In the early 1990s, the Brazilian Imbel factory made a small run of FAL rifles converted to 5.56mm using AR magazines. They used standard FAL receivers and bolt carriers, with a boltface cut for 5.56x45mm and a magazine well insert with a new magazine release compatible with the AR magazines. Abo...

Valkyrie Arms was formed in 1993 to produce semiautomatic copies of classic military machine guns, and in 2004 they introduced a semiauto M3A1 “Grease Gun”. The M3 and M3A1 are particularly rare guns as registered full autos, and no other semiauto copy has been made, as parts kits are also quite ...

The French Model 1917 RSC rifle has a rather unusual gas system, and without some experience it can be difficult to know what one is looking at in one. So today, we're taking a quick look at how to be sure all the essential parts are in place in an RSC.

The Sanna 77 was a semiauto copy of the Czech Sa 25 submachine gun. It was first produced in Rhodesia by the GM Steel company for the Rhodesian military. In this form, it was the GM-15 and GM-16 (available as either civilian semiauto or military full auto), and was made without and licensing agre...

In 1909, the Austro-Hungarian Empire announced a desire to find a new semiautomatic military rifle, and requested proposals from arms manufacturers. Six rifles were submitted to the resulting trials in 1911, including this model from Steyr chambered for the 7x57mm Mauser cartridge. It uses a two-...

The Tirmax is a handy little carbine made between 1909 and 1914 in Liege by a German company. It is a semiauto action using a 5-round detachable magazine. The guns are quite scarce today because only a fairly small number appear to have been produced before World War One ended its manufacture.
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The Calico family of firearms was developed in the late 1980s, and put on the market just in time to be squashed by the 1994 Omnibus Crime Act. The heart of the Calico system was a design for a double-stack helical magazine, which was made in 50- and 100-round versions in both ,22 rimfire and 9mm...

In 2015, the CMMG company decided to develop a pistol-caliber AR carbine firing .45 ACP. Such things were becoming common in 9mm, but .45 was a more open market opportunity. They spent substantial time trying to perfect a simple blowback system, only to find that the recoil impulse was causing oc...

Yesterday we looked at the novel Radial Delayed Blowback system invented by CMMG for their 9mm AR carbines; today we are taking it out to the range to try. It does indeed do exactly as advertised - even in a lighter platform like this SBR, the recoil impulse is significantly less than in simple b...

The PP-19-01 Vityaz is a development of the PP-19 Bizon, a submachine gun developed by Izhmash at the request of the Russian Interior Ministry in the early 1990s. The Bizon design team included the sons of both Mikhail Kalashnikov and Evgeniy Dragunov, and they created a well-designed unlocked bl...

The United States developed the M1 carbine very quickly at the beginning of World War Two, once the German "blitzkrieg" made it clear that highly mobile enemy forces could threaten rear echelon troops in a modern war. The M1911 pistol was seen as a difficult weapon to use well, and a light carbin...

Before I even started filming this video, the Calico's muzzle brake fell off...not an auspicious beginning! But we will push on without it, and see if the Calico can even finish the course without malfunctioning...and what sort of of time it gets if it does!

Since SHOT Show this year, I have gotten three different 9mm carbines that are all interesting in their own ways. The Kalashnikov USA KP-9 is a virtual copy of the Russian Vityaz submachine gun, much more sophisticated than the other 9mm AKs available today. The CMMG Banshee is a delayed blowback...

Spain adopted the CETME Modelo B rifle for service in 1958. These early rifles were chambered for the reduced-pressure 7.62mm CETME cartridge, and had a few other unique features. Some of these were made with a metal handguard with a folding bipod, and some were also made with a top-folding stock...

After the failure of the SIG 530 rifle (a gas operated, roller locked design), SIG looked for a much simpler rifle design, in both operation and manufacture. What they came up with was fundamentally AK-like, with a two-lug rotating bolt in a very AK-like carrier and a long stroke gas piston. The ...

Designed in 1936 by Melvin Johnson, the M1941 Johnson Automatic Rifle was a competitor to the M1 Garand, but not introduced in time to actually be adopted in place of the Garand. Instead, Johnson hoped to have his rifle accepted as a parallel second option for the US military in case something we...

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In brief, the problem is that the guns will often run away if steps are not taken to prevent it. This is not a clever way to get a machine gun (although I'm sure plenty of fools will see it as such); it is a serious safety problem because it can often cause out of battery detonation of cartridges...

Welcome to your briefing on the new equipment we are issuing for the Spring Offensive of 1919. With this new secret weapon, we can finally push the Germans out of France and end the war

This rifle started out its life an a normal M91 Carcano long rifle, before being converted into an experimental self-loader by the Terni Arsenal. Rather than adding a gas piston to the barrel, Terni engineered a short recoil system. The barrel and bolt recoil together about a centimeter (3/8 inch...

The Pavesi Model 1942 is a prototype Italian semiauto rifle chambered for the 8x59 Breda cartridge. It is a short recoil action with a 4-lug rotating bolt, and appears to use a Mannlicher type en bloc clip like a Carcano (no sample clip was available for me to look at). It is marked on the chambe...

This rifle is pretty much a big mystery - I have virtually no good information on it. Through inspection, we know it is a mechanical copy of the Soviet SVT 38 or 40 - it shares the same exact bolt, locking system, and gas system. Even many aesthetic features like the metal front handguard, muzzle...

This scoped C96 carbine is serial number 12 of the original run of just 30 large-ring C96 carbines. It has the long barrel and detachable stock (in place of the standard pistol grip) of the C96 carbine. The most obvious feature, however, is the telescopic sight mounted on the piece. This was not ...