An M1 Garand’s serial number dates the receiver and nothing else. Read the maker and serial from the receiver heel, match the serial against the published production ranges to get a year, then read the barrel date separately. On a rifle that was never rebuilt the two sit within the same production window. On most…

A Pre-B is a CZ 75 built before the firing pin block was added to the slide. The quickest test is to look inside the slide for the plunger that block requires, but from the outside the usual tells are a rounded trigger guard, a spur hammer, and on the earliest guns frame rails that…

Three marks place almost any Luger. The stamp over the chamber gives the year, the marking on the centre toggle link gives the maker, and the serial number on the front of the frame ties the whole pistol together. Everything else on the gun — eagles, crowns, letters, small two-digit numbers — is a proof,…

Yes. Old Steel Arsenal sells surplus and collectible firearms at a fixed price. There is no bidding, no proxy bid to set, and no auction clock. The price on the listing is the price you pay, and the gun ships insured to your FFL. You are trading the chance of a bargain for a number…

Almost every Mosin-Nagant answers three questions on one small patch of steel: who built it, when, and what has happened to it since. The factory logo and the year are stamped together on the barrel shank, just ahead of the receiver. A five-pointed star with an arrow inside it is Tula. An arrow inside a…

The P228 is the compact one. Set the two side by side and the P228 has a visibly shorter slide and barrel, a shorter grip frame, and a 13-round magazine against the P226’s 15. Both are the same double-action SIG Sauer design in 9x19mm, and West German examples of either carry a two-letter date code…