This is a community dedicated to discussion around historical arms, mechanically unique arms, and Ian McCollum's Forgotten Weapons content. Posts requesting an identification of a particular gun (or other arm) are welcome.
https://www.youtube.com/@ForgottenWeapons
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/
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1) Treat Others in a Civil Manner. This is not the place to deride others for their race, sexuality, or etc. Personal insults of other members are not welcome here. Neither are calls for violence.
2) No Contemporary Politics Historical politics that influenced designs or adoption of designs are excluded from this rule. Acknowledgement of existing laws to explain designs is also permissable, so long as comments aren't in made to advocate or oppose a policy. Let's not make this a place where we battle over which color ties our politicians should have, or the issues of today.
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Post Guide Lines
These are suggestions not rules.
-Provide a duration for videos. eg. [12:34]
-Provide a year to either indicate when a specific design was produced, patented, or released. If you have an older design being used in a recent conflict provide the year the picture was taken. Dates should be included to help contextualize, not necessarily give exact periods.
-Post a full URL, on mobile devices it can be hard to tell what you're clicking on if you only see "(Link)".
-Posts do not have to be just firearms. Blades, bows, etc. are also welcome.
Adjacent Communities
If you run a community that you feel might fit in dm a mod and we might add your's.
Want to Find a Museum Near You? Check out the mega thread: https://lemmy.world/post/9699481
...the 6-pounder weapon capable of firing a devastating round of chain-shot—two cannonballs connected by a length of chain. The idea was both barrels would fire simultaneously, sending the chain-shot hurtling among enemy combatants. Unfortunately, the first field test of the prototype proved a disaster. The barrels did not fire at exactly the same time, causing the chain-shot to fly wildly off target or the chain to break.
the gun was loaded with 3 drams (0.187 oz or 5.315 grams) of powder to fire a 3 pound (1.36 kg) Bomb Lance for an effective range slightly farther than one could throw a hand lance.
As the name implies, it explodes once it has embedded itself into a whale. The conditions of whale hunting in the arctic led to the invention of the bomb lance. There, the presence of ice floes provide cover for whales to dive under, making it nearly impossible to execute a hand lance kill before the whale can escape. With bomb lances, a well directed shot assures a quick kill.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/04/30/whaling-gun-bomb-lance/
Video from High Caliber History. He talks about a 1872 patent that also utilized triangular cartridges in pursuit of more efficacious form of ammunition. Long before the Dardick Tround.
For the metrically inclined:
40 inches = 1.016 meters
25 yards = 22.85 meters
40 yards = 36.576 meters
1 inches = 0.0254 meters or 2.54 centimeters
1 yard = 0.9144 meters
In the Cantarini pistols, each magazine holds 10 balls, and the pistol probably had enough air for one magazine.
These pistols are .40 caliber and rifled with a polygroove pattern. Each barrel is 7″ long, and the overall length is 13″. They’re numbered to match their removable butts (for filling with air) because this was before the time of interchangeable parts (ca. 1815).
https://www.pyramydair.com/blog/2007/08/cantarini-air-pistols/
The M79 grenade launcher is a single-shot, shoulder-fired, break open grenade launcher which fires a 40 x 46 mm grenade and first appeared during the Vietnam War. Because of its distinctive firing sound, it earned the nicknames of “Thumper”, “Thump-Gun” or “Blooper” among American soldiers; Australian units referred to it as the “Wombat Gun”. The M79 can fire a wide variety of 40 mm rounds, including explosive, anti-personnel, smoke, buckshot, flechette, and illumination. While largely replaced by the M203, the M79 has remained in service in many units worldwide in niche roles.
Top picture is silver medalist Thomas Paine from the 1896 Summer games, the first year with a shooting competition. Bottom is gold medalist Vitalina Batsarashkina from the 2020 games.
https://www.ssusa.org/content/athens-1896-olympics-the-first-shots-for-record/
AG-026 is a simple/direct blowback firearm firing from an open bolt with a fixed firing pin. The bolt itself is fairly compact and low profile with a small cross-sectional area for decreased resistance while cycling in water, however, it is linked to а pair of rotating gears/flywheels enclosed in the circular housings mounted to either side of the breech area. The gears increase the reciprocating mass to make the blowback action work properly. The gun was charged by rotating the handles located on the circular gear housings.
The AG-026 machine gun is chambered in 5.66x39mm, the same cartridge used in the APS rifle. This cartridge is based on the 5.45x39mm case, has a long 120mm (4.7″) projectile designed for stabilizing underwater, enhanced primer and neck seal as well as anti-corrosive coating on the case and bullet. The main load of 5.66x39mm cartridge is called MPS (МПС). Its 20 gram (308 grains) projectile has a muzzle velocity of 365 m/s (1200 fps). The effective range of this bullet fired from AG-026 is 30 meters at a 5-meter submersion depth, 10 meters at a 40-meter depth and up to 100 meters in the air.
The AG-026 machine gun was fed from a 27-round rotary magazine that represents a rotating closed-chain ammunition belt placed into an outer protective shell. The gun has a push feed action where the bolt simply pushes the aligned cartridge from the link to the chamber. The only control is apparently the safety selector on the right side of the receiver with safe and full-auto modes. The overall weight of this machine gun is 4.85 kilograms (10.7 lbs)... https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2020/09/30/soviet-ag-026-prototype-underwater-machine-gun/
Kel-Tec has long been renown as the most innovative (but not necessarily good) manufacturer of firearms. This prototype was designed during the 1994 AW ban, that's why it has a oddly cut barrel.
This novel barrel is for a mounting system that could attach muzzle devices without having a 'threaded barrel', which might have prohibited it legally.
The lower receiver and the trigger of this prototype rifle look to be 3D printed whereas the upper receiver cover is probably made of some sort of thermoplastic material like Kydex. The charging handle is located above the lower receiver and below the barrel. It is probably an ambidextrous or reversible one. The barrel looks to be fixed in place via a barrel nut. You can see the threaded portion of the barrel and the nut screwed on it right in the front of the lower receiver and Picatinny rail base.
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/04/06/kel-tec-prototype-308-bullpup-rifle/
cross-posted from: https://kbin.social/m/HistoryArtifacts/t/1039837
Ceremonial warhammer, Germany, 16th century AD
This is a prototype or one-off over/under sporting shotgun, made in a bullpup configuration. It is basically two long slabs of wood clamshell around a pair of barrels, with the action at the very end in the stock. The breech rotates up to open, activated by a lever on the surface of the buttplate. That’s certainly strange enough to be interesting, but there’s more…the barrels are actually gently curved inside the furniture. And they have to be, in order to line up with both the stock and the sight rib.
Not much is known about the origin of this gun including the date it was made. It sold in a 2019 auction for only $2,300.
Ian's Video: [5:52] https://youtu.be/GiVA7a2eIVg
"The [Winchester] Ringblaster® Industrial tool is a heavy-duty shooting apparatus that is designed for multiple industrial applications. The industrial tool is coupled with our specialized Ringblaster® Mount system which has a precision weight balanced construction that helps maintain bull’s-eye accuracy, with substantially reduced vibration and recoil. The Ringblaster® can be fired by a manual lanyard operation or an auto fire operation. The Ringblaster® has been used by the cement, lime, and ferro alloy industries for over 60 years. Because it has proven to be durable, versatile and cost effective, it has been the tool that these industries depend on.
The Western™ Industrial Tool is a portable alternative to the Ringblaster®. This tool utilizes a pistol grip and hanging bracket to allow an operator to shoot and maneuver in much tighter spaces and from a more broad range of angles. It was originally designed to remove ash build-up in power plant boilers. The portability and versatility of the Western™ tool makes it useful for many other industrial applications."
Here is some of the shells it uses:
Video of it in use: [0:56]
https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2018/06/22/winchester-8-gauge-industrial-shotguns/
