Machine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

Vila Velabita: Croatian Submachine Gun Made in a Shed

January 24, 2024 Ian McCollum 13

At the beginning of Croatia’s Homeland War, a severe need for small arms led to a whole plethora of simple submachine gun designs. Some were made in proper factories with professional tooling, and some were […]

Ero: The Croatian Uzi (With Israeli Help?)

January 3, 2024 Ian McCollum 4

The best of the submachine guns made in Croatia during the Homeland War was the Ero, made by a company called Arma. The Ero is a basically perfect, parts-interchangeable copy of the Israeli Uzi that […]

Cold War Belgium: Comparing the Vigneron M1 and M2 SMGs

December 27, 2023 Ian McCollum 2

The Vigneron was Belgium’s standard submachine gun during the early years of the Cold War. It was originally adopted as the M1 in 1953, and about 21,300 were made. In 1954, several modifications were made, […]

Making Do: South Africa’s 7.62mm NATO Bren Gun Conversions

December 23, 2023 Ian McCollum 3

During World War Two, the South African military used a lot of .303 caliber Bren guns. When 7.62mm NATO became the standard cartridge after the war, the Bren guns were put into storage, as converting […]

Weirdest of the French Trials SMGs: the EROP 1954

December 15, 2023 Ian McCollum 8

“EROP” was a small company based in Paris, which produced about 18 submachine gun prototypes between 1954 and 1956. These were submitted to French military trials in several different configurations first in 1954 and later […]

Argentine Brass Maxim: A Machine Gun of the Steampunk Age

November 29, 2023 Ian McCollum 4

The Maxim Gun was the first successful true machine gun, and it became extremely popular worldwide. Maxim sent his first two working models to Enfield for testing in 1887, and by 1889 he had what […]

Hotchkiss Portative: Clunky But Durable

November 27, 2023 Ian McCollum 11

The Portative was an attempt by the Hotchkiss company to make a light machine gun companion to their heavy model (which had found significant commercial success). The Portative used the same feed strips, albeit loaded […]

FN Model 30: The First Belgian BAR

November 22, 2023 Ian McCollum 4

FN played a role in the production of Polish wz.28 BARs, and in the process obtained a copy of the technical package for the weapon, and converted it to metric measurements. Under the supervision of […]

The Gun Science Says Can’t Work: Madsen LMG Mechanics

November 21, 2023 Ian McCollum 14

The Madsen LMG is generally considered an extremely complex and confusing system – but is it really? Today we are taking one apart to see just how it actually works. Because in fact, it’s a […]

Beltfed Madsen LMG: When the Weird Gets Weirder

November 15, 2023 Ian McCollum 14

First produced in 1902, the Madsen was one of the first practical light machine guns, and it remained in production for nearly 5 decades. The Madsen system is a rather unusual recoil-operated mechanism with a […]