Manual machine guns - Forgotten Weapons

Unique British Crankfire .58 Morse Manual Machine Gun

April 30, 2025 Ian McCollum 15

This is a really interesting piece with a mostly unknown origin. It was manufactured in the UK (the barrel was deemed Enfield-made by former Royal Armouries curator Herb Woodend) and is chambered for the .58 […]

Shooting an Original Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon

October 18, 2020 Ian McCollum 6

Several years ago, my friend Joe Lozen had an opportunity to fire an original Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon. He kindly sent me this clip – it is the only footage of one of these actually firing […]

Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon from San Juan Hill

April 9, 2019 Ian McCollum 34

This Hotchkiss and its accessories are lot #1116 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction: Benjamin Hotchkiss was an American artillery designer who moved to Paris in 1867 in hopes of building a business for his improvements […]

Puckle Gun (Video)

December 25, 2016 Ian McCollum 37

The Puckle Gun is probably best known as that thing that had round bullets for Christians and square bullets for Turks, but there is much more to it than just that (and in addition, the […]

Reffye Mitrailleuse (Video)

May 20, 2015 Ian McCollum 40

The mitrailleuse was one of the early types of mechanical machine gun, along with the Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, and others. “Mitrailleuse” is actually a general name for a volley gun – one with many barrels […]

Reproduction Nordenfelt Gun

December 5, 2014 Ian McCollum 21

A few days ago I was at a small machine gun shoot (which wound up being a bit larger than I’d expected), and was happily surprised to discover that one of the attendees had brought […]

Montigny Mitrailleuse Photos

January 29, 2014 Ian McCollum 42

The Mitrailleuse was one of the first pseudo-machine guns – the first ones were developed prior to the Gattling, but they continued to be purchased by military forces through the 1870s. There were several versions, […]

Union Repeating Gun

August 23, 2013 Ian McCollum 20

The Gatling is commonly seen as the first manual machine gun used by the US military, but it was preceded by several other designs, including the Union Repeating Gun. Also known as the Ager Gun […]

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: 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 […]