Handgun - Forgotten Weapons

Personalized 1911s from the WW1 American Expedition to Siberia

September 13, 2021 Ian McCollum 23

At the end of the Great War, the United States sent several thousand soldiers to eastern Siberia, to protect war supplies from the Red Russian forces and to help rescue the Czechoslovak Legion. Also known […]

Cheek Pistol Concept: Unorthodox But Effective

September 7, 2021 Ian McCollum 49

My friend Rhett Neumayer has been experimenting with an unorthodox but very interesting way to use handguns that don’t have reciprocating slides. He fits a red dot optic on a relatively tall mount, then presses […]

NAA .22 Magnum Mini-Revolver at the BUG Match

September 4, 2021 Ian McCollum 34

I’ve been taking a lot of big pistols to the (alleged) BackUp Gun Match, and I figured it was time to try out something that actually would quality as a back-up gun. So, I got […]

Marius Berger’s Ring-Trigger Tube-Magazine Pistol

August 18, 2021 Ian McCollum 21

The 1880s and 1890s were a fertile period of experimentation with repeating handguns. One such example is this design by Marius Berger, manufactured in France by St Etienne in 1880 and 1881. It uses a […]

Deliberately Obsolete: Ottoman S&W New Model No.3 in .44 Henry Rimfire

August 16, 2021 Ian McCollum 29

The S&W No.3 revolver was originally designed for the .44 Henry Rimfire cartridge, but initial US military testing caused it to be changed to a centerfire cartridge, and all serial production would use centerfire ammunition. […]

Why The Most Expensive US Martial Pistol Exploded A Lot

August 12, 2021 Ian McCollum 35

The Colt Model 1847 Walker is one of the most valuable of all US military handguns in the collecting community, with examples sometimes breaking seven figures. However, the Walker was in many ways a remarkable […]

Spanish Patent Quirks: Anitua Y Charola’s Copy of the Merwin & Hulbert

August 2, 2021 Ian McCollum 9

The firm of Anitua Y Charola in Eibar, Spain (later renamed Charola Y Anitua) was founded in 1880 or 1881, and their first substantial product was a copy of the American Merwin & Hulbert revolver. […]

New Beretta-Imported MR73 at the Range

July 24, 2021 Ian McCollum 38

The Manurhin MR73 has always been one of the very best combat revolvers made, but they have been hard to find here in the US. That has now changed, as the Beretta group purchased Chapuis, […]

Stopping the action of pistol bullets. Soviet view.

July 11, 2021 Ian McCollum 38

This guest post authored by Andrey Ulanov. In the USSR, the issue of choosing the main pistol cartridge was dealt with twice. For the first time, this was done by a commission in the early […]

Japan’s First Military Revolver: the S&W No.3

July 5, 2021 Ian McCollum 29

When Commodore Perry sailed into Tokyo Bay in 1853, he began a serious upheaval of Japanese life. Among other things, the insular Japanese society had been virtually the only nation to ever successfully implement gun […]