The M1 carbine was designed as a Personal Defense Weapon of sorts. It combined the portability of a handgun with the magazine capacity of an autoloading rifle.
Will Dabbs
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The Smith and Wesson M1917 .45ACP: A Big-Bore World War Wheelgun (#3 – Allied Small Arms WWII)
Updated: September 8, 2018The M1911 was the finest combat handgun at the time of the World Wars. For close range firepower and reliability, nothing beat the M1917 revolver.
The Thompson Submachine Gun – From Chicago Streets to European Battlefields (#2 – Allied Small Arms WWII)
Updated: September 1, 2018The Thompson Submachine Gun was a weapon respected by Prohibition-era gangsters before being toted across Europe by American soldiers in WWII.
The Smith & Wesson Victory .38 – A Cop Gun Goes to War (#1 – Allied Small Arms WWII)
Updated: August 25, 2018The Victory .38 was a wartime version of the original Smith and Wesson Model 10 first introduced in 1899. The gun was variously known as the S&W Military and Police or the S&W Hand Ejector. Total production exceeded six million copies. While civilian variants typically sported a deep blue finish and a variety of barrel lengths, the Victory model was bred purely for combat.
The Czech vz. 58 – Improving Upon the Most Reliable Combat Rifle in the World
Updated: August 11, 2018Lightweight, rugged, and maneuverable, the Czech vz. 58 represents a tiny glimmer of individuality in the Warsaw Pact during the Cold War.
Czech vz52 Pistol – The Sort-Of MP5 Roller-Locked Handgun
Updated: August 2, 2018In 1952 the Czech military adopted a radically strange new pistol designed by two brothers, Jan and Jaroslav Kratochvil. The vz52 (not to be confused with the vz52 rifle of the same designation that entered Czech service the same year) represented a unique application of the roller-locked action pioneered by the German MG42 machine gun. While HK dabbled in the same thing with their short-lived P9S handgun, the vz52 pistol was otherwise unique.
The P14 Luger Marinepistole – A German Military Handgun Designed for Ship-to-Ship Combat
Updated: July 28, 2018Georg Luger left an indelible mark on the firearms world that persists to this very day. His extraordinary eponymous handgun was not an altogether original design, however. His mentor, a German engineer named Hugo Borchardt, was actually the first to realize the human knee would translate into a serviceable firearm.
Stamped Steel Sputterguns – Uzi vs the MAC10
Updated: July 21, 2018Uziel Gal was a German-born Israeli who served half of a six-year sentence after having been arrested for carrying a gun illegally in the British Mandate of Palestine. He was released in 1946, two years before Israel declared her independence. A gifted designer, Gal began work on a new submachine gun and completed his first prototype in 1950. Christened the Uzi after its designer, this rugged combat
The Origin of the Species: The Model 602 M16
Updated: July 14, 2018The origin story is foundational dogma for gun nerds like us. George Sullivan incorporated the ArmaLite Corporation in 1954 as a tiny little subsidiary of the Fairchild Engine and Airplane Corporation. Operating out of a modest machine shop in Hollywood, California, Sullivan envisioned ArmaLite as a think tank to explore cutting-edge concepts in small arms. Their first serious effort was a small takedown survival rifle intended for use by downed military aircrew.
Killing Cousins: A Tale of Three Axis Submachine Guns
Updated: June 29, 2018The Germans saw their industry transformed from a collective of cottage artisans of sorts into a manufacturing juggernaut that prevailed in the face of material shortages of many manifest flavors as well as round-the-clock bombing. Early guns were meticulously crafted and expensive. Later weapons, though functional, were designed from the outset to be readily manufacturable. Those in between exhibited characteristics of each. The three best examples are the Steyr MP34, the Beretta 38A, and the MP40.