Forgotten Weapons
Published on 12 Apr 2019This Bren is lot #1013 at Morphy’s April 2019 auction:
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/cana…The John Inglis company in Toronto first opened in 1859 as a metalworking shop, and grew steadily over the decades under first John Inglis, and then later his sons. Inglis did substantial amounts of military work during World War One, but the Great Depression hit it hard, and both William and Alexander Inglis died in 1935 and 1936 respectively. The company went into receivership but was purchased by one Major James Hahn (DSO) and a group of business partners in November of 1936. Hahn and his associates saw an opportunity to use this large manufacturing facility to make machine guns for the military, and they were successful – in October 1938 they were awarded a contract to make 5000 MkI Bren guns. More contracts would follow, and by the height of World War Two the company had some 15,000 employees and more than a million square feet of floor space.
Among many other projects, Inglis was contracted to make small arms for sale to the Nationalist Chinese government under Chiang Kai Shek – both High Power pistols and Bren guns in 8mm Mauser (to fit the Chinese standardization on that cartridge). A batch of 8mm ZB-30 light machine guns were brought in from the Far East to use as a pattern, and Inglis engineers were able to successfully redesign the Bren to use that cartridge and magazine.
Where the story gets hazy is in trying to determine how many were made and for whom. The Chinese guns are marked in Mandarin on the receivers, and have “CH” prefix serial numbers, like the Chinese contract High Power pistols. However, two additional variations exist without those Chinese markings. Some are marked “7.92 Bren MkI” and “Inglis 1943” (or 44 or 45), and others – like this one – are just marked “7.92 Bren MkI”. The dated ones are typically referred to as Resistance guns, intended to be supplied to European resistance units for whom 7.92mm ammunition was more readily available than .303 – although information on how many guns were supplied in this way (if any) is difficult to find. The last group is generally called “sterile”, and it is not clear what their purpose is. This particular example is one of 23 that were registered in the US in the early 1960s to Interarms, and it does appear that they were associated with some clandestine US military activities. The serial numbers of those 23 Interarms guns range from 1-5343 to 2-8045, suggesting a production of 13,000 or perhaps as many as 28,000 guns – that is quite a lot to be undocumented and missing.
Hopefully, more information will turn up in the future to shed light on the purpose and use of these 8mm Brens. We do know for sure that many thousands did go to Chinese forces, and some were brought into the UK, where in the 1960s they were used in the development of the 7.62mm NATO L4 version of the Bren.
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April 13, 2019
Canadian 8mm “Sterile” Bren Gun
April 10, 2019
M37: The Ultimate Improved Browning 1919
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 8 Mar 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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In November of 1950, the US Ordnance Department requested an improved version of the Browning 1919 air cooled machine gun for use in tanks. The new version was to be able to feed from either the left or right, a feature which was unimportant for an infantry gun but much more relevant when mounting guns into the tight spaces of an armored vehicle. An interim conversion of existing guns to the M1919A4E1 pattern came first, followed by manufacture of all-new guns by the Rock Island Arsenal and Saco-Lowell company from 1955 until 1957.
The design of the gun fell to Bob Hillberg at High Standard. He came up with a clever set of reversible plugs to change the bolt between left and right hand feed, as well as a captive recoil spring, manual safety, improved top cover and rear cover latches, and several other strengthened parts. He also incorporated a charging handle extension with integral manual hold open and a link ejection chute that could be mounted to either side of the gun. His T153 design was formally adopted as the M37, in caliber .30-06. A 7.62mm NATO version (the M37E1) followed as well. The M37 would serve into the late 1960s on the M48 and M60 tanks as well as several helicopters.
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April 6, 2019
Springfield Arms Double Trigger Navy Revolver
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 6 Mar 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The Springfield Arms Company existed only for a brief period in 1850 and 1851, making revolvers designed by its chief engineer, James Warner, before being driven out of business by Colt patent lawyers. During that time, Springfield (no relation to the arsenal) made a variety of models in .28, .31, and .36 caliber and with a variety of barrel lengths and other features (including a well-designed safety notch to allow the guns to be carried fully loaded safely). In an attempt to avoid patent infringement, Warner separated the cylinder rotation and firing mechanisms into two different triggers on some models, including this Navy pattern example. The front trigger would rotate and lock the cylinder, and then it would trip the rear trigger which released the sear and fired the gun. This was not sufficient to save him from copyright infringement suits, though, and only about 125 of the double-trigger Navy revolvers were made.
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April 4, 2019
Ingram M10 & M11 SMGs: The Originals from Powder Springs
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 3 Apr 2019These SMGs are lots 1069 (M10/45), 1070 (M10/9), and 1067 (M11) at Morphy’s April 2019 auction:
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/ingr…After the commercial failure of Gordon Ingram’s M6 submachine gun in the early 50s, he would radically change the layout of his designs. Instead of a Thompson-lookalike Ingram’s M10 (the M7, M8, and M9 doing experimental prototypes only) would be a boxy and compact affair with a Czech-style telescoping bolt. It found little interest until a meeting between Gordon Ingram and Mitch WerBell resulted in WerBell demonstrating it to excited military audiences in Vietnam in 1969.
WerBell was an ex-OSS man who had started a company called Sionics, selling suppressors to the US military. He thought the combination of Ingram’s submachine gun and his suppressor would be a fantastic package, and he found plenty of interest among special operations personnel in Vietnam. He would create the Military Armament Corporation based at his farm in Powder Springs, GA and entice Ingram to join as his chief engineer. The result would be the .45ACP M10, a 9mm version of the M10 (made for use with subsonic 9mm ammunition), and a scaled-down .380 ACP M11 submachine gun.
MAC would have a short life, with all its assets sold at a bankruptcy auction in April 1976 – but it had plenty of time to create what would become an iconic gun – the Big MAC. Many imitations and copies would follow, but Powder Springs was the home of true original Ingram M10 and M11 submachine guns!
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March 29, 2019
How Does it Work: Long Stroke Gas Piston
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 28 Mar 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The long stroke gas piston system was in its heyday about 50 years ago, and was popular in both rifles and machine guns. The principle is that the gas piston is fixed to the bolt carrier, and both cycle rearward for the full length of the cartridge upon firing. The system was used in such distinguished designs as the M1 Garand, Kalashnikov, Browning Automatic Rifle, and ZB/Bren light machine guns among others. By including the mass of the gas piston in the reciprocating parts, the long stroke system potentially carries more momentum when cycling, this improving extraction and feeding. This generally comes at the cost of increased perceived recoil, as the extra mass impacting the rear of the receiver at the end of travel is felt by the firer.
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March 28, 2019
Parker Hale M85: Traditional Sniper in a Modern World
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 27 Feb 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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The 1985 competition to pick a new sniper rifle for the British military came down to a closely fought contest between the Accuracy International PM and the Parker Hale M85. The M85 was a fantastically accurate rifle, every bit the equal of the AI submission and to this day there are still people who were involved in the trials who insist that the M85 should have been selected. Ultimately, the decision came down to the logistical issues surrounding the rifle, where AI’s chassis system was superior to Parker-Hale’s traditional construction. Despite being defeated, Parker Hale sold some 800 M85 rifles – nearly as many as the military contract would have procured (and in fact, a few M85s were purchased by several military units).
If you are interested in learning more, I highly recommend checking out Steve Houghton’s newly released book, The British Sniper: A Century of Evolution. It can be found at:
https://www.swiftandboldpublishing.co…
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March 24, 2019
Major Fosbery’s Automatic Revolver: History and Mechanics
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 9 Aug 2017http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
George Fosbery, V.C., was a decorated British officer with substantial combat experience in India when he decided to design a better sidearm in 1895. True semiautomatic handguns were in their very early stages of development at that time, and Fosbery thought that one could have a more durable, more powerful, and simpler weapon by using a revolver as a foundation. He began experimenting with a Colt SAA, but soon moved to using Webley revolvers when he found the Colt internals insufficiently durable for his conversion.
What Fosbery did was to relocate the barrel and cylinder into an upper assembly which could move independently of the grip and trigger of the gun. Upon firing, the energy of recoil would push the upper assembly rearwards, re-cocking the hammer and indexing the cylinder to the next chamber. This gave the shooter the rapid fire of a double action revolver with the excellent trigger pull of a single action revolver.
The gun was introduced at the Bisley shooting matches, where it proved quite popular as a target gun. By the time production began in the early years of the 20th century, however, semi-auto handguns had improved significantly, and the opportunity for the Webley-Fosbery to be a big seller had already passed. Still, British officers were required to provide sidearms chambered for the .455 service cartridge, and more than a few opted to purchase Webley-Fosberys.
Thanks to Mike Carrick of Arms Heritage magazine for providing this Webley-Fosbery for this video! See his regular column here: https://armsheritagemagazine.com
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March 17, 2019
Book Review: FN Browning Pistols by Anthony Vanderlinden
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 17 Feb 2019Get your copy here:
https://www.wetdogstore.com/NEW-FN-BR…Anthony Vanderlinden is a noted FN collector and author of a book on FN Mauser rifles as well as this volume on FN’s Browning pistols. Both are excellent reference works, with a remarkable amount of contextual information in addition to the very specific detail that appeal to the collector. This work begins with about 70 pages on the history of the FN company, detailing its work in firearms, automobiles, and other products through the Great War, the Great Depression, World War Two, and other events. It then spends a period discussing unique and interesting FN pistols, like the presentation guns made for FN’s celebration of producing a million Browning pistols and the guns used by Gavrilo Princip and his cohorts in the assassination of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand. There are then sections on FN’s association with John Browning and on Browning himself, and on the markings and proofs used by FN throughout its history.
The remaining bulk of the book is broken up into chapters covering the development, production, and use of each model of Browning pistol produced by FN (namely the 1899/1900, 1903, 1905, 1910, 1922, Baby Browning, and High Power). These chapters do an excellent job of providing information on the early development of the guns as well as the commercial and military production, often broken down by the different contracts for each model. For instance, the 1922 chapter includes sections on Yugoslav, Dutch, Mexican, Greek, Turkish, French, Romanian, Danish, Finnish, and German procurement of those pistols. For the historian, the context presented does an excellent job of explaining each gun’s significance in larger events. For the collector, the attention to the details of differences in marking and production between each different variant is thorough and very useful.
My only real complaint would be that the book is entirely in black and white. While that does not really hinder the purpose of the photographs in showing variations and such, color photographs would make it nicer to look at. The book was first printed in 2009, with a revised and expanded second edition printed in 2013. That second edition is available direct from Wet Dog Publications for $67.95 plus shipping, and also from Amazon.
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March 11, 2019
How Does It Work: Patents and Blueprints
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 10 Feb 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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What is the difference between patents and copyrights? If someone wants to reproduce an old firearm design, how do they get the rights to? Why can’t you reproduce a gun design from patent drawings? What information is in a technical data package? This and more, today on How Does It Work!
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March 9, 2019
Project Lightening Episode 08: Outtakes
C&Rsenal
Published on 7 Mar 2019Project Lightening is the first collaborative project between C&Rsenal and Forgotten Weapons. It features SEVEN World War One light machine guns put head to head to see which is the best!
March 8, 2019
Project Lightening Episode 07: Conclusions
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 7 Mar 2019Want to keep a copy of the entire series for yourself? You can download the entire series right now to keep for just $6:
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Project Lightening is a collaborative series with Othais and Mae of C&Rsenal in which we test all seven light machine guns and automatic rifles of World War One and put them through a series of tests and evaluations. Each week we will be posting one video on Forgotten Weapons and one on C&Rsenal. Today we have the final conclusions, with a series blooper reel posted right now over on C&Rsenal:
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March 6, 2019
How Does it Work: Long Recoil
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 7 Feb 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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Long recoil operation is one of the most mechanically interesting of the main firearm operating systems. When the gun fires, the recoil energy generated forces the barrel to move rearward, and the bolt remains locked into the barrel until the two reach the full length of travel (the length of the whole cartridge). At that point the bolt is held rearward and the barrel unlocks and moves forward under pressure from a return spring. The empty cartridge case is held in the bolt face, and the barrel pulls forward off the front of it. An ejector kicks the empty case out when the barrel is fully clear, and when the barrel has returned to its firing position a trip releases the bolt, which moves forward under pressure of a second return spring and feeds the next cartridge into the chamber.
Long recoil system are very safe, as they allow the longest time of any system to let pressure vent from the barrel before unlocking. They are also mechanically complex, and tend to exhibit higher than normal felt recoil. The system was employed successfully in a wide variety of firearms including light machine guns (the Chauchat), rifles (the Remington Model 8/81), shotguns (the Browning Auto-5 and Winchester Model 1911), and handguns (the Former Stop). All of these date from the early 1900s, when designers were still exploring ways to safely and reliably build self-loading firearms.
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March 5, 2019
Project Lightening Episode 06: Total Damage
C&Rsenal
Published on 28 Feb 2019Project Lightening is the first collaborative project between C&Rsenal and Forgotten Weapons. It features SEVEN World War One light machine guns put head to head to see which is the best!
We’re releasing two episode a week but you can get them all at once over at C&Rsenal AND support both shows at the same time!
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Episode 01: https://youtu.be/TVgkwQTo2n4
Episode 02: https://youtu.be/-hSZbo8Hvn4
Episode 03: https://youtu.be/A9ryJaj3mPw
Episode 04: https://youtu.be/I3ZA9rg8uKI
Episode 05: https://youtu.be/Eee7-5Oo0nU
March 4, 2019
Project Lightening Episode 05: Reload
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 28 Feb 2019Want to see the last two parts right now, instead of waiting until next week? You can download the entire series right now and have a permanent copy to keep for just $6:
https://candrsenal.com/product/lighte…
Project Lightening is a collaborative series with Othais and Mae of C&Rsenal in which we test all seven light machine guns and automatic rifles of World War One and put them through a series of tests and evaluations. Each week we will be posting one video on Forgotten Weapons and one on C&Rsenal. Today we have the reloading comparison, and the TOTAL DAMAGE over on C&Rsenal:
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March 2, 2019
How Does it Work: Short Stroke Gas Piston
Forgotten Weapons
Published on 31 Jan 2019http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
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How Does it Work: Short Stroke Gas Piston
The short stroke gas piston operating system is common on modern rifles. It is defined as a gas piston which travels less than the distance of the bolt carrier (and is thus by definition not connected to the bolt carrier). This is in contrast to the long-stroke gas piston, which travels the full length of bolt carrier movement. The short stroke gas piston system was first made popular in the Soviet SVT-38/40 rifles, and was used in the Armalite AR-18, which formed the basis for many modern semiautomatic rifles.
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