Today's Q&A is brought to you by the Patrons who make Forgotten Weapons possible! Not actually by Glenlivet Nadurra (pelted cask) - although maybe that's why it went longer than normal. Our questions this month are:

0:00:50 - Why not post a series of videos all back-to-back?
0:02:58 - Most I...

0:00:36 - Why so few .380 ACP military pistols?
0:02:09 - Thoughts on the NGSW program guns
0:03:24 - Exciting new things in the firearms industry today
0:04:21 - Why did the USSR not use detachable mags on the SKS?
0:06:40 - Books on the Krag and Trapdoor Springfield
0:08:05 - Ideal guns fo...

The Cody Firearms Museum recently held its third annual Arsenals of History symposium, gathering professionals from firearms museums across the world to discuss issues specifically related to this particular speciality within the museum world. This year the symposium had a particular focus on soc...

Time for another monthly Q&A!

00:18 - Guns that exceeded and fell short of my expectations?
03:14 - Why did the US keep the 1903 instead of the 1917 after WW1?
04:59 - Bren guns in .30-06
07:07 - Book on French handguns or bayonets
08:45 - My jobs before Forgotten Weapons became full-time
...

Samuel Johannes Pauli was born outside Bern, Switzerland in 1766, and became an engineer of wide interests. Among them were bridge design, passenger-carrying balloons (he would work seriously on a 15-20 passenger balloon service between London and Paris later in life), and firearms. Only a few ye...

The pinfire system was an early cartridge type which saw widespread use in Europe, but was not widely adopted in the United States. First invented by a French designer named Pauly, it was made commercially feasible by Casimir Lefacheaux. It was Casimir's son Eugene, however, who took the pinfire ...

Arne Boberg founded Boberg Arms in 2009 and released his first pistol in 2011, the XR9-S. This was followed by the longer XR9-L, and then the XR-45S in 2014. The conceit of the Boberg pistol is basically that of the Bullpup rifle: maximizing barrel length while minimizing overall length. To this ...

The end of the year means I am going to take a moment for a bit of a retrospective, this time on the cannons that have appeared on Forgotten Weapons over the years. From 20mm up to 76mm, let's enjoy some properly big guns!

The pinfire cartridge was a popular development in Europe in the mid-1800s that never saw much exposure in the United States. A huge variety of pinfire revolvers were made by a myriad of large and small shops, with Liege Belgium being one of the biggest manufacturing centers.

Guns ranged from ...

I have read much about the Australian dislike for the Austen submachine gun, but until now I never had the chance to actually try shooting one. I did not have very high expectations, but the gun is actually pretty darn reasonable! It doesn't climb like I expected the stock would cause it to, and ...

In the 1980s, the South African military and police were using substantial numbers of different handguns, and began looking for a way to consolidate to simply maintenance and logistics. Studying the different guns they had, they decided to pursue a copy of the Beretta Model 92. No foreign manufac...

*NOTE: Apologies for the sound issues, Vic had problems with his mic during filming and had to overdub* Before the now-famous M203 came the XM148, developed by Colt to fulfil the US Army's requirement for an underbarrel grenade launcher for the M16. Over 20,000 were made but, as Vic explains, a n...

In the early 1930s, Walther began to experiment with changes to its Olympia target pistol in hopes of beating the Colt Woodsman out of its place as the most popular pistol of the type. The most distinctive difference between the Woodsman and the Olympia was in their grip angles; quite straight fo...

Courtesy of Legacy Collectibles, we have a variety of pistols to look at today which were taken as souvenirs by American GIs when the Walther factory was captured in April of 1945. Walther was making PP, PPK, and P38 pistols right up until US soldiers walked in, and there were a wide variety of c...

In the late 1930s, Walther experimented with the idea of an Olympia target pistol in .32 ACP. They used the frame from a 1936 pattern standard (.22LR) Olympia with a .32 caliber barrel, increased mass slide, and magazine adapted from a Walther PP. The project never progressed beyond the toolroom ...

Czechoslovakia adopted the 7.62x45mm cartridge after World War Two, introducing both a vz.52 rifle and vz.52 light machine gun using the round. It was about 200 fps faster than the Soviet standard 7.62x39mm. It was marginally more effective in the LMG, but not so much that the Czechs put up a big...

The Viper Mk I was an experimental submachine gun developed in the UK for use by military policemen in post-WW2 occupation West Germany. It was a simplified Sten gun (full-auto only, without the semiauto option normally included in the Sten trigger mechanism) put into a wooden housing. It was int...

Today I'm with Larry Vickers, taking a look at the recreation of his Delta Force Colt 723 carbine - the rifle he used at Modelo Prison in Panama and in Desert Storm hunting for SCUD missiles. Use of carbines like this one by Delta and other special forces groups set the stage for the adoption of ...

The perk for $100 Patrons is choosing a gun they would like me to find and film, and one such Patron (Mark) expressed a curiosity about US testing and lack of adoption of an MG-42 in .30-06 caliber. So, today we will discuss that (the trials gun was designated the T24) as well as why it took so l...

Uli Wiegand is the President of InterOrdnance, and recently invited me to his facility to take a look at the first shipment from a huge batch of collectible firearms he spent 8 years working to import from central Africa. The cache includes all manner of models, including Enfields, Mausers, Carca...

This rifle is an experimental twist on the Henry, built with three magazine tubes in a fixture pivoting around the axis of the barrel. While only half the length of the barrel itself, the three tubes allow a capacity of 21 rounds, compared to the original design's 16. The magazine assembly also a...

The Tirmax is a handy little carbine made between 1909 and 1914 in Liege by a German company. It is a semiauto action using a 5-round detachable magazine. The guns are quite scarce today because only a fairly small number appear to have been produced before World War One ended its manufacture.
...

Switzerland was the First Nation to adopt the Luger as a service pistol, and they purchased them DWM in Germany from 1900 until 1914. World War One stopped deliveries, of course, and after the war the Swiss opted to begin their own production at Waffenfabrik Bern. These Swiss Lugers have become k...

During the 1930s, Sweden acquired an assortment of different submachine guns, including Bergmanns, Thompsons, and Suomis. As World War Two progressed, they decided that they really needed to standardize on a single caliber and model of gun, and requested designs from both the Carl Gustav factory ...