Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

Adventures in Surplus! Finnish M28 “Ski Trooper”

November 10, 2025 Ian McCollum 14

Get your exclusive preorder copy of Forged in Snow today! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/forged-in-snow?ref=3xnziv Today we are going to take a look at just how much historical be read from the features and markings of an individual rifle. […]

AK50: How Hard Could it Be? Brandon Herrera’s 10-Year Project

November 5, 2025 Ian McCollum 48

Scaling the AK up to .50 BMG…how hard could it be? Today we find out, with a detailed looks at all threee iterations of Brandon Herrera’s AK-50 project.

Apache Arms Carbine: A Saga of Compliance and Crappy Manufacture

November 3, 2025 Ian McCollum 20

The Apache Arms carbine was a Thompson SMG lookalike that was made in small numbers in the late 1960s. It was the successor to the Spitfire carbine made by the same people, after the Spitfire […]

The Original AR-15: Serial Number 6 in Original Configuration

November 1, 2025 Ian McCollum 16

The very first AR15 rifles submitted to US government trials were extremely light rights, with an assortment of interesting features that did not last long. They had top-mounted charging handles, one-piece hand guards, very thin […]

Colt LE-901 Modular Multi-Caliber AR: A Well-Designed Failure

October 29, 2025 Ian McCollum 27

Colt originally developed the 901 as part of the US Army SCAR program, with the intention being to create a 7.62x51mm rifle that could also use unmodified 5.56x45mm upper assemblies. This would allow special operations […]

Albania’s Rather Odd Grenade Launching AK

October 27, 2025 Ian McCollum 8

https://youtu.be/g-VS_ZwXxF0 In addition to its regular ASh-78 (fixed stock) and ASh-82 (under folder) Kalashnikovs, Albania also made a model specifically for launching rifle grenades and it has some odd features. The rear sight block was […]

M1E10 Garand-Ljungman Prototype

October 22, 2025 Ian McCollum 17

Springfield Armory was involved in experimenting with he M1 Garand throughout its production, looking at various different elements that could be improved. A series of experimental models were made, with M1E[x] designations. Some of these […]

Gerat 06: Germany’s Incremental Steps Towards Roller Delay

October 15, 2025 Ian McCollum 26

The Gerät 06 is one of the steps in the development of the roller delay system that became H&K. The initial experiments involved replacing the flaps in a G43 rifle bolt with simpler rollers. In […]

GIGN’s Unique Bren 2 in 7.62×39: Counterterrorism and Hostage Rescue

October 13, 2025 Ian McCollum 21

GIGN – the “Group d’Intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale” (Intervention Group of the National Gendarmerie) is the tip of the spear for French counterterrorism and major crime response. They are a relatively small (a few […]

ASh-78: Albania Makes the Worst AK

October 11, 2025 Ian McCollum 29

Check out Headstamp Publishing’s extensive catalog of excellent books: https://www.headstamppublishing.com/home-forgotten Albanian AKs are both pretty scarce to find outside Albania, and also a bit unusual in the AK field. Where most countries followed Russian AK […]