In the ongoing arms race between France and Germany, the Mauser 71/84 was the first German repeating rifle. Paul Mauser began work on it in the late 1870s, patented the design in 1881, and it was adopted formally in 1884. Production began in 1885, with a total of 1,161,148 rifles being delivered ...

Germany established their colony of German South West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika, now Namibia) in 1884, as part of its late attempt to become a colonial power to rival the United Kingdom. The soldiers deployed to protect German interests t here were the Kaiserliche Schutztruppen, and they were...

The LAW-12 was a sister product to the much better-known SPAS-12 shotgun made by Franchi in the 1980s. The SPAS was a selectable pump or semiauto system, and the LAW was semiauto only. This made it simpler, less expensive, and about 2 full pounds lighter. It was intended for the law enforcement m...

John Henry Fitzgerald was not the first person to cut down a revolver barrel, nor the first person to bob the trigger guard or hammer. But he was the person who put all these modifications together as a package and popularized it as a self-defense piece. “Fitz” was a former NYPD police officer, v...

The Dominican Republic is one of the few Central and South American nations which did not buy Mauser rifles when they were the top of the line military armament available. Instead, the Dominicans waiting until the 1950s, and bought surplus long and short Mauser rifles from Brazil. Using their new...

Designed by Gerry Fox in the early 1970s, this carbine saw production sequentially as the Fox Carbine, the TAC-1, and the XF-7 Wasp, as it went through several different manufacturers. It is an open bolt, semiauto carbine sold in both 9mm Parabellum and .45 ACP - and you could get caliber convers...

Colt introduced the Delta Elite in 1987 to take advantage of the hype and publicity surrounding the 10mm Auto cartridge in the Bren Ten pistol. When the Bren Ten became such an ignominious failure, it left Colt in an excellent position as one of the first companies to actually have a viable offer...

Introduced in 1997, the CZ-97B is a .45ACP caliber addition to CZ’s line of globally popular handguns. However, the 97 has some substantial mechanical differences from the CZ-75 line. Most significantly, it locks on the front of the chamber and the ejection port instead of having locking lugs cut...

In 1903, the British government shipped a load of spare/surplus Martini parts and tooling to Egypt, where it was set up in the Armory at the Citadel in Cairo. While Egypt was technically a part of the Ottoman Empire at this time, British troops had entered the country in 1882 to protect the Briti...

The Automag series of pistol introduced by Arcadia Machine & Tool in the late 1980s and early 1990s were produced by the same man as the original Auto Mag Pistol - Harry Sanford - but they share nothing mechanical with that first generation gun. The later Automags (note the single word spelling, ...

When Germany acquired a land border with Spain after the French capitulation in 1940, they took advantage of the opportunity to purchase Spanish firearms, and have them delivered across the French border to the town of Hendaye. A German inspection office was set up there for use with both Spanish...

The Astra 300 was introduced in 1923, copying the layout, mechanics, and handling of the Astra 400 military pistol in a much more convenient pocket size. It was made in both .32 ACP (7.65mm Browning) and .380 (9mm Kurz), with a magazine capacity of 7 and 6 rounds respectively. More than 150,000 w...

(Reuploaded to fix a formatting goof - sorry!)

As usual, I have a recap today of the final prices of the guns I filmed from the most recent Rock Island auction (December 2018; #75). There were a few guns here that people got very nice deals on, but also a lot of guns that sold for more than I ...

The Zeiss 2.5x Glasvizier 16 optic is one of the most unusual and interesting of the German sighting systems used on rifles during the First World War. It is a bifocal optic, working in the same way as today’s SeeAll optic. Basically, a section of magnifying lens sits in the bottom third of the f...

This rifle is the home shop creation of one Wilfred Ellis, a talented gunsmith form Pennsylvania. It is basically a combination of an M14 gas system with an AR15 bolt and locking system, plus an in-line tubular receiver, M60 flash hider, and side-mounted magazine. Not exactly the sort of thing th...

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 ...