POTD: Ballester-Molina – Argentina’s Colt Copy for WWII

Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have an Argentine Hafdasa Ballester-Molina semi-automatic pistol manufactured 1938-1953. This is Argentina’s licensed copy of the Colt 1911 design chambered in .45 ACP (marked as 11.25mm). Hafdasa (Hispano-Argentina Fábrica de Automóviles S...

By Sam.S

Mikoyan MiG-29: The Reactive Fulcrum?

Military aircraft design of the Cold War era could be described as akin to physics, or, more specifically, to Newton’s Third Law of motion, which states, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” From lessons learned in the Vietnam War, the United States Air Force determi...

By Peter Suciu

The Viral “Scooby Doo Gun”. Let’s Talk About It.

At SHOT Show 2026 I was at the Gideon Optics booth, and a custom “Scooby Doo Gun” 1911 caught my eye. Not because of performance. Not because of innovation. Because…

By Mitch Goerdt

The Polish Westernization of the PKM - The UKM-2000P/UKM-2020S

Poland’s love for the PK series of machine guns cannot be overstated. It continues to serve today, even after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact nations and the USSR, with Western modernizations that may preserve the core reliability that made the original famous. It began when the PK entered ...

By Lynndon Schooler

Cold War Shadows: The VSS Vintorez and AS Val Silent Weapons

The VSS Vintorez emerged during the late Cold War as part of a highly specialized Soviet effort to develop a quiet, compact rifle capable of delivering accurate fire without revealing the shooter’s position. Designed in the 1980s at the Central Research Institute of Precision Engineering (T...

By Lynndon Schooler

Paradox of the German Tiger II Tank

The Tiger II tank, officially designated as Panzerkampfwagen Tiger Ausf. B and introduced in 1944, was Germany’s most advanced heavy tank of World War II. Known as the Königstiger (King Tiger) by the Germans and often referred to as the Royal Tiger by Allied forces, it was designed to dominate...

By Eugene Nielsen

POTD: Thompson .30-06 Autorifle Prototype – The Only One Ever Made

Welcome to today’s Photo of the Day! Here we have the only known example of an experimental Thompson .30-06 selective fire auto-rifle, documented in “Thompson: The American Legend” by Tracie Hill. Built in December 1943, this one-off prototype demonstrates how the Thompson submach...

By Sam.S

Best M193 Ammo

Discover the best M193 ammo for your AR-15 in 2025. We compare top brands including Federal XM193, PMC X-TAC, Hornady Frontier, Winchester, and Magtech for range, stockpiling, and home defense use.

Arado Ar 234 Blitz: Germany’s Jet-Powered Bomber

Despite around-the-clock bombing by British and American heavy bombers, the Germans during World War II produced an ever-increasing volume of advanced military materiel right up until the end of the war. Even though they had terribly limited resources and were being squeezed on all sides, they st...

By Will Dabbs, MD
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