Video - Forgotten Weapons

Q&A 32: Curatorial Adventures with Ashley Hlebinsky

August 8, 2019 Ian McCollum 25

The Cody Firearms Museum recently held its third annual Arsenals of History symposium, gathering professionals from firearms museums across the world to discuss issues specifically related to this particular speciality within the museum world. This […]

Hiram’s Extra Light Maxim Gun

August 7, 2019 Ian McCollum 9

Designed in an effort to compete with the then-new Colt/Browning air cooled 1895 machine gun, the Extra-Light Maxim weighted in at just 27 (maybe 28) pounds for the gun, and 44 pounds with tripod. This […]

P7A13: H&K’s Entry into the US XM9 Pistol Trials

August 5, 2019 Ian McCollum 13

The US held three series of pistol trials beginning in the late 1970s to find a replacement for the venerable M1911 handgun. H&K was a participant in all three – in the first the entered […]

Virtual Tour: Cody Dug-Up Gun Museum

August 3, 2019 Ian McCollum 13

There is a second gun museum in Cody Wyoming that is a lot smaller than the main one, but just as interesting – albeit in very different way. The Cody Dug Up Gun Museum houses […]

1885 Dimancea: A Revolver With Sprockets

August 2, 2019 Ian McCollum 27

Patented in 1885 by Romanian military officer Haralamb Dimancea, this revolver is actually a true hammerless design. Instead of simply shrouding a hammer inside the frame, Dimancea used a pair of rotating sprockets to cock […]

Arsenals of History 2019: Next Generation Collectors & Curators, by Logan Metesh

August 1, 2019 Ian McCollum 13

Arsenals of History is an annual symposium of firearms museum, and met this year at the newly renovated Cody Firearms Museum. The theme of this year’s symposium was social media and museums. This presentation was […]

Maxim “Prototype”: The First Practical Machine Gun

July 31, 2019 Ian McCollum 27

Hiram Maxim was the first person to create a truly practical and functional machine gun, based on a patent he filed in 1883. He pioneered the recoil operating system – the concept of harnessing the […]

Researcher Profile: Cartridge_Gram

July 30, 2019 Ian McCollum 4

Today I would like to introduce you to Jack, who runs the Cartridge_Gram account on Instagram. Ammunition researchers and collectors are a somewhat rare subset of gun collectors, and theirs is a subject that is […]

Belgian GP35: The First Military Browning High Power

July 29, 2019 Ian McCollum 30

The Grande Puissance – High Power – was John Browning’s last firearms design. In fact, he only began the design; it was taken to completion by his protege Dieudonné Saive at FN in Belgium. It […]

Book Review: The Winchester Model 1895: Last of the Classic Lever Actions

July 28, 2019 Ian McCollum 8

Rob Kassab and Brad Dunbar have just published an excellent new book on the Winchester Model 1895 rifle – the Last of the Classic Lever Actions, as their subtitle describes. It is a very nice […]