Ian McCollum - Forgotten Weapons

Vintage Saturday: Snipers in Shorts

October 22, 2016 Ian McCollum 33

The man in the front has an FR-F1, a French-issue sniper’s rifle roughly based on the MAS-36. The man others appear to have MAS 49/56 semiauto rifles. And of course, it wouldn’t be a desert […]

Bjorgum 1905 Norwegian Prototype Pistol (Video)

October 21, 2016 Ian McCollum 35

Niels Bjorgum was a Norwegian artist-turned-gun-designer who decided to try his hand at handguns for the Norwegian military. His design work ran from 1894 until 1921 or so, starting with long guns but later turning […]

Magazine for an XM19 SPIW Flechette Rifle

October 20, 2016 Ian McCollum 26

The XM-19 was one of a series of Special Purpose Infantry Weapon (SPIW) prototype designs in the 1960s and 70s – a project which was attempting to increase the hit probability of infantry weapons. Several […]

Terni M91 Carcano Semiauto conversion (Video)

October 19, 2016 Ian McCollum 14

This rifle started out its life an a normal M91 Carcano long rifle, before being converted into an experimental self-loader by the Terni Arsenal. Rather than adding a gas piston to the barrel, Terni engineered […]

Vietnamese soldier in French service working on his MAT-49 SMG.

Vietnamese Guns for Algeria

October 18, 2016 Ian McCollum 42

I was pointed to this interesting snippet of a document about one particular shipment of arms to the Algerian rebels fighting French colonial occupation in the 1950s – from Vietnam. Can’t say I would have […]

Thompson SMG in 30 Carbine (Video)

October 17, 2016 Ian McCollum 65

When the US military released a request for what would become the M1 Carbine in 1940, the Auto-Ordnance Corporation offered up a Thompson submachine gun simply rechambered for the new .30 Carbine cartridge. This entailed […]

French and British troops on the Somme, 1918

Vintage Saturday: Lined up on the Somme

October 15, 2016 Ian McCollum 86

Actions of the Somme Crossings. Men of the 20th British Division and the 22nd French Division in hastily dug rifle pits covering a road, Nesle sector, 25th March 1918. the Frenchman in the foreground […]

Spanish 8×33 Mosqueton CB-51 Prototype (Video)

October 14, 2016 Ian McCollum 40

The Spanish military, like many others, was quite interested in developing a new semiautomatic or selective fire combat rifle after World War II. Franco’s political ties to Germany (combined with Spanish neutrality in the war) […]

Detailed Photos: Mannlicher 1901/04 Carbine

October 13, 2016 Ian McCollum 25

One of Ferdinand von Mannlicher’s very last firearms was an experimental 1901/04 carbine, scaled up from its original pistol cartridge to a new 7.63x32mm intermediate-sized cartridge. I had a video on one of these very […]

Early Pistol Cartridges – What, When & Why?

October 12, 2016 Ian McCollum 38

In a recent discussion with a friend the topic of early automatic pistol cartridges came up. Specifically, looking at the context of which cartridges were actually available at which times, and how this might provide […]