Ian McCollum - Forgotten Weapons

Deckungszielgerät – Germany’s WW2 Trench Rifle System

March 23, 2021 Ian McCollum 26

When the German attack into Russia stagnated in late 1942, some areas of the front returned to a trench-and-sniper sort of warfare that was reminiscent of World War One. The German military actually went so […]

1896 Bittner: The Most Beautiful Steampunk Pistol

March 22, 2021 Ian McCollum 57

One of the very last, most common, and best looking of the Austrian manually operated pistols is the Bittner. Designed by Gustav Bittner in 1893 and going into production in 1896 (the known examples were […]

Maxim-Silverman .455 Caliber Behemoth of a Pistol

March 20, 2021 Ian McCollum 28

Hiram Maxim’s hired shop supervisor was a man named Louis Silverman. He was a skilled engineer, who was treated rather poorly by Maxim, and whose contributions were systematically understated. One of the most interesting projects […]

Colt’s Prototype Scaled-Down Model 1910 in .38/9.8mm

March 19, 2021 Ian McCollum 45

With the impending success of Colt’s program to develop new .45 caliber pistol for the US military (the 1911), the company began to look for ways to exploit the work that had gone into it. […]

Reiger Model 1889: Quick-Change Revolver Clips!

March 18, 2021 Ian McCollum 6

Edwin Reiger was an Austrian designer who took the basic mechanism of the Passler & Seidl ring trigger manual pistol and added a sort of revolver magazine to it. Reiger used a drop-in 6-round clip […]

IMI “Galatz” – Galil DMR/Sniper in 7.62 NATO

March 17, 2021 Ian McCollum 7

Adopted in 1983, the “Galatz” (a contraction of the Hebrew for Galil Sniper) is a DMR based on the 7.62x51mm Galil action. It was fitted with a 23” heavy barrel, rear-m mounted bipod, folding stock, […]

Passler Model 1887 Ring Trigger Pistol – Now With Mannlicher Clips!

March 16, 2021 Ian McCollum 17

Franz Passler and Ferdinand Seidl formed a partnership to make manually-operated pistols in Austria in the late 1880s, but the arrangement did not last. Their design was initially patented by Passler in Austria, and then […]

Schouboe Model 1916: The Final Attempt

March 15, 2021 Ian McCollum 9

The final iteration of the Danish Schouboe pistol is this, the model 1916. Produced in prototype quantities only, it took the features of the 1910 pattern (safety and external barrel pivot) and made a few […]

Semiauto DShKM “Dushka” in .50 Browning

March 13, 2021 Ian McCollum 49

Developed by the Soviet Union primarily as an antiaircraft weapon (and used to good effect in that role through World War Two), the DShK heavy machine gun was modernized almost immediately upon adoption. The first […]

Schulhof Model 1887 Manual Ring-Trigger Pistol

March 12, 2021 Ian McCollum 21

Josef Schulhof was the the first and most prolific designer of manually operated pistols in Austria in the 1880s. For a brief few years, there was a lot of developmental work done in this field, […]