Posting this early for all of you guys...
Bloke and Žiga have challenged us - and you! - to shoot a 1 MOA group on demand, with a non-benchrest sort of rifle. The idea is that a whole lot of people will happily insist that their regular hun...
2024-05-11 22:43:42 +0000 UTC View Post
Join our Kickstarter for "Rifles On The Danube" today and get your copy of the best book on Hungarian AKs!
2024-05-11 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
By the end of communism in Romania in 1989, the standard service pistols for the army and police were still the old Tokarevs and the Cugir Model 74 "Carpați" Walther PP copy. These were obviously outdated, and as it moved more towards the West, t...
2024-05-10 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
"Rifles on the Danube" Kickstarter is live!
Today I took my AMD-65 out to the range. I've shot regular AKMs with AMD muzzle brakes, but never had the chance to try the AMD-65 in its original proper configuration. And you know w...
2024-05-09 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
The first Japanese exposure to firearms came from Portuguese traders in 1534, as the southern Japanese island of Tanegashima. They received a matchlock, and quickly recognized its utility and potential - within 10 years matchlocks were in signific...
2024-05-08 12:00:01 +0000 UTC View Post
Two pieces of surprisingly good news regarding the NFA :
First, ATF has recognized that about 4,000 machine guns imported prior to 1986 for police agencies were mis-classified as dealer samples when they should have been fully transferrable...
2024-05-07 18:15:19 +0000 UTC View Post
Rifles on the Danube: Hungarian Kalashnikov Firearms 1959-2002 is available now on Kickstarter:
https://www.kickstarter.com/pr...
2024-05-07 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
The MG08 was the German Army standard Maxim gun in World War One. The Germany Navy adopted the Maxim first in 1894, followed by the Army in 1899, then a new pattern in 1901, and finally the MG08 in 1908. This was actually a somewhat old-fashioned ...
2024-05-06 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
The Rupertus Patent Pistol Manufacturing Company was founded in Philadelphia by Bavarian-born Jacob Rupertus. The company made a variety of derringers, pepperboxes, and revolvers and today we are looking at an 8-shot, .22 rimfire pepperbox patente...
2024-05-05 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
When the US entered World War One, the country had a grand total of 1,453 machine guns, split between 4 different models. This was not a useful inventory to equip even a single division headed for France, and so the US had to look to France for au...
2024-05-04 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Get your copy of "Rifles On The Danube" today!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/rifles-on-the-danube?ref=950hwi<...
2024-05-03 12:00:07 +0000 UTC View Post
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/rifles-on-the-danube?ref=biz070
Rifles on the Danube: Hungarian AK-Patte...
2024-05-02 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
During World War Two, Madsen (DISA) manufactured a licensed copy of the Finnish Suomi (see: https://youtu.be/hjs1uiAIpNQ). When the war ended, they wanted to replace this with ...
2024-05-01 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Available now at:
http://www.headstamppublishing.com/collier-book
Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier & Artemas Wh...
2024-04-30 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
One of the particularly popular transferrable machine guns out there is the H&K auto sear. Since H&K grip and trigger assemblies are interchangeable between 9mm, 5.56mm, and 7.62x51mm guns (ie, MP5, HK33, and G3) a single registered full-a...
2024-04-29 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
The Thompson submachine gun struggled to find a market when it was originally produced, with the first batch of 15,000 Colt-made guns not finally all selling until the late 1930s. By that time, the clouds of war were gathering, and demand for subm...
2024-04-28 13:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
The "Tom Thumb" is a tiny .22 rimfire revolver made in Belgium by an unknown shop and imported into the US to be sold by the Daly Arms Company of New York. These are antique guns, probably made in the 1870s or 1880s, chambered for the original bla...
2024-04-27 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
Several patents were taken out on the BAR during World War One, but they were all kept unpublished and secret during the war. Just days after the Armistice, Colt patent attorney CJ Ehbets wrote to the US Patent Office requesting release of the sec...
2024-04-26 12:00:02 +0000 UTC View Post
As soon as the MG08/15 "light" machine gun was adopted by Germany, it was recognized as an ideal basis for an aircraft gun. Weight was of the essence for WW1 aircraft, and a lightened Maxim was just the thing to use. So the Spandau Arsenal began p...
2024-04-24 12:00:33 +0000 UTC View Post
In the summer of 1918, the US government wanted to increase production of M1911 pistols, but all current manufacturers were working at capacity. So they looked to issue new contracts, and someone realized that the Ross rifle factory was a potentia...
2024-04-22 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Today, Ian is talking to John Keene, NFA specialist for Morphy Auctions. The question is, what is the best model of Maxim gun? Whether it's for a recreation shooter or a historical enthusiast, there are some models that are better than others... 2024-04-21 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
Today I'm taking a brand new Ohio Ordnance M1918A3 semiauto BAR to the 2-gun match, along with a Tisas M1911A1 clone. The BAR is the WW2 configuration, but I followed the footsteps of many a US GI and took off the bipod (and it didn't come with a ...
2024-04-20 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
The Swiss were one of the first countries to test Hiram Maxim’s new automatic machine gun in 1887, and they found it far superior to their just-recently-purchased Gardner guns. The first Swiss maxims were delivered in 1889, and the country came ...
2024-04-19 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
The Japanese never really embraced submachine guns during and before World War Two. A series of development programs in the 1920s and 30s led nowhere, and there never really seems to have been much motivation behind them. Some small batches of gun...
2024-04-17 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post
While the US never adopted a significant variation of the M1 Garand (excluding sniper models), testing continued on new iterations and features throughout the war. By the time the war ended, the US military had some specific ideas about what it wa...
2024-04-15 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post
Line-throwing devices have long been an important part of maritime safety, and many different have been guns adapted to launch ropes from shore to ship or ship to ship. Usually they are inexpensive obsolete surplus of the era, but a change in law ...
2024-04-14 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
In 1936 and 1937, Siam purchased a batch of several hundred new Luger pistols for the Bangkok Police, including 100 long-barreled lP08 Artillery Lugers. These were new production gun, but made with surplus WW1-era barrels, sights, and stocks. The ...
2024-04-13 12:00:04 +0000 UTC View Post
One of the first new weapons adapted and used by the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army after the Communist victory in the Chinese civil war was the Type 50, a copy of the Soviet PPSh-41. The story of its manufacture begins at the Japanese occupie...
2024-04-12 12:00:06 +0000 UTC View Post
"Battle rifle" is not a formally recognized term like "assault rifle", but it is widely used, and I think it has a lot of utility. It is intended to differentiate between intermediate-caliber and full-power military rifles, and to that end I propo...
2024-04-10 12:00:05 +0000 UTC View Post
Colt has released seven different revolvers named after snakes, and they have become a popular niche collection for many people. The Python is by far the best known, but several others are very rare. One of these is the Colt Viper, of which only a...
2024-04-08 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post