Yeah Ian brings up good points but they go out the window because all these PCCs are using magazines designed for pistols. Pistols have perfectly ergonomic grips with double-stack single-feed mags, so there's really no point in not using a grip-mounted magazine. The Sub2000 does it perfectly well.
@@PaulVerhoeven2 that's mostly true. Due to their unlocked breech they recoil like a full powered rifle. That said, the muzzle blast is less than a rifle when fired indoors, and they are still slightly more powerful and MUCH easier to hit with than a pistol. ....but none of that negates your point.
@@johneden2033 One reason, when actually designing a gun, is that a hammer fired trigger system in a rifle style gun is 1000% easier to design than a design where the trigger is in front of the magazine like in a pistol.
Actually, most (+95% of professionals) biathlon Rifles use a locking system like in this video Ian made: th-cam.com/video/a-44H321Bsg/w-d-xo.html A Fortner Ball-Bearing system. I believe only the russians still use toggle locks!
Hi Ian, you might wanna combine the biathlon rifle piece with a trip to Suhl in Germany. German rifle makers are at the forefront of development in that field, and they have an deepfreeze firing range there. DDR stuff etc. A documentary in german made by mdr television is here on TH-cam. Google for suhler buchsenmacher or five me a howler and i ll send a link.
About the M1A1 question - my dad *did* use one, with an M2 full auto group as a PDW during one of his Vietnam tours. Special circumstances - he was an Ordnance officer on MACV staff, and spending a lot.of time flying from firebase to firebase. So, one of his sergeants found him an old M1A1 stock *somewhere* and relieved the stock so it would accept the M2 bits. Dad kept it slung behind his back with a couple of spare mags in his shirt pockets, and basically forgot about it. As Dad said, "It was out of the way and just enough gun to get me away from the scene of the crash. Much easier to carry than the other choices, and not much more of a problem than the .45 on my hip."
My dad trained Paratroopers and basically said the same thing. He won the coonskin cap with both the Garand and the Carbine. His favorite full auto was the M3 grease gun because of the slower rate of fire.. He was not a fan of a pistol for soldiers.. he said you can carry more ammunition for your “real gun” for the weight of the pistol..
Way back in the day, that's kind of what they did. It began as a purely military event. It went to targetized bolt actions in each nation's service rifle caliber, but then the few countries to use intermediate calibers got a competitive advantage over full power rifle calibers at the sort of ranges they were shooting. Added to that, full power rifles shot at paper targets at longer range meant nobody knew who had won until the targets got checked after everyone had crossed the finish line. That made it a poor spectator sport. Everyone involved agreed to standardise on .22 so they could level the playing field, and simultaneously simplify range construction and scoring by using steel targets that drop when hit. This makes it easy for everyone to see if you hit or miss in real time, so penalties can be applied during the race. Now in most events the first across the line wins, having served any penalties for missing out on the track by having to run extra laps or wait in a penalty box. So, the current version is more spectator- and television friendly and of course it's cheaper to build a range that's safe for .22 than one you can shoot .30-06 on. The old style biathlon with service rifles is still around as a purely military sport, I recall we did it once during my military service back in the 90's. Wooden skis and G3 rifles, shot on paper targets with a complex scoring system combined with your time on the track.
The public being scared of full power rifles in the Olympics is about the dumbest reasoning I've seen here. Organizing and training for a .22 event is just much simpler, and you can set up a range pretty much anywhere, unlike with full power rifles. IMO military biathlon could be a separate sport because of the range restrictions, but I wouldn't mind seeing some more of it. Not only with service rifles, but also military skis and kit instead of the streamlined cross-country skiing gear.
Ask a reenactor if he wants to live in the time period he or she re-enacts. They usually say “no way” because they know so much about that time period.
Regarding the answer about the biathlon rifles: The russian rifles do mostly use a toggle-lock system but the other nations mostly use a manually operated roller- or ball bearing locked system, called the Fortner System I am a former biathlon athlete, that is why I know these guns quite well
Yeah, was going to say, the toggle action system is the one that was dominant in competition in the '70s from Finland and Russia, and Izhmash still makes it. Everyone else uses Anschutz.
I've seen a Fortner Anschutz rifle set up as a target rifle and got a chance to have a fiddle with it. Such a smooth action and extremely cool, but of no practical benefit in that particular application over a traditional bolt action I don't think. Other than being really damn cool.
Drach in one of his recent Q&A's addressed the ship born AA defense issue. The problem was once you got into 43 the ability of planes to drop their ordinance at distance was beyond the 20mm capabilities and even stretching the 40mm bofors. The point of AA was to keep the enemy from even dropping their ordinance. Since it doesn't really matter if you shot the plane down if you get hit by a torpedo, or bomb.
Hence why the Des Moines class cruisers that the US was laying down in 1945 didn't even have Bofors guns, they had 5-inch dual-purpose guns like their predecessors as their heavy AA, and the "medium" AA was autoloading 3-inch guns.
@@Dafmeister1978 that was also because planes had gotten fast enough that you needed the extra range of the 3" guns. It's just a shame that those guns were so overweight. The original plan was to replace a quad 40mm mount 1 for 1 with a dual 3" (and a dual 40mm for a single 3"). But by the time the 3" guns were built, they were so heavy that it ended up as a 3 for 2 swap. 3 quad Bofors for a pair of twin 3" guns.
The main reason they switch to 3" autocannon was because it was the smallest caliber able to be fitted with VT fuze. Although of course in the end it boils down to shooting down attacking planes before it releases the payloads. Or in the case of late pacific war, to positively obliterate enemy planes out of the air since what previously acceptable as a "kill" was no longer enough if the enemy plane still carry enough mass and momentum for a kamikaze attack.
Thank you for the informative answers. I would add to the last question about anti aircraft weapons. The number of down planes went way up with the widespread use of proximity fuses. The number of kills went up. Both the Germans and the Japanese knew there was some technological advantage but were unable to reciprocate. In terms of technological advancements during the war. proximity fuses rate just behind early computers for code breaking and radar as having the biggest effect over the course of the war.
@@DiggingFrance not true. British military researchers at the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) Samuel C. Curran, William A. S. Butement, Edward S. Shire, and Amherst F. H. Thomson conceived of the idea of a proximity fuze in the early stages of World War II.[8 Hedy Lamar is credited with inventing frequency hopping technology. And she worked on early proximity fuses but she did not invent them.
Ian talking about converting controls to lefty and then forgetting about it reminds me of changing my controller setup to a more efficient layout and then forgetting about it in every gunfight and dying lol
Another reason why rimless shotgun shells, or more precisely, their headspacing on the end of the cartridge, wouldn't work, is that said end of the cartridge is crimped one way or another and has to de-crimp upon firing, meaning the material that makes up the crimp has to go somewhere and let the payload through. After all, this is why the nominal length of a shotgun shell refers to the *UNCRIMPED* shell and not the crimped shell.
Yes but we could have something much more like a semi-rimmed cartridge. Also it is possible to standardize the crimp. And there's not really any reason why the way to seal the end of a shotgun shell has to be folding in the sidewalls. I think the 1950s or 60s Winchester experiment at 14 gauge really shows you what a shotgun shell ought to look like. And there's really no reason those couldn't be made out of plastic.
@@GunFunZS Even so there would still be all the hassle that comes with competing against a well-established system, provided the new kind of ammo even gets enough attention to gain a foothold on the market. But given the fact that the existing shotgun shells have also been used successfully in box magazines and drum magazines for quite some time the need for rimless shells has all but disappeared anyway.
One thing i would like to add to ammo counters. The HK433 has a ammo counter that does not display the current amount of ammo in the magazine. It just counts as much ammo has gone through the weapon in total (at least to my understanding). If that system is reliable and cheap there is some real benefit for civilian, military and police use. Beeing able to track this information has huge benefits for the management and administration purposes.
Tracking the rounds through the gun won't help the "Auugh! The rounds I fired and the rounds I'm short don't add up!" problem doing the paperwork afterward.
Rifle caliber AA guns on a ship were of little value at the start of WWII and by the middle, there wasn't much value in 20mm. The USN's radar guided computer controlled 5" 38 cal mark 12 cannons were the real work horses since they could fire proximity fused shells. Imagine building a proximity radar using vacuum tubes and then you made it able to withstand the 20,000 Gs being fired from a cannon. 40mm Bofors remained relevant, but mainly the quad, or bigger groups, that had a radar guided fire control system. 20mm guns remained, but aircraft and their weapons had evolved to a point to where it was unlikely a strike aircraft would ever be inside the 20mm's effective range. They mostly acted to boost morale and to get a few more tracers in the air to unnerve pilots. Regardless of effectiveness, it was USN policy to put so many AA guns on their capital ships that you'd trip over one every few feet, so an Iowa would have something like 70 40mm cannons and 50 some 20mm cannons.
The 40mm twin mounts @ 240 rpm could also be linked to the fire director. Shells were usually time fused to prevent friendly fire. Proximity fused rounds were made as well. My source was as loader on a 40mm twin, USS Santa Fe, Pacific Theatre.
@@SonsOfLorgar the L70 uses a longer 40mm round, and is really a newer gun from the same company. The L70 fires nearly 3 times as many shells per minute the lan the L60.
You are *exactly* correct on the naval Gatling guns in WWII. The threat set they needed to defend against required the 20mm, 40mm, and even 3" and 5" guns. And even at 20mm, a rotary gun (even if you had the production TDP for the M61 gun) would be infeasible, because you really need to go to radar directed, computer aimed guns to make them work against inbound aircraft (the Phalanx CIWS, like all CIWS, is really designed to defeat the Cold War and later equivalent of the kamikaze - the cruise missile). And we simply didn't have the aiming radars and predictive computers needed to make them work effectively. Nor would your weight savings be that much. There are reasons that you only see one or two (sometimes three on really large ships) Phalanx installations on USN ships today. A modern Mk15 Block 1B Phalanx is more than a *six tonne* installation with a large through deck penetration (or a huge doghouse on the deck). You can stack a *lot* of 20mm Hispana-Suizas (even accounting for mount, ammo, and gun crew) for six metric tonnes, and you can spread them around for better coverage, more redundancy, and achieve the same weight of fire. Given the lack of a suitable fire control system and *reliable* , *accurate* , and *rapid* train & elevation mechanism that can swing that beast around, you're better off in 1945 with sailors manhandling a single barrel H-S 20mm using spider sights and the Mk1 Eyeball (and especially when you consider you're getting 6-10 individual guns for the same space & weight requirements, and much easier to position as each installation is fairly easy to stick on the deck edge without blocking access for everything else). Where electric Galing guns in smaller calibers are useful on modern warships is for the destruction of swarms of small (often suicide) speedboats or jet skis... and even there, a twin-.50 mount (especially with the aircraft - M3M, AKA GAU-21/A; the current iteration of the WWII M3 .50 aircraft gun - versions) pretty.much buys you the same tactical effectiveness at a much smaller cost, higher resilience to damage (no electricity to worry about losing, for instance, and a Browning .50 is a pretty sturdy beast if the enemy prangs you with small arms fire or shell fragments), etc., making it generally a better choice than, say, an M134 "Minigun" or GAU-19 "GECAL .50". (Engineering shipboard weapons fits, especially for AT/FP and AA, are a huge part of my day job, and while I do love me some GAU-19, it's generally a better choice for, say, the ramp gun on an MH-47 or CH-53 than a destroyer.)
Shame the gas-powered HeliGun was developed a bit more. Had they sorted out the reliability it would've been a really good option for ship & aircraft use. Actually it might not be all that unreliable compared to an M2 that isn't running quite right, like if the headspace is off.
@@mrkeogh By the time the development on the EX-17 Heligun even *began* , small arms MGs for air defense were already long obsolete, and the high ROF of the Heligun is really only useful in an aeroweapon role (either ground to air or air to ground role. Even SuperSized to .50BMG and even if the horrible reliability issues had been fixed, it wouldn't provide any *useful* advantage over the M2/M3 family for the Navy (in the AT/FP role), and comes with serious downsides, like consumption of ammunition faster than sailors can replace the cans. The EX-17 Heligun was developed, as the name implies, for a *very specific* role (rifle caliber ground attack MG for mounting on *helicopters* ). It is *not* suited for roles where weight is one of the critical driving factors. Remember, you're generally going to be going back to base for several hours of maintenance after blowing through your first basic load of ammo on a aircraft mounted gun - it's OK if the parts wear faster than the relatively chunky bits on a Browning MG. And its not like getting and keeping a Browning MG headsoaced and timed is some arcane art that is terribly difficult. US privates and seamen have been managing just *fine* for over 100 years (and the latest variants in US service even have *fixed* headspace - something we could have had back when the EX-17 was proposed, had we been willing to spend the money replacing legacy spare parts we had mountains of at the time). You really only have to set the timing on the gun when you reassemble it from a detail strip, and check the timing after a field strip (just to be sure)... and in the absence of an actual timing gauge, you can use a dime and a dogtag. Headspacing (even on the original M2HB and M3 guns) only has to be done when installing a barrel (and you can "get away with" the old rule of thumb of "screw in flush and back off two" almost all the time). Naval MG mounts do not normally replace the barrels in action, and if use is even anticipated, the guns are racked already timed and headspaced, so they can be dropped on the pintle in seconds. So, a wonky, specialized gun that has increased parts breakage and an excessively high ROF for the role versus a combat proven solution woth a century of battle history that is robust enough we've found guns *in active service* that were 100 years old that had *never* needed a rebuild? Hmmm... let me think about which I'd rather rely on to stop a suicide speedboat...
Nailed int on the anit-kamikaze weapons. The "stand off" distance was hugely important. The 20mm mounts only had about 2000 yards range-or about 1.5 seconds of flight time "away" from the ships. So, they were mostly for morale, to give the cooks and clerks "something to do." The 40mm Bofors had a problem in that they had to hit something substantial in the aircraft-wing spars, landing gear, engine, etc.--to detonate, otherwise they just left a 2" hole and kept going. The real thing that worked was the 3"50 with VT fuses. These got to the Fleet in late June 1945. The VT fuse could not be made smaller than 3" at the time. But, they worked. The Mk 7, and later Mk 17 dual 3"50 mounts fir on a Quad 40 base ring (the weight though made them a 2 for 3 swap). The other issue that would have limited electric Gatlings on naval vessels would have been the need to move large amount of ammo up to the mounts. Which would have been a large weight penalty than the guns & crew were.
Every gun nut with a couple of old cars is now trying to be Ian's friend.😆 Also, I used to own a PV544 Volvo and the P1800 is the same car with a sleeker body. It was fun!
If only they could make a gun that made some sort of extra sound when you're out of ammo, like a Ping or something, and there could be a visual cue as well, a little bent sheet of metal could fly out with the ping noise... Would be even better if the little metal piece IS the magazine, or clip! Huzzah! Eh. It'll never happen.
@@douganderson7002 I mean, it was a joke, but I wasn't in ww2... Idk if what you say is true or just speculation, maybe we can find someone who was there to confirm or deny.
A brazilian made rifle suposedly have a double action trigger mechanism. The rifle is the bullpup LAPA FA03 and the story goes that the designer, Nelmo Suzano, used this type of system to compensate the lack of a traditional safety.
A long time ago I found in an old gun magazine in my country a singleshot shotgun with a single and double action mechanism operated by a selector lever. I never saw one of these weapons. I think it's not a bad idea on weapons like a pump action shotgun. I don't know in a rifle, which requires more smoothness for an accurate shot.
I really like your videos As for making a rimless 12 gau shotgun shell It is being done by a number of people As we have found the case can be head spaced off of the extractor There is some HIGH Pressure 12 gau slug loads based on a blown out 50 BMG case I have a H&R Ultra Slug Gun that has been reproofed to allow me to load the high pressure loads for 200 yard or longer shots Even at 200 yards my saboted loads are flat shooting and still carry more than 1000 FPE IMO a big reason most ammo makers will never load shells like I do is older guns
My Father was a biathlete and referred to the non-bolt actions as “Fortner Actions.” He still has his left-handed Lakefield .22 bolt-action biathlon rifle, the first left handed they ever made.
To what end? Autoloaders and pumps work fine with rimmed cartridges. Single shots, side by sides and stackbarrels don't benefit from rimless cartridges at all. The LOA issue will never go away. And shotshells run at to low a pressure to need a belt.
There's a short video somewhere on here that shows a belt fed 12 gauge pistol thing this one guy built. It's not rimless but it is belt fed.So it's not impossible just bot seen on mass scale
@@dravenmcgee3188 Belted ammo and belt-fed ammo are two different things. Belted ammo has a belt, as it says. Belt-fed ammo are linked to an ammo belt. The two aren't the same at all. "The term belted magnum or belted case refers to any cartridge, but generally a rifle cartridge, with a shell casing that has a pronounced 'belt' around its base that continues 2-4 mm past the extractor groove."
There was a series just called “The Gun” on UK tv, that was a bit more accurate than “Tales of the gun” but also abit dryer to watch, and yes, it’s never been reshown.
Rimless shotgun shell shotguns have been marketed to law enforcement and military markets, but both that I know of have failed due to high admission cost due to economy of scale.
As a european 2CV owner, I must say it's a great car to have. However, I'm not a big fan of tinkering either. Living in Europe makes access to parts and skilled labor easy, so I can keep my car in good shape.
Used to be, you couldn't walk into a gun with without there being at least 50 Mosins for $80, and that usually included a cleaning kit, bayonet and sling.
Regarding the alternative carry gun to revolvers or autos, the three barrel ‘derringer’ in .30 Super Carry would seem ideal to keep it slim, with ammunition optimized for short barrels.
40:39 The M1919A6 also has a redesigned muzzle bearing that allowed the barrel to be changed by unscrewing it with the combination wrench and pulling it out through the front of the jacket instead of dismantling the receiver.
Totally agree with Ian and being of a similar age this era is the best in terms of quality of life and I too would love to skip forward a hundred years or more to see what happens in terms of technology. There is a bit too much nostalgia for times that people may think were simpler but I don't fancy having to trudge to a communal pump for water and crap in a bucket under my bed, have my clothes washed in piss, get poisoned by the wallpaper or die before 20 to some now easily treatable infection.
Sure, but I think no one would disagree that if you were born in the early 1930s and didn't have to serve in WWII or Korea you probably had the easiest life (compared to other times and regions not people). No one thinks they'd die of dysentery or leprosy when they put on their Nostalgia glasses.
sure but look at the amount of drugs sold in chemists back then..plus they had very little drug problems...or crime not like now. think they both go hand in hand
@@foxxy46213 I definitely agree with your point there that the failed war on drugs massively fuels crime and the commercialisation of the penal system. Also on balance I think there was just as much crime if not more so in the past, it was not recorded and seen as acceptable as long as it stayed in the shadows.
51:14- To my knowledge the Magpul/Maztech round counting technology will be the first to do a total aggregate count. The X4 system will count the rounds in your rifle as well as the rounds remaining on your person. Similar to a video game e.g. 30/300
Federal’s 30 Super Carry is essentially a modification of an earlier round they developed with Ruger. That round is 327 Federal Magnum. It uses the same diameter (.312 in/7.92mm) bullet and pretty much the same pressure (45,000psi) but in a different case. So while it might be similar to 7.65 French Long, I would say it is really 327 Fed Mag Auto.
With the ammo counter thing, I wonder if a low ammo indicator would be more practical, like an indicator when the magazine is below a certain number of rounds remaining. That way it doesn't require a change of focus, just seeing the indicator flash red so you are aware you need to change mags soon.
In star wars expanded universe han solos sidearm has a 25 shot capacity that pulsed in your hand silently when you were down to five. I always thought that was a great idea.
Ammo counter - how about three studs in the grip. As the last few cartridges clear the magazine, an internal finger moves which pushes a bump into the palm of the hand. Basically a simple Braille for 3, 2, 1 or 15, 10, 5 depending on the capacity. You can feel it without looking being the main advantage, and it is mechanical so no batteries.
That is a cool idea! Buuut if there's one thing I've learned watching forgotten weapons it's that cool ideas that ultimately aren't vital to a weapons functionality are often ditched to reduce production costs or to simplify production. Your idea sounds like it could be simple enough on paper but a pain to actually implement into the weapon. Not trying to be a dick, just commenting my thoughts, and genuinely that is one of the more interesting solutions I've heard to the problem of keeping track of your rounds!
Ooh so instead of having an internal finger which sounds complicated why not have built in tactile-sort-of-deal notches in the magazine. Find a way to make a feeling without screwing up feeding sounds promising!
Hi Ian I have just enjoyed your (as usual) excellent clip on the Henry conversion to centre fire! It suddenly became clear to me the toggle joint relationship to the Maxim, Borchardt Luger & also the Vickers & a few others no doubt I am not aware of! Possibly this relationship could form a subject for another article? Maybe already done ..my ignorance is massive. Regards rich
Not sure if it's the bourbon I have sipping on since the start of this video but I don't think I have ever been so intrigued by a guy sitting there talking about questions I never would have thought of.
On the WWII AA guns I'd also say that if you ran a Gatling gun fast enough to be able to replace multiple AA mounts, you wouldn't be able to keep it supplied with ammunition. The 20mm Oerlikon and 40mm Bofors were resupplied by people hand carrying clips or magazines of ammo to the gun. And those multiple mounts would each have their own set of ammo runners constantly bringing more ammo - but you couldn't get several mounts worth of runners all trying to shove ammo into a single Gatling mount. (The Phalanx CIWS Gatling has, depending on version blow through their, roughly, 1000 to 1,500 round magazines somewhere between 20 and 31 seconds. Good luck reloading that before the next kamikaze makes their attack.) Plus multiple mounts means you can direct some fire at a lot more targets than if you have a single higher rate of fire mount -- and that has a measurable effect is reducing attackers effectiveness even if you're getting fewer hits per minute. And don't forget that due to the available fire control technology during the war even director controlled AA mounts (which weren't the norm) usually had to 'walk' tracers onto target because they weren't accurate enough for "blindfire". A really high rate of fire just means you're wasting more round while getting on target -- but since a single round is supposed to be enough to kill a target it doesn't do you any good to ramp up the rate of fire after you're on target. (And additional issue is that the 20mm used unpowered mounts, which could be bolted nearly anywhere, so it'd be a bigger effort to replace them with powered mounts where you'd need to run adequate electricity to wherever the gun happened to be).
A book about Finnish small arms, you say? I thought winning the Olympic ice hockey tournament would be the end of great news for a while, but no! We're truly blessed! I better start saving money for it right now
The two "medium" caliber AA guns that USN Bu. Ord started to work on by late WW2 were the 3"/50 RF and 3"/70 RF AA guns both having a rate of fire of up to 50 rounds per minute. On the heavier side you have the semi auto 5"/54 Mark 16 with the automatic 5"/54 Mark 42 not starting design till 1950, though a automatic 5"/54 gun does come up in a 1944 prelim design for a CLAA. Even heavier you have 6"/47 DP Mark 16 automatic gun which work started on in 1943, this was the largest true DP, dual purpose, gun the USN and RN designed. The even larger 8"/55 RF Mark 16s, work started on it in 1943 also, aren't true DP guns but training films and some literature does suggest they could have been pushed into an AA role if needed. On the US army side there was the 75mm sky sweeper AA guns. All the guns mentioned were designed to be slaved/linked up to radar fire control for accuracy and tracking of complex moving targets.
The USN 3" guns and the 75mm Skysweeper were intended to replace the Bofors 40mm, because jets were fast enough that a Bofors couldn't get enough weight of shell downrange in time.
Thank you for yet another excellent informative video. In reference to shotshells, as you said manufacturers are notorious for making to slightly different lengths possibly to get a little more power out of their ammunition as I have found I sometimes cannot get the 7 shells of high brass or high velocity in my tube magazine but usually can with target or low recoil. And do not forget the 2-3/4, 3 and 3-1/2 inch lengths refer to unloaded shells. My overall thoughts on this video people come up with some crazy questions, but I did learn a lot.
What you were saying about pistol cartridges being extra spicy so they can shoot out of shorter barrels really seems to apply to .44 mag. Its a nice round out of a pistol, but out of a rifle, it really hits hard.
Actually, most (+95% of professionals) biathlon Rifles use a locking system like in this video you made: th-cam.com/video/a-44H321Bsg/w-d-xo.html A Fortner Ball-Bearing system. I believe only the russians still use toggle locks!
@@bob445566DE there were multiple sysltems using the grip, or levers on the grip, but they were all banned. Since then everyone apart from the russians uses the Fortner system.
Hello Ian. Would be cool to see you in one of these "loony"-channels like Demo-Ranch, Kentucky-Ballistics or Edwin Sarkissian. Just for fun. Or invite some of them to make some interesting fun. And who knows, at least Matt has a whole bunch of Weapons you might find interesting for a video. See ya !
the content is perfect ,like going to gun school history his wealth of knowledge is priceless to a gun fan ,i think that's cool he actually takes and answers questions
During World War 1, the Germans used far more captured allied tanks than they built tanks of their own. I imagine the allies ended up having to deal with their own former gear at least a few times.
@@beargillium2369 I can't find a good figure, but Wiki has the following (unsourced, alas) "By the end of the war, a total of 170 Beutepanzers were still in running condition" I assume more were captured and used at various stages. By contrast, Germany built 20 of its own A7V tanks. By contrast the British made about 2500 and the French made 4500 or so.
Modern biathlon rifles are not toggle lock at the highest level! The Izhmash used lower down are indeed toggle lock straight pull, but the main biathlon rifle of these days is the Anschutz/Fortner 1827F straight pull. It uses a ring of steel ball bearings at the rear to lock. The bolt handle pivots back about 1/4" to cock the striker under the trigger finger which is most of the force required, and then the whole bolt unit comes back straight. On the way back forward, you push it with the thumb and the bolt handle snaps back forward the rest of the way like a mouse trap. It's incredibly smooth and fast, allowing you to get your trigger finger back where it needs to be while the thumb pushes things forward. Anschutz also offers the 1727F which is a very similar action in a hunting rifle BUT NOT THE SAME. The barrel lug on these do not allow them to go into other Anschutz Match 54 (or Fortner) footprint stocks. They also offer the 1927F which is the 1727F receiver and a match barrel that does fit into the Match 54 footprint, and the F27A Challenger which is a single shot rifle for ISSF smallbore competition.
In regards to the last question the the Brits had the STAAG system at the end of the war for the 40mm Bofors with a unmanned mount controlled by hydraulics and an onmount radar system for targeting. The whole system could fire and load from a bin on hydraulic actuation, the crew only had to load the reload bins on the mount. So not quite an electrically driven gun like the mini-gun, but hydraulically loaded and recoil operated.
People who don't believe in fate should consider the odds of Ian McCollum and Tony Neophytou randomly bumping into each other in a museum in Paris, because they both coincidentally happened to be there in the same display hall, at the same time, on the same day.
Re:Ammo Counters: I wonder if something color coded would work better (with iron sights). An LED mounted on the top of the gun with green for full, yellow for half, red for 5 rounds left. It would provide an immediate indicator that you didn't need to shift focus for, albeit at the expense of precision. I think the ammo counter in the optical sight is something that will come as soon as it's economically feasible, since it frankly makes an enormous amount of sense.
M1919 A4 SAW: I have always thought it would be a formidable combo to have an ATV with a mounted LMG carrying as much ammo as it could and going almost everywhere a squad could go
I would loved to see some video's on early American Over/ Under rifle / shotgun combo's. I learned how to shoot with a mod 24 Savage .22/.410. But there were a few made such as the Marble's Game Getter.
Have you ever visited Sarco? This would be a very interesting vlog if you could get up there and they would let you film. Did you ever visit the knob creek gunshow and shoot? What was your first gun purchase? Time machine answer, buy tons of SKSes, 5 times your money now. Winchester 22s in the 30s don't have serials. Put you a name social under the buttplate. I wouldn't want to live ahead in time as there won't be as many affordable guns.
With reference to the rimless cartridge thing, it'd be unsafe having the cartridge headspace on the front of the cartridge I think on account of the fact that the rolled turnover or crimp would need space to open. If you have metal where the case is meant to open out into, you'd have hugely dangerous chamber pressures, not to mention,the case of a cartridge is so very thin, that you'd need a significant step in the barrel from the chamber. I also reckon the shot and wad wouldn't make it out of the chamber and blow your face off 😄
Take a Swedish-K; now visualize a Browning 1919A4 over it; now adjust that 1919 to the .44 Automag. Hang an ammo bag under the action for a 75- or 150-round belt, and attach an extension to attach a bipod or vertical fore-grip to the pintle-mount. Use the quick-change barrel feature to use an 8-inch barrel as a submachine-gun for room-clearing and a 16-inch barrel for use as a support weapon. [EDIT:] I first thought of this when a veteran of early-Vietnam was telling me of riverine patrols, where engagement range was typically 25- to 50-yards into heavy cover and never over 200; and he mentioned a crank-firing Honeywell 40mm grenade launcher that was really popular with them because a gunner could learn to pace his cranking to walk his fire. The boats also had Browning .30 cals. He also mentioned carrying, at different times, the Swedish-K in its integrally-suppressed version; and, coincidentally, a fully-automatic M1A1 carbine that was cut down as a bush-chopper (he'd learned about that from his dad), when on incursion patrols. With the engagement range and the .44 Automag being based on cut-down .308 brass my mind went spinning into 180-240-300 weight loads for heavy brush, etc., etc. Yes, totally not a thing; also, really cool. I so want to build this and take it to a PCC match. [Edit:] I hear the .357 Automag was actually much more reliable than the .44 Automag, so for a pistol + PCC match, I'd totally want my Browning 1919A6-Mk45B to be paired with an Automag, so for reliability reasons only, not coolness, I'd have to go with .357 Automag in both. With 180-grain sillouhette loads.
Regarding the striker fired rifle question I think the Blaser rifles kind of does this but by way of a thumb operated cocker/decocker instead of an ordinary safety. You can safely carry with a cartridge in battery and cock the action really fast when raising the gun. They also have really nice triggers.
Because of how shotgun shells are made- crimped- they cannot headspace on the front of the "case." The hull lengthens when fired. The length designation on a shotgun shell is the fired length, not the loaded length.
For the first question, there are several weapons where they couldn't be properly disassembled on camera (due to a variety of reasons - time, fragility, understanding). Seeing the mechanics isn't the only reason why FW is great, but it is still an important part of the contents value so it would be cool to see some of those redone. Even if the existing videos are still good, it would be good to see "complete" versions. The XM29 video also isn't up to the usual quality but I recognise there are reasons for that one.
Electric Gatling gun technology was only developed after ww2. It's more complicated than it might seem of course. eg. you have to develop an electrically driven linkless feed mechanism for supplying shells to the gun.
Would US and NATO have adopted the 7.62x51 mm cartridge if .30 Carbine had been a proper intermediate cartridge more similar to 7.62x39 mm or 7.92 Kurz or would they have kept the .30-06 cartridge for GPMGs and sniper rifles?
You'd need to find a way to remove Col. Rene Studler from BuOrd. And maybe a couple of Generals. Then the US would have honestly considered .280 British or a hypothetical 7.62x33 that used the 12mm case head of the .30-06.
Interestingly, we just had a customer that had us make him a gun shield for his vehicle mounted 1919a4. He also had us make the modifications to suppress it
With regard to double action rifles, the only example I can think of is the Spectre M4 submachine gun. It has a double action feature which makes the trigger ungodly heavy. Besides that example and maybe a few I can't think of, we only see "double action" on handguns because handguns can go without safeties because they have holsters. Rifles and shotgun do not and as Ian stated, they have more room for safeties.
Do not start 4k. This is based on many other youtube channels who uploaded much less content. They said 4k took insane amounts of storage, editing got very tedious and made the entire workflow a lot less efficient. I don't believe your content would benefit a lot from 4k, since it is already very clean.
When it comes to future developments in "cheap" guns look at what more expensive guns are doing now. New ideas start expensive and if they are good or popular enough companies find ways to mass produce them economically and those ideas spread into ever more affordable portions of the market. Red dot compatibility on pistols started at the top end and is now available on budget guns. Cell phones were exclusively the privilege of the rich for the first 2 decades they existed. Occasionally a new idea jumps towards the middle or low end if the company that thought of it is more focused on that sector of the market but that's the exception.
PCC manufacturers: we place the magazine forward, so the grip doesn't get a weird shape. Also, for your convenience, we use glock magazines...
Yeah Ian brings up good points but they go out the window because all these PCCs are using magazines designed for pistols. Pistols have perfectly ergonomic grips with double-stack single-feed mags, so there's really no point in not using a grip-mounted magazine. The Sub2000 does it perfectly well.
PCCs currently are one of the biggest scams in gun manufacturing in general, almost all are terribly overpriced straight-blowback junk.
@@PaulVerhoeven2 that's mostly true. Due to their unlocked breech they recoil like a full powered rifle.
That said, the muzzle blast is less than a rifle when fired indoors, and they are still slightly more powerful and MUCH easier to hit with than a pistol.
....but none of that negates your point.
@@johneden2033 One reason, when actually designing a gun, is that a hammer fired trigger system in a rifle style gun is 1000% easier to design than a design where the trigger is in front of the magazine like in a pistol.
@@PaulVerhoeven2 Yes, preach. People are obsessed with toys.
Please do some videos on biathlon rifles. That would be interesting. I'm also looking forward to your Finnish book.
Agreed. That would be cool as. I have no idea about that aspect.
Are looking forward to “finnishing” it?
Is that a Bay view redcat?
Actually, most (+95% of professionals) biathlon Rifles use a locking system like in this video Ian made:
th-cam.com/video/a-44H321Bsg/w-d-xo.html
A Fortner Ball-Bearing system. I believe only the russians still use toggle locks!
Hi Ian, you might wanna combine the biathlon rifle piece with a trip to Suhl in Germany. German rifle makers are at the forefront of development in that field, and they have an deepfreeze firing range there. DDR stuff etc. A documentary in german made by mdr television is here on TH-cam. Google for suhler buchsenmacher or five me a howler and i ll send a link.
About the M1A1 question - my dad *did* use one, with an M2 full auto group as a PDW during one of his Vietnam tours. Special circumstances - he was an Ordnance officer on MACV staff, and spending a lot.of time flying from firebase to firebase. So, one of his sergeants found him an old M1A1 stock *somewhere* and relieved the stock so it would accept the M2 bits. Dad kept it slung behind his back with a couple of spare mags in his shirt pockets, and basically forgot about it. As Dad said, "It was out of the way and just enough gun to get me away from the scene of the crash. Much easier to carry than the other choices, and not much more of a problem than the .45 on my hip."
Very cool.
Love and respect from Canada.
Awesome story.
At one time alot of helicopter pilots had modified full auto carbines then a new command policy and all locked up
My dad trained Paratroopers and basically said the same thing. He won the coonskin cap with both the Garand and the Carbine.
His favorite full auto was the M3 grease gun because of the slower rate of fire..
He was not a fan of a pistol for soldiers.. he said you can carry more ammunition for your “real gun” for the weight of the pistol..
The Olympics would be a lot cooler if the biathlon utilized the competitor's national service rifle.
Or Lathi anti-tank rifles.
guns are bad and .22 is the most the public can watch without getting scared.
Way back in the day, that's kind of what they did. It began as a purely military event. It went to targetized bolt actions in each nation's service rifle caliber, but then the few countries to use intermediate calibers got a competitive advantage over full power rifle calibers at the sort of ranges they were shooting. Added to that, full power rifles shot at paper targets at longer range meant nobody knew who had won until the targets got checked after everyone had crossed the finish line. That made it a poor spectator sport. Everyone involved agreed to standardise on .22 so they could level the playing field, and simultaneously simplify range construction and scoring by using steel targets that drop when hit. This makes it easy for everyone to see if you hit or miss in real time, so penalties can be applied during the race. Now in most events the first across the line wins, having served any penalties for missing out on the track by having to run extra laps or wait in a penalty box. So, the current version is more spectator- and television friendly and of course it's cheaper to build a range that's safe for .22 than one you can shoot .30-06 on.
The old style biathlon with service rifles is still around as a purely military sport, I recall we did it once during my military service back in the 90's. Wooden skis and G3 rifles, shot on paper targets with a complex scoring system combined with your time on the track.
In that case, I feel like the Swiss would win every time.
The public being scared of full power rifles in the Olympics is about the dumbest reasoning I've seen here. Organizing and training for a .22 event is just much simpler, and you can set up a range pretty much anywhere, unlike with full power rifles. IMO military biathlon could be a separate sport because of the range restrictions, but I wouldn't mind seeing some more of it. Not only with service rifles, but also military skis and kit instead of the streamlined cross-country skiing gear.
Ask a reenactor if he wants to live in the time period he or she re-enacts. They usually say “no way” because they know so much about that time period.
Regarding the answer about the biathlon rifles: The russian rifles do mostly use a toggle-lock system but the other nations mostly use a manually operated roller- or ball bearing locked system, called the Fortner System
I am a former biathlon athlete, that is why I know these guns quite well
Ian has a video about a rifle using a similar system:
th-cam.com/video/a-44H321Bsg/w-d-xo.html
@@svenblubber5448 Yes, It's the exact same system, just downscaled to .22lr on the biathlon rifles. I totally forgot about that video
Yeah, was going to say, the toggle action system is the one that was dominant in competition in the '70s from Finland and Russia, and Izhmash still makes it. Everyone else uses Anschutz.
@@flightlevel_300 Except for the Anschutz locking at the rear of the bolt, while the Heym locks in the front.
I've seen a Fortner Anschutz rifle set up as a target rifle and got a chance to have a fiddle with it. Such a smooth action and extremely cool, but of no practical benefit in that particular application over a traditional bolt action I don't think. Other than being really damn cool.
Drach in one of his recent Q&A's addressed the ship born AA defense issue. The problem was once you got into 43 the ability of planes to drop their ordinance at distance was beyond the 20mm capabilities and even stretching the 40mm bofors. The point of AA was to keep the enemy from even dropping their ordinance. Since it doesn't really matter if you shot the plane down if you get hit by a torpedo, or bomb.
Hence why the Des Moines class cruisers that the US was laying down in 1945 didn't even have Bofors guns, they had 5-inch dual-purpose guns like their predecessors as their heavy AA, and the "medium" AA was autoloading 3-inch guns.
@@Dafmeister1978 that was also because planes had gotten fast enough that you needed the extra range of the 3" guns.
It's just a shame that those guns were so overweight. The original plan was to replace a quad 40mm mount 1 for 1 with a dual 3" (and a dual 40mm for a single 3"). But by the time the 3" guns were built, they were so heavy that it ended up as a 3 for 2 swap. 3 quad Bofors for a pair of twin 3" guns.
The main reason they switch to 3" autocannon was because it was the smallest caliber able to be fitted with VT fuze.
Although of course in the end it boils down to shooting down attacking planes before it releases the payloads. Or in the case of late pacific war, to positively obliterate enemy planes out of the air since what previously acceptable as a "kill" was no longer enough if the enemy plane still carry enough mass and momentum for a kamikaze attack.
Thank you for the informative answers.
I would add to the last question about anti aircraft weapons.
The number of down planes went way up with the widespread use of proximity fuses.
The number of kills went up.
Both the Germans and the Japanese knew there was some technological advantage but were unable to reciprocate.
In terms of technological advancements during the war.
proximity fuses rate just behind early computers for code breaking and radar as having the biggest effect over the course of the war.
The actress Headley lamarr invented the proximity fuze! Fun fact.
@@DiggingFrance not true.
British military researchers at the Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) Samuel C. Curran, William A. S. Butement, Edward S. Shire, and Amherst F. H. Thomson conceived of the idea of a proximity fuze in the early stages of World War II.[8
Hedy Lamar is credited with inventing frequency hopping technology.
And she worked on early proximity fuses but she did not invent them.
@@shawnr771 ah, OK. The biography I watched gave her more credit than she was due! Still, smart lady.
@@DiggingFrance yes very.
She worked and aided lots of projects.
She is considered to be the Mother of Wifi and bluetooth.
The proximity fuses of that time required a minimum 5" shell.
Ian talking about converting controls to lefty and then forgetting about it reminds me of changing my controller setup to a more efficient layout and then forgetting about it in every gunfight and dying lol
Happened to me all the time with my mouse and keyboard. After a while, just gave up. :P
I just stick with the default controls. Never really had a problem.
It's a really simple thing but it meant a lot to me to have my question answered. Appreciate all that you do and keep up the good work Ian
Another reason why rimless shotgun shells, or more precisely, their headspacing on the end of the cartridge, wouldn't work, is that said end of the cartridge is crimped one way or another and has to de-crimp upon firing, meaning the material that makes up the crimp has to go somewhere and let the payload through.
After all, this is why the nominal length of a shotgun shell refers to the *UNCRIMPED* shell and not the crimped shell.
Yes but we could have something much more like a semi-rimmed cartridge. Also it is possible to standardize the crimp. And there's not really any reason why the way to seal the end of a shotgun shell has to be folding in the sidewalls. I think the 1950s or 60s Winchester experiment at 14 gauge really shows you what a shotgun shell ought to look like. And there's really no reason those couldn't be made out of plastic.
@@GunFunZS Even so there would still be all the hassle that comes with competing against a well-established system, provided the new kind of ammo even gets enough attention to gain a foothold on the market. But given the fact that the existing shotgun shells have also been used successfully in box magazines and drum magazines for quite some time the need for rimless shells has all but disappeared anyway.
One thing i would like to add to ammo counters. The HK433 has a ammo counter that does not display the current amount of ammo in the magazine. It just counts as much ammo has gone through the weapon in total (at least to my understanding). If that system is reliable and cheap there is some real benefit for civilian, military and police use. Beeing able to track this information has huge benefits for the management and administration purposes.
Rifle is fine.
Tracking the rounds through the gun won't help the "Auugh! The rounds I fired and the rounds I'm short don't add up!" problem doing the paperwork afterward.
Rifle caliber AA guns on a ship were of little value at the start of WWII and by the middle, there wasn't much value in 20mm. The USN's radar guided computer controlled 5" 38 cal mark 12 cannons were the real work horses since they could fire proximity fused shells. Imagine building a proximity radar using vacuum tubes and then you made it able to withstand the 20,000 Gs being fired from a cannon.
40mm Bofors remained relevant, but mainly the quad, or bigger groups, that had a radar guided fire control system.
20mm guns remained, but aircraft and their weapons had evolved to a point to where it was unlikely a strike aircraft would ever be inside the 20mm's effective range. They mostly acted to boost morale and to get a few more tracers in the air to unnerve pilots.
Regardless of effectiveness, it was USN policy to put so many AA guns on their capital ships that you'd trip over one every few feet, so an Iowa would have something like 70 40mm cannons and 50 some 20mm cannons.
The 40mm twin mounts @ 240 rpm could also be linked to the fire director. Shells were usually time fused to prevent friendly fire. Proximity fused rounds were made as well.
My source was as loader on a 40mm twin, USS Santa Fe, Pacific Theatre.
@@SonsOfLorgar the L70 uses a longer 40mm round, and is really a newer gun from the same company. The L70 fires nearly 3 times as many shells per minute the lan the L60.
You are *exactly* correct on the naval Gatling guns in WWII. The threat set they needed to defend against required the 20mm, 40mm, and even 3" and 5" guns. And even at 20mm, a rotary gun (even if you had the production TDP for the M61 gun) would be infeasible, because you really need to go to radar directed, computer aimed guns to make them work against inbound aircraft (the Phalanx CIWS, like all CIWS, is really designed to defeat the Cold War and later equivalent of the kamikaze - the cruise missile). And we simply didn't have the aiming radars and predictive computers needed to make them work effectively.
Nor would your weight savings be that much. There are reasons that you only see one or two (sometimes three on really large ships) Phalanx installations on USN ships today. A modern Mk15 Block 1B Phalanx is more than a *six tonne* installation with a large through deck penetration (or a huge doghouse on the deck).
You can stack a *lot* of 20mm Hispana-Suizas (even accounting for mount, ammo, and gun crew) for six metric tonnes, and you can spread them around for better coverage, more redundancy, and achieve the same weight of fire. Given the lack of a suitable fire control system and *reliable* , *accurate* , and *rapid* train & elevation mechanism that can swing that beast around, you're better off in 1945 with sailors manhandling a single barrel H-S 20mm using spider sights and the Mk1 Eyeball (and especially when you consider you're getting 6-10 individual guns for the same space & weight requirements, and much easier to position as each installation is fairly easy to stick on the deck edge without blocking access for everything else).
Where electric Galing guns in smaller calibers are useful on modern warships is for the destruction of swarms of small (often suicide) speedboats or jet skis... and even there, a twin-.50 mount (especially with the aircraft - M3M, AKA GAU-21/A; the current iteration of the WWII M3 .50 aircraft gun - versions) pretty.much buys you the same tactical effectiveness at a much smaller cost, higher resilience to damage (no electricity to worry about losing, for instance, and a Browning .50 is a pretty sturdy beast if the enemy prangs you with small arms fire or shell fragments), etc., making it generally a better choice than, say, an M134 "Minigun" or GAU-19 "GECAL .50". (Engineering shipboard weapons fits, especially for AT/FP and AA, are a huge part of my day job, and while I do love me some GAU-19, it's generally a better choice for, say, the ramp gun on an MH-47 or CH-53 than a destroyer.)
Shame the gas-powered HeliGun was developed a bit more. Had they sorted out the reliability it would've been a really good option for ship & aircraft use.
Actually it might not be all that unreliable compared to an M2 that isn't running quite right, like if the headspace is off.
@@mrkeogh By the time the development on the EX-17 Heligun even *began* , small arms MGs for air defense were already long obsolete, and the high ROF of the Heligun is really only useful in an aeroweapon role (either ground to air or air to ground role. Even SuperSized to .50BMG and even if the horrible reliability issues had been fixed, it wouldn't provide any *useful* advantage over the M2/M3 family for the Navy (in the AT/FP role), and comes with serious downsides, like consumption of ammunition faster than sailors can replace the cans.
The EX-17 Heligun was developed, as the name implies, for a *very specific* role (rifle caliber ground attack MG for mounting on *helicopters* ). It is *not* suited for roles where weight is one of the critical driving factors. Remember, you're generally going to be going back to base for several hours of maintenance after blowing through your first basic load of ammo on a aircraft mounted gun - it's OK if the parts wear faster than the relatively chunky bits on a Browning MG.
And its not like getting and keeping a Browning MG headsoaced and timed is some arcane art that is terribly difficult. US privates and seamen have been managing just *fine* for over 100 years (and the latest variants in US service even have *fixed* headspace - something we could have had back when the EX-17 was proposed, had we been willing to spend the money replacing legacy spare parts we had mountains of at the time). You really only have to set the timing on the gun when you reassemble it from a detail strip, and check the timing after a field strip (just to be sure)... and in the absence of an actual timing gauge, you can use a dime and a dogtag. Headspacing (even on the original M2HB and M3 guns) only has to be done when installing a barrel (and you can "get away with" the old rule of thumb of "screw in flush and back off two" almost all the time). Naval MG mounts do not normally replace the barrels in action, and if use is even anticipated, the guns are racked already timed and headspaced, so they can be dropped on the pintle in seconds.
So, a wonky, specialized gun that has increased parts breakage and an excessively high ROF for the role versus a combat proven solution woth a century of battle history that is robust enough we've found guns *in active service* that were 100 years old that had *never* needed a rebuild? Hmmm... let me think about which I'd rather rely on to stop a suicide speedboat...
Nailed int on the anit-kamikaze weapons. The "stand off" distance was hugely important. The 20mm mounts only had about 2000 yards range-or about 1.5 seconds of flight time "away" from the ships. So, they were mostly for morale, to give the cooks and clerks "something to do." The 40mm Bofors had a problem in that they had to hit something substantial in the aircraft-wing spars, landing gear, engine, etc.--to detonate, otherwise they just left a 2" hole and kept going. The real thing that worked was the 3"50 with VT fuses. These got to the Fleet in late June 1945. The VT fuse could not be made smaller than 3" at the time. But, they worked. The Mk 7, and later Mk 17 dual 3"50 mounts fir on a Quad 40 base ring (the weight though made them a 2 for 3 swap).
The other issue that would have limited electric Gatlings on naval vessels would have been the need to move large amount of ammo up to the mounts. Which would have been a large weight penalty than the guns & crew were.
I love your "right here, right now" answer regarding what era you'd like to live in. Best answer.
Every gun nut with a couple of old cars is now trying to be Ian's friend.😆
Also, I used to own a PV544 Volvo and the P1800 is the same car with a sleeker body. It was fun!
If only they could make a gun that made some sort of extra sound when you're out of ammo, like a Ping or something, and there could be a visual cue as well, a little bent sheet of metal could fly out with the ping noise... Would be even better if the little metal piece IS the magazine, or clip! Huzzah! Eh. It'll never happen.
@@douganderson7002 I mean, it was a joke, but I wasn't in ww2... Idk if what you say is true or just speculation, maybe we can find someone who was there to confirm or deny.
Man I used to love waking up early on the weekend and binge watching “Tales of the gun”!
That show was awesome.
I love listening to these q&a's, i think ive been thru the playlist twice and have had it on almost constantly in the background!
A brazilian made rifle suposedly have a double action trigger mechanism. The rifle is the bullpup LAPA FA03 and the story goes that the designer, Nelmo Suzano, used this type of system to compensate the lack of a traditional safety.
A long time ago I found in an old gun magazine in my country a singleshot shotgun with a single and double action mechanism operated by a selector lever. I never saw one of these weapons.
I think it's not a bad idea on weapons like a pump action shotgun. I don't know in a rifle, which requires more smoothness for an accurate shot.
@@treintaceroseis4763 yyyyÿt
I really like your videos
As for making a rimless 12 gau shotgun shell
It is being done by a number of people
As we have found the case can be head spaced off of the extractor
There is some HIGH Pressure 12 gau slug loads based on a blown out 50 BMG case
I have a H&R Ultra Slug Gun that has been reproofed to allow me to load the high pressure loads for 200 yard or longer shots
Even at 200 yards my saboted loads are flat shooting and still carry more than 1000 FPE
IMO a big reason most ammo makers will never load shells like I do is older guns
Ah, you're referring to the 12ga From Hell.
My Father was a biathlete and referred to the non-bolt actions as “Fortner Actions.” He still has his left-handed Lakefield .22 bolt-action biathlon rifle, the first left handed they ever made.
Great set of questions this month!
4:20 Thought about this quite a bit, I think shotgun shells should transition to being rebated rimmed and belted cased
It's been done before
To what end? Autoloaders and pumps work fine with rimmed cartridges. Single shots, side by sides and stackbarrels don't benefit from rimless cartridges at all. The LOA issue will never go away. And shotshells run at to low a pressure to need a belt.
Standard cartridges that have been effective and relatively inexpensive for over a century.
“Lets ruin it”
There's a short video somewhere on here that shows a belt fed 12 gauge pistol thing this one guy built. It's not rimless but it is belt fed.So it's not impossible just bot seen on mass scale
@@dravenmcgee3188 Belted ammo and belt-fed ammo are two different things. Belted ammo has a belt, as it says. Belt-fed ammo are linked to an ammo belt. The two aren't the same at all.
"The term belted magnum or belted case refers to any cartridge, but generally a rifle cartridge, with a shell casing that has a pronounced 'belt' around its base that continues 2-4 mm past the extractor groove."
57:57 It would in fact, take another ~40k years before rotary cannons of that caliber would be developed... :D
Throne knows.
There was a series just called “The Gun” on UK tv, that was a bit more accurate than “Tales of the gun” but also abit dryer to watch, and yes, it’s never been reshown.
I feel like I've seen that on TH-cam
@@dougpfaff4763 someone has indeed put them up on TH-cam! Thanks loads!
28:38 - "Tales of the Gun" Ians video gave me more historical info on the colt company then the historys "Tales of the Gun" .Thank You !
Rimless shotgun shell shotguns have been marketed to law enforcement and military markets, but both that I know of have failed due to high admission cost due to economy of scale.
As a european 2CV owner, I must say it's a great car to have. However, I'm not a big fan of tinkering either. Living in Europe makes access to parts and skilled labor easy, so I can keep my car in good shape.
Hey Ian thanks for answering my question. I do plan on building mounts for my 1919a4 so it’s definitely going on my pickup!
Used to be, you couldn't walk into a gun with without there being at least 50 Mosins for $80, and that usually included a cleaning kit, bayonet and sling.
Regarding the alternative carry gun to revolvers or autos, the three barrel ‘derringer’ in .30 Super Carry would seem ideal to keep it slim, with ammunition optimized for short barrels.
My time machine purchase is a K31, I got mine in 2006 for $89. They are $600-$700 now
Heck even Mosins would have been a good investment. I'm still shocked at what they are selling for these days
40:39 The M1919A6 also has a redesigned muzzle bearing that allowed the barrel to be changed by unscrewing it with the combination wrench and pulling it out through the front of the jacket instead of dismantling the receiver.
Totally agree with Ian and being of a similar age this era is the best in terms of quality of life and I too would love to skip forward a hundred years or more to see what happens in terms of technology. There is a bit too much nostalgia for times that people may think were simpler but I don't fancy having to trudge to a communal pump for water and crap in a bucket under my bed, have my clothes washed in piss, get poisoned by the wallpaper or die before 20 to some now easily treatable infection.
Sure, but I think no one would disagree that if you were born in the early 1930s and didn't have to serve in WWII or Korea you probably had the easiest life (compared to other times and regions not people). No one thinks they'd die of dysentery or leprosy when they put on their Nostalgia glasses.
sure but look at the amount of drugs sold in chemists back then..plus they had very little drug problems...or crime not like now. think they both go hand in hand
@@foxxy46213 I definitely agree with your point there that the failed war on drugs massively fuels crime and the commercialisation of the penal system. Also on balance I think there was just as much crime if not more so in the past, it was not recorded and seen as acceptable as long as it stayed in the shadows.
@@foxxy46213 Are you completely unaware of Prohibition? There was lots of residual crime from that well into the late 30's.
51:14- To my knowledge the Magpul/Maztech round counting technology will be the first to do a total aggregate count. The X4 system will count the rounds in your rifle as well as the rounds remaining on your person. Similar to a video game e.g. 30/300
I guarantee Ian could find someone with a cool car collection, who would love to share his cars as long as Ian shares his guns.
Federal’s 30 Super Carry is essentially a modification of an earlier round they developed with Ruger. That round is 327 Federal Magnum. It uses the same diameter (.312 in/7.92mm) bullet and pretty much the same pressure (45,000psi) but in a different case. So while it might be similar to 7.65 French Long, I would say it is really 327 Fed Mag Auto.
With the ammo counter thing, I wonder if a low ammo indicator would be more practical, like an indicator when the magazine is below a certain number of rounds remaining. That way it doesn't require a change of focus, just seeing the indicator flash red so you are aware you need to change mags soon.
In star wars expanded universe han solos sidearm has a 25 shot capacity that pulsed in your hand silently when you were down to five. I always thought that was a great idea.
"Assuming we haven't destroyed the world in WWIII" -Ian the day Russia invaded.
Foreshadowing 🥺
March 2nd now. This is looking possible.
Ammo counter - how about three studs in the grip. As the last few cartridges clear the magazine, an internal finger moves which pushes a bump into the palm of the hand. Basically a simple Braille for 3, 2, 1 or 15, 10, 5 depending on the capacity.
You can feel it without looking being the main advantage, and it is mechanical so no batteries.
That is a cool idea!
Buuut if there's one thing I've learned watching forgotten weapons it's that cool ideas that ultimately aren't vital to a weapons functionality are often ditched to reduce production costs or to simplify production. Your idea sounds like it could be simple enough on paper but a pain to actually implement into the weapon.
Not trying to be a dick, just commenting my thoughts, and genuinely that is one of the more interesting solutions I've heard to the problem of keeping track of your rounds!
Ooh so instead of having an internal finger which sounds complicated why not have built in tactile-sort-of-deal notches in the magazine. Find a way to make a feeling without screwing up feeding sounds promising!
Hi Ian I have just enjoyed your (as usual) excellent clip on the Henry conversion to centre fire! It suddenly became clear to me the toggle joint relationship to the Maxim, Borchardt Luger & also the Vickers & a few others no doubt I am not aware of! Possibly this relationship could form a subject for another article? Maybe already done ..my ignorance is massive. Regards rich
Not sure if it's the bourbon I have sipping on since the start of this video but I don't think I have ever been so intrigued by a guy sitting there talking about questions I never would have thought of.
On the WWII AA guns I'd also say that if you ran a Gatling gun fast enough to be able to replace multiple AA mounts, you wouldn't be able to keep it supplied with ammunition. The 20mm Oerlikon and 40mm Bofors were resupplied by people hand carrying clips or magazines of ammo to the gun. And those multiple mounts would each have their own set of ammo runners constantly bringing more ammo - but you couldn't get several mounts worth of runners all trying to shove ammo into a single Gatling mount.
(The Phalanx CIWS Gatling has, depending on version blow through their, roughly, 1000 to 1,500 round magazines somewhere between 20 and 31 seconds. Good luck reloading that before the next kamikaze makes their attack.)
Plus multiple mounts means you can direct some fire at a lot more targets than if you have a single higher rate of fire mount -- and that has a measurable effect is reducing attackers effectiveness even if you're getting fewer hits per minute. And don't forget that due to the available fire control technology during the war even director controlled AA mounts (which weren't the norm) usually had to 'walk' tracers onto target because they weren't accurate enough for "blindfire". A really high rate of fire just means you're wasting more round while getting on target -- but since a single round is supposed to be enough to kill a target it doesn't do you any good to ramp up the rate of fire after you're on target.
(And additional issue is that the 20mm used unpowered mounts, which could be bolted nearly anywhere, so it'd be a bigger effort to replace them with powered mounts where you'd need to run adequate electricity to wherever the gun happened to be).
In 2001 I'd buy all the $50 Mosin 91/30s I could get my hands on, and wait...
Tah dah! 600 Grand!
I enjoyed your Military Patrol article.
BTW when a South African offers this stuff, it's generally for real. That's part of the sense of humour.
A book about Finnish small arms, you say? I thought winning the Olympic ice hockey tournament would be the end of great news for a while, but no! We're truly blessed! I better start saving money for it right now
The two "medium" caliber AA guns that USN Bu. Ord started to work on by late WW2 were the 3"/50 RF and 3"/70 RF AA guns both having a rate of fire of up to 50 rounds per minute. On the heavier side you have the semi auto 5"/54 Mark 16 with the automatic 5"/54 Mark 42 not starting design till 1950, though a automatic 5"/54 gun does come up in a 1944 prelim design for a CLAA. Even heavier you have 6"/47 DP Mark 16 automatic gun which work started on in 1943, this was the largest true DP, dual purpose, gun the USN and RN designed. The even larger 8"/55 RF Mark 16s, work started on it in 1943 also, aren't true DP guns but training films and some literature does suggest they could have been pushed into an AA role if needed. On the US army side there was the 75mm sky sweeper AA guns. All the guns mentioned were designed to be slaved/linked up to radar fire control for accuracy and tracking of complex moving targets.
And with proximity fuse the effectivness went up
The USN 3" guns and the 75mm Skysweeper were intended to replace the Bofors 40mm, because jets were fast enough that a Bofors couldn't get enough weight of shell downrange in time.
Congratulations on passing one billion views on youtube!
The M1 Carbine has become difficult to find and expensive.
I blame video games
CIWS systems also use advanced radar and sensors to automatically identify and track targets, which we didn’t have the capacity to make in WW2
Thank you for yet another excellent informative video. In reference to shotshells, as you said manufacturers are notorious for making to slightly different lengths possibly to get a little more power out of their ammunition as I have found I sometimes cannot get the 7 shells of high brass or high velocity in my tube magazine but usually can with target or low recoil. And do not forget the 2-3/4, 3 and 3-1/2 inch lengths refer to unloaded shells. My overall thoughts on this video people come up with some crazy questions, but I did learn a lot.
What you were saying about pistol cartridges being extra spicy so they can shoot out of shorter barrels really seems to apply to .44 mag. Its a nice round out of a pistol, but out of a rifle, it really hits hard.
Actually, most (+95% of professionals) biathlon Rifles use a locking system like in this video you made:
th-cam.com/video/a-44H321Bsg/w-d-xo.html
A Fortner Ball-Bearing system. I believe only the russians still use toggle locks!
There also has been a ,I think east german, biathlon rifle that used the whole grip on a axis to cycle the action.
@@bob445566DE there were multiple sysltems using the grip, or levers on the grip, but they were all banned. Since then everyone apart from the russians uses the Fortner system.
Thank you , Ian .
🐺
Mount a hochkiss machine gun on the roof rails of a 2cv and Ian can tool around in a French technical.
Hello Ian. Would be cool to see you in one of these "loony"-channels like Demo-Ranch, Kentucky-Ballistics or Edwin Sarkissian. Just for fun. Or invite some of them to make some interesting fun. And who knows, at least Matt has a whole bunch of Weapons you might find interesting for a video. See ya !
the content is perfect ,like going to gun school history his wealth of knowledge is priceless to a gun fan ,i think that's cool he actually takes and answers questions
AK’s have grown a lot in value in 20 years
Thank you for answering my SMG question.
Also not surprised at the Francophile wants to drive a 2CV.
They are fun to drive!
During World War 1, the Germans used far more captured allied tanks than they built tanks of their own. I imagine the allies ended up having to deal with their own former gear at least a few times.
Far more? How many is that?
@@beargillium2369 I can't find a good figure, but Wiki has the following (unsourced, alas) "By the end of the war, a total of 170 Beutepanzers were still in running condition" I assume more were captured and used at various stages. By contrast, Germany built 20 of its own A7V tanks. By contrast the British made about 2500 and the French made 4500 or so.
@@creanero interesting
@@creanero I can find a handful of occasions when Germans in WWI used tanks and those include the two occasions where tanks faced tanks
I would love to see some videos on Olympic rimfire and air weapons like grunig & Elmiger, Bliker, Morini, pardini Feinwerkbau ect.
Thanks that was very informative and there was a nice informality vibe
The rimless shotgun cartridge has been tried. It was called the RAS12g. Kinda weird and made for an AR upper.
That just proves that you can't have a new caliber without someone testing it in an ar15 or ar 10 upper
"Can only be spent on firearms, how terrible!" lol, such a tough spot to be in.
4k Forgotten Weapons sounds so prime.
Thanks for another informative Q&A! When you eventually upgrade your production gear, consider moving further into 6K, or perhaps even high speed 8K.
Modern biathlon rifles are not toggle lock at the highest level! The Izhmash used lower down are indeed toggle lock straight pull, but the main biathlon rifle of these days is the Anschutz/Fortner 1827F straight pull. It uses a ring of steel ball bearings at the rear to lock. The bolt handle pivots back about 1/4" to cock the striker under the trigger finger which is most of the force required, and then the whole bolt unit comes back straight. On the way back forward, you push it with the thumb and the bolt handle snaps back forward the rest of the way like a mouse trap. It's incredibly smooth and fast, allowing you to get your trigger finger back where it needs to be while the thumb pushes things forward.
Anschutz also offers the 1727F which is a very similar action in a hunting rifle BUT NOT THE SAME. The barrel lug on these do not allow them to go into other Anschutz Match 54 (or Fortner) footprint stocks. They also offer the 1927F which is the 1727F receiver and a match barrel that does fit into the Match 54 footprint, and the F27A Challenger which is a single shot rifle for ISSF smallbore competition.
In regards to the last question the the Brits had the STAAG system at the end of the war for the 40mm Bofors with a unmanned mount controlled by hydraulics and an onmount radar system for targeting. The whole system could fire and load from a bin on hydraulic actuation, the crew only had to load the reload bins on the mount. So not quite an electrically driven gun like the mini-gun, but hydraulically loaded and recoil operated.
People who don't believe in fate should consider the odds of Ian McCollum and Tony Neophytou randomly bumping into each other in a museum in Paris, because they both coincidentally happened to be there in the same display hall, at the same time, on the same day.
Re:Ammo Counters: I wonder if something color coded would work better (with iron sights). An LED mounted on the top of the gun with green for full, yellow for half, red for 5 rounds left. It would provide an immediate indicator that you didn't need to shift focus for, albeit at the expense of precision. I think the ammo counter in the optical sight is something that will come as soon as it's economically feasible, since it frankly makes an enormous amount of sense.
M1919 A4 SAW: I have always thought it would be a formidable combo to have an ATV with a mounted LMG carrying as much ammo as it could and going almost everywhere a squad could go
I would loved to see some video's on early American Over/ Under rifle / shotgun combo's. I learned how to shoot with a mod 24 Savage .22/.410. But there were a few made such as the Marble's Game Getter.
Have you ever visited Sarco? This would be a very interesting vlog if you could get up there and they would let you film.
Did you ever visit the knob creek gunshow and shoot?
What was your first gun purchase?
Time machine answer, buy tons of SKSes, 5 times your money now.
Winchester 22s in the 30s don't have serials. Put you a name social under the buttplate.
I wouldn't want to live ahead in time as there won't be as many affordable guns.
With reference to the rimless cartridge thing, it'd be unsafe having the cartridge headspace on the front of the cartridge I think on account of the fact that the rolled turnover or crimp would need space to open. If you have metal where the case is meant to open out into, you'd have hugely dangerous chamber pressures, not to mention,the case of a cartridge is so very thin, that you'd need a significant step in the barrel from the chamber. I also reckon the shot and wad wouldn't make it out of the chamber and blow your face off 😄
When you get the new camera, get more lights.
Take a Swedish-K; now visualize a Browning 1919A4 over it; now adjust that 1919 to the .44 Automag. Hang an ammo bag under the action for a 75- or 150-round belt, and attach an extension to attach a bipod or vertical fore-grip to the pintle-mount. Use the quick-change barrel feature to use an 8-inch barrel as a submachine-gun for room-clearing and a 16-inch barrel for use as a support weapon.
[EDIT:] I first thought of this when a veteran of early-Vietnam was telling me of riverine patrols, where engagement range was typically 25- to 50-yards into heavy cover and never over 200; and he mentioned a crank-firing Honeywell 40mm grenade launcher that was really popular with them because a gunner could learn to pace his cranking to walk his fire. The boats also had Browning .30 cals. He also mentioned carrying, at different times, the Swedish-K in its integrally-suppressed version; and, coincidentally, a fully-automatic M1A1 carbine that was cut down as a bush-chopper (he'd learned about that from his dad), when on incursion patrols.
With the engagement range and the .44 Automag being based on cut-down .308 brass my mind went spinning into 180-240-300 weight loads for heavy brush, etc., etc.
Yes, totally not a thing; also, really cool. I so want to build this and take it to a PCC match.
[Edit:] I hear the .357 Automag was actually much more reliable than the .44 Automag, so for a pistol + PCC match, I'd totally want my Browning 1919A6-Mk45B to be paired with an Automag, so for reliability reasons only, not coolness, I'd have to go with .357 Automag in both. With 180-grain sillouhette loads.
I would gofundme a 4k camera for Ian to make these videos even better!
Ian: No, why look back, they're all perfect?
Regarding the striker fired rifle question I think the Blaser rifles kind of does this but by way of a thumb operated cocker/decocker instead of an ordinary safety. You can safely carry with a cartridge in battery and cock the action really fast when raising the gun. They also have really nice triggers.
LOL! The M2 carbine was my dad's favorite during his service in the army in Korea and Vietnam.
Love Tales of the Gun
They could interview Ian the gun Jesus for a reboot of tales of the gun, on the subject of French small arms, the son of the gun god
Because of how shotgun shells are made- crimped- they cannot headspace on the front of the "case." The hull lengthens when fired. The length designation on a shotgun shell is the fired length, not the loaded length.
For the first question, there are several weapons where they couldn't be properly disassembled on camera (due to a variety of reasons - time, fragility, understanding). Seeing the mechanics isn't the only reason why FW is great, but it is still an important part of the contents value so it would be cool to see some of those redone. Even if the existing videos are still good, it would be good to see "complete" versions.
The XM29 video also isn't up to the usual quality but I recognise there are reasons for that one.
Electric Gatling gun technology was only developed after ww2. It's more complicated than it might seem of course. eg. you have to develop an electrically driven linkless feed mechanism for supplying shells to the gun.
Would US and NATO have adopted the 7.62x51 mm cartridge if .30 Carbine had been a proper intermediate cartridge more similar to 7.62x39 mm or 7.92 Kurz or would they have kept the .30-06 cartridge for GPMGs and sniper rifles?
Given the US's reaction to .280 British -- yes, they would have still insisted n 7.62x51
You'd need to find a way to remove Col. Rene Studler from BuOrd. And maybe a couple of Generals.
Then the US would have honestly considered .280 British or a hypothetical 7.62x33 that used the 12mm case head of the .30-06.
Interestingly, we just had a customer that had us make him a gun shield for his vehicle mounted 1919a4. He also had us make the modifications to suppress it
the gun shield sounds cool as hell... but a supressed machine gun? weve all seen that video of that SAW melting a can.
@@MrAndrewfreeman semi auto 1919
Gunsmith Vatland in Norway also do good work on biathlon rifles.
With regard to double action rifles, the only example I can think of is the Spectre M4 submachine gun. It has a double action feature which makes the trigger ungodly heavy.
Besides that example and maybe a few I can't think of, we only see "double action" on handguns because handguns can go without safeties because they have holsters. Rifles and shotgun do not and as Ian stated, they have more room for safeties.
I really wish we had rimless shotgun cartridges or even a dumbed down S&W 500 Auto Max.
There was a minimum size to support proximity fused munitions. The proximity fuse is what stopped the Divine Wind.
I love cars, I have a 1980 Corvette, 1981 Camaro and 1981 Trans Am
Thank you.
That’s an awesome dinner/smoking jacket
Do not start 4k.
This is based on many other youtube channels who uploaded much less content.
They said 4k took insane amounts of storage, editing got very tedious and made the entire workflow a lot less efficient.
I don't believe your content would benefit a lot from 4k, since it is already very clean.
Talking about reality shows on the History Channel, I really enjoyed the show Top Shot.
When it comes to future developments in "cheap" guns look at what more expensive guns are doing now. New ideas start expensive and if they are good or popular enough companies find ways to mass produce them economically and those ideas spread into ever more affordable portions of the market. Red dot compatibility on pistols started at the top end and is now available on budget guns. Cell phones were exclusively the privilege of the rich for the first 2 decades they existed. Occasionally a new idea jumps towards the middle or low end if the company that thought of it is more focused on that sector of the market but that's the exception.