Semiauto pistol - Forgotten Weapons

Bergmann No.5 / 1897 (Video)

January 12, 2017 Ian McCollum 8

The Bergmann #5 was the first pistol in the Bergmann line to have a locked breech action, taken from one of Schmeisser’s machine gun patents. This model was introduced in 1897 using a more powerful […]

Bergmann No. 3 & No.4 1896 Pistols

January 10, 2017 Ian McCollum 14

Of the three calibers available in the 1896 model Bergmann pistol, the 6.5mm No.3 was the most popular. Approximately 4,000 of these guns were produced, and they found a worldwide following. The No.3 pistol was […]

Bergmann Transitional No 1/2 Pistols

January 8, 2017 Ian McCollum 6

Today we have a pair of interesting transitional Bergman factory prototypes which fall between the early No.1 / 1894 design and the 1896 No2/3/4 commercial production guns. These are both in the white, and show […]

Bergmann No.2 pistol in 5mm Bergmann, with folding trigger

Bergmann No. 2 / 1896

January 6, 2017 Ian McCollum 20

The No.2 was Bergmann’s first offering of a civilian pocket pistol, introduced in 1896 alongside the larger-framed No.3 and No.4 pistols. It was chambered for a truly anemic 5mm cartridge, using a simple blowback system […]

Bergmann No. 1 / 1894 (Video)

January 4, 2017 Ian McCollum 28

The initial patent for what would become the Bergmann pistols was actually a delayed blowback mechanism, and it was quickly revised to simple blowback by Louis Schmeisser. The first actual production pistols, designated the No.1, […]

Bergmann Introduction (Video)

January 3, 2017 Ian McCollum 8

Theodore Bergmann, despite having his name on a lot of different guns, was not actually a gun designer. Bergmann was a financier and industrialist, in many ways like Eli Whitney in the US decades earlier. […]

Lewis Gas Operated Pistol (Video)

December 9, 2016 Ian McCollum 26

Isaac Newton Lewis is best known as the designer of the Lewis light machine gun, of course – but that was not his only work in the firearms field. In 1919, he patented a semiauto […]

Nomar M1911 Magazine-Stock (Video)

December 7, 2016 Ian McCollum 23

In 1936, Lewis Nolan Nomar patented this device, which is basically a large 40-round magazine for the 1911 pistol. He envisioned a military use for the device in trench raiding, giving men a compact weapon […]

What Was the First Automatic Pistol? (Video)

December 5, 2016 Ian McCollum 30

What was the first true semiautomatic pistol? Let’s take a look… Before there were self-loading pistols, there were manually operated repeating pistols with magazines – like the 1850s Volcanics. A surprising number of this type […]

Roth-Theodorovic Pistol w/ Tambour Safety (Video)

December 1, 2016 Ian McCollum 23

Georg Roth’s company in Austria presided over a wonderful variety of interesting handgun development, and this is one example of that lineage. Roth’s licensed or purchased the patent for this pistol from its inventor, Wasa […]