Handgun - Forgotten Weapons

South Africa’s Berettas: The Vektor Z88 and SP1

February 25, 2019 Ian McCollum 16

In the 1980s, the South African military and police were using substantial numbers of different handguns, and began looking for a way to consolidate to simply maintenance and logistics. Studying the different guns they had, […]

Lugerman’s .45 ACP Target Model Luger

February 23, 2019 Ian McCollum 17

Eugene Golubtsov – aka Lugerman – has been building beautiful .45 ACP Lugers base don the original DWM technical data package for the 1907 trial Luger for a little while now. We previously looked at […]

Bobbie Ford’s Romantic Derringer (NSFW – Happy Valentine’s Day!)

February 14, 2019 Ian McCollum 14

This surprising derringer was commissioned in the 1970s by Walther Buhl Ford III for his wife Bobbie Ford, and hand crafted by Alvin White, Colt’s renowned master engraver. Bobbie Ford was a collector of Western […]

Boberg XR9S & XR45S: The Bullpup Pistols

February 12, 2019 Ian McCollum 123

Rock Island is selling these two Boberg pistols as part of a Lot 1089 in their upcoming Regional auction on February 14th, 2019. Arne Boberg founded Boberg Arms in 2009 and released his first pistol […]

Bernardon-Martin: France’s First Commercial Semiautomatic Pistol

February 11, 2019 Ian McCollum 13

The Bernardon-Martin was the first commercially viable semiautomatic pistol manufactured in France; a .32ACP (7.65mm Browning) striker-fired pocket pistol competing with the FN Browning 1899/1900. The first model was introduced in 1907 with a fixed […]

Unique Military Trials Steyr-Hahn M1911 Pistol

February 4, 2019 Ian McCollum 17

Today we are looking at a unique military trials Steyr-Hahn M1911 pistol which has been fitted with an adjustable tangent rear sight. The standard model of the Steyr-Hahn has a fixed rear notch, but it […]

P.A.F. Junior – South Africa’s First Production Gun

January 29, 2019 Ian McCollum 14

The Pretoria Arms Factory was founded in 1954 by Piet Nagel and Jan Willem Dekker. both Dutch immigrants to South Africa after WW2. They began manufacturing a simplified copy of the Baby Browning pocket pistol, […]

Bernardelli UB: Hammer and Striker Fired 9mm Blowback

January 28, 2019 Ian McCollum 32

In the years following World War Two, the Bernardelli company in Italy made an attempt to enter the full-power pistol market with a simple blowback 9mm Parabellum design. They basically scaled up their existing .32/.380 […]

Walther’s .45ACP MP (P38 Precursor)

January 21, 2019 Ian McCollum 17

During the process of developing the pistol which would become the German army’s P38, the Walther company was also interested in potential export contracts (like the one they actually did get from Sweden). One potential […]

H&K P7 Family: Pistols for Gun Cognoscenti

January 16, 2019 Ian McCollum 69

Developed in the 1980s in response to a need for new West German police sidearms, the H&K P7 is one of the most mechanically unusual pistols to have been commercially successful in recent decades. It […]