Revolver
Frankenau Purse Gun
Patented in 1876 in both the US and UK as well as Germany, the Frankenau purse gun was a very small 5-shot, 5mm pinfire revolver hidden inside what appeared to be a normal small coin […]
Revolver
Conversion
RIA: Danish 1865/97 Pinfire Conversion Revolver (Video)
The Danish artillery was an early adopter of metallic-case handguns, taking on this pinfire 6-shot solid-frame revolver in 1865 – when most of the world was still using percussion firearms. The thousand guns made served […]
Revolver
RIA: Russian M1870 Galand Revolver (Video)
The Galand was an innovative revolver design created by Frenchman Charles Francois Galand and patented in 1868. It is most notable for using a long lever system to eject cartridges by throwing the cylinder and […]
Flintlock
RIA: London-Made Lorenzonis Repeating Flintlocks
A 7-shot repeating handgun before cartridges had been invented? Yep, long before. These two pistols are London-made examples of the Lorenzoni system, in which a gun was made with internal magazines of powder and projectiles […]
Revolver
RIA: Mauser Model 1878 “Zig-Zag” Revolvers (Video)
After making their big break with the adoption of the Model 1871 Mauser rifle by the newly unified German government, the Mauser brothers, took a shot at getting the handgun contract for the military as […]
Gunsmithing
RIA: Strange Unique European Revolver
With no markings or provenance at all, the origins of this revolver are a mystery. Its features all point to the 1880s or 1890s, and someone clearly spent a lot of time working on it […]
Revolver
RIA: Little All Right
Aren’t these 19th century little pocket pistols cute? This is another palm-type hideout gun, named the “Little All Right” and patented in 1876. It’s actually a pretty basic revolver mechanism, just put into an unusual […]
Book review
Book Review: Documenting the Weapons used at the Little Bighorn
I previously reviewed a book on archaeological study of the Little Bighorn battlefield, which did an excellent and very insightful job of tracing the battle through tangible artifacts, including forensic tracing of different individual weapons […]
Revolver
Vintage Saturday: Send a Gun to Defend a British Home!
“When the ships from America approached our shores with their priceless arms special trains were waiting in all the ports to receive their cargoes,” Churchill recalled. “The Home Guard in every county, in every town, […]
Revolver
British Pistol Use During WWI
Here’s an interesting piece of research, done in 2010 by one David Thomas as part of a degree in British First World War Studies: The Pistol in British Military Service During the Great War (pdf) This […]