Ian McCollum - Forgotten Weapons

Vintage Saturday: Short-Lived Nation

August 6, 2016 Ian McCollum 135

The Republic of Biafra was supported by Czechoslovakia during its brief existence, and the men here are equipped with a Czech ZB-53 machine gun and what appears to be a CZ-47 or CZ-247 submachine gun.

M1915 Villar Perosa Video

August 5, 2016 Ian McCollum 39

The Villar Perosa is one of the first small machine guns developed and used by a military force. It was designed in Italy and introduced in 1915 as an aircraft weapon, to be used in […]

Mauser M1915 Selbstlader Infantry Rifle (Video)

August 4, 2016 Ian McCollum 44

The Mauser Selbstlader M1915 was the result of many years of work by the Mauser brothers to develop a semiautomatic rifle suitable for military use. They tried many different types of operating systems, and this […]

Winchester-Williams WWII .50 BMG Antitank Rifle (Video)

August 3, 2016 Ian McCollum 43

David Marshall Williams was hired by the Winchester company in 1939, and would have a hand in a number of major projects during his 10-year stint with the company, although best known for the M1 […]

Book Review: Documenting the Weapons used at the Little Bighorn

August 2, 2016 Ian McCollum 33

I previously reviewed a book on archaeological study of the Little Bighorn battlefield, which did an excellent and very insightful job of tracing the battle through tangible artifacts, including forensic tracing of different individual weapons […]

W.A.R. – the Winchester Automatic Rifle

August 1, 2016 Ian McCollum 31

With the failure of the G30M and G30R to lead to any military orders (American or otherwise), the Winchester company took the advice of the Ordnance Department to scale the design up to an automatic […]

British women sort through guns donated by Americans for the Home Guard.

Vintage Saturday: Send a Gun to Defend a British Home!

July 30, 2016 Ian McCollum 75

“When the ships from America approached our shores with their priceless arms special trains were waiting in all the ports to receive their cargoes,” Churchill recalled. “The Home Guard in every county, in every town, […]

Winchester M2 Rifle (Video)

July 29, 2016 Ian McCollum 10

In the previous video, we looked at the Winchester G30M rifle as it was submitted to Marine Corps trials in 1940. When the trial result came back with the G30M in last place, Winchester immediately […]

British Pistol Use During WWI

July 28, 2016 Ian McCollum 43

Here’s an interesting piece of research, done in 2010 by one David Thomas as part of a degree in British First World War Studies: The Pistol in British Military Service During the Great War (pdf) This […]

Winchester G30M (Video)

July 27, 2016 Ian McCollum 16

With the death of Jonathan “Ed” Browning in 1939, development of the Winchester G30 rifle was passed into the hands of a new employee at Winchester by the name of David Marshall Williams. Williams would […]