The Vault

Russian 1895 Nagant Revolver (Video)

One of the mechanically interesting guns that is really widely available in the US for a great price (or was until very recently, it seems) is the Russian M1895 Nagant revolver. It was adopted by the Imperial Russian government in 1895 (replacing the Smith & Wesson No.3 as service revolver), and would serve all the [...]

Book Review: The Devil’s Paintbrush

One of my favorite books to just flip through at random is Dolf Goldsmith’s The Devil’s Paintbrush: Sir Hiram Maxim’s Gun. Every time I open it, I find another detail of information that I had overlooked or under-appreciated before – it is a wealth of information on the Maxim gun in all its forms. Better [...]

Savage 101 “Revolver” (Video)

A little nostalgia for today – I was out at the range with some friends, and this came out of a range bag. It’s a Savage Model 101, in .22 LR, and I thought it was just too neat not to do a quick little video on (I like things that appear to be one [...]

Forgotten (Thankfully) Training Practices

Steve G sent us this video, a digitized copy of a training film made in 1936 by the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department. It’s a bit long at 15 minutes (and originally silent, now with a longer piano solo than you really want), but shows some interesting things – not the least of which being the [...]

Book Review: A Gun For All Nations

I ran across a mention of this book while trying to find some information on this 37mm Hotchkiss machine gun – and this book was the only reference I could find any mention of it in. Robert Mellichamp has taken on a pretty daunting task; documenting the history of the 37mm gun and ammunition from [...]

Scaled-Down Arisaka Trainer (Video)

In many countries prior to WWII, it was not uncommon to begin preparing children for military service at fairly young ages, and several countries produces small-scale rifles for training boys who could not yet handle full-size weapons. These include France and Italy (with miniaturized Lebel and Carcano rifles), and also the Empire of Japan. Today [...]

Czech CZ-52 Pistol Video

The CZ-52 really isn’t a forgotten weapons yet, but it is a pretty interesting gun mechanically, and well worth taking a look at. About 200,000 of them were made in Czechoslovakia from 1952 to 1954, and they served as that country’s standard military sidearm for several decades (which the rest of the Warsaw Pact bloc [...]

Schwarzlose Followup – and the More Things Change…

When we went to the range to do our video on the Schwarzlose 1908 that you saw yesterday, we didn’t have our slow-motion-capable camera along. I knew it would be great to get some slow footage of that action, so we took it back out with the other camera to rectify the problem. This footage [...]

Book Review: French Military Weapons

Today’s book we have courtesy of Luc (thanks, Luc!) – French Military Weapons 1717-1938, by Major James Hicks. Originally written in 1938, it was reprinted by Flayderman’s in 1964. It’s tough to find today, but offers one of the few comprehensive overviews of French military arms from bayonets to field artillery.

As I mention [...]

Dolf Goldsmith on $5 Finnish Mortars

We have another piece today from our interview with Dolf Goldsmith, this time on the subject of $5 Finnish mortars used for fun and profit. Well, actually just for fun. To clarify one of Dolf’s comments, I believe these mortars were Soviet made, and Finnish captured – the Finns used mortars made by both the [...]