Submachine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

Thompson SMG in 30 Carbine (Video)

October 17, 2016 Ian McCollum 65

When the US military released a request for what would become the M1 Carbine in 1940, the Auto-Ordnance Corporation offered up a Thompson submachine gun simply rechambered for the new .30 Carbine cartridge. This entailed […]

Vintage Saturday: Short-Lived Nation

August 6, 2016 Ian McCollum 135

The Republic of Biafra was supported by Czechoslovakia during its brief existence, and the men here are equipped with a Czech ZB-53 machine gun and what appears to be a CZ-47 or CZ-247 submachine gun.

M1915 Villar Perosa Video

August 5, 2016 Ian McCollum 39

The Villar Perosa is one of the first small machine guns developed and used by a military force. It was designed in Italy and introduced in 1915 as an aircraft weapon, to be used in […]

BSA 1926 & 1929 Thompson SMGs

May 11, 2016 Ian McCollum 36

In the early days of the Thompson Submachine Gun, the Auto-Ordnance Company was looking for customers globally. General John Thompson had personally run a demonstration of the gun in England in June of 1921, which […]

RIA: Thompson T2 Submachine Gun Prototype

April 26, 2016 Ian McCollum 46

The T2 submachine gun was Auto-Ordnance’s entry into the ongoing competition to replace the classic Thompson submachine gun with something more economical to produce. It was a closed-bolt, select-fire design using a progressive trigger and […]

James D. Julia: Czech ZK-383 Transferable Submachine Gun

March 5, 2016 Ian McCollum 65

The Czech-made ZK-383 submachine gun is a bit of an oddball in the world of submachine guns. It has several design features typically associated with rifle-caliber light machine guns – an integral bipod and a […]

RIA: MP3008 Sten Copy

February 4, 2016 Ian McCollum 71

The MP 3008, aka Gerät Neumünster, was one of two German efforts to copy the British Sten gun. The first was the Gerät Potsdam (“gerät” meaning device or project; basically project code name), which was […]

Sidewinder SMG Photos

December 23, 2015 Ian McCollum 44

The Sidewinder is a rather unusual submachine gun designer by Sidney McQueen in the mid 1960s. His objective was to create a weapon which could be fired one-handed with the firepower of a submachine gun […]

Beretta M1918 SMG Photos

October 23, 2015 Ian McCollum 21

The Beretta M1918 was one of two simultaneous efforts to turn the M1915 Villar-Perosa machine gun into a more practical weapon. The Officine Villar Perosa (who had manufactured the 1915 gun in the first place) […]

Q&A Video #1: H&K G11, Owen, F1, Worst Gun Ever, and More!

October 8, 2015 Ian McCollum 32

As part of my new fundraising system on Patreon, I am starting a monthly Q&A video series, answering questions from Patreon contributors. The support from you folks is a tremendous help to me in running […]