Select-fire Rifles
Steyr StG 77, aka the AUG
Today’s rifle is not quite an Austrian military StG-77, but it is virtually identical. This is one of the commemorative rifles sold by Steyr, which has been rebuilt with military parts and is a registered […]
Holy Mother of Muzzle Flash, the Rico Special
Rico is a gunsmith at SIG Neuhausen who likes to tinker. He put together this SIG 510 (aka Stgw 57), with a modern collapsing stock, quad rail foreend, Aimpoint red dot, heavy barrel, and massive […]
South African Galils: The R4, R5, R6, and LM Series
When South Africa decided to replace the R1 rifle (a metric FAL), they chose to adopt the Israeli Galil. Both nations had similar environmental issues with blowing sand (in northwestern South Africa particularly), and Israel […]
WW2 Mauser Becomes Heckler & Koch: the StG-45(M), or Gerat 06H
After the Mp44/StG44 Sturmgewehr was starting to see substantial production and field use, the German military and the Mauser company began working on a way to simplify production of the weapon. The design for the […]
Testing the Halbek Device
The Halbek Device was an interesting clamp-on muzzle brake designed by two Rhodesians, Douglas Hall and Marthinus Bekker. It was patented in Rhodesia in 1977 and in the US in 1980, and manufactured in small […]
MKb-42(W) – The Sturmgewehr That Never Was
When the German military first requested rifles in the new 8x33mm Kurz cartridge, there were two companies that provided designs. One was Haenel, who would eventually win the competition. The other was Walther, who submitted […]
Russian Type 2 AK: Introducing the Milled Receiver
With recognition of the production problems of the original Type 1 AK, an alternative was needed. Russian engineer Valeriy Kharkov led a team of engineers who designed a replacement drop-forged and machined receiver for the […]
Ribeyrolles 1918 – France’s First Assault Rifle or a Failed Prototype?
Paul Ribeyrolles was the manager of the Gladiator bicycle factory, and by 1918 he had significant experience in small arms design, having been a core member of the team that designed and built the 1915 […]
Type 1 Russian AK: The Actual AK-47
https://youtu.be/f5UFzsnmIlQ The AK-47 rifle was formally adopted in 1947, as the name implies, and went into production in 1948. In this very first form, it used a stamped receiver with front and rear trunnions riveted […]