We have reached the final iteration of the Winchester lever action rifle development story today, the Model 1895. This was another John Browning design, although the locking system is basically the same as the 1894 but with the bolt extending over the top of the locking block and hiding it from s...

The Winchester 1894 has become one of the most manufactured and most popular sporting rifles in American history, and it owes this success to a combination of factors. Mechanically, the 1894 was a continued improvement on John Browning's already-excellent 1892 model. It was strong and simple to o...

As the Model 1873 began to show its age, Winchester wanted a new rifle to take its place in the company catalog. Scaling down the Model 1886 to the pistol cartridges of the 1873 seemed like a fine option, and Winchester executives approached John Browning, offering him $10,000 if he could produce...

The Model 1886 was the first Winchester repeating rifle to improve on the original toggle locking system of the 1860 Henry, and it is also the first of John Moses Browning’s lever action designs. Browning met with Winchester executives to sell them his design for the Winchester 1885 single shot r...

While the Model 1873 was a very popular rifle, its pistol caliber cartridge did leave a segment of the market unaddressed. Winchester wanted a rifle that could chamber the larger and more powerful cartridges popular with long range hunters, and the Model 1876 would be that rifle.

Early attempt...

With the Model of 1873, Winchester was able to address the major remaining weakness of the Henry and 1866 rifles - the cartridge. The 1873 was introduced in tandem with the .44Winchester Center Fire cartridge (known more commonly today as the .44-40). This cartridge kept the 200 grain bullet from...

While the Henry Repeating Rifle had been an serious leap forward in firearms capability, it was not without problems. The biggest single weakness of the Henry was its magazine. The tube magazine was open to dirt and debris, the follower could easily come to rest on the shooter's hand or anything ...

The Henry Repeating Rifle was a truly revolutionary development in firearms technology. It was not the first repeating rifle, but it was the best of a emerging class of new arms, reliable in function and very fast to shoot (much faster than the contemporary Spencers). The Henry used a simple togg...

The Walch revolver was a Civil War era design with the unique feature of having superimposed loads - each chamber in the cylinder held not one shot, but two, stacked one on top of the other. The revolver had two hammers and a progressive trigger, and 10 percussions caps (for the 5-chamber model)....

As World War 2 exploded in Europe, rifle training suddenly because a very important topic in Great Britain. Typical solutions are small bore rimfire training variants of service rifles, but the British also wanted an option that could be used indoors and without any actual ammunition expenditure ...

Star introduced the Model A as the commercial sale version of the Model 1920 and 1921 pistols which they had entered into Spanish military trials in 1920. The pistol was rejected by the Army in favor of the Astra 400, but the Spanish Guardia Civil adopted it as their standard sidearm. The origina...

While rifle-launched grenades date back hundreds of years, they first came into widespread use during World War One, on all sides of the conflict. The first years of the war saw the use of rod grenades, but their downsides (mediocre accuracy, bulkiness, and a propensity to damage rifle bores) led...

Designed by Christian Sharps (or Sharps rifle fame), the Sharps & Hankins carbine was a light and handy rimfire carbine intended for military use. It was a single-shot weapon with an unusual action to lever the barrel forward off the frame, and several interesting technical feature. Most signific...

Today we have not so much an examination of a specific firearms, but rather a look at how Clint Eastwood’s film portrayal of Dirty Harry Callahan drove a huge wave of popularity of the Smith & Wesson Model 29 - “the most powerful handgun in the world.”

Enfield carbines are marvelous little guns, in my opinion, and just ooze history. This particular one is a Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) carbine, 10,000 of which were converted from obsolete British military Lee Enfield and Lee Metford carbines in 1903 and 1904. Where the British carbines had fu...

Peru’s first standardized repeating rifle was the Model 1891 Mauser, as purchased in 1901 through Argentina. About 30,000 of these rifles were obtained when Argentina was unable to pay for them - although this may have been a quasi-diplomatic effort to hide Argentina’s interest in helping rearm P...

In 1892, just a few years after the British military adopted the Lee-Metford rifle, the BSA and LSA factories began offering several configurations on the civilian/commercial market. They would produce them all the way into the 1930s, with your choice of Metford or Enfield rifling, and in Sportin...

The Jezail is the traditional rifle of the Afghan tribal fighter, although it originated in Persia (Iran). Distinctive primarily for its uniquely curved style of buttstock, these rifles still maintain a symbolic importance although they are utterly obsolete.

Every jezail is a unique handmade ...

While many people are familiar with the Ishapore 2A1 rifles chambered in 7.62mm NATO (largely thanks to their importation and sale in the US in large numbers), production of Indian Enfield rifles actually dates back to 1905, when the Ishapore arsenal was opened. The first rifles produced there we...

The Hadar II is an Israeli commercial market version of the Galil, chambered for the 7.62 NATO cartridge. Specifically, it is a copy of the Israeli military Galatz marksman’s rifle, which was semiautomatic only and in 7.62mm caliber (as opposed to the standard issue Galil rifles, which were 5.56m...

First patented in 1859 and sold as a sporting rifle before the Civil War (in calibers 32, 38, and 41 rimfire), Frank Wesson added a military model with a 24 inch barrel and chambered for .44 Rimfire. His carbine was simple and efficient - although too simple and efficient for most troops to like....

Finland found itself with nearly 200,000 Mosin Nagant rifles in its possession after breaking away from Russian rule in 1917, and those rifles would for the basis of Finnish infantry arms until the adopted of a semiautomatic rifle many decades later.

At first, Russian rifles were simply refurb...

Given the status of the AR15 as the preeminent military rifle still today, it comes as a surprise to many people to learn just how old the gun really is. Civilian production of the SP-1 model by Colt actually began in 1964, which means that early SP-1 rifles started becoming Curio & Relic qualifi...

The Ching Sling is an answer to the question, "how can one have a sling that is both a useful shooting aid and also quick to get in and out of?" The formal shooting sling was a part of US military training for many decades, and is still a staple of long range marksmanship competition. However, it...