Tag Archives: collectible gun

Omar’s Pistols Headed Home

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Cue the “That Belongs in a Museum” memes, authorities have managed to recover and return dozens of rare collectible guns– some priceless– to the institutions from where they were stolen.

The pieces all went mission in the 1970s, back when security was lax in most public museums, and all that was needed was a big screwdriver and a flashlight to pull off a low-risk burglary.

In all, some 50 items, some dating to the French and Indian War, were returned to 17 institutions located in five states. 

Among the more interesting items recovered were: 

  • An 1847 Mississippi rifle stolen from Beauvoir in Biloxi, Mississippi.
  • World War II battlefield pickup pistols– a Luger and a Walther PPK– once owned by General Omar Bradley, stolen from the U.S. Army War College in 1979.
  • Assorted 19th-century flintlock rifles stolen from Pennsylvania museums.
  • An early Colt Whitneyville Walker revolver, valued at $1 million, stolen from the Connecticut State Library.
  • 18th-century English and Scottish pistols stolen from the Valley Forge Historical Society Museum.
  • A Volcanic pistol stolen from Pennsylvania’s Hershey Story Museum.
  • A rifle from the Daniel Boone Homestead in Birdsboro, Pennsylvania.

A huge Colt Whitneyville Walker revolver (bottom row with CT tag) was taken back to its home state. A powder horn (center right) dating to the French and Indian War was stolen from a Belchertown, Massachusetts, museum in the 1970s. The Walker PPK and Luger in the top right corner had been donated by Gen. Omar Bradley to the Army War College in Carlise, Pennsylvania. An exceedingly rare Volcanic pistol stolen from the Hershey Museum is to the bottom right. (Photo: FBI)

More in my column at Guns.com.

Ever wanted a red dot on a BHP?

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EAA over the past couple of years has been bringing in the new MC P35 platform from Girsan in Turkey, and the guns, essentially clones of the old Mk III BHP, have proven to be popular. Not content to rest on that, the company has responded to calls to update the classic and earlier this year delivered the OPS series, which adds an accessory rail to the frame and a flat-faced trigger without the mush of a magazine safety plunger to overcome.

Now, the logically named new MC P35 OPS Optic goes one better and comes from the factory micro red-dot slide cut in the RMS/RMSc footprint.

Better yet, they even throw in an optic.

You have to wonder what John Moses Browning would think of such a creature…

More in my column at Guns.com.

Battle of the (Hi-Power) Clones

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I’ve been kicking around a pair of 21st-century Hi-Power clones with two different origin stories, and we have a few things to talk about.

John Browning’s GP design, as delivered to the firearms world in 1935 via Fabrique Nationale’s resident gun genius Dieudonne Saive, was given its gold watch by FN in early 2018, and BHP fans the world over wept. While Turkish gunmaker Tisas briefly sent their Regent BR9 clone over here, other one-time Hi-Power clones such as Israeli-made Kareens and imports of the same branded by Charles Daly, Dan Wesson, and Magnum Research were history.

Then came 2021.

In September of that year, EAA announced they were on the cusp of bringing in the Girsan-made MCP35 from Turkey while Springfield Armory in October started hinting around at the gun they would soon introduce as the SA-35. Both were different takes on the classic Hi-Power of old, offering new ways to satisfy that eager fan base that was left with separation anxiety after FN exited the BHP biz.

Since then, I’ve given each of these newcomers a series of tests and evaluations, including putting over 1,000 rounds through each model. With that, let’s see how they stack up against each other – and the ghosts of Hi-Powers past with which they must contend.

At the end of the day, it boils down to why you want a Hi-Power in the first place. Both guns are better clones than I have seen in some past efforts under other banners (see the FEG, PJK, and the Bulgarian Arcus 94). Heck, even when stacked against late-model FN MK IIIs assembled in Portugal in the 2000s, there is little to grouse about. This is firmly an apples-to-apples comparison.

More on said apples in my column at Guns.com.

The Hi Power was Dead, then came the SA-35…

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A modern and attractive reboot of a classic complete with new features for a 21st Century market, Springfield Armory’s SA-35 has a lot going for it.

Introduced late last year, the SA-35 isn’t a page out of the old FN/Browning catalog, although it generationally has a lot in common with the latter’s 1960s “T/C-series” Hi-Powers. This includes an external extractor (a little foreshadowing is due here), ring hammer, and “smooth” slide, lacking the earlier thumbprint take-down scallop seen in guns prior to that time. I personally think the T/C-series was the summit of BHP evolution, so that’s a wise choice on Springer’s part.

When Browning halted production of the Hi-Power in 2017– let’s just admit they allowed it to wither on the vine for 20 years beforehand– it started the clock running for someone else to pick up the design and run with it. Cue Springfield.

So far, I’ve put 1K rounds through the SA-35 since last November, and have a full report in my column at Guns.com.

$500 Turkish Hi-Power, with a Catch

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A Turkish import via Florida-based EAA Corp, the affordable and well-made MC P35 is set to go the distance for those looking for an affordable Hi-Power clone.

EAA announced the MC P35 late last year and it is finally filtering out to distributors’ warehouses and gun store shelves. A resurrection of the classic late 1980s Browing/FN Hi-Power Mk III design, it is a short-recoil-operated single-action pistol with a frame and slide crafted from 4140 steel.

Basic specs are like any standard BHP, having a 4.87-inch barrel with a 7.8-inch overall length. Weight is 32 ounces flat with an unloaded 15-round magazine inserted.

The MC P35 has a couple of noticeable differences from the late Cold War-era Hi-Powers: a ring hammer rather than the more typical spur hammer used by the Mk III, and a 15-round flush-fit magazine produced by Mec-Gar of Italy. In a move sure to hurt the feelings of Hi-Power fans the world over, the Girsan has a magazine safety disconnect– in other words, it doesn’t fire without a magazine inserted.

But it did turn out to be reliable in testing.

It’s a blend of both old and new, and allows someone to get into Hi-Powers without having to spend Hi-Power money.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Whispers of a Portland Colt

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You often hear, when talking about old firearms, “if only they could talk.” Well, they can’t, but sometimes their hidden history tells a story.

Speaking of which, I recently came across a nice early Colt 1903 Pocket Hammerless and did some digging on its background. Turned out, it was made in 1911 and was one of 25 pistols of the same type shipped to Honeyman Hardware in Portland some 111 years ago.

Who is Honeyman and why is that interesting? Find out in my column at Guns.com.

Why the Lange Face, Luger edition

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I’ve seen hundreds of Lugers come through the Guns.com Vault in the past few years, ranging from Swiss-made Berns to American Eagles, Naval Lugers, Black Widows, and 1980s commemoratives, but the “Artillery Luger” is more of a unicorn.

Officially dubbed the Lange Pistole 1908, or LP.08, while the rest of the Imperial German Army was using the regular 9mm P08, it was decided the cannon cockers of the field and fortress artillery, in 1913, were to be issued a lengthened (lange= long) version with a 7.87-inch barrel and a graduated tangent leaf rear sight marked to a wildly optimistic 800m.

The LP.08 would take the place of both the short carbine and the revolver for the artillery, making it something of a Ragtime-era PDW.

And it is just so friggen cool looking…

More in my column at Guns.com. 

Is EAA closer to what the Hi-Power folks want?

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As I previously passed on, FN pulled a Kevorkian on the elderly Browning Hi-Power in 2017 then last week announced a “we have the technology” FN High Power (note the extended spelling) that kinda uses some BHP DNA but is a totally new gun with a lot of the same styling but none of the reverse compatibility and support.

As a counter, EAA is working with Girsan in Turkey to produce the P35– a play on the fact that the original BHP was the Grande Puissance 35 when introduced just prior to WWII. Taking the MK II/MK III model of the Hi-Power as a starting point, they met with success last year with EAA telling me at SHOT last week that they have seen remarkable interest in the new, $500ish BHP clone.

Speaking of EAA at SHOT, they also had some modernized prototypes on hand that include an extended beavertail grip on the frame, a straight trigger, adjustable fiber optic sights, G10 grips, a built-in flared mag well, and an option for an accessory rail. 

More in my column at Guns.com.

On Deck for 2022: Colt Combat Pythons and S&W Firestorms

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Although they haven’t “officially” announced them, both Colt and Smith & Wesson seem to have new handguns inbound for this year that mines at the tried-and-true vein of gun culture nostalgia.

Smith’s new CSX (Chief’s Special X?), a single-action-only subcompact 9mm that is hammer-fired, has an alloy frame, and a 10+1 or 12+1 magazine capacity, could be a hit with folks that don’t want polymer striker-fired micro 9s and are more familiar with carry-friendly M1911s such as the Colt New Detective or Sig Sauer P938.

The S&W CSX

It also, in my opinion, looks a lot like the old Star Firestar M43, although with a larger magazine capacity.

The Star Firestar was made from 1992-97, and would probably still be in production if the Spanish gunmaker was around as these were well-received little guns

Then there is the Colt Python with a 3-inch barrel.

While Colt produced the original Python in several barrel lengths between 1955 and 1994, including 2.5-inch snubs and commanding 8-inch Python Hunter, Python Silhouette, and Python Stalker models, the big I-frame snake gun rarely came with a factory 3-inch barrel. This was reserved for a short run of “California Combat” guns and a batch of 500 “Combat Pythons” made in 1988 for Lew Horton complete with a special “K” prefix serial number.

This circa 1974 Colt Python with a factory 2.5-inch snub-nosed barrel is sweet, but folks just went ga-ga for the 3-inch version, and Colt could do well to put such a thing back in production

The rebooted Pythons, introduced in 2020, including both a 4.25- and 6-inch model, with nothing shorter. With all that being said, the new 3-incher could prove both a hit with collectors as well as providing a more “carry friendly” Python for a new generation of wheel gun aficionados.

Either way, SHOT Show doesn’t start for another two weeks, so get ready for much more new gun news…I got my bags packed.

The Priceless Warehouses of Addis Ababa

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By nature of the past 130 years frequented by conflict in the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia has tons of vintage military arms up for sale.

One European importer, based in the Czech Republic, has been detailing their shopping trips to the African country where surplus firearms are stacked deep and priced cheap. Zelený Sport Defence’s mononymous globetrotting buyer, Schuster, has been sending snaps back from his trip to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s ancient capital, filled with historic firearms.

The old Ethiopian Empire fought several wars against Italy (in 1887–1889, 1895-1896, 1935-37), a cycle that was only broken after liberation in World War II. This left the country with not only stacks of guns both bought to fight off the Italians– M1874 Gras rifles, Gewehr 71s and 88s, Remington Rolling Blocks, FN-made Mausers, British Lee-Enfields, Russian Berdan and Model 91/30 Mosin-Nagants– but also those captured from the Italians including Vetterlis, and Carcanos of every stripe.

And that’s not even scraping the surface…

More in my column at Guns.com.

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