Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

A Tantalean Ordeal

March 29, 2013 Ian McCollum 28

or How the Poles Got to Have their Small-Caliber Kalashnikov Made “My Way” We don’t often talk about modern weapons here, but the Polish wz.88 “Tantal” is moving quickly towards obscurity.Rendered obsolete by logistics nearly […]

M1886 Lebel Video

March 18, 2013 Ian McCollum 45

The French M1886 Lebel was the first smallbore smokeless powder rifle adopted by a major military, and was a game changer in the European arms race in the 1880s. It wasn’t an outstanding design in […]

Direct Gas Impingement Video

March 11, 2013 Ian McCollum 14

Many people already know everything I’m going to say in today’s video, but I think it’s important to get it out there for the folks who don’t have as much mechanical experience with their rifles. […]

Book Review: The Great Remington 8

March 7, 2013 Ian McCollum 13

I bought a Remington Model 8 a couple months back, and I’ve been remiss in not putting together a video on it – it’s a very neat rifle. Instead (for the time being), I figured […]

How Governments Choose Weapons: Israel

March 5, 2013 Ian McCollum 35

I recently got an email from Clément, asking about the choices Israel has made in small arms for the IDF. Why did they switch from the FAL to the Galil? And then why take M16s […]

Sunday Miscellanea

March 3, 2013 Ian McCollum 4

A couple things that came in through the week… First up, Mark Serbu (owner of Serbu Firearms) has a neat video comparing the ATI .22 cal StG44 copy to an original StG44: Also, Leszek pointed […]

The T28 Rifle: American Roller Locking

March 1, 2013 Ian McCollum 16

In the world of small arms engineering, one of the most exciting developments of World War II was the German work on roller locking and roller-delayed blowback actions. British, French, and Soviet armies were jumping […]

Ljungman AG42B Video

February 25, 2013 Ian McCollum 17

Being right in the depths of winter, it seemed like a good time to take a Scandinavian rifle out to the range. Specifically, a Swedish Ljungman AG-42B. This is one of the few semiauto military […]

T31: John Garand’s Bullpup

February 22, 2013 Ian McCollum 6

The light rifle program was instituted in late 1945 to develop a new infantry rifle using the T65 cartridge (which would go on to be adopted as the 7.62x51mm NATO-standard). Initially the project involved just […]

Action Match Video: Leader T2 and Ballester Molina

February 18, 2013 Ian McCollum 11

I’m always up for the chance to put unusual guns through practical trials, so I jumped at the chance to try out the 2-Gun Action Challenge Match north of Tucson AZ this past weekend. For […]