Submachine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

Between SMG and PDW: Sweden’s CBJ-MS

December 20, 2025 Ian McCollum 10

The CBJ-MS is a submachine gun designed by Swedish arms developed Carl Bertil Johansson, perhaps better known for his remarkable armor-piercing 6.5x25mm CBJ cartridge. He developed the gun at about the same time as the […]

The Extremely Rare Folding Stock Beretta 38/43

December 12, 2025 Ian McCollum 2

The Beretta Model 38 SMG was a very successful design, and a folding-stocked version of it was a natural development. Beretta first made a prototype of such a thing in 1941, but it never went […]

Walther’s Forgotten SMG: The MPK (and MPL)

December 3, 2025 Ian McCollum 29

https://youtu.be/3qElfsloKH8 Walther began developing a modern stamped sheet metal SMG in the late 1950s, and it entered production in 1963. It was an open-bolt, simple blowback gun available in a short (MPK; 6.75” barrel) and […]

Hungarian K1 “Kucher” Light Submachine Gun

October 20, 2025 Ian McCollum 13

In the early years after World War Two the Hungarian government needed new small arms, but chose to license Soviet designs instead of developing their own. when it came to submachine guns, this entailed production […]

ZK-466: CZ Makes a Folding Submachine Gun

October 17, 2025 Ian McCollum 14

The ZK-466 was one of the post-war submachine guns developed in Czechoslovakia as part of the competition for a new Czech military SMG. Developed by Josef Koucky (who was also designer of the ZK-383 before […]

Type 85: China’s Special Forces SMG (Regular and Silenced Versions)

October 8, 2025 Ian McCollum 1

Jason Clower’s video on the development and use of the Type 85: The Type 85 was a submachine gun developed in the 1980s in China to replace the failure that was the Type 79. It […]

Hovea M44: Husqvarna Makes a Submachine Gun

September 22, 2025 Ian McCollum 7

The Hovea M44 was tested by the Danish and Swedish militaries in 1945, competing agains the Carl Gustaf M45. It was designed and produced by Husqvarna (yes, the chainsaw company) and just 10 of them […]

The Best Operational Briefcase: American 180 & Laser Sight

September 5, 2025 Ian McCollum 45

The “American 180 Security Briefcase” is the best execution of the operational briefcase concept that I have yet seen. The idea is simple; hide a submachine gun inside an ordinary looking briefcase so that it […]

Registered Bolt vs Registered Receiver Uzis

September 1, 2025 Ian McCollum 17

Most of the transferrable Uzis in the US are not factory original guns, but rather semi autos that were converted and registered as machine guns in the US before 1986 (when such activity was legal). […]

Interdynamic MP-9 SMG: Origin of the TEC-9

August 13, 2025 Ian McCollum 28

The story of the Tec-9 begins with a Swedish company called Interdynamic AB and their designer Göran Lars Magnus Kjellgren designing a cheap and simple submachine gun for military use. It found no interested clients, […]