Video - Forgotten Weapons

Gyrojet Pistol at RIA

September 8, 2014 Ian McCollum 24

The 13mm Gyrojet pistol was the closest thing to a commercially successful rocket pistol, although not many were sold before the company went out of business. This pistol version (the most common type of Gyrojet) […]

Prototype Dieckmann P66 Pistol at RIA

September 7, 2014 Ian McCollum 36

The P66 was a prototype .22LR semiauto pistol designed by a German immigrant to the United States by the name of Rolf Dieckmann. It never went into production, but had a number of interesting features, […]

Krummlauf Curved Barrel StG44 at RIA

September 5, 2014 Ian McCollum 18

Today’s Rock Island Auction item is a very cool piece – a German Sturmgewehr with a “krummlauf”, or curved barrel attachment. This is the 30 degree type, intended (as goofy as this sounds) for firing […]

Type 1 Japanese Paratroop Rifles at RIA

September 2, 2014 Ian McCollum 12

Before standardizing on the Type 2 paratroop rifle (a 7.7mm Arisaka that broke in half at the chamber), the Japanese military tested a variant of the Type 38 carbine with a folding stock retrofitted into […]

Nazi Belt Buckle Pistol at RIA

August 28, 2014 Ian McCollum 34

One of the items at RIA in this upcoming Premier Auction is a Nazi belt-buckle pistol. There is a fair amount of debate as to whether these are authentic WWII German artifacts, as opposed to […]

Handmade Auto-Revolver at RIA

August 27, 2014 Ian McCollum 22

This very odd one-off pistol first appeared in a 1958 Golden State Arms catalog, with no description of its history or mechanical design. I have often seen it referred to as an automatic revolver, but […]

Krnka 1895 Semiauto Pistol at RIA

August 26, 2014 Ian McCollum 14

This prototype 1895 Krnka automatic pistol is another of the items up for sale at the upcoming Rock Island Premier Auction. This pistol, serial number 7, was the first in the developmental line that led […]

Transferable FG-42 at RIA

August 25, 2014 Ian McCollum 18

The undisputed star of the upcoming Rock Island Premier auction is this transferable full-auto German FG-42 paratrooper’s rifle. Only a few dozen of these are in private hands in the US, and they are an […]

Four-Shot Superposed Ratchet Pistol at RIA

August 24, 2014 Ian McCollum 19

Today’s item in the upcoming Rock Island Premier Auction is a rather unusual percussion pistol. It began life as an underhammer gun, and was rebuilt by an unknown gunsmith as a percussion gun that fired […]

1875 Lee Vertical Action Carbine at RIA

August 22, 2014 Ian McCollum 21

My recent trip to the Rock Island Auction house was spent taking a whole slew of videos on guns that are coming up for sale in their Premier auction on the 12th, 13th, and 14th […]