A little something for a rainy day

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410 umbrella gun. Chambered in .410 bore, the umbrella gun was produced in 1985 by J Wilson.

Back in 1985, J. Wilson and company made a series of handy little umbrellas that held a big surprise.

Complete with a carved horn handle and trompion as well as gilt mounts with extensive inlays, the working umbrella’s shaft was a .410 shotgun with a 3-inch chamber and 26-inch barrel. Overall length was just over three pounds which is a bit chunky for a rain shelter but pretty light for a .410.

If you note in the close up, the handle slides back to reveal the chamber for the shell and the guardless trigger pops out from within.

Since 1968, guns such as these are classified under the NFA as Any Other Weapons, which means they are pretty well regulated.

While umbrella and cane guns are far from a new concept and these Wilson scatterguns pop up 0n the collector’s market from time to time (one was just sold in the UK by Christie’s for $841), this particular example shown above is in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives firearm reference library of more than 15,000 firearms.

As noted by the ATF, “this working reference collection contains everything from homemade single-shot devices crafted from writing pens, to machine guns from bi-planes used in World War I.”

(Mirrored from my column at Guns.com)

Is 37mm or 47mm the proper deck gun for Tea?

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37mm or 47mm deck gun 1917 tea party

New York, 1917. “Actors’ Fund Fair.” 5×7 glass negative, George Grantham Bain Collection, via Shorpy.

The Navy deck guns on loan look to be either Hotchkiss 1-pdr (37mm) or 3-pdr (47mm) breechloaders, which by 1917 were thoroughly obsolete. I’m about 99 percent sure its they are the smaller guns due to the shoulder braces.

70 pounds of fury

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PACIFIC OCEAN (Feb. 13, 2016) The guided-missile cruiser USS Mobile Bay (CG 53) fires her forward MK 45 5-inch gun during a naval surface fire support exercise.

Providing a combat-ready force to protect collective maritime interests, Mobile Bay, assigned to the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, is operating in U.S. 7th Fleet as part of the Great Green Fleet on a regularly scheduled Western Pacific deployment. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan J. Batchelder)

Providing a combat-ready force to protect collective maritime interests, Mobile Bay, assigned to the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, is operating in U.S. 7th Fleet as part of the Great Green Fleet on a regularly scheduled Western Pacific deployment. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan J. Batchelder)

Mobile Bay, commissioned in 1987 and home-ported at Naval Base San Diego, is the first warship named for the Civil War battle in which Rear Admiral David G. Farragut was famously (misquoted) as saying, “Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!”

That’s pretty fast for an autonomous backpack UAV

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DARPA’s Fast Lightweight Autonomy (FLA) program recently demonstrated that a commercial quadcopter platform could achieve 20-meters-per-second flight while carrying a full load of sensors and cameras.

So what’s the big deal?

Well, that’s 45mph in a small (fit through a window or doorway) drone. And by drone, we don’t mean remote control quad, the project is seeking to have a completely autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles to fly at speeds up to 20 m/s with no communication to the operator and without GPS.

Nothing like clearing a building via remote which will save the lives of Joes and Marines in the long run.

The M37 Trench gun is back..

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A 1942 vintage Ithaca M37 Trench gun Serial Number 578xx. Note the finish.

A 1942 vintage Ithaca M37 Trench gun Serial Number 578xx. Note the finish.

The original Ithaca Model 37 came out in 1937 (hence the designation) and was built on a design by John Browning. Now its Trench Gun version, used by the military in WWII is back on the market.

Inland Manufacturing and Ithaca Firearms are starting to make a Model 37 Trench Gun reproduction.

Ithaca Model 37 Trench Gun inland

The combat repro has lots of features that are similar to the WWII model with a 6-row/29-hole heat shield hand guard with bayonet lug, oiled walnut stock, bead sight, cylinder bore, military style sling. Overall length of 38.5 inches, it weighs 6.7 pounds and has a capacity of 4+1.

Ithaca Model 37 Trench Gun inland 2

One goof was the new gun comes with a military style and Parkerized finish while the real one had a finely blued steel finish as it was converted from commercial guns.

Ithaca Model 37 Trench Gun inland 3

Now for downside number one: This shotgun will retail for $1,239.

Downside number two: No slamfire.

Of course, you can get a regular Model 37 Defense in either 8 or 4-shot set up from Ithaca for much less (MSRP is $680~).

DefenseWood5Shot

Plus, you can pick up used Ithacas online for as low as $300 and convert them to the trench gun set up with aftermarket parts for about $200.

pix962664036

This martial marked (but non-trench modded) Model 37 is on Gunbroker for $350 as was a Minnesota State Police marked gun from 1973 for $500– both able to slam fire and with some legit history to them. But I digress.

More NASA travel posters!

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In a continuation of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Labs’ “Exoplanet Travel Bureau Series,” the agency has released another set of their Visions of the Future travel slicks.

the grand tour
europaAstonishing geology and the potential to host the conditions for simple life make Jupiter’s moon Europa a fascinating destination for future exploration. Beneath its icy surface, Europa is believed to conceal a global ocean of salty liquid water twice the volume of Earth’s oceans. Tugging and flexing from Jupiter’s gravity generates enough heat to keep the ocean from freezing. On Earth, wherever we find water, we find life. What will NASA’s Europa mission find when it heads for this intriguing moon in the 2020s?

titanFrigid and alien, yet similar to our own planet billions of years ago, Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, has a thick atmosphere, organic-rich chemistry and a surface shaped by rivers and lakes of liquid ethane and methane. Cold winds sculpt vast regions of hydrocarbon-rich dunes. There may even be cryovolcanoes of cold liquid water. NASA’s Cassini orbiter was designed to peer through Titan’s perpetual haze and unravel the mysteries of this planet-like moon.

enceladusThe discovery of Enceladus’ icy jets and their role in creating Saturn’s E-ring is one of the top findings of the Cassini mission to Saturn. Further Cassini mission discoveries revealed strong evidence of a global ocean and the first signs of potential hydrothermal activity beyond Earth – making this tiny Saturnian moon one of the leading locations in the search for possible life beyond Earth

Check out the rest of the posters, and print or download them in high resolution (200MB!)

Happy Birthday, Chuck

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Brig. Gen. Charles Elwood “Chuck” Yeager, after service in WWII (where he finished the war with 11.5 official victories, including one of the first air-to-air victories over a jet fighter), Korea and Vietnam, is 93 today.

Of course, he is best remembered for his deeds of October 14, 1947, dramatized below

He seems to be taking the news in stride

Of Russians and palm trees

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In December 1908, when the slava Glory was in the Sicilian city of Messina, there was the strongest earthquake.

Click to big up

Here we see past Warship Wednesday alumni and the only survivor of the Borodino-class of predeadnought battleship Slava (Russian: Слава “Glory“) in December 1908, while in the Sicilian city of Messina providing assistance to the locals following a strong earthquake that left as many as 200,000 dead.

We say Slava was the last of class because her four sister ships–Borodino, Imperator Alexander III, Knyaz Suvorov, and Oryol– were all either sunk or captured at the Battle of Tsushima, 27 May 1905 during the Russo-Japanese War, which was its own sort of strong earthquake for Tsarist Russia.

The real lone ranger

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Forget Armie Hammer.

Born a slave in Texas in 1838, Bass Reeves escaped during the Civil War and took refuge in the “Indian Territory” of present-day Oklahoma. After the Civil War, he moved to Arkansas and assisted local Deputy Marshals in their pursuit of outlaws. He was officially commissioned a Deputy U.S. Marshal by “Hanging Judge” Isaac Parker in 1875. During his 32 year career, he is said to have arrested more than 3,000 fugitives. He was 71 when he passed away in 1910.

Bass Reeves’ Colt Single Action Army

That soup strainer…

Reeves’ 1873 Colt Single Action Army is on display at the NRA National Sporting Arms Museum at Bass Pro Shops in Springfield, MO. It is on loan from the forthcoming U.S. Marshals Museum in Arkansas. The revolver is owned by Judge Paul L. Brady, great-nephew of Bass Reeves and the first African-American to assume the role of an Administrative Law Judge, in 1972.

Judge Brady is also the author of The Black Badge: Deputy United States Marshal Bass Reeves from Slave to Heroic Lawman, which is a great read.

You know these guys

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7 Guys You Meet In Every Infantry Platoon

Task and Purpose has a great run down of the “7 Guys You Meet In Every Infantry Platoon” and details each by their strength, weakness and favorite MRE. Classic.

For instance, there is Hemingway (I personally know this guy)

hemingway

Neither a patriot nor a fighter, this guy joined the infantry because he read “A Farewell to Arms.” As the only liberal in the platoon, he can often be found smoking his pipe and talking about podcasts to no one who cares. The peace sign on his helmet is not intended as an anti-war symbol, but rather a signal to the world that, yes, he’s seen and appreciates Stanley Kubrick’s “Full Metal Jacket” (“but the book is better”).

And the Old Man (another staple)

old_man
Don’t be fooled by his gregarious demeanor, or by the fact that he has six kids, or by his mustache. Old Man is only 25. But here, in the platoon, he’s the father figure we never had; the guy we turn to for guidance when our girlfriends cheat on us or we come down with a case of the clap. At unit functions, his entire family shows up and eats all of the food. His wife is exhausted from raising so many children so young, but she’ll always pick you up from the bar when you get too drunk, and some of the younger guys even call her “Mom.”

The rest here

The only one missing is Jody, but we all know where Jody is.

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