In the summer of 1918, the US government wanted to increase production of M1911 pistols, but all current manufacturers were working at capacity. So they looked to issue new contracts, and someone realized that the Ross rifle factory was a potential option. Now, the Ross Rifle Company was bankrupt...

In 1936 and 1937, Siam purchased a batch of several hundred new Luger pistols for the Bangkok Police, including 100 long-barreled lP08 Artillery Lugers. These were new production gun, but made with surplus WW1-era barrels, sights, and stocks. The Siamese serial numbers range from 3450v to 3553v. ...

Back in the day when Bloke was doing TFBTV, a gentleman contacted him by e-mail to describe in great detail the "clever" way he carried his FN 1910 loaded +1, i.e. with a full magazine and a loaded chamber. In doing so, he had inadvertently discovered a fundamental flaw and had put his pistol int...

By the end of communism in Romania in 1989, the standard service pistols for the army and police were still the old Tokarevs and the Cugir Model 74 "Carpați" Walther PP copy. These were obviously outdated, and as it moved more towards the West, the Romanian military wanted a modern handgun. In 19...

The Model 74 "Carpați" is a copy of the Walther PP made by the Cugir factory in Romania. The project began at the direction of the Romanian secret police, who delivered a worn out Walther to the factory in 1972 with a request that they produce a domestic copy. Work on the design took two years be...

OK - we caved. For as long as we've been doing this series we've given our followers the chance to guess the weapon on social media before our video goes live. Without fail, there is always at least one person who guesses it's a hyper realistic cake (you know who you are). So, in what will be her...

A decent number of C96 Mauser pistols were present in Finland's civil war, many of them coming into the country with the Finnish Jaegers, and others from a variety of sources, commercial and Russian. They were used by both the Reds and the Whites, and in both 9x19mm and 7.63x25mm. After the end o...

Today we have a short look at two of the predecessors of the French MAC 1950 service pistol. The first is the Type SE MAS 1948, which retains many of the characteristics of the previous MAS 1935 pistols. After that is a preproduction MAC 1950 (serial number F 20), which has the same style of safe...

Robert "Dickie" Stannus was , in technical terms, a total stud. So much so that he was awarded an inscribed M1911A1 directly by Colt as a prize for being the top sailor in his Naval Academy class. He got the privilege of choosing what ship he would be assigned to, and chose the USS Bear, an assau...

Calvin of Firepower United had a cabby on:

- Swiss Ordonnanz Revolver model 1882 7.5mm
- Swiss Ordonnanz Revolver model 82/29 7.5mm
- Swiss Ordonnanz Revolver model 1878 10.4mm
- FN 1900 .32 ACP / 7.65 Browning
- FN 1903 9mm Browning Long SR (which didn't work)
- FN 1910/22 .32 ACP / 7.65 Browni...

Calvin of Firepower United joined Mike of Bloke on the Range for some Swiss style pistol shooting at 50m and 25m. How did he get on outside his comfort zone while doing some 50m precision, timed and some 25m dueling and Olympic Rapid Fire?

Featuring:
SIG P210, P220
Parabellum / Luger 1906, 06/29...

Hi-Point finally released their double-stack YC-9 Yeet Cannon a few months ago, and they sent me one to try out so I figured I'd take it to the monthly BackUp Gun Match.

The new YC-9 is exactly what you would expect from Hi-Point, because they really only make one basic gun. It's a simple blowba...

The vz.50 pistol was a compact .32 ACP (7.65mm Browning) double action pocket pistol used by police forces. It was given a face lift and redesigned the vz.70, and there were plans at one point to further modernize it. The new design would have been the vz.80, but only a few prototypes were made -...

When the P-83 pistol went into production, the Polish military decided that it wanted a dedicated suppressed version of the gun, and the result was the PT-83. Thw P-83 was a 9x18mm pistol with a fixed barrel, so attaching a suppressor was not going to cause any problems with functioning. However,...

Courtesy of CZ and their reference library, we are looking at a prototype model of the vz.70 pistol intended to use a suppressor. It has an extended and threaded (with interrupted threads for quick attach/detach) barrel, and a mechanism to allow for locking the slide. This will prevent the slide ...

When Smith & Wesson introduced their Model 3566 pistol for USPSA use, the company shooting team needed six of them for use at the 1994 USPSA Nationals. The Performance Center made these six guns, and they are magnificent examples of custom gunsmithing. This is the first of them, and designed for ...

The Avenger is a flapper-delayed blowback, fixed barrel conversion upper assembly for the Model 1911 pistol. It was designed by Austrian Peter Spielberger, and manufactured by Hogue in the US and PowerSpeed in Austria. It is a product that came close to vaporware status, announced at SHOT Show in...

Yesterday we looked at where the Hogue Avenger came from and how it works; today I'm out at the range to test it out against a nicely customized M1911...

Having served as the standard Soviet military sidearm for several decades, the PM Makarov was getting a bit obsolescent by the late 1980s. More of the world was using locked breech, 9x19mm service pistols but the Soviet Union still had essentially a domestic version of the Walther PP. To extend i...

Yesterday we looked at the history and the mechanics of the Vektor CP1, and today I'm taking it out to the monthly BackUp Gun Match. It isn't a pistol with a good reputation, but it's also not a pistol very many people gave a fair shake to. It has a decent grip, pretty decent sights, a fixed barr...

Today we are looking at an overview of Soviet military service sidearms. This begins with the Model 1895 Nagant revolver, inherited from the Czarist Russian Army. The Nagant was adopted as the standard Red Army handgun, specifically in double action. Soviet refitting led to single-action Nagant r...

C&Rsenal posted a Top 10 Pistols of WWI video a few days ago, and I didn't entirely agree with their choices - so I figured I'd do my own list. I'm using the same base conditions that they did (only locked-breech pistols), and I'm judging the guns based on their desirability to a trained and prac...

The Vektor CP-1 was developed by Lyttleton Engineering Works (who owned the Vektor brand) in 1995 for a South African Police contract. They lost that contract to the Republic Arms RAP-401, but decided to put the CP-1 onto the civilian market instead. It was a pretty decent seller for them, and af...

Today we have a look at the EFA-2k Makarov holster that was "made for Spetznaz". I am extremely skeptical that any Spetznaz operator ever actually deployed with one of these things, though. It's a holster with a neat mechanical function; you can push the pistol down through the bottom of the hols...