Forgotten Weapons
Published 26 Sept 2015The 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 Austrian inventor who is also responsible for the en-bloc clip concept, very early experimental semi-automatic rifles, and a line of turnbolt and straight-pull rifles used widely throughout Europe.
The 1894 was made only in small numbers — about 100 each in 6.5mm and 7.8mm (this one is in 6.5mm). They were tested by the US military as well as other nations, but not adopted by anyone. While they were bleeding-edge new technology at the time, they were also really not better than traditional revolvers from a practical military perspective. That doesn’t prevent them from being a fascinating cul-de-sac of firearms development though!
September 12, 2023
Mannlicher 1894
August 26, 2023
OSS “Bigot” 1911 dart-firing pistol
Forgotten Weapons
Published 2 Apr 2012The “Bigot” was a modification of an M1911 .45 caliber pistol developed by the Office of Strategic Services during WW2. The OSS was a clandestine operations service, the predecessor of the CIA. The Bigot was intended as a way for commandos to quietly eliminate sentries — although we are not sure what advantage it might have had over a silenced pistol. Questionable utility doesn’t prevent it from being a pretty interesting piece of equipment, though, and we had the opportunity to take a look at one up close recently.
August 20, 2023
1908 Japanese Hino Komura Pistol
Forgotten Weapons
Published 26 Feb 2012The Hino-Komuro pistol (sometimes spelled Komura) was developed by a young Japanese inventor named Kumazo Hino, and financed by Tomijiro Komuro in the first decade of the 20th century. The gun uses a virtually unique blow-forward mechanism, which makes it very interesting to study. The rear of the receiver houses a fixed firing pin, and the barrel is pushed forward upon firing. To cock the gun, the barrel is manually pulled forward about one inch (using serrations on the exposed front section of the barrel). As the barrel is pulled forward, it pulls with it a follower that pulls a cartridge forward out of the magazine and lifts it up into the axis of the bore. When the grip safety and trigger are depressed, the barrel is snapped backwards into the action by a spring. The ready cartridge is chambered and driven backwards with the barrel onto the fixed firing pin.
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August 9, 2023
Russian 1895 Nagant Revolver
Forgotten Weapons
Published 20 May 2013One of the mechanically interesting guns that is really widely available in the US for a great price (or was until very recently, it seems) is the Russian M1895 Nagant revolver. It was adopted by the Imperial Russian government in 1895 (replacing the Smith & Wesson No.3 as service revolver), and would serve all the way through World War II in the hands of the Red Army.
As with its other standard-issue arms, the Russian government intended to manufacture the M1895 revolvers domestically. However, when the Nagant was officially adopted the major Russian arsenals were already working at capacity to make the relatively new M1891 rifle, so the first 20,000 revolvers were made by Nagant in Liege, Belgium. In 1898 space had been freed up to start production at the Tula arsenal, where they would be made until 1945 (Ishevsk put the Nagant revolver into production as well during WWII).
The common version available in the US today is a 7-shot, double action revolver chambered for 7.62x38mm. That cartridge is a very long case with the bullet sunk down well below the case mouth. The cylinder of the Nagant cams forward upon firing, allowing the case mount to protrude into the barrel and seal the cylinder gap, thus increasing muzzle velocity slightly. This also allows the Nagant to be used effectively with a suppressor, unlike almost all other revolvers (in which gas leaking from the cylinder gap defeats the purpose of a suppressor).
The Nagant’s 7.62x38mm cartridge pushes a 108 grain jacketed flat-nose projectile at approximately 850 fps (I believe a lighter 85-grain load was also used by the military later, but I haven’t fired any of it), which puts it roughly between .32 ACP and .32-20 ballistics. Not a hand cannon by any stretch, but fairly typical for the era (the 8mm Nambu and 8mm French revolver cartridges were both pretty similar in performance to the 7.62mm Nagant).
As far as being a shooter, the Nagant is mediocre, but reliable. The grip and sights are acceptable (but not great), and the cylinder loads and unloads one round at a time. The low pressure round doesn’t stick in the cylinder, at least. The worst part for a recreational shooter is the trigger, which is very heavy in double action. Single action is also heavy, but very crisp. Recoil is mild, and not uncomfortable at all. The design was simple and effective, and really a good fit for the Red Army and WWII fighting conditions.
August 3, 2023
Webley 1905
Forgotten Weapons
Published 12 Jun 2016William Whiting was an engineer who spent his entire adult career with the Webley company, and was responsible for all of their in-house self-loading pistol designs. This work initially focused on a behemoth of a pistol, the Model 1904 intended for military contracts. The gun proved insufficiently attractive to the British military though, leaving Webley with a large R&D outlay with nothing to show for it. The solution was to scale the system way down and look to the civilian market with a pocket automatic in .32ACP.
The first version of this commercial pocket pistol was this model 1905 design. It proved to be a popular concept, and the gun was revised to address a few shortcomings and opportunities for simplification. In its final version, the Model 1908 would prove to be Webley’s best-selling automatic pistol, and it is still a relatively easy gun to find today. However, its 1905 predecessor is far scarcer, and it is interesting to examine the changes made between the two models.
July 28, 2023
Merwin & Hulbert Revolvers
Forgotten Weapons
Published 21 Aug 2015The Merwin & Hulbert company was a short-lived firearms manufacturing partnership between designer Joseph Merwin and the Hulbert brothers as financiers. Merwin wanted to design a particularly strong and high-quality revolver, and he succeeded — his guns are arguably some of the best revolvers of the frontier era. The company made a wide variety of designs, but in this video I will be sticking to just the Frontier and Pocket Army models. Of particular note is the very clever unloading mechanism!
July 24, 2023
Lorenzoni Repeating Flintlock Pistol
Forgotten Weapons
Published 13 Aug 2012Today we have one of the oldest guns we’ve looked at, a Lorenzoni repeating flintlock pistol. The system was designed by an Italian gunmaker in Florence name Michele Lorenzoni. They were made in very small numbers, and the workmanship is stunning, especially considering that they were first manufactured in the 1680s.
Instead of using a revolving cylinder pre-loaded with multiple shots, the Lorenzoni system utilizes powder and ball magazines in the frame of the gun and a rotating breechblock much like a powder throw tool used today for reloading ammunition.
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June 17, 2023
Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver
Forgotten Weapons
Published 9 Jun 2013This is an update to our previous video on the Webley-Fosbery, which was taken on a low-res camera in a dark room — hopefully this will be a big improvement!
The Webley-Fosbery was an early automatic handgun based on a revolver design. The top half of the frame slides back under recoil, recocking the hammer and indexing to the next round in the cylinder. They were made commercially in both .38 and .455 calibers, with the .455 version attracting interest from British Army officers into World War I.
May 3, 2023
Finland’s High Power Rig
Forgotten Weapons
Published 6 Jan 2023Finland used a variety of FN pistols prior to WW2, and had already evaluated the High Power when Russian invaded and the Winter War began. With an urgent need for more arms, Finland ordered a batch of High Power pistols, which FN was happy to include with the other arms orders already being delivered to Finland. In total, the Finns bought 2,400 of them, with 900 delivered in February 1940 and 1,500 in March 1940. All of them were bought as rigs with leather holsters riveted to flat board shoulder stocks (note that a Finnish pistol with a Finnish-contract original stock is exempted form the NFA in the US, and need not be registered as a short-barreled rifle).
This delivery schedule meant that only a few were available in time to be used in the Winter War, and they saw much greater use in the Continuation War. They were particularly appreciated by the Finnish Air Force as survival weapons. This is often misinterpreted to mean that they were exclusively used by the Air Force; in fact the quantity of Finnish aircraft was small enough that only a small fraction of the pistols were issued to pilots.
Finnish contract pistols have serial numbers falling between 11,000 and 15,000 (and not all guns in that range are Finnish). The stocks were marked in large numbers with the serial number of the gun, although matching rigs are quite scarce today. Some, but not all, were later marked “SA” by the Finnish Army. During the continuation War some of the holsters were separated from the stocks, and some of the pistols had new square front sights put on (a common Finnish preference, done to Lugers as well).
About 40% of the High Powers were lost or rendered unserviceable by the end of the Continuation War. The remainder were kept in service until the 1980s, when they were replaced by the Browning Double Action and slowly sold as surplus.
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April 30, 2023
North Korean Type 70 Pistol
Forgotten Weapons
Published 8 Apr 2015The “Hermit Kingdom” of North Korea has a number of somewhat unusual military firearms that are not quite direct copies of anything else, but we very rarely get to see examples of them up close. The Type 70 was intended for high-ranking officers, replacing the Type 64 (which was a copy of the Browning 1900). The Type 70 shows features from the PPK and Makarov, as well as other elements not taken directly from existing designs. The hammer is an exposed single-action type, and the muzzle profile is very reminiscent of the Makarov. The action is simple blowback (in .32 ACP, despite the 7.62mm marking on the slide), but the barrel is set in the side and easily removed, instead of being fixed to the frame as is typical of blowback pistols. The safety is a cross-bolt button which doubles as the block holding the barrel in place. The Type 70 is quite comfortable in the hand, and probably nice to shoot given its .32ACP chambering.
April 15, 2023
Type 68 North Korean Tokarev/High Power Hybrid
Forgotten Weapons
Published 18 May 2020The Type 68 is a North Korean hybrid of the Tokarev and the High Power, used as a military service pistol until replaced by the Beak-Du-San copy of the CZ75. The general outline of the gun is a copy of the Tokarev, with a modular removable fire control group, lack of manual safety, and tall thin sights. It is chambered for 7.62x25mm, and uses a magazine identical to the standard Tokarev except for not having a magazine catch cut, as the Type 68 has a heel magazine release.
Internally, the High Power elements include a detent-retained barrel pin, use of a solid barrel cam instead of a 1911/Tokarev swinging link, and a fixed barrel bushing. Two patterns of markings exist, one with a date and North Korean marking, and one (like this example) with only a serial number.
North Korean guns of all types are very rare in the United States. A very small number of Type 68s have come into the US, generally through Central America (probably via Cuba) and South Africa (via Rhodesia/Zimbabwe).
Update: It appears that the original design work for these was done by an independent engineering firm in Yugoslavia. The design (a TT33 with High Power type locking and angled slide serrations) was not completed in time for the trials that would lead to adoption of the Yugoslav M57, and the drawings were transferred to “another country” — probably North Korea.
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April 11, 2023
LeMat Centerfire Pistol and Carbine
Forgotten Weapons
Published 27 Nov 2014Colonel LeMat is best known for his 9-shot muzzleloading .42 caliber revolver with its 20 gauge shot barrel acting as cylinder axis pin — several thousand of these revolvers were imported and used in the field by Confederate officers during the US Civil War (and modern reproductions are available as well). What are less well-known are the pinfire and centerfire versions of LeMat’s revolver, and the carbine variants as well.
In this video I’m taking a look at a centerfire LeMat revolver and a centerfire LeMat carbine, both extremely rare guns. They use the same basic principles as the early muzzleloading guns, but look quite different. In these guns, the shotgun remains 20 gauge but uses a self-contained shell loaded from the rear, and the 9 rifles shots are designed for an 11mm (.44 caliber) cartridge very similar to that used in the French 1873 service revolver.
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QotD: Being the target of a death threat
It is now about fourteen months since, after receiving my second death threat, I started carrying a firearm almost constantly. This experience has taught me a few truths, some merely amusing but others with larger implications.
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And about that security plan: carrying a firearm is nearly useless without very specific kinds of mental preparation. It’s not just that you have to think through large ethical issues about when to draw and when to fire (equivalently, when to threaten lethal force and when to use it). You also need good defensive habits of mind. Carrying a firearm is no good if an adversary wins the engagement before you have time to draw.
The most basic good habit of mind is maintaining awareness of your tactical environment. From what directions could you be attacked? Is there a way for an assailant to come up behind you for a hand-to-hand assault, or to line up a shooting position from beyond hand-to-hand range where you couldn’t see it? Are you exposed through nearby windows?
One advantage I had going in was reading Robert Heinlein as a child. This meant I soaked up some basic tactical doctrine through my pores. Like: when you go to a restaurant, sit with your back to a wall, preferably in a corner, in a place with good sightlines but not near a window. When you sit down, think about possible threat axes and which direction to bail out in if you have to.
Advice I’ve gotten from people with counterterrorism training includes this lesson: watch your environment and trust your instincts. Terrorists, criminals, and crazies don’t tend to blend in well even when they’re trying. If someone nearby looks or feels out of place in your surroundings, or behaves in a way not appropriate to the setting, pay attention to that; check your escape routes and make sure you can reach your weapons quickly.
How careful you have to be depends on the threat model you’re planning against. I’m not going to talk about mine in detail, because that might compromise my security by telling bad guys what expectations to game against. But I will say that it assigns a vanishingly small probability to professionals with scoped rifles; the background culture of both Iranian terrorists and their Arab proxies makes it extremely difficult for them to train or recruit snipers, and I am reliably informed that the Iranians couldn’t run professional hit teams in the U.S. anyway – too difficult to exfiltrate them, among other problems.
This, along with some other aspects of the threat model I won’t discuss, narrows the range of plausible threats to something an armed and trained individual with good backup from law enforcement has a reasonable hope to be able to counter. And the good backup from law enforcement is not a trivial detail; real life is not a Soldier of Fortune story or a running-man thriller, and a sane security plan uses all the resources available from your connections to the society around you.
Eric S. Raymond, “Fourteen months of carrying”, Armed and Dangerous, 2010-09-21.
March 30, 2023
FN’s Millionth Pistol: Presented to John Browning; Saved by a Belgian Cop
Forgotten Weapons
Published 28 Nov 2022Fabrique Nationale was formed as a consortium of small gunmakers to produce Mauser rifles for the Belgian Army, and when that work was complete the company basically had nothing else to do … until they met John Browning. Browning had a new pistol design and needed a manufacturer — and FN happened to be a manufacturer in need of a new design. The resulting partnership would last until Browning’s death decades later, and essentially created the modern FN that we know today.
FN produced its one millionth Browning pistol on July 15th, 1912 and decided to throw a huge party in recognition of the achievement. It would take 18 months to get everything arranged, and the gala was held on January 31st, 1914. John Browning attended, along with his son Val, several Belgian government ministers, and FN’s international sales agents. As part of the festivities, a number of Baby Browning pistols marked “Un Million” were presented to VIPs, and Browning himself was given this Model 1900 with a gold engraved serial number “1,000,000”. It’s worth noting that FN did not actually make a million Model 1899/1900 pistols — those only reached about 725,000. The one million number included production of later models, like the Baby Browning and FN 1910.
Browning was not particularly interested in commemorative guns, and gave the pistol to his notary in Bruges when he left to return to the US. It remained with that man until his death, when it because his widow’s property. When the Belgian government passed a gun registration law in 1945, she duly registered it — and that record remains. It was registered again in 1985 in the new computerized Belgian system (listed as a revolver; gun registries are always notoriously full of errors). In 2006 Belgian gun laws changed again, and many guns had to be surrendered to the police. This pistol was one of them; handed in for destruction to a local police office. Fortunately, the officer who received it recognized that it was a historically significant piece, and was able to arrange its preservation.
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February 26, 2023
Ortgies Automatic Pistols: Not as Boring as You Think!
Forgotten Weapons
Published 16 Jun 2016The Ortgies is a pistol whose interesting aspects are often overlooked on the assumption that it is just another identical .32 ACP blowback pistol. Well, it is that — but it is also more.
Mechanically, the Ortgies has a rather unusual grip safety mechanism that is quite different from what we expect to see today. It is also interesting in that the .32 and .380 versions differ only in the easily-interchanged barrel — even the magazines are marked for both calibers.
However, the most interesting part of the Ortgies story (in my opinion) is its production. In less than 5 full years (1919-1923), close to a half million of these guns were made, primarily by an industrial subsidiary of the German government. The guns were in large part a work program, creating export goods which could bring desperately needed hard currency into Germany to counteract the economic devastation of the Versailles treaty.
Have a look at the video and you may come away with a newfound appreciation for the humble Ortgies, like I did!
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