Small Arms

Colt Single Action Army

Small Arms 20 Min Read

Photographs of cowboys from the Old West proudly showing off their Colt hardware. Colt Single Action Army, serial No 5773 7th Cavalry issued. The Peacemaker Produced: 1873–1941 (Gen 1), 1956–1974 (Gen 2), 1976–present (Gen 3) The gunfight at the O.K. Corral never actually occurred at the Old Kindersley Corral in Tombstone, Arizona Territory. It really happened off Fremont Street in…

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British Small Arms 7 Min Read

Birmingham Small Arms – BSA

The Birmingham Small Arms company of Birmingham, England, was founded in 1861 to manufacture rifle stocks. In 1863 the company built their factory at Small Heath and in 1866 they obtained a military contract to convert 100,000 muzzle-loading Enfield rifles into Snider breech-loaders. Two years later came orders for the…

Artillery Small Arms 7 Min Read

Multi-barrel Miscellany

In 1786 the leading London gunmaker Henry Nock devised one of the most satisfactory of all flintlock breechloaders. A reloadable cartridge which forms part of the breech is pivoted on a slide. When the slide is drawn towards the butt, the cartridge hinges upwards to a vertical position for loading.…

Germany Small Arms 1 Min Read

Zielfeuergerät 38 Training Machine Gun

Drawing in an US Intelligence Report from January 1945. The barrel of the examined ZfG had rifling with right-hand twist. Certainly it was a reworked old machine gun barrel. A German machine gun for static defense, Zf.Ger.38, c.1944. It was fired by a trip-wire. A bullet-cutter could be fitted to…

Small Arms 20 Min Read

The Assault Rifle

Six comparative views (left to right) of the 7.92Ă—33mm MKb.42(W), MKb.42(H), and the MP.44. Polte Company drawing of the 7.92mmx33mm kurz Sturmgewehr cartridge (all dimensions in millimeters). The Sturmgewehr and its intermediate cartridge, the 7.92x33mm Kurz (Short), gave the individual soldier vastly increased firepower by two attributes that neither the…

British Small Arms 24 Min Read

THE BROWN BESS MUSKET

By the time of the American Revolution, Britain’s .75 calibre Land Pattern Musket head earned the unofficial nickname of “Brown Bess.” Even the 18th century Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue described the popular expression “to hug Brown Bess,” as slang for enlisting in the army By the time of the…

Doctrine Small Arms 19 Min Read

Fire and Shock

By the beginning of the eighteenth century there appeared to be two approaches to fire tactics for infantry; one stressed firepower, the other shock, the charge with the bayonet. The first method was a case of controlled volleying, in either battalion or company form, or by alternate ranks, three at…

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WWI Austro-Hungarian Small Arms Part I

Roth-Steyr Models 1907 and 1912 Austria-Hungary finally moved to replace its aging Rast-Gasser revolvers with…

Antimaterial Rifle

South African DENEL 20X110HS NTW-20 Rifle procured for evaluation in the United States The antimaterial…

Soviet WWII Machine Guns

The Soviets were latecomers to machine-gun development generally. Prior to World War I, the czarist…

Volkssturm Small Arms

Primitiv-Waffen-Programm As a last-ditch measure in the nearly lost war, on 18 October 1944 the…