Handgun - Forgotten Weapons

RIA: Merwin & Hulbert Revolvers

August 21, 2015 Ian McCollum 20

The Merwin & Hulbert company was a short-lived firearms manufacturing partnership between designer Joseph Merwin and the Hulbert brothers as financiers. Merwin wanted to design a particularly strong and high-quality revolver, and he succeeded – […]

The “R9 Arms” Machine Pistol

August 17, 2015 Ian McCollum 83

By request of more than a few readers, I am doing a post on this – although there really isn’t much information I can contribute on the subject. These things got a lot of attention […]

Vintage Saturday: Classi Alpini

August 15, 2015 Ian McCollum 55

Italian Alpini posing for a photograph with a nice selection of Italian small arms – 1934 or 35 Beretta pistols, Beretta 38 submachine gun, and a 1935 model Fiat-Revelli machine gun.

Inside a Chinese Mystery Pistol

August 13, 2015 Ian McCollum 15

I recently did some horse trading with Chuck at GunLab, and he ended up with a couple of my Chinese Mystery Pistols. Today, he pulls one apart to look at the insides…and it’s not a […]

Slow Motion: .32ACP Baby Luger Malfunctions

August 6, 2015 Ian McCollum 31

Mike Krause of San Mateo, California makes some gorgeous reproduction Luger pistols, including copies of the extremely rare .32ACP “baby” Lugers. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much luck with this particular one on the range. Still, […]

Francotte .22LR Borchardt Lookalike (Video)

August 3, 2015 Ian McCollum 14

It’s fairly common today to see .22 caliber versions of larger firearms, marketed to folks who don’t want to spend as much for either the gun or its ammunition. For example, the ATI Sturmgewehrs, the […]

Slow Motion: Luger Snail Drum

July 30, 2015 Ian McCollum 25

The 32-round snail drum (or as it was properly known, the trommelmagazin 08) was developed in 1916 to give increased firepower to units armed with the LangePistole 08, or artillery Luger. These pistols were also […]

Slow Motion Video from the Pattern Room

July 28, 2015 Ian McCollum 25

As someone who is very interested in the practical handling of old firearms, the idea of gun museums leaves me a bit conflicted. On the one hand, I am absolutely in favor of guns being […]

Swiss Prototype Pistols: P44/8 and W+F Bern P43 (Video)

July 27, 2015 Ian McCollum 29

Switzerland was an early adopter of the Luger pistol as a standard military sidearm, but by WWII that design was becoming obsolete and the Swiss began looking for a newer sidearm. Several lines of development […]

Slow Motion: Mauser Schnellfeuer (Video)

July 9, 2015 Ian McCollum 29

Today’s slow motion video is a Mauser Schnellfeuer; the full-auto version of the C96 pistol made in the 1930s. Just over 100,000 of these were made, with the great majority being sold in China. It […]