Colt’s .41 Derringers: Buyout and Innovation

November 20, 2023 Ian McCollum 10

When Colt decided that it wanted a piece of the Derringer market, it used a tactic we are used to seeing today: it found an existing manufacturer and just bought them outright. This was the […]

Hangfires & Ballistics Gel: Czech vz.52 at the Range

November 18, 2023 Ian McCollum 14

Yesterday we took a look at the vz.52/57 rifle in 7.62x39mm, and today I have one of it’s 7.62x45mm predecessors out at the range. Not so much to do some shooting, as it turns out, […]

Czech vz. 52/57: The SKS We Have At Home

November 17, 2023 Ian McCollum 7

We don’t need the SKS, we have gun designers at home! In the early days of the Cold War, the Czechoslovak communist party was on very good terms with Josef Stalin, and were able to […]

Beltfed Madsen LMG: When the Weird Gets Weirder

November 15, 2023 Ian McCollum 14

First produced in 1902, the Madsen was one of the first practical light machine guns, and it remained in production for nearly 5 decades. The Madsen system is a rather unusual recoil-operated mechanism with a […]

Colt 1903 in US Military Service (and for the OSS)

November 13, 2023 Ian McCollum 11

The Colt Model 1903, aka Pocket Hammerless, aka Model M, was a massively successful design for Colt on the commercial market. It was chambered for the .32ACP cartridge, with a .380 model introduced in 1908. […]

Breda 37: Italy’s Forgotten Heavy Machine Gun

November 11, 2023 Ian McCollum 40

The Breda Model 37 was Italy’s standard heavy machine gun (which meant a rifle-caliber gun fired only from a tripod) during World War Two. It was chambered for the 8x59mm cartridge, as Italy used a […]

Soviet World War Two Swords? The Cossack M1927 Shashka

November 10, 2023 Ian McCollum 1

Cossack forces have long been a key cavalry element of the Russian military, and this did not change during the Soviet era. The Cossacks had their own rather distinctive style of sword, the shashka, and […]

Madsens in the Favelas: The LMG Still Going Strong With Rio’s Military Police

November 8, 2023 Ian McCollum 2

The Madsen LMG was first introduced in 1902, and it is still in use with police forces in Brazil today. The Madsen was not very popular with major European armies, but it sold extensively in […]

Adventures in Surplus: From German Imperial Navy to Ethiopia

November 7, 2023 Ian McCollum 7

I really enjoy finding guns that can be positively traced through multiple different parts of history, and Lugers can be a great source for that sort of story. Today I have a Luger from Royal […]

The Most Expensive Machine Gun Ever Sold

November 6, 2023 Ian McCollum 7

Morphy’s recently took the world record for the most expensive machine gun ever sold at public auction – with a transferrable FN Minimi. It sold for a winning bid of $490,000, which became a total […]