Video - Forgotten Weapons

The 1874 Gras: France Enters the Brass Cartridge Era

May 6, 2019 Ian McCollum 30

Preorders now open for my book, Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866-2016! Get your copy here! After the disaster of the Franco-Prussian War, it was clear to the French military that the rationale for […]

Book Review: Foundations of Sniper Marksmanship

May 5, 2019 Ian McCollum 4

John C. Simpson has been teaching military and police sniper training since 1985 – nearly as long as I have been alive. I encountered him back when I filmed a video on a Confederate Whitworth […]

A Brief Introduction to the M240 Golf

May 4, 2019 Ian McCollum 56

The FN MAG was adopted by the United States military to replace its aging inventory of M60 machine guns. It was designated the M240 in US parlance, and first used as a vehicle-mounted machine gun. […]

Chassepot: Best of the Needle Rifles

May 3, 2019 Ian McCollum 19

Preorders now open for my book, Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866-2016! Get your copy here! The Model 1866 Chassepot was France’s first military cartridge-firing rifle. It used a self-contained paper cartridge on the […]

Portugal’s MG-13: the M938 Light Machine Gun

May 2, 2019 Ian McCollum 40

The MG-13 is a transferrable machine gun being sold as lot #746 in the upcoming May 2019 Rock Island auction. The MG13 was an interim machine gun used by the German military in the 1930s […]

Erma/Glaser Luger .22 Rimfire Conversion

May 1, 2019 Ian McCollum 11

This conversion kit is lot #1713 in the upcoming Rock Island May 2019 auction. In 1927, a Berlin resident named Richard Kulisch patented a .22 rimfire conversion kit for the Luger pistol. Kulisch’s conversion used […]

Marga Trials Rifle: Competition For the Belgian Army

April 30, 2019 Ian McCollum 15

This rifle is lot #410 in the upcoming May 2019 Rock Island auction. When the Belgian military decided to adopt a new rifle in the late 1880s, they attached a wide variety of competitors. The […]

Engraved Glock 19 Pistols – Yes, That’s a Thing

April 29, 2019 Ian McCollum 21

These three Glocks are lots 1731 (simplest), 1732 (intermediate), and 1733 (best) in the upcoming May 2019 Rock Island auction. Would you believe it? Factory engraved Glocks are actually a thing! They have not made […]

Morse Carbine: If the Army Says No, Sell it Commercially!

April 28, 2019 Ian McCollum 10

This carbine is lot #3208 in the upcoming Rock Island May 2019 auction. George Morse was one of the most significant American inventors in the development of modern ammunition. In 1856 he received a patent […]

Original Vietnam-Era M60 at the Range

April 27, 2019 Ian McCollum 112

The M60 was the first modern American military machine gun, developed from the operating system of the German FG-42 and the feed system of the German MG-42 in the years after World War Two. It […]