United Kingdom - Forgotten Weapons

Quick Look at a 37mm Maxim “Pompom” Automatic Cannon

September 21, 2019 Ian McCollum 25

This Vickers, Sons & Maxim 37mm MkIII “Pompom” is on display at the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. The MkIII pattern is quite scarce, with less than one hundred ever made. It is built around […]

Britain’s Tubeless WW1 Sniper Optics: Martin Galilean Sight

September 18, 2019 Ian McCollum 6

When Britain entered the First World War, it had no formal sniper program. Germany was the first combatant to train and utilize snipers, and their effectiveness quickly convinced the British military that a similar program […]

Boer Lee-Speed Rifle from the Jameson Raid

August 29, 2019 Ian McCollum 23

Lot 1687 in the September 2019 RIA auction. The Jameson Raid in December 1895 was one of the key events in the lead to the second Boer War. Leander Jameson took a force of about […]

Platypus or Prototype? Authenticating a Hybrid Entini

August 24, 2019 Ian McCollum 30

Lot 1688 in the September 2019 RIA auction. I debated whether or not to film this rifle, because I can’t say with 100% confidence that it is genuine. It really seems genuine to me though, […]

Book Review: Carvings From the Veldt (3 Volumes)

August 11, 2019 Ian McCollum 1

Over the past 15 year, Dave C. George has compiled three volumes of his book “Carvings From the Veldt”, documenting nearly a thousand carved rifles from the Boer War. This is feature almost unique to […]

Hiram’s Extra Light Maxim Gun

August 7, 2019 Ian McCollum 9

Designed in an effort to compete with the then-new Colt/Browning air cooled 1895 machine gun, the Extra-Light Maxim weighted in at just 27 (maybe 28) pounds for the gun, and 44 pounds with tripod. This […]

Maxim “Prototype”: The First Practical Machine Gun

July 31, 2019 Ian McCollum 27

Hiram Maxim was the first person to create a truly practical and functional machine gun, based on a patent he filed in 1883. He pioneered the recoil operating system – the concept of harnessing the […]

Sterling S11: Donkey in a Thoroughbred Race

June 26, 2019 Ian McCollum 43

In the 1960s, the Sterling company began to worry about the prospects of continued sales of the Sterling (Patchett) SMG, especially in light of new competitors like the H&K MP5. Its chief design engineer, Frank […]

Lightweight Experimental Lanchester SMGs

June 14, 2019 Ian McCollum 33

George Lanchester was the engineer responsible for originally reverse engineering the German MP28 submachine gun for production by the British, under the designation Lanchester. Once he finished that design work, the gun was put into […]

Viper MkI: A Simplified Steampunk Sten

April 26, 2019 Ian McCollum 24

The Viper Mk I was an experimental submachine gun developed in the UK for use by military policemen in post-WW@ occupation West Germany. It was a simplified Sten gun (full-auto only, without the semiauto option […]