ForgottenWeapons

Heckfire by ShootingSight: The Best Trigger for H&K & Clone Rifles (9mm / 5.56 / 7.62) (Ad-free)

One of the shortcomings of H&K roller-delayed long guns has always been their triggers. As they come form the factory (with the exception of niche items like the PSG-1 trigger pack) they are long, heavy, and generally unpleasant. Good smiths can make them a bit better (I used a Bill Springfield trigger in my G3 for a while), but they are still tragically bad by comparison to modern AR triggers.

Well, ShootingSight has definitely changed that with their "Heckfire" (an odd name; possi...

2-Gun on the Elbe: SVT40 vs M1 Garand

Today I'm taking an SVT-40 to the monthly 2-Gun Action Challenge Match, and I'm joined by my friend Tom shooting an M1 Garand. We're both using moderately accurate gear, and so naturally I have a TT-33 Tokarev for my pistol and Tom has a 1911. So, let's see if I can hold my own with the Soviet guns...

The 1950 Marketing Contest to Name the S&W Chiefs Special (ad-free)

Today we're taking a look at a Smith & Wesson Chiefs Special, but not just any Chiefs Special. This is serial number 29, factory engraved and gifted to Chief Edward Book of Passaic New Jersey in 1950. When S&W introduced the new revolver to compete with Colt's Detective Special, they simply called it the "Model J" (it was the first of the J-frame S&W revolvers). They released it at the 1950 annual conference of the International Association of Chiefs of Police, and ran a content a...

MAS-49 Carabine Mitrailleuse: A French Prototype Lever-Delayed Assault Rifle (Ad-free)

When France was developing it's new suite of small arms in the late 1940s, there was a debate over whether to adopt an intermediate-power cartridge or retain the full-power 7.5x54mm round for the infantry rifle. Initially, a French 7.65x35mm cartridge was developed and used for several years of development (the US .30 Carbine round was also used). During this time, the MAS arsenal submitted prototypes for both submachine gun and assault rifle ("carabine mitrailleuse" - machine carbine) trials...

Hammerli FK-31: Diopter Competition Rifles for the Haganah

In 1949, Israel was still fighting its war of independence, and purchasing arms internationally was difficult to do. The recently-formalized IDF wanted sniper rifles, and looked to Hammerli in Switzerland for a variant of the K-31 straight-pull bolt action action. Two different models were purchased; 100 of the ZK-31 with 4x Kahles scopes, and 100 of the FK-31 with target diopter sights. The Swiss could not legally ship them directly to Israel, and so the order was placed for Nicaragua instea...

Historical What-If: The CAR-15 SD

What is the MP5 was never adopted, and instead the vented barrel and telescoping silencer used by the SD model was instead developed for the AR-15? Broad River Tactical thought it would be fun to follow this line of thought, and builds an MP5SD style barrel and handguard system for the AR - and I think it's a very fun and very cool concept.  

This example uses the CMMG rotary-delayed blowback action, and EndoMag 9mm magazines in regular 5.56mm Pmag bodies. That means the whole syst...

Hi-Point YC-9 Yeet Cannon at the BUG Match (Ad-free)

Hi-Point finally released their double-stack YC-9 Yeet Cannon a few months ago, and they sent me one to try out so I figured I'd take it to the monthly BackUp Gun Match.

The new YC-9 is exactly what you would expect from Hi-Point, because they really only make one basic gun. It's a simple blowback 9mm with a massive slide. It's kinda clunky and awkward, and the magazine release is large enough to occasionally be hit accidentally if you are left handed. The new magazine design holds all ...

Cape Esperance and the Japanese Evacuation of Guadalcanal (Ad-free)

Today we return to Guadalcanal, to the site of the last actuals of the campaign. For the Japanese, the defeat at Edson's Ridge (aka Bloody Ridge) forced a disastrous and uncoordinated retreat into the jungle. With their supply lines destroyed, Japanese troops largely moved west on the island, away from American positions and in search of food. This would eventually bring them to Cape Esperance, where a rearguard force was landed, and some 10,652 Japanese soldiers were successfully evacuated o...

SVT-40: The Soviet Standard Semiauto from WW2 (Ad-free)

The Red Army was interested in developing a semiautomatic rifle clear back to the mid 1920s, and they spent about 15 years running trials and development programs to find one. First in 1930 a Degtyarev design was adopted, followed by the Simonov AVS-36, and then Tokarev won out in 1938 with the SVT-38. Combat experience in the Winter War led to an upgrade program to reduce the weight of the rifle, and that created the SVT-40. Between April 1940 and mid 1942, about 1.4 million SVT-40s were pro...

PT-83

Scheduled for February 5.

Beecher's Bible: A Sharps 1853 from John Brown's Raid on Harpers Ferry (Ad-free)

On October 16, 1859 John Brown and 19 men left the Kennedy farmhouse and made their way a few miles south to the Harpers Ferry Arsenal. They planned to seize the Arsenal and use its arms - along with 200 Sharps 1853 carbines and 1,000 pikes they had previously purchased - to ignite and arm a slave revolt. Brown was a true fanatic for the abolitionist cause, perfectly willing to spill blood for a just cause. His assault on the Arsenal lasted three days, but failed to incite a rebellion. Instea...

Meetup & Book Signing: Las Vegas, January 27

I will be doing a public book signing (so, not limited to Patrons) at the Antique Arms Show in Las Vegas this month. The show is held at the Westgate Resort & Casino off the Las Vegas Strip on Friday and Saturday January 26 & 27, and I will be there from 10-11am on Saturday the 27th. I'll have a limited number of books available for sale, but I would love to sign copies you already have! 

Or even if you don't have a book, stop by and say hello!

Variations on Gras Cavalry Carbines & Conversions from Ethiopia (Ad-free)

While I was at InterOrdnance unpacking French rifles, I took the opportunity to pull out a couple different examples of Gras Cavalry Carbines to show the differences between original French production examples and Belgian commercial conversions. What we will see today are how to recognize:   

- French Mle 1874 and Mle 1866-74 Gras cavalry carbines  

- French Gras infantry rifles cut down to cavalry carbine configuration  

- French Gras rifles cut down and...

Hogue Avenger vs M1911 at the Range (Ad-free)

Yesterday we looked at where the Hogue Avenger came from and how it works; today I'm out at the range to test it out against a nicely customized M1911...

Hogue Avenger: Precision Accuracy Via Delayed Blowback (Ad-free)

The Avenger is a flapper-delayed blowback, fixed barrel conversion upper assembly for the Model 1911 pistol. It was designed by Austrian Peter Spielberger, and manufactured by Hogue in the US and PowerSpeed in Austria. It is a product that came close to vaporware status, announced at SHOT Show in 2003 but not actually available until around 2011 - and by then at nearly double the initial advertised price.

The Avenger is a very well-made system capable of fantastic accuracy - but it was ...

Ero: The Croatian Uzi (With Israeli Help?) (Ad-free)

The best of the submachine guns made in Croatia during the Homeland War was the Ero, made by a company called Arma. The Ero is a basically perfect, parts-interchangeable copy of the Israeli Uzi that was developed in 1992 and adopted into Croatian Army service in 1993. The only really distinguishable difference between the Ero and Uzi is the Ero's use of Croatian-language selector markings (and receiver markings). Between 15,000 and 20,000 were produced, and they remained in service long after...

State of the Channel: 2024

For 2024, you can look forward to an additional video each week. I will, of course, continue to upload ad-free videos for all of you here on Patreon; thank you for your continued support!

Replacing Beretta: the S&W XM10 Trials Pistol (Ad-free)

When the US adopted the Beretta Model 92 as the new M9 standard issue handgun in 1985, it was not without controversy. In particular, there was a scandal of cracked and broken M9 slides shortly after procurement began. The military did not budge on awarding the M9 contract to Beretta, but in 1987 they did open a new procurement competition for an M10 pistol, which would supplement the M9. The Army needed 142,000 more handguns, and they were willing to buy something different if something coul...

Cold War Belgium: Comparing the Vigneron M1 and M2 SMGs (Ad-free)

The Vigneron was Belgium's standard submachine gun during the early years of the Cold War. It was originally adopted as the M1 in 1953, and about 21,300 were made. In 1954, several modifications were made, resulting in the M2 pattern. Many of the original M1s were converted to M2 specification, and subsequent new production was of course in the M2 pattern. The specific changes were:

- A protective hood was added to the front sight

- The spring catch for the ejection port cover was...

M90A Close Assault Weapons System Prototype (Ad-Free)

Thanks to Nathan Frisque for loaning us this very cool project to film - a very merry Christmas to him and to all of you watching! If you haven't caught on, this is a real-life recreation of the M90A CAWS shotgun from the Halo series of video games...

Angstadt Vanquish: An Inexpensive Integrally-Silenced 9mm AR Barrel (Ad-free)

Angstadt Arms has released an interesting integrally silenced (suppressed, if you prefer) barrel for 9mm AR carbines. It uses a full-length barrel with venting ports (similar to the MP5SD system), combined with a tubular shroud 1.5 inches in diameter covering the entire barrel. There are no baffles; the gas behind the bullet vents into the silencer tube, expands, and then once the bullet has left the barrel is all vents back through the ports into the bore and out the muzzle. The ports are in...

Making Do: South Africa's 7.62mm NATO Bren Gun Conversions (Ad-free)

During World War Two, the South African military used a lot of .303 caliber Bren guns. When 7.62mm NATO became the standard cartridge after the wa,r the Bren guns were put into storage, as converting them to the new rimless cartridge was a fairly complicated process. Instead, they purchased new FN- MAG machine guns, and supplemented them with conversion of Vickers and M1919 Browning guns (which were much simpler to do).

However, as the war in South West Africa (now Namibia) escalated, m...

Overview of Soviet Military Handguns: Nagant, Tokarev, Makarov (Ad-Free)

Today we are looking at an overview of Soviet military service sidearms. This begins with the Model 1895 Nagant revolver, inherited from the Czarist Russian Army. The Nagant was adopted as the standard Red Army handgun, specifically in double action. Soviet refitting led to single-action Nagant revolvers being extremely rare today. In the late 1920s, a development program for a new semiautomatic pistol was run, which resulted in adoption of the TT30 Tokarev. Refinement of the Tokarev led to t...

Hamas Claims to Make Sniper Rifles in Gaza - Are They Really? (Ad-free)

Hamas - or rather its specific military wing the Al Qassam Brigade - posted a video on Twitter / X yesterday purporting to show the manufacture of .50 caliber sniper rifles in Gaza. I was curious to have a look at it, as I've seen a lot of rifle factories and done some of this sort of work myself, so let's see what the video actually shows when we look carefully...

Conflict Armament Research's report on the Iranian AM-50 (copy of the Steyr HS-50):

2023-12-21 12:00:08 +0000 UTC View Post

Gear-Ratio-Delayed? Yep, It's a Thing: French MAT 1955 Prototype (Ad-free)

In the search for an improvement to the MAS 1949 rifle for the French military, all the French arsenals proposed new designs. MAS supplied an updated version that was ultimately adopted as the MAS 49/56, but the Tulle Arsenal (MAT) had a wacky idea of its own. In 1955, they presented a short-recoil, tilting bolt, gear-ratio-delayed system. It was an open bolt firing rifle chambered for the 7.5x54mm cartridge, using detachable 20-round magazines. Today we have one of the first models to look a...

Extra Firepower for Vietnam: the Aussie "B!tch" (Ad-free)

Many of the special forces groups that operated during the Vietnam War found they standard issue weapons a but unwieldy for use in confined jungle environments. They also found a need for something that could deliver an immediate large volume of fire to break contact during an ambush (or deliver an ambush of their own). The Australians were no exception, and with the typical Special Forces attitude towards customization a few guys made some improvements to what they were issued...

What ...

PMM: Russia's Modernized Makarov (Now With 50% More Mag Capacity!) (Ad-free)

Having served as the standard Soviet military sidearm for several decades, the PM Makarov was getting a bit obsolescent by the late 1980s. More of the world was using locked breech, 9x19mm service pistols but the Soviet Union still had essentially a domestic version of the Walther PP. To extend its capabilities, the PMM (modernized Makarov pistol) was developed, and adopted in 1990.  

The new design used a double-stack magazines for a capacity of 12 round instead of the original 8....

Weirdest of the French Trials SMGs: the EROP 1954 (Ad-free)

"EROP" was a small company based in Paris, which produced about 18 submachine gun prototypes between 1954 and 1956. These were submitted to French military trials in several different configurations first in 1954 and later in 1956, and none of them were given any further consideration after that.

Mechanically, the EROP guns are closed-bolt and striker-fired, using modified MP40 magazines (and chambered for 9mm Parabellum). They use a small square-profile tubular receiver, and several (i...

Headstamp Book Title Contest

In the next few months Headstamp will be releasing a new book about Hungarian AK rifles, written by a Hungarian researcher. It covers their history, variations, accessories, and such and has a ton of cool information that hasn't been published before. We're really excited to have it, but we just can't think of a good title.  So I figured I ought to use the phone a friend option and ask you folks. :)

Can you think of a good title for a history of Hungarian AKs? Let me know in the co...

Gorilla GF-10: Lightweight Hunting Semiauto in 8.6mm Blackout (w/ Ballistics Gel) (ad-free)

Today I've got one of Gorilla Ammo's GF-10 rifles to do some shooting with. It's an AR-10 platform chambered for 8.6mm Blackout (they also offer it in .243 Win, .260 Rem, 6.5CM, and .308 Win). It weighs in at just 7.2 pounds with a 16" barrel, so it's not an NFA item (they do also offer a 12" pistol pattern). I've got my Q Porq Chop on it as a suppressor, and I'm using subsonic ammo - with this combination it is sort recoiling and completely hearing-safe. The loudest part of the gun is the ac...