Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

1867 Werndl (Video)

January 29, 2017 Ian McCollum 17

The first new breech-loading cartridge rifle adopted by the Austro-Hungarian military was the Model 1867 Werndl, firing the 11x42R black powder cartridge. It used an interesting rotating breech locking system, and replaced the Lorenz muzzleloading […]

Lee-Speed Military Model (Video)

January 27, 2017 Ian McCollum 8

In 1892, just a few years after the British military adopted the Lee-Metford rifle, the BSA and LSA factories began offering several configurations on the civilian/commercial market. They would produce them all the way into […]

Afghan Martini Carbines: The Kabul Arsenal (Video)

January 25, 2017 Ian McCollum 3

In the late 1880 or early 1890s, a British engineer and adventurer settled himself in Kabul, Afghanistan and at the request of Emir Abdul Rahman organized and build a rifle factory for the Afghan government. […]

Benelli MR-1 (Video)

January 24, 2017 Ian McCollum 29

The MR-1 is a recently introduced 5.56mm tactical black rifle from Benelli, which is remarkably not an AR15 or AR18 in disguise. Instead, Benelli took the gas system from the M4 Super 90 shotgun and […]

RIC (Royal Irish Constabulary) Enfield Carbine

January 23, 2017 Ian McCollum 7

Enfield carbines are marvelous little guns, in my opinion, and just ooze history. This particular one is a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) carbine, 10,000 of which were converted from obsolete British military Lee Enfield and […]

Finnish Mosin Nagant Overview (M91/24, M27, M28, M28/30, M39)

January 22, 2017 Ian McCollum 24

Finland found itself with nearly 200,000 Mosin Nagant rifles in its possession after breaking away from Russian rule in 1917, and those rifles would for the basis of Finnish infantry arms until the adopted of […]

Woodhull Export Model 35 Carbine

January 17, 2017 Ian McCollum 9

Does anyone recognize this rifle? It was designed by Fred Woodhall in 1945 (after his unsuccessful entry in the M1 Carbine trials), and now his son Tad Woodhull is trying to track it down. If […]

Book Review: Vickers Guide AR-15

January 11, 2017 Ian McCollum 4

I don’t normally have much interest in coffee-table books, and the Vickers Guide: AR-15 would definitely be considered a coffee-table book. That said, it is substantially different than most such books, and much more worthy […]

Garand Pronunciation

January 5, 2017 Ian McCollum 24

The typical American pronunciation of Garand is something like “GUH-rand”. In an ongoing futile but worthwhile effort to pronounce names correctly, I have long used a different pronunciation. Well, my friend Michael Carrick from Arms […]

Book Review: FN Mauser Rifles by Anthony Vanderlinden

January 2, 2017 Ian McCollum 4

When I was waiting for my copy of Anthony Vanderlinden’s new book “FN Mauser Rifles” to arrive, I was expecting a typical sort of dry reference work. You know, the sort of thing that is […]