United States - Forgotten Weapons

Enjoying Black Powder Episode 1: The Trapdoor Springfield

May 18, 2024 Ian McCollum 18

For the full episode with the hand loading instructional section, click here: https://forgottenweapons.vhx.tv/videos/trapdoor-app-cut Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, […]

Rupertus Pepperbox: A Sophisticated 8-Shot Rimfire Pocket Gun

May 5, 2024 Ian McCollum 5

The Rupertus Patent Pistol Manufacturing Company was founded in Philadelphia by Bavarian-born Jacob Rupertus. The company made a variety of derringers, pepperboxes, and revolvers and today we are looking at an 8-shot, .22 rimfire pepperbox […]

.30-06 M1918 American Chauchat – Doughboys Go to France

May 4, 2024 Ian McCollum 28

When the US entered World War One, the country had a grand total of 1,453 machine guns, split between 4 different models. This was not a useful inventory to equip even a single division headed […]

Clockwork Basilisk – The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler

April 30, 2024 Ian McCollum 2

Available now at: http://www.headstamppublishing.com/collier-book Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier & Artemas Wheeler reveals the first attempt to put a multi-shot firearm in the hands of the common soldier and sportsman. This novel […]

How to Avoid the Legal Pitfalls of a Transferrable H&K Auto Sear

April 29, 2024 Ian McCollum 2

One of the particularly popular transferrable machine guns out there is the H&K auto sear. Since H&K grip and trigger assemblies are interchangeable between 9mm, 5.56mm, and 7.62x51mm guns (ie, MP5, HK33, and G3) a […]

M1 Thompson: Savage Simplifies the SMG

April 28, 2024 Ian McCollum 12

The Thompson submachine gun struggled to find a market when it was originally produced, with the first batch of 15,000 Colt-made guns not finally all selling until the late 1930s. By that time, the clouds […]

Daly Arms “Tom Thumb” – A Tiny Ring-Trigger Revolver

April 27, 2024 Ian McCollum 16

The “Tom Thumb” is a tiny .22 rimfire revolver made in Belgium by an unknown shop and imported into the US to be sold by the Daly Arms Company of New York. These are antique […]

Colt Automatic Machine Rifle Model 1919: the First Commercial BAR

April 26, 2024 Ian McCollum 16

Several patents were taken out on the BAR during World War One, but they were all kept unpublished and secret during the war. Just days after the Armistice, Colt patent attorney CJ Ehbets wrote to […]

‘Murican 2-Gun: M1918A3 BAR and M1911A1

April 20, 2024 Ian McCollum 3

Today I’m taking a brand new Ohio Ordnance M1918A3 semiauto BAR to the 2-gun match, along with a Tisas M1911A1 clone. The BAR is the WW2 configuration, but I followed the footsteps of many a […]

M14: America’s Worst Service Rifle – What Went Wrong?

April 15, 2024 Ian McCollum 139

While the US never adopted a significant variation of the M1 Garand (excluding sniper models), testing continued on new iterations and features throughout the war. By the time the war ended, the US military had […]