Video - Forgotten Weapons

How to Identify a Real M1A1 Carbine vs a Fake

February 10, 2018 Ian McCollum 42

Looking for a light and compact weapon to equip its new Airborne units, the US military adopted the M1A1 Carbine in May of 1942. This was mechanically identical to the existing M1 Carbine but with […]

SITES Spectre: Think of it as an SMG, not a pistol

February 8, 2018 Ian McCollum 30

The SITES Spectre was originally developed by the SITES company (Societa Italiana a Technologie Speciali SPA) of Torino to be the best police and counterterrorist submachine gun on the market. To this end, they studied […]

Authenticating a Very Rare GL Script Luger

February 6, 2018 Ian McCollum 27

Luger collecting is one of the most detail-oriented and tricky niches in the whole firearms community – the amount of knowledge that has been documented is staggering, and the level of obsession with Lugers has […]

CZ38 – The Czech Ugly Ducking

February 4, 2018 Ian McCollum 42

The CZ vz.38 pistol was developed by the CZ factory as a replacement for Czechoslovakia’s vz.24 pistols. It was formally accepted by the Czech Army in June of 1938, and 41,000 were ordered from the […]

The Albanian SKS: A Few Different Details

February 2, 2018 Ian McCollum 30

The Albanian SKS is the rarest of the major adoptees of the SKS rifle (Russia, China, Romania, Yugoslavia, Albania), and has a handful of interested details that differ from all other examples of the SKS […]

Orden Y Patria: Carabineros de Chile Model 1935 Mauser

January 31, 2018 Ian McCollum 9

The Carabinieros de Chile were formed in 1927 by combining the Rural Police, Fiscal Police, and Corps of Carabinieros into a single national police organization. We do not have an organization like this in the […]

Pietta’s PPS/50 – A Popular PPSh Plinker

January 29, 2018 Ian McCollum 21

Introduced by the Italian Pietta company in the 1970s (yes, the same Pietta that makes all those reproduction Old West revolvers and lever action rifles), the PPS/50 has been a continuously popular firearm for more […]

Armalite AR-17: A Shotgun from the World of Tomorrow!

January 27, 2018 Ian McCollum 72

Armalite was a company founded as an offshoot of the Fairchild Aircraft company, and working with aluminum was their specialty. This was a fairly novel material to the arms industry, and they were able to […]

Inglis High Power: How a Chinese Whim Became A British Service Pistol

January 25, 2018 Ian McCollum 46

During World War Two, the Canadian government set up a loan program to help Chinese companies provide all manner of material aid to Canada’s allies. Among many others, one recipient of this aid was the […]

The Jet Li Maneuver: Beretta Disassembly at Gunpoint

January 23, 2018 Ian McCollum 48

In Lethal Wespon IV, Jet Li’s character is caught at gunpoint by Mel Gibson’s character…until he turns the tables by stripping the slide right off Gibson’s Beretta 92FS. I wonder how feasible that really is? […]