Forgotten Weapons
Published 18 Oct 2025Full Conceal was a company that designed a folding Glock. The intent was to create a pistol that could be easily, discreetly, and safely carried in a pocket but still offer the handing and capability of a full size service pistol. They did this by cutting off the grip of a Glock 19 (M3D) or Glock 43 (M3S) and rebuilding it with a hinged trigger guard. An extended magazine could be then carried parallel to the barrel, folded up to render the trigger safe and giving it the profile of a big cell phone instead of pistol.
The M3D and M3S were shown as prototypes at SHOT 2017 and began shipping in early 2018. In October 2020 the company filed for bankruptcy and in June 2021 its assets were sold at auction. The problem was that the guns were simply too expensive for their target market. The company tried to reduce costs by developing their own slides and frame instead of using commercial Glocks, but this was too little too late to save them financially.
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March 11, 2026
Foldy-Glock: The Full Conceal M3D (History and Shooting)
March 7, 2026
ASh-78: Albania Makes the Worst AK
Forgotten Weapons
Published 11 Oct 2025Albanian AKs are both pretty scarce to find outside Albania, and also a bit unusual in the AK field. Where most countries followed Russian AK development, Albania instead patterned theirs on the Chinese Type 56. China had Russian assistance in producing the original milled-receiver AK, but the milled AKM came after the Sino-Soviet split and so China had to create their own stamped receiver design independently. We see those features in the Albanian ASh-78, in elements like the offset front trunnion rivet, gas vent holes, stock and grip style, single trigger guard rivets, and lack of a rate reducing mechanism in the FCG.
In 1960 China began providing military aid to Albania. The first rifle production there was a version of the SKS, which are made into the early 1970s. In 1974 the Albanian state arsenal began setting up AK production with Chinese help as well. Relations between the two countries broke down shortly thereafter, and by the time production began in 1978 the Albanians were working entirely independently. They added an underfolding model (the ASh-82) in 1982, and production continued past the end of the Cold War. Total production numbers are not known, as military information was pretty tightly controlled.
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February 28, 2026
Lauri Torni Biography Part 1: Soldier of Three Armies
Forgotten Weapons
Published 3 Oct 2025Today is the first of a two-part biography on Finnish legend Lauri Törni, later known as Larry Thorne. He fought in the Winter War and Continuation War, and was awarded the Mannerheim Cross for his actions in the Continuation War. He also travelled to Germany between the two (and again after the Continuation War), spending some time with the German army. In the early 1950s he emigrated to the United States, joining the US Army and eventually serving several tours in Vietnam.
My guest today is Finnish writer and researcher Kari Kallonen, who has written several books on Törni and was kind enough to join me to share the man’s story …
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February 25, 2026
Bommarito: America’s First Toggle-Locked Battle Rifle
Forgotten Weapons
Published 1 Oct 2025Designed by Giuseppe Bommarito, this was one of the many independent rifle designs submitted to the US War Department in the 1910s hoping for military adoption. It is a short recoil operated, toggle-locked system chambered for .30-06 and using detachable 20-round magazines. It was tested (without much success) at Springfield and remained in development until 1918.
See a more complete article including original disassembly photos here:
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/m1-g…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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February 22, 2026
An Interesting Silenced Bulgarian Makarov
Forgotten Weapons
Published 29 Sept 2025Today we are taking a look at an interesting silenced Bulgarian Makarov with a mechanism added to lock the slide. This sort of feature is usually thought of as a sneaky way to avoid ejecting brass and leaving it behind, but it actually serves a much more practical purpose. One of the loudest elements of a suppressed pistol firing subsonic ammunition is actually the noise of pressurized gas escaping when the empty case is extracted and then the slide chambering a new round. A slide lock eliminates these sources of noise by preventing the slide from opening. While this is not a factory-made variant of the Makarov, it is an interesting mechanism that I thought worth covering.
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February 19, 2026
Hotchkiss Model 1886 3-pounder Quick Firing Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 26 Sept 2025Small fast boats with torpedos (or other explosives) have always been a threat to large warships. One of the weapons the British Royal Navy adopted to counter that threat was the Hotchkiss Model 1886 “Quick Fire” gun. This meant that it was a breech-loaded gun that used self-contained cartridge ammunition, instead of separate powder bags and projectiles. Mounted on a recoil-adsorbing soft mount with a wide range of movement and steep depression angle, guns like this could fire at small mobile torpedo boats that a capital ship’s main armament couldn’t handle.
This particular model is a 47mm bore, or 3-pounder as described in British service. It uses a vertically-traveling breech block, and more than 3,000 or them were acquired by the British. Two of them were employed as part of the Falkland Islands coastal defenses at one time. This example is one of two brought down from Gibraltar fairly recently and refurbished for ceremonial use on the Islands. Thanks to the FIDF for setting it up on its mount so I could film it for you!
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February 16, 2026
M1918A2 MOR: How to Make a Non-NFA BAR
Forgotten Weapons
Published 24 Sept 2025Prior to 1986, Group Industries imported BAR parts kits and then manufactured and registered full-auto receivers for them. This produced transferrable guns which were subject to NFA registration and the $200 transfer tax — which was a much more significant sum at that time than it is today. Some of the potential customers were people (like reenactors) who wanted guns that looked and handled like real BARs but were not regulated by the NFA. To satisfy this subgroup of customers, Group designed a receiver which neither had nor could be adapted to have a gas piston, rendering the gun manually operated. It would fire from an open bolt, but had to be manually recocked after each shot. This was not legally a machine gun, and he made 68 of them.
When the Hughes Amendment to the FOPA passed in 1986, manufacture of new transferrable machine guns ceased, and Group Industries went out of business. Its assets were sold off, including a number of parts kits and unbuilt M.O.R. receivers. One of the buyers was Ohio Ordnance Works (then called Collector’s Corner). They got ten receivers and after selling them, decided to develop a semiautomatic BAR for that same non-NFA BAR market. That gun ended up being the M1918A3, which is still available from them today.
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February 13, 2026
Hovea M44: Husqvarna Makes a Submachine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 22 Sept 2025The Hovea M44 was tested by the Danish and Swedish militaries in 1945, competing against the Carl Gustaf M45. It was designed and produced by Husqvarna (yes, the chainsaw company) and just 10 of them were made for testing. It was designed around the Suomi quad-stack magazine, which was also originally a Swedish design. Sweden chose the Carl Gustaf, but Denmark preferred the Hovea — but with a couple modifications. Specifically, they wanted the grip and stock from the Carl Gustaf, and that ended up becoming the Hovea M49 which was adopted into Danish service.
Hovea M49 video: • Denmark’s Post-WW2 SMG: the Hovea m/49
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February 10, 2026
FAMAS G1: Simplified for Export
Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 Sept 2025The FAMAS G1 was developed as a lower-cost option for FAMAS export sales. The original F1 model had been offered for international sale, but it attracted little interest largely because of its high price. In response, GIAT created the G1 with many of the extra features left optional. This allowed them to reduce the price by up to 40%. Specific feature reductions included:
- Omitting the bipod legs
- Omitting the grenade launching sights and barrel fittings
- Omitting the night sights
- Omitting the burst fire mechanism
- Replacing the trigger guard with a molded whole-hand trigger guard
The mechanism stayed the same, and all of the omitted features could be included as options. This still failed to generate any export sales, in part because GIAT came under ownership of FN, and FN’s competing assault rifle options were more profitable than the FAMAS.
The G1 did contribute elements like the whole-hand trigger guard to the mid-1990s G2 model adopted by the French Navy, however.
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February 7, 2026
S.R.E.M.: Britain’s Experimental WW2 Bullpup Sniper
Forgotten Weapons
Published 15 Sept 2025The Sniper Rifle Experimental Model (S.R.E.M.) was designed by the “Czech Section” of small arms designers who had taken refuge in the UK to escape German occupation of Czechoslovakia. The intention was to develop a scoped sniper rifle that could be fired and cycled without disturbing the shooter’s sight picture. The idea that the designers came up with was to use the pistol grip as a moving charging handle, similar to the Czech BESA machine gun already in British service.
In 1944, the Essex Engineering Works in the UK got a contract to make 22 sample S.R.E.M.s, although only 2 were actually made. Really, the whole concept was a bit of a red herring, as the recoil from 8mm Mauser (this was made in 8mm, expected the post-war the UK would be adopting it or another modern rimless round to replace the .303) would disturb the sight picture regardless of the mechanism used to cycle the action. The project was cancelled in 1945, and this example is the only known survivor today.
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February 4, 2026
French Trials FN CAL: Adding Rifle Grenade Capability
Forgotten Weapons
Published 10 Sept 2025In the 1970s when the French Army was looking for a new rifle 5.56mm, they tested a number of foreign rifles alongside development the FAMAS at St Etienne. These included the HK33, the M16, and the FN CAL — and today we are looking at the FN CAL. It already had a four-position selector switch (safe/semi/full/burst), fulfilling one of the French Army requirements. But it did not have sufficient grenade launching capability, and so several examples were modified for trials with unique rifle grenade launching hardware.
Ultimately the HK33 was the best performing rifle, but it was not seen as a politically acceptable option and the FAMAS was chosen instead. I have not seen the trials reports to understand specifically why the FN CAL was unsuccessful, but we know that it was unsuccessful in many other trials, and FN dropped it for the distinct FNC design instead before long.
Full FN CAL teardown: • FN CAL: Short-Lived Predecessor to the FNC
HK33F Video: • Roller Delay in France: The H&K 33F (Trial…Many thanks to the IRCGN (Institut de Recherche Criminelle de la Gendarmerie Nationale) for allowing me access to film these trials prototypes for you!
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January 30, 2026
Japanese Last-Ditch Pole Spear Bayonet
Forgotten Weapons
Published 8 Sept 2025Japanese bayonets followed the same trend of simplification as Arisaka rifles towards the end of World War Two, culminating in what is today called the “pole bayonet”. Abandoning even the fittings to mount to a rifle, these bayonets were intended to be lashed to a pole to create a spear. The Japanese government did not have the military forces to repulse an American invasion of the home islands, and was actively planning to sacrifice millions of Japanese civilians in a hopeless defense, literally having them charge American machine guns with spears. Some of this was done on outer island battles, like Saipan and Okinawa but the scale in Japan itself would have been unimaginable. It was the nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that led to a Japanese surrender and prevented this from becoming a reality.
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January 28, 2026
The Best Operational Briefcase: American 180 & Laser Sight
Forgotten Weapons
Published 5 Sept 2025The “American 180 Security Briefcase” is the best execution of the operational briefcase concept that I have yet seen. The idea is simple; hide a submachine gun inside an ordinary looking briefcase so that it can be carried in the open by VIP security without arousing attention. Sometimes this is done strictly for stowage (see the Uzi coming out of a Secret Service briefcase during the attempted Reagan assassination) and sometimes it is designed to fire from within the case (see the H&K MP5 operational case). This one is meant for firing.
Unlike virtually all other such cases, this one includes a sight, a helium-neon laser. That allows the gun to be actually aimed — what an idea! The firing mechanism is also well thought out, with a manual safety switch that powers the laser and firing solenoid, then a constant-pressure switch for the laser and a pressure pad for the gun. I don’t know who made this, but it was a commercially available product … and a very cool one at that!
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January 24, 2026
Potato Digger at War: Marlin Model 1917 Machine Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 27 Aug 2025John Browning’s first machine gun design was a gas operated system that used a swinging lever instead of a linear piston. He presented the first prototype to Colt in 1890, and it went into production in 1895. The US Navy bought a couple hundred, but the Army opted not to adopt it (much to Colt’s surprise). It was offered for sale internationally, but didn’t become very popular until World War One broke out.
By this time, Colt had improved it a bit with a finned detachable barrel, and they started getting orders for thousands of the guns from Belgium, Russia, Canada, Britain, and elsewhere. Unable to keep up with demand, they licensed the design to the Marlin company. Marlin made a few additional improvements (pistol grip attachment, sights, and access door for clearing malfunctions) and made several thousand for allied nations as well as 2,500 fort he US Army to use as training guns in 1917. They further improved the design by changing it to a linear gas piston, and sold some 38,000 to the US military for aircraft use.
3D animation of the Colt 1895 mechanism from vbbsmyt: • Browning 1895 ‘Potato digger’
Marlin 7MG Aircraft Gun: • Marlin 7MG aka Model 1917 Aircraft Machine…
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January 21, 2026
Soviet World War Two 50mm Light Mortars (RM-39 & RM-40)
Forgotten Weapons
Published 25 Aug 2025The Soviet Union decided to adopt a 50mm light mortar in 1937 as a company-level armament. The first such weapon they used was the RM-38, introduced in 1938. It was a complex design, with a gas venting system to adjust range (200m – 800m), a bipod specifically set to either 45 or 75 degrees, and a recoil buffering system. This was clearly too complex, and it was replaced by the RM-39 the next year. This remained a well-made mortar, but now had a freely adjustable bipod. However it quickly proved too complex and expensive and it was in turn replaced by the RM-40.
The RM-40 is a much more efficient (aka, cheap) design. It used simple stamped bipod legs and a heavy stamped baseplate. It still uses adjustable gas venting to set range and retains a simplified recoil buffer, but it is a much more quickly produced weapon. A 1941 model of completely different design did replace it though, and by 1943 the Soviet Union moved to 82mm mortars for better effectiveness.
The Soviet mortars were generally well liked by German troops who captured them, as they were significantly longer ranged than the German 50mm mortar. They were also captured in large numbers by the Finns, who used them as well but found them underpowered. In 1960 some 1,268 Soviet 50mm mortars of all models were sold by the Finnish Defense Forces to Interarms to be imported into the US. Some were registered and sold as Destructive Devices and some were deactivated and sold as dummies.
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