Germany - Forgotten Weapons

Short: Revolvers with Manual Safeties

June 21, 2018 Ian McCollum 35

One of the classic mistakes make by authors who are not “gunnies” is to have a character threateningly click off the safety catch…on a revolver (sound effects editors do it in movies and TV, too). […]

Astra 600/43: A Straight Blowback 9mm for the Wehrmacht

June 14, 2018 Ian McCollum 46

The Astra in this video is coming up for auction here… When Germany acquired a land border with Spain after the French capitulation in 1940, they took advantage of the opportunity to purchase Spanish firearms, […]

Gewehr 71/84: Germany’s Transitional Repeating Rifle

June 10, 2018 Ian McCollum 16

This rifle is coming up for auction at RIA here. In the ongoing arms race between France and Germany, the Mauser 71/84 was the first German repeating rifle. Paul Mauser began work on it in […]

Astra 300 – A Pocket Pistol Bought Mostly By Germany

May 29, 2018 Ian McCollum 25

The pistol in this video is coming up for auction here. The Astra 300 was introduced in 1923, copying the layout, mechanics, and handling of the Astra 400 military pistol in a much more convenient […]

Germany’s First Smokeless Carbines: the Kar 88 and Gewehr 91

May 27, 2018 Ian McCollum 5

The Kar88 in this video is coming up for auction here, and the Gewehr 91 here. With the development of the smokeless Gewehr 88 “Commission Rifle”, the German Army finally made a serious effort to […]

Polish and German Police Silenced CZ-27 Pistols

April 25, 2018 Ian McCollum 19

Today we are looking at two suppressed CZ-27 pistols, one Polish and one German. The Polish one was issued by the Ministry of Public Security, an agency which only existed from 1945 until 1954. It […]

HK XM-8: What Was it and Why? (With Larry Vickers)

April 20, 2018 Ian McCollum 37

Larry Vickers has the closest thing most any of us will ever have to a true XM-8 rifle, and has more than a little trigger time on the original XM-8 rifles. So, I asked him […]

Walther Toggle-Locked Semiauto Shotgun (ouch!)

April 18, 2018 Ian McCollum 23

Between the world wars, the Walther company designed and marketed a short recoil, toggle-locked 12 gauge shotgun for sporting use. It was patented by the Walther brothers, but actually manufactured by the Deutsche-Werke consortium, which […]

H&K Quality Meets the Thumbhole Stock: The SR-9

April 8, 2018 Ian McCollum 13

The H&K SR9 was a the version of the H&K G3/91 designed to comply with (or avoid, if you prefer) the Bush Sr. 1989 import ban on “assault weapons”. About 4,000 of these were imported […]

Korth PRS Automatic Pistol: German Quality (And Price!)

March 31, 2018 Ian McCollum 39

Korth is a boutique firearms manufacturer in Germany generally known for their very fine and very expensive revolvers. In 2015, the decided to introduce an automatic pistol as well, which they called the PRS. It […]