United States - Forgotten Weapons

Book Review: Bullets by the Billion

February 6, 2014 Ian McCollum 20

Bullets by the Billion is a short book (77 small pages of large print) written by one Wesley Stout and published by the Chrysler Corporation on 1946. It was a company project to commemorate the […]

Johnson M1944E1 LMG

February 5, 2014 Ian McCollum 36

In addition to his work on designing a basic infantry shoulder rifle, Melvin Maynard Johnson and put a lot of effort into creating a light machine gun for US military forces to use. In terms […]

Smoothbore Trapdoor Springfield?

February 2, 2014 Ian McCollum 36

Got a question from a friend, which is outside my area of knowledge. Does anyone know about the history of smoothbore, .45-caliber Trapdoor Springfield rifles? This fellow bought what was advertised as a forager conversion, […]

Vickers Cal .30 Parts List

January 31, 2014 Ian McCollum 15

Presented for general reference: An illustrated parts list for the .30-06 caliber Vickers machine gun and accessories. Complete with translations between English and American!

FG-42 vs M1 Garand – 2 Gun Match (Video)

January 20, 2014 Ian McCollum 53

For this month’s 2-Gun Action Challenge Match, we had a loaner .308 FG-42 from SMG Guns, which I handed off to my friend Karl to shoot. I went up against him with an M1 Garand, […]

Safeties – or not – on US Military Pistols

January 14, 2014 Ian McCollum 39

The question of what type of safety is appropriate on a combat pistol is a source of lots of debate. That’s partly because it’s ultimately a subjective rather than objective question, but also partly because […]

Book Review: MAGNUM – The S&W .357 Magnum Phenomenon

January 10, 2014 Ian McCollum 11

Today we’re looking at one of the most recent additions to the Collector Grade ensemble: Tim Mullin’s MAGNUM: the S&W .357 Magnum Phenomenon. It’s a very good history of one of American’s iconic handguns: You […]

Remington M53

January 9, 2014 Ian McCollum 51

With the announcement of Remington’s reintroduction of the classic Model 51 as the new Remington R51, I have had several people ask for information on the forgotten stepchild of the Model 51, the M53. I […]

Vintage Saturday: Before SWAT

January 4, 2014 Ian McCollum 27

New York City policemen on an Indian motorcycle, with a Colt 1895 machine gun mounted rather ad-hoc on the sidecar (May 18, 1918). Thanks to Patrick for the photo!

Book Review: The M1 Garand Rifle

January 2, 2014 Ian McCollum 5

I have been procrastinating the addition of a good book on the M1 Garand rifle into my own library, reading the various published material off of friends’ shelves. Now I’m glad that I have put […]