Forgotten Weapons
Published 24 Apr 2026When the US military academy at West Point opened in 1802, one of the things it did was train cadets in rifle drill. The cadets were as young as 14 at that time, and the standard US infantry rifle was quite long and heavy, and it was not well suited to cadet use. A series of shortened and converted rifles were used until 1830, when Springfield made its first model of rifle specifically for the cadets. From that year forward, each new service rifle was accompanied by a slightly smaller version for West Point. In 1867 the first Trapdoor Springfield (aka Allin conversion) cadet rifle was introduced.
The 1867 Cadet Trapdoor was unusual in that it was not a shortened version of the regular rifle. Instead, it used a whole bunch of unique parts, including a different lock plate, hammer, and breechblock. The barrel was reduced to 29 3/4 inches, it used the .50-55 cartridge, and it had no provision for sling swivels. Only 424 of these rifles were made before a new cadet model was introduced in 1869 which used standard parts. Two further Cadet models of the Trapdoor would follow in 1873 (the .45 caliber change) and 1884 (change to sights and other details), and these were the last cadet rifles made by Springfield. The next rifle after the 1884 Trapdoor was the Krag-Jorgenson, and by this time minimum age at West Point was up to 17 and the Krag was a much handier rifle to begin with — so a Cadet model was not necessary.
The American Society of Arms Collectors has an excellent paper on Cadet rifles written by David Hanes, which is publicly available here:
https://americansocietyofarmscollecto…
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September 12, 2026
Model 1867 Trapdoor: A Unique Rifle for West Point Cadets
September 9, 2026
M26 MASS (Modular Accessory Shotgun System)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 22 Apr 2026The M26 Modular Accessory Shotgun System (MASS) was designed by C-More Products company as a new shotgun option for the US military. First prototyped in 1999, it was not actually adopted until 2012, but had been purchased in significant numbers since then. The idea is that the M26 can function as either a standalone weapon or attached under the barrel of an M4 Carbine, thus replacing a couple of different items in inventory. It weighs just 3.5 pounds in the under barrel configuration, significantly less than the Masterkey system, and is much more convenient for a breacher to carry than an M4 along with a separate Mossberg 500.
The M26 is a bolt-action 12ga shotgun that feeds from both 3- and 5-round magazines. It has folding integrated aperture sights and is envisioned for use in a wide variety of roles. Military ammunition supplies include #7.5 and #9 birdshot, classic #00 buckshot, rubber buckshot, rubber slugs, and breaching rounds (powdered metal in a wax binder). For use with breaching, the M26 includes a retractable breaching muzzle device.
September 6, 2026
Henry Deringer’s Remarkable Percussion Pocket Pistols
Forgotten Weapons
Published 15 Apr 2026Henry Deringer Jr was born in Easton PA in 1786 to German parents. As a young man he apprenticed to a gunsmith, then spent 1808 working in the Virginia Manufactory making guns, and then opened his own business in 1809 at 612 North Front Street in Philadelphia. He remained there until his death in 1868, making a great many guns. Early on his work was largely in flintlock muskets, both for the Army and the commercial trade, but he became best known for his single-shot percussion pocket pistols. These guns became synonymous with his name, a feat not even accomplished by Samuel Colt.
Deringer’s pistols were available in a range of caliber from .31 to .50, but .41 was most common. Barrel length was also widely variable, from barely over an inch to 4 inches or more — but between 2 and 2.5 inches was typical. These were popular guns for self defense, easily carried in a coat pocket and generally sold in pairs. A flintlock of such a size was just unfeasible to conceal in a pocket, but the advent of the percussion system made these guns eminently practical. Obviously the most famous use of one was in Booth’s assassination of President Lincoln, but the guns were very popular before that.
In addition, Deringer became a part of trademark law when he filed suit against a sales agent, A.J. Platt, in San Francisco. Platt handled his inability to get enough pistols from Deringer to meet demand by setting up production of his own copy, complete with the marking “Deringer Philadel”. Deringer’s trademark infringement case was successful, and created a precedent for awarding a judgement based on the lost revenue suffered by the plaintiff — in Deringer’s case, $1,700 instead of his initial demand for $15,000.
Incidentally, Platt’s response after losing the case was to find a man in Philadelphia named “Derringer” and license his name, so that he could continue to make guns that his customers would not recognize as being counterfeits. This would be the basis for a further lawsuit today, but Deringer died in 1868 before pursuing the issue farther.
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September 1, 2026
St. Chamond 75mm field gun: From Mondragon to WW1 tanks to Israel
Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Apr 2026The design for the St Chamond 75mm field gun was initially created by Mexican small arms designer Manual Mondragon, who worked extensively in artillery as well as small arms. As Mexico had no domestic artillery production capability, he worked with the engineering team at St Chamond under Emile Rimailho to complete the design, and Mexico purchased 100 of these guns by 1910, forming the backbone of Mexican Army artillery during the period. The gun is a screw breech rapid fire piece, using fully self-contained ammunition (both shrapnel and HE projectiles). It fires a 12-16 pound shell at about 1650 fps, with a range of about 6500 meters.
In September 1914 the French government panic-ordered a batch of these guns, but then reconsidered and cancelled its order in favor of simplifying logistics with just the more common Mle 1897 75mm guns. That decision changed again in 1915, with an order for 200. These were not formally classified by the French Army, but St Chamond called them the Mle 1915. The gun was identical to the original Mexican pattern except revised to use the same ammunition as the Mle 1897 (the classic “French 75”) instead of its original slightly different cartridge. These guns were initially used for general field service, but pulled off the line when it became apparent that their recoil systems were not really able to handle the stresses of the constant firing required. Instead, they were used as the main armament for the initial 210 St Chamond heavy tanks (less the first 48 that did not receive main guns). After these were used up, the Mle 1897 was used instead.
One final element of combat service for the guns took place in 1948, when Mexico sold 32 of them to Israel, where they were used in Israel’s war of independence. Three examples remain on display in Israeli museums today, more than anywhere else. The one I am looking at today is a Mexican contract piece made in 1904, registered in the US as a live and transferrable Destructive Device.
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August 29, 2026
The Origins of Aldo Uberti and Reproduction Cowboy Guns
Forgotten Weapons
Published 11 Apr 2026In 1958, Val Forgett of Navy Arms contracted with Beretta engineer Aldo Uberti to produce 1,000 reproductions of the Colt 1851 Navy revolver. That turned into the beginning of many decades of production of a wide variety of revolvers and rifles, from the LeMat to a line of Winchester lever actions. Fueled by both organized Cowboy Action competition and general widespread interest in these guns, Navy Arms grew very successful in the market, attracting many other companies who continue to exist to this day. Today I’m talking with Val Forgett’s son (also Val Forgett) about some of the interesting details of the business.
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August 22, 2026
TRW Low Maintenance Rifle: America’s Roller Locked Flechette Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 30 Mar 2026TRW’s Low Maintenance Rifle seems to have been the result of a program to use a blank slate and a modern space age scientific mindset to develop a rifle that would be more reliable and effective than other existing designs. It was contracted to TRW during the Vietnam War, and they produced a very light, long stroke gas piston rifle with a roller-locked bolt. It was chambered for the XM216 single-flechette cartridge, with a muzzle velocity of a screaming 4700 fps. After production of three prototypes, the design was revised to use standard 5.56mm M193 and M196 ammunition. Three more rifles were made in this form before the program was cancelled in 1973 as the end of the Vietnam War caused funding to dry up for this sort of thing.
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August 18, 2026
M15 Automatic Rifle (aka T44E5): Adopted But Not Produced
Forgotten Weapons
Published 23 Mar 2026When the US replaced the M1 Garand, the plan was to adopt both a select-fire infantry rifle and a heavy-barreled support weapon on the same platform. During development, both the T44 (later M14) and T48 (FAL) rifles had heavy-barreled versions. In the case of the M14, the final iteration of the heavy-barreled weapon was the T44E5, which was formally adopted as the M15. Before it could be actually put into production, though, it was cancelled as unnecessary.
In testing, first the Marine Corps and then the Infantry Board found that fitting a standard M14 with a detachable bipod gave the same performance as the M15 — and so why bother with an extra version of the gun? Of course, the equal performance was really quite poor compared to proper light machine guns, and once the M14 got into service this shortcoming was noticed. this led to the M14A1 aka M14E2 project, to essentially recreate the M15 with a pistol grip stock and front grip.
Thanks to the Springfield Armory National Historic Site for giving me access to this truly unique specimen from their reference collection to film for you! Don’t miss the chance to visit the museum there if you have a day free in Springfield, Massachusetts: https://www.nps.gov/spar/index.htm
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August 15, 2026
Laugo Alien Remus: Making the Best Pistol Better
Forgotten Weapons
Published 21 Mar 2026The Remus is the new version of the Laugo Alien pistol. It was released about a year ago, and just recently also made available in a left-handed version — which I have been eagerly awaiting. The Remus is designed to be a more general-purpose and carry-suited pistol in contrast to the competition focus of the original Alien. It adds a manual safety, system for racking the slide with the optic while having a 0.8″ shorter barrel and weighing 25% less. The optics mounting options now include the Aimpoint COA, which I am also a big fan of.
Disclosure: Laugo gave me this pistol, so you will have to judge for yourself if I am being bought or if I genuinely believe this pistol is as good as I say.
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August 12, 2026
US Army M68 Close Combat Optic aka Aimpoint CompM Series
Forgotten Weapons
Published 16 Mar 2026When Aimpoint entered the competition for a US Army standard-issue combat optic in the 1990s, they really didn’t expect to win. The other finalists were Trijicon and Meprolite, and it seems like a safe bet that the American firm — Trijicon — would get the contract. However, it ended up going to Aimpoint’s CompM on both price and technical capability. This meant an order for 100,000 of the optics, requiring Aimpoint to massively scale up. It also led to a series of improvements to the design, which became the CompM2, CompM3, and CompM4.
Today, we are looking at the history of this evolution. How the Aimpoint 3000 became the Comp[etition], how the Comp was ruggedized to the CompM[ilitary], and how the Swedish Army Aimpoint CS led to the current CompM4.
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August 9, 2026
Clearing Bannerman’s Castle: A Century of Explosive Ordnance
Forgotten Weapons
Published 11 Mar 2026The Bannerman family decided to sell Bannerman’s Island to the state of New York in the 1950s, but the sale required that they first clear all the ordnance off it. That was no simple task, and the military was not interested in the job. Instead, the family found Val Forgett Jr, a demolitions expert who happened to be looking for seed money to start a business making reproduction black powder revolvers. His offer to do the cleanup work was accepted, and he spent a summer doing the job and put the proceeds into the first Navy Arms reproduction 1851 Colt Navy revolvers.
This video includes the talk given by Forgett to the Armor and Arms Club of New York in the 1990s explaining the process of clearing out the ordnance from the island …
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August 4, 2026
Madsen Model 1945: A Rather Unusual SMG
Forgotten Weapons
Published 9 Mar 2026At the end of World War Two, the Danish Madsen company wanted to replace its production of licensed Suomi submachine guns with a design of its own. The result was the Model 1945, a quite unusual design with a pistol-like slide. The nearest similarities would be the Polish PM-63 and the German VG1-5. The Madsen design also used an unusual hammer firing system. It was chambered for 9mm Parabellum, feeding from Suomi box magazines (not drums). Both a fixed wooden stock version (seen here) and a folding stock version were made, but only a few sales came through (apparently to Mexico and El Salvador).
Danish M1941 Madsen video: • Danish M1941 Suomi SMG
Madsen M1950 video: • Madsen M50: From the Korean War to Star Trek
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August 1, 2026
Eugene Stoner’s Future Assault Rifle Concept (F.A.R.C.)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 6 Mar 2026After developing the AR-15 with Armalite, Eugene Stoner worked for a number of different companies. In 1972 he co-founded Ares Inc, where he and his partners worked on a wide variety of weapons platforms. Their work included rapid-fire cannons and full-fledged artillery as well as small arms. The first of those small arms was the Future Assault Rifle Concept — FARC. This was a gas piston, rotating bolt 5.56mm rifle design with a number of interested elements. The FARC-1 was a concept on paper only, leading to production of a few FARC-2 and FARC-3 prototypes. The project was cancelled in the wake of the end of the Vietnam War as funding for such things was much less readily available.
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July 28, 2026
Adventures in Surplus! Type 38 Arisaka Carbine in World War One
Forgotten Weapons
Published 4 Mar 2026In the fall of 1914 it became apparent that the minor fracas in Serbia was going to stretch a lot longer than anyone had expected, and governments began scrambling to secure weapons production. Japan was one source of small arms for the Entente powers, and Britain purchased about 150,000 Arisaka rifles and carbines from the Japanese in late 1914 and early 1915. These were used to equip Royal Navy crews and Army raining and reserve units, but by late 1915 Enfield production had caught up and the guns were no longer needed.
In the fall of 1915, the British sent most of their Arisakas (about 128,000) to Russia, which had also been purchasing large numbers from Japan. There they were again used to arm second-line units, including troops occupying the Grand Duchy of Finland. When Finland declared its independence in December 1917, most of the Russian soldiers went home and left their weapons in Finland. As a result, the Arisaka was the second most common type of rifle available at Finland’s independence, and was used by the Civil Guard until about 1927.
This particular Type 38 Carbine was made at the Tokyo Army Arsenal in 1910, then sold to the British where it was given a set of unit marks on the stock. It was subsequently transferred to Russia, where a metal clip was added to prevent accidental magazine release. It stayed in Finland through the Finnish Civil War and afterwards, only being imported into the US recently by Postrock of Garden City, Kansas.
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July 25, 2026
Civil War Gwyn & Campbell Carbines (aka Cosmopolitan, Union, & Grapevine)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 2 Mar 2026The first version of this carbine was the Cosmopolitan, designed and patented by Henry Gross in 1859 and manufactured by Edward Gwyn and Abner Campbell. It is a single-shot .52 caliber carbine that loads from the breech with a paper cartridge and a separate external percussion cap. After producing a batch of the guns, Gwyn and Campbell realized that the breechblock design could be much simplified, and they patented that simplification — essentially pushing Gross out of his own invention.
Several successive contracts for the carbines were fulfilled during the Civil War, with about 8,200 produced in total. It was not the most popular or most numerous cavalry carbine of the war, but it is rather remarkable for actually being reliable and delivered consistently on time.
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July 21, 2026
Mauser M90 DA: Not Mauser and Not a High Power
Forgotten Weapons
Published 25 Feb 2026In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Mauser firm was not in good shape. It had no new products, and its ability to survive marketing its name and legacy pistols was waning. Without much vision for the future, it turned to rebranding production from other companies, like Renato Gamba in Italy and FÉG in Hungary. From FEG they got the “Mauser Model 80” — a licensed copy of the Browning High Power — and the “Mauser Model 90” — a rebadged FEG P9R.
The P9R / Mauser 90 is often assumed to simply be a double-action modification of the High Power, but this is not true. The slide is almost identical in appearance to the High Power slide except for the decocking lever, but the frame has several important differences. The barrel lockup is taken from the S&W series of automatic pistols instead of the High Power, and the trigger mechanism is a stirrup around the magazine well instead of moving through the slide like a High Power.
In total, FEG made 26,000 of these pistols for Mauser. The plan was to sell them in Europe, but by 1995 sales remained poor and about 18,000 remained in Mauser inventory. In order to get rid of them, they were offered on the American market, where they were gobbled up by importers like Century between 1995 and 2001.
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