Video - Forgotten Weapons

The Soviet Jackhammer: Shooting an AVS-36

April 6, 2019 Ian McCollum 33

This rifle is lot #1019 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction. Yesterday we looked at the history and mechanics of the Soviet AVS-36 battle rifle, and today we are taking it out to the range. As […]

AVS-36: The First Soviet Infantry Battle Rifle

April 5, 2019 Ian McCollum 23

This rifle is lot #1019 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction. The AVS-36 was the first self-loading rifle adopted by the Soviet Union to be a standard infantry rifle, and it was not just semiautomatic, but […]

.577 Caliber Bland-Pryse Stopping Revolver

April 4, 2019 Ian McCollum 30

This revolver is lot #2573 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction. There were probably less than a hundred of these Pryde-Patent break-action .577 revolvers made in total, and this one has managed to maintain an excellent […]

Ingram M10 & M11 SMGs: The Originals from Powder Springs

April 3, 2019 Ian McCollum 41

These Ingram SMGs are selling in the April 2019 Morphy’s auction: M10/45 (lot 1069), M10/9 (lot 1070), and M11 (lot 1067) After the commercial failure of Gordon Ingram’s M6 submachine gun in the early 50s, […]

Armstrong & Taylor Carbine – Too Little Too Late

April 2, 2019 Ian McCollum 9

This carbine is lot #1416 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction. The Armstrong & Taylor carbine is a neat single shot breechloading carbine patented in 1862. It operates by way of a button on the top […]

Shooting the H&K MP7

March 30, 2019 Ian McCollum 37

Thanks to H&K and Trijicon, I have a chance to do some shooting with an MP7A1 PWD today. The MP7 is unusual for a gun of its size and configuration in having a fully locked […]

How Does it Work: Long Stroke Gas Piston

March 28, 2019 Ian McCollum 12

The long stroke gas piston system was in its heyday about 50 years ago, and was popular in both rifles and machine guns. The principle is that the gas piston is fixed to the bolt […]

Musgrave 9mm: A Gun for the Black Market

March 27, 2019 Ian McCollum 40

In the brief couple of years between the election of a new black-majority government in South Africa in 1994 and the dissolution of the Musgrave company, it attempted to produce a new 9mm pistol to […]

North & Skinner Wedge-Lock Revolving Rifle

March 25, 2019 Ian McCollum 5

This rifle is lot #1237 in the upcoming May 2019 Rock Island auction. Patented in 1852 by Henry North and Chaucey Skinner, about 700 of these revolving rifles were made by 1856. The design used […]

L118A2: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

March 22, 2019 Ian McCollum 4

After the British adoption of the Accuracy International PM as the L96A1 sniper rifle, other nations began to give a very serious look at the company and its rifles. One of the first was Sweden, […]