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Muff Pistols: Historical CCW For Ladies of Distinction
Deep dive into the history and practicalities of historical concealed carry for ladies (and gentlemen) of distinction, namely the muff. We look at the pros and cons of different small pistols as firearms and fashion evolved through the ages, using Mrs Chap's furry muff for reference.
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MAB PA-15 Pistol
MAB was a successful firearms manufacturer in France for nearly 70 years, focusing on small carry pistols for civilian and police use, as was popular in Europe until the late 1970s. From the late 1960s though MAB developped a big all-steel 9mm service type pistol, the lost "wonder 9", which is st...
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S.A.C.M. 1935A "Petter" Pistol
The SACM 1935A pistol, developped by Charles Petter, is a pistol mostly famous by association due to it's infamous offspring the SIG P.49 / 210 and myth sometimes blurrs fact as features of the later are attributed to the former. Let's have a closer look to filter fact from fiction.
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FN Browning Hi Power Trigger Mechanism: Simple, Clever, Sometimes Awful!
Yet more Browning Hi-Power GP35 mechanical nerdery for you: this time it's what's simultaneously really clever but really dumb/awful/craptastic about the trigger mechanism.
The Browning Hi Power GP35 has possibly the worst magazine safety ever devised, and this vid explains why, with reference...
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Why The Browning Hi Power Magazine "Safety" Is Particularly Awful...
Some mechanical nerdery for you: magazine safeties / disconnects sound good on paper, but in my view are dangerous and counterproductive, so should not be a thing. But they are. So here we are.
The Browning Hi Power GP35 has possibly the worst magazine safety ever devised, and this vid explai...
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Holosun 509T on a Glock 17 Gen 5 MOS: Return To Zero???
Well, the question here is whether a Holosun 509T red dot sight mounted on a Glock 17 Gen 5 MOS will return to zero when removed and replaced... So, will it?
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Ruby, Ruby, Ruby, Ruby!
Deep dive into one of Chappie's many perversions, namely his obsession with French Ruby pistols. Despite their somewhat undeserved tarnished reputation, they do offer a very interesting and economical collecting subject with a huge number of manufacturers to look out for and as we discover, they ...
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Pistols of Denmark's Artist-Turned-Inventor Bent Agner Nielsen
Bent Agner Nielsen was a Danish tinkerer born in 1925, who studied art as a young man and worked as a painter. In the 1970s he became interested in firearms, beginning with engraving work. This soon evolved into an interest in mechanical design, and in 1978 he began work on the M80, an Olympic-st...
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Finnish Brutality Practice: 2-Gun with a Finnish M39
As practice for Finnish Brutality, I ran a 2-Gun match with the Finnish M39 Mosin Nagant I am planning to use over in Finland. The M39 is the final iteration of the Mosin in Finnish service, and has very good sights, a great trigger, and a nice smooth action (for a Mosin, anyway). I was using PPU...
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The 80s Strike Back! Linda and Qwik-Point at the BUG Match
Yesterday we took a look at the history and operation of the Wilkinson Arms Linda, and today I have it out at the BackUp Gun Match. Since I don't have iron sights on mine, I fitted with with a period-correct Weaver Qwik-Point fiber optic red dot sight.
Overall, the Linda performed much better...
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Broomhandle Mauser "Red Nine" - the C96 in World War One (Updated)
The German military did not actually adopt the Mauser C96 "broom handle" before World War One. It was the first really successful semiauto pistol, but the German military chose the Luger instead, in 1908. However, as World War One continued, the German military realized it was going to be serious...
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Wilkinson Arms "Linda"
The Linda is a semiauto 9mm pistol that just exudes 1980s aesthetics. It was made along with a carbine version called the Terry, by Wilkinson Arms of California (later Idaho). Both were named after daughters of the company founder, Ray Wilkinson. He would also later produce a Sherry pistol named ...
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Uruguayan Celmi Hermanos .32 ACP Pistol
The Celmi brothers were Italians who moved to Uruguay and opened an arms factory. They are best known for sporting shotguns, but in 1943 they introduced an automatic pistol, much like the Walther PP but with a removable barrel bushing, a la FN 1910. Quality was questionable, and only a few hundre...
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Göring's Platinum Lugers
There are a lot of guns out there attributed to German leaders and politicians of the Second World War. Many of these are completely specious, and many more are true simply because these men had a lot of guns. What we are looking at today is an exception; one of the rather small number of guns wh...
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Side-By-Side: Mike And Budi Try Out A Bunch Of Old Euro-pistols, WW1 And Later
A cornucopia of old Euro pistol goodness! Mike and Budi take the opportunity to try out side-by-side the following pistols from WW1 and from the interwar period at 25m:
Mauser Broomhandle C96 7.63 Mauser
FN Browning 1900 7.65 Browning / .32 ACP
FN Browning 1903 / Husqvarna 1907 m/07 9mm Brow... -
Side By Side: Mike And Budi With Some 1930's Pistols (And A 1911A1...)
Mike and Budi make a comparison between:
Colt 1911A1 (Remington-Rand, .45 ACP),
Tokarev TT33 (7.62x25 Tokarev)
French model 35A (7.65 French Long)
French model 35S (7.65 French Long)
Browning Hi Power GP35 (9mm Para)
Walther P38 / P1 (9x19mm)Obviously the Browning HP is the best. Obvz...
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Czech Small Arms CSA Vz.61 Skorpion Semi .32 ACP (Plus A Cheeky HK MP5K!)
"Bloke takes his 2012-production .32 ACP and, after having made it vaguely run with an awful lot of work, puts it through its paces on the 25m range. As a comparison, an HK MP5K both with and without PDW shoulder stock appears too!
Apparently these things were called the Klobb in James Bond Gold...
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MAC50 vs. SIG P.49
In the left corner a purely functional defensive pistol and in the right corner a beautifuly crafted military/target pistol. When it comes to relatively fast defensive/combat shooting, does one actually have an advantage over the other?
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Max Popenker on Russian Pistols and Ammunition: 7N21, 9x21mm, 9x18mm, and more
Today I am again joined by Max Popenker, Russian small arms historian and researcher. Max is explaining the basic history of Russian handguns and ammunition, starting with the adoption of the 7.62x25mm Tokarev cartridge to replace the Nagant revolver. This was satisfactory until the end of World ...
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Finnish Brutality 2021: Winter War 2-Gun with a Finnish M39 Mosin
Brought to you by Varusteleka and Sako, Finnish Brutality 2021 was run as a much-reduced private event to meet Finnish Covid-19 event size regulations. We only had three stages and 7 shooters, but the full public match has been rescheduled for October 22-24 of 2021!
http://www.Varusteleka.com
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Ian Fangirls Over Some Weird Bergmann (Prototype M1910)
This unique Bergmann Model 1910 was made by Anciens Etablissements Pieper with a grip angled slightly back compared to the standard model. It was also fitted with a square front sight and square rear notch in place of the standard barleycorn style sights. Its serial number (8800) puts it right in...
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Mauser 1912/14: Flapper-Delayed Blowback
Starting in 1909, Mauser had a plan to introduce a family of automatic pistols, with a picket gun in 6.35mm (.25 ACP) and a military/police service pistol in 9mm Parabellum that shared the same basic look. The initial 1909 prototype in 9mm was simple blowback, and proved to be a failure. The next...
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The Luger in Finland
After the failure of the domestic production Ahlberg pistols and some disappointment with the performance of surplus French Ruby pistols, the Finnish military turned to DWM in Germany for a main service pistol in 1922. The core of the Finnish armed forces had been exposed to the Luger as Jaegers ...
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Finland's First Domestic Handgun: the Ahlberg
In the wake of Finland gaining its independence, small arms were much in demand for the armed forces. Many rifles had been taken from Russian stockpiles in Finland, but not many handguns. Hugo Ahlberg ran Ab H. Ahlberg & Co Oy, a machining company in Turku and he decided that making guns for the ...