German soldiers with captured American small arms, circa 1944. The other guy’s stuff is always better than yours, right? Well, I would rather have an M1 than a K98k, but the Thompsons? No thanks. Interesting […]
Isaac Newton Lewis is best known as the designer of the Lewis light machine gun, of course – but that was not his only work in the firearms field. In 1919, he patented a semiauto […]
Thanks to all my great Patreon supporters who make this possible! We have a great selection of questions once again. Want to ask one yourself? Sign up over at Patreon! The tools I mention in […]
In 1936, Lewis Nolan Nomar patented this device, which is basically a large 40-round magazine for the 1911 pistol. He envisioned a military use for the device in trench raiding, giving men a compact weapon […]
Uruguay’s Model 1871/94 Mauser conversions – known usually as either Daudetau or Dovitiis Mausers – are a really interesting story of arms history. It begins with Antonio Dovitiis, and Italian tailor and merchant of military […]
What was the first true semiautomatic pistol? Let’s take a look… Before there were self-loading pistols, there were manually operated repeating pistols with magazines – like the 1850s Volcanics. A surprising number of this type […]
In the early 1960s, an influential but little-known (today) firearms designer by the name of Robert Hillberg came up with an idea for a cheap-but-effective armament for the masses. With encouragement from DARPA, the Winchester […]
Georg Roth’s company in Austria presided over a wonderful variety of interesting handgun development, and this is one example of that lineage. Roth’s licensed or purchased the patent for this pistol from its inventor, Wasa […]
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