Austria - Forgotten Weapons

Mannlicher Model 1896 Pistols

March 1, 2017 Ian McCollum 5

With the Model 1896 pistol, Ferdinand Mannlicher made an effort to improve the ballistics of his pistols and make them less awkward, by moving to a locked breech action and a bottlenecked higher velocity cartridge. […]

Mannlicher Model 1894 Pistols

February 26, 2017 Ian McCollum 6

The Mannlicher Model 1894 was one of the first successful semiauto pistol designs, and used a very unusual blow forward action. Instead of having a moving slide, the bullet would actually pull the barrel forward […]

1867 Werndl (Video)

January 29, 2017 Ian McCollum 17

The first new breech-loading cartridge rifle adopted by the Austro-Hungarian military was the Model 1867 Werndl, firing the 11x42R black powder cartridge. It used an interesting rotating breech locking system, and replaced the Lorenz muzzleloading […]

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 […]

Frommer 1901 Pistol (Video)

November 26, 2016 Ian McCollum 19

Rudolf Frommer was a self-taught engineer and firearms designer who worked his way up through the FEG concern in Budapest to eventually hold the position of CEO. During this time he developed a series of […]

Vintage Saturday: Austrian Prisoners

October 29, 2016 Ian McCollum 43

This photo is an original color picture, not a modern colorization – taken by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorsky, a pioneer of color photography. Also of interest, note that the Russian guard on the far left is […]

Steyr M95 Semiauto Conversion (Video)

October 28, 2016 Ian McCollum 31

This rifle is a Steyr M95 straight-pull carbine that has been converted into a semiauto by adding a gas piston under the barrel connected to the bolt carrier, and an extension to the stock and […]

Detailed Photos: Mannlicher 1901/04 Carbine

October 13, 2016 Ian McCollum 25

One of Ferdinand von Mannlicher’s very last firearms was an experimental 1901/04 carbine, scaled up from its original pistol cartridge to a new 7.63x32mm intermediate-sized cartridge. I had a video on one of these very […]

Early Pistol Cartridges – What, When & Why?

October 12, 2016 Ian McCollum 38

In a recent discussion with a friend the topic of early automatic pistol cartridges came up. Specifically, looking at the context of which cartridges were actually available at which times, and how this might provide […]