The Mauser C96 “Broomhandle” automatic pistol– if anything I own is “iconic”, it is. I have wanted one for many years. I will add Arthur Wilderson’s excellent short essay when he sends it, but it was the gun of Churchill at Omdurman and Lawrence of Arabia; Walter “Karamojo” Bell supposedly shot down a German fighter …
Tag: History
Image again
Here is the full image of the painting that contains the detail I blogged on below. I await the book, but as far as I know it is in Chinese, so it may still be enigmatic. It is both beautiful and sinister, and its title is “Clearing the Mountains”. Who is clearing whom out of …
Pedersen Rifle
But for the preferences of General MacArthur and a big supply of WWI Springfields, we might have had a more elegant, if complicated, rifle for WWII than the Garand. Nathaniel F, gunblogger, scholar, and expert on military weapons and their history, first showed me a cartridge for the legendary Pedersen when he visited with Arthur …
Snaphance Locks
The first, made by a Mongolian blacksmith, is younger than I am. No date on the ornate Italian one, from a Twitter photo recycled by David Zincavage. But remember, the invention of the flintlock , in this form, dates back to almost 1600, and Cherkassov who published the drawing, called them “Primitive” in 1865…
Teaser
How does this relate to Seven Years in Tibet? Or Magdalena? One flew east, and one flew west…
RIP: Mikhail Kalashnikov, 1919- 2013
Kalashnikov was the most influential, if not the most innovative, firearms designer since John Moses Browning. If you had to use your rifle after dropping it in a swamp, would you pick an AR or an AK? He was also an NRA Life member…
Of Colonel Thornton and inedible quarry
My circle of friends has been talking about hunting predators, something I was for a long time reluctant to do for reasons (it now seems) I had not thought out. While I think all quarry should be treated with respect, a coyote skin or a big carnivore skull can be a magical object– as can …
Gun Quiz Solution
It was (obviously?) an 1895 Winchester, most famed as Teddy Roosevelt’s lion gun in Africa, using its odd heavy load, the .405 Winchester. It was a relatively strong action, and because it had a box magazine* rather than the typical tubular ones on most leverguns, it could shoot modern spitzer type loads like the .30- …
Gun Quiz & Tease
What is this? I do not mean ’95 Winchester; I will take it my readers know that– but what caliber? Hint: more were made in it than all the others combined. Where are they now? I know its owner knows, so I will ask him not to give it away. No fair WIKI- ing the …
Drinkable…. MAUSER?
When I got to the last wrapping of an anonymous package last week, the outline of my last unfulfilled firearm desideratum appeared: the unmistakable profile of a ’96 Mauser “Broomhandle”. Could some anonymous admirer have sent me (illegally, but I wasn’t worried– it had passed inspection) the gun used by Winston Churchill in the “River …