In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves is at Rifle Dynamics to talk about the “Thumper” – a gun that started life as an RPK light machine gun and somehow ended up in the hands of Rifle Dynamics. The boys at Rifle Dynamics converted this former LMG into an AKM-type carbine and tweaked it to be supremely reliable and extremely shootable. Watch today’s video for the deets.

True Velocity, Inc., designers of lightweight composite-cased ammunition, have announced a new partnership with FN America. The partnership will look to test True Velocity’s conversion kit which can chamber the M240 in the proprietary 6.8TVCM composite-cased cartridge with the change of a barrel.

In a surprising move, it appears that Singapore’s Army may have selected the Colt IAR as its new squad/section automatic weapon, replacing the ST Kinetics Ultimax 100. The news comes from a 10-minute video shared on the Singapore Army’s ‘OurSingaporeArmy’ YouTube channel, an official social media outlet for Singapore’s Army.

I met up with the guys at Rifle Dynamics to help film some of their guns in slow motion. They wanted some engineering studies done to better understand their products and needed a slow-motion camera. One of the guns they wanted to look at more closely was their Sturmgewehr 44. In this SlowMo STG44 study we can see gun has a few problems.

Lithuania’s Defence Materiel Agency has selected FN’s 7.62x51mm Minimi Mk3 to replace the KSP-58 (and other FN MAG variants) and MG3s currently in service. The same announcement stated that a new order for Carl Gustaf recoilless rifle ammunition had been made.

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves visits with Miroslav, Sellier & Bellot Ammunition armorer, and Tom, an IWI trainer, to discuss (and shoot!) the IWI Negev light/general purpose machine gun. The IWI Negev NG-5 (“Next Generation”) is a 5.56×45mm NATO light machine gun (“LMG”) developed by Israel Weapon Industries (IWI), formerly Israel Military Industries Ltd. (IMI). In 2012, IWI introduced the Negev NG-7 7.62×51mm NATO general-purpose machine gun. In this video, Tom of IWI gives James a rundown of the Negev NG-5 and NG-7, and James gets to shoot a Negev NG-7 belt-fed in the Czech Republic with Sellier & Bellot.

Photo Of The Day and we join the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit in Okinawa, Japan. We see U.S. Marine Corps Cpl. Damien Layton, left, and Cpl. Carlos Ambrosio, field artillery cannoneers with the 13th Marine Expeditionary Unit, sighting in an M240B machine gun while conducting a tactical recovery of aircraft and personnel mission.

In this writer’s opinion, one of the coolest firearms of SHOT Show 2023 was the XR338 rotary machine gun which was displayed at the Radical Firearms booth. This machine gun is designed by Kris Paulson and Matthew Steinhauser of DTV Tactical Innovations (Radical Firearms is their manufacturing partner). It is chambered in .338 Norma Magnum and at a minimal weight increase over the M134 Minigun, it is a huge force multiplier with about twice the effective range and much higher energy of the projectiles at any given distance.

In this episode of TFBTV, James Reeves visits the Radical Firearms booth to see the new caliber convertible XR338 minigun manufactured by DTV Arms. James speaks with Matt, one of DTV’s engineers, about this amazing and powerful system.

The Ohio Ordnance Works SHOT Show 2023 booth had a range of their civilian semi-auto weapons out on display including the HCAR. Alongside the HBAR was the Ohio Ordnance Works manufactured M240 fitted with one of their 240 Patrol-SLR Conversion Kit. The kit is something they have offered to the military and law enforcement for a number of years but recently, in November of last year, they made the kit available commercially to the M240-owning public.

One of the best parts of the SHOT Show is being able to get hands on with some really interesting firearms. This year was no different with Heckler & Koch, to my surprise, displaying their belt-fed machine guns: the MG4 and MG5. While I don’t think we’ll be seeing these on the commercial market any time soon, it was great to get to handle them in person.

Welcome back to another Friday Night Lights. Last week I posted about some hidden night vision related gems at SHOT Show 2023. TFB in the Dark returns with full auto M16s, night vision and other machine gun night vision shoots during SHOT Show. There were four night shoots last week including the TFB staff shoot. Let’s see what people played with in the dark.

Ahead of this year’s SHOT Show SIG Sauer held an independent range day at the Clark County Shooting Complex putting on some impressive defense capability demonstration and showcasing their current range of firearms, optics and accessories.

In this episode of TFBTV, JamesReeves is at the Sellier & Bellot testing lab in the Czech Republic to pit two of the best machine pistols of all time against each other: It’s the CZ-75 Full Auto versus the Glock 18. The CZ-75 came out in 1975, but the full auto version wasn’t released until the 1990s, meaning that they are very rare; there are only 2 in the Czech Republic. The CZ-75 Full Auto is a heavy 40 ounces with a 1,000 rounds per minute cyclical rate. The Glock 18 is the full auto version of the Glock 17. The Glock 18 is reliable, inexpensive, and has a lightning fast 1100 rounds per minute cyclical rate while being a very trim 22 ounces – faster and lighter than the CZ-75 Full Auto. So which one is better? The answer, today on TFBTV.

The must for any M240 owner looking to lighten the load the 240 Patrol-SLR Conversion Kit from Ohio Ordnance Works has what you need. Perhaps best known for their semi-auto M1918A2 BAR and the modernized HCAR, Ohio Ordnance Works also offer a semi-automatic Browning M2 and a semi-auto M240. The new 240 Patrol-SLR Conversion Kit has a shorter, lightened barrel with a lightweight bipod and a new railed forend for accessory mounting. The barrel has been shortened down to about 14 inches and an M240 converted with the kit will weigh in at around 22.3 lbs or 10.1 kg.  The kit has an MSRP of $2,650.

After seeing a considerable number of Colt Canada C7 rifles and C8 carbines being used in Ukraine, I decided to investigate their origins reaching out to various Ministries of Defense to enquire if they had provided the rifles. The Canadian Ministry of National Defence not only confirmed that they had provided various small arms but their spokesperson was also kind enough to confirm some of the types of small arms and light weapons which Canada has transferred to Ukraine since February. 

Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, we’ve seen a number of FN MAG variants appear in use with Ukrainian forces. By far the most common appears to be the US M240 series. However, in recent months we’ve also seen a number of Swedish KSP-58 machine guns appear in imagery from the field.

Geisslele Automatics won a contract to supply AR-15 rifles to Customs and Border Protection (CBP). This new contract includes both complete rifles and upper receiver groups. Let’s take a look at the specifics of this contract, and what it might mean for Geissele’s future civilian offerings.

The hungriest beast of them all on this blog is our Photo Of The Day. It consumes hundreds of images every month, and it has been doing so for over 8 years. Today we have one of the coolest pictures for a while, just look at that NSV machine gun hammering those 12.7×108 mm rounds. In Finland, it’s called the 12.7 ITKK 96. Task Force Red Cloud, headquartered by elements of CLB-6, has recently been deployed in Finland to support the Exercises SYD 2022 and Freezing Winds 2022.

Hello and welcome back to another edition of The Rimfire Report!  This ongoing series is about the rimfire firearm world and its many guns, ammunition types, and history! Last week we looked at the antique $5 Mossberg Brownie .22 caliber rimfire pistol. Despite advancements in handgun technology, many of you seemed to be interested in owning one of these pistols, even if it were a modern reproduction. However, most of you noted that the current pricing of original Brownie pistols, even heavily used ones, was far too expensive for all but the most hardcore collectors to consider paying for. This week we’re taking a look at another relatively obscure rimfire firearm with the Tippmann Arms 1919 belt-fed full-auto pistol. This year I was fortunate enough to be able to see one of these things in action at the first annual All American Machine Gun Shoot. Today we’ll take a closer look at the Tippmann Arms 1919 as observed at one of the most entertaining firearms events I’ve been to all year long.

Hello everyone and welcome to TFB Podcast Roundup 61! We’ve got a great lineup of gun-podcast content for you guys this week and I just want to take a moment to remind all of you of an upcoming event in the South Eastern part of the United States that I think most of you would be willing to drive out a couple of hours for. What we’re talking about is the All American Machine Gun Shoot being hosted at The Sawmill Complex in Laurens South Carolina. A lot of you will remember that we recently lost one of the largest machine gun shoots in the United States and thankfully some good friends of mine decided to take up the mantle and fill the void that was left there. The All American Machine Gun Shoot will take place between October 14th and 15th and tickets are only $20 ($30 for two-day admission and $5 for children 12 & under) and can be purchased on-site at the gate. If you’re interested in going, you can expect a great show and the opportunity to handle and shoot a lot of cool guns. For more details on the machine gun shoot, you can check out the TFB Behind The Gun Podcast episode where we interviewed Anonymous Bob and his daughter RapidFire Rachel who are responsible for getting this ode to full-auto up and running! Enjoy this week’s selection of podcasts and we’ll hopefully see you at the Machine Gun Shoot!

In  Part 1, we looked at some of the Azerbaijani-made small arms showcased at the ADEX 2022 exhibition in Baku. In Part 2, we’ll look at more unique and lesser known products of the Azerbaijan defense industry – large caliber sniper rifles and machine guns.

The ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia brought a lot of attention to the military-industrial complex of Azerbaijan. And while many of their heavy weapon systems were procured abroad, when it comes to small arms, Azerbaijan demonstrates a surprising abundance of domestically produced firearms, which were demonstrated at the ADEX 2022 defense exhibition in Baku. That is especially interesting considering the fact that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan did not inherit any significant firearms manufacturing capability and their entire military industry was built from the ground up in the last 30 years.

It’s time for another Photo Of The Day, and we can’t express enough gratitude to soldiers and photographers who capture moments like this when the shooting range is lit up by the muzzle blast from rarely seen firearms. In this case, we have the Heckler & Koch G36C in the hands of U.S. Marines and Swedish Marines at the Berga Naval Base, Sweden. And as you notice, that’s not the only H&K in these images.

Norway’s Armed Forces have been using the FN Minimi Light Machine Gun (in 5,56×45 NATO) since the late 80s. Recently they awarded FN Herstal another contract to supply up to 4,000 FN Minimi 7.62 Mk3 Light Machine Guns, a movement up in caliber as you can see. In this Photo Of The Day, we see the Telemark Battalion conducting a live-fire exercise with various firearms of the Norwegian Army.

On 3 July, the ranges at Bisley, the UK’s historic home of shooting, hosted a very special shoot. Vickers Machine Guns fired 16,000 rounds of ammunition with a crowd of nearly 1,000 people gathered to watch. It had been 20 years since the last time this many Vickers Guns had fired together. The event was held to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the disbandment of the Machine Gun Corps – the British Army’s corps of expert machine gunners formed in 1916 which disbanded in July 1922.

This past July 4th my friend Victor got access to a collection of guns. My friend Kythe and I tagged along to check them out and shoot them of course. I was more interested in filming some machine guns in slow motion so we selected a few guns to shoot and film. We decided to focus on slo-mo WWII machine guns and a Luger pistol. I figured filming the toggle action on the Luger in slow motion would be fun.

Photo Of The Day: The M249 Light Machine Gun is made in the United States by FN Manufacturing LLC in Columbia, South Carolina. Here we can see it in action in the exercise Cold Response, spitting out those 5.56mm bullets at a high rate of fire.

Machine guns make just about every red-blooded American happy. However, access and opportunities to this type of equipment are something that is often difficult to attain for most of us. Local gun ranges often have full-auto rentals for the occasional blast of fun but events like the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot allowed people to not only watch many of their favorite machine guns in action but also join in on the show by taking part themselves in the firing line. Sadly, last year’s Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot was the last one to ever take place. However, today I bring you all a little bit of hope. Today on the show I have with me Rapid Fire Rachel and her father Anonymous Bob. The two of them together are gearing up for what should be an event that will scratch your machine gun shoot itch. Today on the TFB Podcast we talk about this, as well as a bit about both Bob and Rachel and what they love most about shooting and firearms.

A Ukrainian company, the Kharkiv Plant of Individual Means of Protection (HZISZ), which operates under a number of trade names including RAROG, have developed disintegrating plastic machine gun links for various Soviet/Russian-pattern 7.62x54mmR chambered belt-fed machine guns. The ‘KS-122 Machine Gun Tape’ can be used in PK, PKM, and PKT pattern guns as well as the older Goryunov-pattern machine guns, the SG-43 and SGM.