Bolt Action Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

Dreyse M1860 Needle Rifle at RIA (Video)

June 2, 2015 Ian McCollum 21

The Dreyse needle rifle (or zundnadelgewehr, which translates to needle firing rifle) was a major step forward in military rifle technology, although it did not remain at the forefront for very long (much like the […]

Three Videos: Finland, Spain, and Hungary

May 25, 2015 Ian McCollum 30

From Vesamatti, a Finnish gunsmith student who reads the site, we have this neat video of a few older Finnish Army machine guns. The KP-31, KP-44, Sten, KVKK, and DP-27. Not guns we get all […]

Vintage Saturday: Trench Armor

May 16, 2015 Ian McCollum 88

Interestingly, one of the German troops in the front row is wearing grabenpanzer steel armor. This was reportedly used primarily for machine gun crews and sharpshooters – soldiers whose jobs were particularly heavy on staying […]

Winchester-Hotchkiss 1883: History and Initial Impressions

April 29, 2015 Ian McCollum 27

History The Winchester-Hotchkiss rifle was first conceived by Benjamin Hotchkiss in 1875, and by 1877 he had four US patents on the design (numbers 99898, 169641, 184285, and 186566) which he sold to the Winchester […]

Japanese Type 97 Sniper Rifle (Video)

April 27, 2015 Ian McCollum 34

The most common Japanese sniper rifle of World War II was the Type 97, essentially a Type 38 Arisaka rifle with a 2.5x telescopic sight mounted to the side of the receiver. About 22,000 of […]

Blake Bolt Action Rifle at RIA

April 21, 2015 Ian McCollum 26

The Blake was one of many rifle designs submitted to the US Army trials that would ultimately result in the adoption of the Krag-Jorgensen as the US Army’s standard rifle. The main innovation of Blake’s […]

Mondragon 1894 Straight-Pull at RIA

April 5, 2015 Ian McCollum 29

Most people who recognize the name Mondragon know it from Manuel Mondragon’s model 1908 semiauto rifle, the first such rifle to be adopted on a large scale by a military (the Mexican Army, in this […]

Vintage Saturday: More Anti-Aircraft

March 21, 2015 Ian McCollum 37

Soviet snipers train at ranging aircraft with 91/30 PU rifles.

M1895 Lee Navy Salvaged from the USS Maine at James D Julia

February 28, 2015 Ian McCollum 21

The M1895 Lee Navy was a rifle well ahead of it’s time – a smallbore (6mm) straight-pull bolt action adopted by the US Navy at the same time that the US Army was adopting the […]

A Rifle of Many Travels

February 19, 2015 Ian McCollum 33

I was visiting a friend recently (James, who runs Tombstone Territorial Firearms, which you should definitely visit if you are ever in Tombstone – it’s a remarkably well-stocked shop), and he had pulled out a […]