Final prices for the James D Julia Spring 2017 auction...

Produced by gunsmith Charles Kelsey, the Devel "Full House" package was a conversion of the Smith & Wesson Model 39 or Model 59 pistol (the 39 was a single stack and the 59 a double stack). In the late 1970s, there were really no factory-made semiauto compact pistols made for concealed carry - th...

In 1943 the need for a lighter and handier version of the Lee Enfield rifle became clear throughout the British Commonwealth, and experimentation began in Canada, Britain, and Australia. The work in Britain would culminate in the No5 Mk1 rifle, but the Canadian arsenal at Long Branch would try so...

In 1943, experimentation began in Great Britain, Canada, and Australia into developing a shortened and lightened version of the Lee Enfield rifle. In Australia, the work was done on the No1 Mk3* rifle, as the Lithgow Arsenal had never switched over to production of the No4 rifle.

We have thre...

The American 180 is a .22 rimfire submachine gun that fires at 1200-1500 rounds per minute or more, and feeds from drums of 177 to 275 rounds capacity. While it makes a great recreational machine gun, it was actually initially developed with law enforcement sales in mind. The notion was that the ...

As usual, I have a recap today of the final prices of the guns I filmed from the most recent Julia auction (fall 2017). While there was the usual wide variety of guns in this sale, my videos tended to focus on machine guns and Confederate Civil War arms.

Today we have a chance to do some shooting with a ZB-26, a German-occupation 8mm light machine gun made at Brno in Czechoslovakia. The ZB-26 does not get nearly as much attention as LMGs made by the better known powers during the war, but it is an excellent weapon. In addition to being adopted by...

The ZB-26 stands as one of the best magazine-fed light machine guns developed during the 1920s and 30s - it was a very popular gun for small military forces and many countries which did not directly buy it were strongly influenced by it. The Japanese Nambu Type 96 and 99 were heavily based on the...

NOTE: Please see this video for a correction regarding Whitworth accuracy:
Sir Joseph Whitworth is quite the famous name in engineering circles, credited with the development of such things as Whitworth threading (the first standardized thread pattern) and engineer’s blue. When he decided to ...

When the French first began testing machine guns in the late 1890s, they were one of the few countries that did not purchase quantities of Maxim guns. One of the reasons was that in France’s North African colonies, transporting water for guns was considered an unnecessary liability. Instead, Fran...

Among all the antitank rifles developed between the World Wars, the highest quality and most sophisticated was the Solothurn S18-1000. It fires the 20x138B cartridge which was also used in the Finnish Lahti L-39 and the German 20mm Flak guns, and it does so using a semiautomatic action and an 8-r...

The Shawk & McLanahan revolvers are a lesser-known example of a very low production Civil War era revolver not made in the Confederacy. Abel Shawk was manufacturing entrepreneur in St Louis making fire engines when he decided to take up arms manufacturing instead. He partnered with J.K. McLanahan...

Today we are going to look at the evolution of the Sturmgewehr - from the MP43/I and MP43 to the MP44 and StG44, what actually changed and why?

We have looked at a couple different Madsen light machine guns previously, but until today I have not had the chance to do any shooting with a fully automatic example of one. So I am taking this 1924 Bulgarian contract example out to the range wth some ammo!

The Madsen is a really interesting ...

John Browning developed the Browning Automatic Rifle for use by American troops in World War One, taking inspiration from the other light automatic weapons in service including the Chauchat, Lewis, and MG08/15. Rather than being used as a light machine gun as we would understand it today, the BAR...

The US was one of the few major military powers that went into World War II without a substantial infantry antitank weapon. Most countries had an antitank rifle of some sort, but the US just had some marginal antitank rifle grenades. That was rectified in late 1942 when the M1 Rocket Launcher - a...

James Kerr formed the London Armoury Company in 1856, manufacturing Adams patent revolvers (Adams was one of the founding investors) and 1853 pattern Enfield rifles. The rifles were the better business and the company rather quickly decided to focus on them, which led Adams to leave with his pate...

Little is known about the Keen-Walker Gun Company, except for a few Confederate arsenal records that have survived. From those we know that the company delivered a total of 282 of these single-shot .54 caliber carbines to the Danville Arsenal in 1862, receiving $50 each for the first 101 and $40 ...

Griswold and Gunnison were rather unique among Confederate revolver manufacturers for their ability to actually create a reliable and high quality product and produce it on a regular and predictable schedule. So many of the Confederate revolvers were made by starry-eyed novices, but Griswold & Gu...

This is a “Kleiner Waffenwerkzeugsatz” - a small armorer’s tool kit used by a German Waffenmeister. It is a really neat little set of handy and essential tools for working on small arms, which folds up and fits neatly into a standard German WWII ammunition can. The use of standard ammo cans for s...

The Colt Monitor was Colt’s improved version os the Browning Automatic Rifle intended for the law enforcement market. Colt had the sales rights to the BAR in North and South American (as well as a few other specific countries), and they worked on improving the design after World War One. In 1925 ...

Patented in 1855 by James Butterfield, this revolver is a 5-shot, .41 caliber percussion revolver with a brass frame and 7.5 inch barrel. Aside from its somewhat unorthodox grip configuration, what makes it interesting and unusual is that it was designed to automatically feed pellet primers, obvi...

After World War Two, both the Beretta and Breda companies in Italy began manufacturing M1 Garand rifles. When Italy decided that they wanted a more modern selective-fire, magazine-fed rifle, they chose to adapt the M1 Garand to that end rather than develop a brand new rifle. Two Beretta engineers...