Video - Forgotten Weapons

Pleter M91: Croatia’s High Quality STUzi

August 28, 2023 Ian McCollum 9

The Pleter M91 is a simple design, but a high-quality one that was manufactured by a proper factory production line. The company making it was planning on (hoping for?) large-scale production, and they invested to […]

AMELI: Spain’s Not-Mini-MG42 in 5.56mm

August 26, 2023 Ian McCollum 26

The AMELI (which is a contraction of “ametralladora ligera”, or light machine gun) was introduced by CETME in 1981, and adopted by the Spanish military as the MG82. It was a counterpart LMG to the […]

Pacific Theater USMC-Modified Johnson M1941 Rifle

August 25, 2023 Ian McCollum 8

Johnson M1941 rifles were used in limited numbers by the US Marine Corps in the Pacific theater of World War Two, but they were used – and generally well liked. Interestingly, there was a fairly […]

The Post-War Legacy of the FG42

August 23, 2023 Ian McCollum 55

If the FG-42 was such a great gun, then why didn’t it get used after the war? Well, two answers… 1) It was crazy expensive to make and there weren’t very many lying around for […]

Ugly Pistol Day at the BUG Match: CZ38

August 19, 2023 Ian McCollum 5

For this month’s BackUp Gun Match, I decided to bring out the CZ38 – one of the top contenders for ugliest service pistol ever adopted. It’s a single-stack, double-action-only .380 with a weirdly bulky grip, […]

Llama M87: Everything You Would Want for IPSC (at the time)

August 18, 2023 Ian McCollum 3

The Llama M87 was Gabilondo y Cia’s high-end competition pistols based on the M82 action, and made in both 9mm Parabellum and 7.65mm Parabellum. This was mechanically a copy of the Beretta 92 system, and […]

Story of the Alar: A Simple Student-Made SMG

August 14, 2023 Ian McCollum 5

The Alar is an interesting very rare Croatian domestic SMG. It is called the “Alar” after it’s designer, Stipe Alar. He first came up with the design in 1971 and built one illegally – which […]

Semiauto PM-63C “Rak” at the BUG Match (It’s Technically a Backup Gun…)

August 12, 2023 Ian McCollum 16

I recently picked up one of the Pioneer Arms semiauto PM-63C pistols that are sporadically available here in the US. They have a pretty mediocre reputation and I wasn’t expecting much, but the gun is […]

Argentina’s Slightly French Model 1909 SOM Sniper

August 11, 2023 Ian McCollum 5

Argentina was one of the first countries to adopt Mauser rifles, with the Model 1891. These were replaced by newer Model 1909 rifles a couple decades later, and in 1913 they bought 500 telescopic sights […]

Tara TM-9: What a Tangled Web of Intrigue for a Crappy Gun

August 9, 2023 Ian McCollum 17

Tara Aerospace is an arms factory in Montenegro that was privatized around 2013 or 2014, and a major stake in it was purchased by one Heinrich Thomet (formerly of Brugger & Thomet, and then the […]