Tag Archives: rare gun

CZ Salutes WWII Free Czech RAF Squadrons

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CZ is marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II with a salute to the often unsung “Free Czechs” who served with the Allies with a special Spitfire-themed CZ 75.

Occupied by Germany on the eve of the conflict, just months before the shooting started, thousands of Czechs escaped to continue the fight against a common enemy.

Some 2,500 Czechs served in the British RAF during WWII, filling three fighter squadrons (No. 310, 312, and 313), one bomber squadron (No. 311), and one night fighter squadron (No. 68) as well as flying alongside British pilots in other squadrons. They also played a vital role in No. 138 Special Squadron, an outfit that dropped agents and supplies into occupied Europe– including Czechoslovakia.

A Czech Spitfire pilot of No. 313 Squadron
A Czech Spitfire pilot of No. 313 Squadron in conversation with his rigger and fitter at Hornchurch, 8 April 1942. (Photo: Imperial War Museum)

 

These men, exiles far from home, chalked up over 28,000 fighter sorties (at least 16 Czech “aces” flew with the RAF), dropped 2.6 million pounds of bombs on enemy targets, and made a difference from the Battle of Britain to the beaches of Normandy and beyond. Nearly 500 were killed in action.

The CZ 75 RAF special edition
The CZ 75 RAF special edition emulates the famed Supermarine Spitfire fighter aircraft, which was flown by many of the Czech fighter pilots serving with the British during the war. (All photos unless noted: CZ)
The CZ 75 RAF special edition
The CZ 75 RAF includes lightening cuts in the slide that recall the exhaust stacks of the Spitfire’s Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, as well as a finish that includes “riveted” body panels. 
The CZ 75 RAF special edition
The grips include a set of Czech aviator’s wings. 

 

The CZ 75 RAF special edition
The serial number sequencing starts with one of the Czech RAF squadrons, in this case, No. 310 Fighter Squadron. Note the British “bullseye” roundel. 
The CZ 75 RAF special edition
And it is repeated on the front of the slide. 
The CZ 75 RAF special edition
The magazine base has a stylized RAF. 
The CZ 75 RAF special edition
The RAF’s Latin motto, going back to 1918, “Per Ardua ad Astra,” which translates to “Through Adversity to the Stars,” is carried. 
The CZ 75 RAF special edition
Note the Czech roundel, which is still carried on the country’s military aircraft.
The CZ 75 RAF special edition
The CZ 75 RAF is a thing of beauty. 
The CZ 75 RAF special edition
Besides the pistol itself, its unique case recalls the avionics panel on the Spitfire, while its key is in the shape of the aircraft. Also included are an embroidered squadron badge patch and a hand-painted and signed Spitfire illustration by the well-known Czech painter and illustrator Jaroslav Velc.

 

Price? Availability? Just 56 CZ 75 RAF models will be created and will be offered…soon.

On a side note, as CZ now owns Colt, it would be neat to think that, at some point in the future, there may be a similar line of 1911s that salute famed American military units. Send those emails, folks!

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

Getting Raffica with the Beretta 93R

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Beretta has been in the firearms-making business for nearly 500 years in the Gardone Val Trompia region and, while we visited the amazing complex, we were asked what three guns we would like to shoot in the company’s on-site shooting range, located inside a mountain. Because Beretta.

Our choice was easy: the classic Cold War-era PM12 “Spaghetti Uzi” submachine gun, the exciting new NARP rifle, and the elusive 93R machine pistol.

If you are pure of heart and wish hard enough, dreams can come true. (Photo: Chris Eger/Guns.com)

While we’ll get into the first two later, let’s go ahead and get into the 93R.

The 93R in its most basic form. Note the folding handguard and extended compensated barrel. The frame-mounted two-position select fire lever (with three dots denoting its 3-round burst) is above the grip. The safety button is behind it.

Select-fire, with options for a three-round burst or single shots, the “R” in its model designation stands for “Raffica,” which roughly translates into “gust” or “flurry.” To help control this zippy 9mm with its 700 round-per-minute cyclic rate of fire, the frame has a hinged metal forward grip and an extended barrel with compensator cuts. Beretta marketed the pistol with an extended 20-round magazine to feed the brass-chewing little beast, which would allow for six bursts of three rounds and a seventh of two.

The company produced (and continues to develop) several generations of submachine guns, and a similar select-fire pistol had already preceded the 93R. The M951R was adopted by several Italian special forces and police units in the 1960s.

The M951R, which was a select-fire variant of the Beretta M1951. Note the folding foregrip. Whereas the M1951 is a single-stack 1950s forerunner of the Beretta 92, the M951R (again, with the Raffica) was a select-fire great uncle to the 93R.

From one of Beretta’s period brochures on the 93R, emphasizing the gun could be fired both with and without its stock. Ideally, a uniformed officer could carry the pistol with a standard 15-round flush-fit mag inserted, with a spare 20 or 30-rounder and folding detachable stock carried in belt pouches. (Photo: Beretta)

To see the gun in action and read the rest of this, check out my column at Guns.com.

Beauty, in Commercial C96 Small Ring Format

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Got a chance to spend some time with this beauty lately.

Pre-WWI commercial C96 models generally have a serial number that falls into the 30,000 to 274,000 range, and the VL&D marked pistol that recently came through the GDC Warehouse is No. 81976– putting it as roughly a 1905 production handgun. As such, it hails from the peak of Mauser’s golden era, with excellent fitting, fire-blued small parts, a “strawed” trigger, and deeply varnished wooden grips.

Further, it is kind of rare, being one of just 1,900 guns shipped directly from Oberndorf-on-the-Neckar to the firm of Von Lengerke & Detmold in New York City.

What? You don’t know VL&D?

More after the jump. 

Owen in the RVN

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Some 56 years ago this month:

“December 1967. Nui Dat, South Vietnam. 15233 Sergeant Reg Matheson of Hammondville, NSW, a member of 103 Field Battery, 1st Field Regiment, Royal Australian Artillery (RAA), with his gun near a sandbagged area at the 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) base.”

Photo by Michael Coleridge via the Australian War Memorial COL/66/0959/VN

Note Sgt. Matheson’s distinctive top-fed WWII-era Owen Mk 2/3 Machine Carbine (submachine gun).

Designed by 24-year-old Pvt. Evelyn Ernest Owen, with 2/17 Battalion of the Australian Army, the gun can generally be regarded as Australia’s STEN and was placed into wartime production in 1943 with some 40,000 produced. 

Production Owen Mk 1 painted in green and yellow camouflage for use in jungle fighting. The pistol grips are black plastic and the butt is wood. The 33 round 9mm magazine didn’t last long at the guns ripping 700 rounds per minute rate of fire — but “Diggers” would carry lots of spare mags to keep it stoked.

 

Late model Owen Mk 1/43 SMG complete with canvas sling mounted on the left-hand side. The butt is the skeleton frame type with a clip for an oil bottle — similar to the one found on the U.S. M1A1 Carbine.

 

The WWII era guns were refurbished at the Australian Lithgow Small Arms factory in the 1950s, which included stripping away the camo and giving them new MkIII style barrels and a safety catch. This is a good example of the latter type of “improved” Mk2/3 Owen.

As well documented in images online at the AWM, the 9mm Owen continued to see much front-line use in Korea, augmenting the bolt-action .303 Enfield with the Diggers against the Norks and Chinese “volunteers.”

20 September 1952, Korea. Informal portrait of 2400799 Private Bruce Grattan Horgan, 3rd Battalion, The Royal Australian Regiment (3RAR), standing near a trench on Hill 187. Pte Horgan is armed to go on a summer night fighting patrol, which usually consists of 15 men. His armament consists of a 9mm Owen sub-machine gun, seven magazines each holding 33 bullets, and four M36 Mills bomb hand grenades. AWM P06251.002

Owens remained in service with the Australians well into the 1960s– with Vietnam being its last hurrah, serving alongside M16s and inch-pattern semi-auto FALs– then they were replaced by the very Owen-like F1 submachine gun, which was in turn replaced by the Steyr F88 in the 1990s.
 

AWM caption: “Nui Dat, South Vietnam. 1966. A Signal Corps linesman with a 9mm Owen Machine Carbine (Owen Gun) on his back, climbing a rubber tree at 1st Australian Task Force (1ATF) Base.”

Boyko’s No. 29

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In 1950, Chief Edward Boyko of the Passaic, New Jersey PD entered a “name that gun” contest at the International Association of Chiefs of Police (IACP) conference in Colorado and submitted “Chief’s Special” as a suggestion for the hard-hitting new Model J revolver.

Smith & Wesson announced the winner in the December 1950 issue of The Police Chief, the IACP journal, and named Boyko as its author. The prize? A specimen of the new gun, complete with factory engraving.

Serial No. 29, it was an early “Pre-36” with a small grip and trigger guard of the I-frame, features that were later changed to make the revolver more comfortable to shoot with full-house loads. It also had a standard latch (later guns had a flat latch) and half-moon front sight, a configuration that only the earliest Chiefs Specials shipped with.

Plus, Chief Boyko’s was factory engraved.

Um, like this:

Yup, read more about the long-lost Boyko Chiefs Special 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. 

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