The action in this rifle is an inverted Enfield M1917 (or maybe Enfield P14). It was done so that a lefty could use it!

[ Hat Tip goes to Max Popenker for finding this bizarre creation. ]

I love the clean lines on the reproduction of a German wheel lock pistol from the 1630s. It sells for $1700 (USD)

His Enfield Pistol reproduction sells for $600.

Lots more photos of the guns he makes over at his website.

[ Many thanks to Mehul for emailing me the link. ]

UPDATE: Part 2 can be watched online here. Thanks to Steve for the link.

At that price I would haven taken 'em all.

The Blue Book of Gun Values has increase in price as much as the guns inside it.

The following advertisement for Norma ammunition surprised me because it is so modern looking in contrast the above ads. Compare it with the cover of Hornady's Handbook of Cartridge Reloading (below).

Cover of Hornady's Handbook of Cartridge Reloading (7th Edition)

[ Many thanks to Tarkan for emailing me the pics. ]

The last gun Garand worked on before retirement was the T-31 Bullpup. From the Springfield Armory website ...

U.S. RIFLE GARAND T31 "BULLPUP" .30 (T65E1) SN# 2 Manufactured by Springfield Armory, Springfield, Ma. - Limited prototype experimental select-fire weapon shoulder weapon; never went into production. Lightweight, selective full and semiautomatic rifle with an in-line stock in an attempt to reduce recoil. Cyclic rate of fire 600 rpm. Weapon weighs approximately 8.7 lbs. without accessories. Handguard cooled by circulating fresh air. German FG42 rear sight. Rubber stock and handguard. This was the last model worked on by John Garand.

What is especially interesting about this gun is the recoil system. The tube that surrounds the barrel is not a handguard but gas tube (I use the term lightly). A small around of gas deflected by the muzzle brake would enter the tube causing a shockwave to ripple down the tube towards the receiver end where it would actuate a piston. The system did not work very well because the tube would accumulate 3 grains of dirt for every shot fired!

Garand retired before the second version of the rifle was complete and so the project was terminated. The legacy of this rifle can be seen in the magazine design which was adopted for the M14 rifle.

[ Many thanks to Sven (Defense and Freedom) for emailing me the the info. ]

The Kriegsmarine apparently issued mini-RPG rounds for their double-barreled flare gun. Crazy.

[ Many thanks to jdun1911 for emailing me the link. ]

Weighing 150 pounds and resembling a cannon more than a firearm, a huge, brass-barreled, portable field piece has been recovered from the sea, where a pirate lost it, and added to a collection of ancient guns in Pasadena, Calif. The gun was one of those used by the pirate, Hippolyte de Bouchard, when he and 400 followers sacked Monterey in 1818. In returning to their ship, the men lost this gun when a small boat overturned. In later years it was recovered by fishermen who saw it on the ocean floor at low tide. Another firearm almost as remarkable is a gun with a very long barrel used by Spanish settlers in hunting. They believed that the longer the barrel, the further the ball would carry, and so used long-barreled guns to kill game at long range. The long gun has an over-all length of about ten feet.

That pirate gun is almost certainty a Punt Gun. While nifty, they are not uncommon.

What is more interesting, at least to me, is the very long Spanish "sniper" rifle. That barrel would probably have decreased velocity, not helped it, but the long length and weight would have it easier to hit a moving target, much like how shotgunners use longer barrels today.

[ Many thanks to Sven (Defense and Freedom) for emailing me the the info. ]

Last week they started a series on the history of firearms. The first episode, about early hand cannons, "aired" last week and is worth watching.

Also online are Part 2 and Part 3.

I discovered this light machine gun last month at a SF team house here in Afghanistan. Its an old post WWI French Mdle 1922 light machine gun in 7.92mm Mauser. There were two models one that fed from a box magazine on top and this one that used stripper fed clips (15,24 &30 rd cap). The French made them is several calibers, including 6.5mm Mannlicher-Schoenauer (Greek), 7x57 Mauser (Spain), 7.7x56R (.303, UK) and 7.92x57 Mauser (Czechosolvakia). This one is missing the charging hande, bipod and muzzle brake.

Cleaning rod has been jammed into the bolt carrier and used as improvised charging handle.

Porter Revolving Turret Rifle

9-shot; .48 caliber. In excellent overall condition. Bore is excellent plus; 28" barrel. Metal is smooth and well marked. Showing little or no use. Manufactured in 1851. Mechanically excellent. Wood is excellent, with one tiny area of wood loss. Only 1250 Porter Turret Rifles made, in three types, of which approximately 375 were type II. Lacks rear sight, cover screw broken, otherwise complete and excellent. A very advanced weapon for its time, and a competitor to the Colt Revolving Rifle, many were used during the Westward Migration. Seldom available on today's market, this example is in far above average condition. $11400

If you are interested, this rifle can be purchased at 19thcenturyweapons.com.

Isaiah Jennings 12 shot repeating flintlock rifle

According to the press release [PDF warning], when this gun was auctioned off, it achieved a record sales price in Louisiana.

An 1820 Prototype Isaiah Jennings 12 Shot Repeating Rifle, engraved with the serial number “No. 1,” generated a great deal of interest on the telephone, through eBay and from within the room. Bidding finally stopped (and the applause began) when a local purchased this exceptionally rare rifle for $34,000.00, making it a Louisiana record price for a firearm sold at auction.

Does anybody know how this type of gun works?

Ingrham's Underhammer Harmonica Rifle

The Underhammer Society Blog has a post about a modern reproduction of this 175 year old rifle design. Be sure to watch the video.

The Puckle gun

This gun dates back to the early 1700s! It fired 32mm caliber projectiles at a rate of just under 10 rounds per minute. I think make almost makes it an Auto-Cannon

Photo from Wikipedia.

Many thanks to Mehual, Clodboy and El Duderino for the links.

Early next month, the Rock Island Auction Company will be auctioning off a collection of prototype arms which include some interesting "high-cap" guns.

Jarre Double Action Harmonica Pistol

The bullet chamber houses nine pinfire 38 cartridges. The action functions in both single and double action. There is lower trigger attached to the rear of the primary trigger which fits through a slot in the bottom of the trigger guard that when pulled back advances the chamber and cocks the hammer. To fire double action one simply uses the primary trigger in the traditional manner. Fitted

Estimated Price: $9,0000 - $14,000

French Guycot Chain Rifle

Manufactured circa 1878, this unusual and rare rifle features a chain housed in the frame and stock which holds 80 rounds of centerfire cartridges. The "endless chain" has carrying cups that hold the rounds. Once loaded the rifle can be fired as fast as the trigger can be pulled. The belt is revolved until a chamber (or cup) faces the barrel. At the same time a long firing pin is retracted. An inner barrel is drawn back through the heavy outer barrel until it covers the bullet end of the cartridge. When the long drag on the trigger end, the final pressure releases the needle like firing pin, which drives through a small opening in the base of the cup detonating the cartridge primer. The rifle fires a lead conical bullet which is hollowed out to accommodate the powder

Estimated Price: $6,500 - $9,500

Extremely Rare Meigs Sliding Guard Action Repeating Carbine

Patented by Captain Josiah Meigs in 1866, this carbine is fitted with a unique action which provided a level of firepower virtually unknown in the era, with a potential rate of fire of nearly 160 rounds per minute, as compared to the 200 rounds per minute of the Model 1861 Gatling Gun. Blade front and flip-up adjustable rear sights, with no visible makers marks. The buttstock of the arm consists of a buttplate and carved walnut cheekpiece fitted to the 50-round tube magazine, which contains a replaceable 5-track rotating frame with spacers for 10 rounds per track. These frames could be preloaded, cutting down reload times substantially. Mounted on a rail between a pair of mortised tracks is the trigger guard assembly, which has a checkered firing trigger and a smooth long release trigger, and is reciprocated back and forth to rotate the magazine frame and move the breechblock, which extends up out of the frame to eject spent cartridges, Full length forearm with raised decorative carving and cord wrap, leaf pattern raised carving on the cheekpiece and nickel finished brass buttplate.

This design resembles the helical-feed magazine design used by the Calico guns and its clones that were designed over 100 years later!

Calico M960. Photo from Wikipedia

Designed to be as inexpensive as possible, assembled from mostly stamped sheet-metal parts, the Liberator was a single shot pistol chambered for the .45 ACP cartridge the US military was using for standard handguns and submachine guns. It was so cheap that each one set the US government back only $2.40 in 1942 money. A million were made in less than three months during the darkest days of WWII, to be airdropped to Resistance fighters in enemy occupied territory.

Read about it at Hell in a Handbasket.

I was surprised to learn that at the time, just before the introduction of the L85A1, the Army had quite a mix of rifles in use, including M16s. This particular M16 was of 1960s vintage.

Now that, my friends, is a nice mustache

Simon with a L1A1 SLR (FN FAL), the standard issue rifle at the time.

Many thanks to Simon for these very interesting photos.

Norm Flayderman’s Guide says that Williamson Derringers have serial numbers running into the 20,000 range but speculates that the Moore Patent Firearms Company / National Arms Company produced fewer than 10,000 of these pistols from 1866 – 1870. The subject of this post has serial number 10621. Perhaps unique to this Williamson are the decorative rhinestones, the heart inlays, and an Ace of Hearts playing card engraved on the backstrap. Further, there is a treaded-plug in the butt of the grip; I have not seen this on any other Williamson Derringer. I would be interested to hear any ideas on what its purpose may be. Someone suggested that it might be for mounting the derringer as a “burglar trap” with the trigger wired to a doorknob.

David Williamson’s design adhered to the aesthetic lines of the original Henry Deringer pistols but he decided to fill a niche market created during the period of transition from ball and percussion cap pistols to those designed to fire metallic cartridges; his derringer would be able to function with both. If .41 rimfire cartridges were not readily available, a reusable metal cartridge adapter allowed the use of loose black powder with a lead ball and a percussion cap.

The pistol requires no adjustments to switch between the ball-and-cap adapter and the .41 rimfire cartridge. During rimfire cartridge ignition, as you would expect, the extended blade firing pin on the hammer strikes the rim of a chambered .41 cartridge. When using the cap-and-ball adapter, the flat of the hammer whacks the percussion cap that is on the nipple of the adapter. The cap nipple, which extends into a hole in the breach when the barrel is closed, keeps the hammer from going forward far enough to damage the extended blade firing pin which otherwise would slam against the adapter’s rim.

To load the Williamson Derringer, first pull the hammer back about one quarter of the way until it clicks into its safety position, then push up on the barrel release lever that is on the underside of the pistol (just in front of the trigger guard) and slide the barrel forward. Insert either a .41 rimfire cartridge or the cap-and-ball adapter (after first charging it with ball and powder; it is probably best not to cap the nipple until after the load is in the barrel chamber). Slide the barrel back to the closed position and you are then ready for an 1866 night out on the town.

Designed by master gunsmith Arsenal Real in Lisbon Thomás Jozé de Freitas, weapons (one-offs that charge after he unscrew the pipes, which are embedded in gold and silver) were eventually stolen, along with a set of parts lowest, by a burglar who at the time was right pages in the newspapers but that, far from being an Arsene Lupine, it would reveal a "brick" because that stole not meet even the approximate value of the goods. Still, it was celebrated by the method, but effective, he chose to commit the crime: he hid inside the museum, behind a large clock, and when he was alone, plundered what was at hand.

The pistols. Beautiful guns!

Thanks to my Portuguese source for sending me the photo and links.

The original Automag which chambered the .44 AMP. From Gunbroker.

Jeff Cooper attributed the design to gunsmith Max Gera, although his name did not appear on the final patent. After a falling out with the boss he sold his share of the company and, after a brief stint at Charter Arms, fell off the face of the Earth. Even his daughter had no idea where he was until earlier this year, after three decades in obscurity, when he contacted the author of a book about the AutoMag. Max was interview in April and it is a fascinating read ...

First, who is Max Gera ? In the March 1970 issue of Guns & Ammo magazine, Jeff Cooper twice credits Max Gera as the designer of the Auto Mag and refers to him as Auto Mag Corp.'s Design and Engineering Manager. Max was also named as co-inventor of the Auto Mag on the first patent application which was later abandoned. Max's name didn't appear on the final patent.

In October of 1970, Max sold off his interests in the Auto Mag and left Harry Sanford.

After Auto Mag Corp. declared bankruptcy in May of 1972, Max was blamed by some for causing Auto Mag to fail. These were mostly just rumors. However in a letter to Deputy Ed Lippert in July of 1972, Jeff Cooper of Guns & Ammo explained why Auto Mag Corp. went bankrupt. The letter blamed Max and typified the type of rumors that were flying around at the time. Max has asked me to remove this letter from this work as it is inflammatory, libelous and damaging to my reputation.

The above photo is of an AutoMag that was auctioned off earlier this year by the son of Harry Sanford, who owned the company that made the pistol. He claimed to be the brains behind the operation and that Max was just the machinist. His son obviously also thinks so. From the auction ...

You guys that have been watching these AutoMag auctions and have probably been wondering when will it end. Well, it does with this one...with the exception of one gun which we are trying to get from a family member that may never show up. This is the last AutoMag from the Harry W. Sanford estate.

The guy that read Col. Coopers article in 1958 about a .44 magnum rimless cartridge. In the 60's, as I was a kid, I hung out with Max Gera. He had some thoughts on my Dad's idea of an M-16 rotating bolt magazine pistol in .44 Mag. He started some machining on a crude milling machine and I was there when he shot his first shot in a hole in the back of my Dad's gun shop. They were on there way.

Max had different ideas. He was bought out and my Dad brought some partners in. It was some wild times. Every gun guru in the world was flying in to see this new pistol. The first AutoMag rolled off the production line about two years behind schedule. They were beautiful -- all hand-machined and fitted. They were the best AutoMags ever to be made.

So who really designed it? I think we will never really know. There seems to be much evidence that Max was the designer, but in business rarely does the brains really get the credit, usually it is the guy who paid the bills ... or at least that is my experience.

By the way, that pistol was auctioned off for over $6000! Some more photos of it ...

Many thanks to Ken for the link.

This matched set was recently up for auction at GunBroker. The reserve price of $1525 was not met.

Photos by "zocalo"

Many thanks to Fred for the info.

I love the clean lines on this gun.

For those of you who are interested, its markings are "Bacon & Co. Norwich C-T" and "Cast Steel".

Thanks to Heath for the photos.

The Golden Gun

The gun is exhibited at the Springfield Armory Museum.

In 1932 Springfield Armory experimented with die casting pistol frames and slides from a high tensile corrosion resistant bronze alloy called ‘brastil.’ The resulting ‘golden gun’ represents one of the first attempts to die cast handgun components. Despite the success of the test, the project did not move beyond the experimental stage.

There is a discussion about the pistol at the 1911 Forum.

So the question remains … who is going to be the the first to build a bronze AR-15?

Thanks to Sven for the link.

Sucang, a resident of Xinhua, Taiwan, sent me these photos of his antique shotgun. He was hoping some readers of the blog could identify it. I was very excited when I opened the attached photos, I had never seen a rifle or shotgun with an action like it.

The shotgun is 170 cm (67″) in length and weighs 4.5 kg (10 lbs).

The action.

I presume a percussion cap is inserted into the removable breech block (see below), then the striker is pull back to cock the action. Click the photos to expand them.

Load information was been engraved onto the gun in English. Not necessarily when it was first made.

Markings.

I don’t know what that cartridge-esque thing is.

One striker cocked.

Breech Blocks removed.

Sucang thought it could be from the 1600’s when the Dutch, who were fond of hunting, occupied Taiwan. This is not likely as the 17th century would place it squarely in matchlock territory and the striker design is quite advanced. I suggested mid 19th century. My buddy Mehul, who knows far more about classic firearms that I do, suggested early 20th.

Has anyone seen anything like it before?

The NY Times reports:

COMMON SPACES: Most of the house is original, including a banister stretching from the entry to the attic, beveled windows, hardwood floors and fireplaces. There are built-in cupboards in the dining room and storage drawers on each of the house’s three floors.

PERSONAL SPACES: There are two bedrooms in the finished basement, one on the main level and four on the second level. An eighth bedroom is in the attic suite, which includes a living room that, according to the listing agent, served as a workshop for John Browning (and includes remnants of a wiring system used to buzz his maids). Most bedrooms have views of the yard and neighboring historic houses; the attic has treetop and mountain views.

How cool would it be to say you live in the house where JMB designed guns!

Hat Tip: Guy Sagi @ Guns and Hunting

More here.

The Englishman states that arms are being smuggled across the Pathan frontier which bear the Australian and the New Zealand Government marks. It is believed that they were sold when the new rifle was adopted.

Two years ago the New Zealand Defence Department disposed of a large accumulation of obsolete Snider and Martini rifles by tender, a condition being that they must go to England.

The purchaser of the greater number of the rifles gave an assurance that they were being sent to Birmingham, presumably to be taken to pieces and some of the parts used for more modern rifles.

The Government has since received advice that 28 of these rifles (bearing the New Zealand stamp) have been taken from the rebel hill tribes on the north-west frontier of India.

…

That must have been very embarrassing for the colonial New Zealand and British governments. I recently blogged that these old single shot Martini rifles are still being used by insurgents in the region.

1870 Martini-Henry .303 rifle which has been converted into a pistol.

Tanker (top) fitted with Smith Enterprises muzzle brake.

Note barrel length and the upper handguard difference

Note the odd bend in the T26 short op-rod and the major
difference in length of the follower arm/spring guide.

Tom had this to say about his new Garand:

I did get the chance to shoot the shorty a week or so ago before the rain started up. It functions flawlessly, despite the somewhat seedy reputation of gunsmith custom T26 Garands like this one. Many of the first shorty rifles to hit the market many years ago were rewelded receivers, which are much weaker and downright dangerous in many cases. On many of these reweld guns (this is true of full sized Garands and T26 style ones both) the op-rod may dismount while firing, which as you can imagine causes quite a few problems.

That muzzle break is a real shoulder-saver, and surprisingly the shorty Garand has considerably less recoil than the FAL I recently built. I don’t have a huge range, but from about a hundred yards I was on the paper on the first shot (after a full strip and thorough cleaning) and managed to tune my way to a fairly respectable group around three inches with Lake City ammo. It may not be a match gun, but it’s definitely more accurate than I was expecting. Really a blast to shoot and more than acceptable accuracy in my opinion!

The T26 is a very interesting rifle. In a sense it is much more modern than the full size M1. As I mentioned yesterday in the post about the new Italian service rifle which even in the designated marksmen version has a 16″ barrel, the modern trend is to compromise maximum ballistic performance with maneuverability.

A big thanks to Tom for emailing me the photos and information. More can be read about the T26 at the Wikipedia M1 Garand page.

Here are a few interesting firearms I came across:

German WW I Mauser Model 1918 Tankgewehr 18 Anti-Tank Rifle

This is a nice example of a rare and desirable German massive, single shot, bolt action, 13 mm anti-tank rifle. Known as “Elefant-Buechse” (elephant rifle) by the German Army. The Tankgewehr 18 (T-Gewehr) was an up-scaled, single-shot version of the Model 98 infantry rifle equipped with a bipod and pistol grip. The T-Gewehr could penetrate the armor of any Allied tank used during WWI. Some 15,800 T-Gewehr rifles were manufactured in 1918. Most were destroyed after the war because no one brought them home as war trophies (probably because of it’s size). The massive 39 inch barrel has a fixed, inverted “V” front sight and tangent rear sight graduated to 500 meters. The receiver is marked with the Mauser Banner and dated “1918″.

Estimated Price: $5,500 – $8,500

Lot #: 334

Czechoslovakian Model ZH29

This is a rare example of a Czech Model ZH29 semi-automatic rifle with distinctive, finned, cast, aluminum handguard, European walnut stock, forearm and detachable magazine. The Model ZH29 was one of the first successful military semi-automatic rifles. Introduced in 1929, it was purchased in limited quantities by Ethiopia and Thailand. In 1929, a ZH29 chambered for the .276 Pedersen cartridge was tested by the U.S. Army at Aberdeen Proving Ground as a possible semi-automatic replacement for the Model 1903 Rifle. The ZH29 features a milled steel receiver with a tangent rear sight graduated to 1600 meters.

Estimated Price: $12,000 – $15,000

Lot #: 453

The first impressions I get looking at the rifle is not the distinctive aluminum handguard, but that the bolt carrier looks like it was installed on its side.

Morrill, Mosman and Blair Elgin Cutlass Pistol with Scabbard

An extremely rare example of an Elgin Cutlass Pistol made by Henry Morrill, Silas Mosman and Charles Blair in 1837-38. The Elgin Cutlass Pistol was patented by George Elgin of Macon, Georgia, in 1837. The unique design combined a box-lock percussion pistol with a Bowie type knife. The Elgin Cutlass Pistols were equipped with a distinctive, form-fitted, black leather scabbard with a metal throat. The U.S. Navy contracted for 150 Elgin Cutlass Pistols to arm the Wilkes South Seas Exploring Expedition in 1837. The Wilkes Expedition pistols were made by Cyrus B. Allen and N.P. Ames manufactured the blades. Apparently spurred by the Navy order, the firm of Morrill, Mossman and Blair was established to manufacture Elgin Cutlass Pistols in August 1837. Silas Mosman previously worked as an engraver for N.P. Ames and subsequently returned to work for that firm in July, 1838. In contrast to the Navy cutlass pistols manufactured by N.P. Ames and Cyrus Allen; Morrill, Mosman and Blair manufactured both the pistol and the Bowie blade. This pistol has a round, four inch, .34 caliber rifled barrel with brass front sight blade.

Estimated Price: $18,000 – $25,000

Lot #: 3001

Hat Tip: Ammoland

The HK32K. Photo from HKPro.com

While appearing in promotional literature, the HK32 never went into production, or so everyone says.

Wamba, an very observant member of the HKPro.com forum, noticed photos of a Mexican policeman holding what appears to be the HK32.

The photo appeared in this article.

The magazine, both outside appearance and curvature, is significantly different from the HK33.

HK33 5.56×45mm. Showing 25, 30 and 40 round magazines.

The receiver also looks slightly different to the SW32, a clone of the HK33 made by Specials Weapons Inc chambered for 7.62×39mm.

SW32

I think the most likely explication for these rifles ending up with the Mexican police is that H&K sent pre-production samples to the Mexican Army who manufacture H&K weapons under license and they somehow made their way into the police arsenal.

After World War II, Italy adopted the US-designed M1 Garand rifle in .30-06 (7.62×63mm) and also manufactured it under license. This semi-automatic rifle proved itself well during WWII, but in the late 1950s it was considered outdated and obsolete. The Italian military wanted a new rifle chambered for the NATO-standard 7.62×51mm.

Beretta designed the BM59, which was essentially a rechambered M1 fitted with a removable 20-round magazine, folding bipod and flash suppressor/grenade launcher. The BM59 is capable of selective fire.

I came across this Class III, full auto, Beretta BM59 on Gunbroker (The auction has since close). Click to expand the photos:

Very rifle like. Click to expand.

The caption:

“The laser rifle…that was developed by an American company and now presented for the first time is lighter than an infantry rifle. 10 kg baggage in form of batteries make it possible to shoot 10,000 times. The effect in the target is quite small. Only if the enemy coincidentally looks into the muzzle of the laser rifle he’ll have serious eye damage even at a distance of 1.5 km as a result of the strong dazzling. Fire effects are at such distances not possible yet, and it’s still a long way to the “death rays”. “

Sven pointed out that the first laser guided bombs were developed only a few years later. These bombs were guided by a laser mounted in the back seat canopy of an F-4 cockpit and manually operated by the Weapons System Operator. The laser used was probably very similar to the one use in the above photo.

Thanks to Sven, who blogs at Defense and Freedom, for the scan and translation.

Odd Russia has many more photos but no link to the source of the images. It could be true, or it could be a hoax. I think both the French and Russians both used muskets or rifles of caliber between .60″ and .70″ and I do not know enough about the ammunition at the time to say if the mushroomed bullets look authentic.

Thanks to Jim for emailing me the link.

“This marked the beginning of a kind of mechanisation of war,” says naval historian Professor Eric Grove of Salford University.

“The ship is now a gun platform in a way that it wasn’t before.”

…

The new research follows the discovery of the first wreck of an Elizabethan fighting ship off Alderney in the Channel Islands, thought to date from around 1592, just four years after the Spanish Armada.

The ship was a pinnace, a small ship carrying 12 guns, two of which have been recovered.

The BBC article has a lot of hype calling them “superguns”. I am an avid reader of novels set in that period and have read a lot of the period history, I can’t see anything impressive about the gun itself, rather how it was used and its superior logistics.

The BBC article more info and a video of a replica cannon modeled on those found in the wreckage.

Hat Tip: Slashdot

Click to expand.

The auctioneer claims that it is only one of twelve built and the only other known example resides at the Ford Benning sniper school.

The .50 BMG Flechette rifle project was contacted out by DARPA in 1960’s. The projectile consisted of a saboted depleted uranium dart weighing 11.9 gram ( 183.6 grains ).

.50 BMG Flechette round cross section. © Paul Smith (Used with permission)

The sabot was fired out of a smoothbore barrel with the dart achieving 4500 feet/sec velocity. That is more than a 32 grain .204 Ruger!

Detailed Drawing © Paul Smith (my modification are in red)

I tried to work out the caliber. Given that 1 cm3 of depleted uranium weights 19.1 grams and the length of the dart is 7.81 cm (I rounded down to 6cm to take into account the spiraling and the point) and then used the formula of a volume of a cylinder:

11.9 / 19.1 = 0.62

sqr(0.62 / ( 6 x pi )) = 0.18 centimeters

[ My math skills not great these days, go easy on me in the comments ]

A caliber of .07″ is seems some what small. It is impossible to know how much titanium is in the depleted uranium alloy.

Time Magazine wrote about the project back in 1967:

TRW’s magic bullets are unimpressive at first glance. Less than 4 in. long and one-tenth of an inch thick, they resemble the steel flechettes (French for “little arrows”) used in some U.S. antipersonnel weapons in Viet Nam. What the TRW flechettes lack in size, they make up in penetration power. In recent tests, they punched completely through a 2-in.-thick armor plate that would stop most steel flechettes or heavy-caliber bullets fired at it.

Dramatic Travel. It is the uranium that gives the flechettes their impressive muscle. Cleansed of its fissionable isotopes U-235, the depleted uranium is safe to handle. Because it is one of the heaviest natural elements (a 1-ft. cube of uranium weighs 1,167 lbs.), even a tiny uranium flechette fired at high velocity from a gun has so much kinetic energy that it can penetrate a target at an angle as oblique as 60°.

At 0.10 in caliber it would have an incredible ballistic coefficient weighing in at 180 grains! In theory it should be super accurate. In reality it was quite the opposite. It shot 10 shot groups of 6 – 8 feet at 600 yards. That’s over 12 MOA!

TRW was hoping to use the flechette in a rotary gatling / mini gun type system. Daniel writes:

The rifle in the GB [gunbroker] ad looks like the one shown in a photo in Peter Senich’s “The Complete Book of U.S. Sniping”. The photo was credited to Don Stoehr, a former TRW employee.

Among his projects were the Low Maintenance Rifle (LMR) and HIVAP (High Velocity All Purpose) machinegun. The HIVAP was really wild. It was an eight-barrel .31 caliber Gatling based on the Dardick open chamber principle. Like other Dardick-derived open chamber weapons, it used ‘trounds’. The HIVAP trounds used lexan cases loaded with saboted flechette. (However, solid bullet variants intended for testing purposes can be found.) The really wild part was the cyclic rate: just shy of 30,000 rpm. Stoehr later wrote that the twin feeders could support 42,000 rpm and that a switch to electrical priming would allow them to double the existing cyclic rate.

However, I don’t know how they’d ever keep such a monster fed. The weapon pod under design only held either 3,000 or 6,000 trounds.

It is an interesting cartridge that unfortunately will probably never be further developed due to the politics and health concerns of depleted uranium. Carrying DE rounds around would likely be a health hazard to the soldier using them.

More information on the round is available at cartridgecollectors.org.

Many thanks to Daniel E. Watters for information and links and to Paul Smith for the use of his photos.

While these guns could be used in the field, they were mostly used and
more suited to use as fortress guns on forts and ships.

A recent photo of the fort where the guns used to be mounted

Thanks to Fred for the photos.

Click to expand.

I could not figure out what was going on in that complex mechanism. The general consensus was that it must be some type of complex lever action until Wes Janson figured it out.

Click to expand. Photo from Statens Forsvarshistoriske Museum

The Forsøgsrekylgevær was designed by Rustmester Rasmussen (Bjarnov) and Captain VHO Madsen. What is unqiue about this rifle is that the magazine is gravity fed. You could simply pop in cartridges into the loading/magazine-like device and let gravity do the rest.

While gravity fed magazines were not uncommon and were used in Maxim, Gardener and other pre-machine-gun guns, unlike those which were very heavy and either crew served or mounted on the deck of a ship, this was designed as a infantry rifle!

Can you imagine running around in a gun fight knowing that your rifle could fail to feed, or worse, jam if you did not keep it upright? That would not have been much fun. I reckon this was why only 50 were ever made and they only saw limited service by the coast guard.
The The Danish Arms & Armor Society describe the action (translated using Google, emphasis mine):

The mechanism of rekylgeværet is a kind of automatic version of the Peabody vippende bottom piece. Instead of traditional gun magazine had a solid loading device when the cartridge collars were in the two grooves. Cartridges were to fall into the gun by their own weight. When the gun was not in use, was loading device folded down so that it covered include opening.

Gun can be used both as individual leaves and machine. By simply placed cartridge directly into the bottom piece cartridge bearing. As a machine left by loading device.

Click to expand. Photo from The Danish Arms & Armour Society (I think)

The M.1888 fired the 8×58RD cartridge. The blackpowder military load for the 8×58RD sent a 226 grain bullet @ 1591 fps generating 1270 ft/lbs of energy. The smokeless version pushed the 226 grain projectile at 2034 ft/s generating 2076 ft/lbs.

While the rifle itself has faded into obscurity the 1882 Madsen machine gun was based on its design. The Madsen was in active use for over 100 years until last year when the Brazilian police force finally retired it.

1882 Madsen machine gun replica.

Despite its classic and attractive stock, the MAS36 is a weapon meant to shed blood and it shows in its design. One non-visible aspect of this is the fact the MAS36 has no safety whatsoever. Childproof this rifle is not. The moment you chamber a round, the rifle is ready to shoot. MAS36s were often carried on patrol with no round in the chamber and the soldier cycling the bolt to load a round the moment combat occurred.

Read the very interesting homage to the “weapon of war” here

When the time came for the Swiss army to replace their black-powder Vetterli rifles, they cast about for only a few years before settling on a design by Col. Rudolph Schmidt, working out of Bern.

Well word reading.

K31 Rifle

Instead of knocking open a value with a hammer and instantly releasing gas when the trigger is pulled, a cam is used to time the release of the gas. It creates a very effective system, although to take advantage of the slow release of gas a 32 3/4″ barrel is needed.

I highly recommend this article.

This changed towards the mid to late 1980s, when the Government, citing domestic insurgency as the reason, put a complete stop to all small arms imports. The fact that there is no documented evidence of any terrorists ever having used licensed weapons to commit an act of terror on Indian soil seems to be of no consequence to our Government.

The prices of (legal & licensed) imported weapons have been on an upward spiral ever since – beating the share market and gold in terms of pure return on investment. Even the shoddy domestically produced guns suddenly seem to have found a market. Also since the Government now had a near monopoly on (even half-way decent) arms & ammunition for the civilian market, they started turning the screws by pricing their crude public sector products (ammunition, rifles, shotguns & small quantities of handguns) at ridiculously high rates – products that frankly, given a choice no one would ever purchase.

…

“Among the many misdeeds of the British rule in India, history will look upon the Act depriving a whole nation of arms, as the blackest.” — Mahatma Gandhi (An Autobiography OR The story of my experiments with truth, by M.K. Gandhi, p.238)

From a historical point of view I find gun laws around the world fascinating. Whenever I get the chance I tend to ask foreigners about their gun laws. I get a lot of emails from overseas readers so I get plenty of opportunities.

More at Gun Ownership in India.

The Doubletapper has written an article on the history of IDF snipers since the turbulent beginning of the modern Israeli state. Well worth reading.

It was build by J. Barbarić in 1944, in the small village of Čelebić, Livno. Some 100km east of Split Croatia. One piece is displayed in Belgrade Army Museum

I like the lines on this subgun.

guns.ru just posted an article on the Korobov TKB-022, an early bullpup assault rifle designed by Russian gun designer G. A. Korobov.

All weapons were tested by Soviet army, but turned down on unpublished reasons (most probably becuse the gun was simple too advanced for contemporary military thinking, but also possibly because no-one at the time could tell for sure if plastic housing would hold its integrity in extreme weather conditions or during many years of storage or use).

More here.