Machine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

Swiss MP-41/44: Adolph Furrer and His Toggle Lock Fascination

April 27, 2018 Ian McCollum 37

The Swiss military discovered an urgent need for submachine guns in the early years of World War II, and sent out a very short-notice request for SMG designs. This seemed like the perfect opportunity […]

Book Review – The Mac Man: Gordon B Ingram and His Submachine Guns

April 22, 2018 Ian McCollum 22

Gordon Ingram served as an infantryman during World War Two, and decided to get into the gunmaking business after the war. He though there was a market for a submachine gun for police and military […]

Israeli M1919 Brownings and the US Semiauto Market

March 28, 2018 Ian McCollum 37

In the world of converted semiautomatic “machine guns,” the Browning 1919 is a happy example of one of the most iconic and historically important US machine guns and also one of the cheapest semiautomatic belt […]

UK vz.59 Czech Universal Machine Gun: Shooting

March 22, 2018 Ian McCollum 31

Yesterday we looked at the history and the mechanics of the Czech UK vz.59 universal machine gun – so today we are taking it out to the range for some shooting! The UK 59 is […]

UK vz.59 Czech Universal Machine Gun: History and Mechanics

March 21, 2018 Ian McCollum 30

In 1952, Czechoslovakia adopted a whole new family of small arms, including the vz.52 pistol, vz.52 rifle, and vz.52 light machine gun. The rifle and LMG were both chambered in the Czech 7.62x45mm cartridge, […]

Shooting a Suppressed Sten Gun

March 19, 2018 Ian McCollum 28

During World War Two, the British spent several years developing a silenced version of the Sten gun for special operations commandos and for dropping to mainland European resistance units. This is a recreation of one […]

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 […]

Italy’s Sleeper Submachine Gun: The Beretta 38A

March 16, 2018 Ian McCollum 27

The Beretta 38A is not a gun that comes to mind for many people today when discussing World War Two submachine guns, but at the time it was one of the most desirable guns of […]

Browning M1917: America’s World War One Heavy Machine Gun

March 14, 2018 Ian McCollum 40

When the United States entered World War One, its military has a relatively tiny handful of machine guns, and they were divided between four different types, as the military budget was small and machine guns […]

Japanese Contract Steyr-Solothurn S1-100 (aka MP34)

March 13, 2018 Ian McCollum 16

In order to circumvent Versailles Treaty restrictions on arms manufacture, the German Rheinmetall firm purchased a small Swiss company called Solothurn Waffenfabrik in 1929, allowing it to route its business through Switzerland instead of Germany. […]