Manual machine guns
Reproduction Nordenfelt Gun
A few days ago I was at a small machine gun shoot (which wound up being a bit larger than I’d expected), and was happily surprised to discover that one of the attendees had brought […]
United States
Semiauto pistol
American Eagle Lugers at RIA
Many people are aware of the .45 caliber Lugers made for US military field trials – but far fewer people realize that Lugers were both tested by the US military and sold commercially several years […]
Semiauto pistol
Development of the Model 1911 Pistol (Video)
When I was looking through the catalog for this upcoming Rock Island auction, I noticed that there were a lot of early-type Colt automatic pistols listed. I looked a bit closer, and noticed that there […]
Prototype
LeMat Centerfire Pistol and Carbine at RIA
Colonel LeMat is best known for his 9-shot muzzleloading .42 caliber revolver with its 20 gauge shot barrel acting as cylinder axis pin – several thousand of these revolvers were imported and used in the […]
Lever Action Rifles
Colt-Burgess 1883 Carbine at RIA
The 1883 Colt-Burgess was the Colt company’s single, brief endeavor to enter the lever action “cowboy” rifle market. Winchester had been making some moves to break into Colt’s lucrative shotgun and pistol markets, and Colt […]
Bolt Action Rifles
Sedgley Model 45 .22 Rifle at RIA
The firm of Sedgley Inc of Philadelphia was a gun company involved in many aspects of the industry. They made rifle barrels for the US military, they made the rather goofy “Glove Guns” for the […]
Bolt Action Rifles
2-Gun Action Match: Mosin & Nagant vs Trapdoor & SAA
No vintage photo today – instead I have a vintage rifle match! I’ve had had a bunch of people asking to see a Mosin-Nagant in one of these matches, and decided to oblige – but […]
Flintlock
Maryland Council of Safety Revolutionary Flintlock at RIA
In the buildup to the US War of Independence, “Committees of Safety” were organized in the colonial state to form shadow governments for the independence movement. These committees (our councils, as a few were named) […]
Accessories
M3 Infrared Sniper Carbine at RIA
The first US military night vision system used in active combat was the T3 Carbine system – an infrared light-amplifying scope and IR floodlight mounted on an M1 Carbine. About 150 of these were used […]
Artillery
Bethlehem Steel 37mm Cannon – Looking for Data
I recently got an email from a young man named Paul who is working on restoring a Bethlehem Steel 37mm cannon as an Eagle Scout project. The gun is sitting outside an American Legion post, […]