ForgottenWeapons

Soviet World War Two 50mm Light Mortars (RM-39 & RM-40) (Ad-free)

The Soviet Union decided to adopt a 50mm light mortar in 1937 as a company-level armament. The first such weapon they used was the RM-38, introduced in 1938. It was a complex design, with a gas venting system to adjust range (200m - 800m), a bipod specifically set to either 45 or 75 degrees, and a recoil buffering system. This was clearly too complex, and it was replaced by the RM-39 the next year. This remained a well-made mortar, but now had a freely adjustable bipod. However it quickly pro...

OSS Lockpick Pocketknife for Secret Intelligence Operatives (Ad-free)

In early 1944, the Office of Strategic Services purchase 1,000 specialized pocketknives made by Schrade. Instead of regular blades and tools, these were lock picking knives, with one small blade, three different picks, and two rakes. Able to easily pass as a normal pocketknife on casual inspection, nearly all of them were issued out to OSS Secret Intelligence agents across the European, Mediterranean, and Far Eastern theaters of operation. Today only a few are known to survive…

OSS Eq...

Pauly/Roux Pistols: The First Self-Contained Cartridges (Ad-free)

Samuel Pauly is the largely unrecognized father of the modern self-contained cartridge. In 1808 he patented a cartridge with a metal base that held a priming compound and attached to a paper or metal cartridge body holding powder and projectile. He followed this with an 1812 patent for a gun to fire the cartridges. What makes Pauly’s original system particularly interesting is that he did not use mechanical percussion (ie, hammer or striker) to ignite the primer compound, but rather a “fi...

A Modern Integrally Suppressed Pistol for Everyone: The SilencerCo Maxim 9 (Ad-free)

SilencerCo announced the Maxim-9 pistol in late 2015. Having gone through some huge growth of the past few years, the company wanted to expand its capabilities and thought that the time was right for a modern integrally suppressed pistol. It was a unique new design of modern semiautomatic pistol build from the ground up to be integrally suppressed. The action is a proprietary delayed blowback system with all of the moving parts in the back half of the slide. This leaves the front of the gun d...

Huge Dumonthier Bowie Knife Revolver (Ad-free)

Joseph-Célestin Dumonthier was one of the most notable and prolific gunsmiths in France specializing in combination guns. He made a variety of knife-guns and gun-knives large and small, as well as things like cane guns and occasionally even just regular guns. He initially worked in Houdan (about 30 miles west of Paris) in the 1840s before moving into Paris proper from the 1850s until the 1890s.

This particular example of his work is a 6-shot Lefaucheux revolver with a fixed trigger and...

MP-40 vs PPSh-41 (w/ John Keene) (Ad-free)

One of the classic "pick one" debates of World War Two is the German MP-40 versus the Soviet PPSh-41. During the war, both sides often opined that the other's SMG was better, so which really was? The MP-40 is more compact, with a smaller magazine but also a lower rate of fire. The PPSh is larger, with more ammunition on hand but a much higher rate of fire.

The Official American Boy Scout Rifle: Remington 4-S (Ad-free)

The scouting concept exploded into the American culture after 1907, with a multitude of local, regional, and national organizations setting up in the years before World War One. Among these was the American Boy Scouts, founded by William Randolph Hearst. In 1913 they adopted the Remington 4-S as their official rifle, a .22 Short caliber rolling block. It was initially sold directly and exclusively to Scouts for $5, although it was quickly added to the general Remington catalog.

This rif...

Interdynamic MP-9 SMG: Origin of the TEC-9 (Ad-free)

The story of the Tec-9 begins with a Swedish company called Interdynamic AB and their designer Göran Lars Magnus Kjellgren designing a cheap and simple submachine gun for military use. It found no interested clients, and so the company decided to market it in the United States as a semiautomatic pistol. Kjellgren moved to the US in 1979, anglicized his name to George Kellgren, and founded Interdynamic USA with a partner, Carlos Garcia.

The pair produced a few dozen MP-9 submachine guns...

Baker Pattern 1800 Rifle for Napoleonic Wars Sharpshooters (Ad-free)

The British military decided to organize their disparate small units of riflemen into a single standardized group in 1800. The 95th Regiment - the British Rifle Corps - was founded and it was equipped with a pattern of rifle designed by one Ezekiel Baker. This was a .625 caliber rifle with a 30” long barrel and a remarkably slow 1:120” rifling twist. That rifling was deliberately chosen to balance rifle accuracy with ease of loading and it worked quite well as a compromise solution. The B...

Four-Barrel Mule Ear Custom Rifle from the 1850s (Ad-free)

This is a custom rifle made by gunsmith P.E. Hall of Ashtabula, Ohio most likely between 1948 and 1854. It has a cluster of four .36 caliber rifles barrels (24 inches long) in an octagonal frame. The action is a quadruple set of mule ear hammers, two on each side, with a double set trigger. Pretty neat!

Colt SMG: First of the 9mm ARs (Ad-free)

With the expansion of SWAT teams throughout law enforcement in the 1980s, Colt realized that it was leaving a lot of sales on the table by not having a submachine gun it could offer alongside M16/CAR-15 rifles and carbines. They addressed this in the early 1980s by adapting a CAR-15 to 9x19mm. It used an adapter in the magazine well to fit modified Uzi pattern magazines (they were given hold-open tabs on the followers), and retained the same handling and controls as the full size AR. The SMG ...

East Germany's Nice .22 AK Trainer: KK-MPi-69 (Ad-free)

The KK-Mpi-69 (Klein Kaliber Maschinenpistole 1969) was a .22 rimfire training model of the standard East German stamped AKM. It used a simple blowback replacement bolt assembly and proprietary front trunnion along with a standard AKM receiver and fire control group. There is no gas block, since a gas piston is not used, and the sights are calibrated for short range rimfire shooting only. The magazines are standard AKM magazine bodies holding 15-round .22 rimfire magazines. Approximately 50,0...

Nielsen Device: How it Works and Why it's Necessary (Ad-free)

The Nielsen Device is a type of suppressor mount that allows a suppressor to move forward upon firing and thus allow a recoil-operated firearms to cycle reliably despite the added weight of a suppressor. Popularized by Doug Olsen in the 1980s, they allow pistols to be readily suppressed without needing to tinker with spring strength, slide weight, and suppressor weight. They are not necessary or useful on fixed-barrel pistols, however.

Pick One: G1 (FAL) vs G3 (H&K) w/ John Keene (Ad-free)

If you had to pick one, would you take a G1 (FAL) or a G3 (H&K)? Both are 7.62mm NATO rifles adopted by Germany. The G1 has more features and capabilities, like the carry handle, bipod, multiple muzzle devices, and adjustable gas system. The G3, on the other hand, is simpler, without things to change for better or worse. So which would you take?

Reproduction HEL-E4A Vietnam M16 Silencer by International Milspec Co (Ad-free)

The Human Engineering Lab's HEL-E4A was the most commonly used suppressor used in the Vietnam War. It was the result of a series of suppressor designs from the Aberdeen Proving Grounds HEL which were developed to balance suppression and back pressure, so that they could operate reliably on a standard M16 rifle. A total of 960 were sent to Vietnam in late 1968 and early 1969 (in addition to 120 earlier HEL-M4 pattern ones). Today they are extremely rare, as very few came back from the war.

Swedish Paratrooper Prototype: AK Fm/57 (Ad-free)

As Sweden was looking to adopt a new self-loading infantry rifle in the 1950s, one of the contenders was a modernized version of the Ljungman. The Fm/57 is one of the last iterations of that project. It is chambered for 6.5x55mm but uses the short-stroke gas piston conversion that we previously saw on the 7.62mm NATO conversions of the Ljungman. It also uses a more refined lower receiver than its Fm/54 predecessor, with a nose-in-rock-back 20 round magazine and a folding stock. It was entered...

ZK 381: Czech Pre-War Prototype Battle Rifle (Ad-free)

The ZK-381 was designed by Josef Koucký, his first design of 1938 (hence 381). This is one of the last of the Czech pre-war self-loading rifle projects, of which there were quite a lot. It uses a tilting bolt and a short-stroke gas piston, with ZB26 machine gun magazines and chambered for 7.92mm Mauser (although they would have been happy to offer a model in any other modern rifle cartridge). It was tested in the spring of 1938 by the Soviet Union, which liked it enough that they requested a...

SIG's Real P320 Problem is no Longer Uncommanded Discharges (Ad-free)

Penguin Brutality patch and t-shirt available from Varusteleka:

https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/forgotten-weapons-penguin-brutality-t-shirt/81986

The problem of the P320 has evolved past the actual mechanical issue with the pistol - which still hasn't actually bee identified. The problem is actually that the P320 does not offer any capability that...

Q&A: Chinese Small Arms w/ Jason Clower from Type 56: The Story of China's Army (Ad-free)

My book "Pistols of the Warlords" is available through Headstamp Publishing:

https://www.headstamppublishing.com/chinese-pistols

Today I am very happy to welcome Jason Clower as our Q&A guest. Jason runs the channel "Type 56: The Story of China's Army" (https://www.youtube.com/@Type56_Ordnance_Dept) w...

ASAC Presentation: The Springfield Continental Arsenal Before 1794 (Ad-free)

This lecture was presented at the Spring 2025 meeting of the American Society of Arms Collectors. It was given by Alex MacKenzie, Curator of the Springfield Armory National Historic Site.

Krieghoff's Bizarre Prototype FG42 Proposal (Ad-free)

When the Luftwaffe was looking for its new universal paratrooper rifle, six different German arms companies were asked to submit proposals. Only two actually did; Krieghoff and Rheinmetall. Krieghoff designed this very interesting system, clearly optimized to reduce weight and length as required by the design brief. It uses a tiny vertically traveling locking block and an unusual gas trap system combined with an under-barrel piston. The total number made is unknown, but both fixed- and foldin...

.50 BMG and the Geneva Convention (Ad-free)

Adorable Penguin Brutality shirt available from Varusteleka: https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/forgotten-weapons-penguin-brutality-t-shirt/81986?option=81709

I'm sure you've heard the one about how targeting an enemy soldier with a .50 BMG is a war crime, but targeting his belt buckle is okay because it's "materiel"? Yeah, it's totally false...

G150: Swiss Silenced Guerrilla Anti-Material Rifle (Ad-free)

The G150 is a rifle specifically assembled by and for the Swiss P-26 organization: a very secretive stay-behind group intended to fight foreign occupiers of Switzerland. It was one of a series of such organizations that began with a concern during World War Two the Germany might invade, and continued during the Cold War with the threat of Soviet occupation in the aftermath of nuclear war. The P-26 group specifically was formed in 1981, and disbanded in 1991 under a cloud of controversy over i...

ATF Hates This One Trick to Get a Short Barreled Shotgun! (Ad-free)

How can you have a 12ga with a 14" barrel but not have it be an NFA-regulated Short Barreled Shotgun? And how can you have a .410 shotgun-firing pistol that isn't an NFA-regulated Any Other Weapon?

H&R Handy Gun: A Smoothbore Pistol Killed Off by the NFA (Ad-free)

The Handy Gun was introduced by Harrington & Richardson in 1924. H&R took their Model 1915 single-barrel break-action shotgun and cut it down into a handgun. It got a pistol grip and an 8” barrel, and was offered in both .410 and 28 gauge (the .410 model also able to fire some .44-caliber single-bullet cartridges). A 12” version was also made, to be legal in a few states that had length restrictions. It was advertised specifically for personal protection, probably exploiting the c...

Fox .32: Police Prototype of CZ's First Pistol (Ad-free)

Alois Tomiška, best know for the Little Tom pistol, was one of the original founders of the South Bohemia Armory, which became CZ of Strakonice. The first pistol produced by the company was his "Fox" design a .25 ACP pocket gun. As originally designed, it used a folding trigger without a trigger guard, and had a unique sheet metal frame. The frame was made from a single piece of steel, bend in a U-shape completely wrapping around the otherwise traditional style of slide. This allowed the pis...

CZ247: Experimental Swivel-Action SMG (Ad-free)

The CZ247 was developed for Czechoslovakia's post-war submachine gun trials, where it was pitted against the ZB47. It was a simple blowback 9x19mm SMG with a number of interesting elements, most notably the ability to fire with the magazine either vertical or horizontal. In theory, this made the gun more compact for use in a jungle sort of environment (vertical) or to allow a shooter to get much lower to the ground when shooting prone (horizontal). In practice, it really isn't very important,...

Roller Delay in France: The H&K 33F (Trials & Export Models) (Ad-free)

When France was looking to replace the MAS 49/56 rifle for military service in the 1970s, it tested all of the major rifle options available. These included the Colt M16, FN CAL, and HK33. The HK required some modification to meet French military requirements, specifically the capability to launch rifle grenades. The model 33F was developed specifically to meet these requirements - first as a modified standard HK33, and later as a factory production run. The modifications made include a reinf...

Valmet M78 vs FN-D (w/ John Keene) (Ad-free)

If you had to pick one, would you take a Valmet M78 (in 7.62mm NATO) or an FN-D (in .30-06)? Both are reliable and well-made machine guns and they use essentially the same caliber. The FN-D weighs twice as much, but has a heavier barrel and barrel quick-change capacity. The Valmet is lighter, but offers much less sustained fire capacity. Both have the same sights. The Valmet has a true semiauto selector setting, and also fires from a closed bolt while the FN-D fires form an open bolt and has ...

ASAC Foundation Arms Research Grants & Scholarships

ASAC Foundation Grant and Scholarship Applications:

https://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/grants-and-scholarships/

About the ASAC Foundation:

https://americansocietyofarmscollectors.org/asac-foundation/

ASAC Reference Articles:

2025-07-11 12:00:03 +0000 UTC View Post