Gun Digest 2010

2010

Gun Digest

EDITED BY

Dan Shideler

©2009 Krause Publications, Inc.,

a subsidiary of F+W Media, Inc.

Published by

www.gundigestbooks.com

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Manuscripts, contributions and inquiries, including first class return postage, should be sent to the GUN DIGEST Editorial Offices, Gun Digest Books, 700 East State Street, Iola, WI 54990-0001. All materials received will receive reasonable care, but we will not be responsible for their safe return. Materials accepted is subject to our requirements for editing and revisions. Author payment covers all rights and title to the accepted material, including photos, drawings and other illustrations. Payment is at our current rates.

CAUTION: Technical data presented here, particularly technical data on handloading and on firearms adjustment and alteration, inevitably reflects individual experience with particular equipment and components under specific circumstances the reader cannot duplicate exactly. Such data presentations therefore should be used for guidance only and with caution. Gun Digest Books accepts no responsibility for results obtained using these data.

ISSN 0072-9043

ISBN 13: 978-1-4402-0233-9

ISBN 10: 1-4402-0233-8

Designed by Dave Hauser and Patsy Howell

Edited by Dan Shideler

Printed in the United States of America

TWENTY - EIGHTH ANNUAL

John T. Amber

LITERARY AWARD

Wayne Van Zwoll

We are proud to note that the winner of this year’s John T. Amber Literary Award is Wayne Van Zwoll, for his piece .30-30: Short Magnum for the Frontier, which appeared in the 2009 Gun Digest.

Many changes have taken place in Gun Digest over the years, but every edition still bears the stamp of the late John T. Amber, editor emeritus, a man of exquisite good taste in the old-school style. Mr. Amber approached his task as an editor should: with a keen eye for detail and a genuine appreciation for a well-turned phrase.

We think that JTA – as he always signed his commentaries – would heartily approve of Wayne van Zwoll’s article .30-30: Short Magnum for the Frontier. The Gun Digest jury certainly does.

As its name implies, the John T. Amber Award recognizes not only the writer’s knowledge but his ability to express it. We note with some dismay that, as a craft, gunwriting is a vanishing art. In this day of the blog and the unedited opinion mill, it’s easy to forget that the greatest gunwriters, the truly enduring ones, not only know their subject but also know how to entertain, inform and inspire the reader. Wayne van Zwoll does.

A full-time journalist for the outdoors press, Wayne van Zwoll has published more than 2,000 articles and twice that many photos for more than two dozen magazine titles, including Sports Afield, Outdoor Life and Field & Stream. Once the editor of Kansas Wildlife, he has also edited Mule Deer for the Mule Deer Foundation as well as Stoeger’s Shooter’s Bible. His Rifles and Cartridges column in Bugle, flagship magazine of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, has run for 21 years – longer than any other. Wayne has also authored 13 books on hunting, shooting and history.

In 1996 Wayne was named Shooting Sports Writer of the Year by the Outdoor Writers Association of America. In 2006 he received the Jack Slack Outdoor Writer of the Year award from Leupold. Now Special Projects Editor for Intermedia Outdoors, Wayne also contributes to Petersen’s Hunting and Guns & Ammo television. He is a professional member of the Boone and Crockett Club and has served on the board of OWAA.

In addition to other enviable achievements, Wayne has taught English and Forestry classes at Utah State University, where in 2000 he earned a doctorate studying the effects of post-war hunting motive on wildlife policy. He keeps an active public speaking schedule within the outdoors industry and conservation community. When not at the desk or on the range, he reads history and jogs to keep in shape. A late starter, he completed his first marathon at age 49. He’s run 16 since, including four at Boston. Wayne lives in north-central Washington State with Alice, his wife of 35 years.

The recipient of the annual John T. Amber Literary Award, which consists of a handsome plaque and a $1000 honorarium, is selected by a group of professional shooting sports editors at Krause Publications’ book and magazine divisions. Every feature author appearing in Gun Digest is eligible for the award, and the overall excellence of this year’s candidates made for a truly challenging selection process.

Congratulations, Wayne. We hope you continue to grace our pages for many years to come.

Dan Shideler

Editor

Gun Digest

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the 2010 edition of Gun Digest! First things first: you would not be reading this book were it not for the prior efforts of four remarkable individuals:

CHARLES R. JACOBS, who started with nothing but a blank sheet of paper and gave us the first Gun Digest, way back in 1944;

JOHN T. AMBER, the patron saint of Gun Digest who built it into the world’s best-selling firearms annual;

KEN WARNER, who so ably took the helm from his predecessor and reinvigorated this truly remarkable title; and

KEN RAMAGE, who piloted Gun Digest into the twenty-first century in the face of an unprecedented revolution in technology and all the challenges it presented.

I was raised on Gun Digest. Once a year, in the long-gone Indiana of the 1960s and 1970s, my father brought home the new edition, which my brother Dave and I eagerly devoured. I mean we read it literally from cover to cover, absorbing whatever wisdom and insight that could be found in its pages. I still have some of those 40-year-old volumes, nearly all of them showing pencil marks in their catalog sections where we, with boyish enthusiasm, checked guns that we would surely buy someday. Eventually I assembled a complete collection of Gun Digests (which will soon be available to all at Research. GunDigest.com), from the rare 1944 First Edition, with slip-sheeted price list, to the 2008 edition.

And now, forty-some years later, I am editor of that same book. Karma? The inscrutable workings of Fate? Call it what you will, I will say simply that it is an honor – for me, it’s the stuff that dreams are made of.

The front cover of this book features two new Ithaca Model 37 shotguns: a Deerslayer III slug gun and the new 28-gauge Deluxe Featherlight. A Deluxe Featherlight appeared on the cover of the first two editions of Gun Digest (1944 and 1946), and our inclusion of these two new Ithacas on our cover signifies our ongoing effort to keep Gun Digest true to its original intent: to be the firearms enthusiast’s first, best source of information, entertainment and scholarship.

The Editor

It would not be unfair of you to ask who I am. I’m a shooter and firearms enthusiast, and by firearms I mean everything from Quackenbush air rifles to Greener Harpoon Guns to Gatlings to Smith &Wesson Model 29s and AR-15s and everything in between. Expensive guns, inexpensive guns, American guns, foreign guns, commercial guns, military guns, whatever: they’re all part of my daily diet. I am not a champion marksman (as so many of my friends will be only too happy to tell you), not a certified gunsmith, but what I lack in some areas I make up for with unbridled enthusiasm for all aspects of guns and the shooting sports. Simply put, I’m an old-fashioned gun guy.

We live in the Age of Opinion. Everywhere we turn on the web, on television, on the radio – we’re bombarded with opinions, opinions, opinions. It’s a game we can all play. For example, I can tell you that my favorite semi-auto pistol is the Mauser C96, followed closely by the Colt 1911; my favorite revolver, the S&W New Century, the Ruger Super Blackhawk or the Colt Police Positive (tough choice there); my favorite rifle, the Remington Model 81 Woodsmaster or the 1896 Swedish Mauser; and my favorite shotgun, the Browning Auto-5 or the Remington 870. All of these selections, of course, are purely the result of my personal opinions. I hope you don’t agree with me, for, as Mark Twain said, It is difference of opinion that makes horse races.

In selecting the articles that appear in this book, I chose pieces that appealed to my tastes, trusting that a great many of you share some of them. If one of the stories herein doesn’t trip your trigger, simply turn a few pages forward – the next one probably will. I do not agree with all of the opinions of the authors represented in these pages, but I certainly respect them.

In the older firearms literature, you occasionally find references to the Hot Stove League – those informal clusters of enthusiasts who used to gather around hot stoves in hunting shacks and gun stores to argue, gripe, theorize and pontificate about guns. No matter how heated their discussions, members of the Hot Stove League always had opinions, and they always parted friends. I hope you’ll consider Gun Digest to be your personal Hot Stove League.

What’s New – and What Isn’t

You will notice that the number of articles in this edition of Gun Digest has increased. We did this purely because, in our opinion, there’s no such thing as too much Gun Digest.

We have lengthened some sections; shortened others. We have added Contributing Editors in the areas of airguns, tactical arms, gunsmithing and women’s perspectives. Our objective has been to pitch the largest tent possible, one large enough for all the members of the Gun Digest family.

We have also included a DVD with this edition, a first for Gun Digest. Most if not all of the contents of this DVD were collected at the 2009 SHOT Show, and we hope it gives you a behind-the-scenes look at what has to be the Greatest Show on Earth.

A Call for Papers

Gun Digest remains what it has always been: the world’s leading firearms annual. Many of the pieces contained in these pages were not written by professional gunwriters but by just plain folks. We have never met a gun owner who didn’t have something interesting to say, so if you would like to write something for consideration for future editions of Gun Digest, be our guest! All materials must be submitted in electronic format (e.g., MS-Word or .rtf files) and must be accompanied by a suitable number of high-resolution digital images (.tif or .jpg).

If you have such a manuscript, or an idea for one, contact us at:

Editor, Gun Digest

700 East State Street, Iola, Wisconsin 54990

Please include your street address, telephone number and email address with your submission.

Dedication

This edition is dedicated to you, the loyal reader, who has made Gun Digest the world’s leading firearms annual.

Acknowledgments

This edition could not have been completed without the support of Jim Schlender and Brad Rucks of F+W/Krause’s gun, knife and outdoors division, and without the assistance of Tom Nelsen and Dave Hauser, whose creativity, dedication and professionalism make so many of our gun books possible.

In closing, I would like to thank my gracious wife Karen for putting up with a 24/7 gun guy; and I would be remiss indeed did I not extend my affection and respect to the memories of sportsmen and raconteurs Howard H. and Joseph F. Shideler, who instilled in their children and grandchildren a love for the shooting sports that endures to this day.

Welcome to the Hot Stove League!

Cordially,

Dan Shideler, Editor

GUN DIGEST

About the covers

FRONT COVER If you’re a shotgunner, chances are that you or someone you know has carried an Ithaca Model 37 pump at one time or another. After a turbulent period beginning in the late 1960s, Ithaca has reinvigorated itself and is once again producing shotguns commensurate with the name of Ithaca. The mainstay of the new Ithaca Gun Company of Upper Sandusky, Ohio, continues to be the bottom-ejecting Model 37 Featherlight pump gun (middle) – but the old trooper, based on a John Browning design, is now available with magnum-length chambers and interchangeable choke tubes, among other refinements. At top is the Ithaca Deerslayer III purpose-built rifled-bore slug gun, which offers excellent long-range accuracy with a variety of modern saboted loads. At bottom is the all-new, special-order Model 37 Featherlight 28-Gauge, built on a scaled receiver and available in three grades ranging from A to AAA (shown). Other models available from Ithaca include the M37 Featherlight and Ultralight in 12 and 20 gauge, the Deerslayer II slug gun, and the M37 Defense Gun. All of the company’s shotguns are proudly made right here in the USA, and you can see them at www.Ithacagun.com.

BACK COVER North American Arms (NAA) of Provo, Utah, is one of the leading manufacturers of .22 mini-revolvers and self-defense semi-auto pocket pistols. In 2009, NAA introduced The Earl (top), an intriguing twist on their line of .22 rimfire revolvers. Reminiscent of Civil War-era cap and ball revolvers, The Earl features a faux loading lever that serves as a cylinder pin lock, a fixed pinched-barleycorn front sight, a 4. octagonal barrel and oversized rosewood grips. A limited-production item, The Earl is expected to be offered in .22 Magnum and as a .22 LR/.22 Magnum convertible model (shown). At bottom is the NAA .380 Guardian, an extremely high-quality double-action-only pocket automatic that’s among the very finest of its type. For more information about NAA’s distinctive product line, visit them at www.naaminis.com.

Gun Digest Staff

Table of Contents

John T. Amber Literary Award

Introduction

FEATURES

The Incredible 2-Bore Rifle

by John Dickson

Gas-Delayed Blowbacks: Junk or Cutting Edge?

by Warren Ferguson

Hornet Hotrod: The .19 Calhoon Badger

Don Lewis

The Beretta Survival Kit: The Model 84 .380 ACP

by Chris Libby

The Magnificent Seven

by Scott Stoppelman

An Introduction to the Military Handguns of Imperial Japan

by Teri Jane Bryant

Blowup!

by Neil Bradford

Custom and Engraved Guns

by Tom Turpin

When Bulldogs Ruled

by George J. Layman

The Marlin Model 90: A Case Study in Ingenuity

by Bernard H. DiGiacobbe, M.D.

Make Mine a .32!

by Robert H. Campbell

The Elusive Gerfen Rifle

by J. B. Wood

The Colt Official Police and S&W Military & Police

by Paul Scarlata

From Factory to Meat on the Table: Gunmaking in the Val du Trompia

by Wm. Hovey Smith

Power and Grace: The Ruger Super Blackhawk Turns 50

by Don Findley

Classic .22s: There Are But Two

by John J. Quick

Fit to Shoot!

by Richard S. Grozick

The Age of Mobilubricant

by Jim Foral

Fun with the .45 Colt

by John W. Rockefeller

Oddalls: Why We Love ‘Em

by Andy Ewert

The Xman

by Clarence Anderson

Updated Classics: The NEW Ithaca Model 37s

The .44 Special Begins Its Second Century

by John Taffin

REPORTS FROM THE FIELD

Editor’s Picks

by Dan Shideler

Handguns Today: Semi-Autos

by John Malloy

Handguns Today: Revolvers

by Jeff Quinn

Rifles Today

by Jacob Edson

Shotguns Today

by John Haviland

Tactical Gear Today

by Kevin Michalowski

Muzzleloaders Today

by Wm. Hovey Smith

Airguns Today

by Michael Schoby

Gunsmithing Today

by Kevin Muramatsu

Optics Today

by Wayne Van Zwoll

Women’s Perspective

by Gila Hayes

The Guns of Europe

by Raymond Caranta

Handloading Today

by Larry Sterett

Ammunition Today

by Holt Bodinson

ONE GOOD GUN

The Unique Kleinguenther K14 Insta-fire in 7x57 Mauser

by Mike Thomas

The Remington Model 760 in .300 Savage

by Steve Gash

A Classic Springfield Sporter

by Jim Lavin

The Valmet 412 Shooting System

by Steve Gash

TESTFIRE

Czechmate! CZ’s Vz-58

by Patrick Sweeney

Not Your Father’s BB Gun: The .50 Dragon Slayer

by Michael Schoby

Century International Arms M-70 AB2T Yugo Underfolder

by Pete Philippe

Ruger Gets Small: The LCP

by Patrick Sweeney

Remington’s R-25

by Jacob Edson

Civil War Naval Artillery

by Orpheu C. Kerr

The Encyclopedia of Bullet Casting

by Ken Walters

CATALOG OF ARMS AND ACCESSORIES

HANDGUNS

Autoloading

Competition

Double-Action Revolvers

Single-Action Revolvers

Miscellaneous

RIFLES

Centerfire – Autoloaders

Centerfire – Lever & Slide

Centerfire – Bolt-Action

Centerfire – Single Shot

Drillings, Combination Guns, Double Rifles

Rimfire – Autoloaders

Rimfire – Lever & Slide Action

Rimfire – Bolt-Actions & Single Shots

Competition – Centerfire & Rimfire

SHOTGUNS

Autoloaders

Slide & Lever Actions

Over/Unders

Side-by-Side

Bolt Actions & Single Shot

Military & Police

BLACKPOWDER

Single Shot Pistols – Flint & Percussion

Revolvers

Muskets & Rifles

Shotguns

AIRGUNS

Handguns

Long Guns

REFERENCES

Web Directory

Arms Library

DIRECTORY OF THE ARMS TRADE

Manufacturer’s Directory

The incredible

2-Bore Rifle

BY JIM DICKSON

The sheer massiveness of the enormous 2-bore is evident here along with the beautifully figured walnut stock. The barrel length is 28 inches, the overall length is 46 inches, and the length of pull is 14-1/2 inches. The action is two inches wide, as is the butt at the recoil pad.

There are big guns, and then there are BIG guns. . .

The biggest and the most powerful of anything always captures man’s imagination – and the most powerful sporting rifle of all time does this in spectacular fashion. A weapon suitable for blue whales that makes traditional elephant rifles seem like smallbores, the colossal 2-bore is the all-time champion big-bore shoulder-fired sporting rifle. Firing bullets of 3500 grains with a frontal area of 1.05" diameter, having stopping power greater than five .600 Nitro Express cartridges hitting at once, the 2-bore is the ultimate charge stopper.

It is quite accurate to call the 2-bore an artillery piece, for the smaller 4-bore was once standardized as the largest practical swivel cannon – a smallish cannon that was mounted on a ship’s gunwale – because anything larger kept breaking out of the mountings on the ships’ rails. The 2-bore is twice the size of the standard swivel cannon of muzzleloading cannon days. In fact, the effect of a load of buckshot through the 2-bore would be exactly the same as from a large swivel cannon. It would sweep the decks of a ship of uninvited company in grand style. With piracy at an all-time high today and governments banning armed merchantmen from their ports, this opens up another possibility for this brute. Its solid shot can certainly let in enough water into a ship’s hull as well as having the power to disable engines. Despite being a true cannon, however, this 26-lb. beast is a shoulder-fired weapon and eminently practical for those tight spots that emerge in the course of hunting dangerous game. Of course it takes a real man to handle it. Aside from its weight, its recoil is like presiding over your own personal earthquake. Still, it can be fired without pain or injury as long as you roll with the punch.

There has been one other 2-bore in hunting history. About 150 years ago, the famous Victorian hunter and explorer Sir Samuel Baker had an 18-lb. muzzleloading 4-bore that fired a half-pound explosive shell, thus making it a 2-bore by the weight of its projectile. At a mere 18 lbs., it kicked viciously and Sir Samuel reported that it spun him around like a weathercock when he fired it. Not surprisingly, it never failed to kill whatever it hit. Baker named it Baby but the Arabs called it Child of the Cannon. It was built in London in 1869 by Holland and Holland and was serial number 1526. Powder charges were either 10 or 12 drams of powder. With it Sam Baker once blew up a buffalo at 600 yards, as well as killing numerous elephants. The use of explosive bullets was a development of Lieutenant Forsyth of the Bengal Army in India. It turned the heavy 8- and 4-gauge rifles (the terms bore and gauge are interchangeable) into proper artillery pieces for the ultimate in close-range stopping power in the close confines of the Indian jungle, where ranges were often measured in feet instead of yards. Explosive bullets contained a high explosive (not low explosive) compound that had to be mixed in a wooden bowl with a wooden spoon with nothing metallic allowed to come in contact with it at any stage.

A fired and perfectly mushroomed 2500-grain 2-bore slug next to a dime.

A 6’ 5" Giles Whittome and his 26-lb. 2-bore. Two giants of the firearms world.

When compounded, the mixture was put inside a two-part bullet. Molds for these bullets came in two parts, one for the bottom part and another for the top part. A screw swage forced the two molded halves together with the explosion compound in the center core and sized it to the correct barrel groove diameter. The swaged joint usually didn’t break at the explosion; the bullet usually fragmented. It was made with such thick sides that it needed bone to set it off so it didn’t explode on the surface. The explosive mixture detonates through compression and percussion together (i.e., it must be confined and hit). It did not require fire to ignite it. Because of its precisely-tuned exploding properties, Forsyth’s was the only successful exploding hunting bullet.

The size of the massive 2-bore discouraged other hunters and the 4-bore remained the biggest stopping rifle in use. There were a few 2-bore punt guns made for waterfowling but most of these were not shoulder-fired weapons. One should not forget that the average Victorian hunter tended to be smaller than men today and the sport and science of weightlifting and bodybuilding were late twentieth-century developments.

A BIG GUN FOR A NEW CENTURY

When the millennium arrived, the Royal Armouries in England decided to commemorate the year 2000 by an exhibition piece for their own collection that featured the number 2 in it. Hence the 2-bore rifle. Their budget is always limited and between that and the development delays, the gun is only now being fired. In another year or two its engraving will be complete and it will be put on permanent exhibit.

The order for the 2-bore was placed with Giles Whittome, noted British maker of extra fancy exhibition-grade, best quality guns and universally recognized as the number one authority on heavy 8- and 4-gauge rifles in the world. Giles is also a very experienced African white hunter who hunted solo years ago without guides or trackers, just a couple of local natives to carry back what he shot. Lovers of best quality British guns will remember him for The Paragon, a Nitro-proofed Damascus barrel masterpiece with every best quality feature you could put on a sidelock 12 gauge that ranks as the finest example of a British best quality shotgun in the twentieth century.

Since the 2-bore was uncharted territory, both the gun and the cartridge had to be developed. The gun is based on an Alexander Henry harpoon gun that Giles had previously found in the Royal Armouries collection. In rather bad shape, Giles offered to repair it if they would let him borrow it and record its dimensions. It is more than strong enough for the 2-bore cartridge. The lock is a typical 4-bore shotgun lock. The result is a falling block hammer rifle that looks proper for a late Victorian hunter to use. It is singularly massive because of the immense size of its cartridge. Its stock blank was originally 2-1/2" thick before shaping.

Giles Whittome in full recoil from the 2-bore. His 6’ 5" frame started out leaning well into the gun but has now been pushed up straight. Note that the gun is under complete control and the barrel has not even flipped up.

The Alexander Henry action has a non-rebounding hammer that serves to further lock the falling block in place at the moment of firing as the nose of the hammer goes into the block to strike the recessed firing pin. The recessing of the firing pin also offers protection should the gun be dropped. There is a half-cock notch on the hammer for loading the gun. The falling block release lever has a push button to release it from the trigger guard before it can swing down, drawing the falling block with it. You don’t have to worry about the immense recoil flipping it open, as the loading levers on the old M1847 Colt Walker revolvers sometimes did.

Should anyone want the gun to fire harpoons like its ancestor, Giles will gladly make a smoothbore 2-bore for harpoons, bullets, and shot. He will also furnish whatever type of harpoons and bomb lances the customer requires. [Editor’s note: Better check your local game regulations before you run out and buy any harpoons or bomb lances. – DMS] The effectiveness of the gun on dangerous game will not suffer because dangerous game is always dealt with at close ranges where the smoothbore’s accuracy is quite sufficient. A harpoon gun must be a smoothbore because the spinning that a rifled bore would impart to the harpoon would twist its rope. Anyone wanting to go whaling or simply shoot great white sharks will find this more than adequate armament. Those who saw the movie Jaws will remember the attempt to kill the shark with the little Greener harpoon gun intended for pilot whales. Should anyone ever try this in real life with the 2-bore and a bomb lance on a shark of similar size, the effect would be the same as the climactic explosion at the end of the movie, with the shark’s head blown off and little pieces of shark raining down everywhere. Any ocean-going sailboat owner would be very glad to have this brute and its bomb lances in his corner should he encounter a whale intent on playing that popular whale game sink the sailboat.

A 3500-GR. BULLET

The 2-bore cartridge had to be developed from scratch. Since there had never been a 2-bore cartridge rifle, the dimensions had to be created and standardized before the gun could be proof-fired. Once you went beyond 8-gauge, the sheer size of the barrel necessary to hold a round ball of the proper weight led early makers to go with a smaller bore diameter and make up the difference in weight with a longer conical bullet of the proper weight. Hence most 4-bores have an actual bore diameter of .935 instead of the 1.052 necessary to fire a 4-oz. round ball. They are actually proofed as 6-gauge, which would be .919. Since the cartridge shoots a 4-oz. conical, it is stamped 4-gauge. Confusing, isn’t it? Actual size for a 2-bore firing a round ball is 1.325, which translates into a huge, heavy barrel, so the 2-bore’s actual bore size is 1.052", which is true 4-bore for round ball but is considered 2-bore by virtue of its 8-oz. conical bullet.

2-Bore 3500-grain bullets and loaded round next to a .455 Webley self-loading cartridge (comparable in size to a .45 ACP).

There had been a few 2-bore cartridge guns made in the 1870s. Holland and Holland and Eley had gotten together and produced 2-gauge cartridges. These were 4-1/2" long and loaded with 15 drams of powder and 5 oz. of shot. No chokes were found on existing guns. Who needs it with 5 ounces of shot! There was a light load of 10 drams of powder and 3-1/2 oz. of shot for finishing off cripples in the water after the first shot into the flock by the punt gun. The last British 2-gauge shotgun was a muzzleloader proofed in 1917. The proof house had to have a new 2-bore stamp made for the proof marks.

The Eley 2-gauge paper-cased shotgun shells formed the basis of the design of the modern 2-bore case. Made of thick brass instead of a paper case, the cartridge is a monster. Its dimensions are as follows:

Standard 60/40 alloy brass is used with walls of the same thickness as paper cases. This means that case life is almost unlimited when reloading, an important point considering the price of the ammunition.

Bullet diameter is 1.052 and the standard alloy is 90 percent lead and 10 percent tin. This is perfectly satisfactory for both thin-skinned and thick-skinned animals due to the immense size and power of the cartridge. This was proven true on 8-bore and 4-bore guns killing game in Victorian times. It does not leadthe barrel, but should one want to shoot paper-patched bullets the bullet must be made .010 smaller diameter to accommodate the paper patch. For those wanting the ultimate in penetration, bullets are available case from 88 percent lead, 10 percent tin, and 2 percent antimony with a steel nose cap. The new 2-bore cartridge is now included in the C.I.P. Rules of Proof, which is the British equivalent of the United States’ S.A.A.M.I.

The 2-bore cartridge is loaded with 24 drams of blackpowder (as befitting a Victorian gun) and a 3500-grain bullet. There is a light load of a 2500-grain bullet with 20 drams of powder as well. Note that the weight difference alone is equal to the weight of two .470 Nitro Express elephant rifle bullets! A nitro-for-blackpowder load can easily be made for those who hate the mess and extra recoil of blackpowder.

It is worth noting that the standard load for the 4-bore, the previous big bore champion, is 14 drams of Curtis and Harvey Number 6 powder with an 1880-grain bullet. The standard 12-gauge Brenneke slug is a great favorite as a grizzly bear stopper, and it only has a 3 dram powder charge and a 1-oz. slug. The 2-bore is eight times the powder charge and eight times the bullet weight of the old reliable 12-bore Brenneke!

So how much power does the 2-bore generate? That’s a question best answered by John Pondoro Taylor’s famous knockdown formula: bullet weight in grains multiplied by velocity in feet per second multiplied by bullet diameter in inches, divided by 7000 (because there are 7000 grains in one pound). This yields some impressive ballistics for the 2-bore:

Note that the total knockdown factor for five of the .600 Nitro cartridges is only 775, compared to the 825 of a single 3500-gr. 2-bore.

The traditional bullet energy formula for ft.-lbs. of muzzle energy (fpe) is bullet weight in grains multiplied by muzzle velocity squared divided by 450240. Velocity, however, plays too big a part in this energy formula to give accurate results on game. Bullet weight and frontal area are much more important. For example, if you double the diameter of a bullet you increase its frontal area by much more than two times, as we all learned back in our pies are square days (π r²).

Take a look at the formula results below and note that because of its velocity, the little .375 H&H has over half the energy of the mighty .600 Nitro, yet the .375 has been banned for use on dangerous game in multiple African countries because of its history of failures resulting in hunters being killed, while the .600 is considered a super heavyweight stopping rifle.

If one were to believe this formula we would all be using the .220 Swift on elephants, Still, no matter how you calculate it, the 2-bore always comes out on top.

Before leaving this subject, it is worth remembering that when the .280 Halger was developed in the 1920s many people saw that, according to this formula at any rate, the .280 Halger had the muzzle energy of the might .577 3" Nitro Express. There is a row of tombstones in Nairobi of hunters who thought that they could use it on lions. Among them is a brother of then British Foreign Minister, Lord Grey.

SHOOTING THE 2-BORE

To fire the 2-bore without pain or bruising, you must lean into the gun as far as possible so that y ou have room to move back without being knocked down. Grip the gun tightly so that it doesn’t fly out of your hands with the kick and snug the butt against your shoulder – but not so tightly that you fully compress your body tissue before firing. You want to be able to have some cushioning give there.

Now RELAX the rest of the body and let the gun shove you upright. If you have to take a step backward that’s all right too, but if you lean into the gun enough you should be able to soak up the recoil sufficiently as you are being pushed upright to prevent taking a step back. That’s important, because taking a step back when dealing with a charging animal could trip you up on a tree root or something. Falling down when something big and hairy with long tusks is charging you should be avoided. Life insurance underwriters regard it as a deplorable habit.

The 2-bore kicks just as you would expect but it is entirely controllable, thanks to its huge barrel weight, careful stock design, 26-lb. overall weight, and sorbothane (not rubber) recoil pad. The shooter’s use of an optional PAST recoil shoulder pad is also recommended but not mandatory. All this makes the 2-bore far more pleasant to shoot than Sir Samuel Baker’s Baby, despite the fact that Giles Whittome’s 2-bore has twice the powder charge of Baker’s little gun.

Like the 8-gauge and the 4-gauge rifles, shooting the 2-gauge can best be described as a thrill. Like the carnival roller coaster ride, it thrills you but the fun is holding onto that much power without being hurt. You know that you have controlled more power in your hands than you ever dreamed possible. You have also done something only a handful of men in the world have done. Kings and dictators may have power but it is never as tangible as controlling a giant heavy gauge rifle as you fire it.

The effect at the other end is that of a light artillery piece instead of an elephant gun. When charged at a range of a few feet by something big with murder in its heart, you won’t think is underpowered or too much gun. Those days the white hunters refer to as a brown pants day are best survived with the largest of weapons. While your gun bearer may hate carrying it, the 2-bore provides a neat solution to the problem of the gun bearer taking it on himself to fire the gun he is carrying. Just let him fire it once (being careful to catch the gun as it flies through the air) and I seriously doubt if any charging beast will be able to persuade him to fire it again. Remember that an 8-bore rifle has 200 fpe of recoil while a 4-bore rifle has 300. (I will leave the recoil of the 2-gauge to your imagination.) Reloading is as fast as any single shot and the cartridges fall out of the chamber so easily that the extractor almost seem superfulous, but it’s a nice touch should more than one beast be bearing down on you.

A closeup view of the mighty 2-bore and its ammunition. Note how it dwarfs the .470 Nitro Express cartridge. Its power is proportional to its size.

The 21-lb. weight of the 2 gauge rifle is a serious consideration to someone considering taking it afield after game. Obviously it is not something for small men to play with and I would not recommend buying one for your wife. But is should be pointed out that the WWI German MG08-15 machinegunner carried a 50-pound weapon when the water jacket was full and the 100-round drum magazine attached. Many of these men could and did fire it offhand like a rifle when the situation demanded it. Men almost 100 years later tend to be bigger and stronger so there, should be plenty of men today who are man enough to handle this brute.

It is worth remembering that the great white hunter Frederick Selous always claimed his 4-bore single barrel muzzle loaders killed elephants better than anything else he ever saw. Finaughty and many other hunters of the day agreed with him. Today’s hunters are ignorant of the power of these bygone dinosaurs of the firearms world and it is their loss, for there is nothing that will save your life faster when the chips are down than one of these shoulder cannons, over which the 2-bore reigns as king. When you read stories of how a Cape buffalo has gotten his adrenaline up and run amok taking 15 or more .375, .458 or .505 bullets before dropping, just remember that historically a single 8-bore shot in the vitals has always put a stop to that sort of thing. Now imagine what a 2-bore can do. When a previously wounded Cape buffalo or elephant that you knew nothing about lays an ambush and erupts from the bushes a few feet away, so close that you have to fire from the hip, which gun do you want? While rare, such things do happen in Africa. A poacher wounds something and then later you’re confronted with the full wrath and fury of a great wounded beast you didn’t even know was there. Hope you weren’t on a photographic safari then.

If you want a duplicate of the Royal Armouries 2-bore rifle Giles Whittome will gladly make you one. If, like me, you prefer double barrel guns, he will make you the first 2-bore double rifle in history with whatever action type you specify. Cartridges can be either blackpowder or nitro-for-black. Whatever you please. Smokeless powder kicks less than blackpowder and also allows heavier loads if one is so inclined. It also is noncorrosive and much easier to clean up after, and I recommend it for all dangerous game hunting. I don’t like charging animals disappearing behind a cloud of smoke at critical times. Giles’ address is:

Giles Whittome, Gunmaker

Bassingbourn Mill

Mill Lane

Bassingbourn

Cambridge, SG8 5PP

England

Telephone 01763 248708

Fax 01763 243271

Email gileswhittome@hotmail.co.uk

Mobile 07860 445805

Prices on request, of course!

JUNK OR THE CUTTING EDGE?

Gas-Delayed Blowbacks

BY WARREN FERGUSON

Author firing the Norinco M77B.

Improved firearm designs usually arise out of necessity. They are created when nations are confronted with the threat of foreign invasion and formal weapons manufacturing proves impossible - such as was the case at the end of the Second World War. It was during that era, and with a will to fight, that the Germans created new designs to resist their onward pressing foe. These firearms were crude and unreliable, yet that preliminary work on improvised firearms has lead to modern variants that usually rival the best designs coming out of long-established firms.

Pressed into a corner, a novel idea hit several German gun makers. What if you could make cheap firearms that use a portion of the expanding gas upon firing to momentarily delay opening of the action? You would not need a complicated locking system. They got to work and came up with remarkable designs. It was their initial work on gas-delayed blowback firearms initiated over 60 years ago that continues to influence respectable modern variants.

Part of the reason the Germans wanted to manufacture cheap firearms was so that scarce materials could go to the building of heavy weapons: artillery, armour and aviation. History has shown that it is these weapons, and not so much the small arms, that win battles and wars. One could even find savings in how they made firearms in general. Do away with extensive machining and the results are always less costly and may be just as effective. For example, many modern sheet metal-based assault rifles can be produced for less than their cast and machined metal rivals, but all work equally as well.

At the last stages of the war, German weapons plants could no longer cope with the demand for quality weaponry, so it became imperative that various firms begin to design firearms from the ground up which could be made quickly, simply and cost effectively. Participating weapons firms included Appel, Berliner-Spandau; Bergmann KG, Velten; Gustloff Werke, Suhlo; Walther, Zella-Mehlis; Deutsche Industrie-Werke AG, Berlin; Rochling, Wetzlar (Coenders); Berliner-Lubecker Maschinenfabriken; ERMA, Haenel, Hessiche Industrie-Werke, Mauser, Rheinmetall-Borsig, Ruhrstahl, Spreewerk and Steyr.

Critical to the design of any full-powered autoloading firearm is how to delay the opening of the breech until residual chamber pressure upon firing decreases to safe limits. This is not a problem in locked-breech firearms in which recoil or gas unlocks the breech block from the barrel. However, locked-breech designs usually necessitate close tolerance machining and are thus expensive to produce. To solve this issue, various engineers began to consider something entirely new. They tapped a minute portion of the expanding gases of discharged ammunition to momentarily defer opening. On that account, the first gasdelayed blowback firearms came from the arms factories of Nazi Germany.

The theory behind gas-bleed delay is that a portion of the gas propelling the bullet flows through ports in the barrel to impinge on the inner surfaces of the slide or operating cylinder. The breech remains closed until the bullet has passed from the muzzle, by which time the pressure has dropped adequately to allow the breechblock to move rearward in standard blowback fashion. The breechblock is not wholly locked during the entire duration of the bullet’s progress up the bore. It is in essence a blowback system in which the rearward movement is momentarily delayed.

VOLKSPISTOLE

Two firms stood out in developing crude by workable Primitiv-Waffen-Programm pistols: Walther and the more prolific Mauser. Mauser’s prototype had been on the design board for years, but the first production model was ready on February 1944 and the second in June. The prototype, referred to as the M.7057, was a simple sheet metal pistol with a tipping barrel locked by camming a transverse shoulder in the slide. The pistol featured a double-action trigger, an exposed hammer spur and a thumb safety on the slide. In many respects, the M7057 was a conventional pistol made of stampings instead of milling and the project was officially abandoned in January of 1945.

The Mauser Volkspistole (i.e., People’s Pistol) V.7082 was originally a double-action striker-fired blowback, made of thick pressed steel. It was completed by October of 1944. (As a side note, many SIG-Sauer pistols of the past few decades have stamped metal slides, at least in part.) Here we see the genesis of the gas-delay concept. The arm was tested against the emerging Walther blowback design and the trials led to the rejection of double-action triggers and a petition that a breech opening delay be employed in the designs.

By using a form of delayed blowback, expensive and time-consuming manufacturing steps could be eliminated and the pistol would still be able to fire full-powered service ammunition. Remember that at the time, pistols such as the Luger and the P-38 were machined and well-engineered pieces of equipment. It was radical to think of making firearms in any other manner.

The approach in which the Mauser worked was to be expected: part of the gas propelling the bullet seeped through ports in the barrel to impinge on the inner surfaces of the slide. It featured a fixed barrel and a lift-off slide like those of many Walthers and the magazine was from the standard P-38 pistol. A long non-rifled bore extension was fitted to the end of the barrel, presumably to increase the breech opening delay.

Had the Volkspistole project not insisted on the use of full-powered 9mm Parabellum service ammunition rather than the low-impulse 7.65mm, 9mm Kurz or sub-loaded 9mm Parabellum, it is likely the order for additional pistols could have been filled much sooner. While this would have quickened the pace, it was not, however, a viable logistical choice. Yet as time went on, it became doubtful that these pistols could be made at all.

Heckler & Koch P7 M8. Courtesy of H&K USA.

In a January 4, 1945, letter to Reichs-führer-SS Himmler, the Commanding Officer of the Replacement Army, the Staff Leader of the German Home Guard (Volkssturm) and the Commissioner for Armament and Equipment, Carl Walther Waffenfabrik acknowledged War Order Number 1005, Waffen SS for Volkspistole handguns. A few roughly-tranlated excerpts from that letter show how difficult manufacturing even People’s Pistols was becoming:

Dlask 294 with slide removed.

Manufacture of the pistol can begin only after completion of another ongoing project and when a workroom becomes available. The prescribed dates of delivery of February 1945, March 1945, etc., cannot be met. As soon as the plant completes the first project, Walther will communicate the shortest possible dates of delivery of the People’s Pistol. The raw material request of the main committee weapons Berlin is today published. Walther asks the Hauptamt-Waffen (Head Office for Weapons) that the requested iron subscription rights and sheet metal order rights are assigned as soon as possible. Job Order SS-4924 (the present project) is priority Level I. Even so, the remaining production lines thereby already have a great deal of difficulty with the procurement of materials. Walther has therefore assigned the material procurement (for the pistols) to a lower priority since sustaining the Level I project has become substantially difficult.

Aside from procuring raw materials for the pistols, several drawbacks of the design were recognized early: first, the slide/barrel contact point necessitated rather close tolerances or the gas would escape, making it a blowback, something it was not designed to be. Second, gas residue soon fouled the inner wall and plugged the gas port and required constant cleaning. Third, there was a risk of case warping, splits and rim separations since the bolt was moving backward while the case was still expanding against the chamber wall by gas pressure.

From an engineering viewpoint, overcoming the last problem was achieved by fluting the chamber: thin grooves were cut longitudinally from in front of the case mouth to about one third of the case length from its base. Fluting allowed high-pressure gas to flow outside the case and thus float it on a layer of gas, thus reducing friction during the initial motion of the bolt. The fluting procedure prevented the cartridge case from sticking to the walls of the chamber on extraction but as a result, the mechanism became fouled black after firing.

The evolved gas-delayed blowback worked well in pistol form and even work with the stalwart 7.92mm Pist. Patr. 43 intermediate rifle round flying at over 2100 fps!

VG 1-5 SEMI-AUTOMATIC CARBINE

The German gas-delayed blowback VG 1-5 semi-automatic rifle was included within the Primitiv-Waffen-Programm and was intended for the Volkssturm troops. The chronicle of the VG 1-5, a carbine made at Gustloff Werke (Suhl), is rather elusive because few actual weapon specimens survived the war and many documents concerning it were destroyed. Few exist in private or public collections and they are both rare and expensive. A DEWAT non-functioning war trophy was at one time put on auction with a minimum bid of $10,000.

Uncovering information about the VG 1-5 is not easy. Inquiries sent to Suhl, the factory that originally built the VG 1-5, regarding the carbine passed through many hands before Elke Weiß, representative of the Suhler Jagd- und Sportwaffen GmbH weapons firm wrote me: All materials about military guns and materials that were produced during the war in the Gustloff Werke were destroyed after the war. Since 1948 hunting guns and rifles have been produced in the former Gustloff Werke – now Suhler Jagd – und Sportwaffen GmbH so that we do not have a close connection with (the) military.

VG 1-5. Note clamshell design constructed from two stamped halves. Photo by the author.

On that same note, details about the Volkspistolen are equally hard to find. Mauser-Werke Oberndorf Waffensysteme GmbH wrote: As far as prewar products are concerned, we have to inform you that all documentation has been destroyed or dismantled...after WWII.

There ends the conventional trail. How could one find out more? What is known is that the VG 1-5 can be termed in various ways: Selbstladegewehr, Volkssturmgewehr 1-5, Selbstladekara-biner, Volkssturm-Maschinenpistole 45, Gustloffvolkssturmgewehr, Volkssturm-Selbstladegewehr, Gustloff-Werke, Selbstlader mit Kurzpatrone 44, as well as the Versuchgerät 1-5. Note that Volkssturm weapons were never adopted or given official nomenclature. The customary term Volksgewehr was applied by the Germans as a general reference and the various other names were conceived after the war.

Originally, the Volkssturm drew the greater part of its weapons from materiel captured by the Wehrmacht, but soon that supply was exhausted. In response, German industry exhibited remarkable resourcefulness by manufacturing serviceable weapons from basic materials and eminently uncomplicated production techniques. Machining and heat treating were kept to a bare minimum and steel tubing and sheet metal with welding, pins and rivets were used for component assembly.

The alternate weapons program was inaugurated to field basic should arms chambered for both 7.92x57mm long cartridge and the 7.92x33mm Kurz (short) cartridges. The designs covered single shot and magazine-fed bolt action rifles and semi-automatic carbines.

Early development efforts peaked during the autumn of 1944 and the weapons were demonstrated to Adolf Hitler during November 1944, according to Germany’s Minister of Production Albert Speer. Among the models demonstrated to the dictator was a delayed blowback semi-automatic firing the Kurz cartridge, with a 30-round magazine, from the Gustloff Werke, Suhl.

Karl Barnitzke, the chief draftsman at Gustloff Werke, designed the VG 1-5 to feature a barrel permanently assembled, or mated, to the receiver. A sheet metal design, the receiver was formed in two halves like a clam shell and then welded together. Enclosing the barrel and extending behind it over the receiver was a thick-walled, machine-operating cylinder (.175-thick, 15.5-long steel tube, approximately 1.420" in diameter). At its front, the cylinder was sealed by a long cylindrical collar. To the rear, a half-cylindrical bolt was pinned directly to the long cylinder and a recoil spring is placed around the barrel.

The operating cylinder reciprocated and impelled the bolt with it. Following firing, normal blowback action began until the combustion gas escaped through four radial gas ports in the barrel 2.5 inches behind the muzzle to act upon the forward cylinder collar. This gas was trapped in the space created by the operating cylinder collar and the barrel. The gas pushed forward against the collar and rearward against the shoulder of the barrel. After one inch of rearward travel, the ports were exposed and normal blowback action continued. Loading was accomplished by the returning recoil spring.

After inspecting each expedient firearm, Hitler forsook all single shot models and then inspected the VG 1-5. He indicated that the VGs should have had a magazine of about 10 rounds to promote prone position shooting. The longer 30-round MP44 magazine was not to be used in the rifles. Hitler eventually discounted the Gustloff self-loading model altogether due to its expense, excessive ammunition consumption and because the MP44 assault rifle was already in production with about the same use of material and cost.

Assuredly, while serviceable, the VG 1-5 was never highly regarded compared to the MP44. Only about 10,000 of these semi-automatic carbines were manufactured for civilian resistance use during the war. Today, the VG 1-5 is exceedingly rare and is principally found only in noted arms museums. This writer was fortunately enough to examine the specimen held by the National Infantry Museum at Fort Benning, Georgia.

There is very little information relative to the field performance of the VG 1-5, but it is taken for granted that it suffered from the most typical problem of all gas-delayed blowbacks – jamming due to fouling. There is one performance report, however, worth noting. Out of Headquarters, Communications Zone, ETOUSA (European Theater of Operations, USA), Office of the Chief Ordnance Officer, came a report from a Col. H. N. Toftoy. In ETO ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE REPORT NO. 292 of May 24 of 1945, Col. Toftoy says:

The design of the weapons indicates its purpose. Though crudely made it could be turned out in great numbers quickly and cheaply to arm the Volksturm [sic]. Its performance is rather poor both in functioning and easy of firing. In the three clips fired (90 rounds), seven jams were cleared. The weapon should not be fired from the hip for powder residue blows upward from the ports in the slide.

The VG 1-5 was machined to somewhat close tolerances in order to seal in the gas. However, unless the surfaces were habitually cleaned and carefully lubricated, the combined effect of accumulating gas residue and barrel expansion would sporadically cause the weapon to jam. Yet the VG 1-5 did work. Needless to say, the trigger pull, sighting system and consequent accuracy were less than could be desired.

POST WAR DEVELOPMENTS

Much has changed since some of the first German designs were field tested, and today the wartime method of breech locking, i.e., using expanding cartridge gas to delay a blowback action, has become generally accepted, appreciated and even sought out by sportsmen, police and military forces alike.

Following the war, gas-delayed blowback rifles were generally abandoned but other forms of delayed blowback firearms were attempted, all of which used WWII German technology and experience in one form or another. Early post-war delayed blowback systems from Spain, Switzerland and France have used roller-locking systems housed in stampings. The wartime innovation of chamber fluting is more recently evident in the modern French 5.56mm bullpup rifle and within the German G3/HK33/MP5 family.

The gas-delayed blowback pistol design has continued with several modern entries. When applied to sidearms, these gas designs have proven effective. More modern gas pistols include the Rogak P-18, the related but better Austrian Steyr Model GB, the German Heckler & Koch P7 variants, the Dlask 294, Network Custom Guns’ M1911 drop-in gas gun conversion kit and assembled pistols, the Heritage Manufacturing Stealth pistols and their Wilson Combat cousins, the South African Du Plessis ADP and Vektor pistols, and the Chinese Norinco M20/M77B series. These designs, for the most part, will safely fire 9x19mm submachinegun ammunition, 9mm+P, and the hotter .40 S&W rounds.

What is common in each of these designs is how the design engineers overcame problems with reliability. The aforementioned drawbacks of gas-delayed designs were mastered in various ways, including fluted chambers, an insistence on jacketed ammunition (never lead bullets), and precise, quality manufacturing – something impossible during the later years of WWII.

Steyr-Daimler-Puch, widely known for its heavy machinery and firearms, first began its own studies into gasdelayed blowback pistols in the late sixties as a possible replacement for the Austrian military’s aging P-38 and FN Hi Power pistols. Yet Steyr was not a newcomer in this field of research, having participating in the Volkssturm weapons development initiative during the final months of World War II.

The result of the firm’s research and testing was the GB – Gas Bremse, or Gas Brake, which featured a double-stacked magazine with an amazing 18-round capacity. Following manufacturing lessons from WWII, the GB possesses a frame that is made by welding two halves together. The resulting product is somewhat large compared to other 9mm pistols but, owing to its fixed barrel, is highly accurate.

In many respects, the GB is akin to the VG 1-5 rifle and it follows closely the construction and concept of the Mauser Volkspistole: it traps a small amount of gas from the barrel to channel it against the interior of the slide. Unlike most other gas guns, the GB has a conventional double-action trigger system.

The gas-delayed blowback design, depending on who made it, could be deemed as either the cutting edge or mere junk. You see, America was the initial testing ground for the GB. But before Steyr began building and marketing the GB, America’s Les Rogak, a Steyr importer, put the design into production during the 1970s. In a manufacturing firm called L.E.S. or Rogak, Inc., out of Morton Grove, Illinois, Rogak brought the blueprints alive. The stainless steel Rogak P-18 featured an 18-shot capacity, as its name suggests, and a gas-delayed blowback action that appeared at first to workable and easy to manufacture.

American tastes at the time, however, did not favor 9mm pistols. Compound this with what some would suggest was less than ideal workmanship, and the P-18 was doomed to failure.

What really killed the P-18 was that its gas-delayed action was not well-suited to the 9mm Parabellum. Remember that a tight seal is required within the slide to keep the gas in and the blowback action delayed. If this cannot be achieved, all you have is a blowback pistol. The 9mm is not well suited for this arrangement.

There were attempts to salvage the P-18. These included adding fibre buffers around the barrel and relying on the strong return spring. As a result, the pistol became ammunition-sensitive and was known to jam.

In all fairness, most firearms go through a period of testing and modification, and sometimes new designs are not perfect from the outset. The P-18 was not perfect, but harsh reviews did not promote consumer confidence. Steyr, a company built on its good reputation, took legal action to stop the production of P-18s. Still, about 2,300 guns were built. Steyr, meanwhile, continued its work on the development of its GB back in Austria. Learning from the P-18 experience, the Steyr design reworked almost of the parts but, more importantly, focused on the male gas sealing bushing to ensure the pistol would be gas-delayed.

By 1980, Steyr’s carbon steel GB-80 was introduced. The frame was made of two steel haves welded together, a technique first used by Nazi builders. The pistol had a chrome-lined, polygonally-rifled barrel. It was quicker to build than the Rogak by far, but workmanship did not suffer. The end product was beginning to win domestic military support, and in 1983 it looked like the GB would win a 25,000-pistol Austrian government contract – at least until a wild card was thrown in: Gaston Glock had his own plans for that contract.

Undaunted, Steyr turned to the United States XM9 military