The P66 was a prototype .22LR semiauto pistol designed by a German immigrant to the United States by the name of Rolf Dieckmann. It never went into production, but had a number of interesting features, including a removable firing mechanism and a combination extractor and firing pin.

The Roth-Sauer is a rare early automatic pistol designed by Karel Krnka, financed by Georg Roth, and manufactured by J.P. Sauer & Sohn in Germany. It is mechanically quite complex - much moreso than strictly necessary.

The action is a long-recoil type, in which the bolt and barrel remain locke...

We have another new unique item today - a prototype pistol made by Savage in .38ACP caliber.

Prototype Savage .25 ACP pistol.

The Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless was a very popular pistol for civilians - it was compact, comfortable, reliable, and exceptionally modern for its day. The initial production was all in .32ACP, but 5 years after it was introduced a variant in .380 caliber was introduced - the model 1908 Pocket Ham...

The Campo-Giro was Spain's first indigenous self-loading military pistol, adopted in 1912 to replace the Belgian 1908 Bergmann-Mars. Only a small number were made of the original M1913 variety, with the vast majority being the later and slightly more refined M1913/16. This particular example is ...

This particular Chinese pistol is a great example of all the elements of a proper Chinese Mystery Pistol: sights that don't function, gibberish markings, mechanical derivation from the Browning 1900, aesthetic elements form the C96 Broomhandle Mauser, and clearly handmade parts. However, it is a ...

The Khyber Pass is a region near the Afghan/Pakistan border known for firearms production - particularly for very crude guns made with crude tools. This particular pistol is an excellent example - it looks like a Colt 1911, although it is smaller and more akin to a .32ACP Llama. It is a straight ...

There are rarely any truly original ideas in the gun world, and today's "pistol" ARs and AKs are not among them. Back in the 60s and 70s, companies were marketing the "Enforcer" M1, a pistol version of the WWII M1 Carbine. Of these two, one is made of military surplus parts by Iver Johnson and on...

When the Spanish Civil War erupted, the Nationalist/Fascist forces quickly captured all the major arms production factories in the country. This left the Republican forces dependent on arms importation and the creation of new factories. The two major efforts to make weapons in Republican-controll...

In 1936 or 1937, the BSW company (Berlin-Suhler Waffenwerk) produced a small number of prototype pistols for German Army trials. These trials were eventually won by the Walther P38, and for good reason in this case. The pistol BSW submitted was a gas-accelerated blowback design, with an aluminum ...

It's fairly common today to see .22 caliber versions of larger firearms, marketed to folks who don't want to spend as much for either the gun or its ammunition. For example, the ATI Sturmgewehrs, the Beretta ARX-160, and the GSG AK and MP5 lookalikes in .22 rimfire. Well, it's not a new trend - v...

Switzerland was an early adopter of the Luger pistol as a standard military sidearm, but by WWII that design was becoming obsolete and the Swiss began looking for a newer sidearm. Several lines of development were pursued, and we have examples of two of them here: the W+F Bern P43 and the SIG P44...

The ASP was a custom take of the S&W Model 39 autoloading pistol developed by a man named Paris Theodore in the 1970s. Theodore made a wide variety of sneaky James-Bond-like guns for various clients, but is best know for the ASP. At the time, it was one of the best options for a subcompact pistol...

Bergmann was one of the reasonably successful yet relatively unknown manufacturers of early automatic pistols. Originally a delayed blowback patent purchased by Bergmann, the design was refined and simplified by none other than Louis Schmeisser into the 1896 Bergmann, in three different calibers ...

The Menz Liliput is one of the smallest functional firearms ever put into mass production. It was offered in 4.25mm (.17 caliber) in addition to the more popular .25ACP and .32ACP. The 4.25mm cartridge is used generated about 17 foot pounds of muzzle energy - trivial by most pistol standards, but...

The FN Model 1903 was a Belgian-made scaled-up version of John Browning's model 1903 pocket hammerless pistol. The pocket hammerless was made in .32 ACP and .380 calibers for (primarily) the civilian market in the US by Colt, and the FN model was chambered for the more powerful 9x20mm Browning Lo...

The Adler is a unique little pocket pistol built in pre-WWI Germany.Not much is known about it, as only about a hundred were manufactured and they failed to be a commercial success. The design is a simple blowback one, using a proprietary 7.25mm cartridge. However, the disassembly method is prett...

The Bren Ten is an interesting story of handgun development and business failure. The gun was first developed by Dornaus & Dixon, with the consulting help of the iconic Col. Jeff Cooper. It was intended to be a handgun to improve upon the venerable 1911 in every way.

To satisfy the adherents ...

During World War One, Birmingham Small Arms (aka BSA) grew into a massive arms manufacturing facility to supply the previously inconceivable military appetite for rifles. When the war ended, they were left with a bit of a dilemma. As a private entity, what were they to do with such a huge product...

The Mannlicher 1894 is one of a small number of firearms designed with a blow-forward action, and also the first of these guns. It was the creation of Ferdinand Mannlicher, a brilliant and prolific Austria inventor who is also responsible for the en-bloc clip concept, very early experimental semi...

The JoLoAr pistol was a combination of a poor-selling and unremarkable Spanish blowback semiauto pistol called the Sharpshooter and an idea by a man named Jose Lopez Arnaiz (whose name is the source of the pistol's name). Arnaiz conceived the idea of mounting a lever (palanca in Spanish) onto a p...

The story of the .45ACP Lugers is a bit complex, and widely misunderstood. What most people believe is that two such guns were made for US military testing, one was lost, and the other is worth a million dollars. Well, that's virtually all incorrect. In actuality, probably about a half dozen were...

The Walther KPK was a modified version of the PPK automatic pistol made in very small numbers by Walther in hopes of winning a new military contract. Mechanically identical to the PPK, the KPK has a lengthened slide to effectively shroud the hammer, preventing it from catching or snagging on clot...