Reference library
Guides to rifles, shotguns, handguns, ammunition, optics and archery, plus hunting know-how by species for the United States and Canada. Every page lists the sources behind it.
Article · Firearms History and Technology
The Soviet PK and PKM are 7.62x54R general purpose machine guns associated with Mikhail Kalashnikov’s design bureau for infantry, tripod, vehicle, and tank roles. The PKM modernization entered service in 1969, and the family became a long lived belt fed machine gun system.
Article · Firearms History and Technology
The Maxim gun mattered because it used recoil energy to keep firing automatically while ammunition was supplied. Its belt feed, water cooling and recoil operation set it apart from earlier rapid fire weapons and made it the ancestor of the Vickers, MG 08 and Russian PM 1910.
Guide · Ammunition and Calibers
The 7.62x25mm Tokarev is a Soviet pistol and submachine gun cartridge derived from the 7.63x25mm Mauser family. It is best known for the TT-33 pistol, PPSh-41 and PPS-43, and it remains present in some current factory ammunition.
Article · Firearms History and Technology
The MG 34 is widely treated as the first general purpose machine gun adopted into service because one weapon served light, medium, air defense and vehicle roles. Its complex construction made it capable and influential, but it was difficult to manufacture in wartime quantities, and later designs addressed that production problem.
Article · Firearms History and Technology
The Bren was a British and Commonwealth light machine gun developed from the Czech ZB vz. 26, adapted for .303 inch British ammunition and produced from 1937 at Enfield. It served through the Second World War and later in Commonwealth use.
Article · Firearms History and Technology
Parkerizing is a phosphate conversion coating on steel. It became closely associated with military firearms because its matte crystalline surface holds oil and helps protect steel from corrosion.
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