Bolt Action Rifles
Vintage Saturday: A Long Way From Home
Malagasy soldier from the French army, World War I. Armed with a M1886/93 Lebel rifle and early style bayonet with hooked quillion.
France
Book review
Book Review: Allied Rifle Contracts in America
One of the characteristics that often leads me to be particularly interested in a given gun is a long and convoluted history. I really enjoy finding firearms that have found their way across the world […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Vintage Saturday: Three or Five?
Members of the French resistance in Paris, August 1944. Interesting to see that the shooter has an M-16 Berthier with a 5-round magazines, but the window sill has a pile of three-round clips. Also interesting […]
Book review
Book Review: Honour Bound – The Chauchat Machine Rifle
I’ve discussed the much-maligned CSRG machine rifle (the Chauchat) previously – it was not the utter disaster that common knowledge would lead you to believe. You won’t find much literature on the Chauchat, but fortunately […]
Light MGs
Hotchkiss M1922 LMG
Many people are unaware of just how many different firearms were produced by the Hotchkiss company over the decades – not many of them received the worldwide acclaim of the more well known arms companies. […]
Submachine Guns
French MAS-38 SMG
In the early 1930s, France adopted a new standard pistol and a new cartridge to go with it – the MAS 1935 and the 7.65x20mm, closely patterned on the us M1918 Pedersen Device cartridge. They […]
Artillery
Book Review: A Gun For All Nations
I ran across a mention of this book while trying to find some information on this 37mm Hotchkiss machine gun – and this book was the only reference I could find any mention of it […]
Aircraft MGs
Richard Wray Machine Gun Auction Followup
So, the auction of the late Richard Wray’s machine gun collection (see previous post) was yesterday, with the non-NFA guns being auctioned today. The final prices are interesting to look at, with some wallet-wrenchingly high […]
Manuals
Darne Mle 1923 Manual
In 1915, the French Darne company – best known for sporting shotguns – entered the military market with a contract to manufacture Lewis guns for the French Army. Apparently some of the folks at Darne […]
Book review
Book Review: French Military Weapons
Today’s book we have courtesy of Luc (thanks, Luc!) – French Military Weapons 1717-1938, by Major James Hicks. Originally written in 1938, it was reprinted by Flayderman’s in 1964. It’s tough to find today, but […]