Aircraft MGs
M1915 Villar Perosa Video
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 […]
Submachine Guns
Prototype
BSA 1926 & 1929 Thompson SMGs
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 […]
Prototype
RIA: Thompson T2 Submachine Gun Prototype
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 […]
Submachine Guns
James D. Julia: Czech ZK-383 Transferable Submachine Gun
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 […]
Submachine Guns
RIA: MP3008 Sten Copy
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 […]
Prototype
Sidewinder SMG Photos
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 […]
Conversion
Beretta M1918 SMG Photos
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) […]
Select-fire Rifles
Q&A Video #1: H&K G11, Owen, F1, Worst Gun Ever, and More!
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 […]
Ammunition
Thompson Riot Ammo at James D Julia
Did you know that the Peters company made ammunition specifically for riot control for the Thompson submachine gun in the 1920s? And it wasn’t rubber bullets, either – it was paper-wrapped snakeshot. The cartridges were […]
Slow motion
Reising M55 Submachine Gun at James D Julia
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 […]