M90A Close Assault Weapons System Prototype 

There’s an implication here that 530 years into our future, Ian will still be making videos.

No way this is the best Christmas present ever, truly iconic

Ian is truly powerful. He is able to go through parallel universes from a world where the Cold War never ended and we went into DEFCON 1 where there was a war between the United States and China who fought over natural resources that ended in a nuclear holocaust in 2077, to one where humanity was in a major interstellar conflict pitting its United Nations Space Command against the Covenant Empire during the mid-26th century between February 11, 2525 and December 11, 2552. He did all of that just to inspect an AK and a Shotgun. Impressive.

Excellent and funny merge of real-world info and in-game lore. As a gun nerd and a halo nerd this video had me smiling throughout.

Love the on point manufacturing lore. God I remember sitting in line at midnight for Halo 3

The commitment to the bit here is absolutely top notch.

Ian should definitely review the Halo Weapons made by DWAI if he could, his projects are amazing

as someone who loves guns and halo this is cool halo getting real every day.

Thank you, Ian! This video, I think, dropped to a hole in space-time continuum from future.

Wow this is awesome!!! I saw a guy on Facebook trying to make one of these with an upsidedown Mossberg. It was pretty cool but this is on another level!🔥🔥🔥 Also, I love hearing Halo words coming out of your mouth! It's my favorite game franchise; specifically the older Bungie games😎

I thought I was having a stroke at first. This is awesome! Props to Ian!

I was trying to take him seriously and then I noticed the font… lol very cool

You should review the BR55. Favorite weapon by far when I was stationed on Earth. Nothing cuts through a brute’s thick skull like a volley of well placed rounds from a BR.

I was doing double takes for a second I thought id lost my marbles.

Found one of these on the UNSC Surplus market, its got some weird greenish dust all over it and inhaled a bunch of it by mistake, chest hurts a bit but I think i'm good!

Remington 870 still in production in the 2500's is the most realistic part of this

So awesome to learn the history! - We tried asking chief - he knew nothing....just tried taking it from us.

Ian: Reviews fictional shotgun from a video game series Also Ian: Plays it serious as a funeral and reviews the gun using lore from the series Absolute lad.

I absolutely not only appreciate Ian's dedication to staying in character, but some of the deep cuts of Halo universe lore he was dropping.

ForgottenWeapons crossing into video-game universes is like a guilty pleasure. What a great Christmas present. Thank you Ian!

Ian, you legend. You never broke character right to the end. This absolutely sounds and feels like one of your regular videos.

The idea of Ian McCollum, a famous firearm historian, with no ties to video games whatsoever, taking the time to cover, from tip to butt (I hope Garand Thumb gets involved in this as well), a shotgun designed around its fictional counterpart, not only in character, but also to the point of crediting its actual creator as the canonical designer of said fictional counterpart, is special in a way I can't express with words.

600 years later and Ian still hasn't changed a bit. He truly is immortal

One of the things we really appreciated about these was the giant iron sights. The helmet link displays weren’t adequately hardened during my first deployments and sometimes the Covenant plasma weapons would resonate on a frequency that would break the connection. Those irons saved my life during my unit’s Irandi IV drop. Feet first, brothers. You know the music.

Watching Ian struggle to remember the lore fluff for the script but still able to effortlessly recall real weapon details and history is heartwarming. Merry Christmas! :)

"A flood light, or, rather... A light for seeing the Flood with" Not bursting a blood vessel trying not to laugh from that was Ians greatest challenge

Halo and a forgotten weapons crossover? A christmas miracle

Between this and the Fallout 3 AK/Chinese Assault Rifle, we need more crazy yet talented gunsmiths to make fictional firearms into reality if only so that Ian can nerd out on them alongside us and recontextualizing reality into fiction and vice versa

I have never been given such a Christmas gift and likely never will again. The accuracy to the lore and story I got to be added to is something I will carry with me for the rest of my life. While my time at Misriah was short I still hoped the efforts made might do some good. I got called back to jumping feet first into hell, I guess it was where I belonged. I’ve thought about that prototype a lot since then. It was juvenile glee to begin, total obsession to finish, and agonizing revisions to the end. The CAWS program became a bigger foe than the covenant. Swimming in the deep end with stimmed engineers and bumping shoulders with efficiency AI… jumpin’s a lot easier… you wouldn’t see me smile till they fielded the production M90.

As a Halo lore fanboy it's absolutely impressive that Ian delivers these lines with his usual professional attitude, made me smirk the entire way through

I love the way Ian makes a video about a fan-made, sci-fi shotgun as serious as his regular videos. He even includes stuff from the lore. I have serious respect for this man.

So I actually watched the development of this gun over the course of a year on a gunsmithing group on FB. Nathan did some incredibly cool work here. Ending up on Forgotten weapons has to be every gunsmith nerd's wet dream

My dad was deployed to several theaters in the war, including Reach. He would say that the shotgun would turn a split chin into an open chin real quick. Never talked much about the war, but every once in a while he would suddenly share some crazy shit.

Ah the memories this brings back. I was just out of bootcamp and stationed in east africa during mid 2552 when the Covenant hit. We had to scramble to evac the wounded from the outpost after rigging the facility to blow and I was pulling security with this bad boy. Right before I embarked on the outbound pelican I remember the Chief tapping my shoulder and without saying a word he handed me an MA5C before taking my shotgun. I was sorta relieved because I was way more qualified on that weapon over the shotgun, little did I know the mag was almost empty and I got my ass chewed by PLTSG for losing the weapon I was issued. Good times

The M90 saved my life. I was stationed on Reach, and what was left of my platoon were some of the lucky ones who got evacced. We had a couple guys with M90s who held the chokepoints leading up to the evac bird. Turned anything that came down those tunnels into chum. Neither man made it out. Corporal Karl Josef and Staff Sergeant Sancho Kaggwa. Rest in peace, brothers. Not gone, just redeployed to heaven.

Next thing we know, Ian will be wearing the red cloak, mechadendrites and servoarms of a Tech Priest for a 40k gag. And analyzing a Brazilian homemade gun as an “Ork Shoota “.

It's comforting to know that even 500+ years from now Ian will still be making videos. He can never die because his work is never done.

The commitment and lore is fantastic

It is so wild to see where the M90 comes from. Its wild to think that something so old is still in service today in the UNSC.

Wow. He pulls it off with a straight face and in character. Could have been an April fool's joke, but no, he goes with it. Awesome.

Now I understand why I've seen so many modern weapons that I wouldn't consider forgotten on this show. This is a show from the future.

REMEMBER REACH Thanks for covering the weapons that won us the war: it's awe-inspiring to see the tools used by heroes like the Chief up close.

I was pointman in my ODST platoon, so I was the designated Shotgun guy. Carried a BR55 SOCOM as my primary and would switch to this gun’s cousin, the M45 for close encounters. That gun saved my life on more than one occasion in New Mombasa.

Ditching the tried and true M90 system for the god-awful Bulldog was one of the worst armament decisions the UNSC has ever made. There was no need to fix what wasn't broke. ... Joking aside, this video is absolutely hilarious and I'm so glad you made it. I would very much love to see more tongue-in-cheek breakdowns of replicated fictional weapons if you can get your hands on them.

I have always been fond of these, but you have to be careful to check the bore before you take one out on patrol. I've come across many examples where the choke was so worn that the shot spread was more than I'd thought could be physically possible. I seen this primarily on old early and pre-war examples that were being stockpiled on many worlds (including Earth and Reach) for refurbishment but got mixed up in the main supply chain in the chaos that prevailed just before (and certainly after) the Fall of Reach. I suspect worn out barrels also made it into the parts supply around this time as well since I've seen guns that looked to be in great shape externally shoot pellets in patterns that were barely useful outside bad breath distances. Sometimes I wonder if this wasn't an accident at all, but yet another attempt by ONI at psychological conditioning, specifically to encourage troops to close distance with the enemy and [MESSAGE QUARENTINED BY ORDER OF THE OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE UNDER UEG CODE 5-138311.132]

Ian always delivers for Christmas, and this year is no exception. Merry Christmas Ian! What a unique weapon to have on the channel.

My uncle served on UNSC Perugia. He talks about the shotguns often, apparently they were able to tear down an elite's shield in one or two hits, allowing the rifles to effectively dispatch them. Boarding parties loved them to bits.

I love how Ian stays in character and makes the Halo lore so convincing. Great video Ian!

Gun Jesus reviewing one of the most iconic shotguns in gaming history? Very nice Christmas present!

I carried an M90 when I was stationed in the crows nest during the battle of earth. Came in handy once the covenant assaulted the base, especially because of the tight corridors and closed in spaces of that old bunker complex. Unfortunately for me, I had to hand it over to the Arbiter in exchange for an M6. I wasn’t happy about it, especially considering what his kind had done to us for the past however many years… But I didn’t really have a choice. Desperate times and all that. But since the entire arms room and base were blown up afterwards, I was never issued a statement of charges by my armorer. I guess I lucked out.

Oh wow…how you wove the actual gunsmith’s life and the creation of this weapon into the narrative lore of Halo was just masterful. This is such a lovely video

That flood light to see the flood line was simply brilliant.

My uncle enlisted near the end of the war, so he got to use the M90 for a bit in theater. Once the UNSC switched to the M45D, he said it was a massive downgrade and almost every Marine hated it. The older veterans especially.

This is amazing im in a machinist group on facebook and the dude who built this often posted updates. I never would have expected it to make it to this channel that has to be some kind of life goal. Wish i remembered the guys name id go back and congratulate him.

530 years & Ian doesn't look a day older. That man must have good genes...or he's immortal.

What ONI doesn't allow Ian to say is that it also is in service due to its ability to rapidly and viscerally destroy the chest cavity and central nervous system of enemies after shields have been depleted. This is especially useful in outbreak areas which is why HAZMAT cores or S4 divisions on Forerunner installations are regularly given weapons such as these.

Back in ‘48, the local meridian colonial reserve unit and my army company raided a police departments armoury for weapons. We were near a coastal town named brume-sur-Mer, and at the time our supply line was effectively destroyed. Best we could get was MREs and water, maybe some ammo, like a box or two of 7.62. Very dire situation. Anyway, we found within the armoury some M7s, a couple M392s, 3 MA5Cs (we were issued MA37s, so at best we gained more mags and ammo but the barrels weren’t interchangeable on the account of the 5c having a thicker and heavier barrel.) and like 10 M90s. These we LE variants so they were 12gauge. Now, if we were hunting deer, I’d have been a happy man, but deer don’t have 4 chins and energy shielding. Normally with an 8 gauge, it’d take like 2-3 shells to down a hinge head. 1st shell to burst the shielding, second and/or third to put the sorry bastard down. But with the 12g, it took at least an extra shell, and as we quickly found out, that additional second to rack that extra shell was normally when the sangheili got its bearing back and returned fire. Now don’t get me wrong, anything that wasn’t a brute or split lip, 12g did just fine. But just fine doesn’t cut it when the entity in-which you’re engaging is 8ft tall and very angry that you just shot him. The 8g did wonders for us 2 years later though. When the covvies came back my unit was tasked at one point to clear out a sewer system in one of the major cities. The M90 was wonderful in that operation. 8g alongside a flamethrower and an autorifleman was beautiful to watch in action. We’d find a nesting area and burn it down whilst plugging any ingress and egress points for buggers to swarm us. Didn’t do too bad topside either in the alleyways and crosswalks. With short sight lines and shorter engagement distances, the ability to put up a wall of hot tungsten pellets was unmatched.

This is freaking amazing. How he keeps a straight face is beyond me. We're not worthy.

My grandfather served with this weapon during the Harvest campaign. When I was a kid, the last thing I heard about him was he had been redeployed to Arcadia where he saw some action, only for the ship he was serving on to disappear with all hands after the battle concluded. Rest In Peace gramps.

He looks so young at age 570!

I remember using one of these in the invasion of new Mombasa. I found it on a dead marine and killed my first brute with it. Thanks to the m90 I survived with my family

Ergonomically, top loading worked out a lot better in full kit imo. In prone, on the run, in the hog (yes you'd think people would use the rifle in that case but I've seen it!) Also note that a lot of these ergonomic choices revolved around compatibility with more furnished armor systems like for ODST and Spartans. Hence, trigger guard, pump, and controls might seem needlessly enlarged, but it comes in handy for winter gear, power armor, and also if you're a 7ft tall science project. I didn't really mind, but some of our shorter guys straight up looked like children holding these haha.

Definitely a workhorse weapon. Reminds me of a platoon sergeant I had once. After every confirmed kill he'd growl "You just got Sarged".

If any game devs read the comments here: a collab video like this where you get characters to talk about the history and implementation of the weapons in your lore/world would be way too hype. This was delightful

Styling us over the Christmas period! Thanks again Ian! Hope you're having some well deserved time with family and friends.

Granddad always told me stories about turning splitjaws into ground beef with his M90 back on Reach. Crazy how such an ancient design still holds its own today.

My brother and I served in the ODSTs during the glassing of Skopje in '47. We were the last of our squad after a botched landing and it was a grueling few days just trying to stay alive. Two things kept us alive; the M45 and the M12 Warthog. I have a few of these I purchased from a surplus sale a while back.

Love how he is talking factually. This ticked me and I found it interesting

Ian when I said I hope you do a video on this, I never expected it to actually happen. But I'm so happy it did.

I remember during the battle of New Mombasa, due to the close fighting of Urban setting, our battle rifles were fairly usseles... Many brothers were picked up by invisible elites... Thankfully we found a New Mombasa PD weapons depo, and by that point until our evecuation pretty much every squad in the company was half shotguns, half other weapons, very much to the convenant's displeasure

absolutely love the lore covering why the receiver says Remington 870 😆

Don’t forget , Standard manual of arms for this weapon when used in combat suggested one shot to the chest followed immediately by a solid smack with the butt stock

I have to appreciate the attention to detail in this video; He references some really obscure Halo lore, like how the capital of Earth (and the UEG of course) is in Sydney. Really great video!

Ian, you're amazing doing this completely in-character as someone in the Halo-verse. I wish more fictional guns would be made real (if they're physically possible and don't need exotic stuff, that is). I'd love one of these, and an M5AB, and one of those Beretta rifles from the cheesy Starship Troopers film.

600 years later and Ian still has the classic pesky mic and flat black table. Absolute class.

This and the Fallout 3 assault rifle video shows that Ian can do a better job explaining the in-universe logic and reasoning behind weapon designs than the game devs.

I just played through the Halo 2 campaign again after many years, and that shotgun is still one of the best weapons in a videogame, maybe ever 💥

I'd love it if there's any "surviving" examples of the BR-55 prototype (XBR-55) because I think an explanation of the pros and cons of its 9.5x40mm cartridge would be neat to hear Ian comment on. Or just talk about the Battle Rifle itself since it's such an iconic design with an interesting caliber choice. Love the in-universe framing device here and definitely was a fun one to watch!

Merry Christmas Ian! Love how you play it totally straight and even lend credibility and plausibility to its existence in Halo. If we're still around by the century the game's set in, so will be the pump shotgun - even if we come up with (or are engaged in warfare with an alien civilization who have) crazy stuff like personal energy shields, a pump gun is extremely versatile in its ammunition capabilities, and is able to fullfill many niches in combat and combat-adjacent roles that other weapons and equipment can't, without being purpose-built.

Only a matter of time before we see an episode on the BFG-9000.

I remember using this thing's descendant back in the New Mombasa campaign. Hinge heads were still scary when they run up close, but they're considerably less so when you and a squaddie with a shotgun start filling the air with lead pellets in close range and shred their shields in three seconds. Now, I thought that the Spartans were some spooky ONI urban legend, you know the ones [REDACTED] children [REDACTED] Innies [REDACTED] ODSTs in hand-to-hand [REDACTED] freaky Mengele shit, but man, if you've seen one of them in the flesh... Lt. Parisa, if you're still out there bud, I hope you'll find that John guy!

"We want a Remington 870, but heavier, and upside down" -Aussie Government (probably)

Jokes aside, I do see some advantages of a design like this, specifically loading from the top of the receiver as opposed to the bottom. Would be pretty interesting to see how gun designs change over the next 10-20 years.

maaan, i remember watching you as a kid over 400 years ago and am happy to see the way you make your content didn't change too much watching your videos takes me back to the good old days when something as banale as a few localized wars and a global pandemic were the biggest problems on people's minds

Hey Ian! I actually work in the Archive for the Colorado School of Trades, and your video prompted me to go look if our former student left any of his notes behind! Lo and behold, one of his original concept drawings for what I assume eventually became the M90A. The original noted purpose for the placement of the magazine tube was in fact, to allow guys to reload the weapon more reliably in zero G environments, specifically for situations where the ship being guarded loses power.

I think the top loading shotgun idea is actually decent for reloads I mean its kinda easy too just an upside down shotgun

E2-BAG/1/7 here (never forget eridanus II), lots of guys already said that the best weapons for use against hingeheads and gas-suckers were the MA5B, some guys were a little weird and said they liked the MA5K, but in my honest opinion, nothing beats seeing the sheer "oh no, i just got wrecked" look of surprise on a hingehead's face when you blast him with the good ol' M90. I saw some mad-lad stick a bayonet on his before, you should've SEEN how the Grunts would run when he charged in!

I love the videogame gun reviews, always a load of fun! Merry Christmas Ian 😂

I inherited my father's M45D Shotgun that he was issued as an ODST during his deployment on Reach. He absolutely loved it and never traded it for anything else. A beautiful weapon, and very fun to fire at the range. Shooting it for the first time is scary at first, but you get used to its insane recoil. Rest in Peace Dad, thank you for being an amazing father, and for your honorable service in the UNSC.

Ian, I gotta give you missive props for not only playing up the bit, but being committed to it to not drop the facade and go "*sigh* this is stupid pretending a video game is real, even for entertainment" even gaming youtubers can't muster that a chunk of the time, so kudo's to you for playing your part like a champ :3

I was at the School of Trades when this was being made and Nathan has, to the best of my knowledge, neglected to give credit to the instructors that helped him make this and gave him ideas on what to do to make this work. I’d like to give credit particularly to Josh Roy for coming up with the trigger linkage system and the staff at the Colorado School of Trades for being a big part in the creation of this firearm.

Bravo 👏 The comment about the flood light was top tier fandom fuel and I loved it 😂 I love that there is genuinely zero difference between Ian's delivery and performance in this video and other "normal" videos. Just another day in the office, regardless of whether he's talking about John Browning or Master Chief. I hope you had a very Merry Christmas Ian!

Everything about this video was beautiful. Thank you for committing to the Halo theme so well

Have an old 870 Wingmaster that I retired years ago for an auto. Been intending to trick it out as a combat shotgun, but couldn't decide how I wanted to set it up. But now, on Christmas Day, St. Ian has provided me the devine inspiration for my project.

The guy who made this works at a gun shop around me. Really great guy and very talented. From my understanding, the "blueprints" for this started on an MRE napkin during basic training.

Imagine showing this to your 2007 self

I remember back when I wwas just an E-3 during the battle of New Mombasa, this weapon saved my life. We were stuck in a building that collapsed from a plasma mortar and my BR55 was crushed under some debris. I could hear the warbles from a squad of Jackals right outside the collapsed room I was in, and frantically looking for a weapon, I found an M90 in the arms of another fallen Marine. The jackals entered the room and I was able to nail 3 of them, knocking the 4th one on his back when I hit his shield. While he was stunned, I put lead into the last Jackal and was able to search the rubble for survivors of my squad. My fireteam was KIA, but I kept searching and saw another team being pinned down by some grunts. Ever see what 8 Gauge does to a methane tank? It's like the 4th of July. I got with the remnants of that fireteam, CASEVAC'ed the wounded and was able to link up with the rest of the platoon. Crazy to think we'd be ash if it wasn't for the M90. I even bought one for personal use that I keep in my house on base, though it's got a little too much kick for the wife and the kids are too young for it rn.

Ian McCollum, the greatest gun historian of all time, now brings you an experimental time-travelling episode in future present continuous. 😎

Those big shells can have quite the recoil if you aren't ready for it. So handing one to a Ruthian Kig-Yar at a scrap deal at post war grey market salvage swap meet led to the bird losing a bet and buying a round for everyone. Birdy got knocked flat on his rear,whole yard was laughing at him untill we realized he dislocated his shoulder. As much as we hate that bird,taking apart knocked out wraiths without someone that knows the internals is a good way to set off any left over plasma reserves.

My favorite fun fact about the sight systems on these military long guns is that often the "lit" sights you see in media - wether it be from recruiting drives or just typical footage from the fronts - are actually almost all completely black or un-lit white to the naked eye. It depends on the particular weapon and even individual variants (especially swapped customized by the user), but generally those points don't appear reflective at all in the normal visual spectrum. Rather, integrated HUD systems can track them using their sensors and essentially overlay the colour on them. On some weapons, they are also used like landmarks to help integrated HUD systems that have zoom and aim reticle auto-overlay. Naturally, many civilian versions just have regular lit or reflective coloured sights. If you are ever looking at combat footage and you see one of these guns seemingly with super bright lights but notice the area around the light on the gun isn't reflecting any - that's why. It isn't *actually* a bright light there. It doesn't help that media tends to add in the lights in post when they have footage where it isn't picked up by the recording cameras, to make it look "right" rather than keep it real.