Semiauto Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

The KP-15: Now in OD Green for you Forest-Dwellers

June 22, 2021 Ian McCollum 6

KE Arms has finally pretty much caught up with the demand for black KP-15 monolithic polymer lowers, and now has the time to put out a limited run of them in OD Green (virtually identical […]

Captain Carl Pelo’s Model 1954 Prototype Semiauto Rifle

June 21, 2021 Ian McCollum 37

Carl Pelo was a an engineer with Sako in the 1930s, and developed a series of self-loading rifles. He used a short recoil mechanism with a pair of locking flaps on the bolt, much like […]

Prototype Johnson Model R Military Rifle

June 15, 2021 Ian McCollum 21

When Melvin Johnson’s rifle design was first going through US military testing in 1938, it was set up to use box magazines. These magazines were a problem – they were not quite fully perfected, and […]

Semiauto ZK-383 on the Range

April 17, 2021 Ian McCollum 18

The Czech ZK-383 is a magnificent submachine gun, but sadly very scarce in the United States. So when I saw the semiauto example, I wanted to take it out to the range for some plinking. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Winchester Mystery Prototype: Melvin Johnson does Project SALVO?

February 19, 2021 Ian McCollum 29

This rifle is a Winchester semiauto prototype that has no documentation I could find in any source. So, today we will take a look at what we can possibly extrapolate from its various features. It […]

2-Gun with SMG’s 1st Pattern Semiauto FG-42

February 13, 2021 Ian McCollum 62

Today I am taking the SMG first pattern semiauto FG-42 out to a 2-gun match to give it a try on the clock. This particular match has two rifle-only stage and one pistol-only stage, so […]

Modernizing the G3: The Swedish AK4C, Norwegian AG3F2 and More

February 2, 2021 Ian McCollum 41

Of all the classic 7.62mm battle rifles of the Cold War, only the G3 remains in modern military service updated to serve alongside the more recent 5.56mm rifles (no, the M14 DMR rifles don’t count). […]