Colt Monitor: The First Official FBI Fighting Rifle

hey guys thanks for tuning in to another video on Forgotten weapons calm I mean McCallum and I'm here today at the James D Giulia auction house up in Maine taking a look at some of the guns that they're going to be selling in their upcoming fall of 2017 firearms auction and today we're taking a look at @ba are not just any BIR this is actually a Colt monitor which is one of the scarcest and in many ways one of the most interesting and sought-after versions of the b AR now as we probably know the b AR was first developed late in World War one by John Browning it was just barely saw service with US troops at the end of World War one they were there were some issues of production and getting all of the guns over to Europe and then getting them assigned out two units there was some concern from General Pershing that if they introduced them too early the Germans would capture a couple and be able to reverse-engineer them and the US would lose this technological advantage that it had with the var because this really was a revolutionary small arm in 1918 now in between the wars between World War one and World War two the US military didn't do a whole lot to improve the gun however the Colt company did as did FN so the way this worked with John Browning was he licensed gun to FN to produce and sell in Europe with the exception of the United Kingdom and like Turkey and Russia I think we're also outside of FNS designated market and then Colt had the market for north and south america so you'll find guns made by both Colt and FN in this sort of system well both companies did their own development work improving the BA R after World War one and with FN you would see this in the versions that were adopted by the Swedes and the poles and the Belgians they improved they had things like quick change barrels and pistol grips like this one which never appeared on US military guns the 1918 a2 that was used in World War two well Colt did the same sort of development process themselves in the US and although their improved guns were never adopted by the US military they were sold commercially and also sold to other countries there are a lot of South American countries that ended up buying Colt automatic rifles or they call them the automatic machine rifle and Colt improvements to the gun we're actually pretty similar to what FN did because a lot of these were kind of obvious improvements they added a pistol grip which we can see here they improved the fore end in some of these cases they added a bipod they added a heavier handguard they had a dust covers in fact Colt did all of these things with their model r75 which was introduced in 1925 and that was the improved military version of the VAR from colt and it had in fact it had a dust cover for the magazine well had a dust cover for the ejection port it had a bipod on it it had a heavy front handguard on it had a pistol grip these guns would be reasonably popular they sold about 5000 of them between the wars however they did also come up with a specific version in 1931 for the law enforcement market and they called that the r8e or as it was better known the Colton Monitor now these were never all that well-known Colt developed them intending them for the police and security market so they didn't really put them in their standard catalogs they were in there in cults police advertising literature so a lot of people never really heard about these guns of course remember that this is long before the internet so if you wanted to know what colt was selling you had to go file find a printed flyer of Colt sales literature and if you didn't get the police one well you might never know that the Colt monitor existed now what they did with this specifically was pretty much to lighten it this was intended for police because at this time the other automatic weapon that was being used by law enforcement was basically the Thompson submachine gun and the Thompson was found to be ineffective on a lot of vehicles during this time period there were some cars out there with really heavy body panels that legitimately were bulletproof to pistol cartridges in some cases there were some instances with Bonnie and Clyde when they had there were a couple of shootouts with Bonnie and Clyde in vehicles and there you can find pictures of somewhere Thompson rounds are denting the vehicle and not penetrating it so there are elements of law enforcement that wants something heavier they can really go through both sides of a vehicle and that's what Colt wasn't ending with the monitor here so it's still in 30.6 caliber and then because it wasn't intended to be a military weapon and it didn't have to be you know trenches of Passchendaele sort of dirt resistant they got rid of some of the extraneous military features like the dust covers those are gone the bipod gone they shortened the barrel this now has an 18-inch barrel the barrel is substantially reduced in weight it's a much thinner barrel especially out at the end overall this gun ways basically 16 pounds as opposed to the 20 and a quarter pounds of the standard called the the are 75 the military version they put this gigantic muzzle brake on it that's actually made by cuts that say cuts compensator and that was intended to make the gun a little more controllable it was of course only meant to be fired from the shoulder since it no longer has a bipod and this was the heavy firepower for the police mechanically the monitor remains identical to a standard military or commercial be AR so we have a three position fire selector here f is for fire a is for automatic and then if we push down this little detent maybe there we go we can put it all the way back to s for safe this detent prevents you from unintentionally moving the selector forward not exactly the world's fastest system but there we are it is an open bolt firing gun so in order to fire it you run the charging handle back lock it forward it is a non reciprocating handle and the bolt is open until you pull the trigger the one other control here is the magazine release that is this button in the front of the trigger guard push that in and you can pull the magazine straight out this is a straight in locking straight straight in straight out magazine it locks on this little notch here on this rear rib this is a standard BA our magazine holds 20 rounds of 36 caliber ammunition like the world war 1 standard military be AR uses this very nice aperture site pretty similar to what was on the P 17 Enfield rifles and of course the big change both visually and for handling is this pistol grip that was on Colts commercial military and law enforcement guns that's one of the improvements that both Colt and FN made to this gun was to use a pistol grip instead of a traditional stock and it really does improve the handling of the guns it's unfortunate that the US military never adopted that improvement before World War two now the main markings on this gun are going to be on the top of the receiver and this is the standard marking for all of Colts interwar production guns so they call it a model of 1919 and then you'll notice the 30 there is in a different font than the rest of the stamping that's because they roll stamped all of this marking with the exception of the serial number and the caliber and when these guns were being sold for example on South American military contracts they made them in a variety of other calibers seven millimeter Mauser was a particularly popular one so their roll stamp covered the basics and then they would just stamp on the caliber of each particular gun when it was manufactured so caliber 30 here in indicates 30 out six this uses standard var magazines so it's got a 20 round capacity and then our serial number is down here these started at serial number 100,000 by the way so don't don't be fooled into thinking that Colt made a hundred thousand of these guns no they actually made like I said I believe it's actually exactly five thousand and twenty four colt machine rifles or automatic machine rifles between 1919 and 1942 now I know people are going to ask about this the the Marine Corps emblem here on the top of the receiver this is not an original marking this was actually added by a previous owner of the gun none other than Jim Ballou who is best known probably in these circles for writing the collector grade book about the B AR this gun was his and he opted to add this marking to the top of the receiver he was very proud of his service in the Marine Corps he also added this Colt monitor mark to the left side of the receiver which would not normally there a few other things we can take a look at here this front handguard looks a bit chunky this is actually a really nice handguard to hold on to there's a splice in the wood here because in the r75 and a lot of these were actually r75 parts that were reused by cold they had a magazine well cover that was hinged and it would lock it would fit underneath the handguard when it wasn't in place on the magazine well so this little block of wood is spliced in to fill that hole in the handguard then of course the most visually distinctive change probably for the monitor itself is this gigantic cuts compensator on the front at 16 pounds this is still this is a heavy gun but it's still fairly light for a full auto 30 out six and it was important to try and make that a little more manageable anyway that was possible the yellow has kind of escaped its bounds there but you can see that trademark emblem from the cuts company they're also probably better known for making the compensators on the early Thompson guns as well as you'll find shotguns from this period that have cuts compensators they were a popular and successful brand at the time ultimately sales were pretty darn poor for Colt with this gun they only made something like 125 of the colt monitors total including you know salesman samples and demonstration guns they sold the vast majority of them to the FBI the FBI actually adopted this in 1933 as their official fighting rifle but still didn't buy all that many of them considering the FBI bought something like 90 of these guns another twenty or so were sold to other law enforcement agencies mostly local or state police departments the problem was just that the gun was too expensive in the 1930s this was selling for about $300 that's the equivalent of between five thousand and fifty five hundred dollars today and think depression-era there aren't a whole lot of police departments out there with the budget to go by five thousand dollar machine guns in the 30s so ultimately a lot of guy a lot of police departments just decided that you know a 12-gauge shotgun works pretty well and is a whole heck of a lot cheaper than buying automatic machine rifles so very few of them were originally made many much much smaller numbers of them exist today on the NFA registry I think it's something like ten or fewer are actually out there today so a very scarce rifle and pretty cool to get to take a look at I am excited to say that I did have a chance to actually do some shooting with this so let's see how that went now the question is what is it like to shoot the official first FBI fighting rifle let's find out 20 rounds of genuine 30.6 goodness there I'm actually going to start with a couple rounds semi-auto open pulp gun of course alright I'll tell you what recoil from that is minor this gun is heavy enough at 16 pounds that semi-auto 30.6 no big deal at all however the concussion from that cuts compensator is intense normally blast from a muzzle break like that isn't really that big a deal to the shooter but it can be really an effect on bystanders I'll tell you what that thing is it's kind of rattling my head it'll be interesting to see what this is like in full auto so full auto let's try it whoo you that's a bit of an experience Wow again the recoil is not that bad remarkably I was expecting a lot more because this is like the lightweight version of the var I think the pistol grip helps this is a good hand grip to actually control the gun but man that concussion is intense I would yeah I can't imagine the FBI guys who are shooting these things without your protection in the 30s holy cow man that might explain why they only bought 90 of them is yeah this is going to be a really effective gun but man you kind of have like a one-time-use agent with it shooting this thing really makes you feel like a depression-era lawman going after Bonnie and Clyde for real you you my impressions of the BIR in general have always been a little bit tainted by the 1918 a to that the us took into World War two which was very much an obsolete gun by that time and in my opinion it was a gun that the u.s. won world war two in spite of not because of its interesting to get my hands on a Colt developed version something that the that Colt did and this is pretty similar to what FN was doing at the same time and see what their thoughts were on improving the gun as opposed to what the US military did because I'll tell you what this is I'm really actually legitimately surprised at how fun of a gun this is to shoot the concussion is something you definitely have to get used to and accept that but you know what this is things really quite fun to shoot I'm kind of sad that I've run out of ammunition for it for today would I actually want this if I were an FBI agent going into a gunfight well today probably not I think I can come up with something that's gonna work pretty well and not scramble my brains like that cuts compensator does but in 1931 you know you could have a Remington Model 8 great rifle five rounds maybe you've got an extended magazine from the police supply company but it's semi-auto this thing is going to lay down a whole new world of firepower and intimidation on anyone that you get in a gunfight with so I can see why it was appealing to law enforcement of the time damn this is a cool gun if you're interested in having one of those 10 guns that did actually get on to the registry and is still around today well this one is coming up for sale here at the end of November at Julia if you take a look at the description text below you'll find a link to their catalog page on it take a look at their picture pictures the provenance the description of the gun and if you're interested you can place a bid live at the auction or over the phone or through their website thanks for watching you

Channel: Forgotten Weapons

Views: 1,767,692

Keywords: colt monitor, fbi, fighting rifle, fully transferrable Colt, pistol grip, Browning Automatic Rifle, large Cutts Compensator, law enforcement market, Thompson submachine guns, Forgotten Weapons, law enforcement version, official Fighting Rifle, late Jim Ballou, police agencies, Collector Grade book, World War, colt, r75, r80, fnd, bar, john browning, 30-06, assault rifle, bonnie clyde, frank hamer, texas rangers, ambush, mccollum, kasarda, inrange, inrangetv, rifle, gun

Id: Jb6C9ASylmQ

Length: 17min 13sec (1033 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 05 2017