Germany - Forgotten Weapons

Authenticating a Very Rare GL Script Luger

February 6, 2018 Ian McCollum 27

Luger collecting is one of the most detail-oriented and tricky niches in the whole firearms community – the amount of knowledge that has been documented is staggering, and the level of obsession with Lugers has […]

CZ38 – The Czech Ugly Ducking

February 4, 2018 Ian McCollum 42

The CZ vz.38 pistol was developed by the CZ factory as a replacement for Czechoslovakia’s vz.24 pistols. It was formally accepted by the Czech Army in June of 1938, and 41,000 were ordered from the […]

Is My Luger All Matching?

January 21, 2018 Ian McCollum 15

Today I am visiting Simpson Ltd in Galesburg, Illinois – a gun shop, import/export shop, and premier Luger dealer. The question we are look at is one of the most common they hear from customers: […]

Book Review: Vickers Guide WWII Germany (Volume I)

December 17, 2017 Ian McCollum 1

Larry Vickers and James Rupley have expanded the Vickers Guide series of coffee table books to World War Two Germany, to look at one of the periods of the most rapid small arms development in […]

Q&A with Larry Vickers: German WW2 Gun and Modern Small Arms

December 11, 2017 Ian McCollum 15

Larry Vickers has published the newest book in the Vickers Guide series, and it looks at German small arms of World War II – the first of two volumes to do so. I had a hand […]

Book Review: Captured Arms (Beutewaffen)

December 3, 2017 Ian McCollum 25

“Captured Arms (Beutewaffen)” by Guus de Vries is Volume 9 of the Propaganda Photo Series by SI Publicaties out of the Netherlands. I really like the whole series, as they do a very good job […]

The .32ACP Dreyse Light Carbine

December 2, 2017 Ian McCollum 41

Manufactured by Rheinmetall and designed by Louis Stange, this light .32ACP (7.65mm Browning) carbine is a bit of a mysterious item. Very little written information exists about it, but we know it was sold on […]

Gebert Custom Mauser 71 with all the Bells and Whistles!

November 20, 2017 Ian McCollum 47

Made by Carl Gebert, a master gunsmith in Munich, this custom sporting rifle exhibits all the fancy options available in the 1870s or 1880s! The base action is an 1871 Mauser, which was a single […]

John Martz Custom P38s: Babies, .45s, and .38 Supers

November 15, 2017 Ian McCollum 7

Guns in this video: Baby P38 .38 Super P38 .45ACP P38 John Martz was a WWII US Navy veteran who spent a career in metalworking before turning his gunsmithing hobby into a full time occupation […]

The MG-15: A Flexible Aircraft Machine Gun Pushed into Infantry Service

October 29, 2017 Ian McCollum 29

The MG-15 was the first standard flexible-mounted aircraft machine gun adopted by the Luftwaffe in the 1930s. Both it and the MG-17 are evolved form a Rheinmetall/Solothurn design which would also become the Austrian and […]