Gun Parts

Brownells Gun Tech™ and resident Revolvermeister Steve Ostrem tells us about the innovative Ruger® GP100® revolver. "Wait... the GP100® is still in production and isn't old or historic or collectible," you say™ Maybe not now, but it will be! Introduced in the mid-1980s, the GP100® is a medium-frame double-action revolver designed around the .357 Magnum cartridge. Its cylinder locks at the rear AND the front, so when that cylinder is closed, it stays put. The GP100® is built to take full-power .3

Today, Brownells Gun Techs Steve Ostrem and Keith Ford go to "Area 51".... No, not that Area 51, but rather a special zone occupied by the Beretta M1951 9mm pistol, sometimes referred to simply as the "Beretta 51" or its U.S. import name, the Brigadier. The M1951 is special because it was Beretta's first locked-breech pistol. Before that, all Berettas were simple blowback designs, and in fact the Model 1934 was the mainstay of the Italian military in World War II. The 51 was specifically develop

Brownells Gun Tech™ Steve Ostrem takes us on a little detour from our usual FTV fare of historic / classic firearms and instead discusses the "middle child" of magnum revolver cartridges - the .41 Magnum. It was developed in the early 1960s by two famous gun writers and great cartridge developers, Elmer Keith and Bill Jordan. Jordan wanted a medium-power load with a bigger bullet than the .357 Magnum for law enforcement use, a ".41 Special" that lobbed a 200 grain bullet at 900 fps. Keith envisi

We've been doing From the Vault for a while, but we've never had a "classic" firearm quite like this one! Brownells Gun Tech™ Caleb Savant takes us on a walkaround of an AT4 shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon. Originally developed by Saab Bofors Dynamics in Sweden, it was adopted into U.S. service in 1987 as the M136 AT4 and is manufactured by ATK. The U.S. military uses various versions of AT4, the most common firing a 440-gram high-explosive projectile that is NOT good news for armored vehicle

Brownells Gun Tech™ and all-around reassuring presence Steve Ostrem shows us his Colt Police Positive. A beautiful little revolver introduced in 1907, the Police Positive is built on the Colt D frame, same as the Detective Special. Steve's gun is chambered in .38 Smith & Wesson - oops! Colt called the cartridge the ".38 Colt New Police" because who wants to give their arch-competitor free advertising™ The Police Positive was much loved by professional constabulary and private citizens alike beca

Brownells Public Relations Specialist Roy Hill is here to tell us about his "new" Chilean Model 1935 Mauser rifle. Roy had recently acquired a few hundred rounds of 7mm Mauser ammo and needed a rifle to go with them, when he discovered this rifle in the Brownells Retail Store. He quickly identified it as the quite rare "Modelo 1935" variant of the venerable Mauser 98, made for the Carabineros de Chile, a paramilitary police organization that's kind of the Chilean analog to the Italian Carabinier

Today, Brownells Gun Tech™ Steve Ostrem shows us a unique revolver: a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson Model 17. The Model 17 is S&W's long-running .22 LR K-frame target revolver, which usually comes from the factory with a 6" or 8-3/8" barrel. Steve transplanted a .38 Special Model 15 snubbie barrel and installed a .22 rimfire liner. He got the idea from a gun he saw in a museum. Built by Smith & Wesson for the Air Force, it was a prototype for a .22 caliber training variant of the aluminum alloy snub

Keith and Steve are taking a break today, so their fellow Brownells Gun Tech™ Caleb Savant has stepped in to show us his Mossberg Model 151M(b) rifle. In production only from 1948 through 1954, the 151M(b) is a semi-auto .22 rimfire target rifle from the higher end of the Mossberg lineup but still very affordable, both then and now. It's fed by a tubular magazine running through the buttstock, and like most tube-fed .22s, it'll shoot .22 Short, Long, and Long Rifle ammo. When Caleb rescued this

Brownells Gun Tech™ Keith Ford is in heaven.... well, as close as you can get while still having a pulse! He's at Rock Island Auction Company surrounded by early 20th century belt-fed machine guns, all of them designed by that American firearm genius, John Moses Browning. The Colt-Browning M1895 "Potato Digger" was the first successful gas-operated machine gun, and the first machine gun adopted by the U.S. military. Production was limited, so only small numbers of these served in both the Spanis

Brownells Public Relations Specialist Roy Hill shows us his Winchester Model 70 Safari Express chambered in .458 Win Mag. Introduced in 1956 as a pure dangerous game stopper, the belted .458 Winchester Magnum packs a 500-grain soft-nose jacketed bullet zooming at about 2,200 fps. This bullet alone is bigger and heavier than a 9mm Luger pistol round. The first gun chambered in .458 Win Mag™ The Winchester Model 70. Roy found this beauty at the Brownells Retail Store and gave back some of that mon

We've given up trying to tear them away! As long as Keith and Steve refuse to leave the Rock Island Auction Company, they might as well tell us about this beautiful little Winchester Model 64. A deluxe variant of the famous Model 1894 lever action rifle, the Model 64 was in production from 1933 through 1957 (so all 64s are "pre-'64s"). Rock Island's Model 64 is chambered in the now nearly forgotten .219 Zipper. A .30-30 necked down to .22 caliber, the .219 Zipper zipped along at about 2,700 fps.

It's time to kick back and see what Keith and Steve have found for us at Rock Island Auction Company.... Today it's a pair of "trapper" carbines from the two gunmakers synonymous with lever action rifles, Winchester and Marlin. Despite the name, these stubby-barreled rifles weren't used only by trappers. Anybody who needed a handy, compact, lightweight rifle might carry one, and because they were heavily used "working" guns, originals in good condition are quite rare. The National Firearms Act o