Handgun - Forgotten Weapons

Mannlicher Model 1894 Pistols

February 26, 2017 Ian McCollum 6

The Mannlicher Model 1894 was one of the first successful semiauto pistol designs, and used a very unusual blow forward action. Instead of having a moving slide, the bullet would actually pull the barrel forward […]

Maxim Silverman Model 1896 Automatic Pistol (Video)

February 24, 2017 Ian McCollum 35

Hiram Maxim is obviously best known for the Maxim Machine Gun, but he and (most significantly) his assistant Louis Silverman also dabbled in handgun design. It appears that the work was primarily Silverman’s, done with […]

Savage .25 ACP Prototype Pocket Pistols (Video)

February 19, 2017 Ian McCollum 19

Savage was very successful with their .32 ACP and .380 ACP pocket pistols, and in the 1910s was interested in also breaking into the .25 ACP market, to compete with the Colt 1908 “Baby Browning”. […]

Czech CZ-50 Pistol: CIA Assessment

February 16, 2017 Ian McCollum 35

So those CZ50 little semiauto pistols that came into the US as surplus a few years ago? Well, those weren’t always cheap and easy to get – when first introduced, of course, the were novel […]

Whitney-Beals Walking Beam Pocket Revolver

February 15, 2017 Ian McCollum 13

This revolver, designed by Fordyce Beals (how cool of a name is that?), was developed while Colt’s patent on using the hammer to index the cylinder was still in effect. To avoid that patent, this […]

Astra 700 Special: Failed Copy of the FN 1910

February 12, 2017 Ian McCollum 9

The Model 700 Special was an attempt by Astra to piggyback on the popularity of the FN Model 1910 automatic pistol. Astra took their Model 100 (a renamed Ruby pistol of WWI lineage) and changed […]

Guns in the Movies (Video)

February 10, 2017 Ian McCollum 25

Today we have not so much an examination of a specific firearms, but rather a look at how Clint Eastwood’s film portrayal of Dirty Harry Callahan drove a huge wave of popularity of the Smith […]

Custom Cut-Down Walch 10-Shot Pepperbox Revolver (Video)

February 4, 2017 Ian McCollum 13

The Walch revolver was a Civil War era design with the unique feature of having superimposed loads – each chamber in the cylinder held not one shot, but two, stacked one on top of the […]

Colt 1902 Philippine Model

January 26, 2017 Ian McCollum 28

The Colt 1902 Philippine Model revolver is a modified version of the Colt 1878 Double Action Army or Frontier model pistol. This was Colt’s first entry into the large-frame double action revolver market, following just […]

Star Model A Carbine (Video)

January 21, 2017 Ian McCollum 14

Star introduced the Model A as the commercial sale version of the Model 1920 and 1921 pistols which they had entered into Spanish military trials in 1920. The pistol was rejected by the Army in […]