Australia - Forgotten Weapons

Electrolux Charlton: Washing Machine Company Converts Bolt Action to Semiauto

March 25, 2024 Ian McCollum 17

The Charlton was a conversion of a bolt action Lee rifle into a light machine gun, designed by New Zealander Phillip Charlton. Some 1500 were made in New Zealand, but a bit later it appears […]

Extra Firepower for Vietnam: the Aussie “B!tch”

December 18, 2023 Ian McCollum 22

Many of the special forces groups that operated during the Vietnam War found they standard issue weapons a but unwieldy for use in confined jungle environments. They also found a need for something that could […]

Felk TF919: Australia and Spain Team Up to Make a Lousy Pistol

February 10, 2023 Ian McCollum 42

Edward Felk was an Australian who decided to produce semiauto pistols in Australia. In 1994 he patented a couple features of his new design, and set about finding a way to produce it. He ended […]

Australia’s FAL-Based L2A1 Heavy Automatic Rifle

April 21, 2021 Ian McCollum 47

Many the nations that adopted the FAL (or L1A1, in Commonwealth terminology) opted to also use a heavy-barreled variant of the same rifle as a light support weapon. In the Commonwealth, this was designated L2A1 […]

Get Your Sunglasses, it’s Original Owen Gun Camo!

January 26, 2021 Ian McCollum 33

https://youtu.be/r00oJ84t3AQ I had the chance to take a look at this Australian World War 2 Owen submachine gun, and it’s *very* bright camouflage paint. My initial reaction was that it was a poorly done restoration, […]

S&W’s Pistol-Carbine for the South Australian Police

December 1, 2020 Ian McCollum 29

In 1880, the South Australian Police service was introduced to the Smith & Wesson No3 New Model revolver at the Melbourne Exhibition. They took a liking to the design, and promptly ordered 250 of them, […]

Fun With OOBs: An Austen MkII at the Range

November 19, 2020 Ian McCollum 13

A little while back I had a chance to take an Austen MkII out to the range. There were only a couple hundred of these ever made, at the end of World War Two in […]

Shooting the AuSTEN MkI – Not Actually So Bad!

October 16, 2019 Ian McCollum 14

This is Lot 1019 in the upcoming October Morphy Extraordinary auction. I have read much about the Australian dislike for the Austen submachine gun, but until now I never had the chance to actually try […]

The Owen SMG: Looks Bad; Shoots Good

October 15, 2019 Ian McCollum 15

This is Lot 2012 in the upcoming October Morphy Extraordinary auction. The Owen Gun is one of the really good submachine guns fielded during the Second World War, but is a very scarce gun to […]

Sterling Meets Owen: The Australian F1 Submachine Gun

September 20, 2019 Ian McCollum 28

The Australian Owen submachine gun was once of the best overall SMG designs of the Second World War, and when Australia decided to replace them in the 1960s, the new F1 design have big shoes […]