Submachine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

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 […]

Thompson Riot Ammo at James D Julia

October 4, 2015 Ian McCollum 42

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 […]

Reising M55 Submachine Gun at James D Julia

September 28, 2015 Ian McCollum 47

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 […]

Vintage Saturday: Classi Alpini

August 15, 2015 Ian McCollum 55

Italian Alpini posing for a photograph with a nice selection of Italian small arms – 1934 or 35 Beretta pistols, Beretta 38 submachine gun, and a 1935 model Fiat-Revelli machine gun.

Czech Sa vz. 26 SMG (Video)

August 10, 2015 Ian McCollum 61

The Czech Samopal vz. 26 was one of a family of submachine guns (the vz 23-26) that pioneered the use of bolts telescoped out forward over the barrel, allowing guns to have much better ratios […]

American WWI Experimental SMG (Video)

August 7, 2015 Ian McCollum 54

Reader Larry sent me this video, which was produced by the US Army Ordnance Corp just recently. It’s a one-off experimental submachine gun built in 1918, and is definitely not something like you have seen […]

Furrer M1919 Double-Barrel SMG

July 31, 2015 Ian McCollum 21

We have looked at one of Adolf Furrer’s M1919 submachine guns before, but this one is a much different implementation. The model 1919 Furrer designed was basically a chassis for converting a Luger pistol […]