2023 - Forgotten Weapons

Story of the Alar: A Simple Student-Made SMG

August 14, 2023 Ian McCollum 5

The Alar is an interesting very rare Croatian domestic SMG. It is called the “Alar” after it’s designer, Stipe Alar. He first came up with the design in 1971 and built one illegally – which […]

Semiauto PM-63C “Rak” at the BUG Match (It’s Technically a Backup Gun…)

August 12, 2023 Ian McCollum 16

I recently picked up one of the Pioneer Arms semiauto PM-63C pistols that are sporadically available here in the US. They have a pretty mediocre reputation and I wasn’t expecting much, but the gun is […]

Argentina’s Slightly French Model 1909 SOM Sniper

August 11, 2023 Ian McCollum 5

Argentina was one of the first countries to adopt Mauser rifles, with the Model 1891. These were replaced by newer Model 1909 rifles a couple decades later, and in 1913 they bought 500 telescopic sights […]

Tara TM-9: What a Tangled Web of Intrigue for a Crappy Gun

August 9, 2023 Ian McCollum 17

Tara Aerospace is an arms factory in Montenegro that was privatized around 2013 or 2014, and a major stake in it was purchased by one Heinrich Thomet (formerly of Brugger & Thomet, and then the […]

Yugoslav M57: Tito’s Tokarev

August 7, 2023 Ian McCollum 9

Yugoslavia purchased both 1895 Nagant revolvers and TT33 Tokarev from the Soviet Union after World War Two, but this was only a holdover until domestic pistol production could begin. While Yugoslavia was formally communist, Tito […]

MAC/Skorpion Hybrid at the Range: the Alka M93

August 5, 2023 Ian McCollum 2

The Alka M93 was a very simple SMG made by IM Metall (which later became HS Produkt) during the Croatian Homeland War. It is essentially a MAC M11A1 with a long barrel and a vz61 […]

Prototype Hungarian 33M Bolt Action Rifle

August 4, 2023 Ian McCollum 2

When Hungary separated from the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War One, it began to slowly rebuild its military equipment. The eventually led to carbine conversions of old M95 rifles using the new 8x56mm rimmed cartridge, […]

Yugo-Albanian “Marksman’s” Mystery AK

August 2, 2023 Ian McCollum 10

This rifle was brought back to France from the Balkans (probably Kosovo) by a French military team in the late 1990s. It’s a neat example of a mix-master build (what is “bubba” in Albanian?), with […]

“Made for the Republic of China”: Shanghai Arsenal’s FN 1900 Copy

July 31, 2023 Ian McCollum 8

“Pistols of the Warlords” available now from: http://www.headstamppublishing.com/purchase The Shanghai Arsenal was founded in 1865 as a joint venture between British and Chinese customs officers. They bought a defunct American ironworking company and rebuilt it […]

Spectre SMG at the Range

July 29, 2023 Ian McCollum 18

The SITES Spectre was imported into the US primarily as a semiautomatic pistol – but it was really designed to be an SMG. It has an interesting closed-bolt fire control system, and in SMG for […]