After the AK47, there’s no more iconic Russian gun than the 9mm Makarov. Hell, even the name is definitively Russian. During the forty-plus years that defined the Cold War, the Makarov sat comfortably in holsters and magazines behind the Iron ...
Carcano Rifle: The Most Infamous Bolt Gun in U.S. History
Outside of gun collectors and history nerds, few people could positively identify the make and model of a random 130-year-old gun from just one photo. That’s not the case with the M91/38 Carcano rifle. Hundreds of thousands of people who ...
The Luger Pistol: The First Iconic 9mm Handgun
Some firearms have an aura of mystique that is imparted to them at some point in their history for a variety of reasons. They’re guns that people the world over can identify simply by sight, and hearing their name instantly conjures up images of it. ...
The Black Powder Rifle: The Story of the First Precision Firearms
The genesis of the modern rifle lies with the humble and practically ancient black powder rifle. In the 21st century, we take for granted the basic design and function of rifles and the cartridges they fire. While advances in materials and ...
The Sh*tbox Winchester Shotgun Folks Called ‘The Widowmaker’
Today, shooters take for granted the ease with which a semi-automatic shotgun operates. The concept has been around since the tail end of the 1800s, and it’s been nearly perfected as we approach the end of the first quarter of the 21st century. With ...
Sharps Rifle: The Original Long-Range Hunting Gun
Big bores, breech-loading, single-shot rifles that were powerful and accurate — that was the reputation of Sharps rifles in the mid-19th century as the United States pushed its way ever farther West. One could argue the Sharps is the first rifle that ...
Volcanic Pistol: The First Repeating Pistol — and a Failure
In today’s world, it’s easy to take the lever-action mechanism for granted. It may be more than 160 years old, but it’s still going strong, thanks to companies like Winchester, Henry, and Marlin, and the shooters who love the guns produced under ...
45-70 Govt: One of the Few Black Powder Era Survivors
It has been a century and a half since shooters got their hands on the now-legendary 45-70 Govt cartridge for the first time in 1873. Somehow, despite its limitations, the 45-70 has evolved and overcome staggering odds in the intervening years. What ...
Fee Hikes for Wyoming Nonresident Special Tags Explained
A bill passed in the Wyoming state legislature on Feb. 27, 2023, and signed by Gov. Mark Gordon on March 2 substantially increases the cost of the nonresident special draw fee but leaves regular nonresident draw fees unchanged. On the surface, it may ...
405 Winchester: T.R.’s Famous Medicine Gun for Lions
The 405 Winchester was a beast of a cartridge in its time, suited for the absolute most dangerous, tear-your-guts-out big game on the planet. Mere months after leaving the White House and Washington politics behind him (for the time being) in 1909, ...
Roosevelt’s Legendary Double Rifle, the ‘Big Stick,’ Up Close
Theodore Roosevelt, Holland & Holland, and Africa: a hunter, a gun, and a location that should send a little shiver of excitement and yearning up the back of every hunter. It’s a trifecta that speaks of a bygone era that many hunters aspire to ...
Teddy Roosevelt Ran a Suppressor on Three of His Hunting Rifles
The 26th President of the United States, Theodore Roosevelt, liked guns, and he liked to shoot. He famously quipped: “I don’t know how to shoot well, but I know how to shoot often.” The architect of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation ...
The Sad Fate of the Man Behind the Legendary Colt Walker Revolver
Two of the most iconic words in the world of gun collecting are “Colt Walker.” Only 1,000 of the revolvers were ever made for the US military, and only 100 more were made for civilians. Of those, only about 10% survived. That scarcity has propelled ...
Hands-On Mountain Man History Lesson: DIY Tanning Beaver Tails
A few weeks ago, my landlord came knocking at my door on a Tuesday morning. When I answered, he said, “I’ve got a dead beaver out here. You want it?” What are you supposed to say to that? “Sure, I’ll take it!” The words fell out of my mouth ...
The Most Expensive Shotguns of All Time
The concept of a shotgun is fairly simple by firearm design standards. At its most basic, a shotgun is a hammer, trigger, chamber, a smoothbore barrel or two, and a stock. It's kind of amazing to think that a contraption consisting of little more ...
The Most Expensive Rifles Ever Sold at a Gun Auction
Recently, we published a story about the most expensive firearms ever sold at a gun auction. With a staggering total price of more than $14 million, the guns on that list are incredible, but they all had one thing in common: They were all handguns. ...
Lincoln Shot a Spencer Rifle With the Gun’s Designer on the National Mall
When Christopher Miner Spencer died in January 1922 after 88 years of life, he’d accomplished quite a lot. The inventor had filed multiple patents over his long career for a number of firearms, among other things. He even produced some of the ...
The Unceremonious Death of Samuel Colt
On Jan. 10, 1862, Samuel Colt passed away at his home in Hartford, Connecticut. He was one of the wealthiest men in America, with an estimated worth of $15 million ($413 million today). Death cares little about money, though. Colt died at the ...
Warts and Beauty Marks: The Homestead Act and the Making of America
The United States is referred to as “The Land of Opportunity,” and while “opportunity” has long been the focal point of that phrase, there was a time when “land” was the opportunity. On May 20, 1862 — smack dab in the midst of the Civil War — a piece ...
Washington’s 1776 Christmas Crossing of the Delaware Was a Last Resort
Emanuel Leutze’s 1851 painting, Washington Crossing the Delaware, is undoubtedly one of the most “America, fuck yeah!” paintings that depict any part of the American Revolution. In recent years, the painting of George Washington crossing the ...
Everything You Know About the Boston Tea Party is Probably Wrong
Everyone knows about the Boston Tea Party, right? King George III of England levied yet another tax on the American colonists, this time on the most basic and necessary commodity of tea. It was the last act before the kettle of revolution began to ...
Most Expensive Guns: The 6 Priciest Firearms Ever Sold at Auction
Most of us don’t buy guns to save or make money — it’s usually quite the opposite. However, if you have the financial means, firearms can be a really great investment, and that's been true for quite some time. For most of the 20th century, Colt ...
Oliver Winchester and Sam Colt: Innovators and Lousy Gunmakers
The Winchester name is one of the best-known firearm brands in the world. Its namesake, Oliver Winchester, oversaw the evolution of the lever-action rifle and its rise to fame as “The Gun That Won the West.” When the company’s patriarch passed away ...
Hiram Maxim: The Right Place, Right Time, Right Gun to Change History
The United States is often called the “Land of Opportunity,” but for Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim, that wasn’t exactly the case. This week marks the 105th anniversary of his death, and the story of his life is a remarkable one full of near successes and ...
Smith and Wesson Founded Their Gun Company 165 Years Ago, Not 169
Smith & Wesson is one of the oldest gunmakers in the United States, but exactly how old depends on who you ask. According to Smith & Wesson’s website and official story, the company began in 1852 when Horace Smith and D. B. Wesson decided ...
Photos: What Old West Life Was Really Like in Tombstone, Arizona
Thanks to television shows like Deadwood and every movie that falls under the genre heading of "Western," we have a particular version of what life was like in towns like Tombstone, Arizona, in our American pop-culture collective mind. Of course, ...
Annie Oakley: A Legend Who Taught Thousands of Women to Shoot
Annie Oakley learned how to shoot young. She developed it as a practical skill to help feed her family when she was 8 years old in 1868 and she was still known as Phoebe Ann Mosey. Oakley often repeated a story about that very first shot outside her ...
Horace Smith, Half of Smith & Wesson, Was Born 213 Years Ago
The names “Smith” and “Wesson” sound as natural together as Lewis and Clark or Tom and Jerry. The S&W brand has been a mainstay of the modern gun world practically since it began in the 19th century. It can be easy to forget the gun-building ...
Hunting History: How Firearm Tech Changed the Way Americans Hunt
Before the advent of firearms, humans used far simpler tools to kill game in the earliest era of hunting history. Implements progressed from knives, spears, and other primitive weapons made from stone, then bronze, then iron as the centuries ...
Mountain Man Seth Kinman: A Legendary Hunter with Presidential Pals
The early 19th century was an era of explorers, hunters, tall tales, and the mountain man. No one personifies all of that better than Seth Kinman. If you've never heard of him, sit back and get ready for a hell of a story about a legendary hunter, ...
