Conversion - Forgotten Weapons

A Guns to Save Lives: Winchester 1886 Line Thrower

April 14, 2024 Ian McCollum 5

Line-throwing devices have long been an important part of maritime safety, and many different have been guns adapted to launch ropes from shore to ship or ship to ship. Usually they are inexpensive obsolete surplus […]

Electrolux Charlton: Washing Machine Company Converts Bolt Action to Semiauto

March 25, 2024 Ian McCollum 17

The Charlton was a conversion of a bolt action Lee rifle into a light machine gun, designed by New Zealander Phillip Charlton. Some 1500 were made in New Zealand, but a bit later it appears […]

Romanian Berthier Carbine Conversions

March 22, 2024 Ian McCollum 10

Romanian had more than a million rifles in its inventory after World War One, but they were mused between Mannlicher 88/90, Mannlicher 95, Mosin Nagant, and Berthier patterns – and they were almost all rifles […]

The Bosnian Full-Auto SKS with AK Mags

March 6, 2024 Ian McCollum 10

During the Balkan Wars, a great many oddball guns were built and used. One of them was a Bosnian conversion of the Yugoslav M59/66 SKS to have a select-fire trigger and to use modified detachable […]

M98kF1 ZF41: Norway Recycles Germany’s Worst Sniper Rifle

January 29, 2024 Ian McCollum 6

When Germany capitulated at the end of World War Two, several hundred thousand German soldiers were stuck in Norway (thanks to the efforts of the Norwegian Resistance preventing them from moving south to reinforce against […]

Variations on Gras Cavalry Carbines & Conversions from Ethiopia

January 7, 2024 Ian McCollum 2

While I was at InterOrdnance unpacking French rifles, I took the opportunity to pull out a couple different examples of Gras Cavalry Carbines to show the differences between original French production examples and Belgian commercial […]

Hogue Avenger: Precision Accuracy Via Delayed Blowback

January 5, 2024 Ian McCollum 14

The Avenger is a flapper-delayed blowback, fixed barrel conversion upper assembly for the Model 1911 pistol. It was designed by Austrian Peter Spielberger, and manufactured by Hogue in the US and PowerSpeed in Austria. It […]

Making Do: South Africa’s 7.62mm NATO Bren Gun Conversions

December 23, 2023 Ian McCollum 3

During World War Two, the South African military used a lot of .303 caliber Bren guns. When 7.62mm NATO became the standard cartridge after the war, the Bren guns were put into storage, as converting […]

A Mystery MP-5 in .45ACP…Will it Run?

September 30, 2023 Ian McCollum 22

https://weaponsandwar.tv Join me at History of Weapons and War along with seven other of the best channels for historical and educational firearms content! We are available for desktop viewing as well as on all the […]

Semiauto PM-63C “Rak” at the BUG Match (It’s Technically a Backup Gun…)

August 12, 2023 Ian McCollum 16

I recently picked up one of the Pioneer Arms semiauto PM-63C pistols that are sporadically available here in the US. They have a pretty mediocre reputation and I wasn’t expecting much, but the gun is […]