Russia - Forgotten Weapons

TT33 Tokarev at the BackUp Gun Match

November 19, 2022 Ian McCollum 20

My holster and mag carrier in this match are made by BattleGnome Solutions in Slovenia, and available worldwide exclusively from the Polenar Tactical web store: https://polenartactical.com/shop/holsters/1363-tt-holster-bgs.html I was talking to the guys who operate BattleGnome […]

Leningrad’s Emergency-Production PPS-42 at the Range

November 12, 2022 Ian McCollum 18

Yesterday we looked at the history of the PPS-42 and how it was developed into the much more common PPS-43. Today we are taking it out to the range – the only time one of […]

Born in the Heart of Besieged Leningrad: the PPS-42

November 11, 2022 Ian McCollum 24

One would think that the Shpagin PPSh-41 was as simple as a submachine gun could get, but that wasn’t the case in World War Two USSR. Barely had the PPSh gotten into real production than […]

Late-Production Degtyarev PPD 34/38 at the Range

October 22, 2022 Ian McCollum 12

A crash program to produce the PPD 34/38 after the initial battles of the Winter War, even as the improved PPD 40 was being rapidly developed. These are very rare gun today, and we have […]

The Soviet Union Adopts an SMG: Degtyarev’s PPD-34/38

October 21, 2022 Ian McCollum 28

The Soviet Union adopted its first submachine gun in 1935 after trials of some 14 different design in 1932/33. The winner of the trials was Vasily Degtyarev, once of the Soviet Union’s most prolific firearms […]

Soviet WW2 Bramit Silencer for the M91/30

August 29, 2022 Ian McCollum 19

https://youtu.be/Hecvt_oGvb4 The Soviet Union began to take an interest in military suppressors in the early 1930s, and experimented with things like suppressors for the DP light machine gun. Through the 1930s a variety of different […]

The Original Shorty Mosin: The Model 1907 Carbine

August 22, 2022 Ian McCollum 13

The creation of a short and handy Mosin Nagant carbine to complement the standard M891 was prompted by the Russo-Japanese War. Lots of Russian troops with roles other than infantry – machine gun and artillery […]

Balanced Recoil AK-107 / Kalashnikov SR-1: Is It Any Good?

August 1, 2022 Ian McCollum 50

One of the really interesting variations on the AK to come out of Russian military development and testing is the balanced-recoil system, as exemplified on the military AK-107 and the commercial Kalashnikov SR-1 rifles. Contrary […]

Goryunov SG43: Russia Replaces the Maxim

June 20, 2022 Ian McCollum 14

The Russian M1910 Maxim was clearly obsolete in the 1930s, and the Soviet military developed a replacement for it – the Degtyarev DS-39. These performed well in testing, but several major flaws were revealed when […]

Historical Comparison: Finland’s Winter War vs Russian Invasion of Ukraine

April 21, 2022 Ian McCollum 50

I have been reading about the Winter War in past few months as part of my work on a book about Finnish small arms, and I have been really struck by the similarity in images […]