How Sam Colt Used Nitrous Oxide to Fund His Firearms Entrepreneurship
"Dr. Coult of New York, London and Calcutta."
That's how the up-and-coming firearm inventor billed himself while exhibiting the effects of nitrous oxide in the 1830s. Traveling the country as a "practiced chemist," Colt used...
John Garand’s Need for Speed
In the waning days of 1928, John C. Garand filed a patent application for a "High Speed Firing Mechanism." At the same time, he was working diligently at Springfield Armory in Massachusetts, developing the...
Wright Arms Company ‘Little All Right’ Palm Pistol
Easy-to-conceal palm pistols were all the rage during the last quarter of the 19th century. Numerous companies produced countless variations of very similar designs.
One design was, however, quite different from the rest. Enter the...
The Browning Hi-Power – A Gun Ahead of Its Time
Reader Ben T. Jimenez writes:
The Browning Hi-Power — also known as BHP or GP-35 — was the last project firearms design genius John Moses Browning worked on. He didn’t live to see the project...
Historic Cost of Doing Business: Smith & Wesson
Horace Smith and Daniel Baird Wesson officially began Smith & Wesson on November 18, 1856. Company records in possession of Smith & Wesson historian Roy Jinks reveal what it cost to get the company...
Rock Island Auction Co. to Sell THE Greatest Battle Implement Ever Devised
It is said that General George S. Patton called the M1 Garand rifle "the greatest battle implement ever devised." That may very well be true. If it is, then M1 Garand rifle serial number 1,000,000...
The Pistols of the Hamilton-Burr Duel
Perhaps the most famous duel of all time occurred between former Secretary of the Treasury and retired two-star Army general Alexander Hamilton and the then-current Vice President Aaron Burr.
The Albany Register published a letter...
Elmer Keith’s 600-Yard Shot: Tall Tale Or Simply Great Shooting?
Elmer Keith was a character, one practically right out of a legend. A barely literate cowboy by many accounts (his editors were said to work miracles) but a shooter of incredible skill, a wildcatter...
From The Backpages Of Gun History: The Mateba Autorevolver
A little while ago, I brought up the topic of magnum semi-autos. They're cool, but they're a boutique item since they are expensive, can be temperamental and are wildly expensive compared to magnum revolvers...
Drinking, Dog Fights, and Evangelists: A Typical Day at the Harpers Ferry Armory
The town of Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now WV) was a quiet and quaint little place located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers. It was regarded as little more than a trading...
Review: Homemade and Deadly – Craft Production of Small Arms in Nigeria
HOMEMADE AND DEALY: Craft Production of Small Arms in Nigeria by Authors Mathias Nowak and André Gsell, June of 2018, 19 pages. This remarkable briefing paper provides a fascinating look into the underground production of...
The Curious History Of Combination Guns
An interesting type of firearm that's almost unknown to the modern shooter but was formerly much more popular is the combination gun. These firearms are chambered for multiple types of ammunition. While there are...