Percussion
1847 Walker Revolver at RIA
The Colt 1847 Walker revolver was a massive 4 1/2 pound handgun made for Samuel Walker of the US Mounted Rifles (he also served with the Texas Rangers) as a way to equip mounted troops […]
Video
Semiauto Rifles
RSC 1917: France’s WW1 Semiauto Rifle at RIA
Did you know that the French Army issued more than 80,000 semiautomatic rifles during WWI? They had been experimenting with a great many semiauto designs before the war, and in 1916 finalized a design for […]
Light MGs
Madsen LMG Disassembly and Functioning (RIA)
The Madsen LMG is of particular interest to me because it is both a very mechanically unusual design and also a very early successful design. Madsen light machine guns were first used in combat in […]
Semiauto pistol
Colt Z40 Pistol #1 at RIA
However, after only 800 had been sold, Colt backed out of the deal and dropped the Z40 from its catalog. Why? Because they had happened to use a Z40 as the base gun for a […]
Light MGs
White Prototype Open-Bolt LMG at RIA
Along with his two semiauto rifle prototypes, when White went to England for rifle testing he took along a work-in-progress light machine gun. The weapon was trsted by British officials, but found wanting – largely […]
Prototype
White Toggle-Locked .30-06 Prototype Rifle
This toggle-locking rifle chambered for the .30-06 cartridge is the second of two rifles submitted by White for the 1930 US military trials. It was not actually tested by the US, but White did take […]
Handgun
FP-45 Liberator at RIA
The Liberator is one of those interesting artifacts of WWII; an extremely simple single-shot .45 caliber pistol made by the boxcar-load (a million, specifically) with the intention of being dropped en masse across Europe to […]
Needlefire
Q&A Video, November 2015
Thanks to the awesome people supporting Forgotten Weapons through Patreon for sending in more questions that I could get to for another month! This month the subjects include: Browning lock vs others in handguns Best […]
Semiauto Rifles
M1 Thumb in Slow Motion (Ouch!)
(Note: not for the mildly squeamish) A blog reader on Reddit named Oelund sent me this footage, of him deliberately inflicting M1 Thumb on himself at 1200 fps (twice!). I figured that ought to be […]
Bolt Action Rifles
2-Gun WWI Extravaganza: BEF vs German Landser (Video)
This is the second of our two videos from the most recent 2-Gun match, which was designed with an explicit World War One theme. This one is a head to head match between me, kitted […]