Harrington & Richardson Reising Model 55 Folding Stock Sub-Machine Gun
“United Defense Supply Company” Model UD-42 Submachine Gun
Remington Arms Model 8 Semi-Automatic Rifle with Extended Magazine
Winchester Model 52C Target Rifle with Telescopic Sight
Mmmmm
This machine kills fascists… and then doesn’t turn around, break up your agrarian land collective, throw you in a gulag and have you summarily executed.
I’ve met a lot of anarchists who have this weird thing for old Soviet guns, ostensibly because if they were produced in the correct time period then they were used to kill fascists of the old Nazi type.That’s all well and fine, but I guess I’m picky because I don’t think that detail makes it worth it for me to want an old Mosin Nagant. The Soviet regime sucked, period.
Enter the pistol “F Ascaso (Terrassa)” manufactured by CNT affiliated anarchists during the Spanish Civil War. It’s a copy of the also locally produced Astra 400, a simple and sturdy blow-back gun firing the 9mm Largo round (similar to 9mm Para but longer). On the top of the barrel is marked “F Ascaso”, for Francisco Ascaso Abadía, who was a famous anarchist during the period leading up to the civil war.“In early 1934 he was appointed general secretary of the Regional Committee of the CNT of Catalonia. Defense Committee Member Confederal of Catalonia, at the outbreak of military insurrection in Barcelona July 19, 1936 took charge of CNT militants who took to the streets to fight the military and died on July 20 at the site the headquarters of the shipyards. His death made him a hero and his hectic life very soon acquired mythical aura for international anarchist militancy.”
Nowadays the CNT is mostly associated with old-school, often boring syndicalism, meaning strikes and arbitration for concessions to workers. So it’s kind of interesting to remember that back in the day they were in it to win it, and they needed to build guns in order to have any chance of winning it.
So if I’m going to be buying any firearms for their historical significance it’s probably going to be one of these, and not something manufactured by Stalinists. While they are hard to find in the states (only a handful were brought here in the 1930s by returning volunteers with the Abraham Lincoln Brigades), if you can find one you can still probably buy it for something in the $500 range, mostly because the general public is clueless about their history, and probably wouldn’t care that much anyway. Of course… I CALL DIBS!
Gold-washed Tranter revolver
Ok the editing around this to get rid of the text that was there sucks, I know. But that fucking revolver is exquisite. I need to figure out exactly which model it is… almost certainly a Dean, Adams & Dean variant.
This is what a revolver should look like. Unmarked British percussion with 6 1/4” .barrel.
That’s right… a fucking crossbow pistol. “Probably German. Approximately .41 caliber. Barrel is a swamped brass hexagon type and is 5 1/2” long.”
