Machine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

Vintage Saturday: Type 53

January 12, 2013 Ian McCollum 10

Unrelated to this photo…the Zhejiang Iron Works in China made everything from machine guns to grenades to field glasses – and called everything “Type 77” in commemoration of the Marco Polo Bridge incident of July […]

Book Review: The Gatling Gun by Wahl and Toppel

January 10, 2013 Ian McCollum 7

Today’s book review is a re-run, because I’ve been re-reading this book in preparation for doing some video on an 1877 Gatling gun: The book we’re looking at is Paul Wahl and Donald Toppel’s The […]

Russian ShKAS Aerial Gun

January 9, 2013 Ian McCollum 25

The Russian ShKAS (Shpitalny-Komaritsky Aircraft High-Speed Machine Gun) is a machine gun design form the 1930s that doesn’t receive nearly enough attention. It was the result of a need by the Soviet air force for […]

Vintage Saturday: Wingshooting

January 5, 2013 Ian McCollum 22

The guns are aircraft Degtyarevs (DA-2), and appear to not have the drums mounted when the photo was taken. Note the vane-type front sight, and the distinctive muzzle brakes.

Paean to the Vickers Gun

January 2, 2013 Ian McCollum 22

I may be a bit biased here by my ownership of one, but I believe that the Vickers gun is one of the best all-around firearms ever made. It was designed during an era of […]

Vintage Saturday: Death in the Long Grass

December 29, 2012 Ian McCollum 18

That’s a Dutch Madsen peeking out above the grass, there. Specifically designed with long bipod legs for this sort of terrain in the East Indies. I believe the photo dates to 1941.

The Best Pedal-Powered Vehicle Ever

December 28, 2012 Ian McCollum 20

This really has to be the most awesome pedal-powered vehicle ever built: I don’t know the background on the tricycle, but the Maxim guns are very rare air-cooled lightweight models. Like this one: Ultimately they […]

Stocking Stuffers

December 22, 2012 Ian McCollum 20

Dead End: MG 39 Rh

December 19, 2012 Ian McCollum 14

or Louis Stange’s Forgotten Machine Gun by Leszek Erenfeicht and Jan Skramoušský The museum at the Military Historical Institute of Prague in Czech Republic has got a great many unique and experimental firearms, both of […]

Flapper Locking video

December 18, 2012 Ian McCollum 19

By request, today we’re going to look at one of the less common locking systems used in firearms design: flapper locking. The idea was first patented by a Swede named Friberg in 1870, but a […]