Book review - Forgotten Weapons

Book Review: Bullets and Bureaucrats

April 18, 2013 Ian McCollum 25

For a while now I’ve been following the rabbit hole of machine gun use in the second half of the 19th century – the days of the manually-operated machine gun (Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, etc) and […]

Book Review: French Military Weapons

April 11, 2013 Ian McCollum 6

Today’s book we have courtesy of Luc (thanks, Luc!) – French Military Weapons 1717-1938, by Major James Hicks. Originally written in 1938, it was reprinted by Flayderman’s in 1964. It’s tough to find today, but […]

Book Review: Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel

April 4, 2013 Ian McCollum 16

I hate to perpetuate stereotypes, but this is a case where there is more than a kernel of truth to one. The unfortunate subject is Julia Keller, author of Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel, and she […]

Book Review: Springfield Armory – Pointless Sacrifice

March 28, 2013 Ian McCollum 13

This When I came across this copy of Christopher L. Dvarecka’s Springfield Armory – Pointless Sacrifice, I was hoping for an interesting behind-the-scenes view of the operations of Springfield. Unfortunately, I quickly became dubious […]

Book Review: The Grand Old Lady of No Man’s Land

March 21, 2013 Ian McCollum 17

I got an email from a fellow a few days ago asking if there is a good book out there on the Vickers gun, so I figured it would be a good time to do […]

Book Review: Social History of the Machine Gun

March 14, 2013 Ian McCollum 11

I wasn’t really sure what to expect when I opened up John Ellis’ The Social History of the Machine Gun – machine guns and social histories of anything don’t really tend to go together. Ellis […]

Book Review: The Great Remington 8

March 7, 2013 Ian McCollum 13

I bought a Remington Model 8 a couple months back, and I’ve been remiss in not putting together a video on it – it’s a very neat rifle. Instead (for the time being), I figured […]

Book Review: Astra Automatic Pistols

February 28, 2013 Ian McCollum 9

Our book today isn’t particularly flashy or exciting, but it is a solid piece of research. It is Astra Automatic Pistols by Leonardo Antaris – and the subject is pretty self-explanatory. Antaris follow a simply […]

Book Review: A Revolution in Arms

February 21, 2013 Ian McCollum 5

When I cracked open Joseph Bilby’s 2006 book A Revolution in Arms: A History of the First Repeating Rifles, I was hoping for a history of the development of repeating rifles, and didn’t quite get […]

Book Review: The Great Rifle Controversy

February 14, 2013 Ian McCollum 17

Here’s a question: considering that by 1945 John Garand had developed working prototypes of the T20 rifle (basically an M1 with a select-fire trigger mechanism and a 20-round box magazine), why did it take the […]