Handgun - Forgotten Weapons

Prototype Pieper .45ACP Pistol at James D Julia

March 14, 2015 Ian McCollum 51

Nicholas Pieper designed a blowback pocket pistol which was manufactured under license by Steyr in 1908. It was a reasonably successful pistol, and can be found today in .25ACP and .32ACP calibers. This particular one […]

Schouboe Prototype .45 Pistols at James D Julia

March 13, 2015 Ian McCollum 11

The Schouboe is best known in the US as one of the pistols that competed in the 1907 Army pistol trials, unsuccessfully. It was designed in Demark by Jens Schouboe, whose much more notable accomplishment […]

Walther Volkspistole at James D Julia

March 12, 2015 Ian McCollum 17

As the Second World War started to really take a toll on German industrial production, several companies started to work on alternatives to the P38 handgun in an effort to reduce production cost and time. […]

Nickl Prototype M1916/22 Pistol at James D Julia

March 11, 2015 Ian McCollum 9

Josef Nickl was one of the chief R&D designers at Mauser after the Federle brothers, and one of his pet projects was a rotating barrel military pistol developed from the Steyr-Hahn M1912 pistol. He built […]

Experimental “Joint Safety” C96 Mauser at James D Julia

March 9, 2015 Ian McCollum 5

This particular 1902-made example of the C96 Mauser incorporates several experimental features of the design that would never go into mass production. It was an effort to make a version of the C96 that would […]

Mauser 1912/14 Experimental .45ACP Pistol at James D Julia

March 8, 2015 Ian McCollum 11

Before World War One, the Mauser company tried to make a follow-up automatic pistol to replace its famous C96 “Broomhandle” design with something more modern. The result was a very successful pocket pistol in .25ACP […]

Colt 1862 Police Pocket Revolver (Cased) at James D Julia

March 7, 2015 Ian McCollum 12

The 1862 Police Pocket was the last of Colt’s percussion revolvers. It was a combination of the small 1849 model frame (intended for .31 caliber) and a 5-shot .36 caliber cylinder. The frame was stepped […]

Schulhof 1887 Repeating Pistol at James D Julia

March 6, 2015 Ian McCollum 14

Austria was a hotbed of early repeating handgun design, first with manually operated designs and shortly thereafter with self-loaders. One of the men contributing to this development in the 1880s was Josef Schulhof, a farmer-turned-gunsmith […]

BSA Prototype .45ACP Pistol at James D Julia

March 5, 2015 Ian McCollum 25

BSA (Birmingham Small Arms) was the largest private arms maker in the UK during World War One, and when the war ended it of course saw its huge military contracts evaporate. One of BSA’s efforts […]

20-Shot C96 “Broomhandle” Mauser at James D Julia

March 4, 2015 Ian McCollum 21

Early in the production of the C96 Mauser, the company tried a variety of different configurations of the pistol, to see what would be popular and sell well. Most of these were abandoned by about […]