Did you ever want a Broomhandle Mauser?

While I haven't shot one, I have seen one in person at the first New England Blogshoot many moons ago.  It's pretty cool.

Well, if you want to get one, Dwight found where you can find it. 

Epic fail at UPS

Wilson Combat shipped a very nice firearm via UPS.  Said firearm went missing.

The droids that work at UPS seem not to understand just how many felonies are involved with that.  Holy cow.  Or just how much traffic Gun Free Zone gets.

Happiness is a clean gun

(bang, bang) (shoot, shoot)

It was fun to have a range weekend with co-blogger and Brother-From-Another-Mother ASM826.  We shot a lot of obscure and really interesting guns (range reports anon), but the companionship of friends and like minds is a special reward all its own.

What was particularly interesting (and which deserves a post of its own) is the range of old to new gun designs, of simple/complex designs that you really see by stripping and cleaning different guns all in the same evening.

For example, despite my love for the M1 Garand ("The Greatest Battle Implement Ever Designed"), disassembling it to clean it is non-trivial.  The AR platform (besides being crazy accurate and firing a round which weighs less than half the venerable .30-06) is crazy easy to take apart to clean.

I guess that firearms design advances in 40 years, in many ways for the better*.  No better way to see this than to strip and clean 8 or 9 different guns.

And a huge, huge thanks to ASM826 for hosting this, and to Dan for coming out with his arm in a sling (been there and feel your pain, brother) and to Ken for sharing some of the most interesting guns I've seen in ages.

And for anyone who actually, you know, doesn't get the reference from the post title, here's remedial education**.  It's held up surprisingly well - musically speaking.



* Get offa my lawn, punk.

** Get offa my lawn, punk.

Mikhail Kalashnikov's funeral plans

They're going to bury him in mud for a week, then dig him up and put him back to work.

From Andrew via email.

UPDATE 12/16/2013 22:31: Tango comments and points us to the original source, the excellent Duffel Blog where there's a whole story that is entirely hilarious.  Thanks, Tango.

Things I did not know about firearms, vol. CXI

I knew that the UK made something like 19 Million Lee-Enfield rifles, so they were found everywhere.  I also knew that there was a terrible shortage of automatic weapons in the British Army after Dunkerque.  What I did not know is that there were several designs that converted the SMLE rifle into full automatic.

The Rieder conversion kit could be installed with simple tools and converted the rifle into a full automatic weapon.  You could use either the standard 10 round .303 magazine or the 30 round magazine used with the Bren.

And the Kiwis did a full re-manufacturing, turning a couple thousand Enfields into Charlton Automatic Rifles.

Pretty ingenious, and a meditation on how effective gun control can ever be.

Nothing but a big bore

No, this isn't a confession about my uber posts, it's about a rifle.  A Two-bore, to be precise.  Via the magic of the Intarwebz and Flares into Darkness as a launching pad, we find perhaps the largest hand-held firearm, the Holland and Holland Two Bore:

Among other weapons, I had an extraordinary rifle that carried a half-pound percussion shell; this instrument of torture to the hunter was not sufficiently heavy for the weight of the projectile: it only weighted twenty pounds, thus with a charge of ten drachms [270 grains] of powder and a HALF-POUND shell, the recoil was so terrific, that I spun around like a weathercock in a hurricane. I really dreaded my own rifle, although I have been accustomed to heavy charges of powder and severe recoils for some years. None of my men could fire it, and it was looked upon as a species of awe, and it was name "Jenna-El-Mootfah" (Child of a Cannon) by the Arabs, which being a far too long of a name for practice, I christened it the "Baby", and the scream of this "Baby" loaded with a half-pound shell was always fatal. It was too severe, and I seldom fired it, but it is a curious fact that I never shot a fire with that rifle without bagging. The entire practice, during several years, was confined to about twenty shots. I was afraid to use it, but now and then as it was absolutely necessary, it was cleaned after months of staying loaded. On such occasions my men had the gratification of firing it, and the explosion was always accompanied by two men falling on their backs (one having propped up the shooter) and the "Baby" flying some yards behind them. This rifle was made by Holland & Holland, of Bond Street, and I could highly recommend it for the Goliath of Gath, but not for the men of A.D. 1866.^[1]

That's from the memoirs of Sir Samuel White Baker, English Gentleman explorer.  It fired something like this:

It's the ball on the right hand side of the picture, made of a half pound (!) of lead.  That's 2500 grains.

[blink] [blink]

Err, I'll never meddle in caliber wars again, I promise.

And my shoulder hurts just watching it being fired.



Good grief, you can get a workout just picking the darn thing up.  I don't feel the slightest need for one, but it's insanely cool in an utterly useless sort of way.

Your gunnie LOL

Andrea emails to point our a gallery of strange firearms designs, like this revolver designed for hand to hand fighting:

The Buddha might say that this has the JayG Nature ...

Cool, interesting, funny stuff.  At least if that's your bag, baby.

Gunnie trivia time!

OK, Borepatchians, here a trivia question for you: Sherlock Holmes' companion Dr. Watson was an officer in the British army in Afghanistan (circa 1880s).  As such, he would have been responsible for purchasing his own side arm.  So the trivia question is: which revolver would be have packed?  A Webley, or an Enfield?

Forgotten weapons

Warning - you'll lose a lot of time here.

Breda PG 1935.

My Five fantasy guns

Like His Newtness, I think big.

76mm HEAT M4 Sherman main battery (with tank as gun platform).  The 76mm was a big improvement over the original 75mm - much more so than the trivial extra millimeter would suggest.  The Sherman is still simple enough to be (vaguely) practical for private ownership.  I'm guessing that this would be classified by the ATF as a "Destructive Device", so the cost will be higher because of the extensive legal work to get all the licenses.

Ma-Deuce (P-51 as the gun platform).  Because what's more awesome than Ma-Deuce?  Six of them riding on the greatest propeller fighter of all time.  These planes are popular at air shows all over the land, but this would take that to a whole 'nother level.  Not just low passes, but strafing runs.  Like with the Sherman, I expect that you'd need to budget extra for legal fees (or bribes political contributions) to get the right licenses.  Hey, it's my fantasy, right?

Mark 8 Torpedo tube (PT Boat as gun platform).  Yeah, it's a wooden boat, and so upkeep will be a pain (buy stock in Valspar), but let's face it - if you want to play one ups-manship at the local marina, this would about do it (note to self: make sure that proper grey camouflage paint job is done before taking it into harbor).  New England residents will get bonus points if you paint a number "109" on the bow.  And if you dock it in Hyannisport.

Siege of Constantinople bombard.  There's a reason that the city is called Istanbul, and this is it.  The old Theodosian Walls were no match to the firepower of these monsters.  Yeah, it took a team of oxen to haul it and you were lucky to get off three shots in a day, but those old Roman fortifications just couldn't take the pounding.  Bonus points: this is likely not covered by the NFA (worst case, it's classified as a Curio and Relic firearm).  Downside: local meth-addled thugs will want to swipe it for the scrap value.

A 2.7 mm (10 caliber) Kolibri, simply because it's about at the opposite end of the size spectrum from the Sultan Mehmet bombard.  The whole pistol isn't much bigger than a single .45 ACP cartridge (shown in the picture for scale), so this is a mouse gun that might only make the mouse mad if you hit him.  Actually, I couldn't think of anything else, but this is goofy enough to add to the list.

I'm thinking I could score this sweet list for $20M or so - $30M tops.  Might have to look at one of the former Soviet Bloc countries for an old bombard, but I understood that the rules stated that money is no object.  I expect that this is the strangest list posted in this meme, but you guys know that any incoming transmission from Planet Borepatch is going to be weird.  It was actually fun asking myself what will dial the weird up to eleven. Sure, it's really not what Robb was getting at in his meme, but like Newt, I pride myself on being visionary.  And unlike a Moon Colony, this isn't idiotic.

Well, it is, but it's not that idiotic.

The M1922 Bang Rifle

(Image source)

The repeating action on this is unique.  A sliding cone over the muzzle was driven forward by the muzzle blast.  A long rod connected to the cone worked a lever that unlocked the breach.  Søren Bang had been working on the design since 1901, and this actually passed field trials despite being less than robust and susceptible to failure from the corrosive primers, which weakened the cone.

I want one just because of the name.  Yeah, I know - I need to grow up.  Not going to happen.

The Rieger Bolt Action Pistol

(Image source)

The early days of self-loading pistols give us some marvelous failed designs, as inventors tried different approaches to see what might solve the problem.  This typically took the form of seeing what worked in other types of firearms and adapting it to pistols.

In the 1880s, bolt-action mechanisms were the rage in rifles.  Perhaps, seemingly thought Erwin Rieger, this might work in a pistol, too?

The question was how to propel the bolt backwards and forwards.  If that could be accomplished, the details of extracting the spent case, ejecting it, and stripping a new cartridge for loading were well understood.  Since pistols were assumed to be one-handed weapons, a side mounted bolt actuator would not do.

Herr Rieger solved this problem by a lever actuated by a ring in front of the trigger.  Pushing the ring forward opened the bolt, ejecting the spent cartridge.  Pulling the ring back closed the bolt, chambering a new round.  It might be more accurate to call this a lever action pistol, but the very limited information I've been able to find (nothing on the Internet (!); a short reference in Ian Hogg's The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Firearms) describes it as a bolt action, inspired by military rifles.

It was perhaps inspired by the Passler & Siedel model of 1887, but the inspiration very well may have gone the other direction.  The Passler & Siedel looks more advanced, with a removable magazine.  It's a bit of a stretch to think that Rieger would have dropped a feature like this.

(Image source)

Alas for this marvelous design, it seems to have only worked well when the pistol was clean and oiled.  When dirty or dry, the lever took great physical strength in the finger to cycle the action.  Newer designs that used the energy of the fired round to work the action swept the field.

But there is a pleasure in the hunt for the fossilized remains from the Pleistocene Age of self-loading pistols.

Hollywood and the Shooting Sling

Watch this scene from 1975's The Wind And The Lion, and you'll see Brian Keith as Teddy Roosevelt looped up for target practice.



I don't think you'd see that today.  Keith came by that skill honestly - a Marine in World War II, he was a radioman/tail gunner in an SBD Dive Bomber.

I hadn't realized that, and hadn't noticed the sling when I watched the film.

The Hino-Komura pistol

(Image source)

A design from the early days of semi-automatic pistols is the Japanese Hino-Komura pistol of 1907.  The Russo-Japanese War was a triumph for the Chrysanthemum Throne, but it convinced the Imperial Japanese Army that it seeded a self-loading pistol.  You see, all the Cool Kids were getting them.

But the new-fangled things were, well, new, and so nobody really knew what worked best.  And so the Hino-Komura ended up with the marvelously quirky blow forward design.  The breech was solid, an integral part of the frame.  It was motionless when the pistol was fired, and the barrel was what moved.

The friction of the bullet is what drove the barrel forward.  Eventually the bullet left the muzzle (removing further forward impetus) and a recoil spring slowed and stopped the barrel's forward motion.  At this point, the ejector kicked away the spent case - which the extractor had been holding firmly in place against the breech - and a fresh cartridge was seated.  Then the spring returned the barrel, cocking the firing pin.

Alas for the Hino-Komura, it was not accepted for use by the Army, and only 1200 or so were made.  Highly collectible, a cache of 17 were found in a Japanese warehouse in 1992.  Sadly, there were destroyed rather than being sold to collectors.  It seems that one lucky collector found one in a box of random stuff at a garage sale, and picked the lot up for $20.  That's winning the lottery.

A few blow forward designs were implemented, perhaps most famous being the Mk 20 Grenade Launcher used in Vietnam.  Manlicher also had a commercial design in the 1890s, and Schwarzlose had what was perhaps the only commercially successful offer.  Why?


One objection is what to do if the gun does not return to battery (i.e. the barrel or breach does not fully re-seat).  In your typical blow back design (1911 style), you just hit the back of the gun, and it will likely be enough for the pistol to re-seat.  That won't work on a blow forward design - you have to smack the barrel back towards you.  In the event of a slam fire, the part of you that you use to smack the barrel is in front of the barrel when the pistol fires (oops).

And so we only see blow forward designs in the early days of auto-loading pistols, before everyone figured out what worked better.  While things are cheaper and more reliable now, they're more similar.  Functionally this is a big win, but a little of the poetry got lost along the way.

But maybe I need to start going to garage sales ...

The Evans Rifle

I may start a new meme here.  In researching my recent posts using scenes from the film Tombstone, I ran across an odd and wonderful old rifle: the Evans Repeater.

(Image source)

I grew up in Maine, and went to school there (as did friend Weer'd Beard).  Warren Evans was a dentist in Thomaston (on the mid coast, near Camden).  He designed a more or less typical rifle on the late 1860s, but with one marvelous oddity: the stock contained a magazine that held 30 rounds.  It wouked like an Archimedes screw.

(Image source)

Only instead of raising water, this raised cartridges.  Each time you worked the lever action, the magazine screw turned a quarter turn, feeding a new cartridge to the chamber.

Evans incorporated the Evans Machine Rifle Company in 1871, setting up a manufacturing facility in Mechanics Falls, Maine (known today for really not much at all).  He hoped to interest the Army because of the massive magazine capacity - possibly illegal in some states today.

Alas for Mr. Evans, it didn't work out.  The Army thought the rifle too heavy and clumsy, and subject to jamming from dirt and dust.  You also reloaded it the same way you shot it - One round, cycle the lever action, load a new round, cycle, lather, rinse, repeat.  He got a nibble from the Russian Army, but it was too little, too late.  His company folded in 1880.

But the rifle made an appearance in the film Tombstone.  Of course, it's in Red Dead Redemption.

So new meme - firearms trivia.  And with some old thing from Maine (no comments that I'm some old thing from Maine, if you please).  If folks like it, I'll do another.  But a ProTip just between you and me, don't go betting cash money on your firearms trivia against Tam.  Just sayin'.