Handgun - Forgotten Weapons

A Japanese Officer’s Pistol: the Baby Nambu

April 23, 2017 Ian McCollum 21

The Nambu Automatic Pistol Type B, or “Baby Nambu” as it is known in US collecting circles, is a scaled-down companion to the 1902 “Grandpa” Nambu pistol. It was intended as a private purchase option […]

Failed Gun Yoga: The Fagnus Revolver

April 19, 2017 Ian McCollum 13

Produced by Alexandre Fagnus of Liege, this is a military style, six-shot, .450 caliber revolver with a particularly interesting and unusual unloading mechanism. The rear half of the trigger guard is a lever which can […]

Remington-Rider Magazine Pistol

April 17, 2017 Ian McCollum 41

One of many firearms developed for Remington by Joseph Rider was the Rider Magazine Pistol – a manually operated 5-shot repeater chambered for the .32 extra-short rimfire cartridge (the same round used by the Chicago […]

Springfield .22 Rimfire 1911 Conversions at James D Julia

April 10, 2017 Ian McCollum 15

Unnumbered Slide Slide #24 Almost immediately after adopting the Colt/Browning Model 1911 pistol, the US military requested a .22LR conversion for training purposes. In 1913 Springfield Arsenal developed a conversion, but it was woefully inadequate. […]

A Connoisseur’s Pistol: Devel’s Full House S&W 59 Conversion at James D Julia

April 9, 2017 Ian McCollum 21

Produced by gunsmith Charles Kelsey, the Devel “Full House” package was a conversion of the Smith & Wesson Model 39 or Model 59 pistol (the 39 was a single stack and the 59 a double […]

Massive Wheellock Hand Mortars at James D Julia

April 8, 2017 Ian McCollum 13

These wheellock hand mortars, or katzenkopf, are an example of a weapon made and used for everything from front line military application to civilian parades to simple decoration. The pair we are looking at today […]

White-Merrill Experimental Model 1911 Pistol at James D Julia

April 6, 2017 Ian McCollum 17

In the aftermath of their rejection in the US 1907 pistol trials, Joseph White and Samuel Merrill continued working on handgun designs. In 1911, Merrill wrote to the Ordnance Department to inquire about whether they […]

High Standard T3 Prototype: An American Blowback at James D Julia

April 5, 2017 Ian McCollum 53

In 1947, the US Army Air Corps (it had not yet become the Air Force) was assessing its pilot survival equipment, and decided that it wanted a smaller and lighter handgun than the Colt 1911. […]

Joseph White Experimental .38 Caliber Automatic Pistols at James D Julia

April 3, 2017 Ian McCollum 7

Joseph White’s experiments in handgun design did not begin with the White-Merrill 1907 submitted to US handgun trials. In 1905 he submitted a patent (US #888560) for features in these two .38 caliber semiauto prototype pistols. […]

Trejo Model 1 Machine Pistol at James D Julia

March 31, 2017 Ian McCollum 34

The Trejo pistols were made by a small family company in Puebla, Mexico from the late 1940s until the early 1970s. They made primarily .22 LR rimfire pistols, in both small (Model 1) and large […]