SIG’s World War Two Semiauto Rifle: The Model U
The SIG company of Neuhausen Switzerland spent the 1920s, 30s, and 40s working on developmental semiauto rifles to sell both to the Swiss military and abroad. One of the experimental models in the...
View ArticleVektor CR21: South Africa’s Futuristic Bullpup
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 FAMAS, the UK had...
View ArticleDutch Mannlicher Plus Lewis Gun Bolt Equals Semiauto…?
Basically nothing is known about this rifle in terms of who created it or when – but it is a pretty interesting example of an attempt to convert a bolt action rifle to semiautomatic. This rifle began...
View ArticleMaschinengewehr des Standshützen Hellriegel: A WW1 Phantom
I have gotten quite a lot of questions about this experimental Austrian machine gun or submachine gun since it was included in the Battlefield One computer game. Unfortunately, the sum total of...
View ArticleMadsen M1888 Forsøgsrekylgevær: The Strangest Semiauto
Development of the weapon that would eventually become the very successful 1902 Madsen light machine gun began many years earlier, in 1883. Two Danes, Madsen and Rasmussen, began working on a...
View ArticleRibeyrolles 1918 – France’s First Assault Rifle or a Failed Prototype?
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...
View ArticleProject Ultra: Germany Wants a Stronger Compact Pistol
This pistol is one of just a couple surviving from a development project run by Walther in the mid to late 1930s. The goal was to produce a compact sidearm for pilots and officers using a more potent...
View ArticleGarand Primer-Activated 1924 Trials Rifle
RIA’s catalog page for this rifle The first successful iteration of John Garand’s rifle was developed in 1921 and refined through 1924. A small batch were made for US military testing in 1924, where...
View ArticleColt Prototype Self-Ejecting Revolver
RIA’s catalog page for this revolver Robert Roy was a career Colt employee, who began his work as an engineer in 1963 (including work on the 1971/SSP pistols and the CMG machine gun series) and...
View ArticleThompson’s .30-06 1923 Autorifle: Blish Strikes Again
RIA’s catalog page for this rifle This is a Model 1923 Thompson Autoloading Rifle, one of a batch of 20 made by Colt for US military testing in 1924. The system is designed on the same basic Blish...
View ArticlePrototype Clement 9x20mm Military Pistol
Charles Clement is best known for a series of civilian pocket pistol made in the years before World War One, but today we are looking at a prototype Clement military pistol from 1914. This gun retains...
View ArticleMauser C98: The System That Cost Paul Mauser an Eye
One of Paul Mauser’s lifelong projects was the design of a semiautomatic rifle for the German military. He would go through a multitude of different designs searching for something that would be...
View ArticleAugust Coenders’ 9x19mm Belt-Fed MG
August Coenders was an independent arms designer in Germany. During the 1930s he spent several years working in England and at the French Puteaux Arsenal, which contributed to a general lack of trust...
View ArticleTommy Steele’s TS V: Integrally Suppressed 9mm Carbine
Thanks to a friend in South Africa, we have a chance today to take a look at one of the five prototypes of Tommy Steele’s TS V semiauto carbine. This thing is completely ambidextrous (including...
View ArticleVickers-Berthier 1919 US Trials Rifle (Second Type)
This rifle is being sold at Rock Island on December 1, 2018. After designing the bolt action rifle that bears his name, Andre Berthier went on to experiment with self-loading designs. He developed a...
View ArticleBritish 1942 Prototype Simplified…Enfield?
This rifle will be sold at Rock Island on December 1, 2018. In 1942, the British government instituted a development program to design a new simplified rifle to replace the No4 MkI Lee Enfield. The...
View ArticleIshapore No6 Jungle Carbine SMLE Prototype
This rifle is being sold at Rock Island on December 2, 2018. In 1943, the British government began a program to develop a shortened and lightened version of the No1 SMLE rifle, for production in India...
View ArticleWhen M14 Meets M16: The Fort Ellis XR-86 Frankenrifle
This rifle is being sold at Rock Island on November 30, 2018. This rifle is the home shop creation of one Wilfred Ellis, a talented gunsmith form Pennsylvania. It is basically a combination of an M14...
View ArticleKraut Space Magic: the H&K G11
I have been waiting for a long time to have a chance to make this video – the Heckler & Koch G11! Specifically, a G11K2, the final version approved for use by the West German Bundeswehr, before...
View ArticleWalther’s .45ACP MP (P38 Precursor)
During the process of developing the pistol which would become the German army’s P38, the Walther company was also interested in potential export contracts (like the one they actually did get from...
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