I Have This Old Gun

In between the famous British Baker rifle and the Pattern 1853 Enfield, there was a little-known design that's rarely seen today. This is the story of the British Brunswick rifle.

The Tabatière is one of several breechloading conversions of existing military muskets, but unlike many others, this one continued to see use in the civilian world.

One of the most important military arms ever invented is the Model 1886 Lebel rifle, the first military rifle designed to use smokeless powder ammunition.

Though Switzerland broke the ice by choosing the semi-automatic German Parabellum as its official sidearm as early as 1900, the accolade for the first major military power to adopt a self-loading handgun goes to Austria-Hungary and the Roth-Steyr Model 1907.

For tiger hunters in 19th-century India, there was a very real need for a backup handgun for self-defense, and the Howdah pistol was the answer.

Often unrecognized and underappreciated, the Mauser Model 1914/34 was one of the most popular German handguns of the 20th century.

On the eve of the American Civil War, there were a number of breechloading carbine designs available on the commercial market. One such design was the Maynard carbine, developed by Maryland dentist Dr. Edward Maynard.

The Remington Model 600, introduced in 1963, was a visually distinctive rifle, with a nylon shotgun-style vent rib on its barrel and a dogleg bolt handle that hearkened back to the Model 1917 military rifle that Remington manufactured for World War I.

After almost two decades of trial and development, by the end of the 1930s, the French military adopted the Model 1935A, its first official semi-automatic service pistol.