Surplus Collectible

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.

There's something about shotguns that brings out the worst in otherwise knowledgeable people. A vast majority of shooters don't even know how to get and keep barrels clean and shiny. Even fewer have any idea about shotgun sights and their use. Still, solving these and other problems are intimidating to the novice, yet there is nothing to most of the jobs after overcoming the initial mystique of these jobs. The easiest are removing slight surface rust from barrels and polishing shotgun bores. Installing sights that will really help the shooter also fall into the easy job category. We will cover these here in enough depth for you to take on any of these jobs comfortably.

NSSF's Dave Miles takes a look at the popular and rapidly growing sport of three-gun shooting with Tom Fuller of Bushnell during the AR15.com/Rockcastle 3-gun Pro AM held at Rockcastle Shooting Center at Park Mamoth Resort in Park City, KY.

John Browning's last lever action design for Winchester made it to production in 1895. In this GunTec presentation Larry Potterfield, Founder and CEO of MidwayUSA, examines a Winchester Model 1895 Lever Action Rifle chambered in 30 Army. The gun used in this production features a 28 inch barrel, 5 round box magazine, straight grip stock, and a crescent buttplate. It has a steel bead front sight and a Lyman adjustable receiver sight. This model was made from 1895 to 1931 with over 400,000 produced.

Watch as Larry Potterfield, Founder and CEO of MidwayUSA, demonstrates the basic safety and operational features of revolvers.

(GunReports.com) -- Watch as Larry Potterfield, Founder and CEO of MidwayUSA, demonstrates the basic safety and operational features of pump, semi-automatic and break-open shotguns.

(GunReports.com) -- One of the things I stress to gun owners is to save the broken part so a gunsmith will at least have something to physically measure and copy, even if it is in pieces. I was fortunate in this instance as I had the same pistol and could remove and measure the part so that I could reproduce it.

(GunReports.com) -- Kevin Winkle of GunReports.com interviews Phil Schrier, senior curator of the National Firearms Museum at the NRA Annual Meeting.

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(GunReports.com) – The NRA Foundation has accepted the donation of a unique Anniversary Model 1911 pistol from Colt’s Manufacturing Company that celebrates 100 years of the 1911.

(GunReports.com) -- New GunReports.com Videos: 1: Sig Arms Academy Director of Training and USAR Team shooting coach George Harris talks about competition shooting. What good is competition? Competition puts stress on you and teaches you how to use stress to your advantage. 2: NSSF's Ryan Cleckner explains the measurement term 'minute of angle' (MOA) and how to use MOA adjustments on your scope for sighting in and to compensate for bullet drop at varying distances. 3: Ruger's Beginner's Guide to Shooting Competitions series takes you through a variety of matches to help you find an event that's right for you. In this episode we take a close look at the biathlon rifle and how it is specialized to this specific sport. US Ski Team member Annelies Cook tells you why the biathlon rifle is so very different than anything else on the market.

Getting parts is easy, but give a quick course in reloading cartridges for the gun—modern loads are dangerous and shouldn’t be used. From American Gunsmith's Book of the Rifle.