Commentary
Trench Warfare Notes, 1915
I have a really neat document to share today, generously sent to me by a reader named Chris in the United Kingdom. These are the notes from a 1915 course on trench warfare as recorded by […]
United Kingdom
Competition
Greener MkIII Police in a 2-Gun Shotgun Match (Video)
Every few years, there is a special 2-Gun match at my local club, using shotgun and pistol instead of rifle and pistol. The rules of this match are a bit different than most multigun competition […]
Prototype
BSA 1926 & 1929 Thompson SMGs
In the early days of the Thompson Submachine Gun, the Auto-Ordnance Company was looking for customers globally. General John Thompson had personally run a demonstration of the gun in England in June of 1921, which […]
Prototype
New Video Series from the Pattern Room
Nope, it’s not mine (although I do look forward to visiting the NFC again in the future) – my friend Vic has started a video channel looking at some of the guns in the monumental […]
Artillery
James D. Julia: An Overview of 4-Bore Stopping Rifles
The 4-bore (approximately 1″/25mm bore diameter) is the largest shoulder-fired rifle actually used for hunting. Developed in the days of black powder muzzleloaders, it was intended to be the ultimate rifle of last resort, to […]
Video
WWI Trench Hand Weapons
Karl and I recently did some work with a wide selection of hand weapons from WWI (some original, some reproductions) for a video in collaboration with the excellent YouTube channel The Great War. Have a […]
Video
RIA: Greener’s Humane Horse Killer
Humans have been killing animals for thousands of years, and with the development of the self-contained cartridge, the Greener company started making a compact and efficient Humane Horse Killer. Used by veterinarians for euthanizing creatures […]
Submachine Guns
RIA: MP3008 Sten Copy
The MP 3008, aka Gerät Neumünster, was one of two German efforts to copy the British Sten gun. The first was the Gerät Potsdam (“gerät” meaning device or project; basically project code name), which was […]
Heavy MGs
The World Standard Maxim Gun
From 1887 onward, the gun Hiram Maxim was producing was what he called the World Standard. He had finally perfected the machine gun design to his satisfaction in 1887 and with this design in hand […]
Heavy MGs
Extra-Light Maxim (1895)
One of the relatively few successful competitors to the Maxim in the early days of the heavy machine gun was the Col Model 1895 (aka, the Potato Digger). When it was adopted by the US […]