Machine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

Reising M55 Submachine Gun at James D Julia

September 28, 2015 Ian McCollum 47

When the US entered WWII, submachine guns were in short supply and high demand. Much of the production of Thompson guns was being purchased by the UK, and what guns were available to the US […]

MGK-1000 Gunnery Camera at James D Julia

September 25, 2015 Ian McCollum 5

With the advent of aircraft, marksmanship instruction gained a huge new element of complexity. Now there were gunners firing at rapidly moving aerial targets from the ground and worse, gunners in moving aircraft shooting at […]

Shooting a Colt CMG-3 at James D Julia

September 21, 2015 Ian McCollum 60

In the mid/late 1960s, Colt was manufacturing AR-15 rifles and wanted to supply light machine guns to go with them – so they developed the CMG-2 (“Colt’s Machine Gun”). The CMG-2 competed against the Stoner […]

The Chauchat: Shooting, History, and Tactics (Video)

September 14, 2015 Ian McCollum 77

I hope everyone had a successful weekend with the Rock Island auction that just ended! For those of you who still have some money left, there is a James D. Julia auction coming up in […]

RIA: Nambu Type 96 & Type 99 LMGs

September 3, 2015 Ian McCollum 37

The Type 96 and Type 99 Nambu light machine guns were arguably the best LMGs used by any nation during WWII – they were light, handy, accurate, durable, and reliable. Designed by Kijiro Nambu to […]

Vintage Saturday: Classi Alpini

August 15, 2015 Ian McCollum 55

Italian Alpini posing for a photograph with a nice selection of Italian small arms – 1934 or 35 Beretta pistols, Beretta 38 submachine gun, and a 1935 model Fiat-Revelli machine gun.

Heavy Machine Guns of the Western Front, WWI

August 14, 2015 Ian McCollum 60

I have been really enjoying The Great War series on YouTube (a rolling weekly account of what happened in WWI this week 100 years ago), so I figured I ought to take advantage of an opportunity […]

Soviet Experimental DPM-36 LMG Variations

August 11, 2015 Ian McCollum 26

From the Soviet Gun Archives blog, some photos of an experimental DPM-36 light machine gun (an improvement of the DP-28). Unfortunately, SGA does not list any source documents and my copy of Bolotin’s book doesn’t […]

Czech Sa vz. 26 SMG (Video)

August 10, 2015 Ian McCollum 61

The Czech Samopal vz. 26 was one of a family of submachine guns (the vz 23-26) that pioneered the use of bolts telescoped out forward over the barrel, allowing guns to have much better ratios […]

American WWI Experimental SMG (Video)

August 7, 2015 Ian McCollum 54

Reader Larry sent me this video, which was produced by the US Army Ordnance Corp just recently. It’s a one-off experimental submachine gun built in 1918, and is definitely not something like you have seen […]