These two slide action rifles came form the same collection, and are pretty clearly related - one is a toolroom type of early prototype and the other is a refined pre-production sort of example. However, we have no idea who made them, or when or where. They look well made enough to have been the ...

Introduced by a Dutchman in 1897, the Wehrmannsgewehr was a type of 3-position shooting competition using military pattern rifles in a sporting caliber (the 8x46R, firing roughly a 150 grain lead bullet at 1800 fps). It was pretty limited in popularity in Germany until the end of World War One, w...

After designing the bolt action rifle that bears his name, Andre Berthier went on to experiment with self-loading designs. He developed a light machine gun in the years before World War One, but was not able to interest the French government in it. He also submitted that gun for US military consi...

The North China Type 19 pistol (not to be confused with the North China Type 19 rifle) is an improvement on the Type 14 Nambu pistol design which was manufactured in very small numbers in Japanese-occupied China late in World War Two. With shipping connections between Japanese troops in China and...

The British started World War One without a sniper program, but were quick to develop one once faced with the threat of well-trained German snipers. The initial equipment used by the British was a motley collection of commercial hunting rifles, but by 1915 the government was issuing contract to m...

While Karel Krnka and Georg Roth were in the process of developing the M1907 pistol, they diverted slightly to apply their patents to a fancy sporting semiauto rifle - the Model 1899. Produced and marketed by Haenel, the 1899 was a long recoil, rotating bolt design chambered for the German 8x45mm...

How did people determine chamber pressure in the years before computers and fancy electronics? Well, by squishing a calibrated slug of copper. Factories would convert rifles specifically for pressure testing use by adding a pressure ring around the chamber, drilling a hole in it, and then threadi...

Lt. Col. George Fosbery was a British Army officer who was awarded the Victoria Cross for actions in India in 1863 - and that was not the only thing he did while stationed there. He also realized that there was an unmet demand for a sporting gun capable of firing both birdshot and solid ball with...

The Liao Type 13 was produced at what would become known as the Mukden Arsenal in Manchuria starting in 1924, with production facilitated by the Steyr company of Austria. Late in World War One, Steyr developed an improved pattern of Mauser rifle, with a shrouded firing pin, shrouded striker, gas ...

The Mauser Karabiner 98k began production as an excellent quality rifle, with every nuance of fine fit and finish one would have expected form the Mauser company. World War Two had barely begun by the time a few compromises began to be made to maintain production, however - and by the end of the ...

In 1943, the British government began a program to develop a shortened and lightened version of the No1 SMLE rifle, for production in India and Australia - where the national ordnance factories had not converted to production of the No4 rifle. This prototype is the first pattern produced by the I...

Guncrafter Industries is a custom handgun company formed by one Alex Zimmerman in 2002 after many years working for Wilson Combat. Among other things, they make custom 1911 pistols chambered for the .50 GI (Guncrafter Industries) cartridge, also designed by Zimmerman. The idea of the cartridge is...

The Galil was the result of a program to replace the FAL in Israeli service after its somewhat disappointing performance in the Six-Day War of 1967. Israel found that while the FAL had shown reliability problems in the desert, AK rifles ran just fine despite often being badly neglected. In an ini...

FN introduced the paratrooper folding-stock version of the FAL rifle in the early 1960s, and it became a very popular addition to their rifle line. Since the recoil spring on the standard pattern FAL runs down the length of the buttstock, fitting a side folding stock required a redesign to the in...

One of the rarest patterns of the SKS is the East German type - the Karabiner-S. Total production quantity is not known, but their survival rate is quite low and most of the examples in the US are Vietnam War bring backs. At any rate, the Karabiner-S is not quite an exact copy of the standard SKS...

Made to compete with guns like the Ithaca Auto & Burglar, the “Defiance” form the California Arms Company is a side by side double barreled 20 gauge pistol. Only about 300 were made in the late 1920s - note that this was before the NFA introduced regulation of shot barreled shotguns. Unlike the I...

In 1942, the British government instituted a development program to design a new simplified rifle to replace the No4 MkI Lee Enfield. The CSAD (Central Small Arms Department) came up with a design using a quite simple receiver machined form a small steel billet. It was a rifle wholly distinct for...

Star entered the Wondernine era in 1978 with their Model 28 pistol, a double action 9mm offering with 15-round magazines. It was one of the entrants in the first round of US military XM-9 trials, but unfortunately for Star was beat out by the Beretta 92. Star took feedback on its gun from the com...

As usual, I have a recap today of the final prices of the guns I filmed from the most recent RIA auction (#74; September 2018). Lots of examples here of seemingly similar items selling for substantially different amounts because of factors like whether or not they are German.

The Webley company used the “WG” (Webley Government) nomenclature in its literature starting in 1883, but the first revolver actually market as such was the WG Model of 1889. These revolvers were made primarily for the military market, as officers were responsible for supplying their own sidearms...

The Valet M82 is a bullpup conversion of the Valmet M76 rifle, originally designed in the hopes of attracting Finnish military interest for paratroopers. These initial military rifles were made with wood stocks and in 7.62x39mm. For a multitude of pretty obvious reasons, this did not work out - b...

This is a Model 1923 Thompson Autoloading Rifle, one of a batch of 20 made by Colt for US military testing in 1924. The system is designed on the same basic Blish principle as the Thompsons submachine gun; the idea that two sliding surfaces will lock solidly together under enough pressure, and no...

Designed in 1939 by S&W engineer Edward Pomeroy, the S&W Light Rifle is an extremely well manufactured but rather poorly thought out carbine. It is a 9mm Parabellum open-bolt, semiautomatic, blowback carbine feeding from 20-round magazines. It was tested by the US military at Aberdeen Proving Gro...

Designed by Aimo Lahti, the Suomi m/31 submachine gun is in my opinion one of the standout submachine guns of the World War Two era. Despite its hefty weight (10.4lb / 4.7kg) and lack of a good pistol grip stock, it still manages to be tremendously controllable and accurate, with a very high rate...