Light MGs - Forgotten Weapons

8mm M1915 Chauchat Fixing and Range Testing

September 8, 2018 Ian McCollum 26

Well, my 8mm French Chauchat finally cleared transfer, as did my application to reactivate it. This was a “dewat”, or “Deactivated War Trophy” – a machine gun put on the NFA registry but modified to […]

Mythbusting with the .30-06 American Chauchat: Reliability Test

July 28, 2018 Ian McCollum 46

Everyone knows, of course, that the Chauchat is the worst gun ever, and can’t normally get through an entire magazine without malfunctioning. Well, let’s try that out…and with an ever worse culprit; an M1918 Chauchat […]

M1918 Chauchat: First Shots (Will It Work?)

May 19, 2018 Ian McCollum 33

This M1918 Chauchat is still awaiting NFA transfer, but my dealer was able to bring it out to a public range where I could do some initial testing on it. I was expecting to get […]

Reproduction RP-46 Belt-Feed Conversion from SMG Guns

May 7, 2018 Ian McCollum 10

InRange TV Operator’s Guide to the RP-46: You can order your own by contacting SMG Guns at smgguns@yahoo.com or placing an order online at SMGGunsStore.com. It’s very exciting to have these available, as they are […]

Stoner 63A Automatic Rifle – The Original Modular Weapon

March 17, 2018 Ian McCollum 43

The Stoner 63 was a remarkably advanced and clever modular firearm designed by Eugene Stoner (along with Bob Fremont and Jim Sullivan) after he left Armalite. The was tested by DARPA and the uS Marine […]

Colt R75A: The Last Commercial BAR (With Shooting)

March 2, 2018 Ian McCollum 16

The R75A was the last version of Colt’s commercial BAR, with 832 made between August and December of 1942 for the Netherlands Purchasing Commission. It was a derivative of the commercial R75 BAR, with a […]

Custom Transferrable 7mm BAR

February 27, 2018 Ian McCollum 16

Want to play He-Man shooting a BAR from the shoulder? This one has been built for just that purpose. It’s chambered in 7x57mm for reduced recoil, has a 21” barrel to improve handling, a custom […]

Shooting the ZB-26: A Jewel of an Interwar Light Machine Gun

October 27, 2017 Ian McCollum 18

Today we have a chance to do some shooting with a ZB-26, a German-occupation 8mm light machine gun made at Brno in Czechoslovakia. The ZB-26 does not get nearly as much attention as LMGs made […]

ZB26: The Best of the Light Machine Guns

October 26, 2017 Ian McCollum 38

The ZB-26 stands as one of the best magazine-fed light machine guns developed during the 1920s and 30s – it was a very popular gun for small military forces and many countries which did not […]

Shooting the Madsen LMG – The First True LMG

October 20, 2017 Ian McCollum 18

We have looked at a couple different Madsen light machine guns previously, but until today I have not had the chance to do any shooting with a fully automatic example of one. So I am […]