Germany - Forgotten Weapons

Krummlauf Curved Barrel StG44 at RIA

September 5, 2014 Ian McCollum 18

Today’s Rock Island Auction item is a very cool piece – a German Sturmgewehr with a “krummlauf”, or curved barrel attachment. This is the 30 degree type, intended (as goofy as this sounds) for firing […]

Transferable MKb-42(H) Assault Rifle at RIA

September 1, 2014 Ian McCollum 24

The MKb-42(H), or Maschinenkarabiner-42 (Haenel), was the first production iteration of the German Sturmgewehr. It was chambered for the then-new 8x33mm kurz cartridge, and fired both semiauto and full-auto from an open bolt. Approximately 11,000 […]

Vintage Saturday: Mounts

August 30, 2014 Ian McCollum 12

From left to right, an MG08 on its sled mount, a captured Russian 1910 on a Vickers J tripod modified with wheels (and an MG08 blank adapter), a dummy MG08, and a blank-adapter MG08 on […]

2.7mm Kolibri Semiauto at RIA

August 29, 2014 Ian McCollum 26

Today’s item at the September Rock Island auction is an example of the smallest centerfire pistol ever made – a 2.7mm Kolibri semiauto. About a thousand of these were made between 1910 and 1914, firing […]

Nazi Belt Buckle Pistol at RIA

August 28, 2014 Ian McCollum 34

One of the items at RIA in this upcoming Premier Auction is a Nazi belt-buckle pistol. There is a fair amount of debate as to whether these are authentic WWII German artifacts, as opposed to […]

Transferable FG-42 at RIA

August 25, 2014 Ian McCollum 18

The undisputed star of the upcoming Rock Island Premier auction is this transferable full-auto German FG-42 paratrooper’s rifle. Only a few dozen of these are in private hands in the US, and they are an […]

2-Gun Match: WWII Snipers (Video)

August 18, 2014 Ian McCollum 33

This month for the 2-Gun Action Challenge Match, Karl and I square off with WWII snipers’ rifles. I have a No4 MkI (T) Enfield sniper with a 3.5x No.32 scope, and Karl has a Mauser […]

MG-30

August 12, 2014 Ian McCollum 51

by Tom Laemlein Lost in the shuffle of Germany’s automatic weapons of the World War II era is the Louis Stange-designed MG 30. Rejected by the Reichswehr, the MG 30 ended up in licensed production […]

C96 High-Speed Video and Smith-Condit article

August 1, 2014 Ian McCollum 11

Now that I have this high speed camera to use, I am going to be making high-speed video a regular weekly feature, at least until I run out of guns to film this way. Today’s […]

Krupp 50mm Mountain Gun (Thai Model 1902)

July 28, 2014 Ian McCollum 22

We’re taking a look at another artillery piece today, a 50mm mountain gun made for Siam (now Thailand) by the German Krupp company. It is a relatively simple (and thus relatively inexpensive at the time) […]