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- Video: Manufacturing an Eight Inch High Explosive Howitzer Shell Circa 1917 – Shows a Ton of Machining Operations January 13, 2020If you like to watch old school machining, this video from the Library and Archives Canada is pretty amazing. It’s a silent black and white video that is just shy of 54 minutes long. The title of the video is “Manufacturing an Eight Inch High Explosive Howitzer Shell At The Works Of The ...
- Video: How to Make a Japanese Katana Sword: Exquisite Detail Of the Hamon and Engraving December 27, 2019I thoroughly enjoyed this Japanese video that covers the forging, engraving and heat treat of a Japanese Katana by a Master – Sadatosh Gassan. The video provides a great overview and while it is in Japanese, there are subtitles in English. What I found most fascinating was the detail of the creation and application of ...
- Video: Forgotten Weapons Reviews Soviet AK Magazines December 26, 2019In this short video, Ian gives a brief overview of Soviet magazines – notably the slab side, ribbed, waffle and bakelite. As always, Ian does a great job and this is worth a watch! The first generation was a heavily built (over-built) magazine known as the “slab side”. After the slab side, they developed the ribbed ...
- Video: Apex Gun Parts’ Croatian AK-47 Magazines Being Manufactured December 25, 2019While digging for videos on AK magazines, I found this one posted by Apex Gun Parts in 2016. It shows their Croatian AK-47 magazines being manufactured. While they don’t come right out and say they are being made by Zastava, I have a hunch that they are. I would like you to compare this video ...
- Video: Matra Group Manufacturing AK-47 and AK-74 Steel Magazines: From Sheet Metal To The Finished Products December 25, 2019The AK-47 rifle and it’s “banana” 30 round magazine are classics of rugged functional design. While I’ve posted many videos and how-to articles relating to various rifle and pistol variants, I’ve not really covered the steel magazines at all. I was surfing around and found Matra Group located in Bosnia-Herzegovina. In 2015 this small manufacturer ...
- Motivational Video: US Navy Seals and SWCC – “Never Quit” December 24, 2019Many folks have heard of the US Navy’s Sea Air and Land (SEAL) teams. The SEALs have been in a ton of movies and books but they are supported by another critical special warfare group – the Special Warfare Combatant-craft Crewman (SWCC). These are the teams that man the small boats that deliver and ...
- Motivational Video: Wolves || UkraInian SOF – Shots of the Malyuk Bullpup and UR-10 Sniper Rifle December 17, 2019Military Division makes some kick ass motivational videos of different special forces groups. They released this video entitled “Wolves || Ukrainian SOF” on December 6, 2019. It has some great videos and a wicked track. What caught my eye is a number of shots of the Ukrainian Malyuk Bullpup Assault Rifle. I’m not ...
- Preparing a Pressure Washer For The Winter December 4, 2019Whether you call it them pressure washers or power washers, these are darned handy machines to have around. For portability, we use models with a gasoline engine and are on our second one. The first lasted for a few years until one wither the water in the pump turned to ice and finally cracked ...
- Replacing the Drive Belt On A 1998 Simplicity Broadmor 16HP Tractor December 3, 2019This fall we had a ton of leaves to mulch as usual. This means every week I mow our acre and a half for about two hours at a time. Long ago, I replaced the OEM Simplicity blades with Oregon Gator blades in the tractor’s 44″ mowing deck to help with this. At ...
- I thought My 1998 Simplicity 16HP Broadmor Tractor Had Bent A Crank – The Real Problem Was A Surprise!! December 3, 2019We bought our Simplicty 16HP Broadmor tractor back in 1998 mainly because my dad had a Simplicity that he kept running for almost 30 years. So here are in on 2019 and the tractor is starting to show its age plus the dealership is long gone so a lot of self-service and tinkering happens ...
- How To Find Out Torque Specifications for Screws and Bolts: An Outstanding NASA Reference Guide December 2, 2019We’ve all been there – you’re working on a project and wondering how much to torque something so either we don’t bother or just take a guess. What I only found out recently was that in 2017, NASA published a really cool guide called “Installation Torque Tables for Noncritical Applications” – ...
- The Fastest Way To Convert Aluminum 5.56 AR Magazines For Use With .50 Beowulf December 2, 2019Back in 2018, I documented how to convert a basic aluminum AR magazine using a Dremel and a small drum. With the
- Building A .50 Beowulf – Part 3: Observations On Building the Upper, Lubrication and Vortex Strike Eagle December 1, 2019So things were going together really well for the Alpha ‘Wulf and no, I’m not going to say “and then I hit a snag.” I was impressed by all the parts so far. In the last post I talked a bit about the lower assembly and the upper parts I picked in addition to ...
- Building A .50 Beowulf – Part 2: Observations On Building the Lower and Upper Parts November 30, 2019As mentioned in the last post – building a Beowulf is pretty much like building any other AR15-class rifle. I put it that way because the AR10s are different and the Beowulf uses the AR15 platform with the notable exception of an enlarged ejection port. The modular capabilities of the AR ...
- Building A .50 Beowulf – Part 1: The Alexander Arms .50 Beowulf 16″ DIY Upper Kit and Lower Receiver November 18, 2019Okay, so I built my first .50 Beowulf rifle in 2018, spent a lot of time planning out the recoil mitigation and documented the adventure – click here for the post. At any rate, I sold it to move on to fund other projects but ran into a problem – I missed the ‘Wulf. ...
- November 10, 2019 – Russia Celebrates Kalashnikov’s 100th Birthday November 10, 2019On November 10th, 1919, Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (Михаи́л Тимофе́евич Кала́шников) was born in Kurya, Altai Governorate, Russian SFSR (now Altai Krai, Russia). He grew up from humble beginnings to be known as the father of a very famous rifle, the Avtomat Kalashnikova model 1947, or AK-47 as we know it in the West. ...
- Customizing An IWI Galil Ace Pistol – Installing a RS Regulate Handguard, SBA4 Brace & Vortex Optics November 6, 2019In my previous posts, I covered a bit of the history of the Galil Ace, did two posts about the differences between the Ace and an AKM that I observed (click here for the first and here for the second) and now that leads up to me making a few tweaks of my own to ...
- How A Modern IWI Galil Ace Differs From A Traditional AKM – With Lots Of Photos – Part 2 October 29, 2019This is the second part of my review of the differences I saw between a 7.62×51 IWI Galil Ace pistol and a typical AKM-type rifle. The following round out my observations: Railed handguard AK handguards have evolved from wood to ...
- How a Modern IWI Galil Ace Differs From A Traditional AKM – With Lots Of Photos – Part 1 October 27, 2019The Ace is definitely a modernized AK weapon. One look inside confirms that. The Colombian defense firm of Industria Militar (INDUMIL) began a commercial relationship with Israeli Military Industries (IMI) that would later carve out the small arms division to become Israeli Weapons Industries (IWI). Their collaboration was on the Galil ...
- IWI Galil Ace Pistol In 7.62×51: Development History And Photos Out Of The Box October 15, 2019The Israelis definitely understand the need for quality armaments and let’s start with a quick recap of the history leading up to the Galil. In the 1950s, the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) adopted the Belgian FAL but found that their regular drafted troops had a hard time keeping it clean. On one hand, ...