Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

SKS Manuals at Allegheny Arsenal

August 4, 2013 Ian McCollum 16

One rifle that isn’t really forgotten at all but still interesting and historically significant is the Samozaryadnyj Karabin Simonova – the SKS. Predating the AK by several years, the SKS was a staple weapon in […]

1964 SPIW 60-round Magazine

July 31, 2013 Ian McCollum 59

Let’s step back to 1964 for a few minutes, into the midst of the SPIW development program. This was the US military’s attempt to increase hit probability from infantry rifles by, basically, changing focus from […]

Rifle Collecting on a Budget: Think Turkey

July 30, 2013 Ian McCollum 33

We all love seeing (and pawing through, when given the opportunity!) the fantastic collections built up by gun collectors who have had the twin resources of time and money on their side, but few of […]

More 2-Gun Action!

July 29, 2013 Ian McCollum 20

Yep, it’s that time again – we’ve had another 2-Gun Action Challenge Match. I was hoping to take a Ross rifle this month, but it didn’t arrive in time – so instead I used a […]

Vintage Saturday: Scharfschützen

July 27, 2013 Ian McCollum 31

German snipers of the Hermann Goering Division in Bautzen, 1945. Most have scoped G43 rifles, but the man at the far left has an MP41 (and a paratrooper helmet) and the third man from the […]

Vintage Saturday: The Not-French Resistance

July 20, 2013 Ian McCollum 22

Soviet guerrillas in the Crimea, with a few different types of rifles. Just women in the main shot, but there are men in the background as well.

Book Review: Military Rifles of Japan (Honeycutt)

July 18, 2013 Ian McCollum 1

I’ve been boning up on Japanese WWII firearms recently, and when it comes to rifles my go-to resource is Fred Honeycutt’s book Military Rifles of Japan 1897-1945. It isn’t the newest book on the subject, […]

Controls Long Past

July 16, 2013 Ian McCollum 70

Guns are like vodka. The better and better new ones get, the more indistinguishable they become, as they get closer and closer to that Platonic ideal design. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, really – […]

Swedish FM59 Ljungman

July 10, 2013 Ian McCollum 19

In the midst of World War II, the Swedish government adopted the AG-42 Ljungman self-loading rifle, which was chambered for their standard 6.5x55mm cartridge. It was issued to supplement squad firepower, and proved to be […]

Holloway HAC-7 Video

July 8, 2013 Ian McCollum 53

The HAC-7 was a rifle designed in the 1980s, and only available for a short time before the Holloway Arms Company went out of business. It was designed as a military-style weapon, although what military […]