Older, Odd, Offbeat and Forgotten Guns & Ammo

Welcome to the Precious Metals Bug Forums

Welcome to the PMBug forums - a watering hole for folks interested in gold, silver, precious metals, sound money, investing, market and economic news, central bank monetary policies, politics and more. You can visit the forum page to see the list of forum nodes (categories/rooms) for topics.

Why not register an account and join the discussions? When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no Google ads, market data/charts, access to trade/barter with the community and much more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

searcher

searcher

morning
Moderator
Benefactor
Messages
11,771
Reaction score
2,569
Points
238

Experimental Romanian Paratrooper PKM​


10:04
 

The Bell Revolving Bazooka - 1945​


2:46
In 1945 the Bell telephone company designed a 6 barreled revolving anti-tank rocket launcher for the US Army.
 

Japanese Lugers - Real or Urban Myth?​


7:57

Rumour has abounded since 1945 that the Japanese used German Luger pistols during WW2. What is the truth behind this, or is this story simply an urban myth?
 

The First German Assault Weapon: The Lange Pistole 08​


15:51

The Lange Pistole 08 (long pistol), or Artillery Luger as it is commonly known today, has an interesting history. It was originally developed as a personal defense weapon for German field artillery and air crews. While the foot artillery had been issued carbines, the field artillery were mounted and highly mobile, and needed something smaller than a carbine. The LP08 was to replace remarkably old black powder 1879 and 1883 Reichsrevolvers for them. With its detachable shoulder stock, it could serve as a handgun or a faux carbine.

The LP08 was adopted in 1913, but significant production wasn't pushed until World War One began, and deliveries took some time to really get moving. About the time substantial numbers were able to be issued to new artillery units, troops in the trenches were recognizing just how well-suited the weapon was to the patrols and trench raids of the static warfare of northern France. In 1916 a drum magazine with a 32 round capacity was designed for the LP08, using Freidrich Blum's patent originally intended for an aviator's drum magazine for the Mondragon rifle. With a stock and drum, the LP08 was arguably the single best existing weapon for close-quarters fighting.

Incidentally, a fully automatic version of the Luger was tested (mostly for air crews) but rejected because its rate of fire was simply too high to be practical.

In February 1918, a German High Command order first used the word "sturm" in an assault context, describing elite "sturmkompagnies" that were to be issued artillery Lugers and drums for close combat. These would be replaced late that year by new submachine guns (the MP-18,I) as they became available, but the LP08 was the original specialty weapon of the Sturmtruppen.

What I find doubly interesting is that this sort of story would repeat itself many times over the following century. A light and handy weapon was developed for rear echelon or support troops, and became embraced by elite special forces, often to the exclusion of its original intended users. Notable examples that come to mind are the MP7, P90, and M1 Carbine.
 

Winchester M1 Garand Range 2 (Surprise August Snow storm!)​

Aug 15, 2023


9:25

Trying out John's "new" Winchester M1 Garand during a rare August snow!-------------------------------------------
Hickok45 videos are filmed on my own private shooting range and property by trained professionals for educational and entertainment purposes only, with emphasis on firearms safety and responsible gun ownership. We are NOT in the business of selling firearms or performing modifications on them. Do not attempt to copy at home anything you see in our videos. Firearms can be extremely dangerous if not used safely.
 

Vugrek's Cell Phone Gun for Organized Crime​


5:03

The Vugrek family of Croatia (Marko Sr, Marko Jr, and Ivan) were talented firearms designers, who ended up supplying organized crime. Their best-known development was the Agram 2000 submachine gun, a very well-built weapon submitted to Croatian military trials in the early 1990s. In the wake of prosecution for making the Agram illicitly after its military rejection, Marko Vugrek developed a. number of guns specifically for illicit use, including this well-done cell phone gun. They began to turn up in the Balkans and throughout Europe around 2007, and investigations traced them back to their Croatian creator.

A big thanks to the Croatian Police Museum (Muzej Policije) in Zagreb for giving me access to film this rare piece for you! Check them out at: https://muzej-policije.gov.hr
 

5 Weapons for the Zombie Apocalypse​


17:27

footage used in this video is from the following movies / TV Shows and video games.
Dawn of the Dead ( 2004 )
28 Days Later
28 Weeks Later
The Walking Dead TV Show
Left 4 Dead
Resident Evil 2
 

The Cook Experimental Weapons​


10:31
 

Improvised & Craft-Built Firearms w/ Jonathan Ferguson & Nic Jenzen-Jones​


25:38

Today I am joined for a round table discussion (well, octagon table, technically) by Jonathan Ferguson (Curator of the National Firearms Centre collection at the Royal Armouries) and Nic Jenzen-Jones (Director of Armament Research Services) to discuss a variety of improvised and craft-produced firearms. All three of us are contributors to a research paper being published by the Small Arms Survey on this subject, and we thought we would take a few minutes to discuss it on video.
 

Curtis 1866: The First Bullpup - with Jonathan Ferguson​


12:42

Sorry for the poor audio quality - today I am back at the Cody Firearms Museum talking to Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries in the UK. Jonathan has written a new book on the history of British bullpup firearms, which Headstamp is very proud to be publishing!

Today we are discussing the Curtis bullpup - a rifle designed and patented by William Joseph Curtis of the UK in 1866, but not put into production. It is a quite interesting design, with a slide action mechanism and drum magazine. The gun is designed to sit atop the shooter's shoulder, with a trigger right out at the muzzle and the drum and firing mechanism actually behind the user's back. Lawyers from the Winchester company discovered Curtis' patent in the 1890s while looking for slide action mechanisms as part of their defense of the Winchester 1893 again patent infringement claims by Francis Bannerman. This example of Curtis' gun was actually built in the Winchester tool shop as an example for the lawsuit, giving it a quite remarkable history intersecting several different areas of arms development.

Video on the Curtis from The Armourer's Bench: • The Curtis Rifle - The World's First ...
 
Lotsa links below the video if you watch on youtube.

Weapons of Israel ( Including Rare Weapons )​


22:28
 
Links below vid on youtube.

German Flamethrowers of World War II ( Deutsche Flammenwerfer )​


10:25
 

Adventures in Surplus: From German Imperial Navy to Ethiopia​


15:41

I really enjoy finding guns that can be positively traced through multiple different parts of history, and Lugers can be a great source for that sort of story. Today I have a Luger from Royal Tiger Imports that has an incredible amount of history to it...

The upper assembly of this Luger was built in 1917 for the Imperial German Army, then property marked by the Weimar Republic, then rebuilt by Mauser and used in World War Two, then rebuilt again and used by East Germany before being supplied to Ethiopia as military aid, probably in the 1970s. The frame of the gun has an even more interesting history, as it actually began as a P04 Naval Luger, marked as part of the Wilhelmshaven naval arsenal.
 

The Gun Science Says Can't Work: Madsen LMG Mechanics​

Nov 21, 2023


20:03

The Madsen LMG is generally considered an extremely complex and confusing system - but is it really? Today we are taking one apart to see just how it actually works. Because in fact, it's a very unusual system, but not really any more complicated than any other easy self-loading action.
 

VSS Vintorez: Russia's Silent Sniper Rifle​


14:01

The VSS (Special Sniper Rifle) Vintorez was one of two dedicated silenced rifles developed in Russia in the 1980s. The Vintorez was given a very good barrel and intended for precision shooting, while the AS (Special Assault rifle) Val used the same action and suppressor, but had a pistol grip and folding stock, and was intended for use as a typical carbine. Both were chambered for the 9x39mm round, which came out at subsonic velocities to ensure very quiet operation. Both designs also included a selector switch.

The example I am looking at today is a commercial-sale version of the modernized VSS-M. The modernized version of the rifle replaced the smooth top cover and AK-style receiver side rail with a picatinny railed top cover, as well as revising the handguard design. The difference between the commercial and military versions is simply the lack of a selector switch (commercial is semiauto only) and the lack of a detachable stock (on the military version the stock can be removed much like a Colt Thompson stock).

Internally, the VSS and AS are very different from the Kalashnikov design. They use a linear hammer much like a vz58, and a six-lug rotating bolt. The gas system is a long-stroke piston, and the barrel has four rows of ports just a few inches in front of the chamber. The suppressor consists of an initial expansion chamber filled by the barrel ports and then a series of five very simple baffles.

Doctrinally, these rifles were intended to replace the use of suppressors and subsonic 7.62x39mm on standard AKM rifles, although only for special operations sort of troops (not standard Army recon). While very quiet and effective, they are liable to overheat quickly under sustained fire, and were not deemed appropriate for uses where they might be drawn into a conventional infantry battle. Instead, they went to groups like special police and intervention teams who were basically intended to deploy, shoot a couple bad guys in a blockaded building, and then return to base. By today, they have been generally replaced by newer designs, but like so much else, they have both appeared in the fighting in Ukraine.

Many thanks to the IRCGN (Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) for allowing me access to film this very rare rifle for you!
 

Rare Vietnamese Made Anti Tank Launchers of The Indochina War​

Some rare homemade vietnamese anti-tank rocket launchers of the First Indochina War in Vietnam ( 1946 - 1954 )


10:52
 

Hamas Claims to Make Sniper Rifles in Gaza - Are They Really?​

Hamas - or rather its specific military wing the Al Qassam Brigade - posted a video on Twitter / X yesterday purporting to show the manufacture of .50 caliber sniper rifles in Gaza. I was curious to have a look at it, as I've seen a lot of rifle factories and done some of this sort of work myself, so let's see what the video actually shows when we look carefully...


21:03

Conflict Armament Research's report on the Iranian AM-50 (copy of the Steyr HS-50): https://www.conflictarm.com/technical...

Thanks also to Armament Research Services for consultation on the AM-50.
 
Lots of links below the vid on utube.

British Armored Cars ( 1914 - 1918 )​


16:30
 

PT83: The Sneaky Silenced Version of Poland's P83 Pistol​

When the P-83 pistol went into production, the Polish military decided that it wanted a dedicated suppressed version of the gun, and the result was the PT-83. Thw P-83 was a 9x18mm pistol with a fixed barrel, so attaching a suppressor was not going to cause any problems with functioning. However, the designers wanted to have the slide remain closed when firing, and to do something more than just extend the barrel and thread on a suppressor. So, the redesigned the recoil spring to site below the suppressor (ion the regular P-83 it encircles the barrel), and built a clever slide locking system into the trigger mechanism...

Ultimately, the project was cancelled and never went into production. Only a handful of prototypes were made, and we are grateful to Works 11 for giving me access to film this one to film for you!


7:12
 

WW2 Service Pistols - Allied & Axis Sidearms​

Oct 1, 2023

16:36
 

M3A1 Grease Gun - America’s $15 SMG​

The M3A1 “Grease Gun” was a .45 Caliber submachine gun from WW2, which won the hearts and minds of GI’s everywhere, and penetrated the hearts and minds of the enemy.

 

Lugers in Thailand: The Siamese Artillery Luger​

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-digit Thai number (this example translates to #278). Those rack numbers are not exclusive to the 1936 Lugers, as they are also seen on other pistols in Bangkok police service.


6:19
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom