France - Forgotten Weapons

MAS 44: The French Adopt a Semiauto Rifle

May 17, 2019 Ian McCollum 22

Pre-sales for my book, Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866 – 2016 are now live on Kickstarter – check it out! The French Army had been planning a semiauto infantry rifle since 1921, but […]

1884 Kropatschek: Groundwork for the Lebel

May 13, 2019 Ian McCollum 13

Preorders now open for my book, Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866-2016! Get your copy here! After the adoption of the single-shot Gras rifle in 1874, attitudes towards repeating rifles began to shift in […]

French 1878 Marine Kropatschek

May 10, 2019 Ian McCollum 14

Preorders now open for my book, Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866-2016! Get your copy here! The French Navy chose not to adopt the Gras rifle, and continued to use the paper-cartridge, needlefire Chassepot […]

The 1874 Gras: France Enters the Brass Cartridge Era

May 6, 2019 Ian McCollum 30

Preorders now open for my book, Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866-2016! Get your copy here! After the disaster of the Franco-Prussian War, it was clear to the French military that the rationale for […]

Chassepot: Best of the Needle Rifles

May 3, 2019 Ian McCollum 19

Preorders now open for my book, Chassepot to FAMAS: French Military Rifles 1866-2016! Get your copy here! The Model 1866 Chassepot was France’s first military cartridge-firing rifle. It used a self-contained paper cartridge on the […]

The Hotchkiss Heavy: Shooting the Great War’s Modele 1914

April 20, 2019 Ian McCollum 13

This Hotchkiss machine gun and its tripod are lot #2027 in the upcoming April 2019 Morphy auction. The Hotchkiss was the primary heavy machine gun for the French and American forces in World War One, […]

Hotchkiss 1914: A French and American WWI Heavy MG

April 19, 2019 Ian McCollum 30

This Hotchkiss machine gun and its tripod are lot #2027 in the upcoming April 2019 Morphy auction. The gun that became the Hotchkiss 1914 and served as the bulwark of French and American forces in […]

Samuel Pauly Invents the Cartridge in 1812

April 17, 2019 Ian McCollum 45

https://youtu.be/BC7awTeuqRU This Pauly shotgun is lot #1346 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction. Samuel Johannes Pauli was born outside Bern, Switzerland in 1766, and became an engineer of wide interests. Among them were bridge design, passenger-carrying […]

Hotchkiss Revolving Cannon from San Juan Hill

April 9, 2019 Ian McCollum 34

This Hotchkiss and its accessories are lot #1116 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction: Benjamin Hotchkiss was an American artillery designer who moved to Paris in 1867 in hopes of building a business for his improvements […]

ManuFrance Commercial Luger

March 17, 2019 Ian McCollum 9

Between 1909 and 1915, the huge French mail-order firm of Manufacture Francais d’Armes et Cycles de St Etienne (later called Manufrance) sold Luger pistols (as well as many other types of firearms). They were enough […]