Flintlock - Forgotten Weapons

ASAC Presentation: Bullet Strikes From the First Day of the American Revolution

May 23, 2025 Ian McCollum 3

This lecture was presented at the Spring 2025 meeting of the American Society of Arms Collectors. It was given by Joel Bohy, coauthor of a new book of the same name, published by Mowbray. You […]

French 1717 Rampart Musket from the American Revolution

December 7, 2024 Ian McCollum 8

American forces in the Revolutionary War took in a bunch of different types of surplus small arms, and one of the interesting ones was the French Model 1717 Rampart gun. When the French created the […]

Kalthoff 30-Shot Flintlock: The First Repeating Firearm Used in War (1659)

August 7, 2024 Ian McCollum 23

The first repeating rifle used in combat by a military force was a flintlock system developed by the Kalthoff brothers. It was adopted in the 1640s by the Danish Royal Guard, who purchased a bit […]

Belton Repeating Flintlock: A Semiautomatic Rifle in 1785

July 1, 2024 Ian McCollum 16

In 1785, Joseph Belton (an American inventor) and William Jover (an English gunmaker) sold 560 repeating flintlock rifles to the British East India Company. The guns were a very remarkable design which used a detachable […]

From the American Revolution: Short Land Pattern Brown Bess

March 22, 2023 Ian McCollum 33

The standard weapon of the British Army in the American War of Independence was the “Brown Bess”, and today we are looking at a 1769 Short Land Pattern example of the Brown Bess. This was […]

Collier Reproductions and Fakes – Who and Why?

December 15, 2022 Ian McCollum 9

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler” is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=4gzkeh Today I’m again joined by Professor Ben Nicholson, author of the newest Headstamp Publishing book, […]

Art and Engineering: Field Stripping a Second Model Collier

December 12, 2022 Ian McCollum 9

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler” is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=1n89n0 Courtesy of esteemed collector Frank Graves, Professor Ben Nicholson and I are disassembling a gorgeous […]

Colt vs Collier: Patents Lawsuits and Lawyers Oh My!

December 8, 2022 Ian McCollum 13

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler” is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=7zdbzu Most of the historical recognition of Elisha Collier comes from the 1851 and 1852 patent […]

Clockwork to Percussion: Collier Revolver Types and Timeline

December 1, 2022 Ian McCollum 16

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler” is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=1s3pxu What were the different patterns of Collier, and what was the timeline of their development […]

Firepower Back to the 1500s: Pre-Collier Repeaters

November 25, 2022 Ian McCollum 11

“Clockwork Basilisk: The Early Revolvers of Elisha Collier and Artemas Wheeler” is available right now for preorder on Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/headstamp/clockwork-basilisk?ref=9k8yzv Samuel Colt wasn’t the first person to invent a revolver, and Artemas Wheeler wasn’t either. […]