Prototype
M1E5 Experimental Paratrooper Garand
In January 1944 men of the 93rd Infantry Division field-modified an M1 to give it a shorter (18″) barrel, and the rifle was sent back to the US and tested by the Infantry Board. The […]
Rifles
Revolving Rifles
Knight’s Armament Silent Revolving Rifle
In the early 1990s, Knight’s Armament was approached by an unnamed agency looking for a very specialized weapon. It needed to be a repeating firearm that left no brass behind while being effectively silent and […]
Prototype
T31: Garand’s Bizarre Bullpup
The T31 was John Garand’s last project during his employment at Springfield Armory. It was proposed in 1948 as a bullpup configuration rifle to minimize muzzle blast and flash. It was a select-fire rifle with […]
Semiauto Rifles
Semiauto SAR-80 “Sterling Assault Rifle” at the Range
The SAR-80 was a design by Frank Waters at Sterling in the UK, but was not actually put into production by Sterling. Instead, it was licensed to Chartered Industries of Singapore in 1977, who eventually […]
Prototype
Preproduction wz89 Onyx: the Polish Krinkov
After developing the 5.45mm Tantal rifle (adopted in 1988), the Radom factory moved on to designing a compact “SMG” version. This would be designated the wz.89 “Onyx”, but never made it into mass production thanks […]
Sniper Rifles
TKIV-85: Finland’s Ultimate Mosin Nagant Sniper Rifle
Join the Kickstarter for “Forged in Snow: Finnish Small Arms 1917-2025” here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/forged-in-snow?ref=desl1o Finland’s final iteration of Mosin Nagant sniper was adopted in the 1980s to replace a mix-and-match assortment of m/39-43, m/27-66, and m/28-76 […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Pienoiskivääri m/91 Finnish .22 Mosin Trainer
This and all the other Finnish Mosins are detailed in my new book “Forged in Snow”: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/forged-in-snow?ref=b8ft1r In the 1920s the Finnish Defense Forces wanted a reduced-power training rifle to allow low-cost marksmanship practice and […]
Conversion
Aly & Kaufman AKB-23: Better Than the SA80 / L85
Penguin Brutality t-shirt available from Varusteleka: https://varusteleka.com/en/products/forgotten-weapons-penguin-brutality-t-shirt The Aly & Kaufman AKB-23 is a set of parts that allows one to use a Brownells BRN-180 upper to create an SA80 / L85 lookalike. It’s a […]
Prototype
T20 Family: Springfield Makes the Garand a Grenade Launching Sniper Machine Gun
Late in 1944 the Ordnance Committee recommended adoption of a magazine-fed, select-fire version of the M1 Garand as a new standard US infantry rifle. Both Springfield and Remington developed rifles to meet the requirement, with […]
Sniper Rifles
m/27PH aka m/37: Finland’s First Standard Sniper Rifle (and it’s really bad)
Join the Forged in Snow launch here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/forged-in-snow?ref=55a9yv The m27PH, aka the m/37, was the first standardized Finnish sniper rifle. It was developed as part of the plan to make a whole family of m/27 […]