McCollum's YouTube channel, Forgotten Weapons, has nearly three million subscribers and as its name suggests mostly covers overlooked, historical and obscure firearms.

"Aktuaalne kaamera" reported he recently visited Estonia on the trail of a 1920s-made submachine gun which, while a sound design, never entered full production – a lesson which could be drawn in today's world too, on what happens when the need and skills for production exist, yet interest is lacking, and so too is investment.

"I'm Ian McCollum and I'm here today in Tallinn, Estonia, at the Estonian War Museum, taking a look at a super-cool and extremely rare Estonian sub-machine gun," the expert said.

The Estonian government sold off the firearms, branded Arsenal Tallinn, and used the funds to buy more modern weapons.

Around 500 examples of Arsenal Tallinn were produced in the 1920s, but by the 1930s their caliber was obsolete, with no modernization following despite the gathering clouds over Europe, with Estonia sandwiched between Soviet Russia on one side, and Nazi Germany, whose eastern border was much closer than that of present-day Germany, on the other.

The pressing need for weaponry led to Estonia ordering around 500 Finnish-made KP-31 Suomi, soon to become legendary due to their ubiquitous and effective use against the Soviets during their halted invasion of Finland 1939–1940.

Most of the already made examples of Arsenal Tallinn ended up seeing use in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939, and few survived that bitter conflict. For McCollum, the weapon is such a rare piece of history that it was well worth flying to Estonia to investigate more.

"Ultimately, because of politics and money, it doesn't ever go into production, and instead, in 1938 the Estonians decide to adopt the Finnish Suomi, the KP-31, and so they purchase about 500 Suomis just before the Winter War breaks out," McCollum said.

"Arsenal looks at this situation and realizes that it's cheaper to sell the existing guns, take that money, add a little bit more money, and buy newly manufactured Suomis," he added.

McCollum went to the Estonian War Museum in Viimsi to showcase the Arsenal Tallinn and other weapons of interest to his YouTube audience.

It all began at a firearms collectors' conference in Estonia last year, Siim Õismaa, researcher and curator at the war museum, said.

"During the tour they came here. I immediately struck up a conversation with Ian, and we agreed that he would return to Estonia in August and that we'd make an overview of Arsenal weapons."

Õismaa also shed light on the decision to cancel the redevelopment and continued production of Arsenal Tallinn submachine guns.

"The decision was made at Arsenal – a calculation was made showing that modifying the old Arsenal submachine guns for the new cartridge would be costlier than purchasing new weapons from Finland," he explained.

McCollum has covered Estonia before on his Forgotten Weapons channel, for instance in the above video, at the invitation of the Estonian Defense Forces (EDF), looking at the U.S.-made LMT R20 "Rahe," the standard-issued EDF infantry rifle.

--

Follow ERR News on Facebook, Bluesky and X and never miss an update!