The Mamba was a pistol that had a pretty decent design, but failed because of incompetent manufacturing. Today we are taking a look at a handful of surviving Mambas including the only know Green Mamba, courtesy of Val Forgett at Navy Arms. In addition, we have the minutes of a June 13, 1978 meeti...

Yesterday we looked at the history and the mechanics of the Vektor CP1, and today I'm taking it out to the monthly BackUp Gun Match. It isn't a pistol with a good reputation, but it's also not a pistol very many people gave a fair shake to. It has a decent grip, pretty decent sights, a fixed barr...

The Vektor CP-1 was developed by Lyttleton Engineering Works (who owned the Vektor brand) in 1995 for a South African Police contract. They lost that contract to the Republic Arms RAP-401, but decided to put the CP-1 onto the civilian market instead. It was a pretty decent seller for them, and af...

During World War Two, the South African military used a lot of .303 caliber Bren guns. When 7.62mm NATO became the standard cartridge after the wa,r the Bren guns were put into storage, as converting them to the new rimless cartridge was a fairly complicated process. Instead, they purchased new F...

The Britishmuzzleloaders in South Africa trailer

The fourth chapter in the examination of the the Battle of Isandlwana fought in January of 1879

The third chapter in the examination of the the Battle of Isandlwana fought in January of 1879

Britishmuzzleloaders in South Africa PART 3F: Chatting with Col Mike Snoook MBE, PhD about the Myths and Legends surrounding the Battle of Isandlwana (Part 1 of 3)

Britishmuzzleloaders in South Africa PART 3G: Chatting with Col Mike Snoook MBE, PhD about the Myths and Legends surrounding the Battle of Isandlwana (Part 2 of 3)

Britishmuzzleloaders in South Africa PART 3E: Chatting with Col Mike Snoook MBE, PhD about the Myths and Legends surrounding the Battle of Isandlwana (Part 3 of 3)

A look at the kit and organization of the British Infantryman of the Zulu War

Yesterday we looked at the history and mechanics of the South African Vektor SS-77 general purpose machine gun, and today I have it out at the range to do some shooting. It's really as nice of a gun as I had expected from taking it apart - controllable and comfortable to shoot. I would put this u...

In the 1970s, South Africa began looking for a domestic-production GMPG to replace its inventory of FN MAG machine guns. The MAG was an excellent weapon, but the ones in South Africa were getting old and worn out, and with the country under international embargo over Apartheid, new guns and parts...

Courtesy of DSA, I'm out at the range today with a Vektor CR-21 to see just how it handles compared to a regular Galil...

The MAG-7 is an unusual shotgun made in South Africa in the 1990s, and imported to the US in small numbers. The idea of the gun was to offer maximum firepower in the smallest package possible, and to this end the gun had no buttstock and a 12.6 inch (320mm) barrel. It was chambered for 60mm 12 ga...

The Jameson Raid in December 1895 was one of the key events in the lead to the second Boer War. Leander Jameson took a force of about 600 men on December 1895 to make a surprise attach on Johannesburg, incite support form the multitude of British miners who felt oppressed by the Boer government, ...

The South African company Smith and Beecham was not a large operation, and their most notable product was a .380 caliber compact pistol, of which not more than 2000 were ever made (it was not a success). Experimentally, the company also developed a polymer frame for the Browning High Power, howev...

In the brief couple of years between the election of a new black-majority government in South Africa in 1994 and the dissolution of the Musgrave company, it attempted to produce a new 9mm pistol to sell to the burgeoning market of black South African citizens buying handguns. Ownership of pistols...

The Pretoria Arms Factory was founded in 1954 by Piet Nagel and Jan Willem Dekker. both Dutch immigrants to South Africa after WW2. They began manufacturing a simplified copy of the Baby Browning pocket pistol, chambered for the .25 ACP (6.35mm Browning) cartridge. This appears to be the first d...

In South African military service, the R1 was the FN FAL and was the preferred infantry combat rifle until the adoption of the Galil as the R4 rifle. So what were the guns in between? Well, the R2 was a South African adaptation of the G3. A large number of rifles were needed as a reserve, and als...

In the 1980s, the South African military and police were using substantial numbers of different handguns, and began looking for a way to consolidate to simply maintenance and logistics. Studying the different guns they had, they decided to pursue a copy of the Beretta Model 92. No foreign manufac...

In the late 1990s Colt was looking for pistols it could license for sale in the United States, in the wake of the failures of both eh Double Eagle and All-American 2000. They approached CZ, and also Vektor in South Africa. Vektor was just at the end of its production of the SP1 and SP2 pistols, w...

Tony Neophytou developed this for Denel Land Systems, which has completely fallen apart as a company and left it now as his own independent design, with no manufacturer. I filmed this video in 2018, to show the prototype version of the Strike, which has since been improved and further developed. ...

The Republic Arms 401 was originally designed as a compact pistol for the South African Police. The country was under international arms embargo, and the police wanted to replace their assortment of Beretta 81s, PPS, and PPKs with something standardized, for use by detectives and female officers....