Switzerland - Forgotten Weapons

Swiss Prototype: N33 (Video)

December 24, 2015 Ian McCollum 19

The N33 is one of a series of Swiss prototype semiautomatic rifles developed between WWI and WWII (the “33” refers to 1933). This particular design is interesting because it fires from an open bolt, a […]

SIG Prototype 1924/1925 Semiauto Rifles (Video)

December 10, 2015 Ian McCollum 15

The Swiss SIG factory was one of the earliest producers of semiautomatic military rifles, having produced the M1908 Mondragon rifles for Mexico. They continued to experiment with self-loading rifle designs, and in the mid 1920s […]

Swiss ZfK-55 Sniper at RIA

November 26, 2015 Ian McCollum 40

The Swiss military began experimenting with scoped sniper rifle during WWII, with the K31/42 and K31/43. These use periscopic optics permanently mounted to the side of the receiver, and were both found less than ideal. […]

Differentiating Models of the 1894 Mondragon

October 28, 2015 Ian McCollum 24

I recently had a chance to examine 4 different examples of the 1894 Mondragon straight-pull bolt action rifle. These rifles were the predecessor to the self-loading Mondragon design which would be adopted by Mexico in […]

Furrer M1919 Double-Barrel SMG

July 31, 2015 Ian McCollum 21

We have looked at one of Adolf Furrer’s M1919 submachine guns before, but this one is a much different implementation. The model 1919 Furrer designed was basically a chassis for converting a Luger pistol […]

Swiss Prototype Pistols: P44/8 and W+F Bern P43 (Video)

July 27, 2015 Ian McCollum 29

Switzerland was an early adopter of the Luger pistol as a standard military sidearm, but by WWII that design was becoming obsolete and the Swiss began looking for a newer sidearm. Several lines of development […]

Slow Motion: Swiss LMG-25

July 2, 2015 Ian McCollum 10

I had a cool Swiss viewer named Bjoern kindly send me this footage of a Swiss LMG25 machine gun firing – thanks, Bjoern! These guns are very rare in the US, and the only one […]

Rheinmetall Model 1928

May 8, 2015 Ian McCollum 10

The Rheinmetall model 1928 (designed by one Karl Heinemann and made in Switzerland) was one of the rifles tested by US Ordnance in trials that eventually settled on the Garand and Pedersen designs (and ultimately […]

Mondragon 1894 Straight-Pull at RIA

April 5, 2015 Ian McCollum 29

Most people who recognize the name Mondragon know it from Manuel Mondragon’s model 1908 semiauto rifle, the first such rifle to be adopted on a large scale by a military (the Mexican Army, in this […]

Rexim-Favor SMG

January 20, 2015 Ian McCollum 24

The Rexim-Favor was a Spanish-made, Swiss-marketed, and allegedly French-designed submachine gun produced during the 1950s. Only about 5000 were made in total, as the gun failed to procure any significant military or police contracts. Mechanically, […]