Comments by "Sar Jim" (@sarjim4381) on "Forgotten Weapons" channel.

  1.  @baneofbanes  He apparently wants to let us know that nothing in North America is old enough to be truly historic, or at least not Euro-historic, because those of us over here don't understand history.
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  2.  @davidmeyer3795  Probably so, but Germans have had car liability insurance for a long time and still have trouble with Kraftfahrzeug-Haftpflichtversicherung.
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  3. It didn't take those in charge to recognize this idea. A broken leg generally wasn't enough to do more than get you sent to a rear area hospital. Once you were discharged, you were immediately courts martialed and ended up in the brig for a couple months on bread at hard labor or Leavenworth. Most guys didn't want that to be the end of their service since they knew they'd get no GI benefits and have a lot of trouble getting a job.
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  4. Matt, I'm sure that's true. Ian says that the standard M-14 mag won't fit while Rock Island says they will. I'm just trying to ascertain which is correct.
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  5. Harrington & Richardson still makes a line throwing gun that's basically a sawed off shotgun converted with a very heavy barrel and using a 45/70 black powder blank. It will throw a line out about 150 yards and is the first step in establishing a breeches buoy between ships. I had the misfortune of firing one of these and, even though I've fired a lot of full power rifles, the bruise from this one took about a week to heal.
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  6. Usually I want one of each of every gun on Ian's show. In this case, I'll just stand aside and let someone else have mine.
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  7. Cue up the G36 fans!
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  8.  @nirfz  There wasn't any kind of "black market" in the US in 1895. Even then, arson investigators were pretty good at their jobs. Most such fires were set to collect on the fire insurance, mostly for the structure, but sometimes to cover inventory at an inflated cost. Arson was considered a capital crime in many states in 1895, and you could hang if it was proved you set the fire. Not saying it didn't happen, because it obviously did, just saying it was less common than we might suppose today, and many of those who did it were caught and aptly punished.
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  9. All that for a little more than a month before the end of the war.
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  10.  @Mishn0  So that means it wasn't historic then?
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  11. Up to 2 dislikes now. Probably two people who don't like any revolvers.
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  12. Seems like it was designed to have a grip and trigger assembly that mimics a Colt 1911.
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  13. Yep, my Century conversion has slamfires and stuck cases. I always thought this was just a Century problem so I'm interested to find the same issues plagued the French conversions as well.
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  14. France, a country which spent four years trying to find any kinds of weapons to fight against tyrannical occupiers, now wants to make sure it's as difficult as possible or impossible for citizens to get any kinds of weapons. The EU, an organization with a long history of fighting a guerilla war, is "helping" with the regulations. Makes sense to me.
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  15.  @dzejrid  And this is in Canada. Anything else valuable to add?
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  16. I'm always amazed at how well you learn disassembly for the hundreds of guns you've reviewed. I have a hard enough time with my AK.
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  17.  @AdamosDad  The Newport News was a great cruiser. She and other members of the Des Moines class were the most effective heavy cruisers in any navy. It's just too bad that she fired over 60,000 rounds in combat with no major problems and had to suffer that barrel detonation while on yet another fire mission in 1972. The Navy's biggest mistake was not repairing her and retaining her in service. The time will come when we need those big guns for another war and now she's gone.
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  18. Emmanuel, in the early years of the war, the French Milieu was the main source of weapons, just as they had been for all organized crime groups before the war. By mid-1944, the main source of weapons was from dead Vichy and German troops plus raiding police stations and isolated arsenals. The Americans and British dropped many thousands of containers of small arms, mainly Sten guns, plus thousands of pounds of plastic explosives. The problem for the Marqui fighters at Vercors was not a lack of small arms, it was the lack of heavy weapons, as I wrote above.
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  19. By heavy weapons in this case I mean light to medium mortars. There was no way to get heavier artillery on the massiv and very few fighters with any training on how to use them anyway. You're correct about the quality of "troops" fighting the Germans. Many of them were excellent guerillas but terrible infantry. The two skill sets are much different. It would have been much better for France, the Allies, and those that died in the battle if they had remained guerrillas. However, that would not have given De Gaulle the propaganda victory he so desperately needed.
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  20. Flo and his team should have been kept on for the WWII series. Compared to the Great War series, the WWII one, apparently being run by Indy Nidel, is really terrible by comparison.
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  21. Don't forget Western Auto, once one of the biggest sellers of .22 rifles and 12 gauge shotguns, all made for them by other companies under contract.
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  22. @FREN Well, there is the bell tower of San Miguel Mission, built between 1610 – 1626, El Morro, from 1539, and Jamestown Church from 1639, not forgetting Bacon's Castle in Virginia, built in 1665, plus the Newport Tower in Rhode Island from at least 1670, so we do have a few things here.
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  23.  @Deadtileyedie  It's pretty sweet for such an old gun. Well cast and machined with a nice finish. Probably looked even nicer when it was new and sitting in the showcase. It was my first handgun I bought when I was 18 (that's how old you had to be in 1964). The dealer had two of them, and this one cost me $2 more than a ratty looking one. I summoned up my courage and plunked down my twelve bucks. :-) I keep hearing conflicting information about if it's strictly black powder or will handle smokeless. Just to be safe, I handload my own ammo for it with a 10% decrease in smokeless powder charge . It handles this load fine, but I don't think I want to try a 118 year old gun made on the cusp of smokeless powder with a modern round.
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  24. Sold for $28,750, so that would have been quite the return on investment for $150.
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  25. The US Navy developed the Mark 57 Gunfire Control System late in the war. It wasn't really a better optical control system than the original Mark 51 director, but it added radar for use in reduced visibility conditions. One Mark 57 then controlled four Mark 51 directors. The Mark 51's were still useful in good visibility, but any massed gunfire lasting more than a minute or so caused the targets to be obscured by gun smoke. That's when the Mark 57 took over and controlled the four 40 mm quad mounts instead of the four separate Mark 51 directors.
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  26. Slaw, that was the most amazing rewriting of Polish WWII history I've ever seen.
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  27.  Matt Eagle  No reason to believe me at all, but those that served can tell if I'm being truthful.
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  28. Of course there wouldn't have been as many lost charging handles if not for the rather silly rule about removing the bolt.
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  29.  @Agentcoolguy1  I'm glad I wasn't the only one.
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  30. Nice looking guns, but no apparent advantage over all the other 9mm parabellums flooding the market in the 50's.
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  31.  @johnfisk811 Quite true. Concrete floors were in their infancy in 1895, so wood block flooring was about the only thing strong enough to support heavy machinery. These did tend to get oil soaked over time, and the older the factory, the bigger the issue. In many cases. the first outside sign of fire was the structure was fully involved, hence the old saw about never losing a foundation. This is why night watchmen were so important then. It wasn't primarily to keep out burglars. They were the only hope of getting fire equipment and men there soon enough not to lose the whole factory.
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  32. I bought one of the Century Arms 7.62 Nato conversions in 1991 for $220. The bore was well done, and armory had redone the parkerizing and refinished the wood. What Century didn't do was enough testing after the conversion. Apparently they shortened the barrel so they could cut new metal for the 7.62 chamber, shortened the gas tube to match the 9/16" barrel offset, and left the original French springs and recoil system in place. A friend of mine ordered one at the same time. I think these were among the first Century conversions. Mine would never fire a full mag without a jam of some kind, some of which got stuck so badly it required a rod and rubber mallet to free it from the chamber. My buddy's rifle would happily go through multiple mags without a problem. Type of ammo didn't matter in mine, but his could fire cruddy surplus ammo all day. Mags for the 7.62 guns are also crazy expensive now, $50 and higher last I looked. Unless you can confirm from the owner his gun is a shooter, avoid the Century conversions. I've heard of slamfire issues with the 7.5 guns, but they can be fixed with a change ot the firing pin, again from what I've heard. I will say mine was a good shooter when it was feeding rounds properly, about equal to a Garand in accuracy. Unless you're like Ian and just an aficionado of French guns, there are many better shooters than the 56/49.
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  33. No, buying guns is like any other collectible. You concentrate on what you know and buy those rather one each of every collectible gun. All collectibles will have a volatile price action so they shouldn't be more than 20% of a portfolio. I could buy an MP43 for about $500 in 1960, a brand new Colt .45 for $52.50, or a Boys anti tank rifle with all the accessories and seven extra mags for $110. Not a bad investment for any of them.
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  34. Dang. Do you have guards around that display when it's in public? Very professional looking execution.
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  35.  @bikecommuter24  S&W Model 10 revolvers were standard Air Force issue from about 1950 until the early 90's. Everyone from pilots to the Air Police carried them. The Aircrewman wasn't a sidearm. It was a survival pistol packed in parachute packs, later replaced by the AR-7 .22 caliber takedown rifle.
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  36. Dunno. I'm just looking for an authoritative answer.
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  37. Amazon is selling the book for $30 plus $4 shipping, not a bad price for a niche book like this one.
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  38.  Hoghs  I have a Norinco copy of an Ithaca 37 bought before the Norinco ban. It's a very well made and finished gun. I've put at least 500 rounds through it over the years with no failures or breakages.
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  39.  @Schmidt54  My high school German is pretty rusty but Schlegel is usually something like a chicken drumstick and Milch is, pretty obviously, milk. How that combines in German seems to not have a direct English equivalent.
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  40. I'm almost sure it's an MGL or Hawk MM1. A Manville gun would probably not be in very good shape if it was in normal use because the winding spring would have broken and they aren't replaceable unless a new part is machined by hand. They would also be worth too much money on the resale market to use in ordinary police work. I saw an original Manville gas gun in our armorers office when I first became a peace officer in the early 70's. It disappeared shortly afterwards and I imagine it was sold to a firearms dealer or collector.
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  41. As long as you have a self directed IRA or pension plan, investing in some scare but not rare guns is a good kind of 30 year investment, kind of like gold and silver coins. There's a good chance that scarce guns will become at least semi-rare in 30 years, as will numismatic coins. Unfortunately, my pension plan didn't become self directed until late in my career but, for young guys, it's worth looking into.
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  42. Indeed, it would have been. The Old Man has passed on to his well deserved reward now, but I'm sure he must roll over a little seeing the prices those cannon fetch now.
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  43. I bought a Model 30P in 1983 for off-duty carry. At 15+1, it was the highest capacity 9mm carry gun at the time. It was big enough it just barely qualified as a carry gun but it gave me a good feeling knowing I was carrying the equivalent of a mag and a half in any other 9mm carry gun of the time. It was a fine gun, well built and accurate. I traded it for a Llama .45 Colt revolver Model 29 look alike with six inch barrel and $100. I don't regret the trade but I would like to latch on to another Model 30P if I could find one.
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  44. Woo Hoo. How do I sign up to work with Ian!
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  45.  @erikdingman9806  Why? What exactly was a poor display of our appreciation of history? 80,000 of these muskets were produced, and many of them were converted to percussion long before they were declared surplus. All the ones that were converted to shotguns were these previous percussion conversions. There are over 100 of the originals flintlocks still around and thousands of the percussion guns. What do you think should have been done with them?
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  46. Cinnabun, I think it's very unlikely that collector quality bolt actions or semiautos are ever going to be seized. There's no registry of many of these weapons as there is for machine guns so seizing them would be a logistical nightmare. I have...err, a friend has four rifles, one bolt action and three semiautos. They were never registered anywhere and were bought either before any federal checks or by private sale. How would the government ever seize those guns?
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  47. Amazingly, the .45 Colt round is still in use today, albeit with some modern changes so the round will eject reliably from lever action rifles. It's now at 146 years old and still going strong. It's one of the few patented rounds that survived until the expiation of the patent and became a widely used round in its own right. I have an Astra .45 Colt revolver that, at first glance, appears to be a copy of the S&W N frame guns, including the "Dirty Harry" .44 magnum. The internals are completely different, and the fit and finish certainly rivals the best N frame revolvers produced by S&W. Comparing target work with an S&W Model 10 I own that's in like new condition, the Astra will consistently shoot better groups at 50 yards. The.45 Colt is still a hard hitting round, and it's a great combination with the Astra 6" barrel revolver. These guns show up fairly regularly and sell for $250 to $450. If you're in the market for a modern .45 Colt revolver, you won't go wrong with an Astra.
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  48. The link to the article on Ian's website doesn't work for me. (8:00 CDT, 8/20)
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  49.  @legionitalia309  Yeah, I had a buddy with one and his worked great. I know several other guys from the range that had ones that worked like mine.That's what makes these rifles so frustrating. You can't tell just by looking at them which one will work and which one won't.
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  50. "I feel like Ian is way, way less creepy, though. Like 100% less creepy" iatsd, I was responding to what Mike Lilienthal wrote. That's a quote above. You either think I was responding to someone else or your reading comprehension is sorely lacking.
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