ForgottenWeapons

Virtual Tour: Swiss Shooting Museum Bern (Ad-free)

Today we are taking a virtual tour of the Swiss Shooting Museum (Schweizer Schützenmuseum Bern) in Bern, Switzerland. The museum has been in this building since just before World War Two, and focusses on the history of the Swiss competitive shooting culture and community. At the time of posting, the museum is closed for renovation, and will reopen in the fall of 2025 with an improved layout and better displays for the guns and other artifacts.

You can find their hours and other inform...

Våpensmia NM-149S: Norway's Sniper Conversion of the Kar 98k (Ad-free)

After World War Two, there were a lot of K98k rifles left in Norway. Like, a whole lot of them. So many that even in the 1980s they were still a popular basis for hunting and competition rifles. The Norwegian military contracted with the firm Våpensmia to make a batch of their VS 84S hunting rifles in 7.62x51mm for use as snipers' rifles. These used old German model 98 actions, modified to fit 5-round detachable box magazines, bent bolt handles, and short-throw safeties to accommodate the Sc...

Glock 18 & 18C Machine Pistols: How Do They Work? (Ad-free)

After the success of the Glock 17 in Austrian military trials, the company chose two specific markets to target for expansion. One was competition shooters, for whom the Glock 17L was released. The other was the international law enforcement and military market, for whom they decided to make a machine pistol - the Glock 18. The 18 was released in 1986, a model identical to the 17 except for the addition of a rotary selector switch on the slide.

In response to complaints about the contro...

Molotovs at the Range: Finnish Brutality 2025 Day 2

Varusteleka's Patrol Coverall that I was using today is available here:

https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/sarma-tst-l5-thermal-patrol-coverall/76574

Finnish Brutality 2025 took the standard for practical shooting matches and raised it again - by making it a true winter match. Run by Varusteleka, a Finnish military and outdoor good supplier, it was ten stag...

Ice Baths and Skis: Finnish Brutality 2025 Day 1

Varusteleka's Snow Camo Anorak that I was using today is available here:

https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/sarma-tst-l7-camouflage-anorak/58285

Finnish Brutality 2025 took the standard for practical shooting matches and raised it again - by making it a true winter match. Run by Varusteleka, a Finnish military and outdoor good supplier, it was ten stages of shoot...

Estonian Snipers: Enfields in 7.62x54R and Arisakas in .303 British (Ad-free)

In the early 1930s, the Estonian military and Estonia Defense League had a rather eclectic mix of small arms. The Army had three divisions, and split different types of weapons between them to simplify logistics. Thus, there was one division equipped with rifles and machine guns in 7.62x54R, and another with .303 British. For sniper/marksman rifles, the Army was heavily influenced by the civilian shooting community (which was also heavily represented in the Defense League). Estonian teams wer...

A Beautiful Factory Semiauto SIG MKPO (Ad-free)

During the 1930s, SIG Neuhausen made a series of really beautiful submachine guns. They were the MK series, offered in either 500mm / 19.7 inch barrels for military use or 300mm / 11.8 inch for police use. The first pattern was the MK-O, which had a rate-reducing system built into the action (which looks initially much like a delayed blowback system but isn't). These proved too expensive, and a simplified plain high rate of fire model was introduced, the MK-S.

This example is a very rar...

Enjoying Black Powder Episode 8: Mauser 71/84 (Ad-free)

For the full episode with the hand loading instructional section, click here:

https://forgottenweapons.vhx.tv/videos/ep-8-71-84-app

Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, and they are actually pretty easy to reload for. The unavailability of factory ammunition (for most, although not so much for...

Finland's Next Service Rifle (Mostly): Sako ARG S 40 (Ad-free)

Finland and Sweden are both in the process of adopting AR-pattern rifles, and for the Finns this will be their first service rifle in 5.56mm NATO. It is a transition that has been anticipated for nearly 20 years, but was finally put into high gear by the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Finland's entrance into NATO. The exact pattern of the new service rifle is being determined through testing (it may be DI or a short-stroke piston; we don't know yet) but the National Defence Training Associat...

Q&A: Finland and Finnish Small Arms (From Berdan to New Sako AR) (Ad-free)

I figured that Finland would be a good subject for this month's Q&A, as I am visiting the country to shoot Finnish Brutality this month. In fact, this video was filmed during the trip (the match took place last weekend, and its video coverage will be coming soon!).

00:39 - Development of the Suomi and PPSh-41 submachine guns

03:24 - Oldest guns used in Finnish Independence War

04:40 - Biggest strength and weakness of the Suomi

06:43 - Soviet use of captured Suomis?...

Department of Energy 633 Clone at a PCSL 2-Gun Match (Ad-free)

The new Colt 633 Department of Energy clone from PSA/H&R was really quite a lot of fun to shoot, so I decided to take it to a PCSL match. This was basically a USPSA pistol match with two sets of targets, one for pistol and one for rifle (in theory PCSL goes out to much longer range, but that match at my local club was all within about 25 yards). I brought a Beretta 92 to match the vibe of the 633 clone, but decided once I saw the stages that I really just wanted to shoot the carbine. So I...

Aimpoint's Only Gun: The PC-80 Symmetrical Action (Ad-free)

Latvia's Unique Charger-Loading Lee Enfield (CLLE) Cavalry Carbine (Ad-free)

During the Latvian War of Independence, the nationalist forces receiver a fair bit of support form the British, including some 20,000 P14 Enfield rifles. These were great for the Latvian infantry, but the Latvian cavalry wanted something shorter. So in the early 1920s, they ordered 2200-2350 (the numbers are unclear) carbines from BSA. These were assembled using old Lee Metford and Long Lee parts, 21 inch barrels, and modified with charger clip bridges per the British CLLE pattern.

Thes...

Small Arms History of the Falkland Islands Defense Force (Ad-Free)

Various militias existed on the Falkland Islands since its earliest settlement, but the Falkland Islands Defense Force of today traces its roots to the 1892 Falkland Islands Volunteer Corps. This force was equipped with Martini Henry rifles. With the outbreak of World War One, the Falklands were a strategically important naval station, and the FIDF grew significantly in size and was fitted out with more modern arms. They expanded again in World War Two, with Lee Enfield rifles, Sten MkV SMGs,...

B&T GL-06 Launcher: Reloadable Less-Lethal for Police on a Budget (Ad-free)

The B&T GL06 (Grenade Launcher 2006) was developed in response to a French tender for a riot-control less-lethal weapon in 2006. B&T had actually already been working on a less-lethal projectile system, which they call SIR (Safe Impact Round). It is a rubber projectile with a hard plastic base and driving band, fired from a hard plastic case using a 9mm blank cartridge. What makes this ammunition noteworthy is that it is reloadable - projectiles fired in training can be gathered up an...

Deckard's Pfläger-Katsumata Series D 5223 (Ad-free)

In the film Blade Runner, Deckard carries a pistol called a Pfläger-Katsumata Series D 5223 - a name created by the fan community to have the initials "PKD" after Phillip K. Dick, who wrote Blade runner's source material (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep). What we are looking at today is an extremely realistic recreation of the prop gun used in the filming. Like the movie original, it was made from a Charter Arms .44 Special revolver so that it could actually fire blank rounds during film...

Red Dots: How Cheap is too Cheap? (featuring Mike Branson) (Ad-free)

I met up with Mike Branson of Gideon Optics at SHOT Show 2025. Today, we are talking about red dot price and quality. It's easy to get a good red dot if you are willing to spend enough, but how cheap can you go and still have a reliable product?

February Q&A: Finland

With Finnish Brutality coming up just next week, it seems appropriate for this month's Q&A theme to be Finland and Finnish small arms. Independence, Winter War, Continuation War, Cold War, recent NATO membership, the whole gamut. What would you like to know?

India's FAL: The 1A1 Inch/Metric Hybrid (Ad-free)

For political reasons, India decided to adopt the 7.62mm NATO cartridge when it needed to replace its No1 MkIII SMLE bolt action rifles with a modern self-loader. They chose the FN FAL as the rifle to adopt, but wanted a license to produce it domestically at the Ishapore rifle factory. FN insisted on the Indians buying Belgian tools as part of the agreement, which India was unwilling to do. So instead, Ishapore used the samples it had of both British L1A1 and Belgian FAL rifles to produce its...

Praga I-23: Prototype Belt-Fed Predecessor of the ZB26 (Ad-free)

Vaclav Holek's first machine gun design for the Czech military was the Praga I, built in 1922 and based heavily on the Vickers/Maxim system. However, it became clear that the military wanted something lighter and more portable, and so the next year he heavily updated the design to this, the Praga I-23 (for 1923). It remains a belt-fed weapon chambered for the 8mm Mauser cartridge, but the locking system has been much simplified into a tilting bolt arrangement. The recoil operation from the ea...

Military History Visualized Joins History of Weapons & War (Ad-free)

Subscribe today: http://weaponsandwar.tv

Join us on the History of Weapons & War and enjoy knowing that you are supporting ten of the finest historical and educational channels outside the restrictions of YouTube!

We are excited to have Bernhard of Military History Visualized joining us! His videos are now part of the 6,000+ video catalog available completely ad-free on HOWW.

Primary Arms' HTX-1: A Completely US-Made Red Dot Sight (Ad-free)

Primary Arms just recently announced their HTX-1 red dot, and it sounds pretty cool. From a technical perspective, it has a lot of good points - a clever adapter plate mounting system, two different reticles, and a fully enclosed emitter. However I think the more interesting (and less appreciated) story here is the work involved in actually producing a product like this completely in the US. So while at SHOT Show 2025, I stopped by the Primary Arms booth to talk to them about it.

Ljungman Updates: the AG-42 vs AG-42B (Ad-free)

In 1953, the Swedish military launched a program to refurbish and refit all of the Ag m/42 rifles in inventory. Aside from replacing broken parts and worn barrels, the program also made a number of improvements to the rifles:

* Auxiliary front magazine catch added

* Large gripping lugs added to bolt cover

* Rubber case deflector added

* Single-piece cleaning rod to replace the two-part original

* Rear sight geometry modified

* Rear sight range dial modified...

AG42 Ljungman: Sweden Adopts a Battle Rifle in WWII (Ad-free)

Sweden developed, adopted, and produced a new self-loading rifle during World War Two. The process began in 1938, with an attempt by the state rifle factory to convert Swedish Mauser bolt actions into semiautomatic; that did not go well. Trials for a ground-up semiauto followed shortly thereafter, with the two finalists being the Pelo rifle from Finland and a design by Erik Eklund of the C.J. Ljungmans Verkstäder, a company that made gas pumps and had no prior small arms experience.&nbs...

Mean Arms' Bearing Delay System (Ad-free)

Mean Arms has developed probably the most refined and sophisticated 9mm AR delaying system on the market, what they call Bearing Delay. This began as an exploration into fitting HK-style roller delay into and AR, and ended up with a system using three spherical bearings to redirect chamber pressure to delay opening. The system is particularly well suited to high end competition use, where the development data form Mean Arms can be use din conjunction with different "lifters" (the equivalent o...

BSD's VSS Vintorez Reproduction: Beyond the Hype (Ad-free)

The reproduction VSS Vintorez announced and shown by BSD Fabrication & Works at SHOT Show 2025 has garnered a tremendous amount of excitement and attention. This is understandable, as the VSS is a very cool rifle, and there are a lot of people who would love to have one. However, I the coverage from SHOT is seriously lacking in any sort of realistic assessment. So, as a guy who has been badly burned once by a reproduction rifle preorder and has seen lots of other people also burned, I wan...

Enjoying Black Powder Episode 7: Beaumont 1871 (Ad-free)

For the full episode with the hand loading instructional section, click here:

https://forgottenweapons.vhx.tv/videos/episode-7-beaumont-app

Black powder military rifles of the 1860s-1880s are a really enjoyable group of guns. A lot of them are relatively reasonably priced, and they are actually pretty easy to reload for. The unavailability of factory ammunition (for most, although...

Q&A: British Small Arms of World War Two (Audio Only)

Today's Q&A is brought to you by the fine folks at Patreon, and by Penguin Brutality:

https://www.varusteleka.com/en/search?q=penguin

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

01:11 - Was the Vickers .50 any good, and why did the British use 4 different heavy cartridges instead of consolidating...

Q&A: British Small Arms of World War Two (Ad-free)

Today's Q&A is brought to you by the fine folks at Patreon, and by Penguin Brutality:

https://www.varusteleka.com/en/search?q=penguin

http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons

01:11 - Was the Vickers .50 any good, and why did the British use 4 different heavy cartridges instead of consolidating?

07:35 ...

TOZ-36 and TOZ-49: Soviet Gas-Seal Target Revolvers (Ad-free)

These two revolvers were developed for competitive sport shooting in the Soviet Union. They are usually described as variants of the Model 1895 Nagant, but they actually work on a different mechanism, despite both being gas-seal designs. The TOZ-36 was designed in 1962, and it was a single action, six-shot revolver in 7.62x38mmR - the standard Nagant revolver cartridge. It was made until 1975, and in 1977 it was supplanted by the TOZ-49. That was essentially the same design, but chambered for...