Ian McCollum - Forgotten Weapons

Japanese Type 97 Sniper Rifle (Video)

April 27, 2015 Ian McCollum 34

The most common Japanese sniper rifle of World War II was the Type 97, essentially a Type 38 Arisaka rifle with a 2.5x telescopic sight mounted to the side of the receiver. About 22,000 of […]

German soldier with a captured Polish Maroszek wz.35 anti-tank rifle

Vintage Saturday: Antitank Rifle

April 25, 2015 Ian McCollum 36

German soldier in France with a captured Polish Maroszek wz.35 anti-tank rifle.

Format and Feedback

April 24, 2015 Ian McCollum 101

Well, today is the first day of RIA’s April Premiere auction – if you are bidding on anything, good luck! Of course, this also means we are finished with the current series of videos and […]

Mystery “Rocking Block” Pistol at RIA

April 23, 2015 Ian McCollum 20

There isn’t much I can say about this very unusual pistol, as I have no idea who made it or when. What I can tell is that it is a blowback action with a rather […]

Gustloff Prototype Pistol at RIA

April 22, 2015 Ian McCollum 9

Gustloff was a large industrial concern in Germany which made many different weapons for the military. In addition to these, its attempted to market a small-caliber pistol for police or SS use. This pistol used […]

Blake Bolt Action Rifle at RIA

April 21, 2015 Ian McCollum 26

The Blake was one of many rifle designs submitted to the US Army trials that would ultimately result in the adoption of the Krag-Jorgensen as the US Army’s standard rifle. The main innovation of Blake’s […]

Pinfire LeMat Grapeshot Revolver at RIA

April 20, 2015 Ian McCollum 10

Colonel Jean Alexandre LeMat was a native Frenchman who emigrated to the United States and in 1856 secured a patent for a “grapeshot revolver”, which had both a 9-shot .42 caliber cylinder and a 20-gauge […]

A Semiauto FG-42 up on Gunbroker

April 19, 2015 Ian McCollum 15

Rick from SMG Guns dropped me a line to let me know that he has put one of his 8mm semiauto FG-42 rifles up for sale on Gunbroker. In fact, it’s actually the exact demo […]

Japanese Pedersen Rifle at RIA

April 19, 2015 Ian McCollum 10

After he failed to win US military adoption of his toggle-locked rifle design, John Pedersen went looking for other countries that might be interested in the gun. One of these was Japan, which experimented with […]

Very Early Mars Pistol #4 at RIA

April 18, 2015 Ian McCollum 30

Until the midle of the 20th century, the most powerful automatic pistol made was Sir Hugh Gabbett-Fairfax’s Mars pistol. With the .45 caliber version approaching the energy of a .45 Winchester Magnum, it was quite […]