2015 - Forgotten Weapons

BSW Prototype Gas-Operated Pistol (Video)

July 6, 2015 Ian McCollum 116

In 1936 or 1937, the BSW company (Berlin-Suhler Waffenwerk) produced a small number of prototype pistols for German Army trials. These trials were eventually won by the Walther P38, and for good reason in this […]

Polish soldier on the line near Gazala, Libya - February 1942

Vintage Saturday: The Mustache is Mightier than the Machine Gun

July 4, 2015 Ian McCollum 39

Polish soldier on the line near Gazala, Libya – February 1942. Armed with a Browning M1919A4 and a Boys AT rifle in the truck as well.

Canada’s WWII Self-Loading Rifle Experiments

July 3, 2015 Ian McCollum 20

(The material for this post came primarily from a post made by Roger V. Lucy at the MilArt blog, which also has information on a couple other WWII Canadian experimental projects) When we see rifles, […]

Slow Motion: Swiss LMG-25

July 2, 2015 Ian McCollum 10

I had a cool Swiss viewer named Bjoern kindly send me this footage of a Swiss LMG25 machine gun firing – thanks, Bjoern! These guns are very rare in the US, and the only one […]

The Lee Enfield Finally Leaves Canadian Ranger Service

July 1, 2015 Ian McCollum 52

As far as I have been able to tell, the Canadian Rangers are the last formal, first-world military organization still using a WWII-era bolt action rifle as a standard-issue weapon (correction – the Danish Slædepatruljen […]

Shooting a .276 Pedersen

June 30, 2015 Ian McCollum 58

Thanks to Alex C. at TheFirearmBlog, I recently had an opportunity to do some shooting with a .276 caliber Vickers-Pedersen model PB rifle. This was one of the very first rifles Vickers built when they […]

Shooting and Disassembling A.I. AR-10 rifles (Video)

June 29, 2015 Ian McCollum 26

I had a gun-shop-owning friend offer me a chance to do a video on a Portuguese contract AR-10 made by Artillerie Inrichtingen in the Netherlands a little while back. Unfortunately, it had just sold, and […]

Vintage Saturday: Fusil d’Assaut

June 27, 2015 Ian McCollum 72

A Chasseur à pied of the 19e Battalion on the road between Breteuil and Flers, Somme. 10th of April 1918. This Battalion had been on foot after heavy fighting in order to occupy the village […]

Hatchet-Stock for a C96 Mauser

June 26, 2015 Ian McCollum 35

How’s this for something different…and maybe clever? I don’t have a source for these photos, and I can’t say if they date from 75 years ago or 75 days ago (although I would suspect newer […]

Testing Reproduction WWI German Trench Armor

June 25, 2015 Ian McCollum 29

You may recall that a week or two back I posted a video on some German trench armor at RIA. Reading up on that set of armor led me to International Military Antiques, who sells […]