Manuals « Forgotten Weapons

XM-248 LMG Manual

Rather than explain the background of the XM-248, I will put you in the very capable hands of Weaponsman.com, who has posted an excellent 3-part series on the development leading up to the XM-248, entitled The SAWs that never WAS:

Part 1, Intro, and XM106

Part 2, the XM-248’s Forerunner, XM235

Part 3, the XM248

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Rheinmetall Model 1928

The Rheinmetall model 1928 (designed by one Karl Heinemann and made in Switzerland) was one of the rifles tested by US Ordnance in trials that eventually settled on the Garand and Pedersen designs (and ultimately chose the Garand). The Rheinmetall rifle had a pretty interesting combination of features…

Heinemann/Rheinmetall 1928 rifle field stripped, Aberdeen […]

Aberdeen Proving Grounds Tests the Madsen in 7mm and 20mm

In October of 1940, the US proving ground at Aberdeen, Maryland conducted testing of both the Madsen light machine gun (in 7mm caliber) and the Madsen anti-tank/anti-aircraft cannon in 20mm. On November 8th it published a report on the trial (according to its title, the 143rd such report on machine gun testing – I would […]

Rexim-Favor SMG

The Rexim-Favor was a Spanish-made, Swiss-marketed, and allegedly French-designed submachine gun produced during the 1950s. Only about 5000 were made in total, as the gun failed to procure any significant military or police contracts. Mechanically, it was a pretty typical submachine gun, using a simple blowback mechanism chambered for 9mm Parabellum ammunition. It […]

Hefah Machine Gun

The Hefah machine gun was a wartime expedient British light machine gun design. It was created by a private company (the Ductile Steel Company) in 1940, in response to a generalized concern that all LMG production in the UK was concentrated at Enfield, and a successful attack on he complex there could create a huge […]

EM-2 Rifle Manual

I recently got an email from a reader who had scanned the EM-2 manual section from the back of Thomas Dugelby’s EM2 Concept and Design and sent it to me. I thanked him (although I can’t post a scan from a copyrighted book like that), but mentioned that I already have a scan of the […]

Ammunition Documents III

Continuing through the trove of ammunition documents we recently got from Robert, we have three more manuals for you today. These are getting a bit more specific in their topics as we move through the collection, so I’m posting three instead of just two.

First up, a 1943 German manual on 75mm ammunition for captured […]