Select-fire Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

The M2 Carbine: Assault Rifle or Submachine Gun?

March 23, 2017 Ian McCollum 46

The M2 Carbine was a mechanically simple modification of the M1 Carbine to allow fully automatic fire. The fire prototypes of the M1 Carbine had actually been selective-fire guns, but that requirement had been dropped […]

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 […]

Winchester Proto-M14 Rifle (Video)

December 30, 2016 Ian McCollum 40

In the aftermath of World War II, the United States spent 12 years looking for a successor to the M1 Garand rifle. The new standard infantry arm was expected to be select-fire, lightweight, accurate, controllable, […]

Enfield L85A1 (Video)

December 29, 2016 Ian McCollum 70

The L85A1 (part of the SA80 small arms family) was adopted by the British military in 1985 as a new generation of small arms to replace the L1A1 FAL (one quick note, where “A1” indicates […]

Explaining the AR Safety Lever Design (Video)

December 26, 2016 Ian McCollum 49

The AR safety lever design stems from the American emphasis on carefully aimed semiauto fire, right? It flips naturally to semiauto, while the AK moves naturally to full-auto. Well, that’s not why. It’s actually a […]

Winchester Experimental Mag-Fed Garands (Video)

December 12, 2016 Ian McCollum 38

Even during World War Two, it was clear that the United States was interested in improving on the M1 Garand rifle. A company that could develop and update to the Garand to make it selective-fire […]

Vintage Saturday: AR10 in Angola

November 5, 2016 Ian McCollum 55

From the look in his eyes, he knows you will burn down a village to get one of those rifles. Note the integral bipod on the AR-10 (A Portuguese m961 model).

Magazine for an XM19 SPIW Flechette Rifle

October 20, 2016 Ian McCollum 26

The XM-19 was one of a series of Special Purpose Infantry Weapon (SPIW) prototype designs in the 1960s and 70s – a project which was attempting to increase the hit probability of infantry weapons. Several […]

MP-44 – The German Sturmgewehr

September 27, 2016 Ian McCollum 42

The MP-43 (which is mechanically identical to the MP-44 and StG-44; the differences are the subject for another video later) is a tilting bolt rifle with a long stroke gas piston. It was manufactured primarily […]

Chinese Type 56 Milled AK

September 23, 2016 Ian McCollum 38

One of the most common types of AK rifle in existence today is the Chinese Type 56 in its several variations, although very few of those rifles are in the United States in authentic full-auto […]