A carbine is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges.
A machine pistol is a handgun that is capable of fully automatic fire, including stockless handgun-style submachine guns.
A submachine gun (SMG) is a magazine-fed automatic carbine designed to fire handgun cartridges. The term "submachine gun" was coined by John T. Thompson, the inventor of the Thompson submachine gun, to describe its design concept as an automatic firearm with notably less firepower than a machine gun. As a machine gun must fire rifle cartridges to be classified as such, submachine guns are not considered machine guns.
The Uzi is a family of Israeli open-bolt, blowback-operated submachine guns and machine pistols first designed by Major Uziel "Uzi" Gal in the late 1940s, shortly after the establishment of the State of Israel. It is one of the first weapons to incorporate a telescoping bolt design, which allows the magazine to be housed in the pistol grip for a shorter weapon.
The Thompson submachine gun is a blowback-operated, selective-fire submachine gun, invented and developed by Brigadier General John T. Thompson, a United States Army officer, in 1918. It was designed to break the stalemate of trench warfare of World War I, although early models did not arrive in time for actual combat.
The Mauser C96 is a semi-automatic pistol that was originally produced by German arms manufacturer Mauser from 1896 to 1937. Unlicensed copies of the gun were also manufactured in Spain and China in the first half of the 20th century.
The Military Armament Corporation Model 10, officially abbreviated as "M10" or "M-10", and more commonly known as the MAC-10, is a compact, blowback operated machine pistol/submachine gun that was developed by Gordon Ingram in 1964. It is chambered in either .45 ACP or 9mm. A two-stage suppressor by Sionics was designed for the MAC-10, which not only abates the noise created but makes it easier to control on full automatic.
The Sterling submachine gun is a British submachine gun (SMG). It was tested by the British Army in 1944–1945, but did not start to replace the Sten until 1953. A successful and reliable design, it remained standard issue in the British Army until 1994, when it began to be replaced by the L85A1, a bullpup assault rifle.
The Škorpion vz. 61 is a Czechoslovak machine pistol developed in 1959 by Miroslav Rybář (1924–1970) and produced under the official designation Samopal vzor 61 by the Česká zbrojovka arms factory in Uherský Brod from 1963 to 1979. The standard version uses .32 ACP ammunition.
The CZ Model 23/25 was a series of Czechoslovak designed submachine guns introduced in 1948. There were four generally very similar submachine guns in this series: the Sa 23, Sa 24, Sa 25, and Sa 26. The primary designer was Jaroslav Holeček, chief engineer of the Česká zbrojovka Uherský Brod arms factory.
The BXP is a 9×19mm submachine gun developed by Andries Piek, with the fully automatic version finalised in 1978, and the semi-automatic version for civilians coming later in 1984. Due to an international arms embargo against South Africa, South Africans designed and manufactured some weapons as a small firearms industry developed locally. The BXP was one of these locally designed and developed firearms, and is considered the final stage of development of the line of hand machine carbines that started with the LDP in Rhodesia and the Kommando in South Africa. Produced originally by the South African company Milkor (Pty) Ltd, its name 'BXP' stands for 'Blowback eXperimental Parabellum', hinting both at its operating mechanism as well as its caliber. The original automatic version of the BXP was intended for use by South African law enforcement, including the South African Police, the Correctional Services, and the specialised airport security unit based at the then Jan Smuts International Airport, Johannesburg.
The PPSh-41 is a selective-fire, open-bolt, blowback submachine gun that fires the 7.62×25mm Tokarev round. It was designed by Georgy Shpagin of the Soviet Union to be a cheaper and simplified alternative to the PPD-40.
A telescoping bolt is a firearm bolt which telescopes over, that is, wraps around and past, the breech end of the barrel. This feature reduces the required length of a weapon such as a submachine gun significantly, and it allows compact designs to be balanced around the pistol grip in a way that gives "pointability" more like a pistol's.
The KGP-9 is a Hungarian submachine gun used by Hungary's military forces and prison guards. Development started in 1986 when the head of the Hungarian Institute for Military Technology, János Egerszegi, drafted a proposal for a new sub-machine gun in 9mm Parabellum rather than 9x18 Makarov, the latter caliber being disliked by the counter-terrorist units of the Hungarian police. The most promising design was submitted by Fegyver- és Gépgyár and was developed by Zoltán Horváth. Weapon trials began in 1988 but the socioeconomic upheavals of 1989 caused the project to stall for a few years. Unlike the 1988 trials, field trials in 1993 resulted in several failure to feed malfunctions, which FÉG blamed on poor quality ammunition made by MFS. The officers participating in the trial disputed this, stating that the same ammunition feed reliably from UZI sub-machine guns and the IWI Jericho 941 pistol. Testers also disliked the folding stock and safety.
The KRISS Vector is a series of weapons based upon the parent submachine gun design developed by the American company KRISS USA, formerly Transformational Defense Industries (TDI).
The SG 540 is a 5.56×45mm NATO assault rifle developed in the early 1970s by Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft of Neuhausen, Switzerland as a private venture primarily destined for export markets and as a potential replacement for the 7.5×55mm Swiss SG 510 automatic rifle known as the Stgw 57 in Swiss service.
The FMK-3 is a selective fire blowback-operated submachine gun of Argentinian origin designed by Fabricaciones Militares in 1974. Around 30,000 were produced for the Argentinian military by 1991.
The Mamba is a semi-automatic pistol developed in Rhodesia and later produced in South Africa, intended for military and police duty. Named for the venomous snake indigenous to southern Africa, the Mamba was the first semi-automatic pistol to be manufactured wholly out of stainless steel components.
The B&T APC is a submachine gun produced and manufactured by B&T of Switzerland. Announced in 2011, the standard series uses standard 9×19mm (APC9), .40 S&W (APC40), 10mm Auto (APC10), and .45 ACP (APC45) ammunition.
