There is an old gun shop tale that Argentine Ballester-Molina pistols were made form the salvaged armor plate of the pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee. The Graf Spee was scuttled in the Rio de la […]
Bulgaria bought its first Lugers in 1903; 1000 Old Model guns in 7.65mm. It bought another 1300 New Model Lugers in 1908 (again in 7.65mm), but both of these orders were intended for private purchase […]
The MP5 is widely regarded as the best submachine gun ever made, and it has been widely copied. But only now has H&K released a semiauto civilian version of it in pistol form. Prior to […]
Between 1935 and 1937, the recently independent nation of Lithuania purchased 5,000 Browning High Power pistols from FN. These were early pattern guns, with 500m tangent rear sights and stock slots, although Lithuania did not […]
The Ballester-Molina was designed to be a more economical pistol to produce than the 1911A1, which had been adopted by Argentina as the Pistola Sistema Colt Modelo 1927. It was produced by a company called […]
Having gained independence after World War One, Czechoslovakia looked to standardize and improve its armaments. Václav Holek went to work for the Zbrojovka Praga factory in Prague in 1918, and they introduced the Model 1919 […]
Theodore Emil Kommer was born in 1866, son of a German gunsmith. He took the same profession, and at the age of 23 in 1889 opened his own business making guns. He initially focused on […]
Estonia purchased several batches of early FN High Power pistols in the 1930s. First in 1936 120 were ordered for the police, and then much larger orders followed in 1937. The military bought 5,338 and […]
In 1934 (just year before officially requesting that the Western world call his country “Iran” rather than “Persia”), the Shah of Iran ordered 4,000 Luger pistols form the Mauser company. These were to be divided […]
The US first tested the Luger in 1901, and it seemed potentially good enough that the government spent $15,000 to buy 1,000 of the pistols (in 7.65mm Luger; the only cartridge available at the time) […]
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