Select-fire Rifles
British L85A1 at the Range: Will It Work?
I am excited to have a chance today to take a trip to the range with a proper, factory L85A1 rifle (it’s in the United States as a post-1986 dealer sample). I had a chance […]
Rifles
Bolt Action Rifles
1893 Lee-Metford Trials Carbine (One of Only 100 Made)
Once Lee-Metford rifle production was in place, the British began working on a carbine version of the same action for their cavalry. In 1893 a trial run of 100 carbines were made, and today we […]
Bolt Action Rifles
German World War One Gewehr 98 Sniper
Germany was the earliest adopter of scoped rifles in World War One, and produced more of them over the course of the war than any other power. After an initial stop-gap effort to scrounge up […]
Single Shot Rifles
Remington’s Last Rolling Block: the No.7 Target Rifle
Remington introduced the No.7 Rolling Block in 1903, and it was the last pattern of the action to be introduced. They were expensive, hand fitted guns, costing $24 in 1903 (compared to $12 for a […]
Antiques
Colt-Berdan I: Russia’s First Military Cartridge Rifle
In 1867, a Russian delegation came to the United States to source new small arms for the Czar. In addition to purchasing Gatling guns, they met with Hiram Berdan and agreed to purchase a trapdoor […]
Single Shot Rifles
British Money-Walker 1868 Trials Rifle
Patented in 1868 by Colonel G.H. Money and Mr. M. Walker, this rifle was one of the 10 finalists in the British breechloading rifle trials of 1868. It is a simple falling block system with […]
Book review
Book Review: The Green Meanie L96A1 by Steve Houghton
Following up on his 2018 “The British Sniper: A Century of Evolution”, Steve Houghton has now released a followup book on the L96A1 in particular: “The Green Meanie”. This rifles was a paradigm shift for […]
Light MGs
Australia’s FAL-Based L2A1 Heavy Automatic Rifle
Many the nations that adopted the FAL (or L1A1, in Commonwealth terminology) opted to also use a heavy-barreled variant of the same rifle as a light support weapon. In the Commonwealth, this was designated L2A1 […]
Antiques
System Kuhn: A Novel Single Shot Breechloader
This is an interesting single-shot breechloading system built by Kuhn of Besançon – a city near Switzerland in eastern France. It is clearly a sporting rifle, firing an 11mm black powder cartridge and probably dates […]
Conversion
Semiauto ZK-383 on the Range
The Czech ZK-383 is a magnificent submachine gun, but sadly very scarce in the United States. So when I saw the semiauto example, I wanted to take it out to the range for some plinking. […]