Submachine Guns - Forgotten Weapons

Hotchkiss Universal Video

August 27, 2012 Ian McCollum 12

The Hotchkiss Universal is a pretty interesting submachine gun, despite its rather clumsy appearance. The overriding design intent was to make a very compact folding carbine, and Hotchiss certainly met that objective. However, the gun […]

Błyskawica: Poland’s First Successful SMG

August 3, 2012 Ian McCollum 10

We’re privileged today to have another guest article written by Leszek Erenfeicht (and I would strongly recommend that our Polish readers check out Strzal, the print magazine he regularly publishes in). This time he is […]

Mystery Gun Identified: 1944 Hyde Carbine

August 1, 2012 Ian McCollum 4

We’ve had this particular gun listed as unidentified for quite a long time, and had people suggest pretty much everything you can imagine to explain its origins: Well, thanks to a private collector we visited, […]

Swiss Week – Prototype Furrer 1919

July 27, 2012 Ian McCollum 10

We’ve mentioned that Adolf Furrer (director of Waffenfabrik Bern) began his career making Lugers and Maxims, which helps explain his obsession with toggle locks. Well, before he developed his own take on the mechanism for […]

Swiss Week – MP41/44

July 25, 2012 Ian McCollum 4

The line between genius and insanity is a thin one, right? Well, the Swiss LMG25 was well build and effective, but the MP41 and MP41/44 fell off the edge into silliness. It was adopted in […]

Vesely V-42 Submachine Gun

July 20, 2012 Ian McCollum 12

The Vesely Machine Carbine (aka V-41, V-42, and V-43) was a submachine gun designed in Britain by a Czech refugee named Josek Vesely. In most respects, the Vesely was a typical subgun, firing 9mm Parabellem […]

Polish “Beha” Resistance SMG

June 29, 2012 Ian McCollum 23

Today, I have the privilege of presenting a great in-depth article by Polish submachine gun expert Leszek Erenfeicht. The gun he is discussing is the Beha, a submachine gun developed under very difficult conditions by […]

Vintage Saturday: Bulgarians with ZK383s

June 23, 2012 Ian McCollum 4

Also note the (apparently) standard-issue tank crew mustache.

Benelli CB-M2 Caseless SMG

June 20, 2012 Ian McCollum 4

The Benelli CB-M2 was a submachine gun designed in the early 1980s around an experimental semi-caseless 9mm cartridge developed by Franchi. The gun itself looks fairly typical, with conventional controls, a bottom-mounted magazine, and polymer […]

Franchi LF-57

June 8, 2012 Ian McCollum 14

The LF57 was the first production submachine gun made by the Italian Franchi company. It was introduced (as you might expect) in 1957, and was adopted by the Italian Navy a few years later, in […]