*Norway gets mentioned* Norwegian people: Allow us to introduce ourselves

title of the book translates to "faithful servant in the defense trough fifty years" if anyone wondered

Long eye relief: Less likely to fog. Garbage fov but better peripheral. Sounds like a great solution for cold weather combat in complex terrain?

If I had a nickel for every time the norwegians customfitted a military rifle to have a scout scope, I would have two nickels. Which isn't alot, but it is weird it happened twice.

One of the things I love about Forgotten Weapons is how Ian just does things he finds interesting. He doesn’t ask the audience if they want to hear about Norwegian usage of scout scopes, he just does it because he feels it’s worth covering.

"On again off again relationship with the scout scope...." The Norwegian soldier snuck into the hotel, guilty look on his face. "We can't keep doing this, my wife is starting to suspect." he told his 2 power scope. *Scope is silent, lying there on the bed, wearing nothing but a proprietary mounting bracket* "Okay, fine, but this must be the last time." he said, taking off his boots. "Talk dirty to me, darling." "Dansk er det overlegne sprog" said the scope. The soldier is confused. "I said talk dirty, not talk crazy, my love."

Oooo more Norwegian history My own M98k F1 apparently was a "marksman" rifle, though i don't have a scope for it sadly A friend of mine who is active duty often brings his Hk416 to the range, and he's got both a red-dot and scout scope he has for it and practices with, while i didn't get to try out with a scout scope, the red dot was odd to use for someone used to Diopter sights

"Hope you liked this little diversionary path into Norway" Definitely not something that is said very often lol. Not many people take a diversion to Norway.

Hi Ian, I'm a Norwegian citizen and part of the Reserves or "Home guard", and quite interested in guns and gun design. If you ever need some translating or just some help with the Norwegian books, I'd be more than happy to help you.

2nd book title means: "Firearms used by [Norwegian] Defense Forces since 1859".

Olav Nisi is still around and reachable Ian, if you want to get some details on the G3 and other stuff. He have a lot of history.

As a Norwegian viewer, I could help you translate some of those books if you would like.

The picture text of the G3 mount translates to about "The mounting of the Leupold M8-sights was very slim and was brazed/soldered to a cylindrical part of on the rear of the barrel"

This reminds me of john carpenter's The Thing, when the Norwegians where using a g3 with a sniper scope to hunt for the dog.

I feel the ZF-41 on the M1 Carbine was a genius idea, when mounted to a rifle like the Kar98K in 8mm it feels like your holding back its capabilities at long range which is what a bolt action rifle has its greatest advantage in. The M1 really only had a max effective range out to 300 yards so using a low magnification optic will only enhance its performance at those ranges where iron sights will be more difficult to identify and engage a target.

The only conclusion we can draw is that every "Norwegian" was actually a very cleverly disguised Jeff Cooper.

For any fellow Norwegians, Hanevik Våpen has the book in stock.

“Ian McCullom’s interesting series of unusual firearms” could basically be the subtitle for this channel!

"I was reading a book in a language I don't understand and found something cool". This is why we keep coming back. That is interesting stuff.

I posted this as a reply in the comments but it's interesting on its own so I'll drop it here as well; My grand-uncle had a strong preference for the M1 Carbine (with foldable stock) because it was compact and short. His younger brother picked up an SMLE from one of the British air-drops at some point and offered it to him, but although he liked the rifle, it was far too long, heavy, and bulky for "resistance work". Building on that and some of his other stories, I can easily see why a scoped version of the M1 Carbine would be extremely useful to a resistance force - one that must work in complete secrecy lest they be executed, and spend a lot of time running through brush, forest, and smuggling their weaponry around. Like a few other people have mentioned Norwegian terrain is a mixture - you can go from tight forest brush to looking across a valley, to being inside the forest again, in 10 minutes of walking. So you might very well want the benefit of a short, lightweight rifle with at least *some* kind of magnification...

Olav Nisi is still round. Legendary gunsmith. He did a lot of re-use of barrels, by drilling them and rifling them anew in a larger caliber. He knows his rifles.

"What conclusions can you draw from this? pretty much nothing" Thanks Ian

Looking at norwegian guns, I have concluded that we have a strange need to be different from everyone else.

As a person of Norwegian descent who has put a long eye relief scope on his three-line rifle I definitely am encouraged and interested in this video!

Ian: FYI I´m using... Me: Oh yes! He´s going to butcher Norwegian :D Ian: I´m not even going to try to pronounce the name of this thing. Me: NooooOOooOoOO! We missed a truly epic event here, folks, and most of you will never know....

Mounting a scout scope on M1 seems to be a really cool modification indeed.

Olav Nisi is sort of a legend, he is a gunsmith and stil active in the firearms community

As a Norwegian, my uneducated guess for the "scout" scope being popular in the Norwegian armed forces, is that Norway has a lot of hunting, and that's basically the kind of scope we use for hunting. So it's easier for people to transition from a hunting rifle to this sniper rifle, as they're already accustomed to it. That's my guess anyway.

I love this! I have rarely seen Ian get so excited about something. He saw this and it blew his mind. And it also made so much sense to the knowledge that he knows. Beautiful work. So genuine. So showing of the depths that Ian has. And his love for what he does.

Apparently the book is unavailable in Norway as well, which is a shame since your book recommendations are usually quite good. Also quite an interesting subject, personally I ended up using the HK416 in my year of service, even though I always wanted to try the AG3.

Well if you are interested, Norway before the war didn't have a large army, but we did have quite a large volunteer shooting clubs. There they mainly used huntingweapons.so that might be why.

In the Danish homeguard I had a modified G3 but with a larger scope; I was called a marksman back then. Called M/66 in Denmark but could be the or similar

If I remember correctly you can actually see, in the movie The Thing, a Norwegian arctic researcher using a G3 with a scout scope as he attempts to kill the Husky-Thing

This is pretty cool. I remember when i joined HVU (The Norwegian Home Guard Youth) in 1992 we had the Mausers with the proper German markings. In 1994 we got the AG3 with the red safety selector (single shot only). In a military biathlon event i perticipated in 1997, one of the shooting instructors had a scope mounted on his AG3. I think it was the scope from the MSG90 and it was very accurate at 200 meters. By the way, I finished second to last in the biathlon race after emptying my magazine on the wrong target on the final lap. The last place was a guy that forfitted...hehe..

I remember shooting with an infrared "sniperscope" in 1966. Lacking range, and went out of use as detection gear got more in use - that made the shooter very, very vulnerable. As I see it, the AG3 (introduced when I was an officer in the norwegian army) never was å precice enough gun to really be a snipers weapen. However, I had the pleasure of shooting with quite a few very interesting, norwegian sniperrifles based on mausers system. Aming them a single experimental where the scope was sidemounted on the rifles left side. Correctly adjustede, you could use the scope with your left eye, or switch to the dioptersight by shutting the left eye and open the right - .

I served in the Home Guard in Oslo in the 80'ies and we mounted Leupold M8 2x and 4x pistol scopes with custom BDC turrets on the cooling jacket on some MG34s in 7.62NATO for long range use around the main airport in Norway. One of the scopes came off a Colt Python Hunter :-). The reason for LER scopes mounted forward was to clear the top cover. We also experimented with Weaver T10, Leupold M8 10X rifle silhouette scopes and Kahles ZF69 scopes in different custom mounts extending over the top cover and using starter extentions on the ammo belts. We "tuned" MG34s for accuracy with custom 308 barrels and sub 1moa 5 shot groups in semi and sub 1.5moa full auto 5 shot groups over sandbags were not uncommon with selected ammo. (RANO 185gr FMJ matchammo was a heavy hitter with great accuracy). The "sniper barrels" were spared from regular MG shooting. A special unit also had HK21s with scopes We also experimented using conversion kits, old 8mm feeding trays, new barrels and nozzles, for 6.5x55. Using RANO 144gr FMJ "Mauser" match ammo range was increased a lot. (2650fps/.550bc bullet) Only short bursts due to barrel life but these scoped MG34s were used as "sniper rifles", not as MGs. "First burst hits" was much more effective than a "first round hits" from the period sniper rifles. Myrvang&Co, of MG34/42 book fame, served in a neighboring unit but they are pistol shooters with short range focus :-) We were the long range guys shooting rifle silhouette and other long range military and civilian bolt actions events. That's how the interest in precision shooting with MGs at long range came about. Till this day I do not understand why people want to drag a 20 pound, 5 shot, bolt action 338LM in the field when you can use a 20 pound belt fed HK21 in 6.5CM/260rem and scope shooting "first burst hits" at the same ranges as the 338 bolt rifle. Add environmental green(!) Warner Flatline bullets in the HK21 and you have 1moa, full auto, 1600m+ supersonic range. (3000fps with 0.63bc bullet)

As a norwegian this video made me smile 😊

from what i can imagine scopes with short eye relief are super impractical in battlefield scenarios where there is no comfy shooters table or time to properly grip your rifle when reacting to enemies also with wider peripherals target acquisition and personal space awareness are better. great explanations ethan love it!

Thank you for taking up this subject 😊

Another fabulous video Ian! Belated congrats on reaching 2M subscribers 👍

Based AF Ian, olny looking at the pictures in a book.

Greeting from Norway, Thanks for the content :)

Fascinating!! What an eye for detail and memory you must have .... respect!!

I love to see that book in the background. I recognize that muzzle. Dear old heavy [beep-beeeep] AG3. My story: Being in the signalcorp, Regiment Jørstadmoen, Lillehammer. I was faffing around in a Volvo 4x4, with a trailer more befitting the old Willys-jeeps from WWII. My task was to establish radio. Fair enough. Lots of fun, but that is another story. Technically we were supposed to have H&K MP-5, since its much more convenient. We didn't get it. We didn't even get the 'navy'-version with retractable stock. We got the +1 meter long rifle. Yes, yes, You can lay downa good amount of supressive fire for over 2km. The issue is: Heavy as satans tail, getting in and out of a tiny vehicle. You literally have to step out, then unhook it from the mount in the door. You have to sling it over your back, like a sword from fantasy-games/movies. Then You'll have to climb on top of the vehicle to fiddle with antennas with liberal estimations of 4.5kg on your back. And now comes the fun part. The camouflage-netting. This gun has so many pointy ends and extremities (cocking-handle and front sight in particular), I several times wanted to use my bayonet to cut myself free. (A little secret: Bayonets are not sharp. Pointy, yes, but You can't filet a fish for the life of you.) (Hence norwegian soldiers carry an equally long, if not longer sami-knife/hand-axe on their belts). What I wanted to say, back then, in the infantry, a squad was 7 men. One(!) soldier were lucky and got glasses on his G3. -He was lucky, he was deemed sniper/specialist, so he/her(?) never had to go front or last. But the sight... ...Nope it never was a proper Zeiss. The same adjustments were equal to that of the clicks You do with iron sights. -It is a small secret, but norwegian sharpshooters are really good to 'see' distance, lick a finger, estimate the wind by watching bushes move, and pray to Odin that the wind will calm before taking a shot. Not to forget. the 7,62 is much, much better for use in norwegian territory than 5,56. -Just had to add that 'small' detail. Why would I need 500 rounds, when 60 is enough to scare the bajeebas off someone not succeeding in surprising me in a car with headphones on. -I'd prefer a tiny 9mm MP5 from within the car.... The car: commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Volvo_Feltvogn_(Valp).jpg

The info card for the M1 carbine was as follows: M1A1 Carbine presented to Major General Sir Colin Gubbins after the war by members of the Norwegian Resistance. IN 1940, Gubbins had commanded the 'Independent Companies' - a forerunner to the Commandos - in Norway. Later he oversaw the successful raid on the Vemork heavy water plant in 1943 (WM (FIR 6251)

I have a leupold 2.5 power fixed scout scope and like the concept. Had it for years mounted on the same .308 platform forward of the action. Easy to use both eyes open from point to several hundred yards. What peaked my interest in this asked no one? Well Gun Jesus and Forgotton weapons did my friends! Thanks Ian

Very interesting commentary. Thank you.

That is a very interesting scope setup. Looks very unusual but also very cool. Looking forward to see it covered a bit more.

American in Norway here. If you need any translation does on my kroner then glad to help.

In daylight an LPO is almost as fast as a red dot, an M1 Carbine with a scout scope makes so much sense. Cool stuff Ian, Thanks!

Our family have a long military history, at least as far back as to the late 1800s, and we had a "family collection" so to speak, old rifles, military memorabilia etc. It got sold off by one of our family members which caused a lot of anger. Aaaanyways, I remember being there as a kid, this was my grandfather that kept it and he was in the royal guard back in the day, and I remember 2 rifles (there was a shit ton), and I think one of them was a Mauser, the second one was Krag Jørgensen, and I remember both of them had a sight on them like this, I never thought much more about it before I saw this. Think the Krag was modified in some way (It was shorter if I remember right), but the Mauser if I remember right looked like a normal Mauser. I remember thinking it was odd, because we used a Krag for hunting and such back home, but that was with just a plain old iron sight, nothing special (which was later modified as well because the stock got destroyed). I cannot say that my father which served in the military in the 70-80s had anything like that with the AG3 he served with. And neither did my brother after him. It is always so interesting to see lesser known ideas/innovations on weapon systems and wether it failed or not and why that is. I didn't known about the top issue with the AG3 at all, so that was very interesting to me.

Ian just wanted to say thanks for getting me through my Covid. Keep up the good work you are bar FAR the greatest weapons KZfaqr your knowledge and attention to detail is awe inspiring 👍🏻

My dad is farsighted and hates wearing his glasses while shooting. If he's using one of my conventional scopes he can't hit the blind side of a barn at 50 yards but if he's using his Leopold fx-2, Leopold vx-3, Nikon force xr or vortex crossfire 2 he can hit a playing card at 1000 yards. I don't know how there's such a dramatic difference but hey if it works it works lol

Fun when i can say that i have fired some if not all the guns in a forgotten weapons video

As an old sniper from the Jeger-troup @Aasegarden garrison, no longer in use, in Harstad back in 90-91, having the AG3 with a mounted (scout) scope, I didn't know any of this. Very interesting, thank you very much for this video.

I was kind of hoping for an answer to the question posed in the title, but this was still pretty interesting. That G3 mount is pretty slick, too

I wonder how this (lowish power, long eye relief) compares to red-dots (once they became a thing) in terms or balancing the benefits of optics with maintaining situational awareness, target acquisition, etc.

The second book is a great overall reference for the Norwegian Army. Especially when combining with a trip to Akershus festning /fortress Museum. Some really neat and interesting pieces from way back when all the way up to the creepy cold war and beyond!

For anyone wondering what is written on the book covers: First book: "AG3 faithful servant of the Norwegian army for 50 years" Seccond book: "Fire arms used by the Norwegian army after 1859" ps: If you see old "war trophy" or heirloom rifles in Norway there is a high chance it has a scout scope. For some weird reason we seem to like it a whole lot. Even the first 22 cal rifle i shot with in a youth gun club had one of these things smacked on top of it.

I have an ultimak rail with a Nikon pistol scope on my AK, and I agree that it is quite rapid. Really lines up nicely when shouldering the rifle, too.

I remember playing war with my friends fathers AG3 when we were kids. People in the home reserve, used to store them (without bolt) at home in their closets. And regarding Mausers: "Everyone" here had one of those stored, somewhere in their house, when I grew up...

This seems like more of familiarity than affinity. There are a lot of places like this where if you're familiar with a LER scope concept it's an obvious choice. So if they had a bunch of these things from WW2 captures and then ran in to situations where they wanted a scope but there was no good place to mount something conventional it's not such a big leap to say why don't we just put it up here then?

In the mid 70's l exercised with the Norwegian Home Guard. There were still a few interesting weapons in use of wartime vintage then including some 7.62 conversion Mausers. Time dims the memory but this video jolted mine, thanks Ian, as always a fascinating history lesson.

Hi, Ian. I agree. That setup is very clever and is suitable for those rifles with an action that interferes with a scope. That presentation rifle looked very nice. Thanks for sharing! Stay healthy!

Before clicking play button i know this video is about EYE RELIEF... i love my eye relief hensoldt 3x on my HK G36 you can scope as a red dot and it is always focused, nice video Ian, is not all about sniper scopes, intuitve shooting is better with eye relief scopes since ww2 ZF4 as you can see outside scope and no tunnel effect... G36 1.5x is much the same as ZF4 was on STG44.

6:18 That is brilliant! Oh, and Heyja Norge!

Congratulations on 2M subs!!!

I can remember some guys using this scope. I was in the stormpanzer battalion. But i spotted several times guys walking around with those sights. As i was always curios on them as they looked off. Compared to a normal larger scope. Believe they where the ones produced at the kongsberg weaponsfactory as they also produced on lease the AG3 between 67 to 74. Cool to see these videos. brings me back to those days.

My brother has a scout scope on his mosin makes handy in the woods

Wait, wait, wait. Ian, did you just say that when the Germans were pulling out of Norway, the goal the Norwegian resistance had been working towards up to that point, in order to go fight on other fronts, the Norwegian resistance basically went "No, you know what? You're not going anywhere! You wanted to occupy us? Well, you're going to occupy us and choke on it, assholes." and kept themselves under occupation just to speed up the Germans losing the war? Damn, that's ballsy.

That's a cool little bit of information! Thank you for making this video!

A fun and interesting episode. I've been a fan of the scout concept for many years.

Yes, I liked this 'little diversionary path into Norway'. By the way - I haven't heard of the guy, but your pronunciation of the name Nisi seems spot on. Greetings from the cold

The germans feared the Krag's accuracy, the krag shot differently when it got wet, so norwegians would even train with wet ammo. This is what i've been told, it Doesnt sound that crazy

Just watched the first episode of the 1975 SWAT. It had a scope mounted M1 carbine. I also had an AUG for awhile. I really liked the 1.5 power optic.

I have a Kel-Tec SUB-2000 with the red Lion foregrip and a pistol scope. That set up his worked very very well because there's nowhere to mount rails on the dinky little receiver. No where near combat approved but it's hell of a lot of fun to shoot.

5:38 And the title is "Less talking, more raiding!"

AG3: The Norwegian Handcannon. Taken out of service because it was deemed "too lethal"

Oh, I love your inspiring way to illuminate us on your vast knowledge! Keep posting!

Translation AG3- Trofast tjerner i Forsvaret gjennom femti år is "AG3(Norwegian name for the G3 rifle) Trusty servant of Forsvaret(Nowegian military can be translatied to the Norwergian Defence Forces) through 50 years. Skytevåpen benyttet av Forsvaret etter 1859 - Firearms used by Forsvaret after 1859.

Would be pretty cool to modify a G3 as a clone of that experimental setup version. Hmmm...

Why would anybody downvote this? Why would you be so petty?

Congratulations on 2M subs! It doesn't feel like you hit 1M that long ago

My favorite part of scout type scopes is the amount of situational awareness they allow the shooter to keep. Great for a DMR in a target rich environment!

My granpa had Kar98 from the war And he used it to hunt (not with a scout scope) but iv seen a few of these scops around Alot of people Likes them for ther weight and Size and use it for hunting :D

Jeff Cooper like all senior Officers would have discovered that a lot of tactics and weapons were passed down later from German doctrine, hence the reason he decided to visit Austria and rebirth the Scout rifle with some new innovations mixed with old .. If it ain’t broke, don’t try to fix it !

Being an American of primarily Norwegian and Swedish descent, this is really interesting because I've been looking into building an M1 Garand with a Criterion barrel in 6.5x5mm Swedish Mauser with a scout scope on an Ultimak mount

Fascinating indeed, thanks Ian.

It's an hour before my shift ends so this'll help pass the time :D

ian : Stamp sheet dust cover is not suit for mounting scope AK12 : WTF are you talking about????

In Denmark we had some of those HK rifes with clamp on scopes. I was for a period issued one that came from HJV (Homeguard) for a short loan. Wasn't really a sniper-rifle, but had the possibility of greater accuracy at longer distances, than the standard G3. Also hauled around a complete and bulky IR-kit...

We swedes had a 4x scope for the G3, looking similar to the ones shown in this video. It was called AK4 OR when the scope was mounted. It was taken out of service but recently reappeared in service.

So they liked it, but military high commands were like: "Nah! We already bought these kits from the germans themselves" - 3 times in history.

A question/proposal to Ian: since I/we have noticed you brought up two Norwegian books ("Kongsberg-Colten" and the book in this video), which you could not read since, well, they're in norwegian, would it be a solution for you to maybe ask some of your norwegian Patreons to translate the books for you? Or, better yet, scan the books with a translate software and ask the norwegians to translate check the translations? I think it would be nice for you, the Norwegians and the rest of the viewers to know a lot more about the firearms and history from an insider :)

Love a good history lesson from a great teacher. Thanks Ian!

Thank you , Ian .

This was very interesting to me as a Norwegian. I had no idea this was a thing. :)

Could you review the US 6.88mm rifle testing program? Some of the contenders look interesting.

I was in an arctic ranger unit in the Norwegian army in the early 2000s, we used the AG3-F1 (collapsible stock), two per 8 man squad had the HK79 grenade launcher that mounts in place of the barrel shroud (made an already pretty heavy rifle even more cumbersome). None had the scout scopes then, but we had an MN149 (rechambered mauser) in the squad with a pretty decent scope as sort of a "town bicycle"-marksman's rifle and the actual trained sharpshooter had an M82A1 with some pretty baller optics.

Thank you Ethan for posting more G3 content I have a Century arms C308 and Im fascinated by roller delayed blowback and Everything to do with the CETME and G3