Gun Stories Season 5: Episode Guide & Ratings

Sam Colt — genius, huckster, snake oil salesman and one of the inventors of the modern world. His revolving pistols changed firearms and warfare forever, and his percussion revolvers remain with us, ageless beauty matched with relentless killing efficiency.

Maybe it was the movie DR. NO or THE LONGEST DAY, but what first catches your eye about the Bren Gun, the iconic British light machine gun of World War 2, is that it is upside down, with the curved magazine sticking out the top instead of the bottom. But whichever way you looked at it, the Bren is one of the most successful machine guns in the history of warfare. Ask any “Brenner,” as its operators were called.

Maybe the most famous gun advertisement in the world, “Do Or Die,” has a huge grizzly bearing down on a cowboy armed not with a lever action carbine, but a semiauto rifle; the Remington Model 8 was ushering in a new era in hunting rifle technology.

One of the most amazing things about the history of warfare is how many of the most fearsome weapons were created by men who felt their inventions would end war. Alfred Nobel and his work with gunpowder and explosives, Hiram Maxim’s machine gun, and before them all, Richard Jordan Gatling and his “terrible marvel,” the gun that bore his name.

A little more than 150 years ago, the guns of the Union and Confederate forces finally fell silent after five years of what would be described by both sides as hell on earth. The Civil War fundamentally changed America, and the arms of the Civil War fundamentally changed warfare.

When Confederate canons opened fire on Ft. Sumter near Charleston, neither the North nor the South were prepared for war. Indeed, neither side understood the great bloodletting they were entering. The Civil War changed not only America, but warfare itself. And for the largely agricultural South, they started from behind when it came to firearms.

Imagine an inexpensive and well tested device than can make shooting any gun safer, reduce recoil by as much as a third and eliminate the single the biggest problem in all of shooting, the flinch. Now imagine that you can’t buy this amazing device without the permission of the federal government. In this episode we’re talking, very quietly, about silencers.

They buck and they roar and they twist in your hands like fire-breathing dragon. You can feel the recoil all the way up to your shoulders. Big bore handguns are probably the greatest challenge in all the shooting sports. But today’s generation of handgun hunters have not just tamed those fire-breathing dragon,but brought them to heel.

There is something quintessentially American about the Sharps rifle, a direct line back to the Civil War and the opening of the West. More importantly, Christian Sharps’ invention is quite simply a better mousetrap, and the world did indeed beat a path to his door.

As shooters and hunters, we’re very familiar with the modern centerfire cartridge. The cartridge seems to be a study in simplicity; a metallic case that holds the powder and the bullet fired by primer in the base of the case. Simple…but getting to that simplicity is nothing short of one of the most fascinating stories in history.

After the ingenuity of the matchlock and wheellock, the next steps in ignition systems seem to solve all of the short comings earlier designs faced. The flintlock and percussion cap were on the horizon, ending with what would become the modern cartridge.

“It’s always fun until someone puts out an eye”. If you say the word air gun, that’s probably the first thing to cross your mind. But air guns have always been tools more than toys. Tools for hunting. Tools for target shooting. Tools for war. In fact, air guns may be the most unique gun story of all.