Italy - Forgotten Weapons

Bernardelli VB: Not Actually a Beretta 38 Copy

October 11, 2019 Ian McCollum 24

This is Lot 1069 in the upcoming October 2019 Morphys Extraordinary auction. The Bernardelli company, known mostly for sporting arms, made an effort to break into the law enforcement/military/security market in the year after World […]

WW1 Villar Perosa SMG at the Range

September 28, 2019 Ian McCollum 51

This is lot 1042 in the Morphy Extraordinary Auction on October 22, 2019. Courtesy of the Morphy Auction Company, I am out at the range today with a very rare Italian Villar Perosa machine gun from […]

SPAS-15: Franchi’s Improvement on the SPAS-12

August 12, 2019 Ian McCollum 46

Lot 776 in the September 2019 RIA auction. The SPAS-15 was Franchi’s successor to the SPAS-12, improved with detachable box magazines (6 round capacity) and a construction of simple sheet metal samplings and polymer. Like […]

Armaguerra Last-Ditch M35 Pistol

June 17, 2019 Ian McCollum 24

When Italy signed an armistice with the Allied powers in 1944, the German military took over control of several Italian arms factories still in their geographic control. These included Beretta and Armaguerra, in Cremona. The […]

Italy Modernizes: the Carcano Needlefire Rifle Conversion

April 15, 2019 Ian McCollum 27

This rifle is lot #1415 in the upcoming April 2019 Morphy auction. When Prussia and its Dreyse needle fire rifles defeated Austria and its muzzleloaders at Shadow in 1866, much of the world took note. […]

Book Review: La Régia Fabbrica d’Armi di Terni

March 24, 2019 Ian McCollum 21

This is no ordinary firearms reference book. This is a 900-page, nearly 12 pound tome in Italian. And not justify Italian; hand-written cursive Italian. With a substantial number of hand-painted illustrations. It is about the […]

Benelli B76 vs MP3S at the Range

March 2, 2019 Ian McCollum 12

The Benelli MP3S is a very rare pistol in .32 S&W, and a nearly unheard of one in 9mm Parabellum. Well, thanks to viewer Todd we have one of those 9mm examples to take to […]

Benelli B76 Family: Italian Inertial Locking Autopistols

March 1, 2019 Ian McCollum 32

Benelli is not the company we think of today for modern service pistols – and according to the sales record of the B76 family, they weren’t in the 1980s either. Designed in the early 1970s […]

Bernardelli UB: Hammer and Striker Fired 9mm Blowback

January 28, 2019 Ian McCollum 32

In the years following World War Two, the Bernardelli company in Italy made an attempt to enter the full-power pistol market with a simple blowback 9mm Parabellum design. They basically scaled up their existing .32/.380 […]

Book Review: Italian Partisan Weapons in WWII

December 30, 2018 Ian McCollum 8

“Italian Partisan Weapons in WWII” was originally written and published in Italian by Gianluigi Usai, and recently (2016) translated into English by Ralph Riccio and published by Schiffer in the US. It was intended to […]