Today, Ian is talking to John Keene, NFA specialist for Morphy Auctions. The question is, what is the best model of Maxim gun? Whether it’s for a recreation shooter or a historical enthusiast, there are some models that are better than others… The post What is the Best Maxim Gun? (with John Keene) first appeared on Forgotten Weapons ..read more

Get Entered to WIN this legendary BAR! https://go.getenteredtowin.com/forgottenweapons DEADLINE to ENTER is 04/26/24 @ 11:59pm (PST). Today I’m taking a brand new Ohio Ordnance M1918A3 semiauto BAR to the 2-gun match, along with a Tisas M1911A1 clone. The BAR is the WW2 configuration, but I followed the footsteps of many a US GI and took off the bipod (and it didn’t come with a carry handle). That reduces the weight a bit from the very beefy 19 pounds the WW2 BAR tipped the scales at. Even so, it’s still like running a shoulder rifle with a second rifle strapped to it… It was a fun match, eve ..read more

The Swiss were one of the first countries to test Hiram Maxim’s new automatic machine gun in 1887, and they found it far superior to their just-recently-purchased Gardner guns. The first Swiss maxims were delivered in 1889, and the country came back three more times for newer models. The MG94 was the first major adoption, followed by the MG00 for cavalry. Finally, after the Maxim patents expired and DWM introduced their improved 1909 commercial pattern, the Swiss adopted it as the MG11. The first 167 MG11s were produced by DWM, but deliveries ceased in 1915 because of the war. This prompted t ..read more

The Japanese never really embraced submachine guns during and before World War Two. A series of development programs in the 1920s and 30s led nowhere, and there never really seems to have been much motivation behind them. Some small batches of guns were purchased from abroad for units like the Special Naval Landing Force, comprising things like SIG Model 1920 Bergmann guns and Steyr MP34s. Finally in the late 30s, apparently spurred by Japanese experience in the taking of Shanghai, Kijiro Nambu replaced his complex early designs with a simple blowback open-bolt gun chambered for the standard ..read more

The Model 74 “Carpați” is a copy of the Walther PP made by the Cugir factory in Romania. The project began at the direction of the Romanian secret police, who delivered a worn out Walther to the factory in 1972 with a request that they produce a domestic copy. Work on the design took two years before the final product was ready in 1974, and was adopted at the Model 74 (although it is colloquially known as the “Carpați”, after the Carpathian Mountains around Cugir). The Model 74 has an aluminum alloy frame and a 90.5mm barrel, almost exactly splitting the difference between the barrel lengths ..read more

While the US never adopted a significant variation of the M1 Garand (excluding sniper models), testing continued on new iterations and features throughout the war. By the time the war ended, the US military had some specific ideas about what it wanted in a new service rifle. That being, something lighter, capable of automatic fire, and to have one single platform replace the M1 Carbine, M3A1 Grease Gun, M1 Garand, and M1918A2 BAR. New rifles to meet these requirements were developed by Springfield, Remington, and Winchester, ultimately competing against the FN FAL for US service use. The Spri ..read more

Line-throwing devices have long been an important part of maritime safety, and many different have been guns adapted to launch ropes from shore to ship or ship to ship. Usually they are inexpensive obsolete surplus of the era, but a change in law in 1918 led to a spike in demand for line-throwers in the US. As a result, a number of entrepreneurs put together line-throwing rifle kits. One of these was William Read & Sons, who bought 497 Model 1886 Winchester lever action rifles in .45-70 form the Winchester factory, specifically bored smooth and with barrels cut down the 14.5 inches. They ..read more

In 1936 and 1937, Siam purchased a batch of several hundred new Luger pistols for the Bangkok Police, including 100 long-barreled lP08 Artillery Lugers. These were new production gun, but made with surplus WW1-era barrels, sights, and stocks. The Siamese serial numbers range from 3450v to 3553v. The guns are standard Mauser production, all dated 1936, similar to the purchases by Persia and Turkey around the same time. The one distinctive marking on the Siamese contract are local rack numbers added to the back oft he frame some time after World War Two – a circled lion’s head emblem and a 3-di ..read more

One of the first new weapons adapted and used by the Chinese Peoples’ Liberation Army after the Communist victory in the Chinese civil war was the Type 50, a copy of the Soviet PPSh-41. The story of its manufacture begins at the Japanese occupied Mukden Arsenal. It was briefly occupied by the Soviets in 1945 before coming under control of the CCP. It was a huge manufacturing complex at the time, making artillery, small arms, ammunition, and more. A Nationalist bombing raid in 1949 led to the production being distributed among three separate smaller facilities, and the small remote town of Bei ..read more

Get Entered to WIN this legendary BAR! https://go.getenteredtowin.com/forgottenweapons DEADLINE to ENTER is 04/26/24 @ 11:59pm (PST). “Battle rifle” is not a formally recognized term like “assault rifle”, but it is widely used, and I think it has a lot of utility. It is intended to differentiate between intermediate-caliber and full-power military rifles, and to that end I propose these four criteria to define a “battle rifle”: 1 – A military style or pattern rifle 2 – Intended primarily to be fired from the shoulder 3 – Self-loading (either semi- or fully automatic) 4 – Chambered for a full ..read more