Semiauto pistol - Forgotten Weapons

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 […]

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 […]

Maxim-Silverman 1896 Pistol

October 2, 2013 Ian McCollum 35

We all know of Hiram Maxim for his groundbreaking work in machine gun development – but not many people are familiar with his automatic pistol designs. In fact, this is at least partly because the […]

Skorpion Scarab 9mm (Video)

September 30, 2013 Ian McCollum 22

In my defense, I want to point out that the only reason I wanted to get one of these pistols was to see how much it actually resembled the Czech vz.61 Skorpion, wich is a […]

H&K VP-70Z (Video)

September 23, 2013 Ian McCollum 53

I recently had the chance to hit the range with a VP-70Z, the semiauto civilian version of H&K’s 1970 machine pistol. It is notable both for being one of the few production machine pistols around […]

Book Review: Handguns of the World

September 12, 2013 Ian McCollum 7

I normally don’t have all that much interest in coffee table type gun books – the glossy photos are nice, but they generally don’t have all that much actual information. I had assumed initially that […]

Union Auto-Revolver Addition

September 8, 2013 Ian McCollum 13

I forgot to post this with the video last week on the Union automatic revolver – it’s a scan of a vintage catalog page from the Union Firearms Company, listing both their automatic revolver and […]

Biography: William John Whiting

September 6, 2013 Ian McCollum 16

Today is a continuation of an occasion series on the life stories of notable gun designers. I find it interesting to learn more about the men whose inventiveness and industriousness are responsible for the guns […]

RIA Premier Auction (Part I)

September 3, 2013 Ian McCollum 5

There is another Rock Island Premier Auction coming up in a couple weeks (September 13-15, to be specific), and as usual there is some really cool stuff going on the block. Unlike the regional auctions, […]