There’s no shortage of weapon libraries out there. Plenty of them are big, clean, and loud — exactly what you’d expect when designing for blockbuster trailers, sci-fi shooters, or over-the-top action sequences. But sometimes, the job isn’t to impress. Sometimes, it’s to tell the truth.
With WORLD WAR I FIREARMS, we’re set out to do something specific: record a set of authentic WW1 sounds, with their full sonic character intact, and make that material useful for professional sound designers working across film, games, and immersive formats.
Not exaggerated. Not stylised. Just honest recordings, made for real design work.
Why WW1 Sound Effects? Why Now?
There’s a strange paradox with historical sound. As we get further from the events themselves, our fictional recreations often become more polished and cinematic — but less accurate. The sound of history is often replaced by the sound of what we think history should sound like.
In the case of World War I, most libraries rely on modern weapons or replicas with modern materials processed to feel old — using EQ tricks, added grit, or stylised decay. It works in a pinch, but for designers working on period-specific content, or anyone who wants to break out of that overdesigned mould, it just doesn’t cut it.
We didn’t want to reinterpret the past. We wanted to capture it, in all its functional, mechanical, and slightly unpredictable detail.
Sourcing the Real Weapon Sounds
That meant finding actual WWI firearms — rifles, revolvers, and WWI shotguns sound effects that reflect the original character of early 20th-century weaponry. No reproductions. No cosmetic lookalikes firing blanks.
Working with armourers who specialise in antique weapons, we selected a range of firearms still in working order. The goal wasn’t just historical variety — it was about capturing how these weapons really behaved. The weight of the action. The mechanical looseness. The occasional misfire. The slight delay between trigger and discharge.
Every sonic flaw was a feature, because it was true to the period. And truth was the point.
The Location: Designing the Reverb, Not Adding It Later
Weapons recorded indoors rarely sound right. Indoor reverb tails are naturally so dense, everything feels super reverberant, distant, covered in early reflections and dense echoes from the walls. We recorded everything outdoors for more flexibility – close mics sound dry, distant mics have a nice, cinematic tail to it. That way it is easy to create believable indoor reverbs in post production.
We chose an environment that gave us a wide range of natural tail behaviour. The location gave the weapons different sonic profiles, not through processing, but through actual acoustic interaction with space.
The Microphone Approach: Multiple Perspectives, Built-In Flexibility
For WORLD WAR I FIREARMS, we recorded every weapon from multiple mic distances — close, mid, and far — to give sound designers complete control over spatial placement.
- Close mics captured the dry source, including all the mechanical nuance: the click of a bolt, the friction of a reload, the distinct “clunk” when an aged revolver locks back into place. This lets you create very intimate first person perspectives.
- Mid and far mics gave us the natural tail behaviour and spatial context you need when placing a sound in a scene.
- Distant: Available in two flexible, spatial full 360° microphone setups for any surround use: Ambisonic and ORTF3D to create highly immersive bangs.
The result: you don’t need to fake distance or environment. It’s already there. But if you want to — the clean recordings mean you still can.
The Mechanical Sounds of WW1 Weapons: More Than Just the Bang
Gunfire might be the headline, but it’s the mechanical sounds that tell the story. That’s why WORLD WAR I FIREARMS includes a full library of mechanical elements: cocking, reloading, dryfires, bolt actions, and physical handling.
These are the sounds that give authenticity to battlefield scenes, whether you’re working on a WW1 sound effects project for a feature film or designing gritty realism into a military shooter.
They also offer design flexibility:
- Layer them under modern weapons for a vintage edge
- Use them for tense, pre-shot scenes where the mechanical setup is the story
- Repurpose them as Foley material in non-combat historical productions
And because the weapons are old — some temperamental by nature — you get variability built-in. It’s not predictable. That’s what makes it sound real.
Sound Format Support: Built for Modern Pipelines
All shots are delivered in stereo, Ambisonics, and ORTF3D, making the library ready for linear post, spatial audio, VR, and game audio engines.
Whether you’re delivering a stereo TV mix or working in Dolby Atmos for film or immersive installation, the library slots into your workflow without needing time-consuming conversions, unsatisfying upmixing, artificial surround reverb or patchwork fixes.
What This Sound Library Is Not
This isn’t a fake or fantasy” library. There are no sci-fi layers or exaggerated tails. No pre-baked cinematic colour grading. That’s not the point.
WORLD WAR I FIREARMS is quiet when it needs to be, unflashy by design, and accurate by default. If you want to shape it into something more stylised, you can. But the source doesn’t push you there. It gives you options, not opinions.
Use Cases in the Field
We tested these assets across a range of professional contexts, and they hold up in more ways than expected:
- Game developers used the mid and far perspectives to drop WW1 firearms into outdoor gameplay spaces without needing artificial reverb
- Film sound teams used the mechanicals for close-quarters sequences in period dramas — where no gun is fired, but tension builds from the sound of arming and handling
- VR teams appreciated the real-world tail behaviour from ambisonic recordings in natural terrain, which avoided the over-processed reverb common in synthetic scenes
If you’re working on trench warfare sound effects or a historical battlefield sequence, having the actual gun sounds from that time period — not just something close — is a game of inches. It matters.
Tips for Sound Designers Using the Library
- Use close mics for added punch, especially in dialogue-heavy scenes where you need presence without clutter
- Blend mid and far mics to match your scene’s physical layout — e.g. shooting from a hill vs in a narrow trench
- Dryfires can be used as misfires and are great for suspense sequences in games or narrative cutscenes
- Shotgun tails from open terrain offer useful decay curves that slot neatly into wide establishing shots or outdoor combat
- Build convolution reverb presets using mid/far gunshot tails if you’re working on similar acoustic spaces
And most importantly if you are looking for authenticity then don’t over-process them. These are WW1 sound effects that already sound like they belong to the era. Trust your source. However, there may be times when you can over-process them and create something unique, something gritty for steampunk projects or clean for sci-fi guns. It is your choice!
Why This Sound Library Exists
Modern productions are flooded with pre-designed assets. You know the sound before you even drag it into your session. WORLD WAR I FIREARMS exists because sometimes, what your work needs isn’t polish — it’s texture, honesty, and friction.
These recordings weren’t made to impress. They were made to serve your design choices.
Whether you’re recreating history, bending the past into something new, or simply adding fresh realism to modern layers, WORLD WAR I FIREARMS gives you the sound of the past — without the guesswork.
Real weapons. Real sound. For sound designers who care how things actually sounded.
