Bushmaster Resurrected

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Founded in 1978 in Windham, Maine, from the remnants of the even older Gwinn Arms company (see the Arm Pistol), Bushmaster was one of the first makers of AR-style firearms outside of Colt. Its line included the lightweight Carbon-15, the massive .50-cal BA50, the seriously weird M17S Bullpup rifle, the XM-10, the XM-15 rifles, and others. Importantly, the firm was one of the first to market flattop optics-ready ARs and AR pistols, beating many of its competitors to the punch.

The BA-50, one of Bushmaster’s more interesting products

Then the Cerebrus Group/Freedom Group came along and upset the whole apple cart. They closed the Maine factory, moved operations to North Carolina and later Alabama under Remington’s umbrella, and just generally traded the company’s rep in for poorly QC’d guns without further innovation. Then, in 2019, Remington snuffed the brand out to try to exit the black rifle verse under legal pressure.

Well, Bushmaster is back, now owned by Franklin Armory, so stay tuned.

Remember The Maine! Revolver edition

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From the Artifact Collection, Naval History, and Heritage Command:

NHHC 1960-45-C

One double-action Colt “New Navy” [ Model 1892 Army and Navy Colt] Revolver. The revolver shows extensive damage and loss of material due to exposure to water. The trigger guard, cylinder center pin and the muzzle, including the front sight, are all missing. The trigger and hammer spur are thin and weak as are major portions of the frame. The revolver is completely non-functional due to corrosion and loss of material. The hard rubber grips are present and in relatively good condition aside from some discoloration. The grips both carry the Colt assembly number of 310 hand engraved on the reverse side. The Colt serial numbers for the Navy Model 1895 revolvers fall in the 16XXX to 18XXX range. Based on information available from Colt, the serial numbers 16310, 17310 and 18310 were all assigned to Model 1895 revolvers manufactured in 1895. This would indicate that the grips are at least appropriate to this revolver, if not original.

The heavily corroded condition of this revolver is attributed to the approximately thirteen years it spent underwater aboard the wreck of the USS Maine (ACR-1). In 1898, an explosion caused the Maine to sink in Havana Harbor, Cuba. The ship was raised and salvaged from 1910 to 1912, at which time material was removed as souvenirs and for memorials. It is assumed that the revolver was recovered at this time as the ship was subsequently towed out to sea, scuttled and sunk.

When the USS Maine (ACR-1) was fitted out in 1895 it was provided with the latest design in small arms, including the Colt “New Navy” revolvers. Small arms were carried aboard ship primarily for the use of the US Marine detachment and the ship’s company when engaged in landing party operations. Officers, Petty Officers and personnel such as signalmen, buglers and color bearers would be armed with revolvers while part of a landing force. The Officer of the Deck and the Master at Arms would also carry a sidearm while performing their duties aboard ship.

Notably, the A-SECNAV when Maine went down, Teddy Roosevelt, resigned his post and, with the help of a few of his hard-charging (although horseless) cowboy friends, climbed San Juan Hill (actually Kettle Hill) during the resulting Span-Am War, with one of Maine’s recovered Colts in his holster, brought away to Key West by a survivor.

TR’s historic gun went missing from Saginaw Bay for 16 years and showed up at a gun “buy back” before it was recovered by the FBI. 

Ohio CRRCs

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The Navy has recently released a sizzle reel and some additional images of the exercise earlier this month of Force Recon Marines and their combat rubber raiding craft (CRRCs) on the converted boomer USS Ohio (SSGN 726) off Okinawa. 

(U.S. Marine Corps photos by Sgt. Audrey M. C. Rampton)

Notably, there are some rare detailed shots of Ohio’s lockout chamber, converted Trident SLBM tubes, being used to store the CRRCs and their outboards.

 

The Unlucky President

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In honor of President’s Day, here is a beautiful pen and ink circa 1802 drawing by artist Antoine Roux of the 44-gun “Original Six” frigate, USS President.

NHHC 76-327-a

One of only two American warships named for the office of the United State’s Chief Executive, USS President was ordered on 27 March 1794 during the administration of General Washington. Completed in 1800, the vessel was heavily involved in the Barbary Wars, helped spark the War of 1812 with the “Little Bent” affair, and was captured after tangling with a much stronger four-frigate British squadron– ironically after the end of hostilities– in that conflict. The Brits would rename her HMS President for a time and scrap the vessel in 1817.

The only other USS President was a sloop constructed on Lake Champlain in 1812 and, like the first, was captured by the British.

Probably a good thing the Navy hasn’t suggested the name a third time.

Fans of Old Ammo Crates Cry out in Pain

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Utah’s Tooele Army Depot, which inherited hundreds of igloos of WWII-surplus war materiel when Uncle Sam closed the nearby Ogden Arsenal in 1955, had been weeding out some of the really old stuff lately. This included demilling and scrapping over a million rounds of leftover .50 cal BMG rounds a year.

Big oof.

More in my column at Guns.com.

The Mask Breaker

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As a kid, I remember fishing with my grandpa in the Mississippi Sound and the Gulf of Mexico and, as one does as a curious bespectacled boy with a thumb-eared copy of an Edward Beach paperback book in his pocket, spend half that time pouring over the NOAA charts in the cabin. My eyes would go wide at the markings in deep water for “mustard gas” and “munitions.” Of course, they were deep-sixed by the Army in the 1940s after WWII– keep in mind that Horn Island just visible off Pascagoula held a Chem Warfare facility during the war.

In a similar vein, I just caught the below interesting DW doc on the lingering chemical warfare agents in Germany. While the country never had the weapons used on its soil, it was a huge producer of them in both World Wars, and ghosts of hastily disposed of stocks Tabun, sarin, phosgene, and mustard gas are still around in surprisingly large numbers there.

Also– and I’ve sat through the CBW guy’s slideshow several times and read a bunch of tomes on the Great War– there was one I’ve never heard of: CLARK or the Maskenbrecher (mask breaker) a form of diphenylarsine chloride, derived from arsenic, believed to penetrate the gas masks of the time. Of note, the monthly production of CLARK I was 600 tons in the Reich in 1918.

The more you know…

The Titanic and Lusitania of the Baltic

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From the Royal Navy:

While on operations in the Baltic, HMS Echo mapped two shipwrecks from the Second World War. Using her specialized multibeam echo sounder, the ship was able to show the destruction caused to German ships Wilhelm Gustloff and Goya.

HMS Echo (H87), a 3,700-ton multi-role hydrographic survey ship commissioned in 2003.

Goya was a 5,000-ton Norwegian freighter, sent to the bottom by Soviet submarine L-3, taking “over 6,000” souls to the bottom with her

The 25,000-ton German liner Wilhelm Gustloff, sunk by Soviet submarine S-13, took over 9,400 people to a watery grave, the worst maritime disaster in history

The ships were used in Operation Hannibal – a mass seaborne evacuation of German civilians and soldiers from East Prussia in 1945 during an effort to escape the onrushing Soviet Red Army. Around 16,000 lives were lost when Wilhelm Gustloff and Goya sunk after being hit by Russian torpedoes.

CZ and Colt make it Facebook Official

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The Czech-based parent company of CZ and Connecticut’s Colt has come to an agreement, leaving the European gunmaker increasingly American.

Announced on Thursday, the Česká Zbrojovka Group, or CZG, will acquire a 100 percent stake in the historic Colt’s Manufacturing Company LLC as well as its Canadian subsidiary, the Colt Canada Corporation. CZG has agreed to a cash and stock deal that includes $220 million upfront and the issue of just over 1 million shares of newly issued common stock. The combined group will have annual projected revenues of over $500 million.

The heads of both companies painted the merger as a strategic step in which both stand to make great gains as brands.

More in my column at Guns.com.

It’s Not Steampunk, It’s Savage

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A rifle that hit the market the same year the Wright Brothers first took to the air, the Savage Model of 1903 had a lot going for it and is highly collectible.

Rather than a basic bolt-action or a lever gun, the 1903 was pump-action, something that was still pretty novel at the time. As such, it was an answer to the Colt Lightning and Winchester Model 1890, pump-action takedown carbines that had been introduced just a decade prior. However, one-upping Colt and Winchester, which both utilized underbarrel tube-style magazines, Savage’s new gun had a detachable 7-shot box magazine. 

Takedown rimfire rifles and carbines were especially appealing in the 1900s as they made for easy transport on bicycles, which were much more widespread than automobiles, and for easy storage in traveling shooting gallery operations.

More in my column at Guns.com.

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