Ian McCollum - Forgotten Weapons

Pedersen clip

November 25, 2011 Ian McCollum 0

The main competitor to the Garand rifle in the 1930s was John Pedersen’s toggle-locked rifle. The Pedersen was designed to fire, appropriately, the .276 Pedersen cartridge developed just for it, and it used an en […]

Blood Brothers: A Biography of Hiram and Hudson Maxim

November 24, 2011 Ian McCollum 5

Today we take a look at Iain McCallum’s Blood Brothers: Hiram and Hudson Maxim: Pioneers of Modern Warfare – a book deserving a place in everyone’s firearms library. Most people don’t realize that Hiram Maxim […]

Mexican Mendoza LMG

November 23, 2011 Ian McCollum 4

So, you might wonder how firearms were procured in Mexico before the ATF was around to hand them out. Would you believe indigenous development? Mexico had a couple notable firearms designers working hard in the […]

Stechkin Automatic Pistol

November 21, 2011 Ian McCollum 12

The Stechkin automatic pistol was adopted by the Soviet military in 1951, alongside the Makarov pistol. Both are chambered bot the 9x18mm Russian cartridge, and both use simple blowback mechanisms. The Stechkin is a heavier […]

Early Mauser Semiauto Rifles

November 18, 2011 Ian McCollum 2

We’ve had a few photos of early Mauser semiauto rifles in the Vault for a while, accompanied by a very brief blurb I wrote up. Well, I got a somewhat disgusted-sounding email from a reader […]

The Parabellum Story – Mauser’s Luger

November 16, 2011 Ian McCollum 8

The Luger Pistole Parabellum is one of the most iconic handguns ever designed, and has been enchanting shooters and collectors for many decades. This was no different in the late 1960s, during the golden age […]

Steyr 1912 Video

November 14, 2011 Ian McCollum 27

We have another video to post today – this time about the Steyr 1912 handgun, aka the Steyr-Hahn. We have one in the Reference Collection that we are going to disassemble and discuss, so please […]

Updates: Heligun & Fusil Mexico

November 11, 2011 Ian McCollum 0

Thanks to some thoughtful readers, we have a couple updates to add to recent posts. From Joe T and with the kind permission of Dan Shea, we have a photo of a Heligun as carried […]

Smith & Wesson Light Rifle, Model 1940

November 9, 2011 Ian McCollum 6

Some forgotten weapons are lost gems, and some are designs that really never should have gotten off the drawing board. The S&W Model 1940 Light Rifle is the latter, and a company with as much […]

Bofors 40mm L/60

November 6, 2011 Ian McCollum 1

The Bofors 40mm gun is one of the outstanding designs in light artillery – it was originally designed in 1932, and is still in use today with only minor modifications (and much improved targeting controls). […]