Unsubscribe Podcast Ep. 241 – "What Are The Rarest Weapons In The World?"
Podcast Hosts: Eli Doubletap, Brandon Herrera, Donut Operator, The Fat Electrician
Special Guest: Ian McCollum (Forgotten Weapons)
Release Date: December 1, 2025
Overview
This episode is a deep-dive, gun-nerd spectacular bringing together some of YouTube’s premier firearms experts—including Ian McCollum of Forgotten Weapons—for a lively roundtable on the rarest, strangest, and most impressive weapons in history. With the Unsubscribe crew driving the conversation, the episode covers everything from the technical weirdness of experimental caseless rifles and anti-tank monsters to how patents shaped firearms evolution, collecting unicorn guns, and unforgettable “are-you-kidding-me” moments in weapons history. If you love obscure hardware, hilarious tangents, and learning what makes a gun truly one-of-a-kind, this is your jam.
Key Discussion Points and Insights
1. Meet the Panel & Episode Hype
- Ian’s Introduction – Known for “mini-documentaries” on all types of forgotten military firearms, Ian’s obsession is to eventually document every military firearm ever made.
- (05:09) Ian: “The ultimate goal is basically to have video content on every military firearm ever made, which is an impossible goal, but that's the guiding point.”
- Brandon’s Excitement – Brandon is especially stoked for this gun-nerd “crossover.”
- (02:59) Brandon: “I am very excited for this episode.”
2. What Makes a Gun “Rare”?
- The Fractal Nature of Weapons Collecting
- Every firearm line branches into endless variants, sub-models, national makes, and experimental prototypes.
- (05:32) Ian: “They're fractal... Inside each one of those branches is just another fractal set.”
- Rarity Isn’t Just Age or Numbers
- Discussed examples: HK G11 (caseless ammo rifle), Steyr ACR (flechette ammo), Gyrojet pistol, and more.
- Some rare guns are famous for their technical impossibility or for being the evolutionary “dead ends.”
- (07:03) Ian: “It's 4.6 millimeter caseless, three round hyper burst at like, 1800. Yeah, yeah.”
- (07:47) Ian: “I have 11 rounds [of G11 ammo].” (half-joking about how shooting it is impossible)
- Rare Ammo: Aging, Value & Fragility
- Old experimental ammunition like Gyrojet is deteriorating; original rounds now fetch $200+ each but may not even fire.
- (08:01) Ian: “If you have original Gyrojet ammo, shoot it now, because that stuff is deteriorating, and in 20 years, none of it's gonna work.”
- Brandon shares real-world testing woes: at least 1 in 3 rounds malfunction.
- (08:13) Brandon: "...at least 1 out of 2, maybe one out of three rounds... had some sort of malfunction..."
3. Experimental Firearms: Adventurous Failures and Ingenious Dead-Ends
- Caseless & Flechette Weapons
- G11: Hyper-complicated, unique shooting experience (if you could ever shoot one).
- (08:59) Ian: “[G11] is one hefty recoil impulse and three holes downrange. And that's it.”
- Steyr ACR: Fires dart-like flechettes. The idea was to create a nearly “laser-beam” flat, ultra-fast projectile.
- (11:08) Ian: “Muzzle velocity is like 4500ft per second... mean point blank range is like 600 yards.”
- Drawbacks: Flechettes had health hazards (plastic vapor inhalation), poor lethality, erratic barriers penetration.
- (12:06) Ian: “It basically vaporized... men were inhaling this plastic particulate... at, you know, 1200 RPM.”
- Multi-Projectiles: The Duplex & Triplex Concepts
- Cartridges loaded with 2-3 bullets to increase hit probability—not quite scatterguns, not quite rifles.
- (13:02) Ian: “So, like, .30-06 triplex, you got three bullets. But in order for the gun to not catastrophically fail, the three bullets have to weigh the same as your normal one bullet.”
- Drawbacks: Lighter bullet mass, unpredictable spread downrange, made old-school marksmen nervous.
4. Gun Design Evolution: Patents, Tech Trees, and Oddball Solutions
- How Patents Create Weapon Diversity
- Early smokeless powder and self-contained cartridge designs spawned “fractal chaos” of patent workarounds.
- (23:16) Ian: “When the new technology comes out... the first person who figures out the obvious way to make it work patents it... and so you start getting these really bizarre workaround systems.”
- This process explains why some bizarre early pistols or machine guns existed, then vanished once foundational patents expired.
- Hollywood Connections
- Guns like the Bergmann prototype pistol—the Mandalorian blaster—are referenced for their "single-prototype" origins.
- (24:34) Ian: “There’s only one place that prop master found that gun...”
5. Weapon Collecting, Restoration, and Machine Gun Lore
- Parts Kits & Building Modern Classics
- AKs and other imports: Explaining the U.S. “parts kit” phenomenon and why so many are janky—bad rewelds, headspace issues, dangerous ignorance by sellers.
- (43:38) Brandon: “Most of what people bitch about with machine guns now is... boomers in the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s are trying to fix machine guns they don't have prints for.”
- How to Check Headspace – Dumbing it down for Donut Operator and the “everyman” listener.
- (47:09) Ian: “Headspace is when the gun's locked closed on a cartridge, how far back can the bolt and the cartridge case push from the back of the barrel?”
6. Legendary, Obscure, and “Cursed” Guns
- Guns that Never Worked (and Why)
- Chauchats (French WWI LMGs), Villar Perosas (Italian WWI twin-barrel SMGs), and doomed reproduction projects.
- (35:35) Ian: “No one's ever actually tried to effectively use one. So we get to have this series where we take people who are reasonably familiar with firearms and like, here you go, we're counting your hits...”
- Repro STG-44s – It’s possible the originals didn’t work all that well, either.
- (29:29) Brandon: “I question if the original STG44s ran.”
- The Allure (and Danger) of Foreign Surplus Ammo
- Some milsurp ammo is great. Others (e.g., old Turkish 8mm) can blow your gun up.
- (140:40) Ian: “There's some powder formulations that degrade over time... The powder burned a lot faster... blew up guns.”
- Anti-Tank Rifles and Modern Curiosities
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Discussed: PTRS-41/PTRD (Russian WWII semi-auto and bolt-action AT rifles), KPV cartridge, and the logistics (and legal gymnastics) of owning “destructive devices” in the U.S.
- (63:01) Donut Operator: “Oh, that Simonov that big fucker sitting in your sleds.”
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Underwater Firearms: APS (Russian underwater rifle), HK P11 (German dart pistol), and the rare chance to film or shoot one.
- (112:13) Ian: “At this Point. It's something underwater. It's either an APS or an HKP11.”
- (114:14) Ian: “Underwater pistol. It's a derringer essentially. It has a removable barrel cluster of five shots...”
7. Cultural and Collecting Notes
- The Collector’s Mindset
- The fascination is always with “the next thing”; after you learn an oddball weapon, the novelty fades and you look for new mysteries.
- (111:13) Ian: “What interests me is new and interesting and novel. Like, if I've had it for a long time, I'm less interested in it...”
- The Role of Documentation and YouTube as Archive
- Legacy and Research: Ian describes starting Forgotten Weapons as a text blog, then moving to video, as a response to history almost being lost in the trash.
- (53:08) Ian: “I started Forgotten Weapons as a text blog... and then what really did it was a friend of a friend was a senior engineer at Colt and died ... manuals and drawings... in the garbage.”
- Gatekeeping and the Challenge of Museum Access
- Both Ian and the hosts recount stories of being denied access to remarkable military collections due to bureaucracy, despite obvious PR and historical benefits.
- (95:02) Ian: “I had a gun factory that I arranged a very similar sort of thing... flew there and got in and, 'Oh, that’s not possible.' And I flew home.”
Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments
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On the G11 and rarity of shooting it:
- (07:47) Ian: “I have 11 rounds.”
- (08:01) Ian: “If you have original Gyrojet ammo, shoot it now, because…in 20 years, none of it will work.”
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On why patents cause weird gun designs:
- (23:16) Ian: “All the good ways to do it are patented, so you start getting these really bizarre workaround systems... after 17 years, all the weird stuff goes away.”
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On the “curse” of an AK with bad headspace:
- (46:20) Ian: “That sounds good, but it's sounds like it should be a good thing.”
- (46:22) Brandon: “Yeah. Prom night.”
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On the collector’s cycle:
- (111:13) Ian: “My favorite thing at any given time will be something that I’ve gotten in the last month... And then over time, that kind of fades...”
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On owning vs. reviewing old guns:
- (136:51) Ian: “Frankly, what I’ve learned is guns break when you force them. You never force it. If you have to force it, you stop...”
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On rare gun prices being insane:
- (135:54) Brandon: “I think the last one that went for sale that I know of went for like $240,000.”
- (135:59) Ian: “You haven’t been paying attention. They're three to four [hundred].”
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On dealing with bureaucracy and being turned away from collections:
- (97:03) Ian: “I've only had that happen once. What they think they were doing, I have no idea. I honestly don't know. I think part of it was the people who were making the decisions…didn’t really like guns and…didn’t care.”
Timestamps for Important Segments
- Ian's Forgotten Weapons Origin Story – (05:09, 53:08)
- First Gun-Nerd Tangent: G11, ACR, Gyrojet, rare ammo – (06:20 – 08:59)
- Flechettes, Triplex Cartridges, and Ballistics Geekery – (10:40 – 14:53)
- Gun Evolution, Patents, and Oddball Early Pistols – (16:10 – 24:46)
- Machine Gun Component Jank, Rebuild Disasters – (38:50 – 44:41)
- Chauchat LMG, Cursed Gun Series – (35:35, 142:22)
- Headspace Dumbing Down Segment – (47:09 – 48:52)
- Underwater Rifles and Ammo Unicorns – (112:13 – 114:14)
- Dream Collections and Museum Stories – (89:01 – 95:38)
- Collector's Mindset and the Next Novelty – (111:13 – 111:44)
- Dream Gun Video “White Whales” – (112:13 – 113:41)
Conclusion
If you’re a firearms history buff or collector, this episode is required listening—both for the laughs and the sheer encyclopedic knowledge dropped throughout. Ian’s blend of technical detail, weird factoids, and appreciation for the obscure is perfectly matched by the Unsubscribe crew’s wild energy and genuine curiosity. From the lost anti-tank monsters of WWII to the hidden corners of weird caliber law, this is a hall-of-fame episode for anyone obsessed with what makes a rare (and memorable) weapon.
Find Ian's new book project, “Forged in Snow: Finnish Small Arms 1918–2025,” on Kickstarter.
For more, visit: forgottenweapons.com | Unsubscribe Podcast YouTube | Brandon Herrera