Australia’s Owen Gun | Hacker News Reader

Australia’s Owen Gun

warfarehistorynetwork.com

32 pointscurtis7 comments

Ian McCollum of forgottenweapons.com has a great video showing disassembly of this firearm [0]. His youtube channel [1] is also a great resource if you like seeing the insides of all the crazy firearm designs there are (and were), with a good dose of geopolitics and history thrown in.

[0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_3AoDf7CeE [1] - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrfKGpvbEQXcbe68dzXgJuA

I really like his content. The research is awesome and detail is next level, what sets it apart for me is that there so little actual shooting.

For more shooting, and also discussion & commentary on weapon ergonomics & action match shooting, check out the InRange TV channel[1], where Ian is a co-host with Carl Kassarda.

Sadly, the InRange TV has to self-limit on Youtube due to rather stringient rules; for example, some of the build (including WWSD) series got either hidden or censored.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeUNM9NqJqZXfRNeuW4_2sg

Another channel worth checking out is C&Rsenal, which does longer form videos with very in-depth research and shooting. Right now they're trying to cover every gun issued during WWI, though I think they're close to completion with that. I learned about them from Forgotten Weapons[1].

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oD4gyzCqHwk

This video shows how the Owen Gun works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5kW4sKd-sQ

I think the Owen Gun is not just interesting because it was a successful indigenous Australian design, but also because it was so clearly designed for reliability. The Sten Gun in comparison was designed to be extremely cheap to manufacture and did not have a reputation for reliability.

Wow, look at the stark simplicity of that gun. As an engineer/programmer, there's something appealing about simple, durable machines like that.

Great article. One small mistake in it. Pretty sure it only fired 700 rounds/minute, not 7,000.

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