Fake
1852 Slant-Breech Sharps
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 […]
Video
Aircraft MGs
Slow Motion: lMG 08/15 Maxim
Today we’re looking at a luftgekühlt maschinengewehr 08/15 in slow motion – a lightened and mair-cooled version of the Maxim used on German WWI aircraft. This particular example is set up as a Zeppelin gun, […]
Prototype
Danish Madsen-Ljungman Rifle
Thanks to reader John D, we have a chance today to look at a very scarce Danish-made copy of the AG-42B Ljungman rifle. The Madsen company in Denmark made about 50 of these rifles for […]
Manual machine guns
Reproduction Nordenfelt Gun
A few days ago I was at a small machine gun shoot (which wound up being a bit larger than I’d expected), and was happily surprised to discover that one of the attendees had brought […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Clever Double Barrel Sporting Rifle at RIA
This double-barreled sporting rifle made by Christoph Funk in Germany is not much like the typical over-under double-barreled rifle. It began as a fairly standard Mauser bolt action, chambered in 7×57 Mauser with a 5-round […]
Semiauto pistol
American Eagle Lugers at RIA
Many people are aware of the .45 caliber Lugers made for US military field trials – but far fewer people realize that Lugers were both tested by the US military and sold commercially several years […]
Semiauto pistol
Development of the Model 1911 Pistol (Video)
When I was looking through the catalog for this upcoming Rock Island auction, I noticed that there were a lot of early-type Colt automatic pistols listed. I looked a bit closer, and noticed that there […]
Semiauto Rifles
Roth-Sauer Automatic Pistol at RIA
The Roth-Sauer is a rare early automatic pistol designed by Karel Krnka, financed by Georg Roth, and manufactured by J.P. Sauer & Sohn in Germany. It is mechanically quite complex – much moreso than strictly […]
Prototype
LeMat Centerfire Pistol and Carbine at RIA
Colonel LeMat is best known for his 9-shot muzzleloading .42 caliber revolver with its 20 gauge shot barrel acting as cylinder axis pin – several thousand of these revolvers were imported and used in the […]
Lever Action Rifles
Colt-Burgess 1883 Carbine at RIA
The 1883 Colt-Burgess was the Colt company’s single, brief endeavor to enter the lever action “cowboy” rifle market. Winchester had been making some moves to break into Colt’s lucrative shotgun and pistol markets, and Colt […]