Prototype - Forgotten Weapons

.455 Villar Perosa Photos

February 1, 2013 Ian McCollum 18

Italy has produced some fine guns, but they also have a pretty impressive collection of really poorly thought out ones, like the Fiat-Revelli M1914 and the 1915 Villar Perosa. The latter was basically a very […]

Treeby Chain Gun photos

November 2, 2012 Ian McCollum 6

The Treeby chain gun was a .54 caliber percussion rifle that could fire 14 rounds in rapid succession. Designed in 1854, it was unlike anything else available at the time. Only two were ever made, […]

Photos of 1950s Light Rifle Prototypes

September 14, 2012 Ian McCollum 13

In the aftermath of World War II, there was a significant amount of effort put into deciding what rifles would be used by the post-war Allied armies. The UK and US wanted commonality, but couldn’t […]

Upcoming Coolness

September 13, 2012 Ian McCollum 12

Sorry guys – I don’t have a book review for you today – I’ve spent most of the last week hanging out with Oleg Volk working on a cool video project. However, I would point […]

Mauser Volkspistole

August 20, 2012 Ian McCollum 20

We have another experimental German WWII piece for you today, Mauser’s last-ditch “Volkspistole”. It was developed at the end of the war as an extremely inexpensive home guard weapon, although how much use a pistol […]

Caveat Emptor – “StG45 Prototype”

July 17, 2012 Ian McCollum 25

One of the fun parts of pursuing prototype and experimental firearms is that there isn’t much written or known about many of them – it’s like a great treasure hunt. Of course, the downside is […]

Caseless ammunition demo action

May 16, 2012 Ian McCollum 14

The US Army (as well as other armed forces) has experimented with a bunch of interesting arms design ideas, and one that keeps coming back to the surface is the use of caseless ammunition. The […]

A Few Updates –

April 3, 2012 Ian McCollum 0

Thanks to reader Erik, we have a little more information on Fridtjof Brondby, which we’ve added to the Brondby page in the Vault. Apparently Brondby also designed a 20mm antitank rifle, although we do not […]

Eriksen Machine Gun

March 16, 2012 Ian McCollum 3

Sometimes, there is just no good reason to build a gun design, and the Eriksen machine gun is a good example. A sample of the Eriksen machine gun was sent to the CISA (Chief Inspector […]

Navy .308 Garand Conversion

March 5, 2012 Ian McCollum 6

Back in the 1960s, the US Navy decided to rechamber a bunch of its M1 Garand rifles to 7.62 NATO. The proper way to do this would have been to simply put new 7.62 barrels […]