Select-fire Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

South African Galils: The R4, R5, R6, and LM Series

July 25, 2018 Ian McCollum 17

When South Africa decided to replace the R1 rifle (a metric FAL), they chose to adopt the Israeli Galil. Both nations had similar environmental issues with blowing sand (in northwestern South Africa particularly), and Israel […]

WW2 Mauser Becomes Heckler & Koch: the StG-45(M), or Gerat 06H

July 20, 2018 Ian McCollum 11

After the Mp44/StG44 Sturmgewehr was starting to see substantial production and field use, the German military and the Mauser company began working on a way to simplify production of the weapon. The design for the […]

Testing the Halbek Device

July 14, 2018 Ian McCollum 10

The Halbek Device was an interesting clamp-on muzzle brake designed by two Rhodesians, Douglas Hall and Marthinus Bekker. It was patented in Rhodesia in 1977 and in the US in 1980, and manufactured in small […]

MKb-42(W) – The Sturmgewehr That Never Was

July 6, 2018 Ian McCollum 26

When the German military first requested rifles in the new 8x33mm Kurz cartridge, there were two companies that provided designs. One was Haenel, who would eventually win the competition. The other was Walther, who submitted […]

Russian Type 2 AK: Introducing the Milled Receiver

May 23, 2018 Ian McCollum 44

With recognition of the production problems of the original Type 1 AK, an alternative was needed. Russian engineer Valeriy Kharkov led a team of engineers who designed a replacement drop-forged and machined receiver for the […]

Ribeyrolles 1918 – France’s First Assault Rifle or a Failed Prototype?

May 22, 2018 Ian McCollum 12

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 1915 […]

Type 1 Russian AK: The Actual AK-47

May 21, 2018 Ian McCollum 75

https://youtu.be/f5UFzsnmIlQ The AK-47 rifle was formally adopted in 1947, as the name implies, and went into production in 1948. In this very first form, it used a stamped receiver with front and rear trunnions riveted […]

Steyr ACR: A Polymer Flechette-Firing Bullpup From the 90s

May 9, 2018 Ian McCollum 62

The US Army ACR (Advanced Combat Rifle) program was an effort to find a new type of infantry rifle which could increase the practical accuracy of the M16 by a whopping 100% in the […]

Vektor CR21: South Africa’s Futuristic Bullpup

April 30, 2018 Ian McCollum 23

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 […]

HK XM-8: What Was it and Why? (With Larry Vickers)

April 20, 2018 Ian McCollum 37

Larry Vickers has the closest thing most any of us will ever have to a true XM-8 rifle, and has more than a little trigger time on the original XM-8 rifles. So, I asked him […]