A beautiful gun!
Here are some samples of the
educational displays presented by UGCA members.
We hope you enjoy them. Part of the pleasure of
gun collecting is learning about the historical, technical, and artistic
features associated with firearms. Gun shows provide members, and
the general public, a chance to appreciate these aspects.
If you are interested in
guns, we invite you to join UGCA.
Membership benefits include
for free admission to all UGCA shows, reduced table rates, and a great
newsletter.
Click
here for membership information and application
Copyright 2008 by Utah Gun Collectors Association. All rights reserved. Box 711161, Salt Lake City, UT 84171
Let's go to the UGCA gun show!
Lots of people bring old guns or related items to our
show for free appraisals or to sell. Maybe you want to do this at the
next show.
If you do not bring a gun, maybe you can leave with one.
We usually give away a great door prize.
The happy winner from this show received this high quality
replica of the famous Colt Model 1851 Navy revolver.
[No photo available of the winner this time.]
Now- on to the Great Displays!
Click on the title to go directly
to one of these displays or enjoy scrolling down the page to see them all.
Colt Gatling Gun Model 1883 (Best of Show and People's Choice Award Winner)
Ray brought his beautiful 1883 Colt Gatling gun, plus a load of related accessories and goodies.
Many collectors recognize the name Jim Severn, a famous California dealer. Ray got the gun from Severn about 40 years ago. Sever, had gotten the gun many years before that from the famous "Island Arsenal" of Francis Bannerman.
A beautiful gun!
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Left- Various types of ammunition used by Gatling guns, and various types of magazines used, mainly box types with small capacity, compared to the large capacity Accles feed drum mounted on the gun.
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Left- Beautiful markings carefully engraved. Right the feed cover opened up.
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The Gatling is fired by turning a crank which rotates the barrel assembly. As everything rotates, cams in the breech draw the bolts back extracting a fired case, a new round drops into place, and the bolt goes forward and locks and the firing pin is released to fire the round, and then the bolt is drawn to the rear again. Normally the crank is mounted on the side for gear driven rotation of the barrels. For extremely high rates of fire it can be attached to the rear for "direct drive" speeds.
Lots of people collect Colts, but very few have one of these fine old Colt guns!
Removing one of the ten bolts for maintenance.
A Gatling gun bolt.
Brad's U.S. Krag Collection & Accoutrement (Second Place Award Winner)
This is the FIRST TIME that Brad has ever had a table at a gun show! Obviously he has been to a couple of them to acquire this VERY impressive and complete collection of U.S. Krag-Jorgensen rifles, carbines, bayonets and related items. People really enjoyed seeing these, and he had a lot of fun sharing his collecting interests with others.
Some Krag rifles
And every type of Krag carbine
The rest of the Krag rifle models.
An ultra scarce 1894 dated Krag bayonet with BLUED blade!
One of the rare Krag "Bowie" bayonets, a standard bayonet and various types of Krag ammunition.
My Breechloading Sharps Single Shot Pistols & Pistol Carbines (Third Place Award Winner)
Linda has been working hard to get all the variations of this very rare series of Sharps breechloading single shot pistols and carbines (built on pistol size actions). Besides being rare, these are in exceptional condition and a real treat for collectors to see, and learn from. .
Linda taking a break from her Show Chairman job behind some of her guns.
(The photographer did not get enough good photos to do justice to this fine collection- and we apologize!)
One of the pistols and carbines.
A beautiful example of the 1st Model Sharps pistol, 2nd variation, small frame which used a .33 caliber paper cartridge.
And if the guns are scarce, just try finding the correct bullet mold,
cartridges, pellet primers and tape primers for them!
Hunting Weapons (Special Award Winner)
The amazing young lady who brought out this outstanding display of hunting weapons was honored with a special award for her contributions to arms collecting! She has been a great supporter of the Utah Gun Collectors Association, and a wonderful friend to its members. She is always helping others and sharing her vast knowledge of all sorts of arms, as well as a very wide range of other topics! The club was proud to present her with a special award for her many contributions, and she shared some of her collecting philosophy with us. Thank You!!
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A great display, enjoyed by all!
Insurance: Early Self Defense Guns (Judges' Choice Award
Winner)
Rusty D. collects air guns that many people used as kids. Here is part of his impressive display.
The need for “SELF DEFENSE” existed from the beginning of time. Firearms in this display we needed when door locks, shuttered windows or a gentleman’s persuasion failed. The sheer inventiveness of “multi-fire” firearms would appear to be unthinkable given the period in which they were made. The best single shot flintlock or percussion gun occasionally misfired. Sometimes the Good Guys missed on the first shot, or there were more than one Bad Guy. There would be no time to reload. So, LET EVERY MAN BE ARMED! |
A sword- with a pistol built in!
Top- a combination pistol-hatchet. Bottom center is a brass barrel three shot flintlock pistol.
Also shown are three four barrel flintlock pistols and three six shot percussion pepperbox pistols.
"Feeling lucky, punk?"
Several two shot pistols and a combination pistol-knife.
The three objects at the bottom are bullet molds with other tools built into the handles.
Two flintlock blunderbuss pistols and a percussion revolver, all with attached knife/dagger/bayonet blades.
Winchester Takedowns
Many of the fine Winchesters (most invented by local boy genius John M. Browning in his shop a few miles from the location of our show) were offered in a "Takedown" version as a special order option. This fine exhibit featured a number of these scarce guns. We especially appreciate Russ bringing these some 350 miles from home, on a very snowy weekend to share with fellow collectors.
A really GREAT gun! The only known Winchester Model 1885 single shot "High Wall" with two factory barrels. One is .38-55 smoothbore, and the other is 20 Gage shotgun. You can see the sort of interrupted screw thread which was common to most of the takedown rifles.
A handsome Model 1894 (top) and Model 1886 takedown rifle.
Model 1886 Winchesters
Greg is another dedicated collector who braved the long trek in the snow to share his great collection. Thanks!
A little bit of beautiful!
PRETTY guns! Note that the top one is a takedown model!
Old German Style Single Shot Rifles, and Zimmerschuetzens (Indoor rimfire target rifles)
Gaylord, Gary, and the Utah Schuetzen Society shared an impressive display of fine old target rifles. Besides being collectors,they are shooters and use these fine rifles in competition!
SOme great rifles for a very specialized shooting sport.
But, wait! There are more!
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Part of their incredible accuracy comes from carefully reloaded ammunition.
Left- tools to clean the fired case, and right a mold to cast special "ring stop" bullets.
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A special tool to remove the Berdan style primers and reprime the cases, and a precision powder measure.
Naval Artifacts and the Gentleman
Jerry showed some really interesting items, in a rather eclectic theme.
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Left- Naval items and right items of Gentlemen.
Indian Artifacts of the Great Basin and Southwest
Gilmer and Loring are our Native American experts and shared this amazing group of items (legally recovered, we must point out).
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Some very fine old Western arms and accessories!
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Some of the nice rifles in this informative display.
Cleaning and Repair of U.S. Military Small Arms
John brought out a huge variety of gear used to clean and repair small arms at the individual, unit and depot level, dating from the flintlock era up to the present. Some were familiar to many people but most were totally unknown to collectors who visited this display.
Examples of Civil War Muskets
Dave shared this nice group of muskets that he uses in his living history programs teaching kids about guns and history.
Groups that support the shooting sports and gun collectors ...
We were glad to have reps from the National Rifle Association, the Wahsatch Shooters Association and the Veterans of Foreign Wars with us for this show.
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Costume Contest Winners
We were proud to recognize our costume contest winners (left to right) Shane McCann (WW2 D-Day Infantry); Heidi McCann (WW2 Women's Army Corps) and Ben Johnson (WW2 Paratrooper).
We apologize that photos were not available for all of the displayers. We will try to get everyone next time!