Semiauto Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

Howard Francis 7.63mm SMLE

October 9, 2015 Ian McCollum 43

The Howard Francis carbine was a design submitted to the British Ordnance Board for consideration in 1943 – one of many weapons proposed to help meet wartime requirements. Specifically, the Howard Francis carbine was a […]

Q&A Video #1: H&K G11, Owen, F1, Worst Gun Ever, and More!

October 8, 2015 Ian McCollum 32

As part of my new fundraising system on Patreon, I am starting a monthly Q&A video series, answering questions from Patreon contributors. The support from you folks is a tremendous help to me in running […]

Mannlicher 1901/04 Carbine at James D Julia

September 29, 2015 Ian McCollum 13

Ferdinand von Mannlicher was a brilliant and prolific European gun designer with more than a few widely-adopted military arms to his name. One of his very last guns was this carbine, which was also one […]

Mauser 1902 Prototype Long Recoil Rifle at James D Julia

September 27, 2015 Ian McCollum 14

Paul Mauser was very persistent – if ultimately unsuccessful – in his long-tim goal to create a practical semiautomatic rifle using a full-power cartridge. In total he tried some 17 different designs, including one in […]

Holek Automat at James D Julia

September 15, 2015 Ian McCollum 35

The Holek Automat was a semiautomatic sporting rifle designed by Emmanuel Holek. Emmanuel was also the designer of the ZH-29 rifle, and brother of Vaclav and Franticek Holek, who developed the ZB-26 and ZB-53 machine guns. […]

RIA: Pedersen PA Carbine

September 9, 2015 Ian McCollum 5

We have done a number of videos recently on various different Pedersen long guns (the PA rifle, the Japanese copy, shooting the PB rifle, etc), but there was one version that I have not covered […]

RIA: M14E2 Semiauto Clone

August 28, 2015 Ian McCollum 39

The M14E2, later redesignated the M14A1, was the replacement for the ill-fated heavy barrel M15 rifle. Both were intended to fill the role of the BAR in providing automatic fire in support of M14 rifles. […]

RIA: Gyrojet Carbine

August 27, 2015 Ian McCollum 53

The Gyrojet was one of the more creative and one of the most futuristic firearms innovations of the last few decades – unfortunately it wasn’t able to prove sustainable on the market. The idea was […]

RIA: German Gewehr 41(M)

August 18, 2015 Ian McCollum 40

When the German military started looking for a self-loading rifle in the late 1930s, they had a pretty strict set of requirements. Most significantly, the rifles could not have gas ports or recoiling barrels, could […]

Garand converted to use AR10 magazines by Artillerie Inrichtingen

Dutch M1 with AR-10 Magazines

August 5, 2015 Ian McCollum 19

In the late 1950s and early 1960s, the Dutch government was looking to adopt a new rifle for its Army, and considered both the AR-10 (which was being produced domestically by Artillerie Inrichtingen) and the […]