Heavily influenced by Germany's revolutionary assault rifles of the latter half of the Second World War, Britain sought a replacement for its reliable yet ageing Lee-Enfield series of rifles. The EM1, one of the contenders to fit this bill never quite lived up to expectations. Keeper of Firearms ...

This week Jonathan examines two rifles instrumental in the early development of the concept which would eventually become the famous Lee Enfield. Despite both weapons not progressing past the experimental stage, their early adoption of a bolt-action firing mechanism coupled with a fixed magazine ...

Catch Jonathan in his element as he discusses one of his much favourite and most researched weapons, the EM-2. These are no ordinary variants however, with both weapons being shipped out for 'in-country' testing in the 1950s.

Design by the somewhat unfortunately named Adolf Furer, this early example of a submachine gun sought to re-use the venerable Luger toggle-lock mechanism, but on its side.

This cheap and easy to produce pistol, designed to be made with stamped sheet steel was a last-gasp attempt by Nazi Germany to mass-produce a sidearm in the dying months of the Second World War.

The AR-18, seen as a cheaper alternative to the more commercially successful the AR-15 (M16), was the inspiration behind the Sterling LAR. However, with several patents preventing a more direct copy, Sterling had to find some inventive ways to do things a little differently, leading to this somew...

An Antipodean entry with some extremely extremely rare features, but like so many weapons of this series, this week's entry was destined to be a footnote in the annals of firearms history. Created by Australian, Russell Robinson, inventor of other extremely odd looking firearms, the SR-11 had an ...

Britain entered the Second World War with the Lee Enfield as its core sniper rifle. While it was an effective, accurate weapon, its very nature as a bolt-action rifle meant that users had to readjust their aim after reloading. The SREM-1 originated from a 1944 requirement from the War Office to t...

The S-11 was Sterling's Chief Weapons Designer, Frank Waters attempt at competing with the huge commerical successes of the MP-5 and the Uzi.

A true unicorn of a weapon this week as Jonathan attempts to make sense of one of the strangest weapons we've featured on this channel so far. Overcomplicated and fundamentally flawed, the Kretz rifle was almost immediately obsoleted by superior designs.

Post-war Britain was looking for a new service pistol and turned to the tried and test German Walther P38 for inspiration. However, this new weapon's designer, Marion Karol Jurek decided to make a few changes. Jonathan Ferguson explains.

In 1908, Britain sought to improve its venerable .303 cartridge by making the bullet lighter and faster. That combined with the 1910 trial for a new rifle which led to the Enfield Pattern 1913.

The Sterling Story draws to a close with its final production rifle, the SAR 87. Building on the more commercially successful SAR 80, the later variant came too late to ultimately save the Sterling Armament Company from going out of business.

At the end of the Second World War, Britain looked to modernise it's small arms arsenal. With the Vickers MG a reliable but ageing weapon and the Bren limited to its 30-round magazine capacity, a more modern, belt-fed, 'general purpose machine gun' was sought. Despite excellent existing designs s...

Jonathan Ferguson pulls another obscure weapon out of our stores, focusing this week on a Colt AR-15 variant sent to the UK for testing by the British Army. Britain was looking to re-equip its infantry squad with a full package of AR-type rifles, with this example with heavier barrell and bi-pod ...

Experts at the time called it: 'Clumsy ill-balanced and altogether unpleasant to handle.' Charming.

Before the Type 14 Nambu pistol was developed to replace the "Papa" Nambu, Kijiro Nambu experimented with a high-capacity design with a 15-round magazine. This pistol was called the Type A Experimental, and was designed around 1920. Only 15 or 20 were made, and they show elements of both the Papa...

Partway through 1944, the Japanese Imperial Navy began a program to provide their infantry units with better firepower than was afforded by the bolt action Arisaka rifles. The initial experimentation was based on rechambering captured US M1 Garand rifles for the 7.7 Japanese cartridge, but an inc...

Isaac Newton Lewis is best known as the designer of the Lewis light machine gun, of course - but that was not his only work in the firearms field. In 1919, he patented a semiauto handgun using the same gas-operated, rotating bolt mechanism as the machine gun. It is a pretty massive steel beast of...

The Type 100 (sometimes called the Type 0) was one of the initial Japanese experiments in paratroop rifles. Manufactured from standard Nagoya Arsenal Type 99 rifles, the Type 100 used a set of interrupted lugs at the chamber to allow the rifle to be broken into two short sections. Only a few hund...

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States spent 12 years looking for a successor to the M1 Garand rifle. The new standard infantry arm was expected to be select-fire, lightweight, accurate, controllable, and fire a heavy .30-caliber projectile. It would replace not just the M1, but also...

Designed by Austrian immigrant Joseph Joachim Reifgraber, this is a prototype gas-assisted short recoil pistol in a .38 rimmed revolver cartridge. While this version did not see any serial production, the Union Firearms Company of Toledo (Ohio) did market a slightly smaller model in .32 S&W (and ...

This CZ Model S rifle is one of many prototypes made between the world wars in Czechoslovakia in an effort to develop a military semiautomatic rifle. Similar efforts were underway in most other countries at the same time (basically every place that had a mature arms industry), and a huge variety ...

One of the lessons learned by the British military in the aftermath of the Boer War was that modern Mauser rifles were superior to their Lee-action rifles and carbines. In response, British ordnance began experimenting with a Mauser-pattern rifle, ultimately finalized as the Pattern 1913. This ri...