United Kingdom - Forgotten Weapons

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 […]

Canadian 8mm “Sterile” Bren Gun

April 12, 2019 Ian McCollum 30

This Bren is lot #1013 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction. The John Inglis company in Toronto first opened in 1859 as a metalworking shop, and grew steadily over the decades under first John Inglis, and […]

Boys Anti-Tank Rifle: Mk I and Mk I* Improvements

April 11, 2019 Ian McCollum 19

These rifles are lots #1087 and #1088 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction: The Boys Anti-Tank Rifle was adopted by the British military in 1937, and remained in production until 1943 when it was replaced by […]

.577 Caliber Bland-Pryse Stopping Revolver

April 4, 2019 Ian McCollum 32

This revolver is lot #2573 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction. There were probably less than a hundred of these Pryde-Patent break-action .577 revolvers made in total, and this one has managed to maintain an excellent […]

Arctic Warfare Magnum: Accuracy International L115A3

March 29, 2019 Ian McCollum 9

In 2007, the British Army placed an order for 582 AI Arctic Warfare Super Magnum rifles chambered for the .338 Laua Magnum cartridge, formally adopting the model as the L115A3 sniper rifle. This followed special […]

L118A2: Accuracy International Arctic Warfare

March 22, 2019 Ian McCollum 4

After the British adoption of the Accuracy International PM as the L96A1 sniper rifle, other nations began to give a very serious look at the company and its rifles. One of the first was Sweden, […]

Project Lightening Episode 07: Conclusions

March 7, 2019 Ian McCollum 12

Project Lightening is a collaborative series with Othais and Mae of C&Rsenal in which we test all seven light machine guns and automatic rifles of World War One and put them through a series of […]