Select-fire Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

T31: Garand’s Bizarre Bullpup

December 10, 2025 Ian McCollum 16

The T31 was John Garand’s last project during his employment at Springfield Armory. It was proposed in 1948 as a bullpup configuration rifle to minimize muzzle blast and flash. It was a select-fire rifle with […]

Preproduction wz89 Onyx: the Polish Krinkov

November 26, 2025 Ian McCollum 8

After developing the 5.45mm Tantal rifle (adopted in 1988), the Radom factory moved on to designing a compact “SMG” version. This would be designated the wz.89 “Onyx”, but never made it into mass production thanks […]

T20 Family: Springfield Makes the Garand a Grenade Launching Sniper Machine Gun

November 17, 2025 Ian McCollum 29

Late in 1944 the Ordnance Committee recommended adoption of a magazine-fed, select-fire version of the M1 Garand as a new standard US infantry rifle. Both Springfield and Remington developed rifles to meet the requirement, with […]

The Original AR-15: Serial Number 6 in Original Configuration

November 1, 2025 Ian McCollum 16

The very first AR15 rifles submitted to US government trials were extremely light rights, with an assortment of interesting features that did not last long. They had top-mounted charging handles, one-piece hand guards, very thin […]

Albania’s Rather Odd Grenade Launching AK

October 27, 2025 Ian McCollum 8

https://youtu.be/g-VS_ZwXxF0 In addition to its regular ASh-78 (fixed stock) and ASh-82 (under folder) Kalashnikovs, Albania also made a model specifically for launching rifle grenades and it has some odd features. The rear sight block was […]

Gerat 06: Germany’s Incremental Steps Towards Roller Delay

October 15, 2025 Ian McCollum 26

The Gerät 06 is one of the steps in the development of the roller delay system that became H&K. The initial experiments involved replacing the flaps in a G43 rifle bolt with simpler rollers. In […]

GIGN’s Unique Bren 2 in 7.62×39: Counterterrorism and Hostage Rescue

October 13, 2025 Ian McCollum 21

GIGN – the “Group d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale” (Intervention Group of the National Gendarmerie) is the tip of the spear for French counterterrorism and major crime response. They are a relatively small (a few […]

ASh-78: Albania Makes the Worst AK

October 11, 2025 Ian McCollum 29

Check out Headstamp Publishing’s extensive catalog of excellent books: https://www.headstamppublishing.com/home-forgotten Albanian AKs are both pretty scarce to find outside Albania, and also a bit unusual in the AK field. Where most countries followed Russian AK […]

FAMAS G1: Simplified for Export

September 17, 2025 Ian McCollum 22

The FAMAS G1 was developed as a lower-cost option for FAMAS export sales. The original F1 model had been offered for international sale, but it attracted little interest largely because of its high price. In […]

French Trials FN CAL: Adding Rifle Grenade Capability

September 10, 2025 Ian McCollum 10

Check out Headstamp Publishing’s extensive catalog of excellent books! In the 1970s when the French Army was looking for a new rifle 5.56mm, they tested a number of foreign rifles alongside development the FAMAS at […]