United States - Forgotten Weapons

Q&A #5: Rollin White and Other (Better) Designers

June 28, 2016 Ian McCollum 51

Questions in part I of today’s Q&A: 1:04 – What was Rollin White’s revolver like? 7:09 – Why did pan magazines disappear? 10:14 – Why no pointed pistol bullets? 13:24 – Funky rounds like Trounds […]

RIA: Winchester Thumb Trigger Rifle

June 19, 2016 Ian McCollum 31

The Winchester Thumb Trigger rifle was a very inexpensive boy’s rifle developed from the Model 1902. It is a single-shot .22 rimfire bolt action system, on which the trigger was replaced by a thumb-activated sear […]

RIA: Savage Navy Revolver: Almost Double Action!

June 18, 2016 Ian McCollum 37

The .36 caliber Savage Navy is one of the many revolvers that saw purchase and martial use during the US Civil War – and in this case, martial use on both sides. About 13,000 Savages […]

RIA: Pond .32 Rimfire Revolver (Video)

June 10, 2016 Ian McCollum 19

Lucius Pond was one of 4 major manufacturers successfully sued by Rollin White on behalf of Smith & Wesson, for infringing on White’s patent (exclusively licensed to S&W) of the bored-through cylinder. Pond had designed […]

RIA: Smith & Wesson Model 1913 Automatic Pistols (Video)

June 9, 2016 Ian McCollum 30

Smith & Wesson’s first venture into the autoloading pistol market was done under the leadership of Joe Wesson, Daniel Wesson’s son. He was quite the automatic pistol enthusiast, and made an agreement to license patents […]

RIA: Spanish “El Tigre” Winchester 92 Copy

June 5, 2016 Ian McCollum 29

Spain was historically a major center of patent infringement in firearms manufacture because its patent law left open a big loophole: patents were only enforceable if the patent holder actually manufactured their guns in Spain. […]

RIA: Evans New Model Carbine

June 3, 2016 Ian McCollum 15

The Evans rifle/carbine was developed in 1873 by a Maine dentist named Warren Evans. Its main innovation was a large helical magazine that held a whopping 34 cartridges of Evan’s proprietary .44 caliber cartridge. By […]

Savage Prototype Longslide .380 (Video)

May 26, 2016 Ian McCollum 29

Savage made just a few experimental long-slide versions of their pistols (most of the ones out there are fakes made by modifying existing guns). Personally, I think that this version in .380 would have made […]

Japanese Type 4 Garand Photos

May 24, 2016 Ian McCollum 20

Towards the end of WWII, in 1944, the Japanese Navy developed a copy of the American M1 Garand rifle, chambered for the 7.7mm cartridge. This followed attempts to simply rebarrel captured US guns, which did […]

US Uniforms of WWI: Interesting Details

May 20, 2016 Ian McCollum 9

I had another post planned for today, but found this video pretty interesting. It’s a look at what the US troops were actually wearing in WWI – when they shipped over to Europe, in the […]