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HomePrototype

Prototype

Light MGs

August Coenders’ 9x19mm Belt-Fed MG

October 31, 2018 Ian McCollum 38

August Coenders was an independent arms designer in Germany. During the 1930s he spent several years working in England and at the French Puteaux Arsenal, which contributed to a general lack of trust and interest […]

Prototype

Mauser C98: The System That Cost Paul Mauser an Eye

October 1, 2018 Ian McCollum 17

One of Paul Mauser’s lifelong projects was the design of a semiautomatic rifle for the German military. He would go through a multitude of different designs searching for something that would be sufficiently reliable, durable, […]

Prototype

Prototype Clement 9x20mm Military Pistol

September 26, 2018 Ian McCollum 1

Charles Clement is best known for a series of civilian pocket pistol made in the years before World War One, but today we are looking at a prototype Clement military pistol from 1914. This gun […]

Prototype

Thompson’s .30-06 1923 Autorifle: Blish Strikes Again

August 22, 2018 Ian McCollum 12

RIA’s catalog page for this rifle This is a Model 1923 Thompson Autoloading Rifle, one of a batch of 20 made by Colt for US military testing in 1924. The system is designed on the […]

Prototype

Colt Prototype Self-Ejecting Revolver

August 16, 2018 Ian McCollum 30

RIA’s catalog page for this revolver Robert Roy was a career Colt employee, who began his work as an engineer in 1963 (including work on the 1971/SSP pistols and the CMG machine gun series) and […]

Prototype

Garand Primer-Activated 1924 Trials Rifle

August 13, 2018 Ian McCollum 26

RIA’s catalog page for this rifle The first successful iteration of John Garand’s rifle was developed in 1921 and refined through 1924. A small batch were made for US military testing in 1924, where it […]

Prototype

Project Ultra: Germany Wants a Stronger Compact Pistol

August 8, 2018 Ian McCollum 15

This pistol is one of just a couple surviving from a development project run by Walther in the mid to late 1930s. The goal was to produce a compact sidearm for pilots and officers using […]

Prototype

Ribeyrolles 1918 – France’s First Assault Rifle or a Failed Prototype?

May 22, 2018 Ian McCollum 12

Paul Ribeyrolles was the manager of the Gladiator bicycle factory, and by 1918 he had significant experience in small arms design, having been a core member of the team that designed and built the 1915 […]

Prototype

Madsen M1888 Forsøgsrekylgevær: The Strangest Semiauto

May 11, 2018 Ian McCollum 13

Development of the weapon that would eventually become the very successful 1902 Madsen light machine gun began many years earlier, in 1883. Two Danes, Madsen and Rasmussen, began working on a recoil-operated self loading rifle […]

Prototype

Maschinengewehr des Standshützen Hellriegel: A WW1 Phantom

May 8, 2018 Ian McCollum 44

I have gotten quite a lot of questions about this experimental Austrian machine gun or submachine gun since it was included in the Battlefield One computer game. Unfortunately, the sum total of information we have […]

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