Light MGs - Forgotten Weapons

L-34 Sampo: Aimo Lahti’s Rejected Masterpiece

June 30, 2021 Ian McCollum 39

Finland’s standard light machine gun going into the Winter War was the LS-26, a gun which did not succeed in field use. It was complex and cumbersome, and Finnish troops quickly replaced it with captured […]

The Long Road to the DP-27

May 9, 2021 Ian McCollum 28

This guest article written by Andrey Ulanov. The Russian military first got acquainted with light machine guns in 1904, on the brink of the Russian-Japanese War. After having tested a few Madsen LMGs, the Army […]

.303 Lewis Gun at the Range

April 25, 2021 Ian McCollum 13

I really enjoy the Lewis Gun, and it’s been a long time since I had a chance to put some rounds through one. This particular example is a Savage-made gun marked USN, and I think […]

Type 97: Kijiro Nambu Adapts the ZB-30 for Japanese Tanks

April 22, 2021 Ian McCollum 35

Introduced in 1937, the Type 97 was basically a copy of the ZB 26/30 pattern light machine gun adapted to use in Japanese tanks and armored cars. The adaptations included mounting an optical sight to […]

Australia’s FAL-Based L2A1 Heavy Automatic Rifle

April 21, 2021 Ian McCollum 47

Many the nations that adopted the FAL (or L1A1, in Commonwealth terminology) opted to also use a heavy-barreled variant of the same rifle as a light support weapon. In the Commonwealth, this was designated L2A1 […]

The Swedish m/21 BAR in 6.5x55mm

April 15, 2021 Ian McCollum 38

Sweden was a remarkably early adopted of the light machine gun, for a nation not involved in World War One. Looking over the designs that existed right after the war, Sweden opted to purchase 700 […]

LAD: The Soviet Pistol-Caliber SAW that Could Have Been

April 11, 2021 Ian McCollum 39

This guest article written by Andrey Ulanov. In 1942, the Red Army was experiencing big problems with machine guns. Before the war, great hopes were pinned on Dyagterev’s brand new DS-39 heavy machine gun. But […]

L4: The Bren in 7.62mm NATO

March 10, 2021 Ian McCollum 35

When the British military transitioned form the .303 British cartridge to 7.62mm NATO in the 1950s, it replaced the Enfield rifles with the new L1A1 SLR (the FAL) but retained the Bren gun as a […]

Wartime Changes: The Bren MkI Modified and Bren MkII

March 3, 2021 Ian McCollum 18

The British lost some 90% of their stock of Bren light machine guns in the disastrous Dunkirk evacuation, and in the following months rushed to rearm. Part of this program was a two-tiered simplification of […]

Very Rare and Mostly Pointless: the Bren Fixed Line Sight

February 25, 2021 Ian McCollum 19

The very early production MkI Bren light machine guns were made with two dovetail brackets on the left side of the receiver. The rear one was for the standard rear sight, and the front one […]