Q&A #3: What-Ifs and How-Comes 

Please continue with the excruciatingly long answers, Thank you

No sir, with respect to your videos, the longer the better. There are many others about whom I cannot say the same. Your videos are concise, very entertaining, and extremely informative, even at nearly 50 minutes in length. Please continue your great work.

I am “rewatching” all of your Q and A videos and they are very entertaining and informative. I put it in parentheses because I mostly listen and not watch them while I am driving around doing errands or on the way to work since that is the majority of my free time. I always enjoy and appreciate the work that you do.

Honestly, never too long for a History Geek and Gun Nerd like myself.

A unique feature of the Schwarzlose pistol is that it was a "blow forward" design. Instead of the breach-block travelling to the rear, the barrel moved forward.

Yes, Ian. We saw that editing goof. It was funny, and please... by all means excruciate us with more long-form, highly informative videos like this one. I think we can afford to suffer that sort of pain and suffering. Gladly, even. :P

I've seen several .303 converted Martini-Henry carbines in Afghanistan displayed in my unit's HQ on the walls along with some AK47s, AKMs, some kind of Russian single shot shotgun and an M1 Garand of all things.

Still watching, but I have a hard time to stop myself thinking "he's gonna raise his right arm and knock the laptop over - he's gonna raise his right arm and knock the laptop over - he's..."

Hey Ian, small suggestion, how about listing the overall lengths and weights of the guns you review? I think people would really be taken back at how much some of these older weapons weigh and how big they are compared to their range plinkers.

I would suggest that Brasil and the Taurus company would also fall in that category. The Brazilian government contracted with Beretta to build a manufacturing facility to manufacture handguns for military use. Once the contract ended, they retained all the designs and tooling and started rolling thier own copies of the Beretta pistols, then they started modifying the designs.

Thanks for answering my question, Ian! I was really tempted to follow it up with, "and why is it the American Civil War?" Really cool explanation! Love the long video too. -Ryan

Thanks for the Q&A. On the note of "Best Forgotten Weapons" and the idea that militaries don't issue unsafe weapons, the exception that comes to mind is the Japanese Type 94 Nambu that could be fired by squeezing an exposed seer. You did a short video on it a couple years ago. It's not "blow up in your face" bad, but certainly wouldn't want to be near anyone carrying one.

I'd buy a burgess shotgun if Uberti produced one at the $1k price point. Very neat gun.

Great video. Don't worry about the length of your replies cos the subject matter is very interesting and your response to folk's queries is always fascinating. Keep it up Ian.

I googled the Burgess folding shotgun to see what it was, and imagine my pleasant surprise when I find an article on Popular Mechanics authored by none other than yourself! Very cool.

No need to second-guess the length of the video - it was perfectly appropriate for the thoroughness of the content. I was so drawn in by the information that I didn't even notice the length. Great video, very informative, thank you for your dedication to a very cool aspect of history and for putting in the time to share it with all of us layfolk.

Some purpose built martini's were built, namely the martini metford and the martini enfield. I have a purpose built martini enfield built in 1900 and refurbished in 1911. The barrel is stamped with 18.5 ton proof. Modern ammunition in British purpose built martini enfields is safe as long as the action is in good condition. These rifles are a very fun to shoot.

Your review on the Chauchat made me want one; they're just so goofy and that *CHU-CHUNK* of the action is wild. I think that may be my first NFA weapon (outside of an SBR Uzi).

I was working out when I watched this. That look when he stopped and said "Simon says" over again I about dropped a dumbell laughing. That was pretty funny

When it comes to conflicts that sparked weapons invention, I would argue that the 2. Schleswig war between Denmark and Prussia/Austria of 1863-64 had a profound impact in Europe. Observers from many countries witnessed the effectiveness of the Dreyse needle rifle over the Danish percussion muzzleloaders, and many countries adopted their own needle rifle, right thereafter. Most notably the french and the italians. More than anything Europe feared a unified Germany under Bismarck - and rightfully so. Secondly the Danish army started a development programme that among other things would eventually lead to the Madsen light machinegun - a weapon that was way ahead of its time in the early 20. Century.

Awesome Q&A. Love the time spent answering the questions. Looking forward to more.

This was a really cool series to listen to. I love guns and find history very fascinating, so this is a fantastic thing that has merged here haha.

Righteous time spent. Thanks Ian.

Truly enjoyable, and informative. Thank you Ian.

The lovely sound of rain in the background made this Q&A even better :-)

Interesting, well balanced and educational as ever Ian. Thank you.

So much education! Good job Forgotten Weapons.

Thanks Ian, I find I'm looking forward to these chats more and more.

I am a gun nerd because of this channel :p Thanks for the video!!

still watching and love these.

khyber pass Martini's fall into the "don't ever shoot" category

I love sitting and watching your videos.

I hope one day I'll be able to seriously be a patron, I binge watch fw videos. Thank you Ian for providing hours of entertainment

not to long you kept my interest all the way through keep up the great work

With Ian regularly bringing up the Burgess shotgun in the videos from this time I can totally picture a modernized bullpup take on the Burgess action. Imagine a KSG, but the pistol grip is the pump. Stupid? Yes. Pointless? Maybe. Interesting? Without a doubt.

I just want to say u have prolly the most interesting RU-vid channel ever I love the videos and just wanted to say thank u for being so in depth and just cool

I really love these long educational videos! It's kind of like gun college lectures!🔫😀

Great stuff Ian. Hope you get that Martini 308. And we get to see it!

I'd have to say the Nambu 94 must be an exception to the rule of "armies don't make guns that can shoot their users"

People always call at the worst time.

You rock Ian, thanks for giving me something to fold laundry to.

There are 2 guns i would like to see reproduced, they are the Winchester 1895 lever action in its russian configuration chambered in 7.62x54r, as well as the burgess folding pump shotgun

Another example of a small nation having a local design and eventually manufactured military firearm was the Owen Gun in Australia. All other firearms used before or since by the Australian Defence Forces have been either made overseas or licenced to be made by Small Arms Factory Lithgow/ADI/Thales.

Watched the whole thing, very very interesting!

I just spent almost 50 minutes of my life on this, and I'm not even mad. Typically I get sick of a RU-vid video after about 15 minutes. It was interesting to just hear your take on all sorts of different gun stuff.

I'd like to see Winchester make some 1895s in 7.62X54R with bayonet mounts, just like the ones the Russians ordered.

Yes, we are nerds. ;)

I will never think this is too long. By all means make it as long as you can.

I always assumed magazine cuttoffs were there because of a holdover from "napoleon style" or the so called "gentleman warfare" where soldiers would fight in lines and load aim and fire as the officer commanded. The only place id see them as useful outside that holdover of "old tactics" is maybe in sniper type rifles where you could keep a lower profile loading single shots rather than doing a full magazine change or reload depending on whether its a fixed or detachable mag

I am a Patron, love the show. One point about Japaneses arms manufacturing. Within 12 years of the first European reaching Japan, the Shoguns were making fire arms in good numbers themselves. It was one reason they were able to resist colonization completely.

please do go into as much "excruciating" depth and detail as you can! I love these videos

The depth is great man, from Europe so guns are kinda literally forgotten history over here. At least for civilians. Love the stories of how the gun as a concept changed.

Unusual indigenous weapons include the Australian designed and built Owen Machine Carbine and the F1 sub-machine-gun. Both were mainstream weapons and were designed specifically for jungle warfare in WW-II through to well after the Vietnam war. There were British and American equivalents - e.g. the British Sterling SMG - but none were specialised for jungle warfare. I used the F1 a lot and it's a very pleasant, accurate, and reliable weapon. Its main usage by Australia was in the Vietnam war in conjunction with the L1A1 battle rifle.

As long as there's enough powder to get the bullet all the way down the barrel, a revolver will function with really any (safe) load without changing springs or anything else. Advantage revolver. Really the only practical use I have for revolvers, is to carry an airweight concealed hammer S&W in a jacket pocket, occasionally, however.

Very interesting...no boredom here!

great vid can't wait for more

Not too long at all---fascinating!

Thanks for the Q&a

Good job Ian - and I checked my phone twice for the buzzing :D

Gun designs from non-industrialized places: Rhodesian Mamba pistol.

45acp is absolutely necessary. Another great vid Ian

love the q&a.

The Burgess shotgun would also appeal to the survivalist community as well due to it's ability to fold down. Just put it in a movie. That really gets the hype. Kinda like the Winchester 1887 for the Terminator.

GREAT INFO AS ALWAYS . CHEERS FROM B.C CANADA.

27:40 (just before) Man did Ian eat those words lol. Congrats on the new book!!!

Cheers, Iain, from a MacIver (yes, really) from the Hebrides. Great content: always good to see someone who loves his job. Could you organize the QA videos in some sort of chronological order, in your copious free time of course. Thanks. oh, and BTW the natives are revolting.

I kept thinking my phone was going off...

Regarding the use of revolvers vs autoloaders: I did some research lately to find the pros and cons of each in a concealed carry role and I found that revolvers have some very important advantages. For one, they will continue to fire the remaining cartridges if a one misfires. This is very important in a close quarters struggle, because you will mostly likely not have time and both hands free to cycle the slide on an autoloader. And the second issue which is related to the first, is an attacker will most likely attempt to grab your gun at close range. If it's an autoloader, you will be able to fire one shot and then the slide won't cycle because of his/her grip on the firearm. This puts you in the situation where you have to wrestle your gun free and then rack the slide. Most revolvers on the other hand have a cylinder gap which sprays out hot gasses and metal fragments when you pull the trigger and that might cause someone to let go of your gun. Once you gun is free you can continue to fire with one hand. It's true that you can stop a revolver from firing just by holding the cyclinder, but I don't think that negates the advantage of operating it with one hand. I think those 2 issues make the revolver a superior close quarters carry firearm. At ranges where a struggle is unlikely the autoloaders have the clear advantage.

Long, yes, excruciating, not a bit. Unless, of course, you meant it was excruciating for you...

14:35 I would guess that when you are in a last stand / emergency situation, documentation is not a high priority

good info and I watched the whole video.

The Ross rifle is an example of a gun that in its earlier configurations could be dangerous to the user. In their default from factory condition theyre perfectly safe but if you reassemble the bolt wrong say youre sleep deprived in a trench trying to field strip it which on earler versions it was possible to do then the bolt could not lock properly and then fly open when you shoot because there was no "idiot proofing" for lack of better words to stop the gun being assembled wrongly. 100% safe rifle when assembled correctly or if you have a later version that couldnt be assembled wrongly but i doubt this is the only gun in history that could be assembled wrongly and then be a danger

24:20 I hike and fish where rattlesnakes and Grizzly Bears intersect. A .44spl birdshot followed by five 340gr +P Magnums is just what the doctor ordered.

You should do a video on the Medusa Model 47, that's an interesting revolver that I'm sure plenty of people would love to hear about!

On gun designs from non-industrialized countries; You may be interested in Nepal's Bira Gun. These machine guns were produced by hand, so there was quite a bit of variance in their parts' dimensions, and many were not interchangeable; Each individual gun had its own magazine/s, for example.

Henry Martinis in .303 were used by British Chinese troops during the Boxer Rebellion.

martini 577/450 type rifles in 303 are safe as long as they are in good condition and are of proper manufacture or conversion.... take Ian's comments regarding the Afghan one to heart! the 450/577 Actions are far less common here in Down under these days as in the 1950's on wards they were one of the favored actions for conversion to other calibers originals are collectors items...wish i still had one from my youth the .310 cadet martini action is the smaller action that i have also used and seen many conversions done( 44mag being the largest i have seen) but as above they are getting rare in original condition

For the cool unique designs, I think a small manufacturer should set up a kickstarter where if they get a certain number of orders/money, they start production. As long as the numbers are fifty or sixty, why bother. But if you get thousands of orders, might as well do a limited run.

Long? Yes. Very interesting to watch? Even more so. Any one of those questions I could have listened to for quite a while longer. Have you considered doing something akin to a podcast?

On the topic of long form content, if you do more classes and workshops, will you post them like you did with the Clips and Magazines and Proof Marks ones? I found those videos both informative and entertaining, great to put on the background and listen to while I'm doing other things. Just curious. Also thank you for giving us so much great content!

21:13, just noticed the Kel-Tec RDB there.

Excruciatingly what?? You where explaining interesting things, I don't see the problem on a long video, we can always pause and continue watching later (muchbetter than watching TV!)

Cool video once again ! Could you do a review on the HK4 pistol ? quite interesting gun !

I enjoyed the almost hour long video. I beat anything on TV that's for sure.

Fascinating stuff. I'm no fan of the .45 ACP, and I have to wonder at a world without it.

I'd love to see a Pedersoli or Uberti Beaumont-Adams revolver line. I think that would be more than possible considering the similarity to Colts, Stars, Kerrs and Remingtons. But I think they're too obscure, shame they're gorgeous revolvers.

Regarding the revolver vs. semi-auto debate, I believe it's worth mentioning that the revolver, debatably, is more reliable. There's no risk of stovepiping or jams (however, I suppose mechanical binding COULD be a failure mode in a revolver). Also, in the event of a dud round, the user simply has to pull the trigger to fire the next round, as opposed to racking the slide. (This would be beneficial for self carry, especially for someone not familiar with firearms.)

Quite a bit of knowledge on hand here. I wouldn't mind having a conversation with you over a nice cold (Belgian) beer about the impact of FN, Browning and their common impact on weapon manufacture. Greetz from Belgium.

I just thought of a really badass gun to try and look at. the USMC "Stinger" assault weapon

It would be great if you could insert a picture of some of these weapons ( like the folding shotgun) when you were talking about it.

I think ram and wire EDM (Electrical Discharge Machining) will be the future of small batch fire arms manufactor. 1. It can be used to machine very hard metals, with equal effeciency to soft metals 2. The tolerances possible are really, really tight. Much tighter than other forms of machining. The problem is, it is not as fast, nor as available as other forms of machining.

On the MG81, I remember reading that during the German invasion of France one of the tactics was to land multiple bf-110s at French airfields, dismount the rear gun, and use it to suppress the personnel at the airfield. However, based on the time frame I think those would have been more likely to be MG15s. I can't remember any specific mentions of MG81s in ground use in the books I've read. Like Ian said, it may have happened but was an emergency tactic.

A video on the KH2002 would be pretty cool (maybe shooting it too), I only know it from video games though but it interests me quite a lot, reminds me of a Famas.

I did some looking and found some artistic imagery of an MG-81 converted to LMG use with an attached bipod.

just looked at the IQ comment below. all I would say is that Ian is always extremely coherent in his videos, which makes them a pleasure to watch regardless of topic.

You mentioned that you'd need good 3d printed metals for the reproductions situations change. I agree with this, and I'll explain in a little more depth. We're up to the point of 99% solid metals, which is more than enough. The issue arises with the cost of materials, and speed of printing/tolerances. The cost of materials is due to the machine makers, you can only use their type of powder that they mark up, the powder itself isn't that expensive. To my knowledge, most if not all are marking up the materials beyond reason. Then there's the tolerances and speed. Due to the nature of spreading the powder, then solidifying it layer by layer, you have to find a compromise between speed, material density, and tolerances. This will improve over time, but will always be behind proper cnc machines for mass production. I think for future designs, there's going to have to be a bit of change in the way we think. Instead of tighter tolerances to make designs work, which sadly, the the manufacturing world is riddled with, and that's because machines that can are enabling designers to put less effort in, we're going to have design things around the lower tolerances we can achieve with 3d printing. You may say, why even bother with 3d printing? It's currently more expensive, slower, and can't reach the same tolerances. Well that's because there's certain things you just can't make with a typical cnc mill or lathe, whether it be certain densities to reduce cost or weight, or certain structures that you can't reach or machine with a tool. In my opinion, there could be some very cool designs that take advantage of what 3d metal printers have to offer over mills or lathes. Before any of this happens we'll have to wait for prices to go down, technology to improve, and a change in method of design. Sorry if any of this is wrong or stupid, but I don't claim to be an expert on the subject, just offering my thoughts. Maybe some of the things like the powders being restricted by the makers has changed, I dunno :P

Cheers

As far as I know revolvers are used by guards of cash & valuables transports because they can be set from default state to fireable condition with only one hand.

Early versions of the Lee Enfield, No1 had mag cut off and side mounted volley sights out to 1200 yards. Just drop a load of hurt on them, if thier in a bunch you'll hit something. The No1 Mk 111 of about 1916 on got rid of theses.

even after most nations upgraded to automatic rifles the British continued to use semi-auto FN FALs or the SLR, which is still talked about in an almost holy fashion by British soldiers (even though most have never used it)