Category Archives: Weapons by Country

Britain and the UK, Sten, Uncategorized

Video: Forgotten Weapons: British Submachine Gun Overview: Lanchester, Sten, Sterling, and More!

I have lately become very interested in sub machine gun class weapons, or SMGs.  I’ve built a number of 9mm ARs over the years and while they are interesting and fun to shoot, there’s not much history to dig into.  So, I have been researching British Stens for a while now and the history that led up to them and the thinking behind “good enough” to get the job done vs. perfection is fascinating.  It’s really intriguing when you see what folks can create when expediency is the name of the game.

To launch the series, I am posting this awesome video from Ian over at Forgotten Weapons.  He always does an excellent job researching what he is going to cover and then walking the viewer through what he is presenting.  In this video he provides an overview about the British Lanchester, Sten and Sterling.

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AK & Related Rifles, Russia and also USSR

Video: Процесс производства оружия на ВПМЗ Молот // Production process at the VPMZ MOLOT factory March 2017

     

Molot published this walk through of their production facility in March 2017.  It’s in Russian but with English subtitles.  It’s only 5:31 long and worth your time.  Yeah, I drooled when I saw the injection molding.

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Germany plus Historical East and West, Russia and also USSR, Sniper / Precision Rifles

Video: Ostfront 1987: Walther WA-2000 vs SVD Dragunov from InRangeTV

This 30:11 long video had me seriously drooling.  You have Ian McCollum from Forgotten Weapons and Karl Kasarda from InRangeTV squaring off on targets.  Ian is firing a rare German Walther WA-2000 sniper rifle in .300 Win Mag and Karl is shooting the Russian 7.62x54R SVD Dragunov.  They role play a bit and take this back to the Eastern Front of 1987.  I think both rifles are amazing and both presenters do a great job.  It’s very cool to see what the rifles can actually do vs. armchair myth.  Kudos to both men!

Here’s The Video

 

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Germany plus Historical East and West, Sniper / Precision Rifles

Video: Walther WA-2000: The Ultimate German Sniper Rifle by Forgotten Weapons

The first time I saw the Walther WA-2000 I fell in love.  Wow.  It was the most amazing looking sniper rifle I had ever seen and I’ve only seen one once years and years ago.  Like the HK PSG-1, the WA-2000 was developed in response to the 1972 Munich Olympic Games incident.  Development started in the lates 1970s and only 176 rifles were produced between 1982 to 1988.  When it was sold in the 1980s it never really took off because it was incredibly expensive – only 15 were imported into the US.  The one I saw was around $10K if I remember right.  Today, the price has skyrocketed – $70K for the first gen with the wood stocks and $40K for the second gen with the synthetic stock.  With prices like that, unless I hit the lottery, the odds of my owning one is zero 🙁

I watched Ian’s video on the WA-2000 and, as usual, he does the best review of the rifle I have seen.  He goes over the history, interesting design characteristics, disassembles it and then takes it shooting.  Wow.  I would love to shoot one of these.  One misconception I had before the video was that the rifle was only chambered in 7.62X51 when it was actually available in .300 Win Mag and 7.5×55 Swiss.  The rifle in the video is a .300 Win Mag unit.

Here’s the cool 23:49 video from Forgotten Weapons:

Now if you want to learn some more about this amazing bullpup sniper rifle, check out:

Ian does amazing reviews of rare and historical firearms.  I highly recommend signing up for his newsletter and supporting him.  Click here for his website.

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Iraq, Military

Video: Rare Weapons of Saddam’s Iraq 1979 to 2003 by jmantime

       

I like jmantime’s videos – lots of photos, organized and set to music.  He assemble this video around the weapons found in Iraq during Saddam Hussein’s reign between 1979 and 2003.  The video ranges from Tariq handguns and Tabuk rifles all the way up through through tanks, the Babylon Gun, rocket launchers and so forth.  This video is only 14:39 video and worth the time given all that he has assembled.

I mainly focus on firearms:

  • Tariq 1, Semi-automatic pistol, 7.65x17mm
  • Tariq II, Semi-automatic pistol, 9x19mm
  • Tabuk, Assault RIfle, 7.62x39mm  [Their licensed version of the Yugo M70]
  • The Golden Tabuks they found in palaces
  • Tabuk, Designated Marksman Rifle (DMR), 7.62x39mm
  • Al-Kadesih, Semi-automatic Marksman Rifle, 7.62x54R [Their version of the Dragunov]
  • AI-Quds, Light Machine Gun, 7.62x39mm [Their licensed version of the Yugo M72B1]

From there it covers tanks, self-propelled guns and so forth.  All in all, it’s a neat video with lots of photos that jmantime collected.

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AK & Related Rifles, China, Weapons by Country

Video: Chinese Type 56 AK-57 (Shooting and History) by Forgotten Weapons

 

This is a cool review of an actual North Vietnamese Army (NVA) Chinese Type 56 AK.  It was a captured rifle and brought back to the US.  Ian of Forgotten Weapons does one of his usual exemplary reviews of the rifle and discusses its history.

 

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AK & Related Rifles, Gunsmithing, Serbia, Shooting in General, Yugoslavia

Two Rivers Arms Built Yugo M72B1

Once in a while I get to have fun.  For years I have worked with Two Rivers Arms making their grips so I knew they did a good job.  Well over a year ago, I bought two Apex M72B1 kits to have as prototypes but never had time to build them.  I must admit I have fun building rifles but the time just isn’t there any more.  So, given our new M72 handguards were almost ready, I called up Tim at Two Rivers and asked if they could build an M72B1 that looked like it came straight from the factory and that is exactly what they did.  Here are the amazing results of their efforts:

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Note, the following is our Yugo M70/M72 grip:

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Let me give you a quick run down of the parts you see above and a few you don’t:

  • Yugo M72B1 kit from Apex with a new Green Mountain barrel
  • Nodak Spud NDS-9 receiver
  • New virgin stock set from R-Guns
  • One of our Yugo M70 pistol grips
  • Tapco G2 FCG
  • RSA FCG retainer plate (I hate the shepherd hooks)
  • Real Yugo BHO Magazine

Two Rivers did the assembly, engraving, bluing and hooked me up with the right muzzle nut and cleaning rod.  This rifle looks simply amazing.  If you ever are looking for a builder, give them a shout … now if I can just afford one of their Tabuk DMRs some day 🙂  Tim, Shawn & Ed – thank you!!

Two Rivers Arms is at:  http://tworiversarms.com/ 

Our pistol grip is online at:  http://shop.roninsgrips.com/Yugoslavian-M70-M72-M85-M92-Grip-Yugo-M70-M72-M92.htm

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Yugoslavia

Comparison Photos of Yugo M70 vs M72 Lower Handguards

Folks ask me if the Yugo M70 and M72 use the same handguards – in short, they do not.  The upper gas tube cover is the same across all models of Yugos I have seen but the lower handguard on the M72 is very short and rectangular.  This is especially true when it is next to the long sleek tapered M70 handguard that is also used on the M76 and M77 rifles.  By the way, please ignore the green clay and mess – I was making molds when I took these photos:

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The other unique factor is the ferrule.  Yugo ferrules are very hard to find in the US.  With other countries’ ferrules you may find them for sale by a vendor who did a bulk purchase, but that is never the case with the Yugo M70 ferrule.  We actually found a college student with a talent for making dies and an interest in Yugos who makes replica ferrules for the M70, M76, M77, M85 and M92 handguards.  Now here is the rub – the M72 uses a bigger unique ferrule and you will not find them unless someone sells a handguard with the ferrule installed or has pried one off a handguard for some reason.

These photos show the smaller M70 ferrule by the larger M72:

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If you find this post useful, please share the link on Facebook, with your friends, etc. Your support is much appreciated and if you have any feedback, please email me at in**@*********ps.com. Please note that for links to other websites, I may be paid via an affiliate program such as Avantlink, Impact, Amazon and eBay.