Prototype - Forgotten Weapons

Swanström 1882 Automatic Pistol

October 10, 2014 Ian McCollum 25

Today’s post was written by a Swedish reader named Arne Bergkvist, about a very early Swedish automatic pistol I had not been aware of. It is particularly interesting as one of relatively few examples of […]

Prototype Dieckmann P66 Pistol at RIA

September 7, 2014 Ian McCollum 36

The P66 was a prototype .22LR semiauto pistol designed by a German immigrant to the United States by the name of Rolf Dieckmann. It never went into production, but had a number of interesting features, […]

Handmade Auto-Revolver at RIA

August 27, 2014 Ian McCollum 22

This very odd one-off pistol first appeared in a 1958 Golden State Arms catalog, with no description of its history or mechanical design. I have often seen it referred to as an automatic revolver, but […]

Krnka 1895 Semiauto Pistol at RIA

August 26, 2014 Ian McCollum 14

This prototype 1895 Krnka automatic pistol is another of the items up for sale at the upcoming Rock Island Premier Auction. This pistol, serial number 7, was the first in the developmental line that led […]

Mauser 1912/14 Automatic Pistol (Video)

August 11, 2014 Ian McCollum 13

The Mauser 1912/14 automatic pistol was the final stage of a dead-end development track for a military sidearm in 9mm Parabellum made by Mauser. The program began as a plain blowback pistol in 1909, which […]

Smith-Condit Rifle

July 23, 2014 Ian McCollum 11

In the years prior to World War I, the US Army Ordnance Department was already investigating the possibility of adopting a self-loading service rifle, even as the 1903 Springfield rifle was being adopted. In 1904 […]

Ole Krag’s Experimental Pistol: Made By Norinco

July 18, 2014 Ian McCollum 37

In 1908, Ole Krag (the same man associated with the Krag-Jorgensen rifle) applied for a US patent on an automatic pistol design. This design, along with many others, would be submitted to the Norwegian military […]

US Model 45A

July 16, 2014 Ian McCollum 60

by Tom Laemlein A couple of years ago, I wrote a short article for Small Arms Review magazine on the strangely futuristic “Model 45A”, which was the subject of a group of photos by a […]

Reed Knight’s Experimental 1903 Semiauto

July 15, 2014 Ian McCollum 21

I saw this rifle when I visited Reed Knight’s Institute of Military Technology a while back, but didn’t have a chance to examine it. Well, he took it off the wall for a video segment […]

Mayn Experimental Carbine

May 28, 2014 Ian McCollum 28

To the left there is a Soviet memo on the subject of the experimental carbine designed by a Colonel P.I. Mayn. The memo reads: To the chief of the Red Army GAU, General-Lieutenant-Colonel comrade Yakovlev […]