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 […]
Select-fire Rifles
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 […]
Commentary
An Interesting Possibility: The FG-42 in 8x33mm Kurz?
Here’s an interesting thought – what if they made the FG-42 in 8x33mm Kurz? Well, they actually did, in very small numbers. The rifle’s designer, Louis Stange, actually thought it was a really good idea, […]
Select-fire Rifles
History of the Monolithic Polymer AR: From Colt to KE Arms
Today we are taking a look at the history of the monolithic polymer AR-15 lower receiver. By “monolithic” I mean a design which integrates the receiver, grip, and buttstock all into a single unit, rather […]
Select-fire Rifles
Ruger AC-556 at the Range: How Does it Compare to the M16?
Yesterday we took a look at the internals of Ruger’s select-fire AC-556, and today we have it out at the range. The main question for me was, how does it compare to the M16/AR-15? And […]
Select-fire Rifles
Ruger’s M16 Alternative: the Select-Fire AC-556
Ruger introduced their semiauto Mini-14 rifle in 1973, and followed it in 1979 with the AC-556, a select-fire version intended for military and police sales. Offered with either an 18.5 inch barrel and solid wood […]
Commentary
Saga of the AR15 Forward Assist: A Solution Searching for a Problem
In 1963, the US Army set out to purchase 85,000 AR-15 rifles as a one-time procurement to hold the infantry through until final adoption of the expected Project SPIW rifle. Where the previous Air Force […]
Prototype
FAMAS Commando Prototypes
Unlike most countries that adopted bullpup rifles, the French military never had a short-barreled version of their standard FAMAS. However, GIAT created several prototypes as part of their (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to market the FAMAS […]
Select-fire Rifles
Samopal vz.58: The Czechoslovakian Answer to the AK
Among the nations of the Warsaw Pact, only Czechoslovakia designed and produced its own infantry assault rifle – everyone else used the Kalashnikov. The Czech vz.58 is often mistaken for an AK because it has […]
Crude Copies
The Worst AK Build I Have Ever Seen, Bar None
This AK was purchased by someone I know, and it is so utterly awful that I just had to put it on camera. I’m obscured the name of the shop that did the build because […]