Gun Parts

From The Vault : 2 Barrel Gardner Gun in 45-70

It's another excellent adventure to Rock Island Auction Co. for Brownells Gun Techs™ Keith and Steve, and they have something wheelgun fans are gonna love: featherlight Aircrewman revolvers built by Colt and Smith & Wesson for the United States Air Force. These .38 Special snub-nosed revolvers were developed in the 1950s for aircrew survival kits. Aircrewman revolvers are so light because both the frame AND the cylinder are made of aluminum (barrel and action are steel). A low-pressure 130 grain

This "Czechs" off a box on Keith Ford's bucket list! He and his fellow Brownells Gun Tech™ Caleb Savant are at Rock Island Auction Co. perusing a Czech ZK-383 submachine gun chambered in 9mm Luger (aka 9mm Parabellum, 9x19mm). The select-fire ZK-383 was designed in 1930 to fulfill a role similar to a modern squad automatic weapon (SAW) - only in a much lighter, more compact pistol-caliber firearm. Keith shows us how easy it is to swap out the ZK-383's barrel, and the takedown for cleaning is jus

We are back at Rock Island Auction Co. with Brownells Gun Techs™ and devoted students of firearms history, Keith and Steve, to check out one of the XM9 pistol prototypes submitted by Smith & Wesson for evaluation under the Joint Service Small Arms Program. Launched in 1977 to find a replacement for the Colt M1911A1, the JSSAP sought a double action service pistol chambered in 9mm Parabellum (9mm Luger or 9x19mm) with a double stack magazine that held 15 rounds. The winner would be adopted as the

As the living embodiment of coolness itself, Brownells Gun Techs Keith and Caleb are the right guys to be at Rock Island Auction Company to show us a gun with a high Coolness Factor: the Egyptian Hakim service rifle. The semi-auto Hakim started life in Sweden as the AG-42 rifle (the Automatgevär m/42) designed for the Swedish army and manufactured 1942-45, before the tooling was sold to Egypt in the 1950s. Chambered in 8mm Mauser (aka 7.92x57mm Mauser), the Hakim served as Egypt's main battle ri

We had no trouble persuading Brownells Gun Techs and resident firearm historians Keith Ford and Steve Ostrem to visit to Rock Island Auctions, so they could show us a Colt Model 1860 Army Thuer Conversion revolver. The Thuer Conversion turns the cap-and-ball 1860 Army into a front-loading metallic cartridge revolver. Why front-loading™ Because Smith & Wesson owned the patent on the revolver cylinder with bored-through chambers. The patent's original holder, gunsmith-inventor Rollin White, offere

It's time for Brownells Gun Techs Caleb Savant and Keith Ford to load up the jalopy and hit the road in search of rare, unusual, or valuable firearms (preferably all three!). Today, they're at Rock Island Auction Company to show us an excellent example of the FG 42 select-fire rifle. Built by Krieghoff, the Fallschirmjägergewehr 42 ("Paratrooper Rifle 42") may be the most futuristic German weapon of World War II that actually worked - and worked well, too! Chambered in the standard 8mm Mauser (7

Brownells Gun Tech™ Keith Ford has another Soviet Bloc classic to show us: the CZ 52 pistol. After World War II, the Czechoslovak military decided to replace its CZ 27 service pistol with something more modern. The first attempt, the CZ 50, didn't fill the bill, so the designers at Ceská zbrojovka literally went back to the drawing board. The result is the sleek, clean-lined CZ 52 (military designation vz. 52). It was designed for the 9mm Parabellum (aka 9mm Luger, 9x19mm) cartridge, but under p

Relax, you didn't lose count of the days. Brownells Gun Tech™ Caleb Savant is here, but it's not Smyth Buster Tuesday or Quick Tip Wednesday. It's FTV Friday, and he's here to show us around the Marlin Model 60 semi-auto, .22 LR, tubular magazine fed rifle. Introduced in 1960 (of course!), the Model 60 is an update on Marlin's Model 99, with different scope mounting provisions and a stock made of birch vs the Model 99's walnut. Over the years, Marlin made some changes, including upgrades to the

Brownells Gun Tech™ extraordinaire and discerning firearms collector Keith Ford tells us about the Czechoslovak CZ 82 pistol. After his recent video on the Russian Makarov, the CZ 82 is an appropriate topic because it's chambered for the same 9x18mm Makarov cartridge AND shares many elements with the much older Soviet design, even though Ceská zbrojovka developed the CZ 82 in the early 1980s. Like the Makarov, it is blowback-operated and has a double action / single action (DA / SA) trigger. But

Brownells Gun Tech™ Keith Ford tells us about a Russian gun almost as "iconic" as the AK-47 - the Makarov pistol. The Soviet Army made do with the Tokarev TT-33 pistol and obsolete Nagant M1895 revolver as their standard-issue sidearms in World War II. Post-war trials seeking a new service pistol eventually led to the adoption of the "Pistolét Makárova". Nikolai Fyodorovich Makarov's design borrows from the Walther PP, but it's chambered in its own cartridge, the 9x18mm Makarov, a round similar

Brownells Gun Tech™ Keith Ford hasn't found the bottom of his gun safe yet: today he shows us his Smith & Wesson 22/32 Kit Gun. The origins of this handy little .22 LR revolver go back to 1911, when S&W introduced a rimfire target revolver built on their .32 caliber I-frame, called the 22/32 Heavy-Frame Target model. In 1934, Smith brought out the shorter barreled 22/32 Kit Gun, so named because its was compact enough to put in your fishing kit, trapping it, or any "kit" you wanted to equip with