Of the three calibers available in the 1896 model Bergmann pistol, the 6.5mm No.3 was the most popular. Approximately 4,000 of these guns were produced, and they found a worldwide following. The No.3 pistol was pretty much identical in concept to the 5mm No.2 Bergmann, but scaled up for the sligh...

The No.2 was Bergmann's first offering of a civilian pocket pistol, introduced in 1896 alongside the larger-framed No.3 and No.4 pistols. It was chambered for a truly anemic 5mm cartridge, using a simple blowback system simplified from the first Bergmann-Schmeisser design. It used a 5-round Mannl...

The initial patent for what would become the Bergmann pistols was actually a delayed blowback mechanism, and it was quickly revised to simple blowback by Louis Schmeisser. The first actual production pistols, designated the No.1, used this plain blowback system.

This initial Bergmann-Schmeisse...

The military breakthrough for Bergmann finally came in 1903 with a new locking system for the pistol, designed by Louis Schmeisser (who had also designed the previous Bergmann handguns). In 1901, Schmeisser developed the new lock, and it was patented by Bergmann (his employer) primarily for use o...

Theodore Bergmann, despite having his name on a lot of different guns, was not actually a gun designer. Bergmann was a financier and industrialist, in many ways like Eli Whitney in the US decades earlier. Bergmann, like Whitney, would provide the capital to develop patents for their inventors.

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Today we are taking a brief side trip in Bergmann development to look at a couple of magnificent engraved Bergmann pistols - specifically, a pair of model 1896 No.3s, a Bergmann Mars 1903, and a model 1910. One of these (the 1910) was done by an outside engraver, and the others are examples of Be...

This was, as far as I can tell, the final iteration of the Bergmann pistols, developed by AEP in Liege for potential military contracts. It retains the locking system of the 1910 pattern pistol, but with a simplified disassembly method reminiscent of the C96 Mauser. The barrel was lengthened, the...

By the time Bergmann found a production subcontractor in AEP for the Spanish order of 1903 Bergmann pistol, the Spanish had added a few new changes to their order, which became known as the Model 1908. In addition to filling the Spanish production, AEP also sold the guns on the commercial market ...

The AN-94 Nikonov is one of the recent series of innovative new small arms coming out of the Russian Federation. In this case, it is an attempt to increase hit probability by firing two rounds before the recoil impulse changes the shooter's point of aim - similar to some of the US SPIW project ex...

Astute audience members will have noted that I described the "1903 Springfield Stripped for Air Service" as being intended as a pilot's survival weapon, because it would be a laughably poor gun to actually use from the cockpit in flight. In his very recent 1903 Springfield episode, Othais of C&Rs...

The "Modifié 1916" update to the Berthier system of rifles and carbines marked a major improvement in the guns combat effectiveness - really the first substantial overhaul to the design since it was developed in 1890. The two main elements of the upgrade were the addition of an upper handguard an...

When World War One broke out in 1914, France mobilized millions of men into military service - and it became abundantly clear that a lot of new rifles would need to be manufactured. The 1886 Lebel was no longer in production and was a slow rifle to make in any case - but the 1907 Colonial Berthie...

The sharpshooters of the French colonial forces in Indochina (the Tirailleurs Indochinois) had never been issued Lebel rifles, and were still using single shot Gras rifles at the turn of the century. The Indochinese soldiers were rather short statured, and the Lebel was simply too long of a rifle...

Louis Marie Daudeteau was a persistent and prolific arms designer in France in the late 19th century. Born in 1845, he gained substantial military experience in the Franco-Prussian War, and afterwards turned to weapons design. He built a variety of different arms for military consideration, from ...

The original 1890 Berthier carbine was designed for cavalry, but a slightly modified version was produced (in small numbers) with a bayonet lug, for use by the Gendarmerie. In 1892, the French military would adopt that same carbine for use by an assortment of troops who were better suited with a ...

When the Modele 1890 Berthier carbine was adopted for the French cavalry, the decision was made to produce a special version for the Cuirassier troops. These were the elite heavy cavalry, equipped with steel breastplates and elaborate plumed helmets. They existed in that very brief window where t...

The Berthier was adopted in 1890 as a new repeating rifle for the French cavalry, who were at that time still using single shot Gras carbines. The Lebel rifle had been adopted in 1886 for the infantry, but because of its tube magazine it was not conducive to being shortened into carbine form. And...

In a couple videos last month about American .22 LR rimfire training rifles, I got a surprising number of comments from viewers who did not understand why a military would train with a .22 caliber rifle instead of their actual issue cartridge. There were enough of these comments that I decided it...

The lesson from this recent Rock Island auction? Custom huge rifles are like custom cars: you will put a lot more money into them than you will ever get out if you decide to sell them. Also, if you find a needle-fire combination pocket gun at a yard sale, buy it!

This 1874 Sharps rifle is a great example of a been-there, done-that authentic western buffalo rifle. It was shipped from Sharps in 1879 with double set triggers, open sights, and a medium-weight .45 caliber barrel, but rebuilt by a Cheyenne gunsmith with a much heavier barrel in .40-100 caliber,...

In order to circumvent Versailles Treaty restrictions on arms manufacture, the German Rheinmetall firm purchased a small Swiss company called Solothurn Waffenfabrik in 1929, allowing it to route its business through Switzerland instead of Germany. One of its first products was the S1-100 submachi...

During the Civil War, the Confederacy was perpetually in serious need of armaments, as the South did not have the amount of industrial infrastructure that the North did. This led to many attempts at arms production by various entrepreneurs, of quite varied result. One of the more successful enter...

Virtually all side by side shotguns are not actually made with the barrels parallel - they are made pointing just slightly together, so that the shot patterns will converge and meet up at a particular range. Today, we have an Ellis Brothers (of Birmingham) sporting shotgun that was actually made ...

Originally made by Hafdasa (Hispano-Argentina Fábrica de Automóviles S.A.), the HA pistol is a .22 Long Rifle caliber, semiauto only, open bolt pocket pistol. It was produced in the 1950s, right at the end of Hafdasa's existence (coincidence?). When the firm shut its doors, a group of employees t...