Handgun - Forgotten Weapons

Bergmann No. 3 / 1896 Pistol

November 12, 2013 Ian McCollum 16

Of the three calibers available in the 1896 model Bergmann pistol, the 6.5mm No.3 was the most popular. Approximately 4,000 of these guns were produced, and they found a worldwide following. We have examples below […]

Streetsweeper Shotgun (Video)

November 11, 2013 Ian McCollum 51

It may seem sometimes that I’ve never met a gun I didn’t like…but I can assure you that isn’t the case. The Streetsweeper, for example, is a pretty terrible gun. Originally designed in 1980 by […]

Vintage Saturday: Rifles? What Rifles?

November 9, 2013 Ian McCollum 50

US World War I doughboys with M1911 pistols on display. Trigger discipline wasn’t what it is today.

Bergmann No. 2 / 1896 Pistol

November 8, 2013 Ian McCollum 25

After several years of work and at least two Swiss military trials, Louis Schmeisser’s design of the Bergmann self-loading pistol was still not quite good enough to become a commercial success. Only a few pistols […]

Bergmann 1894 – No.1 Pistol

November 6, 2013 Ian McCollum 18

As Theodore Bergmann and Louis Schmeisser embarked on the process of perfecting and improving their production pistols, they used a numbering system to identify the different models that were made. There are also model years […]

Bergmann-Schmeisser 1893 Pistol

November 5, 2013 Ian McCollum 17

Today we are starting the story of the Bergmann automatic pistol – one of the early successful self-loading handguns, and one which led to a less prominent firearms dynasty than some other big names of […]

Cavalry Use of Pistols?

October 29, 2013 Ian McCollum 66

Here’s a subject I don’t know much about, and I’m hoping some of the folks reading this can help educate me: cavalry use of handguns. How many groups actually experimented with handguns as a primary […]

Vintage Saturday: Premature Anti-Fascists

October 19, 2013 Ian McCollum 26

Canadian volunteers of the Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion in the Spanish Civil War, armed with with grenades and Mauser Schnellfeuer machine pistols or (more likely) Spanish-made copies thereof.

Book Review: Iver Johnson Arms & Cycle Works Firearms 1871-1993

October 17, 2013 Ian McCollum 18

The Iver Johnson company doesn’t get much respect or recognition these days, but they made a staggering number of generally very good, inexpensive handguns for many decades. The “cheap” image of the brand has largely […]

Borchardt C93 Manual

October 16, 2013 Ian McCollum 12

The C93 Borchardt was the first truly commercially successful self-loading pistol, and it was the basis for the P08 Luger which would become one of the most iconic pistols in history. I had the opportunity […]