In today’s Photo of the Day, we get a look at one of the Royal Navy’s .50 caliber FN M3M door guns in action. The photos were shared by 820 Naval Air Squadron, which is currently assigned to Britain’s new aircraft carriers – HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales.

It has been 11 months since the US Army awarded three OTA contracts as part of its Next Generation Squad Weapon program. Despite the uncertainty around the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic, the program remains on track and set to begin its next major phase. TFB had the pleasure of speaking with Lt. Col. Jason Bohannon, Product Manager – Next Generation Weapons, and Matthew Walker, Capabilities Developer, Soldier Lethality Cross Functional Team at U.S. Army Futures Command, to discuss the program, the weapons and the challenges ahead.

Hello and welcome back to  The Rimfire Report! In this weekly series, we discover, discuss, review, and research the various firearms, ammunition, and history of the rimfire firearm world. Today we’re taking a look at the Mexican made Trejo Model 1 Machine Pistol. This rimfire machine pistol is widely known as the world’s smallest full-auto rimfire firearm. So why was it made and what are some of its features? Let’s find out what the “Tipo-Ráfaga” was all about.

Belgium’s own Fabrique Nationale Herstal, known as FN Herstal or simply FN for short, has produced some phenomenal and highly successful guns over its 131 year history. From their contributions in the handgun market with pistols like the Hi-Power and Five-Seven, to rifles like the P90 and SCAR series – and many more – FN has made some memorable guns.

With India’s armed forces still awaiting a new service rifle, it seems that Indian Special Forces are forging on ahead. Indian media outlets have reported that India’s Para (Special Forces) unit have selected the 7.62x51mm FN SCAR-H along with a number of other weapons.

Baret Fawbush of the popular Instagram account TRUEXODUS recently held a public range day in his background shooting gallery just outside the Southern Indiana town of Poseyville. Admission was free as long as folks signed a COVID-19 release form. This wasn’t the first shoot that Baret had hosted behind the church that he is currently serving as a paster and hopefully it won’t be the last because everyone who came out had a safe and fun day shooting many of the interesting firearms that Baret brought out (essentially his entire collection), or personal firearms that were welcomed at the shooting tables under the watchful eye of the RSOs.

Today’s photo of the day comes from General Dynamics-OTS who are current contenders in the US Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapon program. The photo was shared on General Dynamics Ordnance  & Tactical Systems twitter page earlier this year. It features their NGSW – Automatic Rifle prototype with engineers from Williston, Vermont, talking operators over the new weapon during the filming of GD-OTS’ impressive marketing video for their NGSWs. We’ve looked at GD-OTS’ RM277 in more detail here.

The US Army is forging ahead with the evaluation of the prototype Next Generation Squad Weapon rifles and automatic rifles and it has been confirmed that U.S. Special Operations Command is both involved in the program and watching its developments closely.

Chipotle Publishing has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the publishing of a book on the iconic Vickers Machine Gun. The new book The Vickers Machine Gun: Pride of the Emma Gees is an in-depth history of the British Vickers medium machine gun used by Britain and the Commonwealth nations during World War One, World War Two and beyond. The book, described as a must-have, updates Dolf Goldsmith’s earlier Collector Grade book The Grand Old Lady of No Man’s Land – which is widely appreciated as the best book available on the Vickers.

With the US Army’s Next Generation Squad Weapons program pushing ahead, despite the ongoing Coronavirus Pandemic, the three companies involved have shipped their prototype weapons. SIG Sauer commemorated the dispatch of their NGSW-Rifles and NGSW-Automatic Rifles with a team photo and a new video highlighting the weapon systems’ features.

The US Marine Corps has recently undergone a top down doctrinal reevaluation of its future role. As part of these changes in the make up of the Corps have been planned and now a brand new initiative has also been launched – Marine Corps Systems Command’s Program Manager for Infantry Weapons has begun a large-scale modernisation program to increase the lethality of the Marine infantry squad.

Earlier this year the Canadian government confirmed it would be procuring a further 3,626 C6A1 FLEX General Purpose Machine Guns (GPMG) from Colt Canada. This large contract is worth CA$96.97 million and was awarded under the Canadian government’s Munitions Supply Program.

SureFire announced the formal launch of their new  SF3P-50BMG flash hider today. This flash hider is explicitly designed for use with M2 .50 caliber machine guns. In addition, there are two versions now available, one for the military and one for the commercial market.

Welcome to another installment of Underground Arms Watch series where we take a look at criminally made and modified firearms seized throughout the world.

Time for Photo Of The Day here at TFB.

Welcome to TFB’s own Photo Of The Day. As the name says, this page is dedicated to rare and unique pictures which are updated daily.

Almost a year ago TFB reported that the Indian Army was on a tour to source 16,400 Light Machine Guns. The tour included visits to three (to our knowledge) firearms manufacturers, including  Arsenal in Bulgaria and S&T Motiv in South Korea. The winner has now been announced and the first price goes to Israel Weapon Industries (IWI), in a $118 million deal for 16,479 NEGEV NG7 7.62mm Light Machine Guns (LMG).

The second most famous creation of Michail Kalashnikov, general-purpose Kalashnikov machine gun, had a multitude of names over the last 50 years: PK, PKM, M84 in former Yugoslavia, Konekivaari KK PKM in Finland. In some southern regions of Russia, where shooting at weddings is a mandatory part of the celebration, PKM is semi-officially called “the Handsome One”. New versions of this weapon still emerge all around the world, and several years ago Arsenal Bulgaria presented its own version called  MG-M2.

As the sun began to set in the southern Nevada desert, Industry Day at the Range came to a close. The targets were taken down, the firearms stowed and the products started making their way to the SHOT Show floor. Most would call it in, go grab a bite to eat and maybe hit the casino floor after a long day of walking, talking and shooting but the TFB writers. For us, as the sun was setting on Industry Day at the Range, the TFB “Do it In the Dark” machine gun shoot was just about to begin.

The Expeditionary Warfare section at Naval Surface Warfare Center Crane Division, who deal with weapons procurement for the US Special Operations Command, have published a Combined Synopsis/Solicitation seeking a Crew Served Weapons Optic or CSWO for various machine guns currently in use.

The US Army is in the market for more 7.62x51mm M134 ‘Miniguns’. A Request for Information (or RFI) was posted on the US Government’s new SAM procurement website on 30th January, 2020. The sources sought notice covers not just the M134 weapon system but also the necessary tools, parts and accessories to keep the guns in action. The ‘market survey’ is seeking “to identify sources/vendors capable of supplying M134” and its accessories.

The Ultimax Mark VIII has been out for several years now but this is the first time that the light machine gun has been out on Range Day at SHOT Show, allowing the public to get some hands-on with the light machine gun. Developed in the 1980s by Jim Sullivan, the Ultimax is perhaps most famous for its extremely controllable rate of fire (sometimes balancing the buttstock on a shooter’s nose or chin). Despite decades since its inception, the light machine gun still hasn’t seen widespread adoption throughout militaries throughout the world. The Mark VIII attempts to change that by showing the U.S. market what ST Engineering (ST Kinetics, formerly Chartered Industries of Singapore, CIS) still has to offer.

Chiappa Firearms of Italy added several new rifles and pistol to their line up this year. Available on the US market this year will be their new CBR-9 (Chiappa Black Rhino 9)Pistol, a new 22 Long Rifle folding survival type rifle and several offerings of side-gate lever-action rifles. Of particular interest was the CBR-9 Collapsing Brace Pistol which was revealed last year and is rumored to have full-auto variants in the European market for law enforcement and military applications.

Out on the FN booth, on a pedestal all of its own, was the new FN Mk48 Mod. 2 6.5CM light machine gun, chambered in 6.5 Creedmoor, it was a response to a US Special Operations Command tender for a version of the 7.62×51 Mk48, a larger calibre variant of FN’s Minimi (or the M249 normally chambered in 5.56×45).

SIG SAUER showcased a massive new lineup at SHOT Show 2020.  On display were both military and civilian variants of SIG’s ever-growing lineup of firearms and accessories.  Of all the firearms on display, here’s what’s new to the SIG lineup.

We had the pleasure of attending SIG Sauer’s SHOT Show pre-range day, and check out some of their recent new offerings ranging from the P365 SAS all the way up to the MG 338. There’s something for everyone at the range day and we certainly enjoyed working our way along the firing line. Let’s take a look at some of the products SIG brought out.

MAC, LLC, the Mississippi-based lightweight polymer tech specialists, have won a $10 million indefinite delivery-indefinite quantity contract to provide the US Marine Corps with uptp 2.4 million rounds of hybrid polymer/brass-cased .50 calibre ammunition. The contract will allow the USMC to evaluate the new ammunition in user trials

SIG Sauer have announced that their light weight medium machine gun, the MG 338, has been purchased by US Special Operations Command (US SOCOM). The guns weigh under 20lbs and are chambered in .338 Norma Magnum giving the gun an effective range out to 2000 metres. The gun uses a short-stroke gas piston system and SIG Sauer’s proprietary recoil mitigation system, it can also be re-chambered to 7.62x51mm.

Geissele Automatics have announced the acquisition of the technical data packages and intellectual property for the 240LW and 240LWS lightweight general purpose machine guns developed by Barrett Firearms Mfg. Geissele announced the news on their social media earlier today, saying they look forward to “adding our forged long life barrels and Nanoweapon coating to provide the U.S. warfighter and our allies a machine gun for the 21st century.”

At the beginning of January Ruotuvaki, Finland’s armed forces magazine  published a story about Hannes Tuovinen, a veteran of the Continuation War, who was reunited with the Finish Maxim M/32-33 after 76 years. As an 18 year old Tuovinen had been trained to use the Maxim M/32-33 and fought during the Continuation War – a conflict separate from but fought concurrently to World War Two by Finland and Nazi Germany, as co-belligerents, against the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1944. The Continuation War began just over a year after the end of the 1940 Winter War.