Semiauto pistol - Forgotten Weapons

Webley 1913 Naval Model (Video)

March 24, 2014 Ian McCollum 18

William John Whiting spent about 10 years trying to get the British military to adopt his automatic pistol, and finally achieved his goal in 1913 with a contract for pistols supplied to the British Royal […]

Charola-Anitua Photos

March 12, 2014 Ian McCollum 11

Recently a 7mm Charola-Anitua pistol showed up on GunBroker, with some pretty decent photos. I can’t afford to buy it, but I can afford to share the photos! The 7mm Charola-Anitua was made from 1900 […]

Vintage Saturday: Militiawoman

February 15, 2014 Ian McCollum 24

Spanish militiawoman during the Civil War, with a Mauser rifle and what appears to be an early Star pistol (model 1919 possibly?)

Test Firing Hijinks – Frommer 1910

February 4, 2014 Ian McCollum 13

Days at the range don’t always go as planned. After over a year of looking, I finally managed to recently find a box of 7.65mm Frommer (Short) ammo that I could use to test-fire my […]

Frommer 1910 Disassembly Video

February 3, 2014 Ian McCollum 23

I’ve been meaning to put this video together for a while, and finally have it – a detailed look at the mechanics and internal workings of the Frommer 1910. This was the third major iteration […]

JoLoAr at the Range

January 27, 2014 Ian McCollum 40

I had the chance to take a .380 caliber JoLoAr pistol out to the range recently, and took the video camera along: The JoLoAr pistol was a combination of a poor-selling and unremarkable Spanish blowback […]

Vintage Saturday: Captured

January 25, 2014 Ian McCollum 69

Antifascists holding a captured officer at gunpoint with a JoLoAr pistol during the Spanish Civil War. Check back Monday for a video on the JoLoAr!

Safeties – or not – on US Military Pistols

January 14, 2014 Ian McCollum 39

The question of what type of safety is appropriate on a combat pistol is a source of lots of debate. That’s partly because it’s ultimately a subjective rather than objective question, but also partly because […]

Colt/Browning Sight Safety 1900

January 13, 2014 Ian McCollum 30

In 1897, John Browning patented four different types of automatic pistol – a blowback type that would become the FN/Browning 1900, a gas-operated type similar in concept to his 1895 machine gun, a rotating-barrel type, […]

Looking for Webley-Fosbery First-Hand Accounts

January 12, 2014 Ian McCollum 30

I recently got an email from Jonathan Ferguson at the British National Firearms Centre (better known as the Pattern Room) asking if I might have any first-hand written accounts of the Webley-Fosbery being used in […]