Handgun - Forgotten Weapons

Just Too Powerful: The C96 in 9mm Mauser Export

May 11, 2021 Ian McCollum 30

In an effort to widen its potential marked for the C96 pistol, Mauser offered it in 9x25mm (aka 9mm Mauser Export) as well as the much more common 7.63x25mm cartridge. The 9mm cartridge was made […]

The Very Rare Union Semiauto Revolver from Ohio

May 10, 2021 Ian McCollum 11

The most well-known historic automatic revolver is the British Webley-Fosbery, but there were other handguns of the type that were put into production. One example is the Union auto-revolver, made in Toledo, Ohio shortly before […]

Failed Good Intentions: S&W’s Straight Line Target

May 5, 2021 Ian McCollum 24

Introduced in 1925 as a major change to the target pistol market, the Straight Line Target used an automatic-style straight grip instead of the traditional revolver frame. S&W had been a market leader in this […]

Mounties’ First Revolver: the NWMP Adams MkIII

May 3, 2021 Ian McCollum 7

The first handguns issued by the North West Mounted Police (which would later become the modern RCMP) were 330 Adams revolvers, requisitioned by the new police service in March 1874, and shipped over from England. […]

Roth Steyr Developmental Models 1904 and 1906

April 30, 2021 Ian McCollum 10

Before the Austro-Hungarian Empire adopted the Roth Steyr Model 1907 as its official cavalry pistol, they of course went through a series of pistol trials. The winners of two sets of trials were the Roth […]

Hill SMG/Pistol: Inspiration for the FN P90

April 28, 2021 Ian McCollum 49

John L. Hill was a World War One fighter pilot who went into the oil and gas industry, and enjoyed tinkering with guns in his free time. In 1949 he got an idea for a […]

Lugers Under Versailles: The 1926 Simson P08

April 24, 2021 Ian McCollum 12

Simson & Co of Suhl was chosen as the sole contractor legally allowed to manufacture and rework military small arms for the German military under the Versailles treaty. They acquired the P08 Luger tooling from […]

Fritz Mann Model 1921: Chamber-Ring-Delayed Blowback

April 13, 2021 Ian McCollum 50

In 1920, Fritz Mann of Germany patented the idea of cutting a shallow ring in the chamber of a pistol as a delaying mechanism. When fired, a cartridge case would expand into this groove, thus […]

1945: The French Occupy Mauser and Make Lugers

April 7, 2021 Ian McCollum 25

In July 1945, just a few months after the first French troops entered Oberndorf, the Mauser factory began assembling guns under French oversight. In addition to HSc pistols, P38 pistols, K98k rifles, and Model 45 […]

The Lahti L35 in Soviet Testing

April 6, 2021 Ian McCollum 22

This guest article written by Andrey Ulanov. In 1941, at the NIPSVO shooting range, the Soviet military conducted a series of comparative tests of standard foreign and Soviet pistols as well as the Soviet experimental […]