Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

MAS-45: The French .22 Trainer Designed by Mauser

April 14, 2021 Ian McCollum 17

When the French occupied the Mauser factory in April 1945, they found all the tooling to produce .22 caliber rifles still in place and in good order (among other things). The French military did not […]

Springfield Model 1795 Musket: America’s First Military Production

April 8, 2021 Ian McCollum 10

The first US-production military arm was the “US musket, Charleville pattern” – known today as the Model 1795 Springfield Musket. Copied from the French 1766 model Charleville which made up the bulk of existing US […]

Miniature Guns for the Fascist Youth: Italian Balilla Carbines

April 6, 2021 Ian McCollum 12

As part of his effort to imbue Italy with a fascist culture, Mussolini formed the ONB, or National Balilla Organization as a replacement for all other youth organizations in Italy in 1926. It was intended […]

Daewoo K2: The South Korean AK/AR Hybrid

April 5, 2021 Ian McCollum 30

South Korea experimented with a series of rifle designs in 7.62x51mm in the 1960s and early 1970s, but none of them came close to production. In 1974 a license was acquired from Colt for Daewoo […]

The First Trapdoor Springfield Carbine, Model 1870

March 24, 2021 Ian McCollum 13

The first production of a carbine model of the Trapdoor Springfield was the Model 1870 (excluding 4 prototypes produced in 1868). There was a focus infantry rifles in theTrapdoor program, and just 362 of these […]

IMI “Galatz” – Galil DMR/Sniper in 7.62 NATO

March 17, 2021 Ian McCollum 7

Adopted in 1983, the “Galatz” (a contraction of the Hebrew for Galil Sniper) is a DMR based on the 7.62x51mm Galil action. It was fitted with a 23” heavy barrel, rear-m mounted bipod, folding stock, […]

Semiauto DShKM “Dushka” in .50 Browning

March 13, 2021 Ian McCollum 49

Developed by the Soviet Union primarily as an antiaircraft weapon (and used to good effect in that role through World War Two), the DShK heavy machine gun was modernized almost immediately upon adoption. The first […]

An Interesting Possibility: The FG-42 in 8x33mm Kurz?

March 9, 2021 Ian McCollum 115

Here’s an interesting thought – what if they made the FG-42 in 8x33mm Kurz? Well, they actually did, in very small numbers. The rifle’s designer, Louis Stange, actually thought it was a really good idea, […]

Finnish Brutality 2021: Winter War 2-Gun with a Finnish M39 Mosin

March 6, 2021 Ian McCollum 10

Brought to you by Varusteleka and Sako, Finnish Brutality 2021 was run as a much-reduced private event to meet Finnish Covid-19 event size regulations. We only had three stages and 7 shooters, but the full […]

The FG-42 as a Sniper Rifle?

February 23, 2021 Ian McCollum 24

The FG-42 was specifically made with a scope attachment on every rifle, and intended to serve as a marksman’s or sniper’s rifle. But how much of that actually happened during World War Two? And was […]