Ian McCollum - Forgotten Weapons

Steyrs for the Luftwaffe: The G29(ö) aka Gewehr 12/34

December 9, 2024 Ian McCollum 14

When the German government bought up the controlling interest in Steyr in 1938, they made use of its production facilities to start making rifles for the Luftwaffe. Steyr had tooling for the Mauser 98, but […]

Book Review: The U.S. Model 1917 Rifle – “America’s Enfield”

December 8, 2024 Ian McCollum 7

Available from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Model-Rifle-Americas-Enfield/dp/1931464928 Available from the publisher, Mowbray: https://gunandswordcollector.com/product/us-model-1917-rifle-canfield/ Bruce Canfield is one of the most prolific and prominent authors on American military small arms today, with a bunch of excellent works in print. […]

French 1717 Rampart Musket from the American Revolution

December 7, 2024 Ian McCollum 8

American forces in the Revolutionary War took in a bunch of different types of surplus small arms, and one of the interesting ones was the French Model 1717 Rampart gun. When the French created the […]

Best of American and Europe: the Webley No5 Express New Army

December 6, 2024 Ian McCollum 14

Webley introduced their No5 Express New Army model revolver in 1878. This was essentially a ruggedized and scaled up variation on the No5 RIC revolvers that was very popular with police forces. The RIC was […]

So Many Ways to Fail at Making a Pistol

December 4, 2024 Ian McCollum 0

Get Entered to win this very rare Mamba! https://www.fanathem.com/forgottenweapons DEADLINE to ENTER is 12/20/2024 @ 11:59 PM PST Making a successful and popular new handgun requires doing a whole lot of things right…today we are […]

SVD Dragunov: The First Purpose-Built DMR

December 3, 2024 Ian McCollum 27

The development of the Dragunov designated marksman’s rifle was spurred by the NATO adoption of the 7.62x51mm cartridge. The Red Army had standardized on a new suite of infantry weapons using the intermediate-sized 7.62x39mm round, […]

The Hungarian Alternative: G98/40 Rifles in German Service

December 2, 2024 Ian McCollum 5

The German Wehrmacht was always hungry for more rifles during World War Two, and adopted substitute designs made in friendly (or subservient) countries when possible. Almost all of these were minor variations on the Mauser […]

Gear for Carrying DP27 Pan Magazines

December 1, 2024 Ian McCollum 11

Today we are taking a look at three different pieces of kit developed to carry Degtyarev DP pan magazines. These mags are really inconveniently shaped, and traditional magazine pouches just don’t work for them. Instead, […]

Enjoying Black Powder Episode 5: The Remington Rolling Block

November 30, 2024 Ian McCollum 24

The full version with hand loading information (not permitted on YouTube) is available here: https://forgottenweapons.vhx.tv/videos/black-powder-ep-5-app Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively […]

Berettas With Bayonets: The Very Early Model 38A SMG

November 29, 2024 Ian McCollum 1

The initial model of the Beretta 38A had a number of features that were dropped rather quickly once wartime production became a priority. Specifically, they included a lockout safety switch for just the rear full-auto […]