Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

Mauser M1915 Flieger-Karabiner

December 11, 2013 Ian McCollum 20

Thanks to reader Jacob, we have some fantastic photos of a Mauser M1915 Flieger-Karabiner. This was an early (although not the earliest) Mauser self-loading rifle design, and was used for a short time by German […]

Johnson M1941 Video

December 9, 2013 Ian McCollum 28

Melvin Johnson was a gun designer who felt that the M1 Garand rifle had several significant flaws – so he developed his own semiauto .30-06 rifle to supplement the M1. His thought was that if […]

Vintage Saturday: Prior Planning Prevents Piss-Poor Performance

December 7, 2013 Ian McCollum 28

Cuban exiles training in Florida for the Bay of Pigs invasion, with scoped M1941 Johnson rifles. (coming Monday, a video on the Johnson…)

Model 1871 Ward-Burton Rifle

December 2, 2013 Ian McCollum 10

The Model 1871 Ward-Burton was one of the early experimental rifles trialled by the US military in its search for a new breechloading rifle to replace the theoretically-interim Allin conversion that made muzzle-loading rifles into […]

Vintage Saturday: Mausers on the Silk Road

November 30, 2013 Ian McCollum 19

Commentary from the photographer: Full-length portrait of the four men, standing in a line with rifles. ‘While halting for the night I had an interesting opportunity of becoming acquainted with a small party of well-armed […]

Bergmann 1897 Carbine

November 28, 2013 Ian McCollum 13

Several of the popular pistols of the very early 1900s were offered by factories in carbine configurations, with 10-14 inch barrels and permanent shoulder stocks (not to be confused with the detachable stock/holsters also made […]

Pakistani 44-Bore Followup

November 19, 2013 Ian McCollum 48

Thanks to a Pakistani reader named Adi who happens to own a 44-Bore rifle (an AK with the chamber reamed to accept 8×33 Kurz cartridges), we have some a bit more information on this interesting […]

Egyptian Hakim in a 2-Gun Match

November 18, 2013 Ian McCollum 34

This past weekend was another 2-Gun Action Challenge Match, and this time I decided to shoot my Hakim in it. The Hakim is an Egyptian license-built copy of the Swedish AG-42 Ljungman (you can find […]

North & Skinner Revolving Rifle

November 4, 2013 Ian McCollum 19

The North & Skinner was an early 6-shot percussion-fired revolving rifle design. Its design was patented in 1852 by Henry North and Chauncy Skinner (US Patent #8982), and the guns were manufactured from 1856 to […]

Pathan “44-Bore” AK in 8×33 Kurz

November 1, 2013 Ian McCollum 40

Today’s rifle is an curious example of forgotten weapons going full-circle and being reinvented. What we’re looking at is the “44 Bore”, a colloquial name given to AK-pattern rifles rechambered for the German 7.92×33 Kurz […]