As has recently been explained, terminology is important – and not only because I say it is. Seeing the use of correct terminology as either a nuisance or something not worth the effort of learning has a way of breaking things down not only within the industry but outside it. For example, countless members of the mainstream media enjoy referring to the ArmaLite Rifle as an assault rifle. More fiction authors than I care to consider apparently think they don’t need to know which end of the gun the bullet exits to write about guns, and the results are fairly disastrous. But it isn’t just about those who report or write; this is about the fact that you do not refer to a hammer as a screwdriver, a dog as a cat, or a rattlesnake as a worm. Words matter. After all, if you describe a malfunction simply as a “jam” I won’t be able to help you without finding out what actually happened.

Target practice isn’t just fun, it’s a vital part of honing your marksmanship skills. Of course, target practice is a lot more interesting when the targets are more than plain white sheets of paper. Enter Birchwood Casey, the company whose Shoot-N-C targets make the classic bulls-eye style significantly more interesting. Now they’re adding targets to their Dirty Bird lineup: three new targets for 2016.

It’s no good to discuss how firearms work without also giving the context surrounding the firearms themselves. With that said, let’s talk about the AR-15, its copycats, competitors, and relatives. Together these rifles share space under the loose umbrella of black rifles, a term which references the use of lighter and more durable black polymer gunstocks in place of traditional wood, something that became common from the 1960s onward in military firearms design. Today the term simply means any modern military rifle, or any rifle patterned after a modern military rifle, the two most common of these by far being the AR-15 and AK types. For the purposes of this article, we’ll focus on the AR-15, but much of what we’ll talk about will be applicable to any black rifle.

We introduced you to the concept of locking in a previous one of our 201-level posts on how firearms work, and today we’re going to talk about what has become the most common locking mechanism for rifles: Rotary locking. If to lock an action, you need to create an interference between the breechblock and the barrel, one of the most intuitive ways to do this is the same way a barrel bolt latch works.

Previously in Operating Systems 101, we covered the simple, inexpensive principle of blowback, and the reliable principle of short-recoil. Both of these mechanisms together form the foundations of almost all automatic handguns in common use today, but what about rifles? Well, the most common mechanism for rifles is the method of gas operation, developed by legendary Utahn Mormon gun wizard John Moses Browning. Browning observed that the gases coming from the muzzle of a rifle could influence objects around it, such as tall grass. Through tireless experimentation, Browning found he could harness this gas, and the principle of gas operation was born.

Thanks to my friend Jan Lučanský of Laugo Arms for telling me about this company. Originally he was remarking on the Hungarian Steiner Bark that I posted earlier. The Bark9 is actually a Slovakian firearm. It uses a Scorpion EVO3 fire control group and mag well.

Check out this cute little guy that was recently posted on r/NFA recently. It’s some sorta homemade AK variant chambered in the 7.62×25 Tokarev. The poster that shared it on Reddit claims it belonged to a private security guard in Karachi Pakistan. Remember our Pakistan Gunsmiths post? I bet that baby AK in 7.62×25 Tok was most likely built in the Khyber Pass or someones garage somewhere in Pakistan.

Century Arms, has been hard at work with their all-American AK weapons. While the RAS-47 has been praised and bemoaned, its one of the first truly American versions of the ubiqutous Russian platform.

Zahal posted up this video showcasing Fab Defense’s new PDC (Picatinny Dust Cover) for AK rifles. The PDC has a unique patented knob that tightens the fit of the PDC so the dust cover stays rigid and maintains zero for the optic mounted on it.