Ian McCollum - Forgotten Weapons

GIGN’s MR73 Sniper Revolver in .357 Magnum

December 16, 2019 Ian McCollum 29

Courtesy of the French Ministry of the Interior, we have a chance to take a look at an authentic GIGN sniper model MR73 revolver today. GIGN is the elite intervention element of the French Gendarmerie, […]

Book Review: Walther Pistols – Models 1 to PPX

December 15, 2019 Ian McCollum 12

Dieter Marschall originally published his book on Walther Pistols in German, but it was translated into English to meet demand form the collector market here in the US. This is the third English edition, expanded […]

Chauchat Field Testing vs Mock MG08/15 Nest

December 14, 2019 Ian McCollum 41

Out at the range today with the Chauchat, testing accuracy against a simulated MG08/15 nest at 150 yards. I’ll try out semiauto and full auto (in short bursts), and see how they compare. For reference, […]

Huot Automatic Rifle: The Ross Goes Full Auto

December 13, 2019 Ian McCollum 23

During World War One, Joseph Alphonse Huot, a Canadian machinist and blacksmith living in Quebec, designed a conversion of the Ross MkIII rifle to become an automatic rifle. The Ross was the standard issue Canadian […]

Cannon Shooting Compilation: 20mm to 76mm

December 12, 2019 Ian McCollum 11

The end of the year means I am going to take a moment for a bit of a retrospective, this time on the cannons that have appeared on Forgotten Weapons over the years. From 20mm […]

XM-148: Colt’s Vietnam Grenade Launcher

December 11, 2019 Ian McCollum 9

While the Special Purpose Infantry Weapon (SPIW) program failed to produce any successful rifles, it did become clear that the area-effect aspect of its requirements did have merit. This was spun off as its […]

3.7cm PAK – Germany’s Basic WWII Antitank Gun

December 10, 2019 Ian McCollum 12

Germany developed its first 37mm (or as German designations put it, 3.7cm) antitank gun in the last months of World War One; a very simple design built using barrels from obsolete Hotchkiss revolving cannons. In […]

Belgian Model 1915/27 Improved Chauchat

December 9, 2019 Ian McCollum 47

The Belgian Army was the second to adopt the Chauchat automatic rifle, after the French. Almost all of Belgium was under German occupation during World War One, leaving Belgium significantly dependent on French aid for […]

Book Review: The Martini Henry, For Queen and Empire

December 8, 2019 Ian McCollum 14

One of the perennial challenges facing authors of firearms reference books is balancing the very technical nit-pickery with the broad historical view of a gun and its context in world events. The emphasis is usually […]

All the Guns on an M4 Sherman Tank (with Nicholas Moran, the Chieftain)

December 7, 2019 Ian McCollum 37

Try out World of Tanks with a special bonus tank using this link! Today Nicholas Moran (the Chieftain) and I are at DriveTanks.com courtesy of Wargaming.net, to show you around a World War Two Sherman […]