Video - Forgotten Weapons

Book Review: Cold War Pistols of Czechoslovakia

August 12, 2018 Ian McCollum 17

Recently, we have been looking at a selection of books on Cold War eastern bloc pistols – and James D. Brown’s “Cold War Pistols of Czechoslovakia” is the best of them. While its scope is […]

Holy Mother of Muzzle Flash, the Rico Special

August 11, 2018 Ian McCollum 17

Rico is a gunsmith at SIG Neuhausen who likes to tinker. He put together this SIG 510 (aka Stgw 57), with a modern collapsing stock, quad rail foreend, Aimpoint red dot, heavy barrel, and massive […]

Maltese Flintlocks: Girard Mle 1733 Pistols of the Order of St. John

August 10, 2018 Ian McCollum 19

The Order of St John – the Knights of Malta – began as an order to protect Christian pilgrims on the road to Jerusalem, but transformed into an organization dedicated to corsairing in the Mediterranean […]

Project Ultra: Germany Wants a Stronger Compact Pistol

August 8, 2018 Ian McCollum 15

This pistol is one of just a couple surviving from a development project run by Walther in the mid to late 1930s. The goal was to produce a compact sidearm for pilots and officers using […]

Musgrave Ambidex: Straight Pull Rimfire Rifle for Lefties or Righties

August 6, 2018 Ian McCollum 16

The Ambidex was a rifle developed by the Musgrave company in South Africa in the late 1980s. It was a straight-pull bolt action rifle inspired by the Browning T-Bolt, but with the ability to have […]

Book Review: The Suomi M/31 by Michael Heidler

August 5, 2018 Ian McCollum 9

Michael Heidler’s bi-lingual (German and English) book on the Finnish Suomi m/31 submachine gun is a small but dense history of one of the best submachine guns of World War Two. It covers Aimo Lahti’s […]

Star Z-70B: Spain’s Improved SMG

August 4, 2018 Ian McCollum 24

The Star Z-70B was an incremental improvement on the earlier Z-62 and Z-63 submachine guns adopted by the Spanish military and security services. It remains an open bolt, selective fire design, with an underfolding stock. […]

Rhodesian Cobra SMG/Carbine

August 3, 2018 Ian McCollum 28

The Cobra was one of a variety of semiautomatic compact carbines designed and manufactured in Rhodesia in the latter half of the 1970s for sale as civilian self-defense weapons (primarily for rural farming families). Unlike […]

SIG’s Pump Action 550 Rifle: the 550 VRB

August 1, 2018 Ian McCollum 10

In many countries, manually operated rifles are substantially easier for civilians to own than semiautomatic ones – and this was not lost on firearms manufacturers. In an effort to potentially open a new market, SIG […]

Sunngård Automatic Pistol: 50 Rounds in 1909

July 30, 2018 Ian McCollum 21

Harald Sunngård was Norwegian inventor in the early years of the 20th century who noticed a common perceived weakness of automatic pistols: reloads under stress were often bungled by shooters, leaving them vulnerable to return […]