Recently I’ve been fooling about with some rarely-encountered but nonetheless very cool guns:
The Auto Mag .44AMP of Mack Bolan fame…
…and a Wildey gas-operated .45 Win Mag of Charles Bronson vintage
Both are aristocratic hand cannons from a different era. We call it the 1970s and 80s.
With that in mind, I’ll be in Las Vegas for SHOT Show all week, so stay tuned for updates on cool guy stuff.
Sig Sauer has a small number of military surplus M17 pistols that have seen varying degrees of genuine field use and is passing them on to collectors.
As explained by Sig, the guns were early military models with coyote tan surface controls. Since then, the M17 has been updated to black controls and the Army arranged to return those early guns to Sig for new ones. The now-surplus guns still have government control numbers and have seen a mix of action, with some pistols saltier than others.
Sig says these guns were previously fielded by the U.S. Army and their condition will vary, “making each one uniquely different, and making this truly an opportunity to own a piece of history.” (Photo: Sig)
More in my column at Guns.com.
American engineers emerge from the woods and move out of defensive positions after fighting in the vicinity of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Note the M1 Garand, M1 Carbine and M9 Bazookas, along with a liberal sprinkling of grenades and spare ammo. (Photo: U.S. Army)
Today is the 75th Anniversary of the last great German offensive of WWII. Launched through the densely forested Ardennes region near the intersection of the eastern borders of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, some 200,000 Germans fell on less than 80,000 unsuspecting American troops, many of which were recovering from the summer and Fall push through France and the Lowlands.
While the German offensive gained ground at first, eventually reinforcements– including Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army–were rushed to the scene and counterattacked.
However, for the men trapped inside the 75-mile “bulged” salient from St. Vith to the week-long Siege of Bastogne, it was a white hell of exploding trees and an onslaught from 1,000 German panzers that those who survived never forgot.
The U.S. Army suffered over 89,000 casualties in the six-week-long Battle of the Bulge, making it one of the largest and bloodiest battles fought by the nation’s servicemen.
U.S. Army infantrymen of the 290th Regiment, 75th Infantry Division, fight in fresh snowfall near Amonines, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, Jan. 4, 1945. Note the M3 Grease Gun to the right and M1 Carbine to the left. (Photo: U.S. Army)
For a more detailed look at the men, firepower, and background of the battle, check out the (free) 685-page U.S. Army Center of Military History reference, “The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge” by Hugh M. Cole, as well as the vast records available through the National Archives. For more information about commemorating the battle Bastogne and other events, visit Bastogne 75 and Belgium Remembers 44-45.
Invented about the same time as The Jetsons were a hit TV show, nuclear weapons researcher Bob Mainhardt and arms designer Art Biehl came together to form MB Associates (after their initials) to explore rocket projects. In addition to a reasonably popular handheld flare projector, they also looked to produce a series or rocket-firing weapons with an eye towards military contracts.
I give you, the Gyrojet Rocket Pistol, which is a real thing that actually saw some limited use in Vietnam.
Pop…Whoosh!
More in my column at Guns.com
New Hampshire-based Sig Sauer announced last week that they have reached a milestone in delivering new pistols to the U.S. Armed Forces.
Since winning the contentious Modular Handgun System contract in 2017, beating out big-name pistol makers from around the globe to replace the M9 Beretta, Sig has exceeded performance standards and recently delivered the 100,000th MHS series gun to the military.
The MHS system comprises the Sig Sauer M17 full-size, and M18 compact handguns, each based on the company’s P320 series pistols, as well as Winchester Ammunition’s 9x19mm M1152 Ball, M1153 Special Purpose, and M1156 Drilled Dummy Inert cartridges.
Over the coming five-to-seven years, upwards of 350,000 handguns and 100 million rounds of ammunition are scheduled for delivery to the Pentagon.
More in my column at Guns.com
In the early 1980s, Korean War vet and firearms inventor John Andersen (sometimes-spelled Anderson) thought out the concept of a gas-operated, automatic-fire shotgun for military and police use. His gun would allow full-auto (up to 240 rounds per minute) fire of new and advanced 12-gauge shells, be rapidly reloaded via a 10-round cassette, and still be small and compact enough (17 pounds) for the average foot soldier to carry into combat.
To accomplish this, he envisioned a reciprocating barrel with a fixed gas piston enclosed in a cylinder. When the gun fired, the barrel pushed forward and the action, set in a bullpup style behind the trigger group, ejected the spent shell hull and loaded another in what we would consider a very complicated process. This unique action gave the gun (which turned out looking rather industrial anyway) a very distinctive ‘jackhammer’ style of operation when firing that led to its nickname. If the trigger was kept depressed after the first shot, the weapon would continue cycling, thus producing automatic fire until the trigger was let up or the weapon ran out of ammunition. There was no option for single-shot fire; the gun was full-auto only commenting directly on its philosophy of use.
The 20.75-inch smoothbore barrel gave a 31.10-inch overall length and a weight (unloaded) of ten pounds. Polymers were used as much as possible in the firearm to keep weight low, in itself was a very visionary concept for 1982. At the time, the Glock 17 aka “the plastic fantastic” was only then being introduced into the US.
Perhaps most interestingly though, some of these loaded cassettes could also be laid as booby traps. Referred to by the company as a ‘Bear Trap’, the cassettes could be set like mines and would trigger all ten rounds simultaneously if disturbed—possibly the first time a multi-use explosive trap was included as a factory option in a firearm.
Officially called the MK3, the concept was best remembered as the Pancor Jackhammer automatic shotgun.
The thing is, it never got out of the beta test phase and is basically weapon vaporware. However, a few prototypes went on to legendary status in more than 20 video games (Max Payne, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six ring a bell?) between 1998 and 2018.
Speaking of which, Morphys has the only working Jackhammer up for auction.
Yes, it’s real. Yes, it’s full-auto. Yes, it is transferable. Yes, it is expensive.
What is billed as the only working Pancor Jackhammer, via Morphys
CAMP AGUINALDO, Philippines – Joint Armed Forces of Philippines and U.S. team conducting M1 Inventory, 2017
The backstory on how six divisions worth of M1 Garands got repatriated from the Phillipines, where they have seen hard service since the 1950s in some cases, back to the U.S. to be sold through CMP in Anniston. Contrary to what a lot of people think, CMP actually had to spend a small fortune to get these vintage weapons back CONUS.
“It goes almost without saying that accurately accounting for and transporting approximately 90,000 small arms from the other side of the globe is challenging under any circumstances. Throw in termite infestation, monsoon season, and asbestos contamination, and you will have a recipe for disaster.”
In the tail end of World War II, the Australian military was crafting a shortened Enfield .303 for jungle warfare, but it never made it into full-scale production before the A-bomb ended the conflict.
Photo: Lithgow Museum
The above beauty is a rare bird and a bit of evolving gun control history all in one.
The Lithgow Small Arms Factory, which crafted Australian Lee-Enfields and bayonets from 1912 into the 1950s when they switched to making inch-pattern semi-auto FAL (L1A1SLR) rifles, had this beautiful No 6 Mk I Lithgow Enfield recently turned over to their museum from the New South Wales Police. According to the museum, it is a super low serial (XP124) and was one of just 100 of that rare model made, 50 with brass butts and 50 with rubber.
As noted by a British site on everything Enfield, the “No. 6 Australian” was that country’s domestically-made equivalent to the British No. 5 “Jungle Carbine” designed for use in the Pacific island fighting in WWII and, “Only the capitulation by Japan, which brought the conflict there to a close, precluded the Australian No.6 rifle from going into production.”
John Walter in his book Rifles of the World, notes the No. 6 Mk I rifles were shortened and lightened guns crafted on older No 1 Mk III actions with half-stocks and handguards and used 19-inch barrels, tipping the scales at 7.5-pounds. He also says some were later altered by the Royal Australian Air Force to take 7.62x51mm NATO and use 20-round box mags in the 1950s.
Here is an unconverted prototype .303 No 6 Rifle Mk. I in the collection of the Australian War Memorial, donated by a collector from Queensland:
AWM
However, the gun turned over to Lithgow is not original.
Tragically, around 1950 it was re-chambered from standard .303 British (7.7×56mmR) to the just slightly shorter 7.7x54mmR by area gunsmith Barry Cockinos to get around the new gun law passed in NSW after 1948 banning “military caliber” firearms for civilian ownership.
Photo: Lithgow Museum
Photo: Lithgow Museum
These days, even with the caliber change, is a target for lawmakers and regulators due to its magazine capacity and was likely handed in during the recent National Amnesty, or seized.
NSW police recently impounded 109 firearms from a collector, including several rare pieces, that he did not have a license to possess, so this may have been one of his…
Under threat of a fine of up to A$280,000 ($219,000), 14 years in jail, and a criminal record for being otherwise caught with an unregistered or illegal gun, Australia’s National Firearms Amnesty concluded on Oct. 1. Australian media is reporting that 51,461 firearms of all type were turned over to police in the three month period, up from the 26,000 tallied by early September.
However, some of the rarer birds were saved….
A Webley Mk VI, a flat-side C96 Mauser, Frommer Stop, Gaulois palm pistol and a pinfire revolver with folding trigger, all saved from the scrappers
Robbie with Wheaton Arms sat down with the Sootch00 YouTube gun channel and contrasted the new Glock Gen 5 against legacy Gen 4 and 3 models both inside and out.
There are actually a lot of differences.
Still, as when they introduced the Gen 4 and it went through a year of teething problems and stealth fixes, I’ll wait a year for the bugs to get worked out of the Gen 5.
Call me old-fashioned, but I am still a Gen 3 guy when it comes to my combat tupperware.