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Designed by Piotr Wilniewczyca and Jan Skrzypinski starting in 1936, the Mors was Poland's first domestic SMG. Polish police forces had purchased Thompsons and Suomi in the 1920s and 1930s, but the military still had no such guns by the 1930s. One of the main inspirations for the More was the Erma EMP, which was purchased in large quantity by Poland to supply to the Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War.

At any rate, the gun was developed by the State Rifle Factory in Warsaw and ready for testing in 1938. The first iteration was really disliked, with problems from accuracy to rate of fire to handling. The design would undergo several major iterations until a version was finally approved for testing in early 1939. A batch of 36 was made for those trials, plus the three prototypes made initially, giving a total production of just 39 of the guns. The German invasion in September 1939 ended the trials program, and no further examples were made.

For more details on the Mors, I suggest the article I published previously pin the subject written by Polish small arms expert Leszek Erenfeicht:
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/submachine-guns/wz-39-mors/

Many thanks to the Polish Army Museum for giving me access to film this exceptionally rare item for you! Check them out at: http://www.muzeumwp.pl/?language=EN

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On my recent trip to Warsaw, I spent some time filming guns in the collection of the Polish Army Museum. In an effort to create something of a library of museum tours, I made sure to take some time to film a short virtual tour of the exhibits for you - note that I did this after the museum had closed, so there is nobody else in the halls.

Also note that the museum is in the process of slowly moving to a new location, so some of their exhibits are not on display (notably material form the 19th century). They do still have a full Winger Hussar on his mount, though! Outside the main building is a vehicle park with a very cool assortment of armor and aircraft, but the inclement weather prevented me from filming that (sorry).

If you find yourself in Warsaw, it is definitely worth stopping in to see the museum.I found the sections on Polish underground manufacturing and the Warsaw Uprising particularly unique. This museum may not have the popular awareness of the dedicated Warsaw Uprising Museum, but it has artifacts that are every bit as good (if not better, but you didn't hear me say that...). You can find the Museum's web site here, in both Polish and English:

http://www.muzeumwp.pl/?language=EN

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Many thanks to the French IRCGN (Criminal Research Institute of the National Gendarmerie) for generously giving me access to film this exceptionally rare specimen for you!

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In the aftermath of World War One, German police forces were responsible for maintaining social order is a very chaotic Germany. They were reequipped with small arms, and in particular needed pistols. The ideal sidearm would have been the P08 Luger, but the Treaty of Versailles caused Luger production at DWM and Erfurt to be shut down, and the Lugers allowed to remain in government possession were allocated to the Army. The police looked about for a suitable alternative, and found the Prussian "Red 9" C96 Mauser pistols.

The C96 was really more of a martial handgun than a police handgun, and the police proceeded to make a couple changes to bring the guns more in line with the police role. The barrels were cut down from 5.5 inches to 4 inches, and the 500m adjustable sights replaced with fixed notch sights. It is unclear exactly who made these alterations, but it was probably the Erfurt arsenal. The guns then saw active police use (generally without their shoulder stocks) into the 1930s, when German rearmament included expanded Luger production. At that point, some were recycled into Wehrmacht use, to see use in World War Two.

This particular example has two police markings. On is. "St. 140.", which is of unknown meaning. The other is "S. G. V. 39." which indicates the 39th item of the 5th command of the Gumbinnen Schutzpolizei. It was taken as a souvenir by an American soldier in April 1945, who mentioned it in a letter to his family at that time. Gumbinnen was in East Prussia at the time, and is now part of Poland.

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All that is tactical is not necessarily new...and this shotgun is a perfect example. It was put together by a Tucson police officer in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and has all the elements of a very modern "tactical" combat shotgun. It is a Remington Model 11 semiauto shotgun (a licensed copy of the Browning Auto-5). It is fitted with a Parsons 2-round magazine extension (for a total of 7+1 capacity), a barrel from a Remington 11R (20" cylinder choke) and a Nydar Model 47 reflex sight.

That Nydar sight is a really cool example of an early optical sight, developed form aircraft gunnery sights used during World War Two. It uses no batteries, and reflects an aiming circle into a large front lens. By modern standards it is a pretty dim reticle, but it was absolutely state of the art in the late 1940s, and allowed the same sort of rapid both-eyes-open shooting that modern red dot sights do.

Thanks to the Bear Arms Reference Collection in Scottsdale AZ for access to this very cool shotgun!

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One interesting specialized version of the Steyr MPi-81 is this model, built for the Steyr/Saurer 4K 7FA armored personnel carrier. The vehicle could carry 8 infantrymen and their compartment had four firing ports fitted with MPi-81 SMGs. The changes required from the standard MPi-81 pattern were:

• A longer barrel to fit into the gun port
• An optical sight very much like that of the Steyr AUG
• Removal the front sling swivel
• Addition of a mounting bracket for a brass catching bag

These are very rare guns to find these days, and I’d like to thank Joschi Schuy for giving me access to his to film! Additional thanks to the Heeresgeschichtliches (Military History) Museum in Vienna for the photo of the IFV.

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Dan Coonan first designed his pistol in graduate school as a drafting project: a 1911 pistol chambered for the .357 Magnum cartridge. No easy feat, designing a self-loading pistol magazine to cycle a big rimmed revolver cartridge! This was in 1977, and he went about creating a business to manufacture them a few years later with the first guns available in 1983. The company lasted until 1998, and then a new firm (Coonan Inc) was reformed in 2009 and lasted again until 2019.

The Coonan .357 Magnum Automatic is essentially just a 1911 pistol stretched for the new cartridge, but there are a number of more subtle design changes made to improve its reliability, accuracy, and manufacturability. An external extractor was used, and shortly after production began the barrel link was replaced by a fixed cam (like the High Power). Today the guns are out of production (total production was something like 10,000 examples), but have a reputation for excellent accuracy and reliability, belying the difficulty of their core design.

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The AutoMag was originally designed to use a rimless version of the .44 Magnum cartridge; the .44 AMP. Shortly after it was introduced, though, the company Brough out a second cartridge, the .357 AMP. This was simply the regular cartridge necked down to use .357" projectiles. It was a bottlenecked case with a huge powder capacity for a 9mm round, and it could be loaded to velocities in excess of 2000fps with a light bullet. Yowza! That said, a more typical loading was a 158gr bullet at 1500-1600 fps.

What made the second caliber feasible was the easy swapping of barrel assemblies on the AutoMag pistol. Since the case head was the same for both rounds, simply dropping on a new barrel was the only step in changing from one caliber to the other. Guns were even offered as one frame, two barrel combination packages form the factory.

AutoMag manufacture never became stable enough for the .357 AMP to mature as a cartridge. The ammunition was never offered by a commercial manufacturer, and it was always entirely in the realm of handloaders. Factory barrel options were a 6.5" vent-rib and 8.5" plain barrel; this is the longer pattern.

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The Jatimatic was a stockless PDW designed by Jari Timari, who co-owned Tampereen Asepaja Oy, a firearms company in Tampere Finland. The firm was founded in the early 1920s, making .22 biathlon rifles, sporterizing military surplus, and other gunsmithing work. In the late 70s he got the idea for a compact 9mm PDW with some unique climb-reducing features, and in 1980 it was introduced as the Jatimatic (JAli TImari). Only about 400 were made, as it was not adopted or purchased in large quantities by anyone (although it was tested by many, including the Finnish Border Guards).

The Jatimatic was made without a stock, instead using a shooting sling for stabilization. It used standard Swedish K magazines, and has a distinctly off-angle appearance. This was done to counteract muzzle climb, as the line of the barrel points directly back into the shooter's hand. It also has an interesting safety built into the folding front grip - if the grip is closed, the bolt is locked in place.

Production ended in the late 1980s after "permit irregularities" and a robbery of a bunch of Jatimatics form the company premises. The rights to the design were sold to a new company called Golden Gun in 1994, and they attempted to reintroduce it as the GG-95 with a few improvements, but it was a rather complete flop. Its best achievement was getting into several major movies, including Cobra and Red Dawn.

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Yesterday we took a look at the history and the mechanics of Dan Conan's .357 Magnum 1911; today we are going to take it out to the range. Specifically, a BackUp Gun Match, plus a bit of extra range time afterwards...

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From Jamie on Utreon:
"I know naval gatling guns like the 20mm CIWS uses gain twist rifling, but are or were there any commercial or military small arms that used gain twist rifling?"

Yes, there have been some significant uses of progressive (gain) twist rifling on military and civilian small arms. These include:

Colt percussion revolvers (1848, 1849, 1851, 1860, 1861 models)
Custom barrels for Sharps, Stevens, and other rifles by Harry Pope
Carcano Model 1891 rifles and carbines
S&W .460 XVR revolvers

There are certainly others, but those are some of the most significant.

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Designed and manufactured by Fabbrica Nazionale d'Armi di Brescia (National Arms Factory of Brescia) in northern Italy, for use by the RSI and German military forces (as well as some partisan units). They were produced in 1943 and 1944, and only about 1,000 were made (all with serial numbers in the 5,000 range, for unknown reasons). They were quite expensive to produce, with milled receivers and a closed-bolt lever-delayed mechanism.

Interestingly, many of the surviving examples came out of Algeria, where a batch of the guns was smuggled in for use by independence forces. Their markings were milled off, and replaced by fake marks in an attempt to hide their origins - "Maschine Pistole P.M. 43" (an interesting combination of German and French elements). This example went back to France later, where it was unfortunately deactivated by the St Etienne proof house.

Many thanks to the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels for access to this very rare piece! Check them out here:
https://www.klm-mra.be/D7t/

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Today we are continuing to trace the development of the IM Metal / HS Produkt VHS rifles. During this period, Croatia briefly considered adopting the Israeli Tavor rifle. Part of the adoption would have included a license for domestic production, and HS Produkt would have been the company to do the manufacturing. As a result, the company got a good look at the Tavor, and when the government decided not to adopt it, the company decided to integrate some of the features into one of their own prototypes. This led to a split in development, with the company developing one design based on a gas-operated conversion of the FAMAS and a second design based on elements of the Tavor.

Only a small number of prototypes of each style were built, for comparative testing. This Tavor-type example also has an integrated 40mm under barrel grenade launcher. It has an AR-180-like rotating multi-lug bolt, basic iron sights, and a creative (but woefully impractical) bipod built into the pistol grip and trigger guard.

Many thanks to HS Produkt for giving me access to prototypes like this one to film for posterity!

Time for Day 2 of Finnish Brutality 2022! We have five more stages today, and for people like me in Recon Division, five more 3km runs in armor and kit. I woke up pretty darn sore from Day 1, and it took a few minutes to stretch out my calves to the point I could actually walk...let's see how Day 2 will treat me.

A few gear notes:
My camo is all Finnish M05, from Varusteleka. The kilt is no longer offered, though. My rifle is a WWSD with an Aimpoint CompM5 and a Vortex 3x magnifier. Pistol is a Laugo Alien. Knife is an Anthropoid from Acta Non Verba. Plate carrier, backpack, and belt are also from Varusteleka. Boots are from AKU.

Full scores available here:
https://practiscore.com/results/new/180064?q_individual=0&q_result=0&q_division=0

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The Armatix iP1 is a pistol created by former H&K designer Ernst Mauch that was released - or almost released - in the US in late 2013 and early 2014. It is a .22LR caliber semiauto pistol that incorporates an RFID-connected authentication link between a watch and this pistol, so that the pistol can only be fired (in theory) when the authorized user is wearing the watch. Hence, it is a "smart gun".

Mechanically, it is a simple blowback pistol that uses an electromagnet to deactivate a firing pin block type of safety. When the watch has properly activated the pistol, the electromagnet is energized and the pistol will fire. If it is not so authorized, the firing pin block remains in place and the pistol will simply go "click" ineffectually. There are, of course, several caveats, loopholes, and exploitable vulnerabilities in this system.

When the pistol came on the market, it caused a significant reaction among gun rights proponents, as a law on the books in New Jersey mandates that 30 months after a "smart gun" is determined to be commercially available anywhere in the US, all non-"smart" pistols become illegal to sell in that state. The Armatix was expected to trigger this law, and by extension effectively ban all handguns in New Jersey. As it turned out, the state Attorney General determined in late 2014 that the iP1 did not meet the technical requirements of the law, but by this time the pistol was well and truly sunk. Dealers who considered stocking it were bullied out of that decision, sometimes to the point of receiving threats on their lives. As a result, the pistol never saw significant commercial sale, and the only ones in the US appear to be those initially brought in for marketing and demonstration.

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From Nathaniel on Patreon:
"Why didn't Germany or Axis powers have a machine gun similar to the American M2?"

Basically, because everyone faced the choice of a .50 caliber machine gun or 20mm (or larger) cannons for anti-aircraft use, and most people chose the cannons - including Germany. There were some .50 caliber machine guns adopted by Axis powers, most notably the Hotchkiss 1930, a magazine-fed 13.2mm gun that was used by both Italy and Japan (among others). However, the use of the .50 caliber M2 by the US was really a logistical holdover form the interwar period. The M2 remained in production because it was adopted by US Coastal Artillery as a water-cooled anti-aircraft gun, and commercial sales by Colt were slim but sufficient to keep the gun in development through the 20s and 30s. It was used as a main armament in early American armor, but obsolete in this role when the war broke out.

However, with the gun in production and no obvious domestic 20mm design, the US chose to simply make an astounding number of M2s and just dump them everywhere, from Jeeps to trucks to halftracks to tanks to self-propelled guns. And that's not considering the 75% of production that went to coaxial and aircraft versions...

Anyway, back to the question. The German choice for antiaircraft use was the 20mm and 37mm Flak systems, and not a ,50 MG on every tank turret. And so, there was really no motive to develop such a gun. The Soviets did choose to go the US route, though, and developed the DShK-38 for the same role as the US M2 - although it was made in only a tiny fraction of the quantity of the M2.

Thanks to Nick Moran (the Chieftain) for his assistance on this video! You can see the video he references about tanks being attacked by aircraft here:
https://youtu.be/AirRXwbo8Mg

And his full channel is here:
https://www.youtube.com/c/TheChieftainsHatch

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Yesterday we looked at the history and development of the vz.82 pistol; today I am taking it out to the BackUp Gun Match. this should be a pretty competitive pistol in this environment, and it actually meets the characteristics of a backup gun quite well. It is light and compact, but still offers very good controls, excellent accuracy, and a 12-round capacity in a powerful round (9x18mm. Makarov) for a simple blowback action.

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The vz.82 and its cousin the CZ 83 are pistols that originated when the Czech state export company during the Cold War began looking for arms it could export to bring in hard currency. The current service pistol, the vz.52, was, shall we say, not widely desirable and its 7.62x25mm cartridge was not widely used outside the Warsaw Pact anyway. The earlier vz.50 and vz.70 pistols were also not really suitable, as they were old and rather clunky designs. Something new was needed that could appeal to customers worldwide.

So, the export firm approaches the state arms factory - CZ - about designing something new. The Ministry of Defense got wind of the project in 1977, and joined in - they also wanted a new pistol - specifically something in 9x18mm Makarov. In 1978 the Czech Ministry of the Interior also joins in, looking for a new pistol for the police. To meet all of these requests, CZ developed a remarkably modern and effective compact pistol which would eventually be made in three different calibers - .32 ACP, .380 ACP, and 9x18mm Makarov.

The first prototypes were completed in 1979, and full scale production began in 1982. Today we are looking at specifically a very early prototype vz.82 in 9x18mm (with a decocking mechanism that would later be dropped from the design) and the standard production vz.82.

The 9x18mm pistols were designated vz.82, and they used polygonal rifling because they were initially developed for a unique Czech 9x18mm cartridge which used a sintered iron bullet. That would cause undue wear on traditional rifling, and so polygonal rifling was chosen instead. The cartridge was eventually scrapped, but the rifling choice remained. The guns in .32 and .380 were designated the CZ 83, and used traditional rifling. Large numbers of both have come into the US in recent years as surplus.

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From Arvid on Utreon:
"Why does an AR-15 need a buffer thingy? Why can't it just have a spring like every other normal gun?"

The Ar-15 really doesn't need the buffer and tube, but it is a holdover from the origins of the system: the AR-10. The intent of the AR-10 was to create a 7.62x51mm battle rifle that was very lightweight (under 7 pounds, originally) but still soft-shooting and controllable. In order to do that, Eugene Stoner. has to pull out all sorts of tricks. As it applied to our question today, this included a straight-line design with a buffer on the end of the bolt carrier to absorb any residual impact of the bolt carrier on the end of the receiver tube. At this time, there was no apparent need to allow for a folding stock, so the bolt was allowed to run the full length of the stock to minimize felt recoil.

After the basic design was put in place, the disassembly was changed from sliding together to pivoting, and this required splitting the single very long bolt carrier into what we now recognize as the bolt carrier and the buffer. When the design was scaled down to the AR-15, the basic architecture stayed the same, even though the recoil-reducing elements were not really necessary in the new smaller cartridge.

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In the late 1980s, the Spanish gunmaker Star decided to join the new hot trend of 10mm semiauto pistols. The cartridge was getting a lot of press, and Star saw this as an opportunity too ride the wave and also the get a pistol on the market that would attract IPSC competitors. Unlike some companies adapting existing .45ACP designs to 10mm, Star decided to start from scratch to build a pistol that was massive and durable; able to handle the power of the cartridge without any worries.

Star engineer Eduardo Zamacola (who had previously designed the M38/30/31 series for Star) had the first prototypes ready in 1990, in both 10mm Auto and .45 ACP. The design took cues from the Petter designs of France and SIG, with full-length internal slide rails and a removable modular fire control system. It offer 12 round capacity in .45 and 14 rounds in 10mm.

The pistol was quite massive and heavy (1.4kg / 3.1 lb), and failed to sell well from the start. The 10mm craze and flared out rather quickly - it remains a niche cartridge to this day, despite periodic releases of new 10mm pistols (the SIG 320 in 10mm being the most recent). What really killed the Megastar, though, was the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban in the US. This prohibited new magazines holding more than 10 rounds, and the whole point of the bulk of the Megastar was to allow larger double-stack magazines. With those no longer available, there was really not much reason to get a Megastar instead of something like a 1911. In total, just 978 were made in 10mm and 5,424 in .45ACP, with production ending in 1995.