Forgotten Weapons

Forgotten Weapons is the blog and video series of mechanical engineer Ian Mccollum, in which he takes a look at obscure and unusual firearms.

His YouTube channel is here and his blog can be found at forgottenweapons.com.


 * Couldn't Find a Lighter: Asked flamethrower expert Charlie Hobson this in an interview. Hobson said he has done it with propane torch ignited flamethrowers, but he notes the chemicals involved in period igniter cartridges would make this a bad idea when using one.
 * Rare Guns: In his videos on the SPAS and Jackhammer Ian notes they are largely known for their appearances in video games
 * Grail in the Garbage: The Volkssturm VG-5 is one the most valuable non-automatic rifles of World War 2 because it looked like garbage and nobody brought them back as trophies.
 * Nice Hat: Ian regularly wears a replica of a World War I British officer's hat in outdoor shoots.
 * Reliably Unreliable Guns: The most frequent reasons featured guns were forgotten is exceptionally poor reliability and/or safety. Ian notes that however rare it actually happening was, the possibility a turret revolver would shoot its wielder in a chainfire was enough to make all attempts flop.
 * Wall of Weapons: Ian notes his dad (who literally wrote the book on Arisaka collecting) had one of all Arisaka variants, which showed the slow degradation of features and quality as the war progressed. Ian credits it with inspiring his passion for firearms.