http://www.Patreon.com/ForgottenWeapons
Hammer price: $2,500
The 1880s saw a brief explosion of experimental manually-operated repeating handguns, mostly throughout Europe. The most common weapon of this type known in the US is the Volcanic pistol, forerunner to the Winchester lever-action rifles. In Germany and Austria, however, a bunch of different guns of this type were developed.
The one we are looking at today is a Berger, dating from 1880/1881. Unlike most of these guns, it could be described as a double action mechanism – a single rearward trigger pull runs the complete loading/firing/ejecting cycle. In most manually operated handguns, the rearward pull loads and fires, while a forward push of the trigger extracts and ejects the fired case (much like a lever-action rifle).
At Forgotten Weapons I think the most interesting guns out there are the most obscure ones. I try to search out experimental and prototype weapons and show you how they work, in addition to more conventional guns that you may not have heard of before. You’re much more likely to find a video on the Cei Rigotti or Webley-Fosbery here than an AR or Glock. So, do you want to learn about something new today? Then stick around!