Ian McCollum - Forgotten Weapons

RIA: Japanese Trials Gas-Operated Pedersen Rifle

April 4, 2016 Ian McCollum 32

The Japanese semiauto rifle trials of the early 1930s had a total of four entrants – Kijiro Nambu and his company, Tokyo Gas & Electric, the Tokyo Army Arsenal, and Nippon Special Steel. This rifle […]

RIA: Cochran Turret Revolver

April 3, 2016 Ian McCollum 16

The Cochran turret revolver is one of the more common turret revolvers in the US, although that’s a pretty low bar, as only about 150 of them were made. Turret-sytle revolvers never became popular on […]

RIA: James Reid No.2 Revolver

April 2, 2016 Ian McCollum 20

James Reid was a New York gunsmith best known for his “My Friend” knuckleduster revolvers, but before he devised the idea for those he was working in New York City making traditional style revolvers. This […]

RIA: T3E2 Trials .276-Caliber Garand

April 1, 2016 Ian McCollum 67

By 1932, the competition for the new US emiautomatic service rifle had been narrowed down to just two designs: John Pedersen’s delayed blowback toggle action and John Garand’s gas-operated action. Both rifles were chambered for […]

RIA: Bendix-Hyde Second Model Prototype Carbine

March 31, 2016 Ian McCollum 19

In late 1940, the US military opened a competition for what would become the M1 Carbine – a rifle that needed to use the .30 Carbine cartridge and weigh no more than 5 pounds (2.27kg). […]

RIA: Japanese Type 4 Garand Copy

March 30, 2016 Ian McCollum 41

Partway through 1944, the Japanese Imperial Navy began a program to provide their infantry units with better firepower than was afforded by the bolt action Arisaka rifles. The initial experimentation was based on rechambering captured […]

Explaining my Backdrop for the Next RIA Video Series

March 29, 2016 Ian McCollum 13

I am kicking off a long series of videos from the Rock Island Auction Company, and my backdrop this time is a set of deer antler mounts called the “Imperial Twins“. These two deer were […]

Swiss SK-46 Prototype Semiauto Rifle (Video)

March 28, 2016 Ian McCollum 33

The SK-46 was one of several post-WWII experimental self-loading rifle designs developed for testing by the Swiss military, or for commercial export. It was manufactured by SIG at Neuhausen in both 7.5mm Swiss and 8mm […]

Finnish red guard militia members posing for the camera some time during the civil war.

Vintage Saturday: Finnish Militia

March 26, 2016 Ian McCollum 48

The woman at the front right has a Winchester 1895, almost certainly of Russian contract origin in 7.62x54R. The others appear to have Type 30 Arisaka rifles, which would have been sold to Russia by […]

Yugoslav 8mm Chauchat M1915/26 Photos

March 25, 2016 Ian McCollum 42

Reader Mihajlo sent me a couple cool photos of Yugoslav troops with Chauchats converted to 8x57mm. Here’s his commentary: Here’s a picture from WW2 Yugoslavia I’d like to share with you. The guy on the […]