ForgottenWeapons

How the No2 Revolver Lost its Hammer Spur (A Correction & A Story) (ad-free)

In my previous video on the Albion-production No2 revolvers, I said that the removal of the single action capability and hammer spur from the design was done because of problems armored vehicle crews had with the hammers catching on hatches. That was wrong, and today I want to correct it and also explain the interesting series of circumstances that led to that story being commonly accepted.

Thanks to viewer Thomas for not simply correcting me in the previous video, but having the specif...

Tobacco of the Emperor: Japanese WW2 Military Cigarettes and More

Pre-order your copy of Tobacco of the Emperor today! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=7la1y7 

Today I'm happy to have Patrick Phillips with me, author of the upcoming Headstamp book "Tobacco of the Emperor". We are going to look at several aspects of Japanese military tobacco, and a couple particularly interesting surviving exampl...

Bonus Material: Flux Raider at Desert Brutality 2022 (ad-free)

I ran Desert Brutality 2022 this year with a B&T USW-320; a modern stocked pistol chassis for the SIG 320 pistol. One similar product on the market right now is the Flux Defense Raider, and at the match I discovered that Eric was using one of those as a PCC, just like I was doing with my USW. He was kind enough to let me film a couple of his stages (naturally, the two stages least conducive to using a stocked pistol...) and I got some of his thoughts on the platform.  

I would ...

Evaluating the Modern Stocked Pistol: USW-320 at Desert Brutality 2022 (ad-free)

This year I was able to shoot Desert Brutality twice - one during the normal match and once the day before as part of "Trooper" division. That's where you carry all of your gear for the whole match (including food and all ammo) through all of the stages, shoot the whole match in one day, and don't get to use anything you didn't bring with you in the morning.   

I figured this would be a good opportunity to try out the Brugger & Thomet USW-320. It's a SIG 320 pistol (regist...

Iceland's Domestic Guns: The Drífa and Others

Today I have the very cool opportunity to bring you a history of Icelandic domestic firearms manufacturing, courtesy of the Veiðisafnið - the Hunting Museum of Iceland:

https://www.hunting.is/english/

The first documented record of a firearm on Iceland dates to 1482, appearing in a description of a legal dispute between two farmers. The first recording hunting is in 1615, when a polar bear was shot in Hjalta...

Clockwork to Percussion: Collier Revolver Types and Timeline (ad-free)

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler" is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=7eemcy

What were the different patterns of Collier, and what was the timeline of their development and production? Today I'm discussing this with Professor Be...

Clockwork to Percussion: Collier Revolver Types and Timeline (Audio Only)

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler" is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=7eemcy

What were the different patterns of Collier, and what was the timeline of their development and production? Today I'm discussing this with Professor Be...

Announcing "Tobacco of the Emperor" from Headstamp Publishing! (ad-free)

Pre-order your copy of Tobacco of the Emperor today!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=7opr2k

I'm excited to announce an additional new book form Headstamp Publishing: Tobacco of the Emperor, by Patrick Phillips. This is a guide to Japanese cigarettes and related material form the turn of the century until the endow World War Two....

Modular Guns: Assembling a SIG USW-320

Today I'm at SIG Sauer Parts (soon to be ModGuns) to play around with assembling a SIG 320. I've always been interested in stocked pistols, and so I'm going to take this opportunity to put together a USW (Universal Service Weapon). This originated as a complete pistol made by B&T (based on the CZ75) with an integrated folding stock and Aimpoint Nano optic. B&T decided to also make stocked chassis units for Glock and SIG pistols, and so the SIG model is what I'll do doing today. The mo...

Announcing Midnight Brutality 2023: Patreon/Utreon Early Access

Registration to Midnight Brutality 2023 is open early for Patreon and Utreon supporters of Forgotten Weapons, with a 10% match fee discount. This early access will last until December 1st, when the match opens to the general public (assuming any spots are still left at that point).

What is Midnight Brutality? Basically, it's a brutality match being held completely in the dark, designed for NVGs and thermal optics - and also open to white-light setups. It's a rifle/PCC-only match, six st...

FN's Millionth Pistol: Presented to John Browning; Saved by a Belgian Cop

Fabrique Nationale was formed as a consortium of small gunmakers to produce Mauser rifles for the Belgian Army, and when that work was complete the company basically had nothing else to do...until they met John Browning. Browning had a new pistols design and needed a manufacturer - and FN happened to be a manufacturer in need of a new design. The resulting partnership would last until Browning's death decades later, and essentially created the modern FN that we know today.  

FN pro...

2-Gun: Suspiciously Silent vs Ludicrously Loud (ad-free)

This month's 2-Gun match was three pretty short stages, so my friend Tom and I decided to just play with a fun theme - he brought a pair of huge .50-caliber cannons (.50AE Desert Eagle and a .50 Beowulf AR) and I brought a pair of very quiet guns (SilencerCo Maxim-9 and Q Honey Badger, both shooting subsonics).

Firepower Back to the 1500s: Pre-Collier Repeaters (Audio Only)

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler" is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=ec8u93

Samuel Colt wasn't the first person to invent a revolver, and Artemas Wheeler wasn't either. Today Professor Ben Nicholson joins me to discuss the hist...

Firepower Back to the 1500s: Pre-Collier Repeaters (ad-free)

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler" is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter: 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=ec8u93 

Samuel Colt wasn't the first person to invent a revolver, and Artemas Wheeler wasn't either. Today Professor Ben Nicholson joins me to discuss th...

New & Classic Forgotten Weapons Merchandise for 2022!

https://shop.forgottenweapons.com/  

The holiday spending season has arrived, and so I have my annual rundown on some of the nice merchandise options I have available from Forgotten Weapons...  At the Shop, we are introducing a couple new items:  

- An embedded-bullet rocks glass  

- Long-sleeve hooded lightweight wicking shirt  

- Utility long-sleeve shirt  

...

Frommer Pistolen-MG Model 1917: A Crazy Villar Perosa Copy (ad-free)

After encountering Italian Villar Perosa machine pistols in the field, Austro-Hungarian troops requested a similar weapon. The project was given to FÉG to work on, and the result was the Pistolen-MG Model 1917: a pair of Frommer Stop pistols with long barrels and 25-round magazines, redesigned to fire from the open bolt, mounted to an adorably tiny tripod and spade grips.   

Only a few dozen of these were made for testing, and they were not accepted for military service. Many...

Tales of the Hunt: Stories from Writing Clockwork Basilisk (Audio Only)

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler" is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=a6vy23

Today Professor Ben Nicholson joins me to talk about some of the work behind the scenes to create "Clockwork Basilisk". From unexpected museum finds to Maori...

Behind the Scenes with the Collier Team

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler" is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=a6vy23

Today Professor Ben Nicholson joins me to talk about some of the work behind the scenes to create "Clockwork Basilisk". From unexpected museum finds to Maori...

Q&A: Desert Brutality Road Trip Edition (Audio Only)

0:00 - Intro

0:58 - Powernap - How do PMCs handle NFA issues and training.

2:46 - Tyler - Thoughts on the influx of MP5 copies?

4:40 - Beef Supreme - Advice for first-time Brutality match competitors

10:25 - Josh - Ketchup on hot dogs?

11:16 - Kurosawa - Do I consider myself a competitive target shooter or just a passive participant?

12:14 - Timothy - If Pedersen had been chosen over Garand, how would the AK design have been different?

13:23 - RGB - C...

Q&A: Desert Brutality Road Trip Edition (Ad-free)

0:58 - Powernap - How do PMCs handle NFA issues and training.

2:46 - Tyler - Thoughts on the influx of MP5 copies?

4:40 - Beef Supreme - Advice for first-time Brutality match competitors

10:25 - Josh - Ketchup on hot dogs?

11:16 - Kurosawa - Do I consider myself a competitive target shooter or just a passive participant?

12:14 - Timothy - If Pedersen had been chosen over Garand, how would the AK design have been different?

13:23 - RGB - Could iteration on t...

TT33 Tokarev at the BackUp Gun Match

My holster and mag carrier in this match are made by BattleGnome Solutions in Slovenia, and available worldwide exclusively from the Polenar Tactical web store: 

https://polenartactical.com/shop/holsters/1363-tt-holster-bgs.html

I was talking to the guys who operate BattleGnome at Lynx Brutality this summer, as they also made the holster and mag carriers for the Arex Del...

Operation CARPETBAGGER: French Resistance No4 Enfield

During 1944, the US and UK cooperatively ran a major effort to drop arms and equipment to French Resistance forces in preparation for the Allied landings in France. It began as Operation Carpetbagger with night drops from B24 Liberators in January 1944, and escalated into the summer. Eventually a number of massive daytime drops were made, totally more than 800 sorties and dropping 2.7 million pounds of equipment. The single most common firearm dropped was the MkII Sten, but containers also in...

Announcing Clockwork Basilisk: Headstamp's Fifth Book (ad-free)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=an0msv

I am very excited to announce today the launch of Headstamp Publishing's fifth book, Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler. Written by Professor Ben Nicholson and a team of researchers, this is a groundbreaking study of the forefather of all modern revolver...

Scotland's Only WW2 Military Firearm: Albion Motors No2 MkI** Revolver (ad-free)

One of the lessons the British military took from the Great War was that without extensive training and practice, most people were not very effective with a large-bore revolver. So in 1922, they undertook a program (via Webley) to develop a smaller sidearm that could be used with much less training. The result was the Revolver, No2 MkI, which went into production in 1931.   

When World War Two began in 1939, the British government put out the call to civilian industry to take ...

S&W Pinto: The Wide World of Collecting (Ad-free)

“Pinto” is a name given to a specific sort of Smith & Wesson revolver by collectors. It refers to guns - typically J-, K-, and N-frame revolvers but all some semiauto pistols - produced with a mix of blued and nickeled parts. The name derives from the Pinto horse, which has patches of white and color. The guns were generally old as a way to use up excess parts from different production runs, but they have acquired a niche collector interest.

A Very Rare Confederate Columbus Armory Carbine (Ad-free)

Carbines made by the Columbus Armory are particularly scarce, and their history is not really well understood. They were manufactured by John Gray of Columbus SC, whose brother William Gray was a partner in another (better documented) Georgia arms factory under the director of J.P. Murray. John Gray appear to have started producing guns with a contract for Alabama, most likely with the help of his brother’s company - the Murray arms are extremely similar to the Columbus Armory guns. Gray ha...

Short-Notice Q&A! (CLOSED)

*** Question window is closed - I recorded the video this morning. ***

I am driving home tomorrow from Desert Brutality, and realized it would be a fine time to record a long-form, multi-question Q&A. So, what would you like to ask? Please keep in mind that I don't have any reference material or research time before answering, and question will be answered just from memory.

Leningrad's Emergency-Production PPS-42 at the Range (Ad-free)

Yesterday we looked at the history of the PPS-42 and how it was developed into the much more common PPS-43. Today we are taking it out to the range - the only time one of these very scarce gun has been filmed in recent history.

Born in the Heart of Besieged Leningrad: the PPS-42 (Ad-free)

One would think that the Shpagin PPSh-41 was as simple as a submachine gun could get, but that wasn’t the case in World War Two USSR. Barely had the PPSh gotten into real production than the Army was looking for something even simpler. An answer came from young designer Aleksey Sudaev with a completely-stamped gun that used about half the raw material and a third the machine time to produce as the PPSh. After winning the competitive trials, Factory 828 in Moscow was chosen as the lead produ...

The Added Safety on German Inter-War SMGs (Ad-free)

Police in inter-war Germany used a variety of submachine guns, and sometimes added a distinctive extra safety mechanism to them. No patent or documentation ha been uncovered (that I am aware of, anyway), but the exact same device is found on gun from the MP18,I through the MP40, including the MP35, MP28,II, and Erma EMPs like this one.  

The device is simply a rotating locking bar that engages into a slot cut in the bolt of the gun. When engaged, it locks the bolt in the forward po...