Forgotten Weapons

Forgotten Weapons

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Forgotten Weapons
  • Ljungman Updates: the AG-42 vs AG-42B

    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 ...

  • TOZ-36 and TOZ-49: Soviet Gas-Seal Target Revolvers

    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...

  • Steyr AUGs of the Falkland Islands Defense Force

    The Falkland Islands Defense Force is a small organization independent of the British military, run directly by the Falkland Islands government. When it decided to update its small arms form the L1A1 SLR (aka British FAL) in the early 1990s, the British assumed they would purchase the new L85A1 r...

  • 2-Gun: Dillinger Gang Special! Winchester 1907SL and M1911

    Yesterday we took a look at a reproduction of the Winchester 1907 Self Loader made for the Dillinger gang (and others) by Hyman Lebman. Today, I'm taking it out to a 2-gun match, paired with a Tisas M1911A1. Let's see how it'll do!

    Lebman 1907SL Conversion video:
    https://forgottenweapons.vhx.tv/...

  • Beretta 93R: The Best Machine Pistol?

    The Beretta 93R ("Raffica") was developed in the 1970s by Beretta engineer Paolo Parola at the request of Italian military special forces. It took the basic Beretta 92 pistol design and added a well-thought-out burst mechanism under the right-side grip panel. It does not have a plain full-auto se...

  • India's FAL: The 1A1 Inch/Metric Hybrid

    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 insiste...

  • Daniel Defense H9: The Hudson Reborn and Completely Reengineered

    In 2017, Hudson released a new pistol that was the darling of the firearms industry. It purported to offer a radically low bore axis and 1911-style trigger in a striker-fired system that would be fast and simple to use.

    In 2019, Hudson went bankrupt, out of money and having started to scavenge ...

  • Praga I-23: Prototype Belt-Fed Predecessor of the ZB26

    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...

  • Dillinger Gang's Winchester 1907 Self-Loader: The Lebman Conversion

    Hyman Lehman was a gunsmith in Texas who made a variant of firearms for some of the most notorious gangsters of the 1930s. One of his specialties was to take the Winchester Model 1907 Self-Loader and cut the barrel down, attach a Cutt's Compensator, and a Thompson gun vertical front grip on a rep...

  • Rhodesian Mamba at the Range: Will it Work?

    Today we are taking the Mamba out to the range to see just how badly (or how well) it works. This is one of the Mambas that was assembled in the US by Navy Arms - only a very small number of these went on the market before the whole project was abandoned.

  • SIG P320 Flux Legion / Flux Raider: The Best Pistol-PDW System Yet

    The Flux Raider is a chassis system designed to turn the SIG P320 into a very compact PDW. The design concept began as a desire to improve the practical accuracy of a handgun by adding a collapsing stock while keeping the weapon holsterable. Flux' first product, circa 2019, was a spring-loaded st...

  • P320 Flux Legion Raider at the Range

    Today I am taking the SIG P320 Flux Legion (aka the SIG Legion edition of the Flux Raider) out to the range. I'm a big fan of PDW systems, and the Raider is one of the best - in my opinion it is better than some purpose-built PDWs, much less other pistol chassis conversions. Anyway, I registered ...

  • So Many Ways to Fail at Making a Pistol

    Making a successful and popular new handgun requires doing a whole lot of things right...today we are going to consider what happens when they don't go so well.

  • Book Review: The U.S. Model 1917 Rifle - "America's Enfield"

    Available from Amazon:
    https://www.amazon.com/U-S-Model-Rifle-Americas-Enfield/dp/1931464928

    Available from the publisher, Mowbray:
    https://gunandswordcollector.com/product/us-model-1917-rifle-canfield/

    Bruce Canfield is one of the most prolific and prominent authors on American military small ...

  • How Is Ammunition Made? A Tour of Sellier & Bellot's Factory

    Today I am in Vlašim in the Czech Republic, where Sellier & Bellot has allowed me to film a tour of their ammunition plant. This is one of the largest ammo manufacturers in the world, and they start with basic raw material like lead, copper, and brass and ship out complete case ammunition. The ma...

  • Q&A: The Falklands War of 1982

    Want a patch or t-shirt with our adorably heavily armed rockhopper penguin? Both are available from Varusteleka:
    https://www.varusteleka.com/en/search?q=penguin

    Since I spent a couple weeks hiking across the Falklands and then visiting battlefields (and penguins), it seems reasonable to do a Q&A...

  • In the Footsteps of 45 Commando: 60 Miles Across the Falklands

    Want a patch or t-shirt with our adorably heavily armed rockhopper penguin? Both are available from Varusteleka:
    https://www.varusteleka.com/en/search?q=penguin

    I was recently joined by my friends Les Winner (Polaris Logistics) and Jari Laine (Varusteleka) for an epic trek across Eat Falkland in...

  • Enjoying Black Powder Episode 6: Berdan II

    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 the Trapdoor) makes them seem like a ...

  • Gear for Carrying DP27 Pan Magazines

    Today we are taking a look at three different pieces of kit developed to carry Degtyarev DP pan magazines. These mags are really inconveniently shaped, and traditional magazine pouches just don't work for them. Instead, the Soviets initially fielded a stamped steel can that held three pans. This ...

  • The Unique Challenges of Self-Loading Shotgun Design

    I think a lot of people under appreciate the difficulty of making a reliable self-loading shotgun. Between the rimmed case, wadcutter-type cylindrical shape, varying shell length, and massive variations in loadings, the variability that a designer has to work around is insane...

  • SPAS-12: Franchi's Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun

    Franchi introduced the Special Purpose Automatic Shotgun (SPAS-12) for Italian military and police agencies in 1979 and it quickly because popular worldwide. Based originally on the gas-operated Franchi 500, that SPAS-12 was robust, reliable, and designed as a semiautomatic action with a backup p...

  • Franchi SPAS-12 at the Range

    Today I'm taking the SPAS-12 out to the range, to try a variety of ammunition and see what runs in it. The SPAS is a gas-operated shotgun that can be switched to manual pump operation for use with underpowered ammunition. This was originally intended as a way to allow things like beanbag and othe...

  • P99: The Pistol that Rejuvenated Walther

    For a couple decades after World War Two, Walther survived on legacy designs - the PP/PPK and P38 (eventually made with an aluminum frame as the P4) primarily. In the 1970s they developed the P5 for German police use, and this was a reasonably successful pistol, but expensive and complex. Somethi...

  • New Imports: French MAS 49/56 and MAS 36/51 Rifles

    Yeah, I'm a sucker for nice French rifles. So when Old Western Scrounger brought in another batch of them, I offered to do a video. These are rifles taken out of French long-term storage, having been rebuilt at French arsenals to like-new condition, and are in beautiful condition.

    Full video on ...