Forgotten Weapons

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This is a community dedicated to discussion around historical arms, mechanically unique arms, and Ian McCollum's Forgotten Weapons content. Posts requesting an identification of a particular gun (or other arm) are welcome.

https://www.youtube.com/@ForgottenWeapons

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/

Rules:

1) Treat Others in a Civil Manner. This is not the place to deride others for their race, sexuality, or etc. Personal insults of other members are not welcome here. Neither are calls for violence.

2) No Contemporary Politics Historical politics that influenced designs or adoption of designs are excluded from this rule. Acknowledgement of existing laws to explain designs is also permissable, so long as comments aren't in made to advocate or oppose a policy. Let's not make this a place where we battle over which color ties our politicians should have, or the issues of today.

3) No Advertising This rule doesn't apply to posting historical advertisements or showing more contemporary ads as a means of displaying information on an appropriate topic. The aim of this rule is to combat spam/irrelevant advertising campaigns.

4) Keep Post on Topic This rule will be enforced with leeway. Just keep it related to arms or Forgotten Weapons or closely adjacent content. If you feel you have something that's worth posting here that isn't about either of those (and doesn't violate other rules) feel free to reach out to a mod.

5) No NSFW Content Please refrain from posting uncensored extreme gore or sexualized content. If censored these posts may be fine.

Post Guide Lines

These are suggestions not rules.

-Provide a duration for videos. eg. [12:34]

-Provide a year to either indicate when a specific design was produced, patented, or released. If you have an older design being used in a recent conflict provide the year the picture was taken. Dates should be included to help contextualize, not necessarily give exact periods.

-Post a full URL, on mobile devices it can be hard to tell what you're clicking on if you only see "(Link)".

-Posts do not have to be just firearms. Blades, bows, etc. are also welcome.

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A Steam Punk Pistol - 1896 Bittner (lemmy.world)

submitted 9 months ago by FireTower@lemmy.world to c/forgottenweapons@lemmy.world

3 comments fedilink hide all child comments

One of the very last, most common, and best looking of the Austrian manually operated pistols is the Bittner. Designed by Gustav Bittner in 1893 and going into production in 1896 (the known examples were proofed in 1897 and 1898)... Several hundred were made; possibly as many as 500. They were produced for the civilian market only, with an option for a fancy presentation case. The Bittner was the last gasp of the manually operated pistol, as successful self-loaders like the C96 Mauser were being introduced alongside it.

Note that the numbers often found on the bottom of the barrel are not serial numbers – they are Vienna proof house sequential numbers. The actual Bittner serial numbers are stamped on the inside of the frame, visible only after removing the side plate.

Ian's video: [9:52] https://youtu.be/lXHXXbAJ-lE?si=

https://www.forgottenweapons.com/1896-bittner-the-most-beautiful-steampunk-pistol/

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[–] tacosanonymous@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

It looks like the inspiration of some Star Wars blaster.

I love the aesthetic design.

[–] Boinkage@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

What is the rounded cage thing in front of the trigger for? Is that entire thing just for the spring pushing the bullets up? Seems like there are more space-efficient ways to engineer that...

[–] JenTheWyvern@lemm.ee 4 points 9 months ago

So it's a manually cycled firearm, think of it more like a lever action rifle, where the lever is that big ring. As for the big follower, yeah box magazines weren't completely figured out yet, and this thing took end bloc clips. Gotta remember this was over 120 years ago, and these were all still hand fitted firearms, so it would look a little silly to the modern eye.