In an effort to take advantage of Jim Bowie's popularity, George Elgin patented a huge knife attached to a single shot percussion pistol in 1837. The idea was simply to offer a dual-purpose weapon, and it proves that human nature never does change much. I suspect that in actual use the weapon wou...

Historically, there are a variety of combination knife/gun/knuckles combination weapons, typically made in the late 19th century. This one is…rather larger than most of those. This is a combination knife/gun with a pair of percussion-fired 12mm smoothbore barrels, a roughly 5.25 inch folding knif...

Tacticool is not a modern creation - people have been making arms that are impractical but cool looking for centuries. As a case in point, I present this Model 1864 Milanese style saber-revolver. Several different variations on this theme were made in the mid 1800s, but this one closely follows t...

I previously filmed one of the Model 1884 Luxembourg Gendarmerie Nagant revolvers, but I got my hands on one with the original bayonet, and I wanted to show you that. These are extremely rare revolvers, especially with the matching original bayonets.

When Japan opened up to the outside world and began to industrialize in the late 1800s, it instituted major military reforms. In place of the samurai tradition, the new Japanese Imperial armed forces emulated the major European powers - France, Germany, and the United Kingdom. One element of this...

Having wrapped up our series on the major development of the Lee Enfield rifle in British service, I figured it would be a nice addendum to talk about the bayonets developed for the No4 rifle. These went through a substantial evolution, and are an interesting field for collectors all by themselve...

When the US adopted the Krag rifle in 1892, a remarkably efficient and simple decision was made regarding its bayonet. The old spike socket bayonet was clearly obsolete; all the modern European armies were adopting knife bayonets; the Swiss knife bayonet was a really good example; so the US would...

The M1915 bolo bayonet was originally the brainchild of US Army Captain Hugh D. Wise, Quartermaster with the 9th Infantry in the Philippines. In 1902, he recommended the implement in a letter to his superior officers, noting that a bolo style of bayonet (ie, one with a widened machete-like blade...

What is the explanation for the odd recurved Yataghan-style bayonet popular through the second half of the 19th century? It may have been named after a Turkish sword, but it doesn't really match that pattern of blade. It isn't any stronger that a straight or single-curved blade, and its balance m...