Antiques
Treeby Chain Gun photos
The Treeby chain gun was a .54 caliber percussion rifle that could fire 14 rounds in rapid succession. Designed in 1854, it was unlike anything else available at the time. Only two were ever made, […]
Prototype
Prototype
Photos of 1950s Light Rifle Prototypes
In the aftermath of World War II, there was a significant amount of effort put into deciding what rifles would be used by the post-war Allied armies. The UK and US wanted commonality, but couldn’t […]
Prototype
Upcoming Coolness
Sorry guys – I don’t have a book review for you today – I’ve spent most of the last week hanging out with Oleg Volk working on a cool video project. However, I would point […]
Handgun
Mauser Volkspistole
We have another experimental German WWII piece for you today, Mauser’s last-ditch “Volkspistole”. It was developed at the end of the war as an extremely inexpensive home guard weapon, although how much use a pistol […]
Prototype
Caveat Emptor – “StG45 Prototype”
One of the fun parts of pursuing prototype and experimental firearms is that there isn’t much written or known about many of them – it’s like a great treasure hunt. Of course, the downside is […]
Prototype
Caseless ammunition demo action
The US Army (as well as other armed forces) has experimented with a bunch of interesting arms design ideas, and one that keeps coming back to the surface is the use of caseless ammunition. The […]
Artillery
A Few Updates –
Thanks to reader Erik, we have a little more information on Fridtjof Brondby, which we’ve added to the Brondby page in the Vault. Apparently Brondby also designed a 20mm antitank rifle, although we do not […]
Light MGs
Eriksen Machine Gun
Sometimes, there is just no good reason to build a gun design, and the Eriksen machine gun is a good example. A sample of the Eriksen machine gun was sent to the CISA (Chief Inspector […]
Prototype
Navy .308 Garand Conversion
Back in the 1960s, the US Navy decided to rechamber a bunch of its M1 Garand rifles to 7.62 NATO. The proper way to do this would have been to simply put new 7.62 barrels […]
Prototype
Prototype Italian MBT 1925 Rifle
We found this very unusual rifle at the SAR West show this year. It’s an Italian prototype selfloading rifle, but we don’t know much more than we can infer from an inspection. Our friend MGMike […]