Single Shot Rifles - Forgotten Weapons

Ferguson Breechloading Flintlock (Video)

May 11, 2015 Ian McCollum 27

Patrick Ferguson was a British inventor and Army officer who developed a breechloading flintlock rifle in the 1770s (his patent was granted in 1776). He impressed British Army ordnance officials with a remarkable demonstration of […]

PzB-39 German Anti-Tank Rifle at RIA

April 8, 2015 Ian McCollum 35

Most countries still had anti-tank rifles in their military inventory at the beginning of WWII – the Solothurn S18-100, the Lahti L39, the Boys AT Rifle, the PTRD and PTRS, and so on. For Germany, […]

Sharps-Borchardt M1878 at RIA (Video)

February 18, 2015 Ian McCollum 13

The M1878 was the last new rifle produced by the Sharps company before it went out of business in 1881. It was the invention of none other than German gun designer Hugo Borchardt, better known […]

Khyber Pass Martini Pistol at RIA (Video)

February 6, 2015 Ian McCollum 13

The Khyber Pass is a well known center of arms production, with gunmaking there going back at least 100 years. The quality of craftsmanship varies greatly, from excellent and safe weapons to thoroughly unsafe guns […]

Modern Take on the Sturmgewehr, and a Mile Long Shot to Kill

January 16, 2015 Ian McCollum 26

Two things today… First up, I recently had a chance to tinker with a rifle made by Brethren Arms, which is in many ways the modern evolution of the StG-45 that we looked at in […]

Martini-Henry I.C.1 Carbine (Video)

December 29, 2014 Ian McCollum 33

Formally adopted in 1877, the I.C.1 Martini Henry was formally designated the “Arms Interchangeable, Carbine Breech loading Rifled, with clearing rod Martini Henry Mk1”. The word “interchangeable” refers to its use for both the artillery […]

1852 Slant-Breech Sharps

December 15, 2014 Ian McCollum 23

Reader Kymm was kind enough to load me this rifle to video, with a particular interest in seeing the amount of gas leakage (or lack thereof) on high-speed footage. This early model of Sharps featured […]

2-Gun Action Match: Mosin & Nagant vs Trapdoor & SAA

November 22, 2014 Ian McCollum 38

No vintage photo today – instead I have a vintage rifle match! I’ve had had a bunch of people asking to see a Mosin-Nagant in one of these matches, and decided to oblige – but […]

Needham Musket Conversion

October 15, 2014 Ian McCollum 38

by Roger L. Papke, Handfuls of History At the end of the American Civil War, the Union had well over a million surplus muzzle-loading rifle-muskets, all of which were obsolete since it was clear that […]

Hall Breechloading Carbine at RIA

September 10, 2014 Ian McCollum 14

The M1819 Hall rifle was the first breechloader adopted on a wide scale by a military force (the British Ferguson predated it, but was only made in small numbers). The Hall stayed in production on […]