Competition
Roth-Steyr 1907 at the Backup Gun Match
Posting a couple videos on interesting versions of the Roth-Steyr pistols recently made me think about just how nice of a pistol the 1907 is to shoot, So, I figured I’d bring it out to […]
Semiauto pistol
Semiauto pistol
Just Too Powerful: The C96 in 9mm Mauser Export
In an effort to widen its potential marked for the C96 pistol, Mauser offered it in 9x25mm (aka 9mm Mauser Export) as well as the much more common 7.63x25mm cartridge. The 9mm cartridge was made […]
Prototype
Roth Steyr Developmental Models 1904 and 1906
Before the Austro-Hungarian Empire adopted the Roth Steyr Model 1907 as its official cavalry pistol, they of course went through a series of pistol trials. The winners of two sets of trials were the Roth […]
Prototype
Hill SMG/Pistol: Inspiration for the FN P90
John L. Hill was a World War One fighter pilot who went into the oil and gas industry, and enjoyed tinkering with guns in his free time. In 1949 he got an idea for a […]
Semiauto pistol
Lugers Under Versailles: The 1926 Simson P08
Simson & Co of Suhl was chosen as the sole contractor legally allowed to manufacture and rework military small arms for the German military under the Versailles treaty. They acquired the P08 Luger tooling from […]
Semiauto pistol
Fritz Mann Model 1921: Chamber-Ring-Delayed Blowback
In 1920, Fritz Mann of Germany patented the idea of cutting a shallow ring in the chamber of a pistol as a delaying mechanism. When fired, a cartridge case would expand into this groove, thus […]
Semiauto pistol
1945: The French Occupy Mauser and Make Lugers
In July 1945, just a few months after the first French troops entered Oberndorf, the Mauser factory began assembling guns under French oversight. In addition to HSc pistols, P38 pistols, K98k rifles, and Model 45 […]
Semiauto pistol
The Lahti L35 in Soviet Testing
This guest article written by Andrey Ulanov. In 1941, at the NIPSVO shooting range, the Soviet military conducted a series of comparative tests of standard foreign and Soviet pistols as well as the Soviet experimental […]
Semiauto pistol
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. […]
Prototype
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 […]