Bolt Action Rifles
Vintage Saturday: Marching Finns
The three guys on the left all have Mosin-Nagants, the middle guy has an LS-26, next guy to the right has an m/31 Suomi, and the far right man has a Winchester 1895 lever action […]
Lever Action Rifles
Lever Action Rifles
RIA: 2nd Model Smith-Jennings Rifle
The Smith-Jennings rifles are one of the evolutionary steps towards the revolutionary Henry and Winchester lever-action rifles. Here is the rifle that brought together the ideas of Hunt (who invented the rocket ball cartridge) and […]
Book review
Book Review: Documenting the Weapons used at the Little Bighorn
I previously reviewed a book on archaeological study of the Little Bighorn battlefield, which did an excellent and very insightful job of tracing the battle through tangible artifacts, including forensic tracing of different individual weapons […]
Commentary
A Spencer Anecdote
In early 1864, Arizona pioneer and Colonel King S. Woolsey borrowed a Spencer repeating rifle from then-Territorial Governor John Goodwin for an expedition against a band of Apaches. On Aril 26, 1864, the Hartford Evening […]
Lever Action Rifles
RIA: Spanish “El Tigre” Winchester 92 Copy
Spain was historically a major center of patent infringement in firearms manufacture because its patent law left open a big loophole: patents were only enforceable if the patent holder actually manufactured their guns in Spain. […]
Lever Action Rifles
RIA: Evans New Model Carbine
The Evans rifle/carbine was developed in 1873 by a Maine dentist named Warren Evans. Its main innovation was a large helical magazine that held a whopping 34 cartridges of Evan’s proprietary .44 caliber cartridge. By […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Vintage Saturday: Finnish Militia
The woman at the front right has a Winchester 1895, almost certainly of Russian contract origin in 7.62x54R. The others appear to have Type 30 Arisaka rifles, which would have been sold to Russia by […]
Lever Action Rifles
RIA: Marlin 1897 Bicycle Rifle
Marlin’s 1892 lever action rifle in .22 rimfire caliber proved to be a very popular firearm, and so the company released an improved version in 1897, offered only as a rimfire takedown model. The 1897 […]
Lever Action Rifles
RIA: Whitney-Scharf Lever-Action Rifle
The Whitney-Scharf was the final rifle manufactured by the Whitney company before it was bought out and closed down by Winchester in 1888. Only about 2,000 of these rifles were made before that time.
Lever Action Rifles
RIA: Whitney-Kennedy Lever Action Rifles
Eli Whitney Jr., son of the inventor of the famous “cotton gin”, ran the Whitneyville Armory for many years, producing a wide variety of firearms until nearly the end of the 1800s. Among other gun […]