ForgottenWeapons

Beretta 93R: The Best Machine Pistol? (Ad-free)

The Beretta 93R ("Raffica") was developed in the 1970s by Beretta engineer Paolo Parola at the request of Italian military special forces. It took the basic Beretta 92 pistol design and added a wel...

Sten MkII vs Ingram M10/9 (w/ John Keene) (Ad-free)

If you had to pick one, would you take a Sten MkII or an Ingram M10/9? This applies specifically to the guns in their original factory configurations; no Lage products allowed! It's hard to come up...

Books Now Shipping From Headstamp Publishing!

https://www.headstamppublishing.com

We have a huge variety of beautiful and informative firearms books available an...

Steyrs for the Luftwaffe: The G29(ö) aka Gewehr 12/34 (Ad-free)

When the German government bought up the controlling interest in Steyr in 1938, they made use of its production facilities to start making rifles for the Luftwaffe. Steyr had tooling for the Mauser...

Book Review: The U.S. Model 1917 Rifle - "America's Enfield" (Ad-free)

Available from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Model-Rifle-Americas-Enfield/dp/193...

French 1717 Rampart Musket from the American Revolution (Ad-free)

American forces in the Revolutionary War took in a bunch of different types of surplus small arms, and one of the interesting ones was the French Model 1717 Rampart gun. When the French created the...

Best of American and Europe: the Webley No5 Express New Army (Ad-free)

Webley introduced their No5 Express New Army model revolver in 1878. This was essentially a ruggedized and scaled up variation on the No5 RIC revolvers that was very popular with police forces. The...

So Many Ways to Fail at Making a Pistol (Ad-free)

Making a successful and popular new handgun requires doing a whole lot of things right...today we are going to consider what happens when they don't go so well.

SVD Dragunov: The First Purpose-Built DMR (Ad-free)

The development of the Dragunov designated marksman’s rifle was spurred by the NATO adoption of the 7.62x51mm cartridge. The Red Army had standardized on a new suite of infantry weapons using the...

The Hungarian Alternative: G98/40 Rifles in German Service (Ad-free)

The German Wehrmacht was always hungry for more rifles during World War Two, and adopted substitute designs made in friendly (or subservient) countries when possible. Almost all of these were minor...

Gear for Carrying DP27 Pan Magazines (Ad-free)

Today we are taking a look at three different pieces of kit developed to carry Degtyarev DP pan magazines. These mags are really inconveniently shaped, and traditional magazine pouches just don't w...

Enjoying Black Powder Episode 5: The Remington Rolling Block

The full version with hand loading information (not permitted on YouTube) is available here:

...

Berettas With Bayonets: The Very Early Model 38A SMG (Ad-free)

The initial model of the Beretta 38A had a number of features that were dropped rather quickly once wartime production became a priority. Specifically, they included a lockout safety switch for jus...

The First Sturmgewehr: The MKb42(H) (Ad-free)

The first iteration of the iconic German Sturmgewehr was developed by Haenel starting in 1938. It was a select-fire rifle chambered for the short 8x33mm cartridge, developed by the Polte company. I...

G24(t): Germany’s Take on the Czechoslovakian vz24 (Ad-free)

When Germany took over Czechoslovakia, one of the things they did was buy out a controlling interest in what became known as Waffenwerke Brunn. Headquartered in Prague, the company had two factorie...

Questions for Falklands Q&A?

I am on my way home from about 10 days on the Falkland Islands, having hiked the Great Yomp across the island, visited a bunch of the battlefields, and spent some time with the Falkland Islands Def...

“Grey Ghost” - The French Occupation Production P38 Pistol (Ad-free)

When the French took over control of the Mauser factory complex in May 1945, the plant had some 85 tons of pistol parts on hand - 7.3 million individual components in various stages of production. ...

The Unique Challenges of Self-Loading Shotgun Design (Ad-free)

I think a lot of people under appreciate the difficulty of making a reliable self-loading shotgun. Between the rimmed case, wadcutter-type cylindrical shape, varying shell length, and massive varia...

P99: The Pistol that Rejuvenated Walther (Ad-free)

For a couple decades after World War Two, Walther survived on legacy designs - the PP/PPK and P38 (eventually made with an aluminum frame as the P4) primarily. In the 1970s they developed the P5 fo...

Single-Rune bnz43 SS Contract K98k (Ad-free)

In 1942, the SS devised a plan to rent out concentration camp labor to companies in the German armaments industry. Several different rifle production lines were set up to make use of this source of...

Port Stanley Meetup Update

Sorry, update to the Port Stanley meetup: it will be Wednesday the 20th (not Thursday as originally posted). Same time and place; The Narrows bar from 6pm to 8pm.

Franchi SPAS-12 at the Range (Ad-free)

Today I'm taking the SPAS-12 out to the range, to try a variety of ammunition and see what runs in it. The SPAS is a gas-operated shotgun that can be switched to manual pump operation for use with ...

A DAO Service Revolver in the Civil War: the Pettengill Army (Ad-free)

The Pettengill revolver is a 6-shot, muzzleloading double-action-only system designed and patented by C.S. Pettengill in 1856, and improved by Edward Raymond and Charles Robitaille in 1858. In 1859...

Colt Boa: Rarest of the Snake Revolvers (Ad-free)

Of the seven revolvers Colt named after snakes, the rarest is the Colt Boa. Only a single production run of these were made totaling just 1,200 guns. They were made in 1985 as a custom order for th...

Spoils of War: French Occupation-Production Mauser K98k svwMB (ad-free)

Allied troops occupied the Mauser factory complex in Oberndorf in April of 1945, right at the end of the war. The factory was put under French administration and by May that same year production li...

Shooting a WWII German 50mm Light Mortar (L.Gr.W.36) (Ad-free)

The standard German light mortar in World War Two was the model 1936 5cm Leichter Granatwerfer. It was a very precise (Germanic, one might say) machine, and a bubble lever for careful aiming, and i...

G33/40: Special Carbine for the Gebirgsjager

When the Germans took over control of the Czechoslovakian arms industry, they took some time to work out what out to be mass produced at the Brno factory. In the interim, they decided to restart pr...

Meetup: Port Stanley, Falkland Islands

EDIT: Sorry, had to switch this to Wednesday the 20th - same time, same place.

I know this one is a very long shot...in all sorts of sense of the phrase. But I will be in the Falklands filmin...

SPAS-12: Franchi's Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun (Ad-free)

Franchi introduced the Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun (SPAS-12) for Italian military and police agencies in 1979 and it quickly because popular worldwide. Based originally on the gas-operated Fr...

Beretta M38A vs Suomi kp/31 (w/ John Keene) (Ad-free)

If you had to pick one, would you take an early Beretta 38A (with bayonet), or a Finnish kp/31 Suomi? Both have semiauto selectors, although the Beretta's its easier to use. The Suomi has a higher ...