Video - Forgotten Weapons

LAR Grizzly: A 1911 on .45 Winchester Magnum Steroids

August 24, 2017 Ian McCollum 43

Developed in the early 1980s by Perry Arnett, the LAR Grizzly was manufactured from 1983 until 1998. It was an expensive gun (base price was $675 in 1985), a huge gun (48oz / 1.36kg), and […]

The 1878 Remington-Keene: Tube Fed .45-70 Bolt Action Rifle

August 23, 2017 Ian McCollum 25

John W. Keene was an independent gun designer who developed this rifle (and took out 9 patents on its various features) in the 1870s. He did not have a factory at his disposal to produce […]

MP-28: Hugo Schmeisser Improves the MP18

August 22, 2017 Ian McCollum 32

The MP28,II was Hugo Schmeisser’s improved take on the original World War One MP18,I design. It used a simple box magazine in place of the Luger drum magazines, and this magazine would form the basis […]

MG-17 German Aircraft Machine Gun

August 20, 2017 Ian McCollum 26

The MG-17 is a belt-fed 8mm machine gun that was used on a large number of Luftwaffe aircraft early in World War II. The gun was developed by Rheinmetall through its subsidiary in Solothurn, Switzerland […]

Bergmann’s MP35 Submachine Gun: It Feeds From the Wrong Side

August 19, 2017 Ian McCollum 50

Guns in this video: Pre-War MP35 and wartime MP35/1 The MP35 submachine gun was designed by Theodore Emil Bergmann, the son of the Theodore Bergmann who had manufactured the turn of the century line of Bergmann […]

The Volcanic: Smith & Wesson’s First Pistol

August 18, 2017 Ian McCollum 18

Guns in this video: S&W Navy model S&W Pocket Model Volcanic Navy model New Haven Pocket model The deep beginnings of the Volcanic go back to Walter Hunt’s Volitional Repeater, which became the Jennings repeating […]

Spanish MP41/44 – A Copy of the Erma EMP

August 17, 2017 Ian McCollum 22

The Spanish-made MP41/44 is a licensed copy of the Erma EMP submachine gun. The development begins with Heinrich Vollmer in 1925, designing a submachine gun for German military testing. The military trials showed a number […]

Jennings Muzzleloader Conversion: The Perils of Early Adoption

August 16, 2017 Ian McCollum 24

Early adoption of new technology is a sword which cuts both ways – you might be getting the first of a fantastic new system, or you might be paying for a flop – and in […]

Experimental Reising 7.62mm Full-Auto Battle Rifle

August 15, 2017 Ian McCollum 68

In the late 1950s or early 1960s, Eugene Reising experimented with adapting the mechanism of his submachine guns to a locked-breech 7.62mm NATO military pattern rifle. The resulting rifle used an M14 gas piston and […]

Schmeisser’s MP-18,I – The First True Submachine Gun

August 14, 2017 Ian McCollum 22

When Germany began looking in late 1915 for a new weapon ideally suited for the “last 200 meters” of a combat advance, Hugo Schmeisser’s blowback submachine gun would prove to be the weapon that would […]