2021 - Forgotten Weapons

Book Review: The Complete Book of Tokarev Pistols

March 4, 2021 Ian McCollum 7

The Tokarev is a pistol that does not have much written about it in the world of firearms reference literature – largely because it was not until the collapse of the Soviet Union and the […]

Wartime Changes: The Bren MkI Modified and Bren MkII

March 3, 2021 Ian McCollum 18

The British lost some 90% of their stock of Bren light machine guns in the disastrous Dunkirk evacuation, and in the following months rushed to rearm. Part of this program was a two-tiered simplification of […]

How Did I Get My Guns to Finnish Brutality? Polaris Logistics.

March 2, 2021 Ian McCollum 6

I took my own Finnish M39 Mosin and TT-33 Tokarev to Finland for Finnish Brutality, along with a WWSD-2020 carbine. I’ve gotten a lot of questions from people wondering how I did that, and the […]

Uruguayan Celmi Hermanos .32 ACP Pistol

March 1, 2021 Ian McCollum 15

The Celmi brothers were Italians who moved to Uruguay and opened an arms factory. They are best known for sporting shotguns, but in 1943 they introduced an automatic pistol, much like the Walther PP but […]

Sneak Peek at Thorneycroft to SA80 with the Author, Jonathan Ferguson

February 28, 2021 Ian McCollum 10

Jonathan Ferguson, author of our newest Headstamp Publishing book “Thorneycroft to SA80: British Bullpup Firearms 1901-2020”, has just gotten his advance author’s copy of the book! Let’s join him to take a look through its […]

Scattergun Science! Testing Diverter and Duckbill Chokes

February 27, 2021 Ian McCollum 13

Matt Haught joins me one more time to try out some practical testing of the Diverter and Duckbill shotgun chokes. We are using a 2-liter bottles of seltzer water on strings at 10 yards, and […]

Clair Brothers Semiauto Shotgun from the 1890s

February 26, 2021 Ian McCollum 15

The Clair brothers were three men from Saint Etienne, France – Benoit, Jean Baptiste, and Victor Clair. They submitted their first patent in 1889, which described in general a gas-operating system for firearms. This was […]

Very Rare and Mostly Pointless: the Bren Fixed Line Sight

February 25, 2021 Ian McCollum 19

The very early production MkI Bren light machine guns were made with two dovetail brackets on the left side of the receiver. The rear one was for the standard rear sight, and the front one […]

Bren MkI: The Best Light Machine Gun of World War Two

February 24, 2021 Ian McCollum 102

In the years after World War One, the British military wanted a new machine gun, and they wanted it to replace both the Lewis and the Vickers. Through the 1920s the British would tinker with […]

The FG-42 as a Sniper Rifle?

February 23, 2021 Ian McCollum 24

The FG-42 was specifically made with a scope attachment on every rifle, and intended to serve as a marksman’s or sniper’s rifle. But how much of that actually happened during World War Two? And was […]