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by Roger L. Papke, Handfuls of History At the end of the American Civil War, the Union had well over a million surplus muzzle-loading rifle-muskets, all of which were obsolete since it was clear that in the future all military rifles would be breech-loaders and most likely use metal cartridges. The U.S. was not alone [...] I recently had a chance to take a look at a rifle that has been floating around the Japanese collector’s community causing grief since for at least 25 years. It is a Type 99 Arisaka, specifically a first-series Nagoya production gun, serial number 84664. What makes it unusual is that it had a Type [...] After posting my video of the oddball Chinese pistol in the recent RIA auction, I received a number of emails from folks with similar sorts of guns. One was from a fellow named Leonardo, who ended up with an interesting Chinese creation courtesy of Fed Ord. About 20 years ago, they were selling really junky [...] This very odd one-off pistol first appeared in a 1958 Golden State Arms catalog, with no description of its history or mechanical design. I have often seen it referred to as an automatic revolver, but this is a misconception – what appears to be a cylinder is actually a rotary magazine, akin to a Ruger [...] Today’s item in the upcoming Rock Island Premier Auction is a rather unusual percussion pistol. It began life as an underhammer gun, and was rebuilt by an unknown gunsmith as a percussion gun that fired four superposed charges with a creative repeating action. A little while back, I got another of those interesting emails with a handful of photos and a note saying: I have a friend that has a gun I can not identify. I asked Grant thinking with it being some type of revolver he would know. He told me to ask you. Well, the photos [...] I received a request from a collector trying to find information on the Dyer International Caliber Rifle. I have been unable to find anything myself, but the fellow did have a pair of technical drawings that he shared with me, and the rifle they depict is certainly something different. The drawings are dated December 1943, [...] Okay, to be precise I should say that it is W.B. McCarty’s idea for a peculiar revolver. We know nothing about Mr. McCarty beyond the fact that in 1909 he was granted a patent for a revolver concept in which the cylinder was oriented in a direction perpendicular to a conventional design: As you [...] I have some extra neat stuff this week, so I figured I’d combine a couple things in another post this morning. First up is the first really cool Tumblr page I’ve run across: Rare Antique & Beautiful Firearms. It’s only been running for a week or so, so time will tell if they can keep [...] Are you interested in firearms manufacturing? If so, you should check out GunLab today, where we’re (finally) posted something new. We went to visit the fine folks at American Spirit Arms, and they let us wander through their shop looking at how everything is made. We put together a video on, among other things, how [...] |
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