Manual machine guns
Puckle Gun (Video)
The Puckle Gun is probably best known as that thing that had round bullets for Christians and square bullets for Turks, but there is much more to it than just that (and in addition, the […]
Manual machine guns
Manual machine guns
Reffye Mitrailleuse (Video)
The mitrailleuse was one of the early types of mechanical machine gun, along with the Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, and others. “Mitrailleuse” is actually a general name for a volley gun – one with many barrels […]
Manual machine guns
Reproduction Nordenfelt Gun
A few days ago I was at a small machine gun shoot (which wound up being a bit larger than I’d expected), and was happily surprised to discover that one of the attendees had brought […]
Manual machine guns
Montigny Mitrailleuse Photos
The Mitrailleuse was one of the first pseudo-machine guns – the first ones were developed prior to the Gattling, but they continued to be purchased by military forces through the 1870s. There were several versions, […]
Manual machine guns
Union Repeating Gun
The Gatling is commonly seen as the first manual machine gun used by the US military, but it was preceded by several other designs, including the Union Repeating Gun. Also known as the Ager Gun […]
Book review
Book Review: Bullets and Bureaucrats
For a while now I’ve been following the rabbit hole of machine gun use in the second half of the 19th century – the days of the manually-operated machine gun (Gatling, Gardner, Nordenfelt, etc) and […]
Book review
Book Review: Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel
I hate to perpetuate stereotypes, but this is a case where there is more than a kernel of truth to one. The unfortunate subject is Julia Keller, author of Mr. Gatling’s Terrible Marvel, and she […]
Manual machine guns
Gatling Gun Feeding Mechanisms
The Gatling Gun is interested for many reasons, and one of them is the variety of feeding mechanisms that were developed and used with it. Most firearms are designed around a single specific feeding mechanism, […]
Manual machine guns
Shooting an 1877 Bulldog Gatling
Thanks to a friendly collector, we had the chance to take out one of the new, gorgeous reproduction 1877 Gatling guns being sold by Colt. It’s a near-exact replica, with the added feature of being […]
Book review
Book Review: The Gatling Gun by Wahl and Toppel
Today’s book review is a re-run, because I’ve been re-reading this book in preparation for doing some video on an 1877 Gatling gun: The book we’re looking at is Paul Wahl and Donald Toppel’s The […]