Austria - Forgotten Weapons

6.5mm Mannlicher 1894 at James D Julia

September 26, 2015 Ian McCollum 26

The Mannlicher 1894 is one of a small number of firearms designed with a blow-forward action, and also the first of these guns. It was the creation of Ferdinand Mannlicher, a brilliant and prolific Austria […]

Steyr VG5/VK98 at James D Julia

September 16, 2015 Ian McCollum 19

SCARCE ORIGINAL GERMAN WW II STEYR VG-5 BOLT ACTION RIFLE. By the beginning of 1945, the Nazi government in Germany was looking to find cheaper ways to equip the Volksturm, and solicited bids and designs […]

Schwarzlose 1898 Preview

March 25, 2015 Ian McCollum 33

Yesterday turned into a rather hectic afternoon, as a friend dropped off half a dozen fantastic guns that we will be out shooting tomorrow. Yesterday was my opportunity to become acquainted with how they work […]

Prototype Pieper .45ACP Pistol at James D Julia

March 14, 2015 Ian McCollum 51

Nicholas Pieper designed a blowback pocket pistol which was manufactured under license by Steyr in 1908. It was a reasonably successful pistol, and can be found today in .25ACP and .32ACP calibers. This particular one […]

Nickl Prototype M1916/22 Pistol at James D Julia

March 11, 2015 Ian McCollum 9

Josef Nickl was one of the chief R&D designers at Mauser after the Federle brothers, and one of his pet projects was a rotating barrel military pistol developed from the Steyr-Hahn M1912 pistol. He built […]

Schulhof 1887 Repeating Pistol at James D Julia

March 6, 2015 Ian McCollum 14

Austria was a hotbed of early repeating handgun design, first with manually operated designs and shortly thereafter with self-loaders. One of the men contributing to this development in the 1880s was Josef Schulhof, a farmer-turned-gunsmith […]

M1907/12 Schwarzlose HMG at James D Julia

March 3, 2015 Ian McCollum 37

The M1907/12 heavy machine gun was the standard mounted MG of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during the First World War, and saw sporadic use clear through the end of WWII. The design is unusual among heavy […]

Slow Motion: Steyr-Mannlicher M1905

January 29, 2015 Ian McCollum 32

The 1905 Steyr-Mannlicher was developed by Ferdinand Mannlicher, one of Europe’s most prolific gun designers. It uses the 7.65mm Mannlicher cartridge, which is roughly equivalent to .32 ACP, with a 10-round fixed internal magazine. The […]

Slow Motion: M1912 Steyr Hahn

January 22, 2015 Ian McCollum 32

The Steyr M1912, or Steyr Hahn (meaning “hammer”, to distinguish it from the striker-fired Steyr 1907) has a number of features that make it unusual among pistols today. It uses a fixed internal magazine fed […]

Roth-Sauer Automatic Pistol at RIA

November 30, 2014 Ian McCollum 24

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 […]