United States - Forgotten Weapons

Browning 1919 Experimental Belt Box

March 7, 2014 Ian McCollum 10

About a year ago, I wrote a post about some Browning 1919 feeding devices that were patented but never went into production. Well, reader Alex found photos of one of them in the Springfield Armory […]

Remington Model 8 Extended Magazines

March 4, 2014 Ian McCollum 18

After posting the video on the Remington Model 8 last week, we received an email from reader Rod, whose grandfather was an auxiliary police officer and something of a gun nut. One of his rifles […]

Smith & Wesson Light Rifle (Video)

March 3, 2014 Ian McCollum 43

The Smith & Wesson 1940 Light Rifle is one of the spectacular failures of arms design, on several levels. It was too expensive, too heavy, too fragile (ironically, given the weight), too difficult to manipulate, […]

Remington Model 8 (Video)

February 24, 2014 Ian McCollum 70

The Remington Model 8 (and the 81, which is mechanically identical) was an early self-loading rifle design by John Browning, and was produced from 1906 into the 1950s. It was available in 4 calibers initially, […]

Vintage Saturday: What Would Roosevelt Shoot?

February 22, 2014 Ian McCollum 90

Not the cool Roosevelt – we know he liked his .405-caliber Big Medicine. I’m talking about the other one: Leszek found this on eBay (you can buy it if you want; I have no connection […]

The 1986 FBI Gunfight and Adoption of the 10mm Auto

February 21, 2014 Ian McCollum 46

Back in 1986 in Miami, a team of 8 FBI agents decided to execute a felony car stop on a pair of armed and volatile bank robbers named Platt and Matix. The ensuing gunfight has […]

Browning M2 “Anti-Mechanization Weapon”

February 19, 2014 Ian McCollum 100

During the latter half of the 1930s, the US Cavalry decided to experiment with adapting the .50 caliber Browning M2 heavy machine gun into a bipod-mounted, shoulder-fired configuration. The goal was to devise a variant […]

On the Way to Being Forgotten: AKU-94 Bullpup AK Conversion

February 18, 2014 Ian McCollum 84

The AKU-94 was a bullpup conversion kit made for standard AK rifles by K-Var a while back. They were never particularly popular, probably because in stock form they weren’t particularly good. The sights are wobbly […]

Book Review: Winchester Model 07 Self-Loading .351 Caliber

February 13, 2014 Ian McCollum 57

The full title of this recently-published monograph by Leonard Speckin is actually Winchester Model 07 Self-Loading .351 Caliber: Its Past and Its Future with Modern Brass, Bullets and Powders. There is very little modern published […]

Followup w/ Pictures – Smoothbore Trapdoor

February 12, 2014 Ian McCollum 39

The owner of this interesting firearm (who is a regular reader of the site) sent me this information about it: Here are the things I do know about this weapon, which is one if six […]