Japan - Forgotten Weapons

Japanese Type 18 Murata at RIA

June 14, 2015 Ian McCollum 19

The Murata was Japan’s first domestic manufactured military rifle. In its first iteration, it was an 11mm, single shot, black powder weapon and was adopted in 1880 (the Type 13). Before long, some problems in […]

Japanese Type 97 Sniper Rifle (Video)

April 27, 2015 Ian McCollum 34

The most common Japanese sniper rifle of World War II was the Type 97, essentially a Type 38 Arisaka rifle with a 2.5x telescopic sight mounted to the side of the receiver. About 22,000 of […]

Japanese Pedersen Rifle at RIA

April 19, 2015 Ian McCollum 10

After he failed to win US military adoption of his toggle-locked rifle design, John Pedersen went looking for other countries that might be interested in the gun. One of these was Japan, which experimented with […]

Japanese Inagaki and Sugiura Pistols at RIA

April 15, 2015 Ian McCollum 13

The most common Japanese pistols used during World War II were the Type 14 and Type 94 Nambu designs, by a huge margin. However, there were a number of other handguns used in small numbers, […]

Type 92 Japanese HMG at James D Julia

March 10, 2015 Ian McCollum 29

The Type 92 was the final iteration of a machine gun that began as the Model 1897 Hotchkiss HMG made in France. The Japanese army purchased many of these guns, and then produced their own […]

Japanese Type 97 Tank Machine Gun

January 26, 2015 Ian McCollum 29

While in Las Vegas last week, I stopped into Battlefield Vegas to check out some interesting machine guns (and join Tim from Military Arms Channel for a video). While there, the owner took the time […]

Tactical and Technical Trends #49: August 1944

October 17, 2014 Ian McCollum 13

A little while back, I got my hands on a number of copies of Tactical and Technical Trends booklets – this was a bulletin published by the US Military Intelligence Service during WWII to keep […]

Arisaka With Nambu Bipod

October 6, 2014 Ian McCollum 12

I recently had a chance to take a look at a rifle that has been floating around the Japanese collector’s community causing grief since for at least 25 years. It is a Type 99 Arisaka, […]

Type 94 Nambu in Slow Motion

September 18, 2014 Ian McCollum 11

The Type 94 Nambu is a much-maligned pistol used by the Japanese military from 1935-1945. It’s actually a better gun than people give it credit for, but we will address that in a later video. […]

Type 1 Japanese Paratroop Rifles at RIA

September 2, 2014 Ian McCollum 12

Before standardizing on the Type 2 paratroop rifle (a 7.7mm Arisaka that broke in half at the chamber), the Japanese military tested a variant of the Type 38 carbine with a folding stock retrofitted into […]