Model 1913 Parabellum, with the design improved by Karl Hei...

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...

When the Allied examined the weapons discovered in the German Reich after the war, they came across a device which was classified as a “spring gun” or “trip wire activated static defense machine gun”. Nevertheless, in actual fact it was a practice device with the name “Zielfeuergerät 38” (short “...

In the late 1970s, H&K partnered with Hensoldt to create the ZP/AP (Ziel/Aiming; Projektor/Projector) and then ZPP/APP (Ziel/Aiming; Punkt/Point; Projektor/Projector). This was essentially a calibrated flashlight with an aiming point and pressure switch. It projected a beam of light that was spec...

In the aftermath of World War One, German police forces were responsible for maintaining social order is a very chaotic Germany. They were reequipped with small arms, and in particular needed pistols. The ideal sidearm would have been the P08 Luger, but the Treaty of Versailles caused Luger produ...

During the late 1920 and early 1930s, the Walther company worked on developing a military pistol in 9x19mm. They began from the basis of the PP/PPK design, and produced three separate designs, the first two designed “MP” (Military Pistol) and the third being the Armee Pistole (which was followed ...

As the end of World War Two loomed close, the German arms industry turned to a number of Volkssturm rifle designs. These were the crudest and simplest rifles that could be made to work with minimal time, labor, and raw materials. Most were bolt action rifles chambered for 8x57mm, like the Walther...

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...

When the MP-18 was issued by the German Army in World War One, it used the then-in-production Luger "snail drum" magazines. These were expensive, awkward, and generally not ideal. Once the war ended, Hugo Schmeisser quickly developed an alternative box magazine design. The initial goal was simply...

The MP28,II was Hugo Schmeisser’s improved take on the original World War One MP18,I design. It used a simple box magazine in place of the Luger drum magazines, and this magazine would form the basis for a long series of military SMG magazines. It was a double-stack, single feed design because Sc...

Today we are taking a look at an early production M1891 Mosin Nagant rifle. This one has had quite a busy history...it was originally manufactured at the Izhevsk Arsenal in 1894, with several of the features of a very early M91 (like the palm rest on the trigger guard and the sling swivel on the ...

When Italy surrendered in late 1943, German troops disarmed the Italian forces in areas under German control, and came away with nearly 400,000 Carcano rifles. These would form the core armaments of the Volkssturm forces in 1944 and 1945. Most were simply left as captured and issued with capture...

Developed in the 1980s, the H&K PSG-1 is one of the most iconic sniper rifles in popular culture, with a reputation for unmatched accuracy. It is, in fact, an excellent rifle, and today we will look at why.

The PSG-1 was introduced in the 1980s and based on the German G3 rifle action. Onto thi...

A bit of shooting with an MP40 at an indoor range, courtesy of Hill & Mac Gunworks.

Between the world wars, the Walther company designed and marketed a short recoil, toggle-locked 12 gauge shotgun for sporting use. It was patented by the Walther brothers, but actually manufactured by the Deutsche-Werke consortium, which was organized by the German government to employ German wor...

Thanks to H&K and to Trijicon for range access, we are out today shooting an original and authentic XM-8 carbine! The XM-8 family are relatively bulky guns; moreso than one would expect from seeing photos of them. However, they are also very smooth and comfortable guns to shoot, with a relatively...

We took a look at the history and mechanics of the G41 yesterday; now it's time to actually try it out on the range!

It, ah, did not go so well. But I did get to see a cool new malfunction I had never seen before! In fairness to HK, this was a demo gun that has been used and abused. On the ot...