Video
Icelandic Swords: Blades of the Viking Frontier
(Sorry for the messed-up framing at the beginning of the video!) While I was in Iceland, I had an opportunity to visit the National Museum of Iceland and take a look at a couple of […]
Video
Bolt Action Rifles
Cugir Model 92 “Dragana” Mauser: Hunting Rifles From MG34s
With the fall of communism in Romania, the Cugir Arsenal complex lost its government financial support. Looking for commercial products to sell to keeps its workers employed, the factory turned to producing hunting rifles for […]
Select-fire Rifles
Wieger 942: East Germany Makes a 5.56mm AK
East Germany purchased a license for production of the AK-74 in 1981, but that license was for domestic use only. There was an apparent market for export production AKs in the western 5.56mm cartridge, and […]
Accessories
History of the Krummlauf Device: Hitler’s Folly (One of Many)
Today we are taking a look at the backstory of the famously recognizable Krummlauf device, the curved barrel attachment for the StG-44. It is really a perfect example of how German late-war desperation weapons took […]
Tour
Tour of Sport Systems Dittrich: Reproduction WWII German Rifles
I recently had a chance to visit Sport Systeme Dittrich, a firm in Germany that manufactures high quality reproductions of German World War Two small arms. They were the manufacturers of the PTR-44 Sturmgewehr copies […]
Antiques
Romanian Model 1879 Martini-Henry Rifles & Carbines
Following its experience in the Russo-Turkish War, the Romanian Army was quite impressed by the Martini-Henry rifle in Turkish service. Unlike so many Western observers who were taken by the Winchester repeating rifles that actually […]
Prototype
Landstad 1900: A True Semiautomatic Revolver
The Landstad Model 1900 is a magazine-fed, semiautomatic revolver designed by Norwegian Halvard Folkestad Landstad, who lived in Kristiana (now called Oslo). He designed the gun on his own dime, and presented it to military […]
Antiques
Belton Repeating Flintlock: A Semiautomatic Rifle in 1785
In 1785, Joseph Belton (an American inventor) and William Jover (an English gunmaker) sold 560 repeating flintlock rifles to the British East India Company. The guns were a very remarkable design which used a detachable […]
Accessories
Universal AK Optics Rail from KGM Consortium
At the IWA trade show earlier this year, a representative from the Polish KGM Consortium gave me a sample of a new AK optics rail to try out. This idea here was to create a […]
Single Shot Rifles
Enjoying Black Powder Episode 2: The Modele 1874 Gras
For the full episode with the hand loading instructional section, click here: https://forgottenweapons.vhx.tv/videos/black-powder-episode-2-gras-app-cut Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, […]