Tag Archives: collectible guns

We found out why the Hotchkiss Universal did not have universal appeal

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The manufacturing firm established by American gunsmith Benjamin B. Hotchkiss in France in the 1860s saw nearly a century of success in making everything from revolving cannons (think 47mm Gatling guns) to light machine guns, automobiles, and even tanks. By the late 1940s, however, the firm was barely hanging on and developed at least four new submachine gun models with tubular receivers to court military and police sales.

The weirdest of these was the Model 010, or “Type Universal.”

To make a gun as compact as possible, almost every component of the Universal was designed to fold, collapse, or telescope. The sheet metal buttstock folds completely under the gun. To make the folded weapon as svelte as could be, both the magazine well and the hollow pistol grip pivot forward. The 10.79-inch rifled barrel slides back a few inches into the receiver through a long trunnion to further abbreviate the firearm.

 

Hotchkiss Universal
With all this done and the stock folded, the Universal is only 17.3 inches long. Compared to its contemporaries – the American M3 Grease Gun and the Soviet PPS-43, which were both 23 inches long with their stocks collapsed – the Universal saves a few inches. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Hotchkiss Universal
When the stock unfolds and the barrel is telescoped forward, the sub gun’s overall length is 30.67 inches, the same length as a STEN gun. It weighs 7.5 pounds and loads with a box magazine full of 32 rounds of 9mm. It is selective fire for single shots or a zippy 650 rounds per minute full-auto cyclic rate. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Hotchkiss Universal
However, the gun proved unpopular, and besides some local use in Indochina with French colonial forces and some limited sales overseas (to Venezuela, for example), it faded into history. 
French paratroopers M1 carbines
It seemed French airmobile and parachute troops, a demographic that would seem an ideal user of the folding Hotchkiss, preferred GI surplus .30 caliber M1A1 Carbines, which weighed about 6 pounds and would compact to 25 inches when folded but were much simpler to use. (Photos: French military archives) 

Our Hotchkiss experience at Battlefield Vegas had a learning curve. To be more to the point, it was needlessly complicated and had terrible ergonomics.

It shot OK, but, after spending some time with it, we could easily tell why the Universal did not have a universal appeal.

More, including the transformation and shooting footage, in my column at Guns.com. 

Getting some range time with the Owen

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While in town for SHOT Show earlier this year, we had a chance to swing by and visit our old friends at Battlefield Vegas. They gratefully allowed us a chance to tour their vault and pick a few guns to profile and shoot.

 

Battlefield Vegas
Choices, choices…(Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
Battlefield Vegas
You know us, we like the rare ones. 
Then we saw this baby, sandwiched between a Rattler and a UZI-SD. 
This beautiful Mk. 1 Owen may look a little funky because it is a little funky, but we just had to check it out. 
Keep in mind these were built for an all-up per-unit cost of about $30, so the furniture isn’t nice on this simple “toob” gun. In many respects, it was a forerunner of such simple modern SMGs as the Sterling and Beretta PMX. Note the charging handle is to the rear of the gun and comes super close to the face while reciprocating. 
Top fed with a 33-round 9mm magazine, it has a very peculiar feel to it.
The ejection port is on the bottom. 
One of the more curious aspects of the Owen is that the front sight post is off-center, canted to the right, as the top sight line is ruined by the magazine. 

More on how the range went, along with some background on the gun, in my column at Guns.com.

Shooting Britain’s Last Mag-Fed LMG

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In the early 1980s – just after the Falklands War – the British government moved to ditch the combat-proven inch-pattern semi-auto-only FN FAL (dubbed the L1A1) and the 7.62 NATO-chambered Bren gun (L4A1) with a new and radically different platform, the SA80 family.

Adopted in 1985 was a bull-pupped Enfield select-fire rifle in 5.56 NATO that accepted standard 30-round magazines. Fielded with the 4x fixed-power SUSAT (Sight Unit Small Arms, Trilux) optic, this new series of guns was designated the L85 rifle – with a 20-inch barrel – to replace the L1A1.

Whereas 350,000 SA80 pattern firearms of all types were made, the lion share were L85A1s, most later updated to L85A2 standard by HK, and finally to L85A3– the current standard. Besides the standard rifles, there was a comparative handful (2,500) of shortened L22A1/A2 Carbines for use by aircrew and the like produced. Training aids in the form of the L103A2 Drill Purpose, L98 Cadet Rifle, and L402A1 0.22 Small Bore Rifle were also made.

One of the more eclectic variants is the comparatively rare (22,000 made) L86 Light Support Weapon. Designed to replace the 7.62 Bren L4A1 in squad service, it had a longer 24-inch barrel, a rear grip, and a folding bipod.

The SUSAT-equipped L86 LSW (top) and the L85 rifle, are compared. Note the longer barrel with a shorter handguard and outrigger support, the rear grip, and the folding bipod on the LSW. (Graphic: MoD)

Among other features are a folding butt strap that flips up to assist with stability. (Graphic: MoD)

Now withdrawn from British service and replaced by a proper squad automatic weapon, the belt-fed FN Minimi, we recently were able to go hands-on with a retired (but still functional) L86 at BFV earlier this year.

The L86 is a beefy weapon, hitting the scales at 16 pounds with the SUSAT installed and a 30-round magazine inserted. However, it is still “light” compared to the L4A1 Bren it replaced, which hit the scales at 19 pounds, unloaded. Plus, the L86 is only a little over 35 inches long, or about the length of a Mini-14!

The L86 is probably one of the oddest Enfields ever produced.

The chunky L9A1 SUSAT, which was cutting-edge when introduced in the early 1980s, has since been phased out by the Trijicon ACOG and the Elcan Specter in British service. Note the fixed iron backup sights located atop the sight body. The SUSAT uses an illuminated inverted aiming point that looks something like the Washington Monument.

More after the jump in my column at Guns.com. 

Classic Walther Burp Gun Spotted in the Wild

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The Portuguese Navy’s Marine Corps has deployed a 170-strong reinforced company (about a quarter of the service’s strength) to the Baltics. Dubbed the Força de Fuzileiros Lituânia (FFZ LTU) it is on a roughly three-month mission under the auspices of NATO and is the largest deployment of the Corpo de Fuzileiros since Portugal evacuated its African colonies more than 50 years ago. Notably, it includes two UAV elements.

The Portuguese Marines are also sort of old-school, in many ways being stuck in the 1960s-70s when it comes to small arms, still using HK G3 battle rifles, and Walther MP subguns. They only recently retired the P-1 (P-38) pistol in favor of the Glock 17.

Everyone knows the Walther brand, and for good reason. The company makes great guns that are often extremely innovative. The PP/PPK, P-38, P-99, PPQ, PDP, the OSP, and Olympia – the list goes on. However, Walther only made one production submachine gun: the Maschinenpistole, or MP.

Designed in the late 1950s and entering production around 1963, the MP is a blowback action 9mm select-fire SMG with a tubular receiver that fires from an open bolt. It beat the much better-known Heckler & Koch MP5 to production by a few years and was made in two different variations: the MP Lang (Long), or MPL, and the MP Kurz (Short), or MPK.

The difference in size between the two was negligible. The more full-sized MPL ran a 10.2-inch barrel for an overall length of 29.4 inches with the side-folding wire stock extended, whereas the MPK went about 3.5 inches shorter with a 6.8-inch barrel.

Seen at Walther’s in-house museum in Ulm last year…

Although well-made, the MP never really caught on. Its only European customer, besides some German police units as the MP4 (they made several on-camera appearances during the Munich Olympics in 1972), was the Portuguese Navy as seen above

Overseas, it was bought by a few third-world users and the U.S. Army, picked for use by the elite Delta Force commandos in the 1970s and the secretive Detachment A “stay behind” Special Forces unit in West Berlin.

Whereas the MP5 is a bit of a race car that needs special tools for in-depth maintenance, the MP is made simply of metal stampings. For instance, the barrel on the Walther can be swapped out by a user in the field with no tools. Plus, its 550-round cyclic rate, slower than that of the HK, was closer to that used by the M3 Grease Gun and earlier MP38/40, allowing a more familiar learning curve to those already used to those platforms. Little wonder it was adopted by the early U.S. Tier 1 counter-terror operators when Delta Force was first stood up. (Photos: U.S. Army, National Archives, Springfield Armory National Historic Site)

We recently got to shoot one earlier this year and can see why Delta dug it. 

Behold, the MPK

It is ambi and is set up kind of funny. The safety (Sicher=safe) is to the rear of the grip, full-auto (Dauerfeuer= continuous fire) straight down, and semi-auto (Einzelfeuer=single fire ) with the switch rotated forward toward the magazine well. The HK MP5 has a similar S/E/F marked switch for Sicher-Einzelfeuer-Feuerstoss

Secret Agent Man…

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Colt really pioneered the modern small-frame revolver when it introduced the Detective Special, fundamentally an abbreviated Police Positive Special with a 2-inch barrel, in 1927. Introduced at the height of Prohibition and the era of the great automobile-borne gangsters of the “Roaring Twenties,” the Colt Detective soon became a hit and was successful enough to remain in production until 1995, which is one heck of a run.

Immediately after World War II, Colt pioneered making handguns with such “Atomic Age” aerospace materials as early aluminum. With the material dubbed “Coltalloy” at the time, Colt introduced an aluminum-framed variant of the popular Detective Special in 1950 named the Cobra– the company’s very first of an extensive line of “Snake Guns.”

The same footprint as the 21-ounce all-steel Detective, the Cobra lost more than a quarter-pound of weight, hitting the scales closer to 15 ounces with the same 6-shot capacity.

In 1955, Colt responded to the newly introduced and popular S&W Chief’s Special by moving to make the Cobra even more compact. Taking the aluminum-framed 6-shooter and trimming the length of the grip frame down while keeping everything else intact, the Agent was born.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Getting Some Sun in the Sonoran Desert

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So I spent most of last week hanging out in Phoenix with some friends, covering Sig’s Freedom Days event. Tons of fun, even if I had to set up the Guns.com booth with my buddy, Ben.

Of course, I am the Jerry Garcia-looking character in the above. 

Check out some of these highlights: 

Anywho, got to hang out and detail the action, so expect lots of neat stuff next week about what I saw, heard, and found out.

Now to nurse that sunburn…

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.

The Most Popular FN Pistol You Never Heard of

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To satisfy a military contract for 60,000 modified examples of John Browning’s Model 1910 pistol, stretching that .380 ACP’s standard 3.4-inch barrel an extra inch and bumping up the magazine capacity from 7+1 to 9+1, FN introduced what was initially referred to by some historians as the Model 10/22 (not related to the later Ruger plinker) in 1923.

Later formalized as the Model 1922, or just the M1922, when compared to the preceding M1910, the new pistol had an elongated slide, complete with a small but distinctive barrel lug, over a slightly lengthened frame. The production model went 7-inches long overall and weighed 25.7-ounces.

A forerunner of the later success FN had with the Browning Hi-Power pistol and FAL battle rifle, the M1922 was soon adopted by military and police in dozen countries, and it would continue in active service for over 60 years in this role. Further, the Germans liked it so much that it was their most common handgun in WWII that wasn’t a P-38 or a Luger.

More in my column at Guns.com.

Texas Names the Most Texas Revolver Ever as Offical State Handgun

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Republican Gov. Greg Abbott last weekend signed a resolution forwarded to his desk by the Texas lawmakers that makes the original 1847 Colt Walker the official handgun of the Lone Star State.

A hulking 4.5-pound 44-caliber revolver, the Walker was so-named after famed Texas Ranger Capt. Samuel Walker and only about 1,100 of the handguns were manufactured by Eli Whitney for Colt. Some 1,000 were promptly sent to Texas– two for each Ranger– and 100 leftovers for the commercial market. The gun was a collaboration between Walker and Colt, based on the latter’s earlier .36-caliber Paterson design, a five-shot revolver that weighed only half of what the Model 1847 would.

Samuel Colt (American, Hartford, Connecticut 1814–1862) Colt Walker Percussion Revolver, serial no. 1017, 1847 American, Whitneyville, Connecticut, Steel, brass, walnut; L. 15 1/2 in. (39.37 cm); L. of barrel, 9 in. (22.86 cm); Cal., .44 in. (11 mm) The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, Gift of John E. Parsons, 1958 (58.171.1) http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/24844

More in my column at Guns.com.