Forgotten Weapons

Forgotten Weapons

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Forgotten Weapons
  • Gothic Serpent: Shughart M14 Clone & Delta 1911 at the 2-Gun Match

    Today I decided to do a Gothic Serpent memorial 2-gun match, using my Shughart M14 clone and a surplussed Delta 1911. This was a 5-stage match at the Rio Salado Sportsman's Club, and it was a complete dumpster fire for me. I don't know what changed, but the reliable-in-testing M1A became a comple...

  • B&T APC-9: The Swiss Answer to the MP5

    B&T owner Karl Brügger is a big fan of 9mm PCCs and SMGs, and decided that his company ought to offer an alternative to the MP5 and this was the Advanced Police Carbine (APC). In order to compete effectively, it needed to be simple to manufacture, since manufacturing costs in Switzerland are exor...

  • MP9 and TP9: A Complete History From Steyr to B&T

    Steyr introduced their TMP (Tactical Machine Pistol) and its semiauto SPP counterpart in 1989, but it was never a very popular item. After the company was purchased, the new ownership decided to scrap the TMP (along with other low-performing product lines). At that point, Swiss firm B&T purchased...

  • sa81 KRASA: Czechoslovakia's Ultra-Compact Lost PDW

    The Krása project (which translates as "beauty", but is also a shortening of "short assault rifle" - "KRÁtký SAmopal") is a fascinating piece of Czech small arms development. In 1976, the Czechoslovakian military requested development of a compact personal weapon for special troops (paratroops, a...

  • Creating my Shughart Black Hawk Down M14 Clone

    I figured it might be worthwhile as a bonus video to document the process of putting together my clone of Randy Shughart's M14 from 1993 Mogadishu...so here we go.

  • Boring, Durable, Unsexy Bricks: The Remarkably Successful Ruger P85

    The Ruger P85 - like so many of Ruger's products - is not particularly attractive or exciting. It introduced no particular mechanical innovation besides the casting-based manufacturing that would actually probably be seen as a detriment if it were advertised. And yet, the gun (and those developed...

  • Estonia's Domestic Arms Production: Arsenal Tallinn SMG

    At the end of Estonia's war of independence in 1920, the new nation's government began working on military infrastructure. One thing it would need was a repair depot to maintain military equipment, everything from barracks furniture to arms and vehicles. A large building was obtained in Tallinn (...

  • Romanian 1930s Mosin Carbine Conversion

    Romania had more than a million rifles in its inventory after World War One, but they were mused between Mannlicher 88/90, Mannlicher 95, Mosin Nagant, and Berthier patterns - and they were almost all rifles and not carbines. In order to make practical use of all these arms, it was decided to all...

  • A Brief History of B&T Silencers - Impuls to Rotex to PrintX

    Today I'm at B&T in Thun, Switzerland taking a look at the whole history of the company's suppressors. They began back in the 90s when founder Karl Brügger was working as a machinist and had spare time available - so he started making silencers for himself and his friends. That grew into a small ...

  • Estonian M14 TP Sniper "Täitsa Paska"

    When Estonia took its independence in 1991, it had to form a new military essentially from scratch. Keeping the structure that existed before Soviet occupation in 1940, two separate forces were reinstituted. One was the Defense Forces - the formal Army, with a cadre of professional soldiers and a...

  • Steyr-Solothurn S2-200: the Austrian MG30 and Hungarian 31M

    The S2-200 was developed by Louis Stange at the Rheinmetall company in Germany in the late 1920s. Because Germany was not allowed to be doing this sort of arms development at the time, Rheinmetall bought a controlling stake in the Swiss firm Solothurn AG, to make the product deniably Swiss. The g...

  • James Bond's Shoulder Holsters: Good, Bad, and Ugly

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=3kto24

    Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond is live on Kickstarter now - check it out for lots of super cool exclusive options!

    Today Caleb Daniels - author of Licensed Troubleshooter - is back with me, to dis...

  • Literary James Bond's Best Pistol: the ASP

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=7eq2r0

    Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond is live on Kickstarter now - check it out for lots of super cool exclusive options!

    Today Caleb Daniels, author of "Licensed Troubleshooter", is joining me to talk a...

  • First Gen Walther P99 at the BUG Match

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=dg4m5e

    Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond is live on Kickstarter now - check it out for lots of super cool exclusive options!

    Last week Tom and I did a BUG match with 4 different iconic James Bond pistols - ...

  • Every Gun in "Dr. No" is Wrong

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=dkrv10

    Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond is live on Kickstarter now - check it out for lots of super cool exclusive options!

    Today Caleb Daniels, author of "Licensed Troubleshooter", joins me to talk about ...

  • Samostril Netsch: Bizarre Prototype Czech Automatic Rifle

    When Czechoslovakia began looking for new small arms in the early 1920s, one of the things they were interested in was a "samostřil" - something akin to the automatic rifle in English. A select-fire weapon intended to be fired from the shoulder or hip - heavier than a basic rifle but lighter than...

  • Virtual Tour of the Czech Army Museum in Prague

    I spent several days filming some fantastic Czech small arms with the VHU - the Czech Military History Institute. The Army Museum Žižkov is a part of the Institute, and they have a 3-story museum full of cool exhibits open to the public in Prague. If you have a chance to visit, it's definitely wo...

  • The Mystery of James Bond's Long-Barrel .45 Car Gun

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=ce1kwg

    Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond is live on Kickstarter now - check it out for lots of super cool exclusive options!

    Today Caleb Daniels joins me again to discuss one of the mysteries of Ian Fleming...

  • BUG Match: Guns of James Bond

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=2al11o

    Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond is live on Kickstarter now - check it out for lots of super cool exclusive options!

    Today my friend Tom joins me at the BackUp Gun (BUG) Match for a bunch of James B...

  • Announcing "Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond"!

    https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/licensed-troubleshooter?ref=8r616s

    Now available to preorder on Kickstarter, "Licensed Troubleshooter: The Guns of James Bond" is a celebration of the most fascinating small arms wielded by one of the world’s most acclaimed action heroes, 007. This ...

  • Black Hawk Down: Randy Shughart's M14

    Sergeant Randy Shughart and Gary Gordon were both awarded posthumous Congressional Medals of Honor for their actions in Mogadishu in October 1993. As portrayed in the film "Black Hawk Down", the two Delta Force men volunteered (demanded, really) to be dropped onto the wreck of Super 6-4 alone to ...

  • Friends Don't Let Friends Overhype the MP7

    Even real top-tier operators can be taken in by the hype...just remember that it was designed to be a truck driver's gun 25 years ago.

  • The RK 62 M3 Clone I Used for Finnish Brutality 2024

    This year at Finnish Brutality 2024, I was able to use a semiauto clone of a Finnish military RK 62 M3 rifle. This is the latest upgrade to the Finnish issued RK 62 rifle. Starting in 2015, the Finnish Defense Forces began a program to update some of their stock of RK62s. The goal was to add opti...

  • Balloons, Bombs, and Sandbags: Finnish Brutality 2024 Day 2

    Finnish Brutality 2024 took the standard for practical shooting matches and raised it again - this was the best match that I have ever had the chance to shoot. Run by Varusteleka, a Finnish military and outdoor good supplier, it was ten stages of shooting over two days and took place a bit north ...