Machine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

The Finnish RPK: Valmet 78 at the Range

May 5, 2022 Ian McCollum 15

Valmet designed the M78 hoping to sell it to the Finnish military as an equivalent to the RPK, but it was not adopted. Instead, they were old a semiautos on the commercial market. Because this […]

Rheinmetall MG42/59: The Slow-Fire Commercial MG42

May 4, 2022 Ian McCollum 66

After World War Two, when West Germany was allowed to reconstitute its army and join NATO, it needed small arms. The new Bundeswehr chose the MG42 as it’s standard GPMG, and the Rheinmetall firm undertook […]

A Belgian Sten Replacement: Vigneron M2 at the Range

April 30, 2022 Ian McCollum 14

The Vigneron was adopted to replace the Sten in Belgian service – so is it actually better than the Sten? In my opinion, yes. The sights and overall handling are better. The pistol grip is […]

Vigneron M2: Belgium’s Little-Known Post-War SMG

April 29, 2022 Ian McCollum 26

After World War Two, the Belgian military wanted to replace its many Sten guns with a better standard SMG. The solution was designed by Colonel Georges Vigneron in 1953, and adopted by all branches of […]

Swedish K Comparison: Model m/45 v m/45B

April 25, 2022 Ian McCollum 15

Since I have the rather unusual opportunity to examine both the early Swedish m/45 and the improved m/45B at the same time, I figured this would be a good opportunity for a video. There were […]

Danish Madsen-Saetter GPMG at the Range

April 23, 2022 Ian McCollum 7

The Madsen-Saetter is a general purpose machine gun that had the unfortunate luck to compete against the MG42/MG3 and FN MAG. It is a quite nice gun to shoot, but not quite up to the […]

Madsen Saetter: Denmark’s Remarkable Unsuccessful GPMG

April 22, 2022 Ian McCollum 14

The Maden-Saetter was the Madsen (DISA) company’s entry into the GPMG arena. It Wass developed by Eric Larsen-Saetter in the early 1950s, although it did not enter production until 1960. The design was heavily German-influenced, […]

Economy SIG: The MP48 at the Range

April 16, 2022 Ian McCollum 10

The SIG MP48 was the result of a series of successively cheaper and simpler iterations of the MKPS design. They kept the basic receiver geometry, but lost much of the finesse. The MP48 in particular […]

MP48: When SIG Cheaps Out

April 15, 2022 Ian McCollum 32

Following the adoption of the WF Bern MP41/44 by the Swiss military, SIG continued to develop its own submachine gun design in hopes of outside commercial and military sales. This is the MP48 pattern, which […]

FN-DA1: The BAR for NATO

April 13, 2022 Ian McCollum 28

After World War Two, FN put the BAR back into production. This was initially the FN-D version with a quick-change barrel, but with NATO’s adoption of the 7.62mm cartridge, there was a demand for the […]