Forgotten Weapons

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com From Thunderchild on Patreon: "How would you see a modern major nation (US, USSR/Russia, China, etc) simplify their small arms in a large scale war, WW3 or Cold War gone hot? You've mentioned in the past how most nations end up having to simplify to meet demands, so why not start simplified?" The reason for simplified small arms is to increase production speed. During peacetime deployment of new arms, it generally doesn't really matter how long manufacturing takes, and enough rifles will be built for the standing army and some predetermined number of reserve weapons. Last-ditch guns become a necessity when battlefield wastage and increased conscription combine to demand arms well beyond the production capacity of a country's industrial base. The only solution is to simplify the design to decrease production time - and the simplifications can't hinder the effectiveness or safety of the weapon, or else there is no point in producing them in the first place. Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

This video is being reposted, because I deleted it proactively to avoid getting a YouTube strike for showing the attachment of a silencer. ------------ https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com Today we are looking at two suppressed CZ-27 pistols, one Polish and one German. The Polish one was issued by the Ministry of Public Security, an agency which only existed from 1945 until 1954. It uses an aluminum suppressor with 5 baffles and 5 rubber wipes, threaded onto an extended barrel. It is clearly not intended for precise shooting, as the sights do not clear the top of the suppressor! The German pattern is substantially different. It was used by the Gestapo during the Nazi regime, and also by West German security services after World War Two. The suppressor is a non-disassemblable unit with a series of sheet metal baffles, and attached to a belled expended barrel. The rear of the suppressor has a circle of six flexible flanges that snap over the belled muzzle, and a threaded section which screws down over them to lock the unit in place. This suppressor also blocks the pistol's sights, and so it was made with a set of sights on the body of the suppressor tube. Thanks to the anonymous collector who provided me access to these two pistols! Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com When Finland took its independence, the most common type of firearms in the country was the Mosin Nagant - and the second most common was the Arisaka. An assortment of Type 30, Type 35, and Type 38 Arisaka rifles and carbines were left to the Finns by former Russian occupying soldiers. Where did they come from? Well, a few were captured by Russian during the Russo-Japanese War. But most of them were rifles purchased by the British from Japan early in World War One to free up scarce SMLE rifles for front line infantry. Once British production caught up with demand, the now-unnecessary Arisakas were sent to Russia as war aid. The Russians tended to give Arisakas to second-line troops like the British had, using standard Mosin Nagants for the fighting infantry wherever possible. One of the duties that required armed troops but didn't involve much actual shooting was maintaining the Russian military presence in Finland to guard against possible German attack (Finland being a Russian province at that time). When the newly independent Finland disarmed Russian garrisons, many of the rifles they got were Arisakas. The Finnish military standardized on the Mosin fairly quickly, but the Finnish Civil Guard used Arisakas into the mid 1920s. Not all of the Arisakas originally captured were actually turned over to the Civil Guard; many were kept by individuals. Those that did enter Civil Guard inventory will typically have Civil Guard district numbers (with "S" prefixes) on the stock or barrel. The Guard did perforce regular maintenance of Arisakas, and a batch of 500 new barrels was purchased from SIG in the 1920s to replace worn-out barrels - these are marked with SIG's name on the side of the chamber, and are very scarce to find today. The only typical mechanical modification found on Finnish Arisakas are Russian in origin - changes to prevent the magazine release from being accidentally pushed by a heavy glove. Some examples have the magazine release button ground down, and some have a small sheet metal clamp fitted to prevent accidental pressing of the release. These rifles will also have a Tokyo Arsenal insignia overstepped on the chrysanthemum, done when the rifles were originally sold to the British. Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

Thanks to MagPul for sponsoring this video! I was happy to use one of their new Daka Grid rifle cases today - it's a very cool system that will be of great use for me both because of its modular configurability and its excellent security. https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com The AR-57 is a system developed by Rhineland Arms in the early 2000s which uses the FN P90 magazine (and its 5.7x28mm cartridge) in an AR upper. The magazine mounts on top of the barrel, and it ejects downward through what would normally be the AR magazine well. Any standard AR lower can be used, although the company (AR57; a separate firm spun off for this product) sold complete guns using OEM receivers form Aero Precision. The uppers were made in three barrel lengths, and I have here an example of a first generation full-length rifle and a second generation SBR with a 6.25" barrel and a GSL Technology suppressor nested inside the handguard. Further thanks to Battlestar Gatlactica for the loan of the 1st generation rifle! Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com With the HS95, Croatian manufacturer IM Metal (later to become HS Produkt) had learned how to effectively manufacture a good pistol. However, the design had some shortcomings and had not been accepted by Croatian police forces, nor had any commercial export contracts materialized. The company recognized that the way of the future was polymer framed, striker-fired pistols - so they set out to create just that. Working with a variety of military and technical experts, they developed the processes to manufacture a polymer frame of the requisite strength and durability for a handgun. Mated with a simple-but-effective slide assembly, the HS2000 was born. The development began in 1998, the first pistols were made in 1999, and mass production was underway by 2000. The guns were adopted by Croatian Army and police forces, and Intrac of Tennessee contracted to import 10,000 of them into he US in 2000. The following year, a sales rep from HS Produkt and a company rep from Springfield Armory had a chance encounter at a rather boring conference, and began talking. The result was an import deal for a pistol to be sold in the US as the eXtreme Duty - which has led to more than 6 million pistols sold today. The first incarnation of the HS2000 actually didn't meet US import requirements; a "target thumb rest" and loaded chamber indicator were added to the design for the initial Intrac imports. A trigger safety was added at the same time, and the design underwent a series of small improvements and iterations over the first year or two of production. We will take a look at all these variations today. Thanks to Jordan for providing the different versions of HS2000 to make this video possible! Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com The Orita SMG was designed by a Romanian Army Captian Marin Orita in 1941, and went into service in 1943. It was used primarily in Southern Europe in late WW2 with Romanian forces. It was a wood-stocked, simple blowback, 9x19mm weapon. As originally designed, the Model 1941 Orita was not drop-safe, and this was addressed in a 1948 upgrade program. That upgrade made a number of changes. It replaced the manual safety lever with a grip safety (which locked the bolt in place when not depressed, thus rendering the gun drop safe). It also replaced the one-piece wood stock with a strengthened metal wrist, and eliminated the semiauto selector lever. The total known production is unknown (to me, at least), but virtually all of the 1941 patterns guns were updated to the 1948 standard. The Orita would serve in the Romanian Army until the 1950s, and in various reserve forces for several decades after. Many thanks to the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History in Brussels for access to this very rare piece! Check them out here: https://www.klm-mra.be/en/ Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com The FAMAS was originally designed for iron sights only, as it predates the trend of issuing optics on standard infantry rifles (the marksman's rifle at the time of its development was the FR-F1). However, adaptations were made to mount optics, primarily the PGMP updated handguard, which locked more-or-less securely onto the barrel (the original handguard had no need to fit precisely) and had a proprietary mounting rail. While a variety of different optics saw field use (including EOTech and Aimpoint), the official issued scope was the Scrome J4. The J4 is a pretty simple 4x scope, with 5 settings of reticle illumination. It was used on both he FAMAS and the Minimi, with a BDC reticle that is zeroed at 300m with chevron aiming points for 400, 500, and 600m. A small run of civilian sale examples was made; these have a mildot and crosshair reticle. Doctrinally, the J4 was not so much a shooting aid, but a tool for observation, target identification, and fire coordination. It was issued to fire team leaders on the FAMAS. Today, these scopes are extremely rare in civilian hands (both in France and the US), as very few civilian examples were sold, and even fewer military ones got out into the collector's market. Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com The Bechowiec (or Beha) is a fascinating SMG produced in small numbers in southern Poland under German occupation during World War Two. It was made for use by the Bataliony Chłopskie (Peasant Battalions) by a young man named Henryk Strąpoć. Henryk built his first (quite illegal) gun at the age of 15 in 1937, and was promptly arrested for it. He avoided prison only on account of being a minor, and promised not to do it again. Well, at least he promised not to get caught again - he built three more guns (two semiauto pistols and a revolver) by the time Germany invaded Poland in 1939. During the occupation he joined the the resistance and set to work doing what he must have fantasized about; building clandestine small arms. Being more or less familiar with pistols but having never handled a submachine gun, he made some creative design choices. His SMG is basically a scaled-up Ruby-type action - chambered for 9x19mm with a simple blowback slide, it is hammer fired from a closed bolt. He designed a complex but effective selective-fire trigger system, complete with a correct auto sear. The first gun was ready in the spring of 1943, and he had a makeshift production going by early 1944. A total of 11 of the guns were made by July 1944, some in 9mm (using bored-out WW1 Mauser barrels) and some in 7.62x25mm Tokarev (using Mosin Nagant barrels). Only one example survives today, and it is housed in the Polish Army Museum (and sadly, deactivated). Many thanks to the Museum for giving me access to film it for you! Check them out at: http://www.muzeumwp.pl/?language=EN Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

Full SHOT Show roundup available on Utreon: https://utreon.com/v/1Fly9kdjRy6 https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com In its continuing effort to provide everything for the US military from shoelaces to fighter jets, SIG has developed an optic which resolves a challenge with .300 Blackout and other calibers which offer both supersonic and subsonic loadings. Namely, how does one zero an optic for such a rifle? SIG's answer was to build a red dot optic with two separate emitters, each creating an independent reticle. One is green and one is red to easily keep track of which is which, and they are each zeroed independently. A single button cycles between red, green, and both on simultaneously. Beyond basic durability and waterproofness, a number of other military concerns are addressed with the Romeo9T. Its emitters are positioned vertically, and the glass is designed to prevent any light spillage out the front of the optic, where it could be seen by enemy forces with night vision gear. It also has an emergency brightness feature - tap the main button once and the reticle jumps to maximum brightness (a second tap returns it to whatever the previous setting was). This is to allow rapid adapting to brightness when using NVGs. Moving from darkness into a lit room or having outdoor lights come on will render a reticle set to VNG brightness completely washed out and invisible, and this feature allows a quick solution. The price is expected to be (IMO) eye watering, probably because as long as it's the best (or only) option, military budgets will pay for it regardless. Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ https://utreon.com I have mentioned Utreon before, but it's really relevant right now, as YouTube has gone on another ridiculous rampage against firearms content. The site continues to grow and improve, and it has a bunch of features that are actually better than YouTube and Patreon - something virtually no other alternative hosting site can claim. Utreon is fundamentally a combination of independent video hosting and voluntary paid channel subscriptions (YouTube + Patreon). In a nutshell, its benefits are: - Political & technological independence - Based on transparency and fairness - Solid featureset - Real investor capital to allow it to build a sustainable model as it grows - Not gun-specific Utreon is still a small site, tiny compared to a behemoth like YouTube. But it continues to grow and improve, and it is a solid platform for creators to use and earn income on today as a backup or an alternative for a YouTube channel. The Utreon team is responsive and helpful, and they welcome our community of responsible firearms content creators. Try them out - what do you have to lose? Disclosure: I have no financial stake in Utreon. I just want to see them continue to grow and succeed - they are the most successful refuge form YouTube that I have found.

https://fromfieldtotable.com When I decided that I wanted to try out hunting as a way to source my own meat and enjoy the outdoors in a new way, I really didn't know where to start. I didn't have any family who hunted when I was growing up, and I don't live in an area where hunting is a common activity. Through some friends, I found out about the Field to Table classes run by Greg at Outdoor Solutions, and signed up for one of his doe & hog events in Texas. It was a fantastic experience, and this is now my third time hunting with OS. My first two classes were really good beginner practice - several small animals with lots of opportunity to make mistakes without significant consequences. Short shooting ranges and easy-mode rifles. This trip was much more like a graduate level course. The quarry was a cow elk, and we were hunting in a primitive zone - so only muzzleloaders allowed. Now, our host outfitter (Love of the Hunt in Magdalena NM) had some amazing muzzleloaders for us to use - "Best of the West" rifles built on Remington 700 actions and scoped with BDC cams set to the exact loading we were using (315 grain expanding bullets at about 2400 fps). But even well-armed, getting a shot on an elk in western New Mexico is a lot more difficult than a hog in Texas. And I only had a tag for one animal - so choose well and shoot well! Well, my guide and I did find a group of elk on the first day of the event, and I made a first-shot hit. It wasn't a fatal one, and we had to do a bit of tracking and make a second shot, but all things considered I am satisfied with the job, being my first time in the situation. Happily, the other four hunters in the class also were successful (although one fellow took until the very last day!). Once we had the elk down, thermal work began. We proceeded through the steps of field dressing her (this is not shown in the video). We were a bit of a steep hike away from road access, so we opted to quarter her in the field and hike the quarters out. Back at camp we hung the quarters in a cooler for a day and then I got into the job of processing the quarters into individual cuts of meat. I was really happy to see that what I had learned in the previous classes came right back to me, and I was able to process the whole animal with minimal assistance. And now, I have a freezer full of delicious elk that will last me until next year! https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com Tony Neophytou developed this for Denel Land Systems, which has completely fallen apart as a company and left it now as his own independent design, with no manufacturer. I filmed this video in 2018, to show the prototype version of the Strike, which has since been improved and further developed. Perhaps some day it can find a manufacturer? Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

https://utreon.com/c/forgottenweapons/ http://www.patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons http://www.floatplane.com/channel/ForgottenWeapons Cool Forgotten Weapons merch! http://shop.forgottenweapons.com Croatian engineer Marko Vukovic first developed his P38-based pistol in the late 1980s for the Yugoslav Peoples' Army. It was left unadopted at that time, but when Croatia declared independence in 1991 the gun found a new life. The newly formed Croatian armed forces needed quite a lot of small arms. Vukovic brought his pistol design back off the shelf and presented it to the Croatian authorities. They were enthusiastic, and it was adopted as the PHP ("Prvi Hrvatski Pistolj" - First Croatian Pistol) MV-9 and put into production in 1992. This was both a practical win - a reasonably good handgun for the Army, produced domestically, and also a moral victory in showing logistical independence from the old Yugoslavia. The design was improved in 1994 with a shorter (4 inch / 100mm) barrel and simplified disassembly. A total of approximately 5,000 early pattern and 11,000 late pattern PHP pistols were made, with production ending in 1995. For Vukovic's company IM Metal, the PHP was a valuable introduction into firearms mass production. They would take the lessons learned here and use them to develop the HS-95 pistol, as well as the VHS series of rifles. Many thanks to HS Produkt for giving me the opportunity to visit and film some of their early prototypes! Not all companies are willing to share their less-successful early designs, but developing good guns can only happen by trying and often failing at first. Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740

Forgotten Weapons Merino Wool hoodie available from Varusteleka here: https://www.varusteleka.com/en/product/forgotten-weapons-sarma-merino-wool-hoodie/72488 The DWM company in Germany had a license on the Maxim gun design prior to World War One. They produced the rather old-fashioned MG08 for the German army, but also wanted to have a modernized type of gun for commercial sales. This was the Model 1913 Parabellum, with the design improved by Karl Heinemann. Like the Vickers, Heinemann's improvement included inverting the lock to reduce the size of the receiver box. He also moved the mainspring inside the receiver and simplified the lock. The gun was formally adopted by the German military as the Model 1914 for aircraft use. The water jacket of the original design was slotted like the lMG08 and it was used as a flexible observer's gun. It had a rate of fire around 1000 rpm - much faster than the MG08 and 08/15, which definitely suited aerial use. An improved version was adopted as the 1914/17, with the barrel jacket reduced in diameter and a 3x telescopic sight fitted. This final version weighted just 22 pounds (10 kg). After the war, production of the Parabellum simply ended. None of the guns were officially taken by the US as war reparations (unlike the MG08 and 08/15, which were Brough back to the US in large numbers) and all the different patterns (water-cooled 1913, air cooled 1914, and lightened 1914/17) are extremely scarce today. Many thanks to Limex for giving me access to film this one for you! Contact: Forgotten Weapons 6281 N. Oracle 36270 Tucson, AZ 85740