The Danish military has literally doubled down on an order of new 5.56 NATO chambered Colt Modular Rail Rifles in an effort to rebuild its army.
The Danish Ministry of Defense Materiel and Procurement Board (Forsvarsministeriets Materiel- og Indkøbsstyrelse, FMI) last week made a two-point announcement.
First, it had received the first shipments of new Colt Canada C8 MRR Carbines, type qualified as the Gevaer M/25 in Danish service. These guns, ordered last August, were to be in two variants separated by colorways, with half being all-black and the other half being a sort of coyote brown/dark FDE, with the full order delivered by the end of 2026.
The first of 26,000 ordered Colt C8s arrived in Denmark this month. (Photos: Danish FMI)
The Colt Canada C8 MRR uses a monolithic upper receiver with a lot of slots for M-LOK accessory rails, and it looks like the 15.7-inch model was delivered. These will use Elcan Specter 4x optics. (Photo: Danish FMI)
They use free-floating, cold-hammer-forged chrome-lined barrels in lengths of 11.6, 14.5, 15.7, or 18.6 inches. The C8 MRR is also offered in .300 BLK and 7.62 NATO, although the Danes are just using the 5.56 variants. (Photo: Colt Canada).
The second part is that they want to double the order.
“As part of this contract, there was an option to purchase an additional number of rifles, and this option has now been used by the IMF,” said the agency in a statement. “This means that through 2026 and 2027 in total, over 50,000 new rifles will be delivered to the Armed Forces (Forsvaret) and Home Guards (Hjemmeaernet).”
The new guns will replace the old M/95 and M/96 series carbines, which are Canadian-made Diemaco C8 and C7s, which are effectively clones of the Colt M4 and M16A2, respectively, and were delivered in the late 1990s. The country also fields the M/10, which is more equivalent to the M4A1, and was also made by Colt Canada. All three series of rifles were used by Danish forces in Afghanistan, a country to which they deployed a total of 18,000 troops from 2002 to 2021.
Denmark, a NATO ally, is not only trying to beef up its military forces in Europe with the ongoing tensions with Russia, but is also expanding its defensive capabilities in Greenland. This year, the country stationed the first combat units on the somewhat disputed Arctic island – detachments of the Jutland Dragoons and the newly formed Jaeger Corps Arctic Specialists (Jaegerkorpset Arktiske-Specialister) – at Nuuk and Kangerlussuaq, as part of the ongoing Operation Arctic Endurance.
Previously, only a small surveillance unit armed with bolt-action M1917 .30-06 rifles and 10mm Glock pistols was stationed in Greenland full-time.
Perhaps the new guns will be ordered in a white and green colorway.
The new guns getting some use this week at Flyvestation Karup:
With unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, a hot topic both in consumer use and on the battlefield, it should come as no surprise that they were increasingly on hand at the recent SHOT Show.
Both Colt and SIG had (well) armed drones overhead while other companies offered kinetic counter-drone options.
Colt
The Colt-CZ Group is the current owner of the Mk47 Striker, a belt-fed 40mm Automatic Grenade Launcher, or AGL, which had been developed by General Dynamics-Armament and Technical Products back in the early 2000s. They made sure to bring it to SHOT Show in a couple of formats.
The Mk47 itself is pretty cool, weighing just 40 pounds without its mount and shield, and has been in limited service with USSOCOM, the Australians, and the Israelis. (Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Colt not only had the Mk47 displayed on a ground mount but also held aloft, mounted to a Survice Engineering TR150e quad copter.
Now that’s something you don’t expect to see at Colt…
Of note, according to Naval Air Systems Command, the battery-powered TR 150 has been used by the Marines in a logistics role for the past couple of years, able to carry a cargo payload up to 120 pounds to a combat radius of 5.5 miles at a cruise speed of 50 knots autonomously.
As the 40x53mm High Velocity grenade used by the Mk47 weighs about a pound, that would allow a TR 150 to carry the launcher and probably about 40-50 rounds when you add the weight of the mount, belt, and ammo box to the equation. Now, when you think that you could run a whole squadron of these drones from a hut in the jungle with a generator and a satellite link, you get the idea.
SIG
New Hampshire-based SIG has been in the drone space for a bit, having acquired an experienced remote weapons company in 2023 and showing off a small Lumenier UAV carrying a P365 pistol in the past. SIG came to SHOT this year with a host of new guns, but also had an IAI Fire Storm 250 quadcopter suspended over their booth.
What makes the FS 250 so groovy is the fact that it is designed to carry a belly-mounted SIG M250 light machine gun with about 200 rounds or so of 6.8×51 or 7.62 NATO.
SIG tells us they have been testing the FS 250 concept, which takes an APUS-60 UAV and marries it to a remote-control SIG LMG for the past year or so, and it works. ce caption here
B&T Hard Kill
We always make sure to check out B&T at SHOT because they are awesome, and one of the more interesting things we came across at their booth was the Hard Kill system, developed in tandem with Blue Aether as a U.S. Air Force project.
The small-form Hard Kill is designed to use AI to actively track drones and shoot them down, akin to a sort of mini-Phalanx CIWS or Centurion C-RAM. When I say “mini,” think of the size of a suitcase roller bag.
Freedom Munitions (Anti) Drone Round
Drone Round, just as it sounds, is ammo for swatting down drones. Shotguns are typically most effective on drones, but that requires carrying a shotgun (Benelli even sells specific counter-UAS models) wherever you may encounter hostile drones. Shotguns tend to kick, have limited capacities, and don’t reach as far as an AR or other battle rifle, so Freedom Munitions came up with a solution.
Drone Round works with any rifle and suppressor without modification. Tests show no extra wear compared to standard rounds. The ammunition gives about a 30-inch spread at 100 meters and comes in K and L variants for different ranges.
You can bet that drones and how they fit into the firearms industry and the right to keep and bear arms are something that is only going to gain more traction. Think of it like how folks talked about suppressors in 2010.
With a story that runs nearly the entire length of the 20th Century, the iconic top-break British Webley in .455 Caliber Eley is a beast.
My personal interest in the Webley, specifically the bonkers-large Mark VI, which entered service with a 6-inch barrel standard, dates to watching old war movies and TV shows as a kid in the 1970s and 80s, and there were plenty to choose from.
According to IMFDB, they appeared in the hands of Gary Cooper, Peter Lorre, Peter O’ Toole (several times, including “Lawrence of Arabia”), Clark Gable, Richard Burton, Gregory Peck, Bob Hoskins (anachronistically in “Zulu Dawn” of all things!), Burt Lancaster, James Keach, Edward Woodward, Michael Crawford, Christopher Lee, and so on.
It was just a commanding piece.
I mean, look at it:
The Mark VI Webley .455 (All photos unless noted: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
The Mark VI runs almost a foot long, taping out at 11.25 inches. It weighs 2.5 pounds, unloaded.
Plus, the beautiful rimmed .455 rounds are short and almost comically fat. Stout like a British bulldog. A sumo wrestler compared to the more puny contemporaries such as the 8mm French used in that country’s M1892 revolver, the Russian 7.65×38 used in the Tsarist-era Nagant, and the rimmed 9mm round used by the Japanese Type 26 revolver (the latter of which only generated a velocity of about 500 fps!).
The .455 Webley (right), in this case a 262-grain lead round-nosed Mk.II bullet, compared to a 230-grain .45 ACP FMJ, a bullet familiar to readers this side of the pond. The .455 was introduced in 1891, whereas Browning’s .45 ACP dated to about two decades later.
When loaded with .455, the unmodified Webley Mark VI has a decent cylinder lock-up with minimal gap.
I recall reading a book on guerrilla warfare weapons, published in 1990, that noted the Webley was still often encountered in the hands of insurgents as flotsam from the old British colonial empire and was “a prestigious man stopper.”
Only it wasn’t really.
Sure, any time you get hit by a 218-265 grain bullet, it is going to smart, but, seeing as the projectile typically only traveled at about 600 to 750 fps, the energy imparted on impact was only in the 220-300 ft./lb. range, which is about on average to what you get out of .38 Special (and that’s not even +P loads, either). This was compounded by at least five different generations of service bullets and loads for the .455, all attempting to make it more effective, though they never came close to modern self-defense designs.
But, when used at bad-breath range against the Kaiser’s skinny Landsers on the Western Front in 1915, or poorly clad indigenous warriors and bandits in far-off lands who are probably already fighting parasites and poor diets, it likely worked just fine.
Still, the large 2.5-pound square-butt revolver could prove a useful club when needed.
Fairburn and Sykes, who knew a thing or ten about the Webley in service, had the following passage in their 1942 “Shooting to Live” Commando primer in the chapter on “Stopping Power.”
We shall choose for our first instance one relating to the big lead bullet driven at a moderate velocity. On this occasion, a Sikh constable fired six shots with his .455 Webley at an armed criminal of whom he was in pursuit, registering five hits. The criminal continued to run, and so did the Sikh, the latter clinching the matter finally by battering in the back of the criminal’s head with the butt of his revolver. Subsequent investigations showed that one bullet only, and that barely deformed, remained in the body, the other four having passed clean through.
“Stopping Power!” as debated in 1942.
A closer look at the gun
The Webley top-break revolver itself dates to the company’s original Mark I service revolver, which was adopted by the British military in 1887, starting around £3 each, and a host of generational changes until the wheel gun seen in this piece, the Mark VI, arrived on the scene in May 1915.
A top-break six-shooter, it replaced the shorter Mark V, which had a rounded bird’s head style grip, with a much larger gun using a squared butt, 6-inch barrel, and a somewhat adjustable front sight. Best yet for His Majesty’s bean counters, the wartime finish Mark VI only cost some 51 shillings per gun, or about £2.5.
More gun for less money has always been popular.
The Webley Mark VI was the end-result of nearly 30-years of Webley top-break revolvers and shared much DNA with its predecessors.
It is akin in size to the big 5.5-inch barreled S&W DA 45, which was adopted as the M1917 by the U.S. military about the same time the Webley Mark VI entered service. The DA 45 was one of Smith’s first N-frames.
The double-action/single-action Webley Mark VI has a stout double-action trigger pull (we couldn’t gauge it; it kept maxing out), cutting to a truly short and crisp 8-pound single-action pull that is all-wall.
The hammer is very old-school. No transfer bar safety here.
The large lever, under the hammer and over the rear sight, frees up the top strap of the revolver.
The star extractor positively ejects all spent brass and live rounds when the action is opened.
Approximately 280,000 Mark VI Service models were produced during the war, starting around serial number 135,000. Our example, featured in this article, is serial number 245,288, bearing a 1917 Webley roll mark on the frame, along with corresponding Birmingham proof marks and British military broad arrow and GR acceptance marks. These weapons were not only issued to officers and sergeants but also to artillery, machine gun, and tank crews. They saw further hard use in trench raids and tunnel warfare under said trenches.
Better-grade models of the same gun, based on the old W&S Target, but with a higher fit and finish, were available for personal purchase through the Army & Navy Co-operative store. Many gentlemen officers chose to acquire their Webley in such a fashion, while others simply went with the issued revolver. Aftermarket accessories included the early Prideaux and Watson pattern speed loaders, and the Greener-produced Pritchett bayonet, although none were made in quantity.
The large lanyard ring on the bottom of the butt came in handy not only in the trenches but in mounted service. You didn’t want your Webley to bounce out of the holster while on the trot.
Second Lieutenant JRR Tolkien, the future author of “The Hobbit” and “The Lord of the Rings,” shipped off for France a year after graduating from Oxford. As a young officer with the 11th Battalion, Lancashire Fusiliers, in June 1916, he saw service at the grueling military charnel house that was the Battle of the Somme, where some 57,000 casualties were suffered in the first day alone– making it the bloodiest day in British military history. Both at the Somme and a later trench raid near Thiepval, Tolkien had with him an early first-year Mark VI Service, serial number 169,710. It is now in the Imperial War Museum, complete with its lanyard.
The Mark VI also saw service in the sky and on the sea.
A British Royal Flying Corps field armory in France, circa 1918. Note the assorted Webley Mark VIs for use by pilots and observers who were frequently left walking back across No Man’s Land after their flying machines were shot down or broke down.
The Webley also saw service afloat with the Royal Navy for use in boarding parties and landing parties ashore. (Photos: Imperial War Museum)
As the RN saw extensive service against pirates, smugglers, revolutionaries, and bandits in the 1920s and 30s, you can bet the old Webley was there on the sharp end of things. Some think that the coup de grace delivered to Rasputin in December 1916 came from Oswald Rayner, a British MI6 agent in Petrograd, who used a Webley, possibly obtained from the small arms locker of a British submarine working with the Russian fleet in the Baltic.
The Webley Mark VI was officially augmented and then replaced in service with the remarkably similar but .38 caliber Enfield No. 2 in 1932 (left). Before that, the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield Lock built around 30,000 Webley Mark VI pattern revolvers between 1921 and 1926.
While officially replaced, the big .455 Webley remained in secondary service and was even preferred by many as their go-to sidearm.
By the 1930s, the leather Sam Browne style holsters had been replaced by simpler canvas holsters, typically worn butt-forward.
The old Webley saw extensive service in World War II, as well as in Korea, and anecdotally with Australian troops in Vietnam, and Rhodesian and South African troops in the Bush Wars of the 1970s.
Further, the Webley was seen with “Dad’s Army” in the Home Guard, an initially almost unarmed force that peaked at some 1.7 million volunteers ready to take on Mr. Hitler should he send his legions across the Channel. As the Home Guard often used long-retired Great War-era officers in senior positions, they brought their personally owned Army & Navy store pedigree Mark VIs back to service with them. In early units, they were often the only firearms available, save for some fowling pieces.
Ultimately, the Browning Hi-Power L9A1 would replace all top-break revolvers in British service starting in 1954.
An Irish tale
The Webley Mark VI entered Irish service in several ways, both via IRA-looted police, British Army, and auxiliary barracks during the 1919 to 1921 Irish War of Independence, and as guns handed over to the new Provisional pro-treaty government in 1922 and subsequently used against the anti-treaty IRA during the follow-on Irish Civil War. The Oglaigh na hÉireann (IRA) circulated printed training memos on the Mark VIas early as November 1921.
The new Irish Free State government received at least 7,000 Webley Mark VIs in 1922, which were used extensively to fight the IRA, who were often armed with Mark VIs themselves.
Our specimen has had its serial number on its barrel assembly and frame aggressively crossed out and replaced with a simple “N.125,” which, per Webley experts Chamberlain and Taylerson, is common for Webleys taken up by Irish forces in the 1920s.
A circa 1917 Mark VI was recovered from the late General Michael Collins after he was killed in an anti-Treaty ambush in West Cork in 1922. The same year, another circa 1917 Mark VI was used in the assassination of anti-Irish British Field-Marshal Sir Henry Wilson in London.
Second-hand Shaved Webleys
With the adoption of the Browning Hi-Power in British —and later Commonwealth —service in the 1950s, the final stocks of Webley Mark VIs began to move into the commercial market.
Surplus Irish guns met a similar fate when Sam Cummings of Alexandria, Virginia-based Interarmco (Interarms) made a sweet deal with the Dublin government in 1959 for almost all of the old Republic’s unneeded hardware at scrap-per-ton cash-and-carry prices including a couple hundred Model 1921 Thompsons, 801 Lewis guns, 9 water-cooled Vickers machine guns, 17 Mark I and Mark II 18-pounder field guns, 22 4.5-inch howitzers, four 3-inch anti-artillery guns, 51 Browning aircraft machine guns, pallets of Enfield .303 rifles, and crates of Webley revolvers.
The Webleys were soon sold off through mail order outlets, Hunters’ Lodge, Potomac Arms, and others, for the bargain basement price of $14.50 in NRA Good condition and $19.95 in NRA Very Good Condition with .455 milsurp rounds at a pricy $1.50 per 24 (two, 12-round paper packets). Adjusted for inflation, that’s $165-$225 per revolver, and $17 for 24 rounds of ammo.
Eventually, the stock of Webleys outlasted the stock of surplus .455 and British ammo makers such as Kynoch and Eley trimmed back on production of new cartridges, further driving up the price of the increasingly hard-to-find rounds. To sate the demand, distributors by the 1960s hit on the concept of shaving the rear of the Webley’s six-shot cylinder to allow the rimless .45 ACP round to work* in a pinch, if used in company with half-moon clips as used with the old M1917 DA .45 revolvers. The .45 Auto Rim, made for use with the M1917 sans clips, would work as well.
The .45 ACP shaved cylinder job needed half-moon three-round clips to work. A “full-moon” six-shot clip will sometimes work, depending on the clip.
Comparing a shaved Webley cylinder (left) and an intact .455 cylinder (right) with the old GR acceptance marks and proofs giving the latter away.
Note the difference in cylinder length, with the intact cylinder on top having more “beef” around the serial number, while the shaved .45 ACP cylinder on the bottom has less room around its serial.
The lever that secures the cylinder to the barrel assembly uses a coin-slotted screw designed to use the rim of a .303 cartridge or a “bob” (British shilling/5-pence coin). We found a 1976 Bicentennial quarter to work fine.
*A word of strong warning should be imparted when talking about using .45 ACP in a .455 Webley. It is inadvisable to run full-power commercial .45 ACP in any top-break revolver, including one of those beefy, seemingly indestructible Webley Mark VIs. Special low-power loads (under 13,200 psi vs the standard pressure of 21,000 psi seen in regular loads) are now on the market, made by Steinel specifically for use in shaved cylinder Mark VIs.
Speaking of ammo, Bannerman (Graf), Fiocchi, and Steinel all make new runs of .455 Eley/Webley loads as well, running about $60-$70 for a box of 50. Other than that, running this old revolver is more in the realm of handloaders who dig heavy bullets over small loads, but it is better than just having a “wall hanger.”
No matter what the backstory on this gun, it remains a “Cool Revolver.”
Beretta has been quietly bringing one of the coolest .22LR semi-auto pistols to the market for the past couple of years, and we can finally talk about it.
But first, a little background.
The Jaguar name goes back to 1958 when Beretta introduced a series of gently larger rimfire semi-automatic pistols to complement its pocket .22s like the Model 418 Panther and tip-up barrel Minx. Like today’s Jaguar, the Beretta that carried the name last century was primarily intended for use as a plinker and target pistol, although it went on to be used by covert kinda folks in covert kinda operations.
The original Beretta Jaguar series 70 pistols were introduced in 1958 and remained in production into the 1980s. They are old school cool, for sure. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Meet the new Jaguar B22
We first saw the pre-production Jaguar B22 at a Beretta range event in 2025, but were sworn to secrecy on it. Like the original, it was cool and sleek. However, where the old 71 was art deco and classic, the new Jag was a rimfire muscle car, dripping with factory standard go-fast accessories from Tandemkross and built to go fast and perform while doing it.
The pre-production Jag, spotted in January 2025. Almost ready to be let out of its cage and shown to the public.
Fast forward to SHOT ’26 last month and the Jag was back at Beretta’s range event– but this time soft-launched and ready to purr.
The new platform, designed for plinking, target shooting, and training the next generation, will be offered in a Tac Metal (MSRP $749) and a Metal Competition (MSRP $969) model, with sub-variants in standard (15-round magazines) and state-compliant (10-round) versions of each, at the same price.
Both are built atop an innovative new modular chassis system and an M_LOK barrel shroud with a detachable accessory rail, making the B22 easy to disassemble, clean, and customize. Featuring dual-side ejection with a fixed barrel, it is designed to be reliable and accurate. They are internal hammer-fired (SAO) and blowback action.
The Jaguar B22 Tac Metal runs a 5.25-inch barrel and is 8.85 inches overall. Weight is 33.6 ounces. Equipped with adjustable fiber-optic sights, an extended barrel, and a 1913 Picatinny rail, it is suppressor and optics-ready, as you can tell.
The Jaguar B22 Metal Competition has a 5.5-inch barrel, giving it an overall length of 9.8 inches and a weight of 36.4 ounces. It comes standard with all the features of the Tac Metal but also adds A Tandemkross fiber front fiber optic, Tandemkross Steam Demon single port compensator, Tandemkross Accelorator thumb ledge gas pedal, and an adjustable Tandemkross semi-flat faced trigger with pre- and post-travel adjustments. It looks fast just sitting on the table.
Beretta says the Jaguar B22 Metal Competition is the first .22LR pistol explicitly developed in partnership with the largest educational shooting program in the world for youth, the Scholastic Action Shooting Program (SASP), in a process that has taken four years.
More direct from Tandemkross and SASP on the background of the new generation of Jaguar:
We hope to have a review of these in the coming weeks.
With a backstory that sounds more avant-garde art show than iron and steel, the Eagle model of the Elysien pistol has flown across the Atlantic.
At the 2024 IWA Outdoor Classics show in Germany, the Guns.com crew sat down with inventor and gunmaker Jan Lysak, who spent almost a decade of blood, sweat, and tears crafting something a bit different. Lysak’s company, Brno-based Creapeiron, introduced its first product at IWA: the Elysien pistol.
While sitting down and drinking plum brandy with Lysak, he spoke about his gun in a way that seemed a cross between Werner Herzog and the Riddler (Gorshin, not Dano).
Lysak only had seven €10,000 ($10,850) chrome DLC Elysien Genesis “Ment for Gods” (not a misprint) models – all named after gods from Ancient Greek mythology – and 99 €5,000 plainer black DLC Elysien Soul models on the schedule, with only vague notions about sending guns to America– one day.
What made it across to the States, brought in by the Arizona-based CZ Custom Shop, is the new Eagle model of the Elysien, which looks more like the chrome DLC Ment for Gods model but with a serial number 1 to 50, as in one for each state.
Engineered for balance and control, the Elysien features a sleek, sculpted profile that reflects both elegance and authority. (Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
How about that bore axis? The Elysien uses a hammer-forged heavy barrel with a triangular profile inside a ported slide that allows a faster lockup.
Every contour is purpose-driven, delivering a natural grip, smooth handling, and confident ergonomics.
The Creapeiron Elysien Eagle Pistol is serial numbered 1 of 50.
Price? $11,999– and that is only until they sell out, which is likely as, first announced on Monday during SHOT Show, something like half were spoken for by Thursday.
Our SHOT Show 2026 visit with Zastava Arms includes the possible import of the legendary M84 PKM, surplus Yugoslav police pistols, and more.
Zastava M84 PKM
Introduced in 1984, the gun was heavily used in both the Yugoslav wars in the 1990s and globally. Zastava plans to import a semi-auto sporter version to the U.S. with ATF approval pending, while still maintaining its original aesthetics.
Known as “Ceca” after the famous (infamous?) Serbian singer, due to its distinctive sound, the M85 features a heavier, easily replaceable barrel than the Russian PKM. (Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Some 46 inches long, it weighs 19 pounds, and is chambered in 7.62x54R. Goofy GDC guy not included.
Some 400 of these, formerly issued to police units, have been imported and approved by ATF without the slide safety often seen in such guns, replaced instead with a trigger-mounted tabbed safety.
These have been factory refurbished with the original accessories and will be offered for around $400.
And retain the original Yugoslav crest.
M85 in .300 Blackout
We just love the ZPAP M85, a 5.56 NATO caliber Yugo pattern AK, in both its carbine and pistol variants, and have reviewed it in a few different flavors.
The big news from SHOT is that the M85 is coming in .300 BLK, including a gas system that has been tweaked to run better while suppressed.
Zastava is developing a 300 Blackout rifle on the ZPAP 85 platform that is billed as working well with the ZVUK suppressor.
More Surplus parts in more places
Zastava is importing AB2 and AB1 part kits and rifles, including trench art-marked M70s.
The guns that the company had on display were striking as battlefield relics and showed some of the interesting possibilities available to collectors.
The kits have seen a variety of hard use, sometimes including very authentic “battlefield pickup” finish and trench art.
Look at the ersatz optics rail on this one.
Other items on the schedule for 2026 are a 16-inch barreled ZPAP M90 variant, something customers have been asking for.
Alabama-based Kimber has made a big move to dominate the double-stack 1911 pistol space by offering the new DS Warrior series.
Debuting at SHOT Show in Las Vegas last week, the Kimber DS 1911 Warrior–borrowing from the company’s classic old Warrior line– is offered in not just 9mm but also .45 ACP, 10mm, and .38 Super chamberings.
Further, besides the standard 5-inch Government barrel format, they are also producing a 6-inch longslide hunter style Warrior in 10mm.
The standard format Warrior is optics-ready, uses an RMR optics footprint, and runs a 5-inch barrel. (Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com.)
The slides are tastefully blank, sans any huge rollmarks. (Thank you, Kimber)
The longslide is a beast, and will surely be a hit with backcountry folks and handgun hunters.
A conceptual design using custom Cerakote and a TLR-9, which looks small on the massive accessory rail of the 10mm longslide 1911 DS Warrior.
All models are optics-ready for RMR-pattern mounts under a TAG cover plate with a fixed rear sight. The pistols use Kimber’s internal 1911-style extractor, a bushing system barrel, mil-spec guide rod, and a match-grade trigger.
They use stainless Checkmate 2011-pattern mags with the 9mm and .38 Super variant shipping with a 17+1 flush and 20+1 extended, while the 10mm goes 11+1/13+1 and the .45 ACP 15+1/18+1
Best yet, they are made in Alabama– not imported– and have an MSRP that starts at $1,099 and tops out at $1,350 for the 6-inch 10mm model. That’s a good bit less than even the Springfield Prodigy and on par with Turkish-made guns without the baggage and QC issues.
Kimber also had the new compensated Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation DS 1911 Warrior on display, with a tasteful alpine motif. “Coming soon.”
As we have covered before, the current firearms works known and loved by collectors, hipsters, and savvy users alike dates to 1936 when its new factory was established to produce machine guns for the Czech Air Force. However, it became iconic in the West for its CZ 75 double-stack 9mm pistol.
We were fortunate enough to hold CZ 75 Serial Number 00001 when we visited the CZ factory in 2024, the gun that made the company a household name on this side of the pond.
Now, the new Legend repeats the same slab-sided Iron Curtain aesthetic while keeping the pistol’s internals and features modern, including a 16+1 round magazine, making it essentially a “post-B” gun in a “pre-B” body.
The new CZ Legend. Note the slab-sided frame and slide as well as the pebble-style grips. (Photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
The new Legend compared to SN 00001, which we saw in 2024 in the Czech Republic.
MSRP on the new CZ 75 Legend will be $1,399.
Bundeswehr Pistole 13
One of the big stories from late last year was that the German military (Bundeswehr) had selected the CZ P-10 pistol after it beat out a number of contenders to become the country’s new P13 sidearm.
Among the finalists bested were the Arex Delta and Glock G17 Gen5 for what could be an order of as many as 180,000 units. It will replace the HK-made P8A1, a version of the USP
CZ had the new P13 on hand at their booth last week.
In another shift from previous German service handguns, the new striker-fired P13 will arrive wearing an FDE finish instead of the traditional black.
CZ will work directly with its authorized German partner, POL-TEC GmbH & Co., to fulfill the order and provide the Bundeswehr with support for the new platform.
CZ 457 Target
CZ 457 rifles are known for their superb accuracy, but the new 457 Target, a fully adjustable, ISSF 3-Position competition-ready aluminum chassis co-developed with four-time American Olympic shooter Matt Emmons, raises that bar.
It includes a three-axis-adjustable pistol grip available in three different sizes, a side-tiltable buttstock with a five-axis-adjustable buttpad, along with a three-axis-adjustable, two-sided cheekpiece; and a forehand riser can be adjusted in three different axes. A 26-inch 12-groove .22 cold hammer-forged match barrel equipped with a diffuser is standard as is an adjustable 2-stage Flyweight trigger.
The MSRP for the CZ 457 Target rifle is expected to be around $3,600, which is still less than many European-made alternatives in the same class from folks like Anschutz and Walther.
I really dig AKs in 5.56, and they are seeing a lot more love these days, especially as 5.45 is growing harder and harder to get in quantity for cheap. I’ve been chasing this dream for well over a decade, going back to my original Century-imported Zastava-made, Krinkov-style M85NP pistol picked up in 2014 (serial number 81!), and even longer if you consider the Galil an AK.
My circa 2014 M85NP that accepts AR mags. It was long ago SBR’d– back when there was a tax for that. (Photos unless noted: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
While Century and Zastava long ago broke up, and the latter is running their own operations stateside now (albeit with on-again/off-again export issues) since 2019, the M85 is still around but without the option to run AR mags– which is what I love about my old M85 NP.
So why not run the new ZPAP M85– which has been extensively updated– for a bit and show how it stacks up.
My old M85NP SBR rifle from 2014 (top) with a more current ZPAP M85 pistol (bottom), the latter outfitted with a Midwest Industries M1913 brace and Vortex Crossfire dot.
Both are nice builds, as they have the same DNA, but I think I’m feeling the newer gun more.
For those interested in just running an M85 16-inch carbine in 5.56, Zastava makes those as well. (Photos: Zastava)
For full disclosure, Zastava provided this ZPAP M85 pistol for review purposes. All testing was done on this one gun, which has been under evaluation since December.
The Specs
Overall length (no brace): 19.3 inches Barrel length: 10.5-inch cold radial hammer forged, chrome lined threaded (26×1.5mm LH) Width: 2 inches across the forearm at the thickest, 1.5 across the receiver at the trunnion Height without magazine: 7.5 inches (no optics) Height with magazine inserted: 10.56 inches (no optics) Magazine capacity: 30 rounds 5.56 NATO; ships with one plastic Z-Mag Sights: Twin dual-aperture metal sights, 3.9-inch M1913 Picatinny top rail installed Sight radius: 13.5 inches Trigger pull: 6 pounds (10-pull average). Weight: 6.6 pounds, unloaded, sans optics Weight outfitted: 10.1 pounds with 30 rounds of 62-grain FMJ in loaded magazine, Vortex Crossfire red dot on a tall 1/3rd mount, Midwest Industries folding M1913 stabilizing brace, and Crimson Trace CMR-301 Rail Master Pro light/green laser.
Features
The basic ZPAP M85 we had in for testing is SKU ZP85556FDE (UPC: 685757098892), which is still a 5.56x45mm/.223 caliber semi-automatic pistol with a 10.5-inch cold hammer forged chrome-lined barrel.
As you may note, it is FDE Cerakote with a black quad forearm, safety lever, 1913 sections, angled foregrip, and muzzle device. The pistol grip is black plastic.
The dimpled receiver is 1.5mm stamped steel with a bulged RPK-style trunnion. Overbuilt, it’s as thick as an old shovel, and just as hard. tion here
Both M85s, old and new, use a hinged top cover, which is a snap for maintenance. The bolt carrier is hard nickel-moly (molybdenum) steel.
Our review model sports Zastava’s M85/92 M1913 Quad Rail in T6 6061 aluminum, which is anodized and has a matte black finish. It is 6 inches long, includes a removable UTG angled foregrip at the 6 o’clock position, and is great for cheese grating. Zastava sells these separatelyfor folks looking to upgrade their Yugo AK pistols.
The 3-inch-long removable Night Brake muzzle device weighs five ounces by itself and has a large, slanted port at the rear and a 3-prong design to help break up the flash as seen by the user. In practice, everyone else sees a ton of flash off this gun, no matter the time of day.
My other M85 has the more commonly seen Krinkov-style booster. The Night Brake is much more aggressive, in all senses of that word.
That oddball 26×1.5mm LH pitch is a bummer when it comes to utilizing suppressors if you don’t want to run a Zastava Vuk or Dead Air Wolverine, as it leaves you searching for something like a JMAC muzzle device (which are $100 ish) or some sort of funky thread converter that adds length and a bunch of tolerance stacking. It’s not impossible to run a can, just a bit of a pain.
The safety lever has a bolt hold-open notch. Speaking of holding that bolt, the Z-Mag sent with the M85 also holds open after the last round, something we did not experience on other mags.
It uses a Krinkov-style rear sight with two different apertures.
The front post sight is adjustable and also includes a flip-up aperture.
The 3-inch Pic rail atop the receiver cover is solid, and we mounted a Vortex Crossfire 2 MOA dot in FDE. Good for 50,000 hours on a single CR2032, it is only 2.5 inches long while offering 11 brightness settings (two night, nine day). Gas purged and O-ring sealed for fog-proof and waterproof performance in all conditions, the Crossfire is a tough little dot. We ran the higher mount, which enabled us to also use the irons in a pinch and see the dot via Nods.
Useable right out of the box (just add lube and bullets), the base M85 makes a good “ride along” that is very stowable for use around camp or in the field.
We decided to stretch the platform a bit with an FDE Midwest Industries M1913 side-folding stabilizing brace. Made from hard-coat anodized 6061 aluminum, it adds 9 inches to the length of the M85 when deployed (making the pistol some 31 inches long) and only 0.75 inches when folded. Weight is 14 ounces, so it adds some heft for sure, but makes the 5.56 pistol a lot easier to shoot at distance, and adds 5 QD sling attachments to the rear of the gun.
The ZPAP M85 with folded Midwest brace (not a stock) compared to the MP85NP SBR with a U.S. Machine Gun side-folding Galil style stock.
Even with the brace installed, the pistol easily fits inside a milsurp ($20) M60 spare barrel bag. Our old M85 (top) fits in a Russian paratrooper drop bag, but with the optic on our new one, we couldn’t make it work.
We also added an aluminum-bodied Crimson Trace CMR-301 Rail Master Pro light/green laser and switch to the rail, trying to fill the space.
The chunky CMR-301 just seemed to match the ZPAP’s concrete brutalist aesthetic.
Plus, with the option to run a 500 or 1,000-lumen light or green laser, or both, it provides hours of enjoyment for your cat.
Perhaps the strongest thing you can say is that the gun has a total Slav energy about it. At least if you die with a ZPAP M85, you went out looking cool.
Trigger
The double-hook Yugo-style trigger generally breaks at about 6.5 pounds, which isn’t terrible for an AK factory trigger.
Reliability
We ran the M85 on a ton of 5.56 rounds that we had around, pulling from over a dozen different loads. This leaned more toward bulk pack surplus ammo, primarily German 55-grain MEN loads. We only suffered two issues over the course of 1,000 rounds, one a misfire with a dimpled primer on some LC-stamped Winchester green tip, the other a FTE while running a box of old Tula green case.
Very short 10-inch 5.56 PDWs lose a lot of ballistic umpf, but with the right ammo choices, that can be mitigated. Rounds that are SBR-optimized and designed to tumble and expand at lower speeds, such as Barnes’ 70-grain TSX copper solids, Hornady’s Black-series 75-grain Interlock HD SBR, 77-grain Black Hills Mk262, et al., are widely available, though a bit expensive. Greentip ball is cheap and plentiful and is going to shoot through it, but if using the M85 in a “people with guns” gone wrong situation, it’s probably going to be good to have a few mags of really nice SBR-friendly self-defense rounds on tap.
The polymer ZPAP 30 magazine runs $25 and has a BHO (bolt hold open) and follower that are steel reinforced and run $25ish, while the ZPAP 5.56 steel mag, which gives strong Galil vibes, runs about $40.
On aftermarket rock-and-lock non-Zastava mags, we had an AC Unity 45 rounder that would not seat, but an AK19 style Gen 3 AC Unity 30 would and ran just fine. We also tried two $12 Bulgarian AK74-style fakelites and one worked while the other one didn’t, so that’s a 50/50 option in our experience.
The biggest problem we had was the fact that the gun was super stiff, with the magazine release in particular needing lots of actuation to smooth out.
Zastava-imported DRNCH lubricant was our friend during the T&E period. Direct from Belgrade.
Accuracy
The M85 is not a tack driver. I mean, you have a choice of a short sight radius and kinda funky irons when using fixed sights, or a dot mounted on a hinged top receiver cover. Add to this a 10.5 barrel, and you do not have a recipe for sub-MOA shooting. Still, the gun was very usable and able to achieve and maintain a 2–3-inch group at 50 yards while shooting off a barricade and utilizing the Midwest brace, roughly doubling that group at 100. When shooting offhand, standing, 25-yard A-zone groups are still overly simple, especially when using a dot. That is fun all day on a short range, with an obvious dual application in harvesting medium-sized game or controlling nuisance critters in brush, or in a close-in self-defense scenario.
Adding an LPVO and running it off a benchrest with match ammo could shrink that group, but why? Doing so misses the point of this one, Brate.
Pros & Cons
Pros
Overbuilt
Reliable
Chrome-lined barrel
Quad rail
Accurate for practical use
Lots of factory options
Magazines are available
Cons
Suppressor mounting is complicated due to the thread pattern
Furniture options are limited
Heavy at 6.3 pounds unloaded and over 10 outfitted.
Conclusion
I love my original M85 NP that I’ve had for over a decade, and the newest batch of M85 pistols continues that love affair. It’s a solid (and I do mean solid, at 6.3 pounds right out of the box) entry into the 5.56 AK pistol market. The old NP allowed use with an AR mag, but the newer models, sans magwell adapter, run the more traditional rock-and-lock setup, and AK556 mags are becoming better and more available than they were 10 years ago.
Whether you Form 1 it into an SBR or just roll with a brace and keep it in the pistol zone, the M85 has lots of options and provides joy.
Compared to Romanian-made Dracos, M85s have a lot of “ups,” including a barrel that is more likely to be concentric (important for use with cans and muzzle devices), a better fit and finish, and a lot of potential factory add-ons such as a quad rail, rear M1913 rail, and the giant Night Brake as shown. The other AK556 pistol on the market is the Polish WBP Rogow Mini Jack, which often doesn’t have a brace attachment on the rear but does allow users to add an under-folder AKSU-style stock to their SBR build and, like the Dracos, accepts AK furniture.
You are a bit more limited on furniture options on the M85, as pretty much just Zastava’s M92 pattern stuff interchanges. Even with their other guns, M70 (7.62×39), M77 (.308), and M90 (5.56) handguards and stocks interchange among themselves, but none will fit the M85. Nonetheless, there are some aftermarket options out there for the gun, and it can even accept an ALG AKT trigger (although with the use of an AK body, pin mods, and roll pin safety). Plus, Midwest Industries is marketing M-LOK drop-in handguards for the M85, so there is hope.
In the end, the Zastava ZPAP M85 line just seems to keep getting better. It’s an all-around “NATO AK” package that is getting lots of attention for all the right reasons.
Springfield Armory and Croatian firearms maker HS Produkt have been working together in the polymer-framed striker-fired handgun space for a quarter century, first on the divisive XD series, then the well-liked Hellcat, and, since 2023, the modular Echelon. We’ve reviewed the full-sized 4.5F, the 4.0C Compact, and the 4.0C Comp since then and have found few issues to complain about.
They run.
Going beyond that, Springfield has had some notable success with the Echelon on the LE market, as witnessed by the December 2024 adoption by the St. Louis County Police Department—with nearly 1,000 officers—as the agency’s duty pistol in a $2.1 million contract, adding some fire to the company’s smoke about the new pistol’s reliability and performance. There have been other significant LE contract awards as well.
Now, the newest addition to Springfield’s Echelon catalog is the 4.0FC. It is the same length and general specs as the Echelon 4.0C, save for the fact that the grip is more full-sized, which bumps the height up just 0.385 inches while providing better ergos and a higher magazine capacity (17+1 rounds flush fit and 20+ extended fit vs 15+1 and 18+1). It is also an ounce heavier.
The new Springfield Armory Echelon 4.0FC. Note the Compact length slide assembly with a Full-sized grip frame that uses a shorter dust cover to match the slide without an odd underbite. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
The pistol uses a 4-inch barrel, which gives it an overall length of 7.25 inches. Its longer grip allows it to use a 17+1 round flush fit or a 20+1 round extended magazine.
Note how it stacks up to the G19X, which is fundamentally just a peanut butter G45. The specs are remarkably close to each other. Of note, the G19X and G45 have won numerous LE/mil contracts over the past several years.
Also see how the new Echelon 4.0FC compares to a 15+1 shot Hellcat Pro micro 9, a cousin to the pistol. The Echelon, slightly larger, has a better optics mounting system and superior ergonomics, not to mention a higher magazine capacity. Note the pistols share the same style of the U-Notch rear sight system and grip texture.
