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Mauser-Norris Prototype: Origins of the Mauser Legacy
Today we are looking at one of the rarest and earliest rifles built by Paul and Wilhelm Mauser, a design which would set in motion all the events that led to the Mauser company becoming one of the great world leaders in small arms. The Mauser brothers were born in Oberndorf am Necker in the Kingd...
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Maxim "Prototype": The First Practical Machine Gun
Hiram Maxim was the first person to create a truly practical and functional machine gun, based on a patent he filed in 1883. He pioneered the recoil operating system - the concept of harnessing the recoil generated by a firearm to perform the actions of reloading that firearm. His patent was base...
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The WW2 Double-Magazine MP40/I
The MP40/I was an experimental modification of the MP-40 submachine gun developed by the Erma company (we think) in late 1942. It was presumably developed in response to complaints of Soviet fire superiority with SMGs because of their large drum magazines (and also the larger number of SMGs used ...
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P7A13: H&K's Entry into the US XM9 Pistol Trials
The US held three series of pistol trials beginning in the late 1970s to find a replacement for the venerable M1911 handgun. H&K was a participant in all three - in the first the entered a P9 and a VP-70, both of which were rejected. In the second series, they entered the P7A10 - a single-stack P...
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P7M7: The Mythical Lost .45 ACP H&K
The P7 was one of the most interesting and original handgun designs of the last few decades. Originally created for West German police trials, it was chambered in 9x19mm. As it became popular beyond Germany, the question arose of it being offered in additional calibers. The P7M10 was released in ...
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Marga Trials Rifle: Competition For the Belgian Army
When the Belgian military decided to adopt a new rifle in the late 1880s, they attached a wide variety of competitors. The best of the batch were Mauser and Mannlicher, with Mauser ultimately winning - but among the other entrants was Belgian Captain Uldarique Marga and his bolt action rifle desi...
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P. Percy's Prototype Patent Model Rifle
This appears to be a handmade prototype form one P. (or J. P.) Percy of Albany, NY, although I don’t have any information about who he was or when he built this. The gun itself is a .44/.45 caliber rimfire rifle, with three triggers. The first is actually a latch to release the tip-up barrel, and...
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1938 Swedish Army Trials Luger
Sweden tested the Luger in 1904, along with all the major semiauto pistols available at the time. The Luger was found to be the most accurate gun in the trials, but expensive and not as reliable in cold weather as the Browning 1903 - which was formally adopted as the m/1907 a few years later and ...
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Experimental Bullpup Over/Under Shotgun with a Secret
This is a prototype or one-off over/under sporting shotgun, made in a bullpup configuration. It is basically two long slabs of wood clamshell around a pair of barrels, with the action at the very end in the stock. The breech rotates up to open, activated by a lever on the surface of the buttplate...
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The Best SMLE: The No1 MkV Trials Rifle
After World War One, the British looked at how to apply the lessons of the war to development of a new infantry rifle. Even before the war, a decision had been made to move to an aperture type rear sight - which would have been used on the Pattern 1913 Enfield, had the war no interrupted adoption...
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Bill Ruger's Prototype WW2 Light Machine Gun
In April 1940, the US Ordnance Department circulated a request for a new light machine gun to replace the Browning M1919A4. It was to be shorter and lighter than the Browning, and was not to be based on the Browning system (presumably the Department wanted to move on from the bulky and heavy 1919...
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SIG 44/16: The Best Service Pistol, But The Road Not Traveled
When SIG was developing the pistol that would ultimately be adopted as the m/49 by the Danish Army and the P49 by the Swiss Army (P210 commercially), they initially experimented with both single stack and double stack variations. Today, we will take a look at a SIG 44/16, the double stack version...
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H&K Prototype Sniper: the SL7 Match
Built in the 1990s, this rifle is part of an experimental series of precision rifles made by H&K. It is marked "SL7 Match", and uses the same action as the standard SL7 sporting rifle (the roller-delay blowback system of the G3). It is set in a competition type stock the an adjustable cheekrest a...
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H&K's Experimental SMG and SMG II for the US Navy
In the 1980s, the US Navy requested a new submachine gun to replace the MP5 then in use. In particular, the Navy wanted a gun that was optimized for use with a suppressor. H&K built two models of experimental guns in the 1980s to meet this request, creatively named the SMG and SMG II.
Both gun...
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Sterling S11: Donkey in a Thoroughbred Race
In the 1960s, the Sterling company began to worry about the prospects of continued sales of the Sterling (Patchett) SMG, especially in light of new competitors like the H&K MP5. Its chief design engineer, Frank Waters, created the S11 as a gun to replace the classic Sterling. The S11 was based on...
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Steyr Model 1911 Semiautomatic Trials Rifles
In 1909, the Austro-Hungarian Empire announced a desire to find a new semiautomatic military rifle, and requested proposals from arms manufacturers. Six rifles were submitted to the resulting trials in 1911, including this model from Steyr chambered for the 7x57mm Mauser cartridge. It uses a two-...
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Viper MkI: A Simplified Steampunk Sten
The Viper Mk I was an experimental submachine gun developed in the UK for use by military policemen in post-WW2 occupation West Germany. It was a simplified Sten gun (full-auto only, without the semiauto option normally included in the Sten trigger mechanism) put into a wooden housing. It was int...
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Toolroom Prototype .32 ACP Walther Olympia
In the late 1930s, Walther experimented with the idea of an Olympia target pistol in .32 ACP. They used the frame from a 1936 pattern standard (.22LR) Olympia with a .32 caliber barrel, increased mass slide, and magazine adapted from a Walther PP. The project never progressed beyond the toolroom ...
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Walther Experimental Hybrid Olympia/Woodsman
In the early 1930s, Walther began to experiment with changes to its Olympia target pistol in hopes of beating the Colt Woodsman out of its place as the most popular pistol of the type. The most distinctive difference between the Woodsman and the Olympia was in their grip angles; quite straight fo...
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The Prototype .280 FAL from 1950s NATO Trials
After World War Two, the new NATO defense alliance held a series of trials to adopt a standard cartridge and infantry rifle. This would eventually devolve and the goal of a standardized rifle would be abandoned, but during the early trials there were three main contenders: the British EM-2, the A...
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Curtis 1866: The First Bullpup - with Jonathan Ferguson
Sorry for the poor audio quality - today I am back at the Cody Firearms Museum talking to Jonathan Ferguson, Keeper of Firearms & Artillery at the Royal Armouries in the UK. Jonathan has written a new book on the history of British bullpup firearms, which Headstamp is very proud to be publishing!...
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FAMAS Commando Prototypes
Unlike most countries that adopted bullpup rifles, the French military never had a short-barreled version of their standard FAMAS. However, GIAT created several prototypes as part of their (ultimately unsuccessful) effort to market the FAMAS internationally. Today, we have two to look at, both wi...
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High Standard's Prototype World War One .45 ACP Pistol
The High Standard company only made on .45 caliber pistol, and it was an improvement on the Grant Hammond pistol tested by the US military during World War One. After his gun's rejection by the military, it appears that Grant Hammond took the design to his friend "Gus" Swebelius who ran High Stan...
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Prototype Locked-Breech 9x19mm Mauser HSc
When Mauser began development of the HSc pistol, it was intended to be a pair of guns - a simple blowback gun in .32 or .380 caliber for civilian and police use and a larger locked-breech type in 9x19mm for military use. Mauser had tried this before with their 1910 pocket pistol, but in that effo...