Historical Firearm Features

Think of a semi-automatic pistol issued to U.S. military personnel during World War II, and the Model 1911A1 immediately comes to mind. But like the M1911A1, the Colt 1908 Pocket Hammerless was drafted from peacetime to wartime service.

Engineers at the Fémáru és Szerszámgépgyár NV (Metal Products and Machine Tool Factory Company) in Budapest developed a military-appropriate sidearm by combining the R-61’s lightweight alloy frame with a 4" barrel in 9 mm Makarov, which is how the PA-63 was born.

Can you identify this .36-caliber percussion pistol? It has no serial number or markings of any kind, save the number 17 on two of the parts. I did not completely dismantle it.

My favorite firearm is a .45-cal. Colt Single Action Army that I purchased new in 1980. The old Colt exudes Western adventure, both real and imagined.

For many of us, our first exposure to the Single Action Army wasn’t on the shooting range—it was on the silver screen at Saturday matinees, and, later, on television. After all, you can’t film a Western movie or TV Western without sixguns.

Initially developed as a dedicated sidearm for the U.S. military, the Colt Single Action Army became iconic as one of the tools that tamed the frontier and embodied the spirit of the American West.

A product of John Moses Browning and a post-World War I Fabrique Nationale, the FN Model 1922 pistol was one of the firm’s most popular, arming civilians, law enforcement and militaries for decades.

One of only three semi-automatic pistol models ever manufactured by Remington, the Model 51 was first offered to the public in September 1919 in .380 Remington Autoloading Cartridge.

When my father retired in 1967, he gave me a Colt revolver. It is stamped “COLT D.A. 38” and has a serial number in two adjacent places: the trigger guard next to the screw and the frame next to the trigger guard: 138XXX or 136XXX. I was told that Billy the Kid carried a Colt double-action revolver. Do you know if that is true?