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 13, 2026
Hovea M44: Husqvarna Makes a Submachine Gun
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January 5, 2026
Interdynamic MP-9 SMG: Origin of the TEC-9
Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Aug 2025The story of the Tec-9 begins with a Swedish company called Interdynamic AB and their designer Göran Lars Magnus Kjellgren designing a cheap and simple submachine gun for military use. It found no interested clients, and so the company decided to market it in the United States as a semiautomatic pistol. Kjellgren moved to the US in 1979, anglicized his name to George Kellgren, and founded Interdynamic USA with a partner, Carlos Garcia.
The pair produced a few dozen MP-9 submachine guns in 1982 (they were all transferrable, as this was before 1986) as well as a semiauto open bolt version called the KG-9 (Kellgren-Garcia). About 2500 of the KG-9s were made before later in 1982 the ATF determined that it was a machine gun, and they had to redesign it as a closed bolt semiauto, which they named the KG-99. At about this point Kellgren decided to move on to other plans, and he sold his interest in the company to Garcia, who formed a new company called Intratec. Kellgren used the proceeds to start Grendel a few years later.
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December 28, 2025
Colt SMG: First of the 9mm ARs
Forgotten Weapons
Published 8 Aug 2025With the expansion of SWAT teams throughout law enforcement in the 1980s, Colt realized that it was leaving a lot of sales on the table by not having a submachine gun it could offer alongside M16/CAR-15 rifles and carbines. They addressed this in the early 1980s by adapting a CAR-15 to 9x19mm. It used an adapter in the magazine well to fit modified Uzi pattern magazines (they were given hold-open tabs on the followers), and retained the same handling and controls as the full size AR. The SMG was made as a closed bolt, hammer fired, simple blowback action. By adding weight to the bolt carrier and buffer, the rate of fire was kept down to around 800 rpm.
The Colt SMG never really captured wide appeal. It was reasonably successful for Colt in large part because of their ability to market it alongside rifles, but it was dogged by reliability problems. A bunch of different models were made with different fire control options, including a couple civilian semiautomatic models and the distinctive DoE “briefcase gun” and the integrally suppressed DEA model, although neither of those saw very substantial sales. Still, it remains available to this day.
Colt 633 DoE Reproduction: • PSA/H&R Clones the Department of Energy Co…
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November 28, 2025
CZ247: Experimental Swivel-Action SMG
Forgotten Weapons
Published 16 Jul 2025The CZ247 was developed for Czechoslovakia’s post-war submachine gun trials, where it was pitted against the ZB47. It was a simple blowback 9x19mm SMG with a number of interesting elements, most notably the ability to fire with the magazine either vertical or horizontal. In theory, this made the gun more compact for use in a jungle sort of environment (vertical) or to allow a shooter to get much lower to the ground when shooting prone (horizontal). In practice, it really isn’t very important, and requires a bit of extra complexity in the gun’s design. The CZ247 also has a neat safety mechanism for preventing unintended firing and a stripper clip guide built into the stock (both of which would be incorporated in the vz.48 SMG that was eventually adopted).
When the CZ247 failed to win the military trials, CZ got government permission to sell it on the export market. A contract for 10,000 guns was quickly obtained from Egypt, but before the guns could be shipped the export permission was cancelled by the government. Czechoslovakia opted to support Israel in its declaration of independence in 1948, and the government decided to not send weapons to Egypt which might be used against Israel. This left the guns sitting in CZ warehouses, and the basically all stayed there for a few decades. Eventually most were sold to Nigeria in 1967 and Ethiopian in 1977 — and as a result they show up occasionally in African and Middle Eastern conflict zones to this day.
Thanks to CZ for giving me the opportunity to take this example out to film and also to shoot for you!
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November 9, 2025
Samopal vz 38: Czechoslovakia’s Interwar Drum-Fed SMG in .380
Forgotten Weapons
Published 25 Jun 2025Military interest in a submachine gun was late in Czechoslovakia, but by the late 1930s a development program was put into place. Interestingly, the main use case for an SMG was seen as being a replacement for a rifle-caliber LMG in fortification mounts. The thought process seems to have been that a large volume of fire was the necessary element to keep invaders away from border fortresses, and the ballistic power of the fire was not so important.
The vz38 was designed by František Myška, chambered for the 9x17mm (.380) cartridge used by the vz22/24 pistol then in service. It was tested against the ZB26 light machine gun. It proved reliable and effective, and its 96-round drum magazine (copied from the Finnish Suomi) was a particularly nice element. An initial order was placed and the gun was formally adopted into service, but production never began. Instead, German occupation of the country put an end to the project and only 20 preproduction examples were ever made.
Many thanks to the VHU — the Czech Military History Institute — for giving me access to this very rare example to film for you. The Army Museum Žižkov is a part of the Institute, and they have a three-story museum full of cool exhibits open to the public in Prague. If you have a chance to visit, it’s definitely worth the time! You can find all of their details (including their aviation and armor museums) here:
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October 18, 2025
Gerät Potsdam: Mauser Copies the Sten Gun
Forgotten Weapons
Published 2 Jun 2025In the fall of 1944, the Mauser company was given a contract to develop drawings of a direct copy of the British Sten gun (code named Gerät Potsdam), and to manufacture 10,000 of them. In fact, they were to make two different sets of drawings; one suitable for large factory use (like their own) and one for use with distributed small shops making parts for final assembly elsewhere (which is how much of British Sten production was done). The contract was fulfilled and 9972 guns in total were produced and accepted by the German military in November and December of 1944.
Why would Germany was a copy of the Sten? Well, they actually had a decent number of them. The Allies were air-dropping Stens all over Europe, and a lot of those drops were captured by German troops, not the resistance fighters they were intended for. By the end of the war the Germans were in desperate need of arms, and the Sten was both simple and already in some German use with the Volkssturm … so it actually was not a totally unreasonable idea to produce more of them.
Today, the Potsdam is an extremely rare gun to find. The two visible identifying features are the magazine well and barrel shroud, which are both made with a folded and spot welded seam. The barrels are also identifiable as they have 6 groove rifling, which the British did not use in the Sten.
Before the Potsdam production was finished, Mauser began working on further plans to simplify the design. That would be the Gerät Neumunster, aka the MP 3008. For that part of the story, see my video on the MP 3008:
• German Sten Copy: MP 3008, aka Gerät Neumü…
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August 23, 2025
KH-9: B&T Remakes the SITES Spectre Just Because It’s Cool
Forgotten Weapons
Published 9 Apr 2025Karl Brügger, CEO of B&T, is a true gun nerd and avid competitive shooter. When he got his hands on the Spectre SMG with its quad-stack magazine and weird DA/decocker fire control system, he thought it was really neat. So neat that he decided to buy the project from its Italian creators and put it back into production. But they had thrown out all the drawings and tooling when the gun wasn’t successful, and so Brügger had to recreate it from scratch on his own. Cue the Karl’s Hobby 9!
Without Spectre magazines to use, or the tooling to make them, B&T instead found a batch of quad-stack Suomi magazines and used those. They faithfully recreated the DA firing system and decocker, and decided to make a limited back of 222, because this was just a fun side project and not something that would be commercially popular. Except that they sold out really fast. And so another batch was done, this time using APC-9 magazines, since the supply of Suomi mags had been exhausted. Then when they found some Suomi drums, they did another limited batch for those. All of these sold out rapidly, and so the project grew legs. Next up, it became the KH-9 Covert, because what makes a gun cooler than adding folding bits to it?
It remains a limited-production item made in both Switzerland and in the US. Turns out that Karl Brügger isn’t the only guy who thinks they are really neat …
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August 9, 2025
Erma EMP36: External Form Factor of the MP40
Forgotten Weapons
Published 26 Mar 2025The German military began looking for a new submachine gun design in secret in the mid 1930s. There is basically no surviving documentation, but the main contenders appear to have featured: Hugo Schmeisser’s MK-36,II and Erma’s EMP-36. Today we are taking a look at one of two known examples of the Erma design at the VHU in Prague. Designed by Heinrich Vollmer, this is a plain blowback open bolt system chambered for 9x19mm. It is massively more complicated than such a simple design has any right to be, though. Elements like the tiny set screw holding together the recoil spring assembly and the detachable bolt face are, frankly, nutty to include in a prospective military design.
However, Vollmer’s design had a number of external design features that were deemed very desirably by the German military. The pistol grip and very compact underfolding stock were both admirable, and the muzzle rest system was also of interest (in a simplified form). Ultimately, the result of testing of the Erma and Schmeisser prototypes was a combination of their features into a hybrid design. The Erma provided the external form factor, and the Schmeisser contributed the internal mechanics for the MP38 and in turn MP40.
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August 6, 2025
Schmeisser MK-36,II – The Mechanics of the MP40
Forgotten Weapons
Published 24 Mar 2025The German military began looking for a new submachine gun design in secret in the mid 1930s. There is basically no surviving documentation, but the main contenders appear to have featured: Hugo Schmeisser’s MK-36,II and Erma’s EMP-36. Today we are taking a look at the two known examples of the Schmeisser design at the British Royal Armouries. It is a simple blowback design with a full wooden stock, and chambered for 9x19mm (although the second example, made for Hungarian trials, is in 9x25mm). It does have a quite strange magazine safety, which prevents the bolt from opening if a magazine is not present — the purpose of this is a mystery to me.
The Schmeisser gun was simple and effective mechanically (expect for that weird safety), and it ultimately contributed its magazine, bolt, and fire control system to the MP38 and MP40 design. In exchange, the Haenel company that Schmeisser works for was one of the two initial MP38 manufacturers.
Many thanks to the Royal Armouries for allowing me to film and disassemble this unique prototype! The NFC collection there — perhaps the best military small arms collection in Western Europe — is available by appointment to researchers: https://royalarmouries.org/research/n…
You can browse the various Armouries collections online here:
https://royalarmouries.org/collection/
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July 16, 2025
German Sten Copy: MP-3008, aka Gerät Neumünster
Forgotten Weapons
Published 4 Feb 2016The MP 3008, aka Gerät Neumünster, was one of two German efforts to copy the British Sten gun. The first was the Gerät Potsdam (“gerät” meaning device or project; basically project code name), which was a direct copy of the Sten distinguishable only by a marking details and a few differences in manufacturing processes. While 10,000 of those were being manufactured by Mauser, R&D engineer Ludwig Vorgrimmler was simplifying the Sten design even farther, resulting in the MP-3008.
This simplified design did away with the Sten’s barrel shroud, and used a vertical magazine well instead of the Sten’s distinctive horizontal mounting. These were the significant changes, although there was also a sling loop placed on the front of the magazine well and a few minor simplifications to the fire control parts. Unlike the Potsdam, significant variation can be found in the MP-3008 in the details of stock and grip design.
In a masterpiece of insane optimism, German official placed an order for literally a million MP-3008 submachine guns, which of course was completely insane. Manufacture was undertaken at a wide scattering of small shops, with guns being assembled by larger manufacturers from supplied parts. The total made is not known, but is probably in the range of 3000-5000. Some are marked with manufacturing codes from recognized factories, some with codes unknown, and some have no marking at all. This particular example is dewat made by “TJK” — an unknown factory.
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June 15, 2025
America’s Forgotten SMG: The Hyde/Marlin M2
Forgotten Weapons
Published 4 Oct 2019 #36270The United States went into World War Two with the Thompson submachine gun — a weapon far too heavy and too expensive for its role. The British went to the other extreme with the Sten and while the US did not want a gun quite that crude, the Sten did spur a desire for something cheaper than the Thompson. George Hyde (then working for the Inland Division of GM) had worked on submachine gun designs in the 1930s, and he put together a weapon that would fit US needs. It was much cheaper than the Thompson and weighed in a full 2 pounds lighter. At tests in the spring of 1942, it also proved to be much more accurate in automatic firing, as it had a much more ergonomic stock design than the Thompson. The weapon was approved as the M2 submachine gun in 1942, and a contract went to Marlin to produce it (Inland had no extra production capacity at the time).
The receiver of the M2 was made through a metal sintering process, and Marlin had trouble getting this properly tooled up. The first gun delivery didn’t actually happen until May of 1943, and by that time Hyde had finished designing the M3 “Grease Gun”, which was cheaper still, and more attractive to the military. The contract for the M2 was cancelled in June of 1943, with only 400 guns delivered. There are only six known surviving examples today, split between private collections, museums, and military institutions.
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June 9, 2025
Q&A: British Small Arms of World War Two
Forgotten Weapons
Published 24 Jan 2025Today’s Q&A is brought to you by the fine folks at Patreon, and by Penguin Brutality: https://www.varusteleka.com/en/search…
01:11 – Was the Vickers .50 any good, and why did the British use four different heavy cartridges instead of consolidating?
07:35 – The Sten and its single-feed magazine design
10:27 – Owen versus Sten, and German use of the Owen.
14:38 – British wartime work on an “assault rifle” sort of weapon?
15:44 – Why no British semiauto rifle during WW2? – Jonathan Ferguson on British semiauto rifle trials: Q&A 43 (feat. Jonathan Ferguson): Mil…
18:04 – EM2’s automatic bolt closure system
20:46 – Did the British use other allied weapons besides American ones?
23:15 – Is the PIAT a Destrucitve Device under US law and why?
26:07 – Bren vs Degtyarev
27:50 – Why not make the Sten in .45 to use Thompson ammo?
29:37 – Did the British get M3 Grease Guns?
31:01 – British SMG in .455?
32:03 – Sten vs Lanchester
33:26 – Was there an LSW version of the EM1/EM2 planned? EM1 Korsac: The Korsac EM1 – a British/Polish Bul…
34:25 – Why wasn’t the BESA in .303?
36:34 – Biggest British missed opportunity during the interwar period?
38:40 – British naval service small arms
41:45 – Did .280 cartridge development begin during the war?
43:24 – Impact of MP44 on British post-war small arms development?
44:25 – Gallilean sights on the Enfield
46:25 – Why is there a semiauto selector on the Sten?
49:17 – Did American soldiers use British small arms?
50:29 – Why did the British choose the Lee action over the Mauser action?
51:16 – Which was better, Sten or Grease Gun?
52:34 – Why did the whole Commonwealth not switch to the No4 Enfield?
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June 5, 2025
Rate of Fire: What Determines it and How to Change It
Forgotten Weapons
Published 17 Jan 2025What determines the rate of fire of a machine gun, and how can that rate of fire be determined or changed from a design perspective? Let’s talk about pressure, mass, and distance …
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May 3, 2025
Development of the Uzi Family: Standard, Mini, and Micro
Forgotten Weapons
Published 4 Jan 2025The Uzi was originally designed in the 1950s, and it was on the technological cutting edge at the time. The stamped receiver, telescoping bolt, and compact magazine-in-grip layout made it an inexpensive and effective weapon. Its sedate 600 round/minute rate of fire helped as well, making it easy to shoot effectively. Uziel Gal experimented with a compact version at that time, but dropped the idea when he proved unable to make a smaller version with the same low rate of fire as the standard pattern.
Fast forward to the late 1970s, and the designers at IMI revisited the idea of a compact Uzi. They were willing to accept the increased rate of fire of a shorter receiver and lighter bolt, and their first prototypes were ready in 1978. full export sales began in 1980. The gun was advertised as having a 900 rpm rate of fire, but the reality was much higher.
The final step of classic Uzi development was the Micro Uzi, introduced in 1986. This was actually developed form the semiautomatic, closed-bolt Uzi Pistol made for American commercial sales. That pistol was given a select-fire trigger group and a folding stock, and it became a micro-compact submachine gun for only the most tactical of operators. It was advertised as having a 1200 rpm rate of fire, but this was again underestimated to improve sales.
In reality, the standard Uzi does fire at about 600 rpm. The Mini (in closed-bolt form) ran at 1300+ in my testing at S&B, and the Micro was over 1400 rpm. Where the original Uzi is best kept in fully automatic mode and can easily fire single shots when desired, the Mini and Micro Uzis are definitely best suited to semiautomatic use. Firing them in fully automatic is a much more difficult proposition if one wants to maintain any level of accuracy and situational awareness.
Thanks to Sellier & Bellot for giving me access to this set of Uzis to film for you!
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April 21, 2025
ZB47: A Truly Weird Czech SMG
Forgotten Weapons
Published 23 Dec 2024The ZB47 was developed at Brno as a contender for Czech military submachine gun adoption in the late 1940s. The Czech Army had technically adopted a submachine gun prior to World War Two (the vz.38; video on that is coming a bit later) but production did not begin before the arrival of German troops. After the war, the army was eager to add a submachine gun to its arsenal, and the vz.38 was no longer a practical option as it was chambered for the 9x17mm cartridge.
The ZB-47 is chambered for 9x19mm Parabellum, fired from an open bolt, uses a simple blowback action, and does not have a semiautomatic setting — just full auto. In its infantry configuration, it has a fixed wooden stock with a thumbhole design and a 72-round (!) magazine fitted almost horizontally under the stock and barrel. A unique feed system pushes cartridges vertically up out of the magazine feed lips into a pair of feed ramps that pitch the round 90 degrees forward and into the chamber. The system is closest to that of the FN P90, although the cartridge rotating element on the ZB is built into the gun, not the magazine. The paratrooper variant of the gun has a collapsing metal stock, which shortened the overall length and also restricts its capacity to a 30-round magazine when the stock is closed. Rate of fire was reportedly a blistering 1200 rpm.
One challenge of this very long straight magazine was the slight taper of the standard 9x19mm cartridge case. In 30-round magazines this is not really an issue, but by 72 rounds the taper adds up to enough to cause problems stacking cartridges. Brno attempted to solve this by making a truly cylindrical version of 9×19, but the Czech military was (rightly) not convinced of its benefits and rejected it.
In the 1947 field trials, eight Czech units were given examples of the ZB47 and other competitors. Five of those units actually reported favorably on the ZB; it looks like a very awkward gun to handle but actually isn’t in practice. However, the Army deemed it to have too many drawbacks, including the magazine reliability, poor accuracy, and bring judged too fragile. One more set of trials would take place the next year and ultimately the CZ model 23 was adopted. In total, just 62 examples of the ZB-47 were produced.
Many thanks to the VHU — the Czech Military History Institute – for giving me access to these two fantastic prototypes to film for you. The Army Museum Žižkov is a part of the Institute, and they have a three-story museum full of cool exhibits open to the public in Prague. If you have a chance to visit, it’s definitely worth the time! You can find all of their details (including their aviation and armor museums) here:
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