Video - Forgotten Weapons

Colt 1903 in US Military Service (and for the OSS)

November 13, 2023 Ian McCollum 12

The Colt Model 1903, aka Pocket Hammerless, aka Model M, was a massively successful design for Colt on the commercial market. It was chambered for the .32ACP cartridge, with a .380 model introduced in 1908. […]

Breda 37: Italy’s Forgotten Heavy Machine Gun

November 11, 2023 Ian McCollum 40

The Breda Model 37 was Italy’s standard heavy machine gun (which meant a rifle-caliber gun fired only from a tripod) during World War Two. It was chambered for the 8x59mm cartridge, as Italy used a […]

Soviet World War Two Swords? The Cossack M1927 Shashka

November 10, 2023 Ian McCollum 1

Cossack forces have long been a key cavalry element of the Russian military, and this did not change during the Soviet era. The Cossacks had their own rather distinctive style of sword, the shashka, and […]

Madsens in the Favelas: The LMG Still Going Strong With Rio’s Military Police

November 8, 2023 Ian McCollum 2

The Madsen LMG was first introduced in 1902, and it is still in use with police forces in Brazil today. The Madsen was not very popular with major European armies, but it sold extensively in […]

Adventures in Surplus: From German Imperial Navy to Ethiopia

November 7, 2023 Ian McCollum 7

I really enjoy finding guns that can be positively traced through multiple different parts of history, and Lugers can be a great source for that sort of story. Today I have a Luger from Royal […]

The Most Expensive Machine Gun Ever Sold

November 6, 2023 Ian McCollum 7

Morphy’s recently took the world record for the most expensive machine gun ever sold at public auction – with a transferrable FN Minimi. It sold for a winning bid of $490,000, which became a total […]

Mauser Schnellfeuer: The Official Full Auto C96 Broomhandle

November 3, 2023 Ian McCollum 14

Contrary to what you might expect, Mauser was actually the last company to produce a fully automatic model of the C96 “broomhandle” pistol. The C96 was very popular in China (Mauser sent hundreds of thousands […]

The Sexy Retro Shorty: Original AR-180 Police Carbine

October 28, 2023 Ian McCollum 6

When Armalite designed the AR-180, they needed a factory to produce it, as their own production capacity was limited. Initially a license was granted to How in Japan, but this only lasted a few years […]

Gas Delayed Blowback Pistols: A Tour of the System

October 27, 2023 Ian McCollum 29

Today we are taking a look at an assortment of gas-delayed pistols, from South Africa to China to Europe. There is one predominant style of gas-delay execution, but also some variations and some substantially different […]

Croatian Improvised Weapons: From Obrez to Single-Shot Yugo M70 Hybrid

October 25, 2023 Ian McCollum 16

During the Croatian Homeland War – as in all wars of independence – a wide variety of cobbled-together firearms were used by people who could not access proper factory arms for one reason or another. […]