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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The US Army ACR (Advanced Combat Rifle) program was an effort to find a new type of infantry rifle which could increase the practical accuracy of the M16 by a whopping 100% in the […]
The CR-21 was a private effort to create a new rifle for the South African military in the 1990s. Bullpup designs were all the rage at the time (Austria has the AUG, France had the […]
Larry Vickers has the closest thing most any of us will ever have to a true XM-8 rifle, and has more than a little trigger time on the original XM-8 rifles. So, I asked him […]
The Valmet M71 was introduced as a commercial export rifle in 1971, and was the first AK available on the commercial market in the United States and Europe. It was offered in both .223 and […]
The US insistence on a full-power rifle cartridge for the NATO standard in the 1950s derailed a couple potentially very interesting concepts – including the 7.92x41mm CETME cartridge. This round was developed by Dr. […]
The iconic weapon of the Rhodesian Bush War is the FN-FAL, painted in a distinctive “baby poop” yellow and green pattern. Because Rhodesia was under international embargo, its options for obtaining weapons were limited. Some […]
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