Surplus Collectible

Taurus USA has acquired Heritage Manufacturing, Inc. of Opa Locka, Florida. Terms of the transaction are undisclosed.

With apologies to Chet Atkins, a guitar string makes a fine substitute when you need a replacement spring in a hurry.

The Model 1897 was a slide-action shotgun designed for the new smokeless powder when it was introduced more than a century ago. According to the Winchester Collector website, Winchester made more than 1 million 1897s, with production from 1897 to 1957. Replacing the Model 1893, the 1897 was offered in 12 gauge with a 30-inch barrel until 1899 in solid frame or takedown. The 16 gauge was introduced in 1900. Oregon-based “elkman” has a Winchester Model 97 16 gauge 2 3/4-inch-chamber pump-action shotgun listed for sale in Auction #10999652.

The market for 22s that feel like big-bore guns continues to grow as shooters seek to cut ammo cuts but maintain proficiency. One of the guns in this segment is a triple-named semiauto listed in Featured Auction #10989722 by “JacktheDog.”

The AF2011-A1 Double Barrel Pistol is the first industrial double-barrel semiautomatic pistol that the GunReports.com staff can recall. The original idea came to Swiss armourer Vivian Mueller about ten years back, who at the time cut and welded together multiple parts of the famous Sig P210. The result was a long slide, double barrel 9mm, highly decorated collector piece, which indeed shot very well.

GunReports.com presents the work of The Warsaw Pact Panel, a group of field operatives who examine and test-fire five of the most popular variants of the AK-47, the Number One Battle Rifle in the World.

Gun Tests Contributing Editor Roger Eckstine takes a quick look at the Thompson 1927A-1 Deluxe Pistol TA5100D.

Uberti’s Cattleman with a 3.5-inch barrel differs little from what other manufacturers refer to as a Sheriff’s model. In fact, without a good look at the bore, you can’t tell it apart from Cimarron’s New Sheriff. Moreover, the guns are closely related in areas other than configuration and caliber. The box our Cimarron Thunderer came in had an Aldo Uberti sticker on it covered unabashedly by a Cimarron sticker. We have heard that the parts for many of today’s cowboy guns are made in Italy by Uberti and assembled by differ- ent companies.

Remington Arms Company and its parent, Freedom Group, Inc. (FGI), are pleased to announce that the board of directors has appointed Robert L. Nardelli as Chief Executive Officer.

The History Channel compares the M14 and M16 rifles.

While some people are struggling to explain a gun buying surge reported on 'Black Friday,' the day after Thanksgiving, the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms suggests there are several plausible explanations, all reflecting the times in which we live.

Shortly after 1900, John Moses Browning took his idea for an autoloading shotgun to the U.S. Patent Office after parting ways with the Winchester Gun Co. The relationship ended when Winchester president T.G. Bennett wanted nothing to do with an "automatic.

Gathering his prototypes from the drafting room, Browning left Winchester to make an appointment to see Marcellus Hartley, president of Remington Arms Co. Over the phone, he received an enthusiastic response, so a meeting was set up to show Remington his wares. Sitting in Hartley's office, Browning was told that the president of Remington Arms Co. had died of a heart attack that very morning. Lacking any potential American manufacturers with the means to produce his newly created semiautomatic shotgun, Browning began the search elsewhere.

The famous firearms manufacturer, Fabrique Nationale d'Armes de Guerre, located at Herstal, Liege, Belgium, was waiting with open arms. By the end of 1961 alone, F.N. had produced 1,377,785 of the Model A-5 shotguns. Remington Arms produced approximately 300,000 of its Model 11, and Savage Arms produced thousands of the Model 720, with very little variance from the original design, under license from the F.N. factory. These shotguns are but three of Browning's legacies, and because of the numbers that were produced, you may run across them in your gunsmithing adventures.