United States - Forgotten Weapons

RIA: Colt Shotguns of the Old West (1878 & 1883)

February 21, 2016 Ian McCollum 21

When someone says “Old West Colt”, the first thought is usually not double barreled shotguns. However, Colt made two quite high-end side-by-side shotguns during this period, and they played a role in the remarkable Colt/Winchester […]

RIA: Warwinck Copy of the Savage Automatic Pistol

February 20, 2016 Ian McCollum 22

The Eibar region of Spain is known as the center of a lot of pistol production from WWI through the Spanish Civil War, typically pistols called Ruby clones. Well, the various small gunmakers there were […]

RIA: Whitney-Scharf Lever-Action Rifle

February 18, 2016 Ian McCollum 10

The Whitney-Scharf was the final rifle manufactured by the Whitney company before it was bought out and closed down by Winchester in 1888. Only about 2,000 of these rifles were made before that time.

RIA: Whitney-Kennedy Lever Action Rifles

February 17, 2016 Ian McCollum 29

Eli Whitney Jr., son of the inventor of the famous “cotton gin”, ran the Whitneyville Armory for many years, producing a wide variety of firearms until nearly the end of the 1800s. Among other gun […]

RIA: Colt Richards Conversion 1860 Army

February 13, 2016 Ian McCollum 7

Colt, like all the other manufacturers in the US, was prevented from making cartridge revolvers by the Rollin white patent, which finally expired in 1869. This left them limited to their percussion revolvers, the 1849, […]

RIA: Predecessor to the Mosin – the Russian Berdan II

February 10, 2016 Ian McCollum 43

Before adopting the M1891 Mosin-Nagant, the Russian Empire (like most major militaries) used a large-bore single-shot rifle as its standard infantry rifle. In this case, a .42-caliber rifle designed by American General Hiram Berdan (yes, […]

RIA: Porter Turret Rifle

February 7, 2016 Ian McCollum 23

The Porter was one of the few turret rifles ever put into serial production. Turret rifles are similar in principle to revolvers, but they is a cylinder with radial chambers (like the spokes of a […]

RIA: An Introduction to Early Lever-Action Rifles

February 6, 2016 Ian McCollum 18

We’ve all seen lever action rifles galore in movies about the old west, and most of us have handled and shot a bunch of them as well. But do you know where they came from? […]

Smoothbore Spencer: Tracing a Mystery Gun

February 3, 2016 Ian McCollum 21

Today’s firearm is not a normal gun; it is a conversion of a Spencer into a shotgun. My question is, what path did this weapon travel? What did it begin as, and how did it […]

RIA: Russian Winchester 1895 in 7.62x54R

February 2, 2016 Ian McCollum 64

The Winchester 1895 was the last of Winchester’s lever-action rifles, and has an interesting place in a couple different parts of world history. On the one hand, the 1895 in .405 Winchester caliber is known […]