Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

G33/40: Special Carbine for the Gebirgsjager

November 8, 2024 Ian McCollum 4

When the Germans took over control of the Czechoslovakian arms industry, they took some time to work out what out to be mass produced at the Brno factory. In the interim, they decided to restart […]

New Imports: French MAS 49/56 and MAS 36/51 Rifles

October 30, 2024 Ian McCollum 35

Yeah, I’m a sucker for nice French rifles. So when Old Western Scrounger brought in another batch of them, I offered to do a video. These are rifles taken out of French long-term storage, having […]

Enjoying Black Powder Episode 4: The Mauser Gewehr 1871

October 26, 2024 Ian McCollum 11

The full version with hand loading information (not permitted on YouTube) is available here: https://forgottenweapons.vhx.tv/videos/black-powder-ep-4-app Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively […]

sa81 KRASA: Czechoslovakia’s Ultra-Compact Lost PDW

October 14, 2024 Ian McCollum 29

The Krása project (which translates as “beauty”, but is also a shortening of “short assault rifle” – “KRÁtký SAmopal”) is a fascinating piece of Czech small arms development. In 1976, the Czechoslovakian military requested development […]

Leaning Westward: Galils for Estonia

October 10, 2024 Ian McCollum 0

When Estonia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, it was initially armed with a wide variety of miscellaneous small arms. They clearly needed a primary standardized rifle for the new armed forces. […]

The FAL in Cuba: Left Arm of the Communist World?

October 7, 2024 Ian McCollum 42

In 1958, Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista ordered some 35,000 FAL rifles from FN, including both regular infantry rifles have heavy-barreled FALO light machine guns. Before any of them could arrive, however, Batista fled the country […]

Romanian 1930s Mosin Carbine Conversion

October 4, 2024 Ian McCollum 2

Romania had more than a million rifles in its inventory after World War One, but they were mused between Mannlicher 88/90, Mannlicher 95, Mosin Nagant, and Berthier patterns – and they were almost all rifles […]

Black Hawk Down: Randy Shughart’s M14

September 11, 2024 Ian McCollum 13

Enter to win this awesome Black Hawk Down M14 Clone! https://www.fanathem.com/forgottenweapons Deadline to enter is 9/27/2024 @ 11:59 PM PST Sergeant Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon were both awarded posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor for […]

The New CZ Bren 3: What Did They Change?

September 9, 2024 Ian McCollum 28

From the Mauser bolt action to the AK and AR, all new military rifles take time to perfect. With the Bren 3, CZ is now on the third iteration of the Bren platform, having gone […]

The RK 62 M3 Clone I Used for Finnish Brutality 2024

September 8, 2024 Ian McCollum 25

This year at Finnish Brutality 2024, I was able to use a semiauto clone of a Finnish military RK 62 M3 rifle. This is the latest upgrade to the Finnish issued RK 62 rifle. Starting […]