Germany - Forgotten Weapons

Japanese Contract Steyr-Solothurn S1-100 (aka MP34)

March 13, 2018 Ian McCollum 16

In order to circumvent Versailles Treaty restrictions on arms manufacture, the German Rheinmetall firm purchased a small Swiss company called Solothurn Waffenfabrik in 1929, allowing it to route its business through Switzerland instead of Germany. […]

Norton DP-75: Titanium Plus German Police Pistol

March 1, 2018 Ian McCollum 43

This pistol is something of a mystery – its design comes from the experimental Mauser HsP of the mid 1970s. It uses a short recoil system with a pivoting locking block vaguely like a P38, […]

Book Review – The P38 Pistol by Alexander Krutzek

February 21, 2018 Ian McCollum 30

Get your copy here! If you have been looking for a comprehensive reference work on the P38 pistol but balked at paying $400 for the out-of-print three volumes by Warren Buxton, the solution is here. […]

Walther Olympia: Germany’s Interwar Target Pistol

February 18, 2018 Ian McCollum 25

The Colt Woodsman, introduced in 1915, was the premier – and really the only serious – option for the competitive target shooter into the 1920s when the Walther company decided to introduce a competitor. […]

Slow Motion: Gerät 06 (German WWII Prototype)

February 15, 2018 Ian McCollum 27

Before the invention of the roller-delayed system which would become the H&K G3, Mauser engineers in late World War Two built a small number of prototype roller-locked, gas piston operated rifles in 8x33mm, designated the […]

Authenticating a Very Rare GL Script Luger

February 6, 2018 Ian McCollum 27

Luger collecting is one of the most detail-oriented and tricky niches in the whole firearms community – the amount of knowledge that has been documented is staggering, and the level of obsession with Lugers has […]

CZ38 – The Czech Ugly Ducking

February 4, 2018 Ian McCollum 42

The CZ vz.38 pistol was developed by the CZ factory as a replacement for Czechoslovakia’s vz.24 pistols. It was formally accepted by the Czech Army in June of 1938, and 41,000 were ordered from the […]

Is My Luger All Matching?

January 21, 2018 Ian McCollum 15

Today I am visiting Simpson Ltd in Galesburg, Illinois – a gun shop, import/export shop, and premier Luger dealer. The question we are look at is one of the most common they hear from customers: […]

Book Review: Vickers Guide WWII Germany (Volume I)

December 17, 2017 Ian McCollum 1

Larry Vickers and James Rupley have expanded the Vickers Guide series of coffee table books to World War Two Germany, to look at one of the periods of the most rapid small arms development in […]

Q&A with Larry Vickers: German WW2 Gun and Modern Small Arms

December 11, 2017 Ian McCollum 15

Larry Vickers has published the newest book in the Vickers Guide series, and it looks at German small arms of World War II – the first of two volumes to do so. I had a hand […]