Pistols: An Illustrated History of Their Impact

PISTOLS

Other Titles in ABC-CLIO’s

WEAPONS AND WARFARE SERIES Spencer C. Tucker, Series Editor Air Defense, Shannon A. Brown Aircraft Carriers, Hedley Paul Wilmott Ancient Weapons, James T. Chambers Artillery, Jeff Kinard Ballistic Missiles, Kev Darling Battleships, Stanley Sandler Cruisers and Battle Cruisers, Eric W. Osborne Destroyers, Eric W. Osborne Helicopters, Stanley S. McGowen Machine Guns, James H. Willbanks Medieval Weapons, James T. Chambers Military Aircraft in the Jet Age, Justin D. Murphy Military Aircraft, 1919–1945, Justin D. Murphy Military Aircraft, Origins to 1918, Justin D. Murphy Rifles, David Westwood Submarines, Hedley Paul Wilmott Tanks, Spencer C. Tucker

PISTOLS AN ILLUSTRATED HISTORY OF THEIR IMPACT

Jeff Kinard

Santa Barbara, California

Denver, Colorado

Oxford, England

Copyright 2003 by Jeff Kinard All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kinard, Jeff, 1954Pistols : an illustrated history of their impact / Jeffrey Kinard. p. cm.—(Weapons and warfare series) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-85109-470-9 (hardback : alk. paper)—ISBN 1-85109-475-X (e-book) 1. Pistols—History. I. Title. II. Series. TS537.K54 2004 623.4'432' 09—dc22 2004020415 07 06 05 04 03 02 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 This book is also available on the World Wide Web as an e-book. Visit abc-clio.com for details. ABC-CLIO, Inc. 130 Cremona Drive, P.O. Box 1911 Santa Barbara, California 93116–1911 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America

CONTENTS

Introduction to Weapons and Warfare Series, Spencer C. Tucker vii Acknowledgments

ix

chapter one Introduction

1

chapter two The Match, the Wheel, the Flint, and Steel

5

chapter three The Percussion System

49

chapter four The Metallic Cartridge and the Modern Revolver

chapter five The Semiautomatic Pistol

171

chapter six Post–World War II Developments Individual Pistol Models Glossary

375

Bibliography Index v

383

381

255 283

105

INTRODUCTION TO WEAPONS AND WARFARE SERIES

Weapons both fascinate and repel. They are used to kill and maim individuals and to destroy states and societies, and occasionally whole civilizations, and with these the greatest of man’s cultural and artistic accomplishments. Throughout history tools of war have been the instruments of conquest, invasion, and enslavement, but they have also been used to check evil and to maintain peace. Weapons have evolved over time to become both more lethal and more complex. For the greater part of man’s existence, combat was fought at the length of an arm or at such short range as to represent no real difference; battle was fought within line of sight and seldom lasted more than the hours of daylight of a single day. Thus individual weapons that began with the rock and the club proceeded through the sling and boomerang, bow and arrow, sword and axe, to gunpowder weapons such as the rifle and machine gun of the late nineteenth century. Study of the evolution of these weapons tells us much about human ingenuity, the technology of the time, and the societies that produced them. The greater part of technological development of weaponry has taken part in the last two centuries, especially the twentieth century. In this process, plowshares have been beaten into swords; the tank, for example, evolved from the agricultural caterpillar tractor. Occasionally, the process is reversed and military technology has impacted society in a positive way. Thus modern civilian medicine has greatly benefited from advances to save soldiers’ lives, and weapons technology has impacted such areas as civilian transportation and atomic power.

vii

viii

SERIES INTRODUCTION

Weapons can have a profound impact on society. Gunpowder weapons, for example, were an important factor in ending the era of the armed knight and the feudal age. They installed a kind of rough democracy on the battlefield, making “all men alike tall.” We can only wonder what effect weapons of mass destruction might have on our own time and civilization. This series will trace the evolution of a variety of key weapons systems, describe the major changes that occurred in each, and illustrate and identify the key types. Each volume begins with a description of the particular weapons system and traces its evolution while discussing its historical, social, and political contexts. This is followed by a heavily illustrated section that is arranged along chronological lines that provides more precise information on at least 80 key variants of that particular weapons system. Each volume contains a glossary of terms, a bibliography of leading books on that particular subject, and an index. Individual volumes in the series are each written by a specialist in that particular area of expertise. We hope that this series will be of wide interest to specialists, researchers, and even general readers. Spencer C. Tucker Series Editor

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am particularly grateful to Robert House of Classic Firearms in Virginia Beach, Virginia, for his expertise and advice on many of the historical and technical issues covered in this book. I am also very grateful for the guidance of the series editor, Dr. Spencer Tucker; Alicia Merritt of ABC-Clio; and Christine Marra of Marrathon Production Services. Finally, I thank my wife and son, Kelly and Luka, for their patience and support and W. P. B. Kinard for her inspiration and organizational help.

ix

PISTOLS

CHAPTER 1

Introduction

This volume traces the history of the military pistol and its place in society from the medieval period to the present. The origins of gunpowder and the firearms it made possible are obscured by time and legend. Evidence indicates that an early form of gunpowder—a mixture of sulfur, saltpeter, and ground charcoal—first appeared in China in approximately A.D. 850. Over the next few centuries the Chinese adapted the mixture to a number of lethal devices including bombs, a primitive flamethrower, and a bottle-shaped gun capable of launching large arrows. Gunpowder’s first appearance in Europe is also not well documented, but in about 1248 an English monk, Roger Bacon of Merton College, Oxford, recorded its formula in his De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae and in the 1268 Opus Majus. In a 1327 manuscript, another Englishman, Walter de Milamete, illustrated a bottle-shaped gun very similar to the Chinese model. Although the gun first appeared in China, the country’s ruling elite soon discouraged its use for fear of the potential social and military threat it posed to their authority. Europe, however, proved fertile ground for this “deadlye and horrible Engine” (O’Connell 2002: 111), and the late Middle Ages saw ever more improved firearms emerging from its blacksmith shops and armories. The first firearms were small artillery pieces but were soon followed by so-called hand cannons, capable of being operated by one person and setting the stage for the development of the musket and later the pistol. The origin of the word “pistol” is also obscure. Some sources ascribe its earlier form, pistolet, as deriving from a short knife or sword, the pistolese, produced in the Italian town of Pistoia; others ascribe its origins to the pistala, a Bohemian firearm. Still, what doc1

2

PISTOLS

uments and specimens that have survived do allow for a reasonable picture of the pistol’s evolution. As a general trend, most very early firearms were designed not as pistols but as long arms for infantry and, to a lesser degree, sporting use. The main reason for this was that pistols were most effective as weapons in the hands of mounted troops, and the early matchlocks were simply too difficult to operate from horseback. To prepare his weapon to fire, a cavalryman first had to load it at the muzzle with a charge of black powder and a large, usually lead ball, and then force the charge to the pistol’s breech with a ramrod. He then had to prime the weapon with a smaller amount of finer-grained powder stored in a separate flask. These maneuvers had to be accomplished while maintaining a burning match near highly explosive black gunpowder and taking care not to drop the rammer. As firearms eventually became more practical, gun makers began producing greater quantities of pistols for use by mounted troops and wealthy clients. The first gunsmiths were most probably skilled craftsmen who had honed their skills and reputations making edged weapons and armor. Their ability to work metal and wood translated well to the new technology, and nobles and kings soon vied to attract the most proficient gunsmiths to arm themselves and their armies. Eventually such cities as Vienna, Augsburg, Brescia, and Liège grew into major firearms manufacturing centers, with each developing distinctive regional characteristics. These early gunsmiths organized themselves in guilds, as did their counterparts in the other skilled trades. The appearance of the wheel lock in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries greatly increased the practicality of carrying the pistol on horseback. Although the wheel lock was more complicated and expensive than the matchlock, it did allow a horseman to carry a pistol loaded and ready for instant use. The wheel lock quickly changed the nature of warfare by extending the killing range of the cavalry, which had traditionally been armed with the lance and sword. More significantly, a firearm allowed a minimally trained common peasant to kill an armored knight who had spent a lifetime learning his trade. For this reason, firearms in general played a key role in the end of the concept of chivalry in combat. The wheel lock, in its more ornate forms, also took its place among finely crafted swords and daggers as an object of prestige among the aristocracy. As the wheel lock became more commonplace in society, it also became available to assassins and other criminals, prompting the world’s first antigun laws. The various flint and steel weapons such as the snaphaunce,

INTRODUCTION

miquelet, and flintlock at last established the pistol as a primary weapon in European arsenals. By the eighteenth century most European monarchies had established some form of national supply of reasonably standardized pistols, primarily for cavalry and naval use. In addition, European explorers spread firearms technology with them around the globe, sparking pistol production in Africa, India, Japan, and the Americas. The flintlock era also brought about specialized pistol designs with various models designed for not only military use but also such purposes as self-defense, target shooting, and dueling. Percussion pistols appeared in the early nineteenth century and quickly paved the way for the first truly practical repeating weapon—the revolver, its invention credited to the American Samuel Colt. The mass-produced revolver revolutionized the role of the cavalry and set the standard for pistol designs for much of the century. The revolver, on average, allowed the cavalryman, armed with a pair of pistols, some dozen or more shots before reloading, in contrast to the earlier brace of flintlocks’ two. It was thus the revolver that provided mounted troops the firepower to act as highly mobile shock troops on the battlefield. The revolver’s introduction coincided with the advent of the general use of mass-production techniques, resulting in, especially in the United States, the widest distribution of advanced personal weapons in history. Percussion revolvers saw extensive use during the U.S. Civil War but were soon replaced in that country and in Europe by pistols that utilized self-contained metallic cartridges. Metallic cartridges provided numerous advantages, including moisture-resistant ammunition as well as much faster loading. The metallic cartridge and the invention of smokeless powder then paved the way for the semiautomatic pistols that appeared in the late nineteenth century. It was yet another American, John Browning, who pioneered firearms development for a new era. His first successful semiautomatic pistols appeared in the early years of the twentieth century and served as the starting point for countless other designs and millions of copies. Even into the twenty-first century, the most advanced semiautomatics are more often than not variations on the theme Browning introduced more than a century earlier. As the military pistol has evolved, so has the debate concerning its role and effectiveness as a combat weapon. It offers the advantages of light weight, compactness, and the ability to be operated with one hand. Its detractors have, with justification, argued that the pistol’s short barrel limits its range and accuracy and that it re-

3

4

PISTOLS

quires more practice than long arms to be used effectively. These characteristics have contributed to the parallel argument concerning the suitability of the pistol to either a secondary defensive or primary offensive use. Although the debate over the actual value of the pistol as an effective combat weapon continues, pistols remain the standard personal weapons of law enforcement officers and members of all branches of the world’s armed services. Military pistols are, by definition, handguns designed specifically for use by the armed forces of various nations. The necessities of war and the caprices of personal tastes, however, have often blurred this definition, and many thousands of “civilian” pistols have seen combat over the centuries. Pistols of this type, which have been used in significant numbers (and sometimes labeled secondary martial weapons or were privately purchased by military personnel), are also included in this volume.

CHAPTER 2

The Match, the Wheel, the Flint, and Steel

THE MATCHLOCK The first personal-sized firearms were essentially scaleddown artillery pieces, hence their designation as hand cannons. Introduced in Europe around 1350, approximately 50 years after the first true cannons were developed, the earliest hand cannons were rather crude affairs. They were cumbersome muzzle-loaded weapons with a small ignition hole drilled through the top of the breech. This allowed flame to ignite their black-powder charges to fire stone, lead, and iron projectiles. The earliest ignition system consisted of a hand-held smoldering coal or length of cord (generally known as a match) that was applied to the weapon’s vent to ignite the powder charge. This system’s disadvantages—the difficulty in aiming while holding the match, its vulnerability to dampness, and the likelihood of the operator dropping the match in the heat of battle—were obvious soon after its inception. Early fifteenth-century inventors attempted to address these problems with the introduction of the matchlock. Matchlocks were the predominate firearms in Europe for roughly 250 years and were usually unadorned, functional weapons. These pistols exhibited an almost straight profile with little curve toward the butt, as in later handguns.

5

6

PISTOLS

The earliest matchlocks lacked a trigger—they were fitted with a simple cock attached to a lock plate screwed to the right side of the gun. The lock plate, a flat, plain strip of iron, provided a mounting surface for the cock and prevented wear on the wood stock. The top of the cock was split to accept a slow match consisting of a saltpeterimpregnated hemp fuse that burned at the rate of approximately 3–5 inches an hour. The operator lowered the cock and its match manually to a priming pan containing a small amount of gunpowder. A small hole drilled through the right side of the barrel next to the pan then allowed the ignited powder in the pan to discharge the main powder charge in the barrel. The typical matchlock, however, featured a sickle-shaped cock that pivoted to a simple trigger device mounted under the stock, adding greatly to the user’s ability to aim more accurately. On early weapons the pan was integral to the barrel until, in the seventeenth century, it was attached to the lock plate. The barrels were usually of iron and were either round or octagonal, although some were octagonal at the breech with the remainder round. The rear of the barrel was fitted with a breech plug that sealed the breech and was forged with a projection, or tang, through which a screw passed to secure it to the stock. The forward part of the barrel was attached to the stock by loops brazed or dovetailed to the bottom of the barrel through which pins passed through the wood. As a safety measure, later versions were fitted with a spring that held the cock clear of the pan, requiring deliberate pressure on the trigger to force the match to the pan. The trigger guard, a protective metal loop attached to the stock, also helped prevent the accidental tripping of the trigger. Under any circumstances, firing a matchlock weapon was not a pleasant experience. The cock and its smoldering match pivoted backward, toward the operator, often sending a shower of sparks and flames into his eyes and face at the ignition of the priming. Although early matchlock pistols were relatively impractical for military use, the arquebus, or matchlock musket, gradually earned its place as a viable battlefield weapon. Soldiers armed with the arquebus found that they could somewhat compensate for their weapons’ inaccuracy and slow rate of fire with massed volleys against enemy troops. The European nobility, however, met the appearance of the matchlock with considerable resistance. They correctly saw firearms as a dangerous threat to both their political and social status. Before the advent of the matchlock, Europe’s aristocracy had used their wealth and position to arm themselves as mounted

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

knights. As such, they viewed ideal combat as between opponents of relatively equal rank who followed shared concepts of chivalry. Common soldiers of the late medieval and early Renaissance periods were typically poorly armed peasants and thus of little consequence to expensively armored and mounted knights trained since youth in the art of war. In the hands of simple peasants, matchlocks, requiring only a few hours’ training, soon proved their potential to undo all of the advantages enjoyed by armored knights. Despite the widespread protests of nobility, more pragmatic and ambitious military leaders eventually incorporated firearms into their armies. During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, German innovators such as Martin Merz tended to lead their English, Austrian, Swiss, and Spanish counterparts in the perfection of the matchlock system. By 1475 Merz had combined the serpentine or S-shaped cock, a trigger, and pan with a more sophisticated lever and spring lock. One of Merz’s major contributions was to reverse the direction of the cock to lever the match forward and away from the shooter’s face. Although rarely used, this improvement significantly reduced the amount of sparks and fire that were prone to fly in the user’s face with the rearward-facing cock. Other later improvements included a cover to protect the powder from moisture and spillage, and a fence, or vertical projection behind the pan, to divert flame from the user’s face. The button lock, otherwise called the snaplock or luntenschnappsloss, also evolved during this period. It utilized a flat button trigger that when depressed activated a sear that then released the spring-activated cock. The sear of early weapons consisted of a pin that passed through the lock plate to engage a notch in the bottom front of the cock or the bottom rear of the cock, known as the toe and heel, respectively. Pressing the trigger allowed a spring to retract the sear, thus freeing the cock to lower the match. During these years, arms designers also experimented with other innovations that would be perfected in later weapons. Although mainly confined to long arms rather than pistols, the matchlock era saw the earliest attempts at sights and stabilizing spiral-grooved rifled barrels to impart spin to the bullet and improve accuracy. A 1498 document credited the Viennese gunsmith Caspar Köllner with cutting the first grooves in a gun barrel, but these were straight and not spiraled, probably indicating that they were meant to aid cleaning. Other records credit August Cotter of Nuremberg with inventing true rifling between 1500 and 1520. Early designers also experimented with revolving multiple-shot weapons as well as a crude form of breechloader. Known as chamber pieces, these early

7

8

PISTOLS

breechloaders relied on a preloaded steel tube that could be inserted into the pistol’s breech. Although used in both pistols and long arms, the chamber piece proved impractical for its time owing to the difficulty of applying it to the matchlock system. Early revolving matchlock pistols were extremely rare during their time, and few have survived. One example, probably Italian-made, features three barrels that had to be manually turned on a central axis after each discharge. Although probably originating in Germany, reliable evidence documents the production of the pressure lock, the perfected matchlock, under the direction of Cornelius Johnson of the Tower of London in 1521. Still used in many firearms designs today, the pressure lock principle combines two flat springs, a cock pivoted on an internal tumbler retained by a sear, and a trigger. Pressing the trigger depresses the sear, releasing it from a notch cut in the tumbler. This action allows the spring-activated tumbler and cock assembly to rotate forward and touch the match to the powder in the priming pan. The snaplock, a variation of the matchlock also known as the light snapping lock or tinder lock, appeared in the 1570s. Probably a German development, the snaplock was an apparent attempt to minimize the drawbacks of the exposed, glowing match. Rather than using a dangling, previously lit match, the snaplock utilized a cock that held a small tube in its jaws containing a piece of tinder or small piece of slow match that could be lighted just before action. Among the most unique of the matchlock pistols are a number of combination pistol-shields produced by the Ravenna gunsmith Giovanbattista for England’s Henry VIII’s (1509–1547) personal guard. These oddities include a small matchlock pistol, approximately caliber .38, whose barrel projects through the center of the round, richly ornamented shield. A grilled opening above the barrel allows sighting. These pistols are also chamber pieces, fed with preloaded metal tubes inserted into the hinged breech of the weapon. Possibly irked by having to import such firearms, Henry began urging foreign as well as domestic firearms makers to settle and set up shop in the Minories, a neighborhood near the Tower of London. The Minories remained an important center of the English weapons trade into the nineteenth century. Despite the many efforts to improve the matchlock system, two main defects appeared insurmountable: the vulnerability of the match to dampness and rain, and the tendency of the glowing match to reveal its location to the enemy at night. Loading was especially

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

difficult on horseback, precluding their use by cavalry, and there was the constant danger of the lit fuse in proximity to volatile black powder. If a soldier’s match went out he was forced to relight it using sparks from his tinderbox, further compounding the problem. Still, the matchlock was cheap to produce and served as the primary European firearm system for more than two centuries, even seeing wide usage after the invention of the wheel lock. Early European explorers, most notably the Portuguese, included matchlocks among their weapons in their travels to the Americas, Africa, India, and the Orient. These firelocks proved effective weapons and awed the local inhabitants with the seemingly magical powers of the newcomers. As trade increased with the Europeans, leaders in Africa, India, and the East demanded matchlocks and, as their popularity increased, ordered domestic copies be made by local craftsmen. These indigenously made matchlocks varied greatly in quality and decoration but essentially left the basic design unaltered for centuries, even into the twentieth century in some remote areas. Japanese matchlocks deserve special mention in this section. The Portuguese had introduced the matchlock to Japan in 1543 and with it a potential threat to the very basis of the country’s society. At that time the powerful samurai warrior clans had built a feudalistic culture built upon a formalized, individual form of warfare devoted to the art of swordsmanship. The lifetime of training required to become a samurai warrior necessarily excluded all but those within their own privileged ranks. The Japanese at first embraced the new and alien firearm technology but soon recognized the social and political implications posed by the new weapon. Requiring but a few hours of training, matchlocks provided mere peasant soldiers the means to defeat even the most skilled samurai. In 1637 Japan began to repress the manufacture of firearms and—in contrast to the parallel events in Europe—thus delayed the erosion of its warriornobility’s status. By the time of Commodore Matthew Perry’s arrival in Japan in 1853 the matchlock had devolved into an essentially ceremonial accessory. Still, Japanese smiths, famous as sword makers, applied their skills to making both matchlock long guns and pistols. Their pistols were essentially scaled-down versions of the longer weapons and were avidly acquired by the noble Japanese families and samurai, who often ordered their family crests inlaid in the stocks. The smiths employed many of their sword-making techniques in the barrel-making process by heating and hammering strips of metal into the final, usually octagonal, shape of the finished product. The bar-

9

10

PISTOLS

rel and stock were often finely decorated with engraving and inlays. Barrels tend to be slightly flared at the muzzle and are often fitted with both front and rear sights. The Japanese matchlock pistol displayed a rather straight profile with little downward curve at the butt and a forward-falling cock. The lock plates as well as the springs were typically made of brass— a considerable shortcoming in the case of the springs, as brass does not hold tension well and is prone to breakage. Japanese smiths also used pins rather than screws to hold the barrel and other components in place and fitted their products most often with simple button triggers. In addition to full-sized weapons, the Japanese crafted a number of miniature pistols of as little as a few inches in length for use by boys in certain festivals.

THE WHEEL LOCK The wheel lock, appearing around 1500, eliminated the match and marginally addressed the firearm’s vulnerability to damp conditions. Utilizing the same principle used in modern cigarette lighters, the operator pressed a trigger that freed a spring-actuated, serrated steel wheel. The serrated edge of the rapidly spinning wheel then (theoretically) struck against iron pyrites to create a shower of sparks that in turn ignited the powder in the priming pan. With the wheel lock, the cavalryman no longer had to worry about maintaining a lighted match and at last had a pistol that could be carried on horseback loaded, primed, and ready for use at a moment’s notice. The wheel lock, however, was both expensive to manufacture and inherently fragile to use. Only the finest, skilled craftsmen could fabricate its intricate clockwork mechanism, and it required constant repairs. These factors eliminated the wheel lock for issue to common rank-and-file troops and placed it out of the financial reach of the average citizen. But the wheel lock did infinitely increase the practicality of the pistol as a weapon for mounted troops and established the pistol as a primary cavalry weapon. As a result, the wealthiest troops in European armies of the period, members of elite cavalry units, bought wheel-lock pistols by the thousands. In addition, members of the nobility acquired highly decorated wheellock pistols as status symbols and as objets d’art. Owing to their practicality, many more wheel-lock pistols were produced than their matchlock predecessors.

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

Early sources attribute the invention of the wheel lock to various individuals. These include the German Johann Kiefuss and the renowned Renaissance figure Leonardo da Vinci, whose drawings of two wheel-lock devices are included in his Codex Atlanticus. Although these early inventors may have primarily intended to apply the principle to mechanical tinderboxes, the wheel lock soon found its way to more deadly purposes. Some of the very earliest known wheel lock pistols are combination weapons including crossbowpistols, battleaxe-pistols, as well as war hammer–pistols and swordand dagger-pistols. One particularly favorite novelty pistol of the time included a dagger blade intricately etched with a perpetual ecclesiastical calendar. With such a weapon the owner could not only defend himself but could tell the day of the week along with its appropriate saint. Although most European countries produced wheellock weapons, Germany was the largest manufacturer and exporter of complete pistols as well as individual components. German wheel locks were heavily constructed and adorned with horn inlay in the ornate baroque style of the era. The second largest exporter of fine wheel locks—Brescia, Italy—was known for pistols that tended to be lighter in weight and exhibited more restraint in decoration than their northern counterparts. The typical wheel-lock mechanism consists of a serrated steel wheel, approximately .25 inches thick, fitted into a mortise on the outside of the lock plate. Either a domed or flat external metal plate usually protects the wheel. A shaft or arbor passes through the center of the wheel and secures it to the lock plate. A short, usually three-link chain then attaches the shaft to a spring mounted internally to the front of the lock plate. The outer section of the shaft protruding through the wheel is square to accept a spanner or wrench used to tighten the chain around the internal shaft and thus compress the mainspring. When wound to the correct tension, a hole in the lock plate allows a spring-actuated sear-pin to engage a corresponding hole drilled into the inside of the wheel, thus securing the wheel in its cocked, or “spanned,” position. The top edge of the wheel protrudes through a close-fitting slot in the bottom of the priming pan to allow contact with the pyrites for ignition. Pan covers on the earliest pistols have to be manually moved aside before use, whereas later pistols are fitted with spring-actuated pan covers that automatically uncover the pan. The iron pyrites are gripped by a swiveling clamp called the doghead that is secured on the outside of the lock plate forward of the wheel. A spring provides tension to hold the doghead in a safe, for-

11

12

PISTOLS

ward position away from the wheel or in a lowered, rearward position pressing the pyrites against the wheel’s edge. Later versions internally link the doghead to the mainspring so that levering the doghead forward automatically winds the chain and readies the pistol for firing. This innovation, found in a number of pistols from the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), eliminates the need for the separate spanner that was easily lost during combat, making the pistol useless. The first wheel locks often suffered from excessively stiff triggers that required heavy finger pressure to release the firing mechanism. To counteract the flinching and resultant loss of accuracy caused by this tendency, some later wheel locks are fitted with double-set triggers. Pulling the first trigger thus readies the weapon while the second trigger then releases the first trigger with minimal pressure. The wheel-lock mechanism also necessitated improvements in safety devices to prevent accidental discharges. The two simplest methods of rendering a tensioned pistol relatively safe at the time were to leave the cock in the forward position away from the pan or to allow it to rest on the pan cover. The unperfected metallurgy of the day also affected the wheel lock’s safety. The point of contact between the tip of the sear where it contacted the corresponding depression on the wheel’s inner surface often became worn after even minimal use. As a result, the constant jostling of a rider on horseback or simply rough handling could jar the sear from position, resulting in the accidental discharge of the pistol. Some pistols were thus fitted with a second sear that pressed the primary sear more firmly against the wheel. The trigger pressed against the second sear, which would then release the primary sear, allowing the wheel to rotate and fire the pistol. On some rather early wheel-lock pistols the primary sear extruded through the wheel, where it was engaged by a loaded button-andhook arrangement that provided an extra measure of security. The added complexity of this safety to the already complex wheel-lock mechanism caused it to be abandoned in most later models. Still, despite the most ingenious efforts to make the wheel lock safer to handle, there were those who managed to circumvent even the most foolproof devices. A 1515 German account gives us the first firearm accident recorded in history: One Laux Pfister wounded a prostitute he was patronizing while playing with his new wheel lock; local authorities ordered Herr Pfister to compensate the disfigured woman for her potential lifetime lost wages. In the hands of more skilled individuals, however, the wheel lock changed both warfare and society. Although their expense limited

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

their general distribution, wealthy noblemen, officers, and elite cavalrymen rapidly embraced the wheel-lock pistol as a companion to the sword for mounted troops. As the wheel lock’s distribution and production passed through Germany from northern Italy to the rest of Europe, the German Reiters (riders, or horsemen) recognized its potential and developed new tactics to exploit it. The wheel lock saw extensive use by all belligerents during the Thirty Years’ War, and demand for and the manufacture of wheel-lock pistols expanded rapidly during the period. The wheel-lock mechanism transformed the pistol into a compact, practical weapon suitable for mounted troops. The new pistol could be carried loaded, ready for instant use, and significantly extended the killing range. The advent of the wheel-lock pistol made possible the caracole, a military maneuver in which close-order waves of sword and pistol-armed cavalrymen rode within close range of infantry, fired their pistols, and then broke away, allowing successive waves to follow. The massed fire of the caracole proved effective against densely packed squares of pikemen and other formations of ground troops. Although short-ranged owing to their relatively short, smoothbore barrels, the wheel-lock pistols did reach significantly farther than the pike, and massed fire compensated for the pistol’s inaccuracy. The wheel lock also gave a similarly deadly advantage when used against cavalry armed conventionally with sword and lance. Most mounted troops preferred a pair of pistols (known as a brace) that were carried in leather holsters slung on either side of the saddle’s pommel. Other, usually larger and even double-barreled pistols were fitted with large metal hooks for suspension from the saddle. Style, size, and decoration of individual pistols varied considerably depending on the country of origin and the owner’s taste and wealth. Stocks were often of fine woods such as walnut or ebony and could also be ordered—especially popular in Holland—in solid ivory. Although later locks became smaller owing to more refined techniques, the large wheel-lock mechanism tended to weaken the wood stock, making it vulnerable to damage. As a result, many gunsmiths, notably in Germany, manufactured pistols with metal stocks. No matter the material used, civilian wheel-lock pistol stocks tended to display rich carvings, inlays, or engravings. The barrels, locks, and other metal fittings were equally embellished with engraving and silver or gold inlay. Predictably, pistols issued to Cromwell’s New Model Army during the English Civil War (1642–1649) were an exception to the norm, eschewing such ornamentation for a simpler, more utilitarian appearance.

13

14

PISTOLS

During the English Civil War the new Council of War attempted to set out specifications for military pistols. In practice, however, the specifications acted more as general guidelines, giving only the length of the barrel, bore size, and proof testing. A typical military pistol of the Cromwellian era was about 20 inches in overall length with a 14-inch smoothbore barrel. It was a muzzle-loaded weapon that fired a large-caliber ball, usually of musket caliber. The barrel was secured to the stock by a screw through the tang at the rear of the barrel and pins passing through the forward stock through small loops brazed to the bottom of the barrel. The barrel was often octagonal at the breech and round toward the muzzle, and a rammer was stowed through metal pipes in a channel cut in the stock below. The stock was relatively straight in profile with a gradual curve down at the butt, where it flared slightly and terminated with a simple metal reinforcing band. Earlier stocks were almost straight, but most pistols had at least a slight curvature in their lines. Some German pistols were made with a dramatic L-shaped drop from lock to butt. These pistols usually were fitted with large, ball-shaped pommels, although the butts of wheel-lock pistols could vary from a simple wood flare to extravagantly inlayed and faceted pommels of various materials. Most wheel-lock pistols were single-barreled weapons, but doublebarreled pistols were also popular. Sizes ranged from small pocket pistols of about 7 inches overall to massive cavalry oddities approaching 3 feet in length. Stylistic similarities suggest that southern German gunsmiths exerted considerable influence over their Spanish counterparts. The two main Spanish firearms producing cities, Madrid and Ripoll, however, soon developed their own distinctive forms. During the second half of the sixteenth century Madrid, as exemplified by such famous gun makers as the Marquart family and Juan Salado, set the standards for Spanish firearms. Pistols, however, did not gain general popularity in Spain until the seventeenth century. Madrid wheel-lock pistols combine an austere, unadorned appearance with finely crafted workmanship. Stocks are generally of walnut or fruitwood, such as cherry. Barrels are pinned to the stock and usually smoothbore. The barrels are typically octagonal at the breech and become round about midway to the muzzle, with a decorative ring around the barrel separating the octagonal and round sections. The otherwise conventional wheel-lock mechanism has the wheel mounted internally to the lock plate. The lock plates are mounted

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

flush with the stock, the pan is fitted with a sliding cover, and there is no provision for a safety. Where Madrid’s gunsmiths avoided ornamentation, their Ripollian counterparts in Catalonia reveled in richly carved and inlayed stocks and chiseled metalwork. During the last decade of the sixteenth century, Ripoll craftsmen began producing wheel locks with rather small wheels and raised and beveled lock plates attached to the stock with three screws. The pan cover swiveled away from the pan, and a belt hook was often fitted to the left side of the pistol. The pedrenyal, a pistol with a carbine-length barrel, was the most distinctive of Ripoll’s products and was popular early in the seventeenth century. The pedrenyal barrel was octagonal at the breech and gradually changed to round midway down its length. Barrels were pinned to the stocks and were often fitted with a rear sight. Early pedrenyals had fishtail-style pommels and spurred trigger guards, whereas later pommels tended to be ball-shaped and the trigger guard spur was eliminated. The arrival of the wheel-lock pistol also foretold a deeper impact of firearms on the greater society. When crafted and ornamented by skilled gunsmiths, wheel-lock pistols as well as long guns served as highly coveted treasures for wealthy clients. Such patrons acquired and presented one another with pistols embellished with richly carved stocks inlayed with horn, ivory, and precious metals. They also favored metal fittings, locks, and barrels with engraved mythological themes as well as family crests and mottos. In the hands of the best gunsmiths, even accessories such as the spanner used to wind the wheel spring, powder flasks, and bullet molds became minor works of art. Inevitably, wheel-lock pistols found their way into the hands of less desirable elements of European society. Highwaymen, assassins, and other criminals discovered the obvious application of the wheel lock to their own professions. For the nobility of the time it was also undesirable to have possibly disenchanted townsmen and peasants armed with weapons that required little skill to operate and could kill at a distance. The ability to conceal smaller wheel-lock pistols, often known as pocket dags, as well as their ability to be carried loaded, alarmed authorities. As early as 1517, with gun-related crimes escalating, various governments attempted to enforce limitations on pistol distribution and ownership. During the early sixteenth century governments throughout Europe passed strict laws restricting possession and use. In 1594 Queen Elizabeth I of En-

15

16

PISTOLS

gland ordered a ban on pocket dags, and around 1612 stricter laws went into effect against the import and manufacture of pistols and called for their confiscation. Despite its improvements over the matchlock, the complicated wheel-lock system still posed significant disadvantages in both operation and manufacture. The intrinsically complicated nature of the wheel lock made it expensive to manufacture and prone to breakage. Although much easier than with a matchlock, preparing the wheel lock for firing required a specific set of maneuvers that could be quite difficult for a horseman in the midst of battle. The loss of the spanner to wind the spring—a frequent occurrence among mounted troops—rendered the pistol useless. The pyrites also tended to be brittle and needed frequent replacement to avoid all-too-common misfires. The wheel lock was also underpowered and inaccurate when mated with a short, smoothbore pistol barrel. Unless firing at nearly point-blank range, a horseman armed with a wheel lock pistol had little hope of hitting an individual target, let alone piercing the armor of his opponent. The wheel lock did, however, solve the problem of maintaining a burning match and very slightly alleviated the firearm’s vulnerability to damp conditions. Its invention laid the foundation for the practical handgun. The last documented wheel locks produced by a well-known master were two magnificent anachronisms crafted in Paris by Le-Page in 1829.

THE FLINTLOCK Flintlocks—weapons relying on the striking of a flint held in the jaws of a cock against a hardened steel battery for ignition—evolved into six distinct types, each exhibiting regional characteristics. The first of these developments was the snaphaunce. The snaphaunce appeared around 1560 in the Netherlands, from where its use spread to England, Scotland, and the rest of western Europe. Its earliest form is sometimes known as the Baltic lock. The English lock appeared in the first quarter of the seventeenth century and was quickly followed by its close relative, the dog lock. Both the English lock and dog lock saw use by English explorers and settlers in England’s North American colonies. The Spanish miquelet appeared by the middle of the sixteenth century and became popular around the Mediterranean and saw extensive use by Spanish explorers in the New World. The Scandinavian lock, or snap lock, was a contem-

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

porary of the miquelet and appeared, as its name suggests, in Scandinavia, where it remained popular until supplanted by later flintlocks. The ultimate stage of the flintlock’s evolution, the true flintlock, appeared in France about 1610. Often called the French lock after its country of origin, the true flintlock quickly replaced all its predecessors in most of Europe until it was replaced by the percussion system in the 1840s. The vast majority of snaphaunces were, as were their predecessors, muzzle-loaded weapons that required a pinch of powder in their priming pan for primary ignition.

The Snaphaunce There is some evidence that the snaphaunce may have been a Spanish or German invention, but the term snaphaunce, sometimes spelled snaphance, probably derives from the old Dutch word schnapphan, meaning approximately “snapping hen” or “snapping chicken.” Another variation of the term can be translated as “snapcock,” a possible source for “cock,” the older synonym for “hammer.” The snaphaunce can most apparently be distinguished from later flintlocks in that its pan cover and battery are two separate pieces. The snaphaunce became very popular in Scotland, where it evolved into a distinct variation of its European cousins and reached its height of sophistication in the finely crafted weapons produced by such masters as the Cominazzo family in Brescia, Italy, between 1630 and 1665. Lazarino Cominazzo gained such a reputation for his fine barrels that a number of other gunsmiths counterfeited his signature on their own work. The Cominazzo dynasty was, in many ways, typical of the finest gun-making operations of the period. Probably founded by Lazaro Cominazzo in the mid-1500s, the family business emerged from the medieval and Renaissance guild system to achieve fame and social status on a level of the most sought-after decorative artists. Like many fine gunsmiths, the Cominazzos rarely manufactured complete guns. They instead focused their attention on one key component—in their case, the barrel. The Cominazzos reached their height of artistry and production under Fortunato Lazarino during the second half of the seventeenth century. His barrels were typically of about caliber .50—a relatively small bore for the period— and exhibited slim, elegant lines, octagonal at the breech and round toward the muzzle. Italian gunsmiths, as well as those from England and northern Europe, sought Lazarino’s barrels for installation in

17

18

PISTOLS

their finest weapons. To his ultimate detriment, descendant Lazarino Cominazzo did not confine his activities to making high quality gun barrels. He was shot and killed in 1696 during a revolt against the Venetian government. The snaphaunce held several major advantages over the wheel lock. It was much simpler in design and easier to maintain and could be produced for about 25 percent of the cost of the earlier pistol. The flint used to produce the sparks during ignition was also more durable than the friable iron pyrites used in the wheel lock, and it did not require a separate spanner to wind the mechanism. Still, the wheel lock and snaphaunce overlapped one another in production and use for a number of years before the snaphaunce finally gained ascendancy. In a number of cases gunsmiths converted older wheel locks and even matchlocks to the newer snaphaunce system. Many snaphaunces, in turn, saw extended service as they were converted to later ignition systems. The snaphaunce introduced a cock with a pair of jaws that held a wedge-shaped piece of flint rather than iron pyrites. Upon release, the flint struck the hardened steel battery to produce sparks that next ignited a small amount of powder in the priming pan. The battery and pan cover, in contrast to later flintlocks, were separate components, unlike the L-shaped combined battery-pan covers of true flintlocks. Most snaphaunces were equipped with a lever mechanism that automatically uncovered the pan upon pulling the trigger although a few required the pan to be uncovered manually. The battery could be pivoted into two positions where it was held in place by a single V-shaped spring mounted forward on the lock plate. Lowering the battery to the rear placed it over the pan within reach of the flint in its fire position. The forward position held the battery out of the way to allow priming and render the pistol safe. This arrangement was necessary, as the snaphaunce, once cocked, had no other safety features. The cock was mounted on a lug that passes through the lock plate and connected it to an internal tumbler. The rear of the tumbler lacked the second, or halfcock, safety notch of later flintlocks. The snaphaunce tumbler was cut with a single notch that engaged the sear and trigger assembly when in the cocked position. Upon cocking, the horizontally moving sear passed through a hole in the lock plate and engaged a notch cut into the heel of the hammer, arresting its movement. Pressing the trigger retracted the sear and allowed the hammer to spring forward. An internally mounted mainspring that pressed against the front of the tumbler provided the tension to propel the cock forward.

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

Baltic Lock The earliest form of snaphaunce, commonly called the Baltic lock, appeared in the mid–sixteenth century. It can most easily be distinguished from later snaphaunce pistols in that its mainspring was mounted externally on the lock plate and provided tension for both the cock and the battery. With no half-cock provision, this arrangement was much more prone to accidental discharges than the wheel lock and probably led to the evolution of the separate pan cover and battery arrangement as an added safety device. In early Baltic lock pistols the pan cover had to be manually moved to the side before firing. Dutch gunsmiths retained the basic principle of the Baltic lock but soon moved the mainspring to a more protected position inside the lock plate. A round shield attached to the outer surface of the pan readily distinguished Dutch pistols from other snaphaunces. A form of the Dutch snaphaunce survived into the late nineteenth century in North Africa with Morocco as the primary manufacturing center. Dutch snaphaunces also greatly influenced Scottish gunsmiths, and their efforts produced a distinct yet closely related offshoot of the mainland weapon. Scottish snaphaunces retained the basic mechanical features of their Low Country cousins but evolved distinct characteristics in overall appearance.

Early Scottish Pistols The pommels of Scottish-made pistols often betray their origin, as they were often of the slightly flared fishtail or heart butt profiles or the even more distinctive ramshorn or scroll style. The gunsmiths usually fitted a vent pick with a decorated ball-shaped handle in the butt between the horns or scrolls. The Scots also dispensed with the conventional trigger and trigger guard and favored an exposed button or ball-shaped trigger. In addition, the majority of Scottish pistols were fitted with belt hooks fixed to the pistol opposite the lock. Such pistols were sometimes made in matched pairs for the purpose of being dramatically wielded in each hand, as the pairs were made with one pistol with a left-mounted lock and the other with a rightmounted lock. Although produced in other countries, principally Germany, the all-metal stock became another national feature associated with Scottish pistols. Scottish craftsmen, although not abandoning wood as material, favored steel, brass, German silver, or

19

20

PISTOLS

other metals for stocks and often engraved them with various forms of scrollwork.

Early English Pistols England trailed behind its European neighbors at the beginning of the seventeenth century in the production of firearms and relied heavily on imports to arm its soldiers. At the turn of the century English ordnance records list numbers of purchases of French longe pistolls with holsters, bullet molds, and powder flasks. Although the contemporary records are somewhat vague, these French imports were probably snaphaunces with some wheel locks and even matchlocks thrown in for good measure. The recognition of London gun makers in 1638 as an official City Company marked a significant step toward England’s autonomy in gun innovation and manufacture. Although English-manufactured pistols proved of better quality, disputes over cost and other contract considerations still prompted the government to import quantities of mainly French and Belgian pistols prior to the English Civil War. During this same period, English ordnance officials recognized the need to standardize small arms issues for both infantry and cavalry use. Although many of the pistols in question were wheel locks, the transition to snaphaunce still proceeded, albeit somewhat haphazardly. The typical English pistol of the 1630s, regardless of ignition system, featured an 18-inch barrel, was about 26 inches in overall length, and was of the same caliber as contemporary carbines. Paper cartridges were introduced from the continent in the 1620s. Such cartridges could be used in carbines and, when torn in half, in pistols. In late 1639, ordnance experiments indicated that a 16-inch barrel was just as accurate as the 18-inch, but the traditionally conservative army officials retained the 18-inch barrel as standard. The pistol had proven its value as a cavalry weapon during the Thirty Years’ War, and English veterans of those battles brought their experience to bear during the civil war. Prince Rupert, nephew of Charles I and known as the Mad Cavalier, favored a disciplined massed charge with swords, saving pistols for the melee among the enemy’s broken ranks. By copying these tactics, the Parliamentarians added a much-needed element to their own previously chaotic cavalry attacks. Domestic English gun makers enjoyed welcome patronage under Cromwell’s regime. Although wheel locks saw much use during the

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

English Civil War, the period was one of transition as more and more snaphaunces came into use. Records indicate that the government awarded contracts to Birmingham as well as London concerns during the Protectorate. One 1646 document mentions orders for pairs of “English Snaphance” pistols with lacquered calfskin holsters. A 1658 Committee for the Admiralty and Navy contract stipulated a three-year agreement calling for 500 pairs of snaphaunce pistols per year. Also during the late 1640s and early 1650s, locks became smaller and improved sears and springs were introduced. The Restoration brought a renewed French influence into English pistol design. French tastes of the period favored long, slender pistols with heart-shaped pommels and rich ornamentation. This was due in part to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, prompting large numbers of French Huguenot gunsmiths and silversmiths to leave their home country for London. As their trade flourished, domestic gun makers began adapting their own designs to the new style. Although cocks retained the external safety back catch, they were largely superfluous, owing to an improved half-cock notch in the tumbler. A lock with a rounded contour face was introduced, replacing the earlier flat-faced lock, and a simplified brass butt cap became standard. The new, thinner barrels were typically 14 inches in length, octagonal at the breech, and usually flared at the muzzle for extra strength. A single pipe retained the rammer in its channel under the barrel.

Scandinavian Snaplock Both the Scandinavian countries and Italy produced their own regional styles of snaphaunce. Manufactured by both local and northern German gunsmiths, the pistols of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, known as Scandinavian snaplocks, remained popular from the mid–sixteenth century into the eighteenth. Their locks have a somewhat squat profile and were made with both swing-out pan covers and steels. The Italian snaphaunce was typically the most sophisticated of the type and possibly evolved independently from the northern forms. Italian gunsmiths began crafting these finely made pistols around the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, making it a contemporary of the true flintlock, the only distinction between the Italian snaphaunce and the French, or “true” flintlock being the Italian pistol’s separate pan and steel.

21

22

PISTOLS

Russian Pistols In Russia, Peter the Great saw European-style arms production as one method of modernizing his country. In 1705 he ordered the establishment of the great arsenal at Tula in central Russia and recruited German, Swedish, and Danish gunsmiths to oversee production. Other arms manufacturing was also carried out in the Kremlin in Moscow. By 1720 Tula was operating at full capacity, producing both military and presentation quality pistols and muskets generally fitted with French-style locks. Russians also tended to favor pistols with pronounced, ball-shaped pommels. French Baroque and Rococo styles became even more evident in pistols made during the reign of Catherine the Great. Influenced by the great Parisian gunsmith Nicholas Guérard, Tula’s presentation-grade pistols exhibited extravagant engraving and gold inlay.

Spanish Miquelet Early Spanish gunsmiths, influenced by German trends, produced finely crafted, although relatively austere, wheel locks and snaphaunces before developing their own national form, the miquelet. The miquelet, or Spanish lock, first appeared in Spain at the end of the sixteenth century. In little more than twenty-five years it replaced both the wheel lock and the snaphaunce as the primary product of Spain’s Madrid and Ripoll gun shops. Spanish craftsmen, already famous for their fine metallurgy, enhanced their reputations with their high-quality firearms. During the 1640s Spanish gunsmiths led their competitors with such innovations as lining vent holes with gold to prevent corrosion. Spanish barrels were particularly prized, and other European gunsmiths often bought and installed them in their own higher-quality guns. Spanish smiths also claimed that they led other countries in producing complete pistols within a single shop rather than assembling components from other sources. The miquelet derived its name in the late nineteenth century from the miquelets, Spanish mercenaries who carried Spanish lock muskets during the Napoleonic Wars between 1805 and 1813. Although superceded in Europe by later flintlock developments, the sturdy miquelet remained a favored weapon in Portugal, Spain, and other Mediterranean countries and survived in such areas as North Africa for some 250 years. Miquelets saw extensive service with

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

Spanish explorers during their expeditions during the Age of Discovery and subsequent colonizations. The miquelet also remained popular in areas of Italy formerly controlled by Spain, and Cossack pistols, a form of the miquelet, were manufactured in Italy and exported to eastern Europe. These unique pistols exhibited long, thin barrels, button triggers, and large pommels. The wood stocks were often covered with brass or leather. The miquelet incorporated a one-piece flash-pan cover and battery combination. Shaped like the letter L, this component simplified both the manufacture of the pistol as well as its operation. The miquelet also differed from other flintlocks in that its battery was scored with vertical grooves to enhance ignition, and the jaws of the cock were rectangular or squared rather than curved. The cock was not attached to an internal tumbler but pivoted on an axle to a simple bridle attached to the internal lock face. The sear operated horizontally, passing through the lock plate to engage the base of the cock. The forward motion of the cock knocked the battery-pan cover assembly forward to expose the priming charge and, in the same motion, struck the flint against the battery, creating the requisite sparks. The miquelet cock also had a half-cock position allowing for safer priming of the pan. The miquelet could be distinguished from other flintlocks by its prominent external V-shaped mainspring and the large finger hole in the top of the jaw screw. The short travel of the cock required a very stiff spring and thus necessitated the fitting of the large ring for better leverage. The mainspring bore against the heel of the cock and also economically provided tension to the battery, thus eliminating the need for a separate battery spring. Many Spanish pistols were also fitted with belt hooks.

English Lock (Dog Lock) Appearing in England during the 1620s, the short-lived English lock was obsolete by the 1650s. It was, however, a favored military weapon during its service, and numerous examples made their way to the English colonies. Sometimes known as the Jacobean lock, it improved on the miquelet in having its main spring as well as most other essential components attached to the inside of the lock plate rather than externally, thus protecting them from damage. The two distinguishing features of the English lock were its combined pan cover and battery (tensioned by an external V-shaped spring) and a sear arrangement that allowed a half-cock position.

23

24

PISTOLS

Full-cock was achieved in the conventional manner in that pulling back on the cock allowed the nose of the horizontally acting sear to slide through the lock plate and engage a notch in the heel of the cock. Half-cock was accomplished by an extension of the sear that engaged a projection on the rear of the internal tumbler. Although this new feature allowed the pistol to be placed on half-cock for priming and as a safety device, English gunsmiths soon added an external catch, or “dog,” to the lock plate immediately behind the cock. The catch, typically shaped like a flat hook, engaged a notch cut into the back of the cock. On pistols lacking the extra sear nose of the English lock, the dog served the function of providing a halfcock. On many other English lock pistols the dog merely served as an additional safety measure. Such pistols were, although English lock pistols, often alternately called dog locks as well.

French Lock Credited to the remarkable Marin le Bourgeoys, the “true” flintlock first appeared in France before 1630 and is thus often known as the French lock. Born into a noted artisan family in the Norman town of Lisieux, le Bourgeoys was probably initially trained as a painter. He later attained fame not only as an artist but also as a gunsmith, inventor, and luthier. In 1598 his talents attracted the attention of King Henry IV, who, in order to free le Bourgeoys from the restraints of the Parisian guild, appointed him valet de chambre in the royal court. In 1608 the king further honored le Bourgeoys by granting him rooms in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre. The master artisan did not confine his efforts to firearms but also produced crossbows, air guns, and moveable globes for the king’s enjoyment. He continued in royal service under the reign of Louis XIII (1610–1642), for whom he designed the new flintlock. Such weapons as those produced by le Bourgeoys and his successors were viewed as artwork in themselves, and kings often gave them to favored courtiers and visitors as tokens of esteem. Louis was so enamored of fine firearms that he amassed his Cabinet d’Armes, a vast collection of the gunsmith’s art. The French lock combined the L-shaped frizzen of the miquelet with an improved form of the internal mechanism of the English lock. The two major internal improvements were the perfection of a reliable sear that pivoted in a vertical motion to engage a tumbler cut with two notches to provide both half-cock and full-cock positions

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

for the attached hammer. Le Bourgeoys’s design thus eliminated the often temperamental horizontal sear and replaced it with a sear that operated much like a seesaw or lever. The forward nose of the sear engaged either of the two tumbler notches, arresting the cock’s motion. Pressure from the trigger then pushed upward against a horizontal projection at the rear of the sear, releasing the nose of the sear, and allowing the cock to fall. The half-cock notch proved much safer than earlier designs, although conservative English gunsmiths usually retained the external dog catch as an additional safety measure. The true flintlock replaced almost all other French ignition systems by mid-century and, with the exception of the miquelet in Spain, was almost universal in Europe by the early 1700s. Early French lock pistols retained the general overall lines of the late snaphaunces, being rather straight in profile and, in better specimens, highly ornamented. Later pistols exhibited a more pronounced drop toward the grip and were less decorated. Early butt caps were often a simple metal reinforcing band of iron or brass with gold or silver used in the finest weapons. As the form evolved, the butt caps acquired long extensions, or spurs, on either side of the grip that eventually grew shorter in later weapons. At the very end of the French lock era the spurs were eliminated, and in many European nations the entire butt cap was eventually abandoned for the sake of economy. Early lock plates and cocks usually had flat faces, but French styling, favoring a rounded contour with beveled edges, quickly became the fashion throughout the gun-producing world. The cock also achieved its graceful swan-neck or S shape during this period, although some military pistols were fitted with the sturdier throat-hole cocks. The career of the French gunsmith Nicolas-Noël Boutet reflected the status that the craftsmen of the finest firearms could claim among their contemporaries. He was born in 1761, the son of the famous gun maker to the king, Noël Boutet, who held the position of arquebusier des chevaux legers du Roi (Gunmaker for the King’s Light Cavalry). Following family tradition, Boutet trained under his father and went so far as to marry Louise-Émile Desaintes, the daughter of another royal gunsmith. He eventually assumed his father’s position and, after the French Revolution, directed the new government arsenal, the Manufacture de Versailles, where he continued after Napoleon’s rise to power. Boutet’s duties included directing the manufacture of standardissue military weapons as well as fine presentation guns and swords. He was particularly well known for his fusils d’honneur, specially

25

26

PISTOLS

made muskets for award to soldiers in recognition of bravery. Boutet was also charged with crafting exquisite pistols and sporting arms for presentation to favored officials and foreign dignitaries and with training younger gunsmiths. In 1804 Boutet took on his son, PierreNicolas, as partner and, after the fall of Napoleon in 1815, continued as the most respected gunsmith in Paris until his death in 1833.

AMMUNITION Ammunition for flintlock pistols remained relatively unchanged from earlier weapons—the powder charge was approximately half of the usual amount for a musket or carbine. The pistol was often loaded with loose powder from a flask followed by a lead ball that was held in place by a paper or cloth patch. A small amount of powder was then poured into the priming pan. A more efficient method consisted of a self-contained paper cartridge holding both the powder and bullet. To load, one tore the end from the cartridge with his teeth and poured a small amount of powder into the priming pan. He then rammed the remainder of the cartridge down the barrel of the pistol, with the paper acting as the wad to secure the charge in place. Bullets were almost invariably round balls of cast lead. A rather eccentric early eighteenth-century London notary public, gunsmith, and inventor did, however, offer an alternative to the round bullet. Announcing his theory that only fellow Christians were worthy of being perforated with round bullets, James Puckle produced a novel rapid-fire weapon that fired square bullets for use against non-Christian foes. Puckle went bankrupt. During the eighteenth century improvements in the manufacture of gunpowder also affected pistol design. Early forms of gunpowder, a mixture of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal, tended to be of poor quality and burned unevenly. Any powder that had not burned by the time the bullet left the muzzle was thus wasted, lessening the bullet’s velocity, and contributed to residue buildup and fouling within the barrel. As a result, early gunsmiths attempted to lengthen the powder’s burning time by fitting long barrels to their pistols. Although the long barrel allowed the majority of the powder to burn before the bullet left the barrel, it tended to make the pistol rather unwieldy. The more precise methods of measuring and granulating gunpowder during the 1700s allowed gunsmiths to craft more efficient shorter-barreled pistols than previously possible.

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

FLINTLOCK IMPROVEMENTS Although the flintlock’s basic design remained unchanged for some 250 years, it underwent numerous improvements and cosmetic alterations. Rather than attach the lock to the stock with three screws, as had the snaphaunce, the flintlock more economically used two screws. The flintlock also utilized a sturdier method of securing the cock to the lock plate than had been used in earlier pistols. The new system replaced the earlier square shaft that had connected the cock through the lock plate to the tumbler with an integral square projection of the tumbler. This innovation eliminated two extra components—the separate shaft and a screw—and greatly increased the mechanism’s strength and resistance to wear. The new design also incorporated a better designed bridle to firmly support the tumbler and sear in alignment within the lock. Later improvements included the incorporation of roller bearings on the points of contact between the mainspring and tumbler and battery spring and battery. Such additions reduced the wear on these parts and provided smoother operation. Another addition was a stirrup-like link between the mainspring and tumbler that also helped reduce friction. Gunsmiths also addressed the problems associated with the corrosion and residue inherent in black-powder arms. Unless pistols were cleaned immediately after use, such residue tended to foul the vent and rust such components as the pan and vent area. To counter this problem, gun makers fitted their finer-quality pistols with rust-resistant brass and even platinum and gold-lined pans and vents. English gunsmiths also favored the addition of a metal stop at the rear of the pan to prevent the cock from traveling too far forward and damaging the pan. This arrangement was later dropped in favor of a notch on the inside of the cock that contacted the top of the lock plate. The improved gunpowder also produced higher pressure, requiring stronger barrels. Gunsmiths met the challenge by perfecting the twist steel welding technique of barrel construction. They produced high-strength barrels by hammering flat iron bands around a steel mandrel under intense heat. The result was a strong steel barrel that exhibited a spiral pattern down its length. English gunsmiths tended to exploit this twist pattern as a decorative device in their finer pistols and accentuated its contrasts with chemical coloring agents. Their French counterparts preferred to hide the twist pattern with chemically blued barrels but often indicated their high quality by gilding the legend CANON TORDUE and their name on the top of the barrel.

27

28

PISTOLS

TYPES OF PISTOLS The true flintlock’s straightforward mechanism lent itself to wide production by the most mediocre of gunsmiths as well as those of the highest order. After about 1650, the proliferation of pistols afforded even those of moderate means pistol ownership. Gunsmiths accommodated their needs with a wide variety of features and models from which to choose. The size of the pistol generally indicated its purpose. Many civilians (including criminals) favored pocket and larger traveling, or overcoat, pistols. Duelers were somewhat larger, and the military-style holster pistols were largest. To satisfy the demand of the European elite, English, French, Italian, and German gun makers produced some of the finest handguns ever made. In general, dueling pistols tended to be rather plain in appearance compared to the often highly embellished coat and traveling pistols. Earlier weapons were also typically smoothbore weapons employing a patched ball, whereas later pistols were usually rifled. The most famous test for such a weapon’s mechanical perfection was to pull the trigger while holding it upside down. Only a fraction of a second separated the finest, most skillfully tuned weapons that would still fire their charge from the more mediocre pistols whose priming would fall from the pan before the spark reached it.

Accessories Renowned manufacturers such as Boutet, England’s Joseph Manton, Robert Wogdon, and Joseph Egg, and Italy’s Beretta family offered their better pistols as cased, matched pairs complete with accessories. The pistol cases and accessories added in no small part to the desirability of the pistols themselves. Fine woods such as walnut, mahogany, and cherry were chosen for the quality of their grain and color. Eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century English and American craftsmen tended to divide the interior of their felt- or baize-lined cases into compartments separated by wood inserts. Europeans preferred form-fitted depressions in their plush, silk-lined boxes. A printed label announcing the maker’s name and address pasted to the inner lid was almost universal. In addition to the two pistols, the cases contained numerous articles for cleaning and loading the weapons. These included cleaning rods, spare cloth patches, extra flints, disassembly tools, and a powder flask and measure. Sets

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

of rifled pistols usually contained a small mallet to drive the slightly oversized bullet into the pistols’ muzzles.

Dueling Pistols Duelers announced their deadly purpose in their elegant simplicity. Eschewing ornamentation for balance and accuracy, dueling pistols exhibited a graceful appearance with little else to distract their user or attract the eye of one’s opponent. The stock of a typical dueler lacked any carving other than simple hatching to enhance the user’s grip and was not fitted with a metal butt cap. The steel or iron fittings, including the 9- or 10-inch barrel, were treated with either a matte blue or browned finish to minimize glare. Early pistols usually had round barrels with full stocks, whereas later pistols were halfstocked with octagonal barrels. Barrels also tended to be rather heavy to help steady one’s aim and absorb recoil. Large calibers up to about .57 were favored, and sights were almost universal. Hair triggers are common and, around 1805, spur trigger guards appeared to provide an extra extension for the middle finger, allowing a steadier grip. Pistols required less skill and practice to achieve proficiency, and many continental gentlemen never fully abandoned their blades to settle affairs of honor. Still, during the eighteenth century pistols gradually replaced the sword as the weapon of choice to end disputes among upper-class Europeans and Americans. Such specialized weapons appeared in the 1770s and, by 1800, had reached their perfected form. Dueling was reserved for the higher classes, and rigid codes of conduct dictated every facet of the deadly game. The British Isles led the trend, and in the process old notions of trial by combat and ordeal greatly affected the dueling pistol’s design and proper use. For these reasons a peculiar idea of fairness required that most dueling pistols be smoothbore rather than rifled. The less accurate (and less predictable) smoothbore barrels thus, to the eighteenth century mind, allowed the hand of God to play a more active role in such deadly affairs. Still, celebrated gunsmiths such as the Englishman Robert Wogdon and Dublin’s William and John Rigby did attempt to make their smoothbore pistols as accurate as possible. By boring barrels at a slight angle rather than straight down the center, they gave clients a slight edge in compensating for the general tendency for shooters to miss high. Still, to evade the rule altogether,

29

30

PISTOLS

some less scrupulous gentlemen, motivated more by self-preservation than personal honor, secretly ordered pistols with hidden rifling that stopped an inch or two short of the muzzle. Despite such occasional blackguards, dueling, especially in Ireland, was considered crucial to a young gentleman’s reputation and standing among his peers. “Did he ever blaze?” was a common inquiry of the time concerning one’s character. Various codes of rules to ritualize and legitimize dueling were published throughout Europe, the most famous of which, the Code Duello, appeared in Ireland in 1777. The Code Duello was divided into 26 rules, or commandments, and formed the basis for later codes that were followed on the continent and in the United States. The primary assumption of the Code Duello was that duels could be fought only among social equals and that these equals were gentlemen. An encounter between a general, for example, and a mere lieutenant or captain would have been unthinkable. An equal fight among commoners would not have been dignified as a duel, being merely a lowly criminal brawl subject to the criminal courts. Manuals provided remarkably detailed protocols in the various aspects of the dueling ritual. Following a suitable insult, an offended party dispatched a carefully worded challenge that, once received, required an equally stylish reply. Arrangements, including choice of weapons, the location and time of the meeting, and the inclusion of the opponents’ seconds and physicians soon followed. The distance between the combatants, measured in paces, varied. A distance of 10–15 yards was common, although some duels were fought at almost point-blank range. Some manuals even suggested appropriate foods, drinks, and reading material to prepare oneself for the impending duel. While the duelists fought their nerves, their seconds performed the vital tasks of inspecting, cleaning, and loading the pistols. The seconds made sure that the pistols operated smoothly, prepared the flints for reliable sparking, and checked the dryness of the powder. The measuring of the powder and seating of the ball on the charge were crucial elements of the process. If the second measured too little powder into the bore, the bullet would have had little effect on its intended victim. Slightly too much powder adversely affected the accuracy of the pistol. More than one second, suffering from nerves and an overindulgence in alcohol, overloaded his pistol to the degree that it exploded in the duelist’s hand, removing his fingers and injuring nearby spectators. There were other instances of poorly

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

patched and seated balls rolling harmlessly out of the barrel of the pistol onto the ground at the crucial moment before firing. Although embarrassing, such an incident could be deadly; according to some rules, that could be counted as a legitimate discharge and be answered with a loaded pistol. On the continent, especially in France, the dueling ritual evolved even more elaborate rules and variations that carried over into the percussion era. Under French rules, conventional duels could not be fought at less than 15 paces, and at that range the order of fire was determined by lot. At 35 paces the challenger had the right to fire first. Duels beginning with the opponents back-to-back were, as elsewhere, rare. The French love of drama was particularly evident in one variant, the duel à volonté (“at pleasure”). Before the duel began, the two seconds paced the ground and marked starting lines at 35 paces. From the starting lines they then paced toward one another and marked their respective finish lines 15 paces apart. Taking their places at the start lines, the two duelists would then stand with their pistols raised until given the command “March!” They would then walk forward and could stop and fire at any time before reaching the stop line. Having fired, however, combatants had to stop and stand still to receive fire if the opponent was still standing. The duelist who had not fired could then march to the finish line and had a full, heart-stopping minute to carefully aim and fire back, an occurrence that some of the more sadistic practitioners relished. If an antagonist was downed by a shot he was allowed two minutes to regain his feet and return fire. Other French forms included the duel à marche, also popular in Germany, in which the opponents approached one another following zigzag lines two paces at a time, as well as the duel au signal. In the latter, commands were conveyed via handclaps by the challenger’s second. With their muzzles pointed downward, the duelists began to walk forward at the first clap, raised their pistols and aimed three seconds later at the second clap, and fired at another three-second interval on the third clap. Duels exceptionelles, when conducted on horseback with pistols, required the opponents to sit on their mounts and blaze away at one another at 25 paces until the duel was satisfactorily concluded. The deadliest form of French dueling must have required true hatred on the part of the participants. It required only one pistol to be loaded with a full charge and ball, the other loaded with a blank charge. Not knowing which was loaded, the duelists would then rely on chance in the selection of their weapons. They

31

32

PISTOLS

then aimed as each held one end of the same handkerchief awaiting the handclap signal to fire. The results were predictable. The formal use of the pistol also delineated the boundary between gentlemen and the lower classes in the United States. In the new, rough-hewn nation, most settled man-to-man disputes in violent brawls using whatever came to hand, including knives, rocks, rifles, and shotguns. As noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831, actual duels among gentlemen in the United States were less frequent than those in Europe but were more often fatal in result. Whereas European duelists would often declare satisfaction after merely going through the motions of the ritual, often firing harmlessly in the air, Americans tended to fight one another to the death. Those Americans who considered themselves gentlemen did emulate their European cousins in following the Code Duello but with a somewhat more violent intensity. Most American gentlemen preferred British-made pistols, although Simeon North of Middletown, Connecticut, produced fine examples. Duels were a common means of settling disputes between officers of the Navy and Army, resulting in the deaths of such able leaders as Stephen Decatur. The South and the West led the country in numbers of duels, with Charleston, South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana, being major centers of the activity. During the early nineteenth century, Charleston even boasted a formal dueling society until its president called for its disbandment from his deathbed after being mortally wounded by a visiting Englishman. The most famous American duel, however, occurred in 1804 near New York City between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton on the banks of the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey. The pistols used were a fine pair of English-made duelers by Wogdon. Ironically, Hamilton borrowed them from his brother-in-law, who had previously loaned the set to Hamilton’s son Philip, who had died on the same spot chosen for his father’s duel with Burr. The popular Alexander Hamilton’s death at the hands of Burr added to the antidueling sentiment that had been growing in both the United States and Europe. Antidueling laws had been enacted in Europe and the United States well before the Hamilton-Burr duel but were indifferently enforced. If charged at all most duelers, as members of the gentry, were typically exonerated as a matter of course. The overriding logic of such decisions (aside from the social rank of the accused) was that both men had entered the duel of their free will and shared

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

equal risk. Still, many saw dueling as another example of the arrogant disregard for the common law held by England’s elite. Such well-publicized incidents as the 1829 farcical meeting between the aged Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea at Battersea Common helped spur popular pressure against the institution. Years earlier, the duke, alarmed that the attrition of his junior officers from dueling nearly rivaled that in battle, had forbidden dueling in the army. Furthermore, just months earlier, Parliament had enacted Lord Lansdowne’s Act, declaring dueling a capital offense. The opponents’ open disregard for the law, as well as the relatively trivial nature of the dispute (Winchilsea’s opposition to Wellington’s support of the King’s College, London), added fuel to the antidueling movement in Britain. Later, following an 1843 duel between brothers-in-law Lieutenant-Colonel David Fawcett and Lieutenant Alexander Munroe (resulting in Fawcett’s death), the Anti-Dueling Association was organized. In 1844 an amendment to the Articles of War officially banned dueling in the army. Eventually, pressure from Queen Victoria, calls from the press, and public outcry led to a more vigorous prosecution of survivors for murder. The threat of an ignominious death by public hanging quickly took the shine off the noble art of dueling and led to a general cessation by the middle of the nineteenth century.

Traveling Pistols During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, highwaymen were a common threat to travelers, who thus began viewing a pair of pistols as a necessity on the road. Traveling pistols, sometimes known as overcoat pistols, were relatively large weapons at about 10–12 inches and were often fitted with metal belt hooks. Although somewhat deadlier than their dueler cousins because of their rifled barrels, traveling pistols served something of a dual role as fashion accessories to gentlemen of leisure. For this reason such pistols often featured finely checkered, high-quality wood stocks and engraved metal fittings, often inlaid with gold or silver. The finer pistols were sold in cased pairs with the usual loading and cleaning accessories, including a small hammer for driving the slightly oversized bullet down the rifled barrel. Most military officers of any standing greatly preferred their own fancy pistols rather than the serviceable yet lowly standard-issue arms of their subordinates.

33

34

PISTOLS

Holster Pistols Sharing many of the general characteristics of contemporary duelers and often used as such, large holster pistols were best suited for military use. Holster pistols were usually of the large musket calibers and were issued in pairs to be carried in leather holsters slung across the saddle. Military holster pistols were fairly devoid of decoration, sturdily built, and presented a businesslike overall appearance. Holster pistols were also a popular size among the civilian population and were decorated according to their owners’ tastes and pocketbook. As made by fashionable gunsmiths, such pistols were usually produced in matched cased pairs.

Turn-Off Pistols: The Queen Anne Pistol So-called turn-off pistols—pistols with barrels that unscrewed at the breech—appeared during the snaphaunce period and maintained popularity during the flintlock period. Turn-off pistols were particularly effective when mated with rifled barrels. In such cases, the breech was slightly larger than the rifled barrel and, once the barrel was removed, easily accepted the powder charge and bullet. When loading a turn-off pistol, the user did not have to ram the bullet home and thereby risk deforming the projectile with a resultant loss of accuracy. Instead, he simply screwed the barrel back on; the discharge of the pistol forced the bullet into the lands and grooves of the barrel. The smaller bore also eliminated the need for a patch and prevented the ball from rolling out of the barrel. The Queen Anne pistol, the finest of the turn-off pistols, appeared in the early eighteenth century and remained popular long after its namesake’s death in 1714. Queen Anne pistols usually exhibited a high level of workmanship, with silver-wire inlayed stocks, silver butt caps, and swelled, cannon muzzles.

Pocket Pistols The reliable French lock at last made the pistol relatively safe to carry loaded, and the pocket pistol provided a welcome means of personal protection. Pocket pistols, about 7–9 inches in total length,

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

were small enough to carry in one’s coat pocket and were usually sold in pairs, like many of the civilian pistols. The box lock was a particular favorite form of pocket pistol in that its mechanism is, for the most part, contained within the lock itself. As the cock and battery assembly were centrally mounted, they did not protrude from the side of the pistol and offered fewer components to catch on one’s clothing when drawing the pistol. The prospect of carrying a loaded firearm on one’s person, especially in a pants pocket, gave fresh impetus to the addition of more safety features. The sliding bar safety, attached to the top of the pistol, was especially suitable to box-lock pistols. Pushing the bar forward allowed the bar’s two extensions to pass around the cock and engage corresponding slots or shoulders in the cock. This action locked the cock into place, preventing accidental discharge. A variant of the sliding bar safety allowed the bar to travel to the point where it also engaged two small holes drilled into the base of the battery, thereby sealing the priming in the pan. Concealed triggers were also a popular safety feature. Concealed triggers were held flush with the bottom of the pistol frame by a spring until the pistol was cocked. The action of pulling the cock back to its fully cocked position allowed the trigger to drop down for use.

Multiple-Shot Pistols Gunsmiths also attempted to provide clients with additional firepower by crafting various types of multiple-shot pistols. The most common were fitted with two barrels, either side-by-side or overand-under, each fitted with its own lock. Larger barrel combinations were available but tended to be too bulky for most pockets. Box-lock pistols were especially suitable for double-barreled pocket pistols, and the tap-action over-and-under box lock saw considerable popularity during the late flintlock era. With the tap-action pistol, both barrels were loaded separately and shared a common cock and battery that employed a two-chambered priming pan. Having fired the upper barrel, the user tapped a small projection or lever on the side of the pistol. This action rotated the drum-shaped pan to expose the priming in its lower section and allowed the lower barrel to be fired. In another variation, the barrels rotated on a central axis to share a common lock.

35

36

PISTOLS

Blunderbuss Pistols Blunderbuss pistols, with large bores and dramatically flared muzzles, were popular among coachmen for use against highwaymen. Some blunderbuss pistols and carbines were also issued to guards on English mail coaches. Blunderbuss pistols were, in concept, scaled-down shotguns that could be loaded with large amounts of shot or larger bullets that would spray from the bell-shaped muzzle in a wide pattern. The blunderbuss thus required only approximate aiming and could conceivably wound a number of attackers with one discharge. Many blunderbuss pistols were fitted with brass barrels, and some mounted a spring-retained bayonet blade that could be extended for serious menacing. In 1831 Henry Wilkinson patented a blunderbuss pistol with a unique, horizontally flattened muzzle that he claimed would more efficiently spread its shot. Wilkinson also offered a detachable shoulder stock and a special paper cartridge loaded with 12 segmented projectiles.

Duck-Foot Pistol The duck-foot pistol was another attempt to deliver a large amount of lead spread over a wide area. The duck foot derived its name from its four barrels that were fixed to its box-lock action at angles so that they resembled a fan or, in less poetic eyes, a duck’s foot. In theory, the duck foot, appearing in the late eighteenth century, was ideal for controlling crowds and shipboard mutinies. Its low production, however, mirrored its success.

Superimposed Pistols Any attempts to produce multiple-shot pistols, although often ingenious, yielded bizarre results that could be as dangerous to the user as to the intended victim. One concept—the use of so-called superimposed firearms—was especially resistant to practical application. Such weapons utilized multiple loads, placed on top of one another in a single barrel, that were intended to be fired in succession. To be successful, the theory required that the fire from the pistol’s ignition reach only one load at a time and in the correct order. The lead bullet of each load would act as a seal to prevent the fire

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

from the first shot from igniting the powder in the loadings below. Different inventors applied various means of ignition to superimposed pistols. These included sliding locks that could be pushed up and down the barrel to the appropriate vent hole, and internal tubes that were meant to carry the ignition flame past the rear loads to the front load. The successful use of a superimposed pistol required absolutely precise measurements in powder and bullet sizing and meticulous cleaning, chores few soldiers or civilians were willing or able to perform consistently. The penalty for any failure, no matter how slight, in loading a superimposed pistol usually required a mortician or at least a physician, and few such weapons were made; even fewer survive. A variant of the superimposed pistol, the aptly named Roman candle pistol, was at least more realistic in expectations. Acting on the same principle as the firework, one pull of the trigger set off a chain reaction of multiple discharges that was, at worst, highly intimidating.

The Kalthoff and Lorenzoni Pistols Two brilliantly conceived multishot weapon designs that relied on internal magazines—the Kalthoff and the Lorenzoni— emerged during the early seventeenth century. The origins of both weapons are obscure—the names of their inventors were lost, and their current names originated with the two prominent gun-making families that seemed to have advanced the designs. The majority of, if not all, Kalthoffs were apparently long arms, but a number of Lorenzoni pistols survived to attest to their manufacture and use. The Lorenzoni derived its name from the Florentine gunsmith Michel Lorenzoni, whose work was most associated with perfecting the mechanism. The heart of the Lorenzoni system was in two tubular magazines located in its stock, one containing loose powder, and the other a number of balls. Priming for its flintlock mechanism was held in a container attached to the lock. To load, one pointed the barrel up while pulling back a prominent lever on the left side of the gun, thus rotating a cylindrical breechblock. The user then pointed the pistol down to allow the measured powder and a single ball to fall into their respective chambers. Closing the lever returned the breechblock to its firing position and automatically primed and cocked the weapon. The Lorenzoni was capable of six or more shots

37

38

PISTOLS

depending on the individual weapon’s size and caliber. Its remarkable rate of fire was, however, somewhat offset by the inherent fragility of the mechanism and a rather disconcerting tendency for self-destruction if the powder magazine was improperly sealed from the firing chamber. An English gun maker, Abraham Hill, appropriated and patented the Lorenzoni system in London on 3 March 1664. The date is possibly significant, for the next day the famous diarist Samuel Pepys recorded: “There were several people by trying a new-fashion gun brought my Lord this morning, to shoot off often, one after another, without trouble or danger, very pretty” (Pepys: found in Peterson 1962: 229). Although the gun Pepys witnessed being test-fired will probably never be confirmed as the one patented by Hill, the design did enjoy a certain popularity during the period. The Lorenzoni system even saw use in the American colonies, where it was known as the Cookson gun after the English gun maker John Cookson. Eventually a number of Cookson’s relatives apparently immigrated to Massachusetts, where they were producing the weapon as late as the mid–eighteenth century .

Dagger Pistols As an additional last-chance provision, some pistols were fitted with spring-activated bayonets that were attached to either the side or top of the barrel. By releasing a catch, the bayonet would flip out and snap in a forward position, where it could be used as a dagger. Few such pistols saw military use, but they proved quite popular among the rougher elements of society.

EARLY STANDARDIZATION During this period the great national armories and government contractors in Europe began producing large numbers of relatively standardized military flintlock pistols. Standardization, it should be noted, was not synonymous with interchangeability. Weapons of the period conformed to basic types, but all fitting and assembly was done by hand, and pistols from the same shops and arsenals could exhibit variations in manufacture to some degree. Prior to the late

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, following older feudal practices, individual commanders armed most military units. These commanders, invariably noblemen, saw their troops almost as private armies and provided uniforms and arms tailored to their personal tastes and whims. As a result, many early military pistols bear the coat of arms of various noble families rather than the king. Although these military pistols are sturdy and reliable, they are typically rather plain in appearance. These weapons were generally for cavalry and marine applications and accepted a muzzle-loaded paper cartridge. To fire his weapon, the pistoleer would tear off the base of the cartridge, pour a small amount of powder in the pan, and load the rest of the cartridge into the muzzle of the pistol. He would then ram home the charge with the ramrod that was typically stowed in a channel in the pistol’s stock under the barrel. These weapons were usually of the same caliber as the infantry muskets and cavalry carbines of the time and fired heavy lead balls (perhaps caliber .69 to as much as caliber .80). The decision to adopt the same caliber for both long arms and pistols was sound. As the pistol cartridge used half the powder charge of the musket, the paper musket charge could be torn in half, or bled, for use in a pistol if pistol cartridges became unavailable. Forgetting to bleed a cartridge during the heat of battle, as often happened, at times led to disaster for excited horsemen. At best, a full or almost full musket charge could blow the pistol out of the user’s hand, but just as likely it could explode the pistol into shrapnel that could remove fingers and even blind and kill the unfortunate cavalryman.

Cavalry Pistols Most cavalrymen during the flintlock era considered the saber and lance as their primary, more gentlemanly weapons. Still, many supplemented sabers, carbines, and lances with a brace (pair) of pistols stowed in holsters slung across the pommel of their saddle. Like its naval counterpart, the cavalry pistol has only rudimentary (if any) sights, as its short barrel and smooth bore were incapable of accurate fire over a few yards. Still, the horseman’s pistol was effective at close range and, when combined in massed fire, proved moderately effective at medium range. Although many authorities have debated the actual effectiveness of the inherently short-ranged and inaccurate pistol in combat, few have disputed

39

40

PISTOLS

the added psychological security of the pistol as a secondary weapon at the cavalryman’s disposal.

Naval Pistols The introduction of the flintlock pistol also added a welcome addition to the sailor’s arsenal. Earlier boarding and counterboarding weapons were of the hand-to-hand variety, including pikes, cutlasses, clubs, and axes. The naval pistol added reach to the typical sailor’s lethality. The typical flintlock naval pistol had a belt hook opposite the lock, and a sailor often attached at least a brace of pistols to his belt prior to action. Having discharged his pistols, the sailor would often reverse his weapon and use it as a convenient club in close-quarters fighting.

Early Standardization: England The beginning of the eighteenth century saw attempts by the English government to more closely control costs and to centralize domestic arms manufacturing. These priorities were placed under the authority of the Ordnance Office in the Tower of London. Although still awarding small arms contracts to the Dutch, English ordnance officials focused on more efficient methods of regulating the domestic manufacture of both pistols and long arms. These efforts discouraged the assembly of complete weapons by individual gun makers and instead promoted the manufacture of various components by a number of shops to be assembled at centralized locations. Although there were many exceptions, London thus became a center for stock manufacturing, whereas Birmingham produced the lion’s share of locks and barrels. Proof houses were established in both cities, and military weapons were tested and their barrels stamped with proof marks signifying their ability to withstand large powder charges. Other markings generally included the royal cipher—a broad arrow stamp denoting military ownership, the date of manufacture, and, in some cases, regimental markings. Around 1764 the date of manufacture was omitted (owing to the troops’ tendency to refuse older weapons, no matter the condition in favor of the very latest manufactured). As gun production in London and Birmingham increased, local barrel, lock, and stock makers saw their incomes and status rise accordingly.

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

During the eighteenth century England’s Ordnance Board constantly tested new designs with which to best equip the nation’s forces. The board’s task was complicated in that most units, such as the Light Dragoons, Heavy Dragoons, as well as others, demanded weapons tailored to their perceived individual needs. As a result, the board found it necessary to approve several standard pistols rather than the preferred single standard for all branches of service. Still, English military pistols of the period reflected the board’s attempts to balance effectiveness and economy. One such pistol, possibly designed by Colonel George Augustus Elliott, inventor of a carbine bearing his name, was the Light Dragoon pistol that entered service around 1759. The pistol was both simple in appearance and functional. It was fitted with a 9-inch round barrel and a plain side plate and butt cap. Its lock plate was smaller than those on previous pistols, and it had a wood, brass-tipped rammer stowed in a single pipe in a channel under the barrel.

Scottish Pistols A much more distinctive weapon had been issued to Scottish Highland troops in about 1757. Isaac Bissell and John Waters made the Scottish pistols in Birmingham. Typical of other Scottish pistols, they are of all-metal construction and have a button trigger and no trigger guard. They are fitted with an 8-inch barrel, and the metal stock ends in a decorative ramshorn butt. The Scottish pistols are also equipped with a belt hook for attachment to the cross strap and are often marked “R.H.R.” for “Royal Highland Regiment.” There are some accounts of charging Highlander troops discharging their pistols at the enemy, hurling the empty pistols in their opponents’ faces, and then laying on with their traditional basket-hilt broadswords. Still, many deemed the later, mass-produced Scottish pistol an inferior weapon, and its unpopularity led to its retirement from service by 1795.

Dragoon Pistols The 1770s saw a renewed effort to standardize small arms, and barrel lengths for pistols were set at 12 inches for heavy dragoons and 9 inches for light dragoons. Still, despite these efforts, the English seemed compelled to confuse matters and retained a 10-inch bar-

41

42

PISTOLS

reled Light Dragoon pistol for issue to other mounted troops. In 1776, they adopted a 10-inch barreled, 16-inch overall, pistol to replace the Heavy Dragoons’ 12-inch barreled pistol. Although the new Heavy Dragoon pistol at least simplified ammunition issues by retaining the same caliber as the Dragoons’ carbine, its new length further complicated standardization.

Henry Nock In the 1790s the famous artist, engineer, and gun maker Henry Nock further complicated the English pistol question. In 1793, Nock, a brilliant innovator, manufactured 80 side-by-side, doublebarreled pistols for the Royal Horse Artillery. The barrels were 18 inches in length; the left barrel was rifled and fired by the rear of the two triggers. Nock fitted his double-barreled pistol with a detachable shoulder stock, referred to as a shifting butt in contemporary military records. Nock’s pistol was almost impossible to aim and fire comfortably without the stock, owing to its weight and general awkwardness, but with the stock it proved a very serviceable carbine. A 1796 Board of General Officers meeting to address new carbines and pistols for heavy dragoons soon presented Nock with a new opportunity. The board called for a new 9-inch barrel of the same caliber as the new carbine to be issued singly per man rather than in the customary braces. The next year Nock began manufacture of the new pistol, utilizing conventional locks as well as those of his own unique design. Nock’s design utilized removable pins rather than screws, making it more easily dismantled for repair and cleaning; it also featured a cock mounted inside the outer lock plate. Still, more orthodox individuals found it unsuitable for military service, thus necessitating Nock’s use of the conventional locks. The Pattern 1796 was not fitted with a butt cap, and its rammer was stowed in the holster rather than a channel under the barrel. Although infinitely logical, these late-eighteenth-century attempts to standardize pistol and carbine issues unfortunately evaporated during the Napoleonic Wars. The overwhelming need to arm vast numbers of regular troops and volunteer units forced England to press into service any arms available. Even as domestic manufacturers churned out the latest pistol models, ordnance officials scoured arsenals for retired weapons, and agents sailed abroad with contracts for foreign arms makers. Liège, Belgium, one of Europe’s

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

largest firearms production centers, provided England with thousands of pistols that were serviceable but of lesser quality than England’s domestic products. Volunteer units also muddied the waters by procuring pistols wherever they could find them. Volunteer pistols were generally distinguished by the application of a “V” to their butt caps to denote their issue. This chaotic situation often resulted in mounted troops being armed with carbines and pistols of different calibers—an extreme and dangerous disadvantage for them and a real problem for ordnance officers and sergeants. Still, innovators such as Nock continued to improve the pistol’s design. Nock’s pistols during the first two decades of the nineteenth century retained the simple lines of his Pattern 1796 with its 9-inch barrel. Significantly, the new-style pistols were fitted with a rammer permanently attached by a swivel device under the muzzle to prevent loss during use. Later, the new swivel assembly was added to older pistols. The locks, theoretically interchangeable with the issue carbine, originally were fitted with a sliding flat safety behind the hammer, which was abandoned in later pistols. In an attempt to make the pistol more waterproof, a raised pan without a fence was added to discourage water from collecting in the mouth of the pan and seeping into the priming powder.

Collier Pistol In 1818 the American engineer Elisha H. Collier patented a revolving pistol in England and the next year submitted it for adoption by the British Army to the Select Committee at Woolwich. Collier probably based his pistol on an earlier design by his fellow countryman Captain Artemus Wheeler. As originally submitted, Collier’s pistols employed a cylindrical magazine bored with four, five, or eight chambers that rotated automatically upon cocking by means of a prewound spiral spring. Another spring then advanced the cylinder against the breech of the barrel. The fronts of the chambers were chamfered, or recessed, to allow them to slide over the breech of the pistol’s single barrel. This formed a relatively tight seal to minimize the loss of energy upon ignition. A third spring allowed the cylinder to retract for further rotation. A self-priming magazine attached to the battery speeds the pistol’s operation. Although the committee acknowledged the ingenuity of Collier’s pistol, it declared it too expensive and ultimately judged it overly complicated and delicate for

43

44

PISTOLS

hard field use. Having simplified his design by omitting the automatic rotating feature, Collier resubmitted his pistol, only to receive a final rejection. Realizing only modest civilian sales of his invention, Collier eventually ceased production.

Later English Standardization Efforts Later developments toward the end of the flintlock era in England included the shortening of Sea Service (or Navy) pistol barrels to as little as 4.5 inches in 1822, as well as the possibility of abandoning the issue of pistols to mounted troops altogether. The last proposal, made in 1828 by a board of officers under Sir Richard Hussey Vivian, proposed arming cavalry with carbines without the added firepower of pistols. Scorned for its uselessness by the British Army, the pistol was eventually dropped as a cavalry weapon, although Lancers received one pistol each.

French Pistols From 1650 through the eighteenth century France tended to dominate its rivals in firearms design and production. One key to this success lay in their early centralization of production in key manufacturing centers. During the seventeenth century skilled Belgian gunsmiths had relocated from the famed firearms producing city of Liège to Charleville. Charleville quickly grew into a major manufacturing center with a royal arsenal that produced well-made muskets and pistols. Other royal arsenals were set up in Saint Étienne, Maubeuge, and Paris. The Royal Manufactory of Versailles also produced presentation firearms of extremely high quality for the kings’ pleasure. Regardless of their arsenal of origin, French military pistols tended to conform well to standard patterns and were robust, logically designed weapons. Both English and French designs secured the breech of the barrel to the stock by means of a screw through the tang, requiring a screwdriver for disassembly. The French method of securing the barrel to the forestock, however, held a significant advantage over that of the English. The English preferred to attach their barrels by means of metal pins that passed through the stock and through loops brazed to the bottom of the barrel, a

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

method that made disassembly of the pistol difficult. This was a significant defect in that black gunpowder leaves a highly corrosive residue that requires thorough cleaning with hot, soapy water to prevent rust and fouling. Although a pistol could be cleaned with the barrel in place, it was not an ideal option, and the hot water could eventually damage the wood stock. To accomplish an effective cleaning required dismounting the barrel completely to clean under the vent hole and the inner lock plate surface. The French eased the field disassembly of their firearms by utilizing metal bands that wrap around the stock and barrel, securing it in place. Simply pressing a spring retaining catch allowed the barrel band to slide off, freeing the barrel. Later eighteenth-century French pistols can also be distinguished from English weapons in their lack of butt-cap spurs and reinforcing metal straps connecting the butt cap to the barrel tang and trigger guard.

Prussian Pistols Military pistols of the German states during the time, most notably Prussia, differ in only superficial details from those of other European nations. A significant number were used by Hessian troops in the American colonies during the Revolutionary War. Early eighteenth-century German pistols were generally fitted with long, approximately 13-inch, smoothbore barrels. The barrels were pinned to metal-tipped stocks that extended to the muzzle. In 1789 Prussian arsenals such as the venerable Potzdam Magazin reduced the barrel lengths to 11 inches. The barrels of considerable numbers of earlier models were also reduced to that length during the period. In 1808 Prussia further reduced its pistols’ barrel lengths to 8 inches. The arsenals also produced a number of types of wood shoulder stocks that could be attached to the butts of the pistols to convert them into carbines.

American Colonial Pistols The American colonists had little use for pistols prior to the French and Indian War and the War of Independence. The colonists preferred long arms, as they could economically be used dually for protection and hunting. The pistol’s short barrel made it

45

46

PISTOLS

almost useless as a hunting weapon, and thus few were manufactured in the colonies before the wars. In addition, British authorities banned the export of arms to the colonies in expectation of coming hostilities. The necessities of war did spark American gunsmiths to begin manufacturing pistols; understandably, they primarily based their products on British models. These pistols were produced in small quantities in gun shops throughout the colonies and exhibit great variations in quality and appearance. American pistols were usually somewhat cruder in construction than their British counterparts and were often less graceful in their lines. They were typically fitted with iron rather than brass fittings and employ maple or cherry stocks rather than English walnut. American troops also relied on Dutch and German weapons as well as numerous pistols from the royal French arsenals at Saint Étienne, Charleville, and Maubeuge.

Rappahannock Forge During the American Revolution, James Hunter’s Hunter Iron Works, more popularly known as the Rappahannock Forge, produced the first true American-made military pistol. Hunter’s factory was located at Falmouth, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River and produced a close copy of the British Light Dragoon pistol under contract to the state of Virginia. The Rappahannock pistol was about 15 inches in overall length with a 9-inch barrel. Calibers between various specimens vary from .66 to .69. Other gun shops produced copies of the French Models 1763 and 1777 then being supplied by France to American forces.

North and Cheney U.S. Model 1779 Following the Revolution, the fledgling United States contracted with Simeon North and Elisha Cheney of Berlin, Connecticut, to manufacture the first official-issue U.S. military pistol. As France had provided the Continental Army with much of its equipment during the Revolution, North and Cheney relied on the French Model 1777 pistol as the prototype for the U.S. Model 1779. It shared the same caliber .69 of the standard American military musket and continued in production until 1802.

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL

Harpers Ferry Armory Models 1805, 1808, 1811, and 1813 In 1806 the recently established Harpers Ferry Armory introduced the first U.S. government–manufactured pistol, the Model 1805. The Model 1805 was a caliber .54 smoothbore weapon and returned American pistols to a more British rather than Gallic appearance. The main difference in English and French pistols of the period lay in the method of attaching the barrel to the stock. English gunsmiths soldered loops to the underside of the barrel through which metal pins secured the barrel to the fore stock. Although the French Model 1777, like the U.S. Model 1779, lacked a fore stock, most French pistols utilized metal barrel bands to secure the barrels. The Model 1805 was fitted with the English-style pins and continued in production until 1808. Later designs included the caliber .64 Model 1808 and caliber .69 Models 1811 and 1813. During the Model 1811 production the United States began utilizing metal barrel bands rather than pins; this method made pistols easier to disassemble for cleaning. The pressing need for additional pistols necessitated by the War of 1812 also prompted state and national authorities to issue contracts to numerous gun makers to supplement the Harpers Ferry production. Such pistols exhibited many variations in fittings and caliber but generally conformed to the basic design of the military holster pistols.

U.S. Models 1816, 1817, 1819, 1826, and 1836 Later U.S. flintlocks include the caliber .54 Model 1816, Springfield Arsenal’s caliber .69 Model 1817, and caliber .54 Models 1819 and 1826. The caliber .54 Model 1836 holds the distinction of being the last flintlock pistol to enter U.S. service. The Model 1836 and the Model 1826 employed a swivel-mounted rammer attached to the muzzle of the barrel so as to prevent its loss during battle. As the majority of the production of the two U.S. arsenals, Harpers Ferry and Springfield, was devoted to musket and rifle manufacture, most pistols during the flintlock era were made under government supervision by private firms. These contractors included Simeon North and Robert Johnson, both of Middletown, Connecticut, and Asa Waters of Millbury, Massachusetts. Around 1810 John H. Hall

47

48

PISTOLS

of Yarmouth, Maine, manufactured a very limited number of one of the most unique American flintlocks, a breech-loading design that later saw some success when applied to carbines and rifles.

Later Flintlock Pistols The late flintlocks of the first quarter of the nineteenth century displayed the sophistication of more than two centuries of constant refinement. The ignition of the flintlock was, however, its greatest drawback. No matter how well-made the pistol, it could always be rendered useless by damp or windy conditions that could saturate the loose priming or simply blow it out of the pan. Vents often clogged if not cleaned well and produced the flash in the pan that fails to ignite the main charge. In addition, flints were prone to chip and break, and batteries (frizzen) lost their temper and thus sparking ability with constant use. Just as important, the flintlock did not lend itself to use in practical repeating arms, which would become the greatest firearms achievement of the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER 3

The Percussion System

REVEREND ALEXANDER JOHN FORSYTH An 1807 British patent registered by Reverend Alexander John Forsyth of Belhelvie, Scotland, signaled the great turning point in firearms development. Forsyth’s invention would pave the way for the metallic cartridge as well as viable repeating weapons. His patent called for the use of fulminates as an ignition system. Compounds produced by dissolving various metals in acids and then dried into a powder, fulminates are so unstable that they explode when struck with a sharp blow. Earlier inventors had grasped the potential advantages of fulminates for primary ignition over the flint system, but their efforts had met with little success. For the most part their efforts failed owing to their use of the compound as both the ignition and main propellant in their arms. As fulminates tend to produce a greater explosive power than conventional black powder, many of these failures were rather spectacular, often resulting in the destruction of the weapons and injury to the experimenters. Reverend Forsyth wisely retained the old predictable black powder as the main propellant and confined his use of fulminates to ignition. Forsyth thus pursued experiments that relied on the percussion of his weapon’s hammer directly on the fulminates to ignite the main powder charge. Forsyth, an avid sportsman and tinkerer, began his initial trials in an attempt to develop a faster ignition system for hunting guns. As a 49

50

PISTOLS

bird hunter, the good reverend was often irritated by the brief interval between the flash of the flintlock’s pan and the firing of his shotgun’s main charge. Although this interval was a mere fraction of a second, Forsyth believed that it allowed the canniest of his prey to avoid the ensuing load of shot. He built his first percussion gun in 1805 and followed it with numerous improved patterns. Forsyth fitted his guns with what he termed detonating locks, although they were more popularly known as scent bottles for the fulminate magazines he used, which resembled perfume bottles. His improved lock featured a flask-shaped magazine filled with fulminate powder and pivoted to the lock plate. To operate the weapon, one would conventionally muzzle-load the pistol with the main charge and ball. He would then rotate the magazine back to a pan attached next to the vent, where the magazine would deliver a measured amount of fulminate. The resulting detonation of the hammer striking the powder would then send flame through the vent to ignite the main powder charge. Forsyth and others also experimented with other magazine designs that could be either levered or slid into position, but the scent-bottle magazine dominated the field during the early percussion era. Like many true visionaries, Forsyth found little official recognition for his achievements during his lifetime. Seeking government sponsorship, he at first demonstrated his new invention to Lord Moira, Master of the Ordnance. Impressed, Moira arranged for Forsyth to continue his experiments under the government’s auspices in the Tower of London. Unfortunately, Forsyth lost his government sponsorship in 1807 when Lord Moira’s shortsighted political successor, Lord Chatham, brother of Prime Minister William Pitt, ordered him out of the Tower. The loss of government backing did not end the intrepid reverend’s efforts. In 1812 he entered a partnership with James Watt, the renowned inventor of the steamboat. Watt was instrumental in guiding Forsyth through the necessary patent process and helped him obtain a British patent dated back to 1807, thus securing his place in history. James Purdey, one of the foremost English gunsmiths of the era, joined Forsyth and Watt to begin the manufacture of Forsyth’s percussion designs. Although Forsyth was reasonably successful as a private gun maker, the lack of the British government’s appreciation for his efforts plagued him for the rest of his life. Despite the British military’s adoption of Forsyth’s percussion system in 1839, the government delayed payment for the use of his patent and even then offered Forsyth a paltry £200. In

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

1843 public outrage at this injustice eventually prompted the authorities to award an additional £800 to the initial royalties, but the payment was too late for Forsyth to enjoy it—he had died just months earlier. As with any new invention there was some initial resistance to the universal acceptance of the percussion system. There was, for example, a general feeling among sportsmen that percussion weapons were not quite as powerful as the old tried-and-true flintlocks. In addition, percussion weapons delivered greater recoil than flintlocks, as the flintlocks’ vent released a certain amount of pressure on ignition. Accordingly, many gentlemen ordered pistols with interchangeable flint and fulminate locks. The scent bottle and its variations were just as expensive as their flintlock competitors and in many cases were more complicated to manufacture and operate. As a result, their early use was confined to only the most sophisticated gun enthusiasts. Fulminates were also more corrosive than black powder and thus tended to damage the pistols’ mechanisms if the weapons were not meticulously cleaned immediately after use. Still, Forsyth and his competitors found a market among wealthy gentlemansportsmen hungry for the latest status-laden gadget.

THE PATCH LOCK, PILL LOCK, AND TUBE LOCK A number of other percussion systems quickly followed and competed with the early scent bottles. The later patch lock, used by Forsyth and others, employed what was termed a patch primer—a small amount of fulminate sandwiched between two pieces of paper. This patch, depending on the pistol’s design, was either adhered to the hammer’s face or placed directly over a hollow tube attached to the barrel that directed the flash of ignition into the main powder chamber. In 1816 the renowned London gun maker Joseph Manton patented the pill lock, also known as the pellet lock. Although successfully sued by Forsyth for patent infringements, Manton produced fine weapons that used fulminate mixed with gum arabic and rolled into small pills or pellets coated with wax or varnish. Various pill-lock designs either relied on the placing of the pill or pellet into the weapon’s pan or into a hollow tube, or plug, inserted into the pistol’s hammer. The main defect of these designs from the military point of view lay in the small size of the pellets, which made them

51

52

PISTOLS

easy to lose in combat situations, and the tendency of the wax or varnish binding agents to melt in hot weather. Manton followed his pill lock with his tube lock, patented in 1818. The tube lock utilized a small copper tube, open at both ends and filled with fulminate. The tube was inserted into the pistol’s vent with an exposed section resting on a small anvil in the pan of the lock. The hammer would then strike the exposed section, simultaneously exploding the fulminate, flattening and thus closing the outside end of the tube, and directing the flame into the main powder chamber. The tube lock’s main defect lay in that the hammer did not always seal the exposed end of the tube and allowed the flame to flash into the shooter’s or a companion’s face. In some instances the entire tube blew out of the vent, causing severe injury to those nearby. Although sufficient for sporting arms, these designs were also impractical for use in military pistols. During the confusion and excitement of battle, the pellets, patches, and tubes were easily dropped or improperly inserted into the pistol. In any case, few of these alternate percussion systems gained significant popularity, and most of those manufactured and sold in the United States and Europe were later converted to the more reliable percussion-cap ignition.

THE PERCUSSION CAP Although a number of gentlemen claimed the invention of the percussion cap as their own, the most likely candidate was Joshua Shaw, an English-born landscape artist who immigrated to Philadelphia in 1817. Shaw received a U.S. patent for the percussion cap in 1822. Shaw’s closest rivals for the honor were the famed English gun maker Durs Egg, who received an English patent the same year, and a Frenchman named Prélat, who obtained a French patent in 1818. The discrepancy in patent dates does not indicate that Shaw was not the inventor of the percussion cap but merely misinformed on patent law. Having invented the percussion cap in England, he apparently failed to patent it owing to his mistaken belief that Forsyth’s patents covered all fulminate-ignition systems. He had demonstrated his invention publicly, and other, cannier entrepreneurs had made quick runs to their respective patent offices to exploit the new invention. For his part, the Frenchman Prélat apparently made something of a career of exploiting France’s lax patent

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

laws by registering others’ ideas before the original inventors could reach Paris themselves. The invention of the percussion cap was arguably the greatest single development in nineteenth-century firearms history. Shaw’s contribution was to place a small amount of fulminate into a tiny metal cup, or cap, and seal the powder in with a piece of foil and a dab of varnish. The cap was then placed firmly on a metal cone or nipple screwed into the breech of the pistol to direct the flash of the cap into the powder chamber. In later years Shaw claimed that the idea came to him through a fortuitous accident. By Shaw’s own account, he had sealed a small steel tube of a fulminate mixture with one of his drawing pencils that then rolled off of a table and struck the floor, discharging the fulminate. Shaw first experimented with reusable iron and pewter caps but found the results unsatisfactory. He finally settled on copper as the ideal material for his caps, a decision also arrived at by his competitor, Egg, and other rivals such as the Londoner Frederick Joyce and E. Goode Wright of Hereford. In 1823 Wright developed and rigorously promoted an improved copper cap that replaced earlier fulminates with the less corrosive fulminate of mercury. Having settled on the materials for both the primer and cap, Shaw and his competitors faced a final obstacle in producing a truly practical percussion cap. During experimental trials the early caps displayed a distressing tendency to blow apart into small dangerous fragments upon ignition. Shaw and the others found a two-pronged solution. By manufacturing the larger musket caps with integral splits in their sides and scoring the pistol caps with tiny grooves, the inventors found they could control the caps’ self-destruction. They then recessed the nose of the hammer—the point of contact between hammer and cap—to cover the cap and to prevent fragments of the cap from flying in the user’s face. The new percussion system offered the twin advantages of simplifying and thus shortening the loading time, as well as greatly reducing the pistol’s vulnerability to damp conditions. Shaw later developed mass-production machinery for his caps and helped set up the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia for their production. In addition, the U.S. Army awarded Shaw $18,000 for the use of his patents. Although civilian sportsmen embraced the new percussion technology, military officials were somewhat slower in abandoning their flintlocks, which had been proven under fire. Their initial objections were similar to those of their civilian counterparts, but during the 1830s ordnance boards in Europe and the United States began test-

53

54

PISTOLS

ing percussion prototypes. By the mid-1840s most modern nations had adopted the percussion system as standard and began manufacturing percussion weapons and converting older flintlocks to the new system.

EARLY BRITISH PERCUSSION PISTOLS In England, it fell to Inspector of Small Arms George Lovell to oversee the conversion of older military pistols and the design and testing of new percussion weapons. A talented designer and administrator, Lovell assumed his post in 1840, shortly after the cavalry’s rejection of pistols as “ineffectual.” Nevertheless, Lovell supervised the government factory at Enfield and ordnance shops in London and Birmingham in fabricating percussion pistols from older flintlock components for the Sea Service, Navy, and Coast Guard. These pistols were fitted with 6-inch barrels and belt hooks. In 1848 he also was instrumental in the manufacture of 500 box-lock pocket pistols for issue to undercover agents of the Royal Irish Constabulary. Lovell also designed a new percussion pistol for lancers and cavalry sergeant majors and trumpeters. More interested in the design of carbines and muskets, Lovell came up with a practical, reliable pistol that was decidedly lacking in visual appeal. His new weapon was fitted with a swivel rammer and a 9-inch barrel bored to the standard carbine caliber. It was, however, extremely plain in appearance and was markedly stubby owing to its short grip.

CONVERSION PERCUSSION PISTOLS The percussion system ushered in a new era of private gun ownership and was to help revolutionize warfare. The civilian shooting public was the first to embrace the percussion system, first in England and soon after in the rest of Europe and America. Enthralled by the new technology, many owners of flintlock pistols had them converted to percussion—a relatively simple procedure. In most cases a gunsmith removed the pan, battery, and battery spring from the lock plate and replaced the flint cock with a simplified percussion hammer. Screwing a bolster and cone assembly into the vent

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

completed the conversion. National governments, in both Europe and the United States, also began a systematic program of converting older weapons in their stores to the new system. National armories as well as private contractors working under government supervision carried out these conversions.

CIVILIAN PERCUSSION PISTOLS By the 1830s most fine pistols were designed from their inception as percussion weapons. The first of these weapons were expensive sporting guns intended for a well-heeled clientele. Crafted by such masters as Joseph Manton and Joseph Egg, these guns were beautifully proportioned and tastefully ornamented in the traditions of the great artisans of the 1600s and 1700s. Pairs of single-shot dueling pistols remained very popular among both the American and European elite. That dueling had been declared illegal in the majority of these venues made little real impact on the manufacture or acquisition of such weapons—most owners saw dueling pistols more as works of art than as devices to kill others. Many such weapons produced during the decline of dueling were more accurately termed target pistols, as their superior accuracy lent them naturally to precision recreational shooting. Fine gunsmiths typically sold duelers and target pistols in matched pairs in fine wood cases complete with the requisite accessories that had become so popular during the flintlock era. Typical percussion dueling pistols, especially in France, Germany, and the United States, tended to be rifled while retaining the same general lines of the older smoothbore flintlock duelers. During the period between 1840 and 1870 the United States boasted a number of talented pistol smiths, including Philadelphia’s Richard Constable and Henry Deringer, as well as Mullin of New York and Happoldt of Charleston, South Carolina. In St. Louis, Missouri, Hawken, the famous frontier rifle maker, also crafted a few high-quality pistols. Their output included duelers, target pistols, and belt pistols that could be worn on a belt rather than a saddle holster. For the most part these gunsmiths took their stylistic inspiration from the British, crafting rather large half-stocked pistols averaging about 17 inches in overall length with 10- or 11-inch octagonal barrels. Bores were usually rifled and between calibers .48 and .54.

55

56

PISTOLS

The advent of the percussion era also greatly accelerated the democratization of private gun ownership. The 1840s, 1850s, and 1860s saw an enormous increase in production of pistols for the U.S. civilian market. The United States, where gun ownership was considered a fundamental right, saw a rapid rise in the production and sales of mass-produced, affordable pistols. The industrial revolution had a significant impact on U.S. pistol manufacturing. As both the population and frontier expanded, numbers of privately owned arms factories sprang up to meet the needs of the growing and often violent society. Powered by steam and water, these new factories clustered in the northern states and competed to supply pioneers, miners, gamblers, and common citizens with cheap personal protection. Although large numbers of these pistols were cheaply made, low-quality weapons, others were affordable and well-made. Ethan Allen in his various partnerships in Massachusetts was one of the most prolific of these manufacturers.

BOOT PISTOLS Ethan Allen (whose various firms included Allen & Thurber, Allen & Wheelock, and E. Allen & Co.) found a rich market for his bootleg pistols, or boot pistols. As their nickname suggests, such pistols could be easily concealed high in the top of riding boots typical of the period. Although there were some multibarreled boot pistols, most were simply constructed, rifled, single-shot weapons of calibers between .36 and .44 that could deliver a lethal charge at close quarters. Most boot pistols were also purposely built along the lines of a blackjack, so as to be reversed in the hand and used as a truncheon if the bullet failed to discourage an opponent.

UNDERHAMMER PISTOLS Self-described underhammer pistols were a popular variation of the standard boot pistol. Located under the barrel, the low-profile hammer was less liable to snag on one’s clothing in a fast draw and did not obstruct the sighting line of the pistol. Underhammer pistols were also safer to shoot, because copper percussion caps often blew

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

apart upon ignition and, on conventional pistols, could even blind the shooter. On underhammer pistols any cap debris simply flew toward the ground. Such handy weapons were considered indispensable on the frontier and along the highways and back alleys of the new nation.

POCKET AND COAT PISTOLS Pocket pistols, also known as coat pistols, were small in size yet of large caliber that could easily be carried in one’s trouser pocket or, more commonly, the coat pocket. These pistols were manufactured in both single- and multibarreled versions, but by far the most popular and sought-after pocket pistols were those made by Philadelphia gunsmith Henry Deringer Jr. Having founded his business in 1806, Deringer made a name for himself producing flintlock weapons for the U.S. Army and, from the 1820s through the 1840s, high-quality percussion dueling, target, and pocket pistols for the civilian market. Between the mid-1850s and the mid-1860s Deringer achieved his greatest fame and notoriety with the diminutive percussion pistols that would make his a household name. So famous was Deringer’s product that it quickly attracted imitators who, attempting to circumvent patent and copyright laws, intentionally stamped their products with such names as “DERRINGER.” Their efforts, combined with those of sloppy journalists, permanently labeled any small, one- or two-shot pocket pistol with the misspelled name of its inventor. This was the case of John Wilkes Booth’s derringer following the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Although Booth used an original Deringer, now on exhibit at Ford’s Theater, a number of newspapers reported it as a derringer, thus fixing the spelling in the English lexicon. The original Deringer was typically much more of a quality product than its generic derringer competitors. Deringer’s skilled craftsmen combined fine, checkered walnut and German silver engraved mountings with a short, rifled barrel to produce their handsome yet deadly little pistols. Most Deringers were sold as cased pairs, complete with a bullet mold, and some deluxe models featured silver or gold mountings. Americans prized the Deringer for its easily concealed size and its lethally large bore. Booth’s pistol, for example, was a mere 5.87 inches long, yet was bored to caliber .41.

57

58

PISTOLS

U.S. MILITARY PISTOLS Private contractors under the direction of military ordnance inspectors manufactured the vast majority of U.S. percussion military pistols. The two U.S. arsenals at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and Springfield, Massachusetts, manufactured few pistols, instead concentrating on long-arm production. The arrangement, originating with the Militia Act of 1808, reflected the new nation’s reliance on a small national army supplemented by a large militia. The national arsenals thus channeled most of their arms to regular units, while the private arsenals supplied the national government with most of its pistols and the various states with both pistols and muskets. An annual appropriation of $200,000 distributed among the states financed their arms acquisitions. The six primary private arsenals were: Asa Waters of Sutton (later renamed Milbury), Massachusetts; Simeon North of Berlin (later moved to Middletown), Connecticut; Nathan Starr of Middletown, Connecticut; Eli Whitney of New Haven (Whitney’s factory town, also called Whitneyville), Connecticut; Henry Deringer of Philadelphia; and Lemuel Pomeroy of Pittsville, Massachusetts. Two private southern arsenals, the Virginia Manufactory in Richmond, Virginia, and William Glaze’s Palmetto Arsenal in Columbia, South Carolina, produced weapons exclusively for their respective states. The militia arms procurement system served the nation well until its abrupt demise in 1848 in what came to be known as the Talcott Scandal. In that year Colonel George Talcott replaced Colonel George Bomford as Chief of Ordnance and almost immediately contracts to the private contractors ceased. Despite desperate inquiries by the cash-strapped contractors, Talcott, by then a brevet brigadier general, remained mute on the subject. Suspicions of misconduct on Talcott’s part soon arose following subsequent routine inspections of the various national forts and arsenals by Secretary of War Charles M. Conrad. These investigations revealed a massive surplus of new cannon balls overflowing the installations. An ensuing exchange between the Secretary and the arrogantly evasive Talcott led Conrad to the verge of issuing a challenge to a duel. Denied a duel owing to the two men’s offices, the Secretary resorted to ordering a court-martial. The court-martial, on which General Winfield Scott served as judge advocate, soon ferreted out the cause of the contractors’ problems. Talcott, it was learned, happened to own a large foundry in Richmond that was in the business of casting cannonballs. Having

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

diverted nearly the entire funds for other ordnance to his own factory, Talcott had made himself wealthy, complete with a lavish lifestyle and extensive real estate holdings. The outraged court-martial stripped Talcott of his rank and office and erased his name from the army’s officers roll. Unfortunately, the army’s actions were too late to save most of the contractors from bankruptcy. Only the Eli Whitney firm managed to continue as a major supplier of military arms.

U.S. Navy Elgin Cutlass Pistol The first officially adopted U.S. percussion pistol, the U.S. Navy Elgin Cutlass, is also one of the most unique. Only 150 cutlass pistols were made between 1837 and 1838 for the express purpose of arming the Wilkes–South Sea Exploring Expedition, and a very limited number of smaller pistols were made for private sale. George Elgin, who found inspiration in the exploits of the legendary frontiersman James Bowie, patented the pistol that was then manufactured by C. B. Allen of Springfield. The military contract pistol was a single-shot, caliber .54 smoothbore mounting an 11-inch Bowie knife blade under the barrel. Forged by the famous cutler N. P. Ames of Springfield, the blade stretched the pistol’s length to an imposing 17 inches. A brass or German silver mounted sheath manufactured by Ames completed the ensemble. The cutlass pistol also holds the distinction of being the only combination pistol weapon adopted by the U.S. military. The unwieldiness of the blade and the relative expense in manufacture were the major factors in the government’s decision not to extend the contract beyond the initial 150 pistols. Although Allen and the firm of Morrill, Mosman, and Blair of Amherst, Massachusetts, attempted to market small and medium-sized versions of the navy pistol, neither met with appreciable success, and the firm soon ended all production of Elgin’s design.

U.S. Model 1842 Percussion Navy Pistol The U.S. Navy continued to lead the Army in the adoption of percussion pistols by contracting N. P. Ames and Henry Deringer of Philadelphia to manufacture the Model 1842 Percussion Navy Pistol. The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, the precursor of the Coast

59

60

PISTOLS

Guard, also purchased a limited number in 1843. The Navy Model 1842 is a caliber .54, smoothbore weapon of rather simple lines with a swivel mounted ramrod and brass mountings. Its most distinctive feature is its box lock with the hammer mounted inside the lock plate.

U.S. Model 1842 Percussion Pistol The Model 1842 was the first general issue percussion pistol adopted by the U.S. Army, but its production was delayed until about 1845. The firms of Henry Aston and Ira N. Johnson of Middletown, Connecticut, manufactured the Model 1842 under contract to the government until production ended in 1852. The Palmetto Arsenal of Columbia, South Carolina, also produced a small number of Model 1842s for issue to South Carolina militia units. The Model 1842 closely resembles the earlier Model 1836 flintlock but was fitted with brass rather than iron mountings, giving it a somewhat more handsome appearance. The Model 1842 was issued in pairs to be carried in saddle holsters, as was the Model 1836. Both pistols saw significant use by U.S. troops during the Indian Wars, the Mexican War, and the U.S. Civil War.

U.S. Model 1855 Pistol-Carbine Just prior to the Civil War, two U.S. inventors—Edward Maynard, a Washington dentist, and the famed arms designer Christian Sharps—made significant contributions to percussion technology. In 1845 Maynard obtained a patent for his ingenious tape primer lock. Employing the principle still used in modern toy cap pistols, Maynard’s lock utilized a milled circular compartment to hold a roll of caps consisting of 50 drops of fulminate sandwiched between two narrow paper strips. The tape compartment was protected by a small hinged door forward of the hammer. A simple mechanism attached to the pistol’s hammer would automatically feed the drops of fulminate to the nipple with each cock of the hammer. The U.S. military adopted the Maynard system for use in the Model 1855 Pistol-Carbine. A caliber .54, single-shot muzzleloader, the Model 1855 could be easily distinguished from other pistols of the period by its detachable shoulder stock and Maynard device. The Model 1855 found favor among some cavalrymen who

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

preferred its automatic capping system rather than manually capping their pistols with conventional caps. Still, the Maynard tapes were often difficult to obtain under field conditions, and eventually most Civil War soldiers came to rely on the more readily available percussion caps that could also be fitted to the pistol’s nipple. The Sharps design, just as ingenious as Maynard’s, ultimately also proved to be impractical in the field. The Sharps system relied on a spring-fed tube of 25 small primer discs that was inserted into a magazine behind the nipple. The falling hammer would then trigger the magazine to eject a single disk that would then, in theory, fall between the nipple and hammer in time to spark the pistol’s main powder charge. The tiny, fragile springs of the mechanism as well as the split-second timing required for its successful operation doomed the disk primer. Minute amounts of dirt, rust, and moisture—all abundant elements of combat situations—could render the disk system useless. As a result, in 1859 Richard Lawrence patented his Lawrence cutoff. Rather strangely, in retrospect, the cutoff was touted as an improvement in that it effectively disengaged the disc feed so that conventional percussion caps could be used.

THE PEPPERBOX Gunsmiths had attempted to design multiple shot weapons as far back as the matchlock era. Although some of their designs had shown considerable ingenuity, all were crippled by the ignition systems then available. The invention of the percussion cap at last made practical repeating weapons possible. The first widely manufactured pistols in this category employed multiple barrels that revolved around a central pin. Usually employing four to six barrels, these pistols, known popularly as pepperboxes, were produced both in the United States and Europe from the 1820s until about 1860. Although pepperboxes did not become widely accepted as military arms, they did see considerable usage by officers who purchased them privately. The earliest pepperboxes required the barrels to be rotated manually, but after 1830 most pistols were equipped with a pawl that automatically rotated the barrels as the hammer was cocked. Oddly, no European filed a patent for the automatic barrel rotation, leaving Americans Benjamin and Barton Darling free to claim a U.S. patent in 1836. The following year the Massachusetts firearms innovator

61

62

PISTOLS

Ethan Allen patented the first double-action pepperbox. Earlier pepperboxes had been single-action weapons, requiring the hammer to be pulled back manually to cock the weapon. Allen’s double-action design automatically cocked and fired the pistol by pulling the trigger. This improvement made Allen’s pepperboxes the fastest-firing repeating arms of the era. Also, nearly all pepperboxes were manufactured with their nipples screwed into the barrels’ breeches at right angles, necessitating a vertical hammer fall. This made earlier pepperboxes very difficult to aim, owing to the high hammer profile in the shooter’s line of sight. A low-profile bar hammer also gave Allen’s pepperboxes a sleek profile, allowing for quick drawing from a pants or coat pocket and a less obstructed aiming view. Other U.S. manufacturers included the Darlings, Blunt and Sims, and the Manhattan Arms Company. The typical American pepperbox is a utilitarian weapon of either four or six barrels. Most were rather plain in appearance, being intended for mass production and sale at moderate prices. Any decoration usually consisted of machine-engraved scrollwork. British and continental European pepperboxes were often of much better craftsmanship and exhibit finer embellishments. Many were also fitted with belt hooks, a rare feature in U.S.-made pepperboxes. British manufacturers included such famous firms as those of James Purdey, Joseph Manton, and the Rigbys of Dublin. The number of barrels fitted to European pepperboxes varies more widely than in the United States, ranging from three to 24. Joseph Manton offered an 18-barreled pistol with six nipples designed to fire three barrels simultaneously. Manton also offered knife blades that could be screwed into the butts of his pistols, converting them into emergency daggers. The Mariete system, patented in Belgium in 1837, was popular among Belgian and French gunsmiths and employed separate barrels that screwed into a common breechblock. Ring triggers and Damascus twist barrels were other common continental features not typically found on other pepperboxes. Although pepperboxes enjoyed wide popularity during the first half of the nineteenth century, they do suffer from some significant drawbacks. Their multiple barrels tended to make them ungainly, and accuracy was compromised by the heavy trigger pull required to cock the hammer and rotate the barrels. The weight of the barrels also made aiming difficult, and the hammer, usually located centrally on the top of the frame, tended to obstruct the pistols’ line of sight. Mark Twain, during an 1861 stagecoach journey in the West, en-

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

countered a fellow passenger proudly brandishing an Allen pepperbox. The author’s description of both pistol and owner was less than flattering. Although conceding that his Allen was somewhat prone to discharge all of its barrels at once, the man insisted on demonstrating its accuracy. Taking careful aim, according to Twain, the intrepid marksman then managed to shoot a hapless mule standing some 30 yards from the intended target. Having paid the mule’s shotgun-toting owner, the hapless man joined Twain and the others in the stagecoach.

The Transition Revolver Despite such obvious deficiencies, the pepperbox continued to retain a few loyal adherents. In addition, the aptly named transition revolver emerged as something of an evolutionary link between the rapidly obsolescing pepperbox and the up-and-coming true revolver. The transition revolver retained the internal mechanism of the pepperbox but substituted the multiple revolving barrels with a shortened revolving cylinder for individual loadings. This rear assembly was typically attached to a single barrel by means of its cylinder pin passing through a hole underneath the barrel in the forward section. A metal wedge secured the components. This arrangement, despite various efforts to strengthen it, made the transition revolver inherently weaker in design than either the pepperbox or true revolver. Repeated use thus loosened the joint between the two sections, with an inevitable loss of accuracy. In addition, many transition revolvers shared the common pepperbox defect of lacking partitions separating the individual nipples. This oversight allowed flame to jump from one nipple to another in a dangerous chain-fire reaction (the simultaneous ignition of one or more chambers). It would take a competing revolving pistol system to finally prove the pepperbox’s and transitional revolver’s obsolescence.

SAMUEL COLT In February 1836 an American patented the first practical singlebarreled revolver. Born in 1814 in Hartford, Connecticut, Samuel Colt epitomized the entrepreneurial spirit of nineteenth-century America. At an early age Colt exhibited a talent for combining his

63

64

PISTOLS

interests in mechanics and science with self-promotion. At 15 he advertised his intentions to blow up a raft on a local pond with an electrically detonated mine. He succeeded in not only destroying the raft but also drenching the spectators gathered on the bank. He later assisted Samuel F. B. Morse in a telegraph company venture and set out on a traveling tent show where he demonstrated the amusing effects of laughing gas on paying audiences. In 1830 Colt set sail as a trainee midshipman aboard the Corco, a brig bound for Calcutta. While his shipmates filled their spare time practicing scrimshaw, Colt picked up knife and wood to carve a legend. Colt’s wood prototype of his first revolver still survives to prove he was no great artist with the knife. Colt was always looking for those with talents to augment his own and turned to another Hartford resident, Anson Chase, to produce the necessary patent models and drawings. Chase’s first model unfortunately blew up during test firing—the result of flame jumping from one nipple to the next and igniting multiple chambers. Colt quickly modified his original design to avoid that danger by machining partitions between each nipple to protect them from their neighbors’ ignition. The constant perfectionist, Colt then commissioned John Pearson’s Baltimore firm to fine-tune Chase’s work. In December 1835 Colt obtained his first revolver patent in England, following it with a U.S. patent in February 1836. Despite the claims of legions of jealous detractors, Colt never personally claimed to have invented the revolver. Revolving firearms designs had appeared during the matchlock period, and fellow American Elisha H. Collier had patented a revolving flintlock pistol in England in 1818. These earlier designs had been hampered, however, by overly complicated and fragile mechanisms and, more important, by the unavailability of a reliable ignition system such as the percussion cap. Although at least two revolving pistols appeared in the late 1830s, neither provided Colt with appreciable competition. The partnership of Nichols and Childs of Conway, Massachusetts, produced only a limited number of pistols based on the earlier Collier principle. Another contemporary design, the Cochran Turret Revolver, manufactured by C. B. Allen of Springfield, had the distinction of being one of the most bizarre pistols ever produced. Rather than revolving a cylinder around a horizontal shaft, the Cochran employed a flattened wheel-shaped magazine that rotated around a vertically mounted axle. As the Cochran’s chambers fanned out from the central axis like the spokes of a wheel, an acci-

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

dental chain-fire was capable of a theoretically 360-degree swath of destruction. In addition to the pistol’s dubious safety, a large hammer mounted underneath the pistol enhanced the Cochran’s ungainly appearance. Unlike Cochran and Nichols and Childs, Colt applied improvements that, when combined with the percussion cap, offered a handsome, practical, and reliable revolving pistol suitable for mass production. Colt’s originality lay in his ability to synthesize, simplify, and improve existing designs. He dispensed with the complicated spring for cylinder rotation as used by Collier in favor of a simple pawl attached to the hammer. Simply cocking the hammer pressed the pawl against a notch in the back of the cylinder, rotating its chambers into position. He also notched the base of the hammer with a halfcock position, allowing the cylinder to turn freely for easier loading and capping. Pulling the hammer to full cock locked the cylinder in place for firing. Colt then minimized the possibility of one cap accidentally igniting adjacent chambers by machining partitions between each nipple. A flash shield, machined into the frame behind the cylinder, helped protect the user’s face against exploding cap fragments. The last two improvements were important safety considerations to those using percussion revolvers. No matter how carefully one loaded such a weapon, there was always the possibility of chain-fire. In an extreme case a chain-fire could result in blindness or the loss of fingers, or even a hand.

Colt Paterson Revolvers Colt succeeded in raising the considerable $230,000 in financial backing necessary and, on 5 March 1836, formed the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company in Paterson, New Jersey. In 1837 the new factory produced its first product, the tiny, five-shot Pocket Model Paterson Revolver. The new pistol was bored to caliber .28, fitted with a fold-down trigger, and its octagonal barrel was available in lengths from only 1.75 to 4.75 inches. Colt’s factory also produced the larger, five-chambered, caliber .31 Colt Belt Model Paterson Revolvers No. 2 and No. 3. The most famous of all Colt’s early production, however, was the Colt Holster Model Paterson Revolver No. 5, better known as the Texas Paterson. Manufactured from about 1838 to 1840, the Texas Paterson was the largest of Colt’s early pistols. It also boasted exceptionally clean

65

66

PISTOLS

lines, and it balanced easily in the hand. A roll-engraved cylinder scene depicting a stagecoach holdup, and a handsome blued barrel and cylinder with color casehardened frame and hammer added to the pistol’s visual appeal. In addition, the Texas Paterson’s five cylinders and octagonal barrel were also bored to a respectable caliber .36 and could be ordered in lengths from 4 to 12 inches, with 7.5inch and 9-inch barrels being the most common. The Texas Paterson, like the smaller pistols, was fitted with a folding trigger that dropped down for instant use on cocking the hammer. Later Paterson pistols were fitted with a hinged loading lever mounted under the barrel and a milled depression on the right side of the flash shield to facilitate capping the nipples. The Paterson No. 5 appeared on the market only two years after Texas won independence from Mexico and during one of the greatest periods of western expansion by the United States. Those attempting to tame the new frontier found it a violent and hostile place where one lived and died by the gun. Texans, most notably the famed Texas Rangers, quickly recognized the advantages of Colt’s big pistol. Before the Colt appeared, the only pistols available on the frontier were old single-shot flintlock pistols, a few percussion single-shot pistols, and a smattering of awkward pepperboxes. The Rangers, usually outnumbered in unequal encounters with hostile Indians, Mexicans, and desperadoes, appreciated the extra firepower of the Colt’s five shots. By carrying a brace of Colts with extra loaded cylinders, small parties of Rangers found that they could more than match significantly larger opposing forces armed with the older weapons. In the hands of such famed Rangers as Jack Hays, the Paterson No. 5 quickly attained legendary status, its name permanently associated with Texas and the frontier. Unfortunately for Colt, sales of his new pistols failed to match their growing reputation. In 1837 he submitted the Paterson No. 5 to an army committee at West Point for government trials. Exhibiting the conservatism that characterized the military leadership, the committee rejected the pistol for a number of predictable reasons. The committee judged the No. 5 too complicated (and thus too expensive) and, worst of all, too wasteful of ammunition with its fiveshot capacity. The army would retain its single-shot muzzle-loading pistols for another 10 years before accepting a revolver for government issue. Desperate, Colt personally carried a number of his firearms to Florida in an attempt to impress troops in actual combat with the Seminoles. Although he sold a few rifles to the government and a few pistols to individual soldiers, he returned to Hartford

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

without the large government contract he needed. Despite some purchases by the Republic of Texas Navy, civilian sales, and private purchases by military personnel, Colt managed to market only about 1,000 Texas Patersons. Sales of his various smaller models were even less encouraging, and by 1842 the Patent Arms Manufacturing Company was bankrupt. The following four years found Colt in constant litigation with his former partners and stockholders. During this period John Ehlers, a partner in the firm, took over as head of the factory and oversaw the assembly and sales of the remaining pistols left on the workbenches after Colt’s departure. For his part, Samuel Colt was without money or a factory.

The Colt Walker and Dragoon Models It was Captain Samuel H. Walker, a former Texas Ranger and an old acquaintance, who offered Colt a proposition that would establish him as the premier revolver manufacturer. During the first months of the Mexican War, troops armed with Texas Patersons had proven its superiority over their standard-issue single-shot muzzleloaders. Walker had personally enjoyed the revolver’s advantages both against the Mexicans and especially against Indian attacks. During frontier skirmishes Indian warriors had noticed that troops armed with single-shot weapons were vulnerable as they reloaded between volleys. They had thus altered their tactics accordingly to attack during the lulls in firing. Walker and other troops armed with Colt’s revolvers found the new pistols most effective in countering such rushes. General Zachary Taylor, commanding U.S. troops in Mexico, appreciated the Paterson’s advantages and determined to get more revolvers into the hands of his troops. Taylor consulted with Walker, then serving with the U.S. Mounted Rifles, and ordered him to meet with Colt to design an improved revolver for military issue. The collaboration between the experienced combat officer and gifted designer resulted in one of the most formidable pistols ever issued to mounted troops. Although the Texas Paterson had proven its potential, it had evidenced significant deficiencies under the harsh combat conditions in Mexico. Its major deficiencies as a military weapon lay in its rather fragile construction and relatively light caliber. The Texas Patersons also required special tools for disassembly and reloading, re-

67

68

PISTOLS

sulting in an involved procedure all but impossible for mounted troops in combat situations. Relying heavily on Walker’s suggestions, Colt rapidly redesigned the Texas Paterson into a rugged, powerful weapon ideal for the army’s needs. Lacking manufacturing facilities of his own, Colt contracted with Eli Whitney Jr. to produce the pistol at his Whitneyville factory. Christened the Colt Walker Model, their collaboration resulted in a monster of a handgun. It weighed a full 4 pounds, 9 ounces—so heavy that it could only practically be carried in twin saddle holsters, as were the older single-shot pistols. The Walker, like the Texas Paterson, was a single-action pistol, meaning that thumbing the hammer back cocked the pistol and simultaneously revolved the cylinder. It also mounted a conventional trigger protected by a trigger guard instead of the Texas Paterson’s fragile folding trigger. Other improvements over the Texas Paterson included an integral loading lever, the use of preloaded paper- or skin-wrapped cartridges for faster loading, six chambers rather than five, and a much heavier powder capacity to fire its heavy caliber .44 bullet. The Walker was also manufactured with a 9-inch rifled barrel that aided accuracy. Although a handful, the Walker’s massive weight did aid in absorbing the recoil of the pistol’s large powder charges. Still, Colt later found it necessary to produce numbers of replacement cylinders and even completed U.S. Walker Replacement Dragoon pistols to replace weapons that exploded from overcharging. The Colt Walker Model was fitted with one-piece walnut grips and finished with a color casehardened frame, hammer, and loading lever. The barrel, grip straps, and trigger were blued, and the trigger guard was of polished brass. The cylinder, machine roll–engraved with a scene commemorating a famous 1844 Texas Ranger–Comanche battle, was polished “in the white,” that is, without a blue or color casehardened finish. In the summer of 1847, the army issued 1,000 Colt Walker Models to five companies of the U.S. Dragoons deployed in Mexico. Colt manufactured an additional 100 Walkers for civilian sales and promotional purposes. The new revolver proved an instant success, and Colt followed it with the Colt Whitneyville Hartford Dragoon Revolver the same year. The success of his dragoon pistols at last allowed Colt the publicity and financial resources to reestablish himself in the arms industry. Unfortunately, Walker was killed in October 1847 during the Battle of Huamantla in Mexico. The following year, Colt, who had presented Walker with two Walker Dragoon pistols, opened his new factory back in Hartford.

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

The new mass-production facility was a model of the modern industrial age, outfitted with the most advanced machinery available. Colt also acquired a showroom and sales offices in New York City to more efficiently market his new products. Although Colt’s pistols were manufactured in the Hartford factory, his innate marketing sense prompted him to stamp his new products with the more cosmopolitan New York City address. Colt sensibly exploited the success of the Walker Model, and the first pistols manufactured at the Hartford factory were essentially improved versions of the original. Colt continued to improve the Dragoon design, and it progressed through its First, Second, and Third models during its production run from 1848 through 1861. Some 20,200 Dragoon revolvers left the Hartford production lines and saw military, militia, and civilian sales. The rear sights on most Colts consisted of a simple notch cut into the top of the hammer nose, but a number of Third Model Dragoons were equipped with folding rear sights. These pistols were also available with detachable shoulder stocks for alternate use as repeating carbines. Some shoulder stocks also contained a clever provision for an internal canteen insert.

Colt Model 1848 Baby Dragoon and Model 1855 Sidehammer Revolvers During the late 1840s and 1850s Colt rounded out his company’s offerings with revolving rifles and carbines as well as pocket pistols. Between 1847 and 1850 the factory produced about 15,000 Model 1848 Baby Dragoon Revolvers, a scaled-down version of the larger pistol. The popular Baby Dragoon was a five-shot, caliber .31 revolver that was manufactured either with or without a loading lever. Colt also offered the Model 1855 Sidehammer Pocket Revolver in calibers .28 and .31. The Sidehammer achieved some 40,000 in sales and remained in production until its retirement in about 1870. The Sidehammer was also unique among Colt’s earlier pistols in that it was of a solid frame design rather than the open-top frames for which he was best known. That Colt refused to abandon the inherently weaker open-top design in favor of the solid frame is something of a mystery. His traditional design consisted of a rear frame assembly including the grips, trigger, and hammer. The cylinder revolved on a cylinder pin or shaft mounted to the rear frame. The shaft, as well as two small projections in the lower frame, then mated with the pistol’s forward as-

69

70

PISTOLS

sembly consisting of the forward frame, barrel, and loading lever. A metal wedge, passing through slots in the forward frame and barrel shaft, secured the various components. The arrangement presented two significant problems. Repeated use tended to caused wear on the points of contact between the wedge and cylinder pin and the two studs on the lower frame. Over time, this wear caused a loosening of the pistol, leading to alignment problems between the cylinder and barrel. In addition, reloading required partial disassembly of the pistol by driving the wedge out in order to replace the cylinder— an often frustrating and dangerous procedure in combat situations. Solid-frame pistols avoided these problems. Their frame consisted of a single casting that included a metal top-strap connecting the front and rear frames. The barrels of most solid-frame pistols were usually threaded at the breech and then screwed securely into the frame. This much more structurally sound arrangement prevented the loosening of the pistol’s components even after repeated use. Solid-frame revolvers also allowed for the use of sliding rather than fixed cylinder pins, resulting in faster cylinder replacement. To replace a cylinder in a solid-frame percussion revolver, one simply placed the pistol on half-cock and either slid the cylinder pin forward or backward (depending on the pistol’s design), removed the empty cylinder, and replaced it with a loaded one. Colt was well aware of the solid-frame design; he himself designed the Model 1855, although it is often referred to as the ColtRoot Model after one of his employees. It is possible that he retained his open-top design out of sheer stubbornness or that he preferred the sleeker lines of his original models. As a businessman, Colt was certainly aware that most people associated the openframe design with the Colt name and was thus probably loathe to abandon such hard-won brand name recognition.

The Model 1849 Pocket and 1851 Navy Revolvers In 1850 Colt introduced his two most successful percussion pistols: the Model 1849 Pocket Model and the Model 1851 Navy Revolver. Colt manufactured and sold more than 336,000 Model 1849s, the largest production model of all his percussion weapons. A refinement of the Baby Dragoon, the caliber .31 Model 1849 was available with octagonal barrels from 3 to 6 inches in length and five- and sixchambered cylinders. The vast majority were equipped with loading levers. The Model 1849 was fitted with one-piece, varnished walnut

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

grips and finished with a casehardened frame, hammer, and lever. The barrel and cylinder were blued, the latter roll engraved with a stagecoach holdup scene. The grip straps and trigger guard were silver-plated brass. Production of the Model 1849 ended in 1873. Colt realized the need for a compromise between the Model 1849 and the huge caliber .44 Colt Walker Model. With both civilian and military sales in mind, Colt thus introduced the midsized caliber .36 percussion Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver. Anticipating sales to that branch of service, Colt helped set the precedent of designating caliber .36 pistols as “Navy” while retaining the Walker’s caliber .44 as the bore more suitable to “Army” pistols. Neither the Army nor the Navy designated specific calibers for their pistols—both branches bought quantities of pistols in both calibers—but other manufacturers tended to follow Colt’s lead in assigning calibers .36 and .44 to the respective branches of service. Essentially a scaled-up Model 1848, the six-chambered Colt Navy proved so popular that it too remained in production until 1873. The Model 1851 was also copied by Colt’s competitors as well as by Confederate arms makers during the Civil War. The Colt Navy saw extensive use by both sides during the Civil War; was carried by pioneers, miners, and cowboys in the West; and was, in many cases, later converted to the cartridge system to prolong its useful life. Colt produced a combined total of more than 257,398 Model 1851s. A truly classic weapon, the Model 1851 is finished in the same manner as the Model 1849, with the cylinder embellished with a roll-engraved scene of a naval battle between the Texan and Mexican navies. During the Model 1851’s long production, Colt produced four basic models of the Hartford Navy and two types manufactured in his London facilities, with numerous minor variations among the basic models. Some Model 1851s were also manufactured to accept a detachable wood shoulder stock for conversion into a repeating carbine. As with other Colt percussion revolvers, the Model 1851 could be loaded with either loose powder and ball or with paper or skin cartridges. Colt and other suppliers also provided molds to cast round balls as well as conical bullets as projectiles. To market these products Colt relentlessly exploited whatever media presented itself. As part of his advertising campaign, he commissioned sculptors to produce numbers of bronzes of the now-famous “rampant colt.” This play on his name, first displayed in his New York showroom, became his company’s trademark. He also provided the famous western artist George Catlin with Colt firearms for his painting expeditions into the frontier. Catlin, in turn, provided Colt

71

72

PISTOLS

with paintings and lithographs featuring Colt’s products in the hands of fearless adventurers taming the dangerous wilds of North and South America. Colt issued a set of 10 Catlin lithographs as advertisements for his various models. Even the Colt factory itself became a monument to both Colt and the new industrial age, which Colt believed he embodied. A blue, star-speckled onion-shaped dome surmounted by the rampant colt soared above the latest steam-powered milling machines and assembly lines filling his sprawling Hartford plant. To grease the wheels of commerce, Colt also shamelessly presented influential figures with presents of his beautifully engraved weapons. Dozens of congressmen, ordnance officials, heads of state, and other famous personages thus found themselves the proud owners of Colt pistols and long guns. His Model 1851 Navy was the favored weapon of such diverse nineteenth-century figures as Wild Bill Hickok and the British explorer Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton. Colt anticipated the concept of the celebrity endorsement by decades, alerting the media of any exploit involving his products. The Colt Navy soon became indispensable to any would-be gunslinger who took to wearing his holstered Colts butt-forward in emulation of Hickok. Potential adventurers, contemplating the hordes of savages awaiting them beyond the borders of civilization, also made a stop at a Colt dealer a priority before departure to points unknown. A key element to Colt’s success lay in his jealous protection of his patent rights. The initial registration of his patents did little to deter imitators, and Colt found himself in almost constant litigation. In nearly every case his lawyers successfully managed to shut down such competitors as the Springfield Arms Company of Massachusetts. Established around 1850 by a group of businessmen and designers, including the talented James Warner, the company manufactured revolvers in Dragoon, Navy, Belt, and Pocket sizes. Within a year Colt’s lawsuits forced Springfield Arms Company out of business.

London Colts Soon after establishing his Hartford factory, Colt set his sights on exploiting the rich European market. Drawing on the showmanship he had developed during his early tent-show days, he organized a spectacular display of his wares at the Great Exhibition at

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

Hyde Park, London, in 1851. At a time when most exhibitors showed only a limited number of display models, Colt overwhelmed his audiences with flamboyant arrangements of scores of pistols and long guns. He also continued his practice of ingratiating himself with potential backers by presenting cased engraved Colt revolvers to such appropriate officials as Britain’s Master General of the Ordnance. As the world’s leading proponent of mass production techniques, Colt went on to deliver a landmark lecture on the subject to the Institute of Civil Engineers in London. The membership rewarded his efforts by awarding him their prestigious Telford Gold Medal. Few could have seen it as a mere coincidence when Colt appointed Charles Manby, recent secretary of the Institute of Civil Engineers, to manage his new London facilities. Colt established his London operation near Vauxhall Bridge on the Thames River and began production on 1 January 1853. Many Londoners saw Colt’s installation of the most advanced steam-powered machinery as proof of America’s growing position as a leader in modern industrial production. On a tour of the factory, Charles Dickens was so impressed with the state-of-the-art facilities that he recorded his favorable comments in the 1854 work Household Words. Most significant, the Colt factory’s machines mass-produced interchangeable parts that could be easily and cheaply put together on assembly lines using standardized patterns and gauges. To the dismay of London’s professional gunsmiths, Colt’s factory turned not to them but to relatively unskilled labor to fill its workbenches. With his factory in place, Colt set up a showroom and offices at No. 1 Spring Gardens. Although Colt’s London-manufactured firearms were better-finished than their U.S.-made cousins, initial sales were disappointing. Colt, aware that his enterprise’s success depended on lucrative government contracts, set out to ensure that Colts were in the holsters of every British officer, cavalryman, and sailor. British Ordnance, however, exhibited little interest in his wares, leaving Colt no other recourse than to turn to his other persona—salesman extraordinaire. Soon after Colt’s initial rebuffs by Ordnance, uncannily welltimed letters began to appear in the London Times touting the praises of his revolvers in the hands of the Russian czar’s navy. None of the allegedly unsolicited letters happened to mention the three gold-engraved Colts recently presented to the czar, but all did hint of the dire consequences of a Russian military that was better-

73

74

PISTOLS

armed than the British. In 1854 the British Admiralty ordered 4,000 Navy Model Colt revolvers. Setting his sights on the British Army, Colt again resorted to his clever manipulation of the press and gifts of complementary engraved pistols to key personages. More letters to the Times soon appeared, and public opinion eventually prompted the British Army to invite Colt to submit his revolvers for trials. In 1855 Ordnance relented and placed an order for 5,000 pistols for army issue. The officer in charge of the trials, a Colonel Chambers, must have glowed with pride in his two new engraved Colts. Despite a following order later in the year for an additional 9,000 pistols, Colt failed to convince Ordnance to adopt his revolver as the general-issue sidearm for the army. The Twelfth and Seventeenth Lancers were the only regiments to be fully equipped with Colts, with the remainder mainly going to infantry company officers and sergeant majors. Still others were issued to troops embarking on the Crimean Railway Expedition. Despite numerous privately purchased pistols by various military personnel, Colt gradually realized that his sales were failing to meet his previously high expectations.

BRITISH REVOLVER TRIALS The expiration of Colt’s English patents in 1851 further complicated his efforts to make inroads into the British arms market. Within days of the expiration, British gun makers rushed the British Patent Office with their own revolver designs. Robert Adams was the most influential of the British designers. He and a number of other men, including his relative, John Adams, as well as Frederick Beaumont, William Tranter, James and Philip Webley, and John Kerr, soon emerged as Colt’s rivals for British government contracts. Adams and his countrymen appealed to British nationalism, as well as a number of improvements they had developed over Colt’s original models, to promote their revolvers. Colt’s English rivals did offer two significant advances in revolver technology: solid-frame construction and the double-action mechanism. The double-action feature allowed the pistol to be cocked and fired with one pull of the trigger rather than requiring the hammer to be first thumbed back to cock the pistol. During government trials at Woolwich a select committee charged with studying revolver designs exhibited a marked preference for Adams’s design over Colt’s.

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

The committee found numerous faults with the Dragoon Model submitted by Colt. They deemed it overly cumbersome and objected to the fearsome recoil of its caliber .44 charges. The committee also found the Dragoon’s open-frame design a major structural weakness that would require expensive repairs in the future. Adams’s revolver, patented in 1851, seemed to offer significant advantages over the American Dragoon. Although only chambered for five shots, the Adams was of a stronger, solid-frame design and was of a much more manageable size. More significant, the committee found the Adams’s double-action, or self-cocking, design much faster and far more advanced than Colt’s single-action. The committee downplayed the Adams’s loss in accuracy resulting from the increased trigger pull required by the double-action. Somewhat twisting the knife, they also declared the Adams’s English craftsmanship superior to the American contender.

The Adams Revolvers Robert Adams oversaw the manufacturing and marketing of his pistols under the aegis of his partnership with George and John Deane. Based in London, Deane, Adams & Deane continually upgraded Adams’s basic design, including, most significantly, incorporating Frederick Beaumont’s improved lock in 1855. It was Beaumont’s improvement that allowed the Adams to be fired as both a double- and single-action weapon. Deane, Adams & Deane produced the new Beaumont-Adams in a number of calibers and sizes, from small pocket pistols to large military models. The British Crown officially adopted the caliber .442 Beaumont-Adams in 1856, with Holland and Russia following suit. To meet the growing government, civilian, and foreign demand for its revolvers, Deane, Adams & Deane also contracted firms in Birmingham and Liége as licensed manufacturers of their products. Although not exhibiting the modern interchangeability of parts so touted by Colt, the Adams revolvers were, by European standards, acceptable in their consistency to set standards according to pattern. Testimonials from British officers in the field did confirm the value of the Adams over the Colt under the battlefield conditions of the Crimean War and various colonial conflicts. Many at the time noted that the Colt had proven itself more in the wide-open expanses of the U.S. West, where combat tended to be of a more long-range, mounted skirmishing nature. British infantry officers

75

76

PISTOLS

were quick to point out that their combat experiences were much more of a desperate, face-to-face, close-quarters nature, where the speed of a revolver’s action counted more than long-range accuracy. In 1860 one J. G. Crosse of the 88th Regiment published a letter to Robert Adams in Rifles and Volunteer Corps, a volunteer pamphlet, praising his pistols in such conditions: Sir, In these days of warfare, any invention of improvements in fire-arms should be patronised and assisted, and with that view I write you this letter. I had one of your largest-sized Revolver Pistols at the bloody battle of Inkermann, and by some chance got surrounded by Russians. I then found the advantages of your pistol over that of Colonel Colt’s, for had I to cock before each shot I would have lost my life. I should not have had time to cock, as they were too close to me, being only a few yards from me: so close that I was bayoneted through the thigh immediately after shooting the fourth man. I hope this may be of service to you, as I certainly owe my life to your invention of the Revolver Pistol. (George 1962: 200)

In an April 1896 lecture, Lieutenant Colonel G. V. Fosbery further elaborated on the Adams’s advantages over its U.S. rival during an incident in the Great Mutiny: An officer, who especially prided himself on his pistol-shooting, was attacked by a stalwart mutineer armed with a heavy sword. The officer, unfortunately for himself, carried a Colt’s Navy pistol, which, as you may remember, was of small caliber, and fired a sharp-pointed picket bullet of 60 to the pound and a heavy charge of powder, its range being at least 600 yards, as I have frequently proved. This he proceeded to empty into the sepoy as he advanced, but, having done so, he waited just one second too long to see the effect of his shooting, and was cloven to the teeth by his antagonist, who then dropped down and died beside him. My informant, who witnessed the affair, told me that five of the six bullets had struck the sepoy close together in the chest, and had all passed through him and out at his back. (George 1962: 200)

Early field use exposed three basic design flaws in the initial Adams design—defects that Deane, Adams & Deane quickly moved

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

to correct. The Adams’s double action allowed a much faster rate of fire than the Colt but significantly affected the pistol’s accuracy. The heavy trigger pull necessary to revolve the cylinder and to cock and release the hammer invariably forced the user to shoot above the target. It was the incorporation of Frederick Beaumont’s improvement in 1855 that allowed both double- and single-action operation. The improved revolver, commonly known as the Beaumont-Adams, thus allowed the double-action feature for close, hand-to-hand combat while providing the single-action option for longer, aimed shots. Deane, Adams & Deane also manufactured its earlier pistols without loading levers. They instead introduced a special conical bullet with a greased felt patch attached to its base that allowed it to be thumb-pressed into the cylinder’s chambers. This arrangement quickly proved ill-advised, as the bullets could easily be jarred loose by the pistol’s recoil or by prolonged jostling of the pistol in its holster. Adams subsequently experimented with a number of loadinglever designs, ultimately settling on an efficient lever patented by James Kerr. Kerr’s lever held an added advantage in that, being mounted on the left side of the pistol, it did not in any way infringe on Colt’s existing patents. The third defect, common to many early British revolvers, lay in the Adams’s lack of a recoil shield behind the cylinder. This was a standard feature on Colt’s revolvers and helped keep the percussion caps in place on the nipples. More important, the shield protected the user’s face and eyes from the flash and copper percussion cap fragments that often resulted from ignition. Most probably responding to complaints from officers in the field, Adams and other British gun makers eventually incorporated flash shields in their revolvers.

Tranter, Webley, and Kerr William Tranter, James Webley, and John Kerr also made significant inroads into the domestic British and export revolver trade. The Tranter resembled the Beaumont-Adams in appearance and function but differed in its unique trigger and cocking mechanism. In the Tranter, a second trigger-like device extended through the bottom of the trigger guard and served to cock the hammer and rotate the cylinder. The actual trigger, within the guard, released the hammer. Although seemingly unnecessarily complicated, Tranter’s system worked very well, and the trigger extension allowed a grip for a

77

78

PISTOLS

second finger, giving steadier aim. It was reported that the famed Scottish-born detective Allan Pinkerton favored the Tranter and encouraged its use among his agents during the U.S. Civil War. James Webley’s revolvers also tended to resemble the Adams, but many did not share its solid-frame construction. Many early Webleys were manufactured with a separate forward frame and barrel assembly. This assembly was secured to the rear frame by means of small studs and a slot and wedge that secures the rear-mounted cylinder pin to the forward frame, similar to Colt’s method. Some Webleys, however, were fitted with top straps, giving them greater structural integrity than their U.S. counterpart. In 1856 Adams parted with the Deanes to form the London Armoury Company with James Kerr. The new firm continued production of the Beaumont-Adams and, in 1858, began production of Kerr’s new side-hammer revolver. In its finalized form, the Kerr was a robust, solid-frame, five-shot weapon with a newly designed loading lever mounted under the barrel. It was soon issued to British troops and was officially adopted by Portugal. The Kerr also found great popularity in the British colonies, with many seeing use in Australia, Canada, and elsewhere. The Kerr proved a particular favorite among Confederate officers, who procured them through the federal blockade during the Civil War.

The Massachusetts Arms Adams It must have been particularly galling to Sam Colt when, in 1854, an American ordnance officer, Major Alfred Mordecai, procured an Adams made under license by August Francotte of Liége and recommended it to his superiors. Between 1857 and 1861 the Massachusetts Arms Company of Chicopee Falls subsequently manufactured some 5,500 Adams revolvers in calibers .31 and .36. The U.S. government bought approximately 600 of the Massachusetts Arms revolvers, with a significant number of the balance seeing use by both Union and Confederate forces as a privately purchased sidearm.

Colt Closes the London Factory For his part, Colt was a stubborn man and held great pride in what he saw as the perfection of his own invention. This very stubborn-

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

ness was a key factor in his failure in London. Rather than alter his basic design to meet British requirements for solid-frame doubleaction revolvers, he persisted in manufacturing only his open-top single-actions. Facing mounting competition and with a much anticipated contract from the British East India Company failing to materialize, he eventually bowed to the inevitable. Unable to justify the London factory’s mounting expenses with disappointing sales, Colt closed his English shops in 1856 after only four years of operation. Over the next few months his workmen crated and shipped the factory’s machinery and unassembled firearms components back to America. Although his London venture had failed, Colt could console himself with the knowledge that it had helped spread his name throughout the world. Colt firearms spread within the British Empire to its colonies in India, Australia, Africa, and anywhere its navy sailed. To many, the name Colt was synonymous with revolver, and they used the terms interchangeably regardless of the actual manufacturer of the weapon. Belgian factories went so far as to manufacture Colt’s designs both with and without his permission, often stamping them with either “Colt Patent” or “Colt Brevete” markings. With the expiration of his original patents, Colt soon found others following the Belgians’ lead.

Colt Expansion in the West Despite the failure of Colt’s London factory, his domestic business was thriving, with sales agents operating throughout the country. The combination of Colt’s introduction of the mass-produced revolver, his skillful salesmanship, and the opening of the West created a revolution in the firearms industry. It seemed that everyone needed a revolver. The continual flood of settlers embarking from such staging areas as St. Louis for the western territories created a growing demand for firearms for personal protection. The settlers were not the only ones requiring weaponry of all sorts. Miners found Colt’s revolver handy protection against the desperadoes infesting the silver and gold fields from the Dakotas to California. The gamblers, prostitutes, and bartenders of the saloons also found pocket pistols indispensable to their professions. And of course there were the lawmen who had to try to maintain order—everyone seemed to need a Colt.

79

80

PISTOLS

PREPARATION FOR WAR The late 1850s also saw the nation on the verge of civil war. As tensions mounted, national as well as state governments scrambled to find armaments for the projected flood of volunteers. Government arms procurement in the United States during the mid–nineteenth century was a relatively haphazard affair that created headaches for ordnance officers as well as opportunities for entrepreneurs. To complicate matters, the states maintained militias that also required arms and at times competed with the national government for weapons and military equipment. The two national arsenals at Springfield and Harpers Ferry were almost exclusively occupied with producing government-pattern rifles, muskets, and carbines. Although some states, most notably Virginia and South Carolina, had established state-run facilities, the production of pistols, swords, and various accoutrements fell to private contractors. Under the supervision of federal inspectors, private arsenals such as the Eli Whitney Arsenal in Connecticut were indispensable in arming the country’s military organizations. Prior to the expiration of his patents, Colt had monopolized the supply of revolvers to the U.S. government. Although denying them the opportunity of selling their inventions, Colt’s patents did not deter other arms innovators from devoting countless hours at drawing tables and workbenches. The year 1857 saw a torrent of new revolver designs—some superior, others almost laughable—to compete with Colt’s original. Colt had also established the revolver as what was considered an absolutely essential weapon for modern warfare. A brace of sixshooters afforded cavalrymen an unprecedented level of firepower that, when combined with carbine and saber, greatly increased their effectiveness as mobile shock troops. During the early days of the Civil War the demand for pistols also grew among the other branches of the Union Army. Vast numbers of infantrymen entered the war carrying pistols of all sorts that they had purchased themselves or had received as gifts from relatives and admirers. Hard campaigning soon convinced foot soldiers, however, that the perceived value of their pistol was not worth its added weight. As a result, most sent their sidearms home, sold them, or simply discarded them along the roadside. Although dozens of manufacturers vied for lucrative government contracts during the Civil War, only between 18 and 20 actually achieved official military purchase status, with prices ranging from

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

about $12 to $27. Government records are somewhat contradictory, but the following is a reasonable estimate of U.S. government pistol purchases during the Civil War era. In addition, individual combatants and state governments purchased many thousands of other pistols from domestic and foreign sources. Foreign-made pistols included the English Adams, Adams-Beaumont, Webley, and Kerr revolvers, as well as a number of French Lefaucheux pin-fire revolvers. Government records also list the purchase of some 64,385,403 pistol cartridges of various calibers.

U.S. Government Civil War Pistol Purchases Revolver Caliber

Number Purchased

Starr .44 Colt Navy .36 Colt Army .44 Remington Army .44 Colt Pocket .31 Savage Navy .36 Lefaucheux Army .43/ .35 Whitney Navy .36 Rogers & Spencer .44 Remington Navy .36 Beals .36/.44 Pettingill .43 Joslyn Army .44 Rafael .41 Allen .44 Adams .44 Perrin .44 Horse Pistols Foreign Pistols

47,952 17,010 129,730 125,314 17,010 14,952 12,374 11,214 5,000 4,901 2,814 2,001 1,100 978 536 415 200 200 100

(Lord, 207)

Colt 1860 Army Model Despite his growing competition, by 1860 Colt’s enterprise had earned his factory, according to Secretary of War John B. Floyd, “the status of a National Work.” Sensing opportunity, Colt speeded the expansion of his Hartford works, anticipating contracts for government-model rifled muskets and his own revolving long arms. De-

81

82

PISTOLS

spite a whirlwind of activity, he and his chief designer, Elisha King Root, also found time to design another classic revolver. It was apparent to Colt that there was a ready market, both civilian and military, for a pistol of the handy size of the caliber .36 Colt Navy Revolver but with the heavier firepower of the caliber .44 Colt Dragoon. As a result, in 1860 he introduced the percussion caliber .44 Model 1860 Colt Army Revolver. The sleek Model 1860 was to remain in production until about 1873, with a total production of some 200,500 pistols. Colt also manufactured a detachable wood shoulder stock that could be fitted to pistols milled to accept them. To minimize retooling and to hold down costs, Colt and Root combined the best features of the Navy and the Dragoon. They retained the lighter Model 1851 frame to reduce weight and only slightly modified it to accept the larger-caliber cylinder. Colt and Root then redesigned the interior of the six-chambered cylinder so that the front was bored to caliber .44 but tapered toward the rear for a lighter powder charge. This was a necessary alteration; whereas the heavy Dragoons absorbed the massive recoil of their powerful loads, the lighter Navy frame did not. They also stepped down the outer diameter of the cylinder from the caliber .44 dimension in the front to the smaller caliber .36 dimension in the rear. They finalized the design with a round barrel and more streamlined front receiver assembly and an improved “creeping” loading lever designed earlier by Root. Although the Model 1860 retained the single-action operation and still failed to address the structural defect of the earlier Colts— its lack of a reinforcing top strap—it proved an instant success and was to see usage in the Civil War and during the expansion of the West. Colt’s Model 1860 Army became one of the most widely used revolvers by both sides during the Civil War. The Colt Model 1861 Navy Revolver, a caliber .36 version of the 1860 Army, saw less use. Considered the most refined of all the Colt percussion pistols, the standard Model 1860 Colt Army Revolver featured varnished, onepiece walnut grips and an 8-inch barrel. The barrel was blued, as were the cylinder and grip straps. The frame, loading lever, and hammer were casehardened. The trigger guard was brass, and the cylinder was decorated with a roll-engraved scene between the Texas and Mexican navies. Colt also offered highly engraved Model 1860s, some with ivory or even silver grips by the famed New York jeweler and designer Louis Comfort Tiffany. Such Civil War luminaries as generals George McClellan and George Armstrong Custer were to carry the finest-quality Model 1860 Army Revolvers that Colt’s engravers could produce.

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

Colt found ready markets for his goods both in the Southern as well as the Northern states and, despite the impending conflict, had no compunction to sell to either if cash was involved. As a consequence, many Southerners went off to war carrying Colt revolvers. To his credit, Colt did cease deliveries to the South soon after the bombardment of Fort Sumter. He then went so far as to offer his services to the Northern cause by forming and arming his own volunteer unit, the First Regiment Colt’s Revolving Rifles of Connecticut. Colt received a commission as a colonel in the Connecticut militia and began recruiting and drilling his regiment as elite skirmishers. Colt’s dreams of martial glory were dashed, however, when his political enemies convinced the government to revoke his commission and to disband the regiment. Although he had lost his military rank, Colt retained the title as a personal vanity, ever after styling himself as “Colonel Colt.” As mobilization intensified, Colt repeatedly proved his genius for squeezing the last penny of profit out of every transaction. He ruthlessly increased his profits by reducing production costs while maintaining his relatively high prices. As his employees, working a minimum of 10-hour shifts, assembled pistols from both new and surplus London parts, Colt’s agents scoured Britain and the continent, acquiring the most inexpensive musket components for sale to various militias. Colt personally supervised the entire operation and lobbied tirelessly for the most lucrative government contracts. The relentless pace of building the country’s greatest private firearms enterprise increasingly taxed Colt’s health. On 10 January 1862, Samuel Colt died at the age of 48 of complications most probably associated with chronic syphilis. Colt’s passing was little mourned by his Hartford neighbors. Many of the town’s higher levels of society had found him abrasive and resented his nouveaux-riche ways. They also saw his sprawling, smokebelching industrial complex as a blight on their formerly pastoral little town. Yet Colt’s contributions to the nation’s war effort could not be ignored, and Colonel Colt was buried with full military honors. Upon Colt’s passing it fell to his chief engineer, Elisha King Root, to carry on as the firm’s president. A much less flamboyant man, Root guided the company through the war years with a quiet competence until his own death just days after the war’s end.

Remington The Colt firm’s greatest competition came from America’s oldest

83

84

PISTOLS

firearms business: E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York. Although founded in 1816 by the father-son team of Eliphalet Remington Sr. and Eliphalet Remington Jr., the firm was a newcomer to manufacturing handguns. During the first half of the nineteenth century the Remington family had moved away from a tradition of farming into the realm of industrial mass production. Eliphalet Jr. built his first rifle in their family farm’s forge in Ilion Gulph that year, and as his reputation grew he and the elder Remington expanded their facilities. In 1828 they moved to new shops on the recently completed Erie Canal. Although a wagon mishap claimed Eliphalet Sr.’s life later that year, the younger Remington continued to expand the family business. Eventually the town of Ilion grew around the factory on the canal. In 1845 Remington acquired his first government contract for military rifles and took on his son, Philo, as partner and renamed the business E. Remington & Son. Another government contract in 1852 led to further expansion and the recruitment of two more sons—Samuel and another Eliphalet—prompting another name change to E. Remington & Sons. Each son brought his own talent to the family business. Philo inherited his father’s mechanical skills and business acumen. Neither Samuel or Eliphalet III were particularly mechanically inclined, but Eliphalet III was a skilled bookkeeper, and Samuel was a natural salesman. The expiration of Colt’s U.S. patents in 1857 afforded the Remingtons, along with dozens of others, the opportunity to enter the lucrative revolver trade. His company’s previous success provided Eliphalet Remington with the considerable capital necessary for expansion, but he had little experience in the production of pistols. The company had produced a few specially ordered handguns, but these had been single-shot weapons lacking the sophistication of the revolvers. Aware of his inexperience in the field, the always pragmatic Remington sought an expert designer and found one in Fordyce Beals. Beals, who had designed a revolver manufactured by Eli Whitney’s factory in 1854, refined his earlier drawings and models to provide Remington with his first revolver.

Remington-Beals and Remington-Rider Pocket Revolvers In 1857 Remington entered the revolver market with the Remington-Beals Pocket Revolver. The first model Remington-Beals was a

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

five-shot, caliber .31 pistol with a 3-inch octagonal barrel. Remington packaged his new product with a bullet mold and powder flask. As the little Remington lacked the loading lever found on Colt’s pistols, a bullet seater was included and had to be carried separately. The pistol was also fitted with grips made of an early composite material similar to plastic known as gutta percha—the height of modernity for the time. Still, sales were disappointing, and Remington followed with two more improved models of the pistol, both fitted with hard rubber grips and the last mounting an integral loading lever. Despite such efforts, the only real advantage of the Remington-Beal over Colt’s pocket pistol was in its solid-frame design. In 1860 Remington ceased production of the Remington-Beals Pocket Revolver. Undaunted, Remington adopted a strategy that, within five years, would make him second only to Colt in the U.S. revolver market. His new plan essentially mirrored Colt’s in that Remington settled on manufacturing small pocket pistols for the civilian market and large military revolvers with an eye toward lucrative government contracts. Remington eventually hired Joseph Rider, a designer from Newark, Ohio, who provided the plans and models for a pistol that Remington manufactured as the Remington-Rider Pocket Revolver. The Remington-Rider shared the same basic size, caliber, and capacity of the earlier Remington-Beals but was a significant improvement in that it is a double-action weapon. It proved a success, and production continued into the cartridge era. Fordyce Beals next turned his attention to creating arguably the best revolver of the percussion era.

Remington Army and Navy Revolvers The big new Remington revolver underwent a number of improvements between its introduction in 1860 and its final form in 1863. Beals designed the revolver in two calibers with hopes of sales to both the Army and Navy, the Army Model chambered in .44 and the Navy Model chambered in .36. But Beals and Remington first found themselves in a dilemma that faced every revolver manufacturer of the era: Sam Colt seemed to have foreseen and patented every conceivable revolver improvement, whether or not he used it. Despite the expiration of his original patent, his strategy effectively hamstrung the efforts of most of his competition. Colt’s mechanations thus forced other inventors to divert considerable time and ingenuity to seeking loopholes in the patent laws.

85

86

PISTOLS

The one patentable feature in the original 1858 Beals design was thus a relatively minor detail in the arrangement of the cylinder pin and loading-lever assembly. Ironically, his innovation quickly proved impractical, and Beals’s successor in the project, William H. Elliott, later eliminated it. The first of the series, the Remington-Beals Army and Navy Revolvers, reflects Beals’s previous experience working with Eli Whitney Jr. on his earlier, unsuccessful pistol. Despite the original patent, the actual keys to the pistol’s design was in its solid frame, simplified construction, and method of securing the cylinder. These basic features would lead to Remington’s success as a pistol manufacturer. The Remington-Beals solid frame carried a number of advantages over Colt’s pistols. Not only was it inherently much stronger; it also required less machinery and fewer steps to manufacture, thus reducing production costs. Remington further reduced costs by not embellishing his pistol with an elegant but unnecessary cylinder scene. He issued it with a businesslike blued finish with casehardened hammer and plain, two-piece walnut grips. Beals mounted the cylinder in the frame with a sliding rod that entered the front of the frame and was secured by the hinged loading-arm assembly. The sliding pin arrangement allowed for much faster reloading, as the Remington did not have to be partially disassembled to accomplish the procedure. Both Colt and Remington recommended the purchase of extra cylinders to facilitate faster reloading in combat situations. The Colt design required knocking out the wedge securing the pistol’s barrel to the fixed cylinder pin, sliding a fresh cylinder into place, and then reassembling the weapon, a ticklish operation on horseback while in action. With Elliott’s final improvement to the Remington-Beals revolver, one merely loosened the loading lever and slid the cylinder pin forward to release the cylinder. Remington designated his final 1863 improved pistols as the Remington New Model Army and Navy Revolvers. Although somewhat less stylish than the elegant Colts, the Remington was a technically superior weapon. The gregarious Samuel Remington exploited this superiority, as well as the revolver’s competitive price, to press for civilian and government sales. Initial civilian sales, primarily through the retailer Schuyler, Hartley & Graham, were disappointing, but cost-conscious government officials saw the Remington’s potential. At only $12 per unit, the Remington cost less than half of the Colt’s $25 contract price. With some 132,000 manufactured, the caliber .44 New Model Army proved so

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

popular that it followed only Colt’s Model 1851 Navy and Model 1860 Army as the most widely used pistol during the U.S. Civil War. Like Colt, Remington found some of its original customers in the rapidly mobilizing South. In 1860 South Carolina purchased 1,000 revolvers to arm its militia, but by November of that year Remington patriotically declined further Southern orders. Captured and privately purchased Remingtons, however, did find their way into thousands of Confederate hands, including those in such irregular units as Quantrill’s Raiders. Former Quantrill men Frank and Jesse James and Cole and Bob Younger were known for using Remingtons during their postwar outlaw careers. George Armstrong Custer, the selfpromoting general and firearms connoisseur, not only owned an engraved Colt but also a rare engraved New Model Remington complete with ivory grips carved with his own portrait.

THE STARR REVOLVER The third most widely issued revolver of the Civil War was also the most technologically advanced. Ebenezer T. Starr of Yonkers, New York, received his first patent for a pepperbox in 1856 and soon thereafter finalized a revolver design that would win him fame. Starr was the son of Nathan Starr Jr. of the famous gun- and sword-making family. By 1858 he had gained the financial backing from a group of New York investors led by H. H. Woolcott and Everett Clapp to establish the Starr Arms Company with facilities in Binghamton and Yonkers. Equipped with the most modern steam-powered machinery, Starr’s factories were models of mid–nineteenth century efficiency. By August 1861 the company employed 225 workers laboring in two 10-hour shifts, assembling Starr’s revolvers and equally well-designed carbines. The Starr Double Action Model 1858 Navy Revolver introduced a number of unique features that rendered the better-known Colts and Remingtons instantly obsolete. That the Starr did not achieve the fame of its two rivals attests to the conservatism of contemporary military thinking, as well as the power of Colt’s and Remington’s advertising skills. As its name suggested, it was a double-action pistol in that it could be automatically cocked and fired with one pull of the trigger. But it was not a conventional double-action, as was the Adams that beat Colt in the earlier British trials. A pistol capable of

87

88

PISTOLS

only double-action was faster to operate than a single-action but required considerable trigger pull that tended to make accurate aiming difficult. Starr’s design not only allowed for double-action operation but also, by pressing a small projection behind the trigger, gave the capability of firing the pistol in a more accurate single-action mode. Two other features place the Starr mechanically far ahead of its competition. Unlike the Colt and the Remington, it was of a hinged, break-open design that allowed fast cylinder replacement while not compromising the pistol’s strength. Removing a large knurled screw at the upper rear of the frame allowed the forward frame and barrel assembly to hinge downward from a pin in the lower front of the frame. The design also eliminated the central cylinder shaft by incorporating a short projection in the front of the cylinder that mates with a recess in the forward frame. A larger recess in the rear frame accepted the rear of the cylinder. This latter innovation greatly reduced the tendency of powder residue to accumulate between the shaft and cylinder and foul the pistol. The Starr’s cylinder arrangement was also much easier to clean. Only about 3,000 Starr Navy Revolvers were produced between 1858 and 1860. A rather clunky-appearing pistol compared to the Colts and Remingtons, it is a six-shot, caliber .36 weapon with a 6inch round barrel. It is fitted with one-piece walnut grips, and the metal parts are blued (other than the casehardened hammer, trigger, and loading lever). Disappointed with the Navy’s sales, Starr soon replaced it with his caliber .44 Starr Double Action Model 1858 Army Revolver. The Army Model differs from the Navy only in its caliber, yet won Starr some 23,000 sales. Despite the new Starr Army’s relative success, a military commission raised two significant and related objections against its advanced double-action design. The inherent complexity of the Starr’s design, although rugged and reliable, was more expensive to produce than either the Colt or the Remington. In addition, its modern features tended to baffle many of the less well-trained farm boys who filled many of the Union’s saddles. Starr answered these complaints with his improved Single Action Model 1863 Army Revolver. Ironically, by improving his pistol Starr eliminated its most unique feature: the double-action mechanism. The improvement did, however, answer the Army’s complaints by lowering the pistol’s price to $20 and making it less intimidating for users. The new single-action mollified the conservative Army commissions, and Starr eventually sold about 32,000 to the Union Army between 1863 and 1865. Other than its longer 8-inch barrel, the single-action revolver closely resembled its predecessor.

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

The surrender of Confederate forces in the spring of 1865 foretold the ultimate demise of the Starr Arms Company. Like many of the other smaller operations that had sprung up during the war to capitalize on the nation’s mobilization, Starr found it impossible to make the transition to a peacetime economy. With no more government contracts, the company quickly slid into bankruptcy and in 1867 ceased to exist.

Savage & North It fell to one of America’s oldest and most respected concerns to produce one of the oddest revolvers of the war. The Middletown, Connecticut, firm of Simeon North and Josiah Savage was one of the major arms suppliers to the government during the first half of the nineteenth century. The company primarily manufactured pistols as well as the famous breech-loading carbines patented by John H. Hall. North and Savage underwent a number of reorganizations and name-changes, becoming the Savage & North Company in 1831. When Simeon North died in 1850, the family business, heavily weakened by complicity in the Talcott scandal, was well on its way to phasing out its formerly lucrative federal carbine contracts. The following year the new head of the family business, Henry Savage North, aided by Chauncy D. Skinner, patented his first revolving breech weapon. Although his first design ultimately proved unsuccessful, North teamed with Edward Savage to patent the Savage & North Figure 8 Revolver in 1856. The new pistol was a marvel of single-minded determination on the part of its inventors to defy aesthetics and practicality. It derived its nickname from its odd-shaped ring-trigger cocking mechanism that resembled the numeral 8. To fire the revolver, one first pulled the lower ring with the middle finger to simultaneously rotate the cylinder and cock the hammer; a second pull with the trigger finger of the upper ring fired the pistol. The idea was not new: Samuel Colt, Oliver Winchester, and Smith & Wesson had tried and quickly discarded the principle. The arrangement was indeed awkward. The large trigger-cocking assembly not only compromised the already questionable lines of the pistol’s profile but also tended to snag on anything nearby. The inventors found it necessary to add a spur to the upper back of the walnut grips to provide a surer grip when pulling the cocking ring. Also, neither North nor Savage seemed to appreciate the difficulty that the pistol would present to a cavalry-

89

90

PISTOLS

man caught up in the excitement of battle. Merely forgetting the order in which to pull the rings made the pistol useless. Mechanically, the Figure 8 resembles earlier pepperboxes in its internal workings and incorporates a solid frame. Despite its considerable shortcomings, the pistol does possess one ingenious feature. The correct alignment of the mouths of the cylinder’s chambers and the breech of the barrel is one of the most critical considerations in revolver design. If the alignment, or registration, is not perfect the bullet can strike the side of the breech, sending dangerous fragments to either side of the weapon. In extreme cases, such accidents can destroy the gun as well as the shooter’s hand. In even perfectly registering revolvers there is also a problem with the escape of gasses and consequent pressure through the small gap between chamber and breech. Savage & North addressed these issues by adding an extra spring to the design that forced the cylinder forward against the barrel’s breech. To further contain the energy of the weapon’s discharge and to add velocity, they also experimented with various methods to create an effective gas seal. With their first 10 or so pistols, they recessed the mouth of the breech to accept corresponding extensions milled to the face of the chambers. Finding this unacceptable, they reversed the arrangement and recessed or chamfered the cylinder mouths to fit over the breech. The final experiment proved successful, and they incorporated its principle into the balance of their production. Still, despite the design’s final success in the workshop, actual use eventually revealed that the improvements led to continuous malfunctions under field conditions. The cylinder-advancing spring, with its necessary cylinder-retracting spring, added to the Figure 8’s complexity and thus to its fragility. Savage & North manufactured only some 500 Figure 8 Revolvers in four basic models, each a slight improvement over its predecessor. All were caliber .36 six-shooters with 7.5-inch barrels. Earlier models were manufactured with round brass frames, the final model having a flat-sided iron frame with a blued finish. The Figure 8 was also somewhat unusual in the placement of nipples that enter the rear of the cylinder vertically rather than from the back, as is the norm with more conventional pistols.

The Savage Revolving Firearms Company The company underwent another reorganization and name-change

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

to reemerge as the Savage Revolving Firearms Company on 12 August 1861. Although his name was dropped from the company’s title, North remained with the firm, which also employed another talented gunsmith, Charles R. Alsop. Within weeks the company began production of the new pistol based on the Figure 8 Revolver. The Savage Revolving Firearms Company Navy Model retained the same basic specifications and lines of the Figure 8. Its main differences were the reduction in size of the spur on the back of the grips and the addition of a large, heart-shaped trigger guard that did little to add to the pistol’s visual appeal. Somewhat ironically, the Savage firm apparently did not try to interest the Union Navy in its new Navy Revolver but instead concentrated its efforts on the Union Army. The Army, more concerned in procuring large numbers of rifled muskets for the infantry, as well as more conventional revolvers, proved highly resistant to the company’s sales agents. Only the pressing need for pistols eventually weakened resistance, and the government, out of a total production of some 20,000 Savage Navy Models, purchased 11,984. Having found itself committing so much effort and expense to developing its revolver, the Savage Revolving Firearms Company ultimately found the necessity of manufacturing 25,520 muzzle-loading, single-shot Model 1861 rifled muskets to remain solvent.

The Whitneyville Armory The Whitneyville Armory contributed one of the finest revolvers to the North’s war effort with its caliber .36 Whitney Navy Model Revolver. Eli Whitney, of cotton-gin fame, founded the armory near New Haven, Connecticut, in 1798. Within a few years the company shops and surrounding workers’ houses grew to become the small company village known as Whitneyville. Whitney, a Yale graduate, had patented the gin in 1793, but numerous patent infringements had denied him the profits that his invention should have rightly garnered. It did, however, win him fame. The cotton gin attracted the attention of a number of investors who provided Whitney with the funds necessary to set up shop to manufacture firearms. Having revolutionized the nation’s agriculture, he set himself to revolutionizing its industry. Whitney won his first government contract to manufacture 10,000 Model 1798 flintlock muskets. He claimed he could produce the muskets with completely machine-made interchangeable

91

92

PISTOLS

parts rather than the hand-crafted and hand-fitted components then used by the nation’s workshops. His concept, although not completely original, called for sophisticated machinery that could mill the muskets’ various components so that each was identical, requiring little, if any, hand-finishing. The process would make possible much faster mass production, utilizing less skilled and therefore cheaper labor. Repair costs would also be much less in that relatively unskilled workmen and even soldiers in the field could simply replace broken parts with new ones and cannibalize unserviceable weapons to repair others. Whitney never quite achieved his goal of complete interchangeability with the Model 1798; the Harpers Ferry Arsenal finally accomplished the feat with the Model 1819 Hall Flintlock Rifle. Still, Whitney greatly contributed to the use of interchangeable parts by inventing much of the machinery that made the idea practical. Whitney’s business continued to thrive exclusively on government musket contracts until his death in 1825. The Whitney Armory continued under the direction of his nephews, Philos and Eli Whitney Blake, until young Eli Whitney Jr. was old enough to take over in 1842. Five years later Whitney signed the contract with Samuel Colt that led to Whitney’s first foray into handgun manufacturing: the Colt Walker Model. The younger Whitney never seemed to have possessed either the inventive or business acumen of his father. At the time of his contract with Colt he was struggling with a moneylosing contract with the government for Model 1841 Mississippi Rifles. When Whitney tentatively ventured into the revolver market on his own in 1850, he faced not only financial problems but also a fear of Sam Colt. Colt’s fierce protection of his patents in the courts apparently caused Whitney such concern that his first revolver designs verged on the ludicrous to avoid patent infringement. His first pistol, known as the Whitney Hooded Cylinder Pocket Revolver, was a far cry from the Colt Walker. Whitney made only about 200 of these small, caliber .28 six-shooters, and he followed it with another, even stranger little pistol: the Whitney Two Trigger Pocket Revolver. Introduced in 1852, the caliber .32, five-shot Two Trigger derived its name from an extra trigger mounted forward of the actual trigger’s guard. Whitney was so apprehensive of Colt’s potential wrath that he dispensed with the almost universally accepted mechanically rotated cylinder. Instead, the cylinder required rotation by hand, with the extra trigger serving as a locking and unlocking device. The Ring Trigger Pocket Revolver followed the Two Trig-

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

ger’s production run of 600 but was even less successful. It replaced the two triggers with a single ring-shaped trigger. Although the new pistol did return to mechanical cylinder rotation, it was so poorly designed that Whitney manufactured less than 50 before abandoning the project. Sometime around 1854 Whitney’s fortunes made a shift for the better thanks to his association with the talented innovator Fordyce Beals of future Remington fame. In that year Whitney introduced the Whitney-Beals Patent Pocket Revolver. The new pistol was a roaring success compared to Whitney’s earlier models, remaining in production until just after the Civil War with a total production of about 3,200. The Whitney-Beals was available in calibers .28 and .31 and was offered with either six- or seven-shot cylinders. In 1857 Whitney briefly summoned up the nerve to join the legions of Colt copycats with a close approximation of the Model 1851 Colt Navy upon the expiration of the Colonel’s patents but soon followed it with a successful design of his own. With a production of about 33,000, the Whitney Navy Revolver was by far the most successful of Whitney’s percussion pistols. That Fordyce Beals contributed heavily to the revolver’s design is evident in its close resemblance to the solid-frame revolvers Beals would soon design for Remington. The Whitney Navy Revolver was produced in two basic models, with numerous minor variations appearing in each. All models were offered in caliber .36 with six chambers. A 7.5–inch barrel was standard, though other lengths were available. Unlike Colt, Whitney produced very few pistols with such custom features as engraving and ivory grips. Most had grips of twopiece walnut, and all metal parts were blued except the casehardened loading lever. For protection against corrosion at sea, some Navy contract revolvers were tinned. For some unknown reason Whitney marked a small number of his earliest models “EAGLE CO.” rather than his customary “E. WHITNEY/NEW HAVEN.” The cylinders of most Whitney Navy Revolvers are roll-engraved with the images of an eagle, lion, and shield, with some later models featuring a naval scene. Whitney was reasonably successful in gaining coveted government contracts for his new revolver. Initial sales were through such wellknown agents as Schulyer, Hartley & Graham of New York, but in June 1862 the head of the Ordnance Department, General James W. Ripley, sent purchasing officers directly to Whitney to gain more reasonable prices. Eventually the government bought some 11,214 revolvers for both the Army and Navy, with additional pistols selling

93

94

PISTOLS

through state contracts. The Whitney Navy proved rugged and reliable and was a popular arm among troops receiving it. The Whitney Pocket Model Percussion Revolver met with nearly equal success, with some 32,500 made from after 1857 through the early part of the Civil War. The five-chambered, caliber .31 Pocket Model was popular among both officers and civilians and was available with an octagonal barrel from 3 to 6 inches in length. Whitney followed the earlier pistol with the less successful, spur-trigger New Model Pocket Revolver that saw a production run of only about 2,000. Eli Whitney Jr. still seemed unable to escape financial pressures despite the success of his Navy and Pocket Revolvers. Contracts for Model 1861 percussion muskets for the Army and the Model 1861 Plymouth Navy Rifle kept the company barely solvent. To keep his armory afloat, Whitney also resorted to manufacturing nonregulation muskets out of various surplus and rejected parts for sale to states and militia units. He was indeed fortunate in his association with Fordyce Beals for the revolver designs that helped maintain the family company’s survival.

Rogers & Spencer and the Freeman Revolver The small Rogers & Spencer partnership of Willowvale, New York, encountered even greater obstacles as it entered the highly competitive revolver field. During the period marked by the expiration of Colt’s patent and the outbreak of the Civil War, dozens of inventors tried and failed to find a niche in civilian and government markets. All tacitly acknowledged Colt as the benchmark of revolver design by almost invariably touting their own products as either “superior” or “improved” models over their famous competition. In their desire to become successful gun makers, Rogers & Spencer found itself enmeshed in the maze of government bureaucracy, patents, patentees, and shop owners that typified the gun industry of their time. The Rogers & Spencer saga began with an economic dilemma suffered by a prominent Watertown, New York, factory owner named Charles B. Hoard. Hoard owned a steam-engine factory as well as half-interest in a factory that made farm implements. Like many Northern industrialists, he had sold a significant amount of his products in the South, but the war had cut off that profitable venue, leaving his shops largely idle. Sensing an opportunity to profit by filling the country’s pressing need for weapons, Hoard began invest-

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

ing large amounts of capital into converting his shops into an arms factory. Hoard had every reason to expect success. He had the facilities to produce weapons, and he had the requisite political connections. After intense lobbying on the part of Hoard and his friends in the state legislature as well as Congress, Hoard obtained a government contract for 50,000 Model 1861 Rifled Muskets. To boost profits, Hoard also decided to diversify by manufacturing pistols as well. To this end he enlisted Austin T. Freeman of Binghamton to design a suitable revolver. The hybrid, known as the caliber .44 Freeman Army Revolver, exhibited the influence of two other previously successful pistols. Austin Freeman’s close association with the Starr Arms Company was particularly evident in his design. The Freeman’s single-action mechanism, cylinder, loading lever, and overall profile exhibited a close similarity to the single-action Starr Army Revolver. W. A. Roberts, a Remington employee whom Hoard recruited as his factory superintendent, also added a number of Remington characteristics to the pistol, most evident in its forward frame assembly. With its distinguished pedigree, the Freeman promised to be a profitable venture for Hoard. It is a rugged, solid-frame six-shooter that compares well with its Starr and Remington cousins. Yet despite his manufacture of well-made weapons and his political connections, Hoard found little profit and much frustration in the arms business. His negotiations with government officials quickly broke down, reducing his original contract for 50,000 rifled muskets to only some 12,000, with no orders at all for his revolver. Hoard’s venture ended with a final sale of some 800 rifled muskets, probably to state militia units. Some of his only 2,000 or so revolvers made in 1863 and 1864 possibly went to the state or were sold on the commercial market.

Pettengill Revolvers Rogers & Spencer had also set up shops, gained financial backing, hired some 180 employees, and found another promising revolver design to put into production. They eventually obtained the rights to manufacture a revolver patented in 1856 by C. S. Pettengill of New Haven, Connecticut. The basic Pettengill design called for a revolver with an internal hammer and a pepperbox-type internal mechanism. The Brooklyn design partners Edward A. Raymond and Charles Robitaille patented improvements to Pettengill’s design in

95

96

PISTOLS

1858, and Rogers & Spencer began manufacturing the pistol in a caliber .31 Pocket Model and a caliber .34 Navy Model. By the early 1860s it became apparent that the pistol still required modifications to make it a practical military pistol. It was thus, in 1862, that Henry S. Rogers of Rogers & Spencer attempted to perfect the Pettengill. As manufactured by Rogers & Spencer, the final Pettengill revolver, the Pettengill Army Revolver, is a caliber .44, double-action, hammerless six-shooter with a 7.5-inch octagonal barrel. It had twopiece walnut grips and was blued with a casehardened loading lever and frame. The company immediately submitted both the Navy and Army revolvers to the government for tests. With encouraging initial reports and an apparently solid order for pistols, Rogers & Spencer began full production but immediately ran afoul of government bureaucracy and red tape. The initial order was not as ironclad as the partners first assumed. An ensuing storm of correspondence and desperate face-to-face meetings eventually revealed that the order was premature. Pressed to obtain arms to equip the rapidly expanding cavalry, the first government official had ordered the Pettengills before an army commission had thoroughly tested them. The tests proved the Pettengill’s tendency to accumulate powder fouling around the cylinder pin, rendering the revolver inoperable after repeated use. The inaccuracy that resulted from the revolver’s excessive double-action trigger pull was also a determining factor in the Army’s ultimate condemnation of the Pettengill. Although the Army finally condescended to accept some 2,000 Pettengills, the rest, some 1,600 pistols, were forced into the less lucrative civilian market.

Rogers & Spencer Army Model Revolver With the loss of the Pettengill contract, Rogers & Spencer faced bankruptcy. In a last-ditch effort to maintain solvency, the firm approached that other frustrated arms maker, Charles B. Hoard, and obtained the rights to his failed Freeman Revolver. It was to Rogers’s credit that, in a limited amount of time, he managed to combine the best elements of two rather bad pistols into a single, battle-worthy revolver. The caliber .44 Rogers & Spencer Army Model Revolver was a solid-frame single-action weapon that, from the frame backward, resembled the Freeman and its relative, the Starr. The barrel and loading-lever assembly were almost identical to the final Pettengill, being

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

possibly made up of Pettengill overrun components. The Army at last placed an order for 5,000 revolvers with the cash-strapped company, and the firm made up another approximately 400 pistols for civilian sales. As a final ironic twist, not one government-accepted Rogers & Spencer Army Model Revolver saw use on the battlefield. Delivered too late for issue during the Civil War, the entire contract sat in its crates until sold off as surplus in 1900.

Joslyn Revolver Benjamin F. Joslyn sold fewer pistols to the government but could at least console himself with the knowledge that they contributed to the war effort. Having established the Joslyn Firearms Company in Stonington, Connecticut, he manufactured well-designed cavalry carbines and his caliber .44 Joslyn Army Model Revolver. Produced early in the war, the Joslyn was a five-shot, single-action revolver with checkered walnut grips, a blued frame, and casehardened loading lever and hammer. It also bore some similarity to the Colt Root pocket revolvers in that it had a side-mounted hammer that allowed the cylinder pin to be extracted from the rear of the pistol. The Army and Navy bought about half of the approximately 3,000 Joslyns, with the remainder being sold on the civilian market.

Allen & Wheelock Revolver The government bought only 536 of the large, caliber .44 Army revolvers made by brothers-in-law Ethan Allen and Thomas P. Wheelock of Worcester, Massachusetts. Their solid-frame pistol, manufactured between 1861 and 1862, features a unique loading lever that when stowed curved backward to form the front of the trigger guard. Although well-made, the Allen and Wheelock, like so many other revolvers of the Civil War period, was edged out in the roughand-tumble competition for government patronage.

The Manhattan Firearms Company Colt’s fears of infringements on his designs were realized when his basic patents finally expired in 1856. The scores of Colt copies— sometimes flagrant imitations and sometimes legitimate improve-

97

98

PISTOLS

ments—were to reduce Colt’s profits yet fill the need for serviceable arms during the Civil War. The Manhattan Firearms Company was the largest and most successful of the Colt imitators. Although founded in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1856 and ultimately located in Newark, New Jersey, in 1859, the company’s officers emulated Colt even in choosing a more sophisticated New York City address with which to stamp their pistols. Although bearing a great similarity in appearance to Colts, even down to roll-engraved cylinder scenes, the Manhattan did possess a number of minor improvements over the original. Under the initial supervision of the well-known designer Thomas Bacon, Manhattan manufactured single-shot pistols and pepperboxes before turning its facilities over to its Colt imitations. Between 1858 and 1868 the company manufactured some 4,800 caliber .31 Colt-type pocket pistols and some 78,000 caliber .36 Navy-style pistols out of a total production of about 150,000 pistols of all kinds. Manhattan pistols were well-made and were popular with the civilian market and as privately purchased military sidearms. Bacon eventually left the Manhattan Firearms Company to start his own firm, the Bacon Arms Company, later the Bacon Manufacturing Company of Norwich. Although harried by lawsuits by his old company, Bacon produced a number of Colt-inspired caliber .31 pocket pistols.

J. M. Cooper & Co. and the Metropolitan Arms Co. Other Colt imitators included J. M. Cooper & Co. of Philadelphia and later Pittsburgh, as well as the Metropolitan Arms Company of New York City. Cooper manufactured some 15,000 caliber .31 pocket and caliber .36 Navy revolvers between 1864 and 1869. Although externally a close copy of the Colt, Cooper’s revolvers held the distinct improvement of being capable of double-action operation. In contrast, the products of the Metropolitan Arms Company were nearly exact copies of the Colt in all respects other than being of somewhat less quality. A rather blatant example of war profiteering, the company was founded in 1864 to take advantage of the interruption of Colt’s manufacturing after an extensive fire in the Hartford facilities. In an attempt to inflate sales totals, Metropolitan also apparently inserted large gaps in the serial-numbering of its pistols. Metropolitan manufactured some 6,063 copies of the Colt

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

Model 1851 Navy, Model 1861 Navy, and the Model 1862 Police Revolvers before it closed in 1866.

Lindsay and Walch Two other U.S. arms designers, John P. Lindsay and John Walch, avoided mere imitation and followed their own eccentric paths in search of increasing handgun firepower. Both men were among a number of inventors who experimented with and attempted to market various forms of multishot weapons. Walch, a New Yorker, founded the Walch Firearms Company but did not own his own manufacturing facilities. He contracted with the Union Knife Company of Naugatuck, Connecticut, to manufacture his caliber .36 Navy Model Revolvers and the New Haven Arms Company to produce his caliber .31 Pocket Model Revolver. Walch’s 1859 patent covered revolvers with extended cylinders to accommodate two superimposed loads with two triggers and hammers as well as two nipples for each chamber. The Walch six-chambered Navy Model Revolver was thus capable of 12 shots, with the Walch five-chambered Pocket Model Revolver having a 10-shot capacity. Walch’s sometimes collaborator, John P. Lindsay of New Haven, improved the Walch Pocket Model by designing a single, spur trigger that activated both triggers. Both pistols were blued and fitted with two-piece walnut grips. As with any superimposed firearms, the complex loading and operation of Walch’s revolvers tended to somewhat counterbalance their theoretical advantages. All black-powder weapons required frequent and meticulous cleaning to prevent the propellant’s corrosive tendencies from causing rust and pitting in the cylinders. Such pitting could allow flame to escape around the bullet upon discharge, reducing its velocity and possibly igniting adjacent chambers. As the rear bullet acted as a gas seal for the forward charge, it had to be loaded perfectly in an unpitted chamber to avoid an accidental discharge of both loads. The need for such meticulous care in loading the Walch made it an impractical weapon in the mayhem of battle. The most vivid account of a Walch in actual wartime use would not have lent itself well to extolling the pistol’s effectiveness. Elisha Stockwell, a Wisconsin private, recounted an incident in which he and a fellow soldier armed with a Walch attempted to supplement their rations in a

99

100

PISTOLS

farmer’s pig sty: “Reeder shot several times before he would give up. That gun wouldn’t kill a hog, and the pigs got so wild we couldn’t get near them.” Although Stockwell did not comment on the accuracy of Reeder’s shooting, his narrative does reveal the ineffectiveness of the Walch Pocket Model’s relatively small caliber .31 bullets combined with the double-loaded chambers’ smaller powder charges. That the disgusted Stockwell “went to camp without any meat” and swore not to accompany the Walch-armed Reeder on future foraging expeditions helps explain Walch’s low sales of about 3,200 pistols of both models. John P. Lindsay was a former Springfield Arsenal employee and concentrated his efforts on what he advertised as Lindsay’s Patent Double Shooting Firearms. Lindsay designed both a rifled musket and a number of models of his Young America–brand pistols. A contemporary account explains Lindsay’s fixation with superimposed, double-shot weapons. Although possibly apocryphal, the account relates that Indians had killed Lindsay’s brother, a soldier on the frontier, while he was reloading his single-shot weapon. Indian tactics of the time relied on waiting for opponents to empty their muskets in volley fire and then to attack while the troops reloaded. Lindsay, the tale went, cleverly designed his weapons to look like the conventional weapons of the time but with an additional load hidden in the weapons’ single barrel. Unfortunately for Lindsay, Colt’s revolvers and a number of other repeating weapons had already reduced his two-shot weapons to anachronisms by the time they reached production. More mysteriously, the Army actually ordered about 1,000 of the superimposed rifled muskets for issue to troops in the field. The muskets proved failures in service, and Lindsay manufactured even fewer of his New America pistols made in pocket, belt, and martial sizes. Although the Lindsay rifles accepted standard-issue cartridges, his pistols were hampered by the need for specially designed bullets to create an effective gas and flame shield between the two cartridges. Each pistol was thus supplied with a mold that, if lost, made the pistol unsafe to fire.

CONFEDERATE REVOLVERS The agrarian South had few modern industrial facilities at the outbreak of the war, and most Confederate troops carried imported, captured, or privately purchased pistols manufactured in the North.

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

Still, Southern arsenals did produce a limited number of handguns. With a few exceptions, most Confederate handguns bore a general similarity to either the Colt or Whitney Navy revolvers in their basic design and appearance. Their most obvious differences from Northern-made pistols were in the substitution of brass for certain iron components such as frames, round rather than octagonal barrels, and somewhat less sophisticated workmanship.

Griswold & Gunnison With an estimated output of some 3,700 pistols, the Griswold & Gunnison partnership realized the largest production of any Confederate revolver. In 1862 Connecticut native Samuel Griswold and A. W. Gunnison converted Griswold’s cotton-gin factory into a private arsenal. With a workforce of some 24 men, 22 of whom were slaves, the partners originally manufactured pikes before turning to pistol production. The arsenal, located in Griswoldville, Georgia, turned out well-made, caliber .36 revolvers bearing a general similarity to the Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver. Its main differences with the Colt lay in its brass frame and round rather than octagonal barrel. The Griswold & Gunnison firm produced the bulk of its pistols for the Confederate government until its destruction by General Judson Kirkpatrick’s cavalry in the Battle of Griswoldville in 1864. Captain A. J. Smythe, one of the unsuccessful defenders of Griswoldville, was also one of Griswold & Gunnison’s major competitors in the Southern firearms business. Earlier in 1864 Smythe, as well as C. R. Keen, Jesse A. Ansley, and Charles H. Rigdon, formed Rigdon, Ansley & Co. in nearby Augusta, Georgia. Rigdon, the senior member of the company, had previously been associated with at least two firearms ventures before organizing Rigdon, Ansley & Co.

Shawk & McLanahan Rigdon apparently provided machinery in prewar Missouri to William Shawk of Pennsylvania and J. K. McLanahan of Ohio for the production of the Shawk & McLanahan Revolver. The factory was located in Carondelet, on the outskirts of St. Louis, and manufactured only about one hundred caliber .36 Whitney Navy–style brass-framed revolvers before going out of business. The company’s sudden dissolution may have in part owed to the divided loyalties of

101

102

PISTOLS

the principals. Rigdon eventually joined Thomas Leech, who was associated with the Memphis Novelty Works in Tennessee, to produce revolvers for the Confederate government.

Leech & Rigdon In 1863 Leech and Rigdon set up shop downriver in Columbus, Mississippi. Their revolver was a relatively close copy of the Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver except for its typically Southern-style round barrel. They had finished only a limited number of pistols when the Union naval presence on the Mississippi River forced them to move their equipment away from the river to Greensboro, Georgia. In 1864 the two men ended their partnership, and Rigdon, threatened by General William T. Sherman’s advancing Union forces, again moved the company’s machinery. Rigdon at last finished the final 500 of the company’s approximately 1,500-pistol government contract in Augusta and recruited his new partners.

Rigdon, Ansley & Co. The Rigdon, Ansley & Co. Revolver was essentially a continuation of the earlier Leech & Rigdon, being manufactured with the same machinery. Although the fresh infusion of capital provided by the new partnership allowed Rigdon to produce another 1,000 revolvers, he could not escape the advancing Union Army. Soon after the company’s organization, Ansley lost his exemption from the draft, owing to the Confederacy’s overwhelming need for troops to face Sherman’s March to the Sea. Following Ansley’s departure, Smythe formed the Rigdon Guards, a home guard unit made up of some 60 company employees and their neighbors. Smythe himself was wounded at the Battle at Griswoldville, as were a number of his men. Rigdon, Ansley & Co. survived a few more weeks after the battle before it too succumbed to the advancing Federals.

Spiller & Burr and Other Confederate Manufacturers The firm of Spiller & Burr was founded in Richmond before being purchased by the government and moved to Atlanta and later Ma-

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM

con. Spiller and Burr manufactured some 1,450 Whitney Navy–style, brass-framed, octagon-barreled revolvers in caliber .36. Most other Confederate pistol manufacturers produced only a few hundred pistols at most. These included Georgia’s Augusta Machine Works and Columbus Fire Arms Manufacturing Company; North Carolina’s J. & F. Garrett & Company; Schneider & Glassick of Tennessee; and the Texas shops of J. H. Dance & Brothers, George Todd, and Tucker, Sherrard & Company.

LeMat Grapeshot Revolver The Confederate LeMat Revolver was possibly the most unique pistol issued to any troops during the Civil War. Jean Alexandre Francois LeMat of New Orleans patented his two-barrel, 10-shot revolver, also known as the Grapeshot Revolver, in 1856. LeMat’s large caliber .42 pistol featured a nine-chamber cylinder that revolved around a caliber .63 smoothbore shotgun barrel rather than a conventional cylinder pin. A selector on the hammer allowed the operator to fire either the pistol or shotgun barrel, which was typically loaded with a paper buckshot cartridge. LeMat and his partner P. G. T. Beauregard, the future Confederate general, found that local Southern factories were incapable of producing their complicated pistol. They thus made arrangements with Charles F. Girard of Paris to manufacture the pistol in France, later expanding operations to facilities in England. The partners envisioned a rich civilian market for their pistols as well as sales to the new Confederate government. But despite their pistol’s celebrated use by a number of famous high-ranking Confederate Army and Navy officers, the LeMat venture ultimately proved a failure. LeMats never saw large production, and many units failed to reach Southern shores owing to the Union blockade. Production ceased at the end of the Civil War, and the pistols eventually claimed their due as expensive historical oddities in arms collections. The LeMat was a heavy, bulky weapon with checkered walnut grips, a blued frame and barrel, and casehardened hammer and loading lever. It was manufactured in three main models. The First Model’s 6.5-inch barrel was octagonal at the breech half and round toward the muzzle, and it had a spurred trigger guard. The Second Model omitted the trigger-guard spur and had an octagonal barrel. The much less common and more compact Baby LeMat had a 4.5-

103

104

PISTOLS

inch octagonal barrel and was chambered for caliber .32 pistol bullets with a caliber .41 shotgun barrel.

CONCLUSION Despite the ingenuity of U.S. pistol designers during the 1850s and 1860s, nearly every pistol that emerged from their shops was already obsolete by European standards. By 1860 two breakthrough innovations—the self-contained metallic cartridge and the bored-through cylinder—were known and in use in Europe. Both ideas had roots in the United States, but a number of factors delayed their general acceptance there. These included Samuel Colt’s failure to realize the potential of Rollin White’s bored-through cylinder patents, as well as the general conservatism of the country’s military hierarchy. It would not be until after the Civil War that the metallic cartridge would revolutionize the U.S. firearms industry.

CHAPTER 4

The Metallic Cartridge and the Modern Revolver

Shortly before the U.S. Civil War two key developments at last came together to make the modern revolver possible. The metallic cartridge appeared in Europe during the early 1800s and combined the primer, propellant, and projectile into one self-contained, waterproof unit. And then, in the 1850s, designers applied the metallic cartridge to revolver cylinders, with chambers bored completely through their length. This combination provided the basis for practical breech-loading revolvers that eventually replaced the muzzle-loading percussion system. Despite the advent of semiautomatic pistols in the late nineteenth century, metallic-cartridge revolvers have proven so reliable and efficient that they have seen continual use to the present day. Early designers had envisioned the numerous advantages of selfcontained ammunition but had been hampered by the lack of a suitable ignition compound. The discovery of fulminate priming in the late eighteenth century ultimately made the self-contained cartridge feasible. Yet despite the growing availability of fulminates during the first half of the nineteenth century, the next steps in pistol development were anything but consistent. As the century progressed, two main avenues of exploration evolved. The good Reverend Alexander John Forsyth pioneered the more conservative of the two paths: He and his successors could never quite abandon the use of a separate primer. Although making great strides in firearms technology, by em-

105

106

PISTOLS

bracing the percussion cap they ensured their own obsolescence by the middle of the century. Samuel Colt himself illustrated the paradoxical nature of the time. His invention of the revolver still stands as one of the pivotal innovations in firearms history. Yet during the 1850s and 1860s, Colt’s jealous protection of his early patents greatly impeded overall firearms development. His preoccupation with patent infringement suits not only slowed his own company’s transition to the cartridge system, it also blocked other firms from pursuing new designs. Moreover, Colt’s policies forced some other competing inventors to greater creativity by denying them key features of his mechanism. Moreover, when Colt’s original patents finally expired, the company found itself facing patent restrictions such as that held by up-andcoming Smith & Wesson for the bored-through cylinder. Yet Colt, as well as other legitimate inventors, had to protect himself from such types as the notorious M. Prélat. The Frenchman, like a number of others of his ilk, seemed to have made a career by obtaining others’ working drawings and models and registering them before the originator could reach the appropriate patent office. Nevertheless, Colt’s attachment to his percussion, muzzle-loading revolvers allowed other designers to create and market much more advanced designs once his original patents expired. While mainstream firearms development followed the path set by Forsyth and Colt, other lesser-known inventors paved the way for the truly modern pistol.

PAULY In 1812 a Swiss-born former artillery officer named Samuel Johannes Pauly obtained a French patent for a unique caliber .64 pistol that utilized a new self-contained, center-fire cartridge. The most typical Pauly pistol was a single-shot, breech-loading weapon with a hinged barrel that tilted down and forward for loading. The genius of Pauly’s design, however, lay in his pistol’s cartridge. The earliest Pauly cartridge had a brass base, or rosette, made with a small central depression containing the priming compound. This consisted of a fulminate mixture of potassium chlorate, sulfur, and powdered charcoal bound with gum arabic. The priming was retained in the rosette by a small patch of paper; a paper tube inserted into the rosette contained the powder and bullet. The end of the paper tube

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

was tied with a small thread or string to prevent the bullet from falling out. Later improvements of the cartridge replaced the paper body of the cartridge with a brass tube, creating a one-piece cartridge case. The Pauly cartridge paved the way for the self-contained metallic cartridge, and it was also reloadable. The reloading process, however, was by no means simple. For the procedure, Pauly made available a wonderfully crafted cased set of specialized reloading tools for the paper-bodied cartridges. These tools included a dowel for forming the paper tube and a clamp to hold the paper in place as the glue that held it together dried. Various other implements included a powder measure, cleaning equipment, and a spring-activated tool for automatically cutting the paper and wads. A special three-blade screwdriver completed the ensemble. The Pauly cartridge was a vast improvement over predecessors but was not without its faults; its thick-rimmed brass base failed to expand sufficiently to prevent flame and gasses venting from the pistol’s breech during ignition. Although externally resembling the conventional percussion pistols of its day, the Pauly pistol was internally quite different. Pauly abandoned the use of an external ignition mechanism in favor of an internal firing pin that struck the primer compound on the cartridge base. The hammer was, in the Pauly design, a cocking lever to compress the spring that powered the pistol’s firing pin. Pressing the trigger released the firing pin to travel forward, striking the priming in the base of the cartridge. In 1814 Pauly obtained a British patent for a pistol utilizing a fire-piston rather than a firing pin for ignition. Not an original idea with Pauly, the fire-piston relied on the heat generated by a fast-moving piston to ignite the cartridge’s priming. Despite his obvious ingenuity, Pauly was one of those somewhat mysterious and eccentric inventors so far ahead of his time that he was doomed to personal failure. Working alternately between England and France, he seems to have either anglicized or gallicized his name to suit the locale. In both countries he experimented extensively in the development of artillery, artillery projectiles, and dirigibles. Years later, the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin incorporated a number of Pauly’s balloon designs in his famous airships. Still, Pauly’s venture inevitably ended in financial disaster, including the loss of a £10,000 investment by the famous English gunsmith Durs Egg. Other disappointments included the trials and rejection of Pauly’s breech-loading weapons by the Russian czar’s government and Napoleon’s ordnance officials. Both committees found Pauly’s designs promising but too delicate for hard field use.

107

108

PISTOLS

English ordnance officers were similarly dismissive, and in the end Pauly found no commercial success with any of his ventures. He spent his later years in London, where he died in obscure poverty.

DREYSE Although Pauly would become a footnote to history, one of his protégés found both wealth and fame. A Prussian, Johann Nickolaus von Dreyse worked for Pauly in Paris from 1809 to 1814. Returning to Prussia, Dreyse cofounded a percussion-cap factory and continued to experiment with pistol, rifle, and cartridge designs. Dreyse applied lessons learned from Pauly to perfecting his famous bolt-action needle gun and cartridge. He adapted his former employer’s firing-pin mechanism to help solve the most glaring flaw in Pauly’s cartridge. Pauly had originally developed his cartridge before the widespread availability of the percussion cap. He was thus denied a reliable method of incorporating fulminate powder into his cartridge cases. This often resulted in the powder becoming dislodged from the depression in the cartridge base during use. Dreyse addressed the problem by securing the fulminate within the case in a cavity in the base of the bullet, where the propellant charge both protected it and held it in place. Dreyse’s experience with Pauly also provided the basis for his development of the aptly named needle-fire mechanism for which he gained fame. The Prussian modified the original Pauly internal firing pin by lengthening it so that it could pierce the length of the cartridge, passing through the powder charge to strike and detonate the fulminate in the bullet’s base. Prussia adopted the Dreyse boltaction needle gun as its standard rifle in 1848, and it played a major role in Prussia’s subsequent military expansion and the unification of the German states. A number of defects did, however, contribute to the ultimate demise of Dreyse’s system. The heat and corrosive action of the cartridges’ ignition tended to damage the needle and make it brittle. The long, pointed firing pin was thus prone to bending and breakage, and the advent of pin-fire and true center-fire metallic cartridges quickly made it obsolete. Dreyse’s son and successor, Franz von Dreyse, did produce a limited number of needlefire single-shot target pistols and revolvers that he exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London in 1851. His efforts, however, attracted little interest, owing to the competition from the revolvers of Colt, Adams, and, to a lesser extent, Lefaucheux.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Lefaucheux Both the Colt and Adams were percussion pistols, but the Lefaucheux Pistolet-Revolver Mle. 1858 holds the distinction of being the first metallic-cartridge revolver adopted by a national government. During the first half of the nineteenth century French designers consistently held the vanguard in the development of the self-contained cartridge. Frenchmen such as M. Galy-Cazalat, Clement Pottet, Eugène Schneider, and J. A. Robert made significant contributions to cartridge technology. Still, none achieved the success of their countryman, Casimir Lefaucheux. In 1836 the Parisian gunsmith introduced the pin-fire system—a self-contained cartridge consisting of a conical bullet, cardboard powder tube, and copper base containing a primer pellet. A small metal pin extended from the rim of the cartridge base and, when loaded in the chamber, protruded through a notch in the rear of the cylinder. The force of the pistol’s hammer striking down on the pin forced the pin against the priming, thus detonating the cartridge. In 1846 another Frenchman, M. Houllier (sometimes Houiller) of Paris, improved on Lefaucheux’s design by introducing an entirely metallic cartridge of copper or brass. Although the cartridges were prone to accidental discharge if handled carelessly, the pin-fire pistol offered numerous advantages over its contemporary percussion rivals. Not only were the cases thin enough to expand for an efficient gas seal, they were also easily reloadable. Unhindered by U.S. patent laws, Lefaucheux and his son, Eugène, incorporated a bored-through cylinder that allowed rapid loading through a hinged gate in the right recoil shield. The Lefaucheuxs also added an extension, or shroud, to the recoil shield that protected the cartridges’ exposed pins from accidental blows. An ejector rod, mounted through the right side of the frame under the barrel, provided easy removal of the spent cartridge cases. The typical Lefaucheux was an open-top pistol, manufactured without a top strap, with the barrel and forward frame assembly secured to the rear frame by a single screw. Lefaucheux displayed his new system in the form of a pepperbox at the Great Exhibition of 1851, but more adept showmen, particularly Samuel Colt, overshadowed his efforts. Despite the Lefaucheux’s obvious merits—it was faster than any other contemporary revolver to load, and its metallic cartridges were highly resistant to moisture—even the French Army showed little interest. The French Navy, however, eventually put the pin-fire through trials and

109

110

PISTOLS

was impressed. The naval committee appreciated the increased firepower of the six-shot, quickly loaded Lefaucheux over the singleshot percussion muzzleloaders in its fleet’s gun lockers. They especially valued the watertight cartridge for issue in the humid environment of ships on prolonged voyages. The French Navy adopted the Lefaucheux in 1858, and orders soon poured in from the governments of Sweden, Italy, Russia, Spain, and Norway. Although the French Army still did not adopt the Model 1858, the pistol proved so popular that a number of French cavalry units demanded and received Lefaucheuxs before deployment to Mexico in 1862. Some 12,000 pistols also found their way into both Confederate and Union hands during the U.S. Civil War. The 12mm Lefaucheux cartridge compared reasonably well with the caliber .44 loadings of the Colt Army. The only noted defect with the French Trantor, as the Americans sometimes called it, lay in the unavailability of its unique ammunition under wartime conditions. Despite this problem, a famous Confederate general, Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, among others, was reputed to have favored the French import over domestic models. Still, quite probably owing to a degree of jingoism in both countries, the pin-fire system found only slight acceptance in the United States and Britain. It was in Europe, especially in France and Belgium, that the Lefaucheux found its greatest success. Tens of thousands of pin-fire pistols, from high-quality engraved specimens to low-quality knockoffs, were manufactured well into the twentieth century. These pistols, often with folding triggers, were produced in a wide variety of calibers and with both single-action and doubleaction mechanisms. For its part, the single-action, caliber 12mm Model 1858 was the most advanced military pistol of its day. It was so rugged and popular that the French Navy was reluctant to release it from service. In 1870 most Model 1858s underwent reworking that added a protective ejector housing and updated them into double-action, center-fire weapons. Denmark also adopted pin-fire revolvers that, after conversion to center-fire, remained in service through the end of the century. In 1865 the Danish army chose a 12mm Lefaucheux-Francotte that the Kronberg Gevaerfabrik ultimately converted to 11.45mm centerfire. The modified pistols were designated the Model 1865/97, denoting the initial year of adoption and the year of conversion. The Danish Navy experimented with pinfires in 1861 but adopted the Model 1871 Gasser-Kropatschek that became the Model 1871/1881 after its conversion to 11mm center-fire.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

FLOBERT The rimfire cartridge, a contemporary of the pin-fire, also originated in France but survived into the present as one of the most successful cartridges ever invented. As originally conceived by Louis Nicolas Auguste Flobert around 1845, the first rimfire cartridges were not technically rimfires but nothing more than a small caliber .22 lead pellet pressed into the open end of a modified percussion cap. In Flobert’s cartridge the fulminate acted as both primer and propellant. The following year M. Houllier improved Flobert’s design into what became generally known as the B-B cap or bulleted breech cap. This configuration resulted in a very low-powered cartridge that proved ideal for parlor or gallery shooting, a highly popular sport in the taverns and beer halls of nineteenth-century Europe. Some manufacturers even produced smaller cartridges such as the 4mm B-B cap for gallery shooting. Gallery shooting, especially in Germany, combined the two manly pastimes of beer drinking and shooting and saw the introduction of light-caliber, low-powered weapons specifically made for the activity. Both rifles and pistols were produced and were generally of singleshot, breech-loading design. The contests typically took place in specially designated parlors in beer halls with rounds of beer as the stakes. If tempers flared during such matches, wives at home could assuage their fears in that the B-B caps were capable of little real damage should a shootout ensue.

SMITH & WESSON Two Americans, Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson, introduced the first modern rimfire revolver in 1857. The evolution of this partnership, and their intertwining relations with other innovators, were typical of the complex nature of the U.S. firearms industry during the 1800s. In 1849 a New Yorker named Walter Hunt patented a repeating rifle and cartridge very similar to an earlier English design patented in 1841. Hunt was another of that breed of talented inventors who lacked even a modicum of business acumen. He developed hundreds of brilliant designs for such diverse devices as spinning and sewing machines and fountain pens and was apparently the inventor of the modern safety pin. Unfortunately, Hunt tended to sell off the rights for his inventions at fractions of their true value to

111

112

PISTOLS

stave off chronic debt. The Rocket Ball, as Hunt called it was a selfcontained loading cartridge with the propellant sealed in the hollow base of its lead bullet. True to form, Hunt soon sold off the rights to his new cartridge and weapon. A fellow American, Lewis Jennings, then improved on Hunt’s ideas, and the Windsor, Vermont, firm of Robbins & Lawrence manufactured a limited number of his rifles before discontinuing them, as the cartridge proved too weak for any practical purpose. Fortunately for entrepreneurs Smith and Wesson, one of Robbins & Lawrence’s employees, B. Tyler Henry, appreciated the HuntJennings concept, added his own improvements, and eventually presented his drawings to Horace Smith in Worcester, Massachusetts. Smith in turn joined with a colleague, Daniel Wesson, to patent and produce pistols and ammunition partially based on Henry’s information. In 1853 Smith and Wesson formed their first partnership in Norwich, Connecticut, and began manufacturing a series of leveraction caliber .31 and .41 cartridge pistols. These weapons were fitted with a tubular magazine mounted under the barrel that fed selfcontained cartridges based on Hunt’s original design. Smith and Wesson left the company in 1855 after selling their shares to clothing manufacturer Oliver F. Winchester, a former Connecticut governor. For a limited period Winchester continued to manufacture the original Smith & Wesson pistol as the Volcanic Arms Company and eventually as the New Haven Arms Company. Winchester went on to hire B. Tyler Henry and finally founded the famous Winchester Repeating Arms Company. For their part, Smith and Wesson set up shop in Springfield to produce their own legendary revolvers. Through his brother, Edwin, Daniel Wesson was also associated with the Massachusetts Arms Company, a firm established by him with a number of other well-known arms makers, including Joshua Stevens and J. T. Ames. In 1851 the Massachusetts Arms Company earned the dubious distinction of being the first significant defendant against a Colt patent infringement suit. Colt’s successful action forced the firm to produce a number of pistols requiring the cylinder to be turned ignominiously by hand rather than mechanically. Smith & Wesson reestablished their own partnership in 1856 to manufacture revolvers chambering a diminutive caliber .22 rimfire cartridge that they had patented in 1854. To their frustration, however, earlier patents restricted the use of two critical components of their design. Colt’s patent still covered the mechanically revolving cylinder mechanism and was not due to expire until 1857. A further

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

patent search also proved that Rollin White of New Haven, Connecticut, had already patented another equally important necessity—the bored-through cylinder—in 1855 in an attempt to circumvent Colt’s patents. Negotiations with the industrial giant Colt would have been fruitless, and Smith and Wesson settled on waiting out the few years until the patent’s expiration. Fortunately, White was to prove more pliable. Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson were formidable inventors and businessmen. For his part, Rollin White apparently came up with only one significant contribution throughout his firearms career and that contribution, for its part, was not necessarily original to Rollin White. White’s claim to fame lay in his patent itself and its ability to block other inventors’ progress. The pistol for which he received the patent did feature the bored-through cylinder, but it required paper cartridges and was of such poor design that it never reached production. With no hope of producing his own pistols and facing strong litigation challenging his tenuous claim to the bored-through cylinder, White, who had earlier been turned away by Colt, settled on a deal with Smith and Wesson to use his patent on a royalty basis. The agreement quickly proved a brilliant coup for the astute Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson and plunged the gullible White into even worse financial straits. It stipulated that although White did receive royalties from any sales, it was his responsibility to defend the original patents against what eventually became a series of financially ruinous lawsuits. With their legal issues being handled at White’s expense, Smith and Wesson were free to go on their merry and profitable path—once Colt’s patent ran out in 1857. On the very day of the Colt patent’s expiration, the Smith and Wesson workshops were already staffed, supplied, and ready for business. Once in business, from 1857 until the early 1870s, Smith & Wesson protected its designs as ruthlessly as Samuel Colt had his own. Poor Rollin White soon sank into bankruptcy before finding better luck with sewing machines and steam cars. Smith and Wesson’s contributions to cartridge development were, if possible, even more significant than their efforts at perfecting the revolver. After early unsuccessful experiments with a center-fire cartridge, Wesson ultimately turned to Flobert’s designs as a starting point. He first increased the potential power of the cartridge by extending the length of the cartridge case to accommodate a small charge of black powder. He further replaced the round bullet of the B-B cap with a longer, conical projectile. Priming was initially accomplished by coating the entire inner surface of the cartridge base

113

114

PISTOLS

with a fulminate mixture. Experiments with this priming arrangement quickly proved impractical, as the early copper cases tended to bulge upon detonation and jam against the flash shield, stopping cylinder rotation. Wesson corrected the problem with a cartridge containing the primer in its rim only. The rim also served the purpose of preventing the cartridge case from sliding too far into the chamber.

Smith & Wesson Model No. 1 Revolvers For all of the drama, intrigue, and design brilliance involved in its conception, Smith & Wesson’s first offering was not a very intimidating weapon. Manufactured from 1857 to 1860, the Smith & Wesson Model No. 1 First Issue Revolver was a small pocket pistol with a barrel barely more than 3 inches in length. Although the cylinder chambered seven cartridges, the short, caliber .22 loads were capable of only very short ranges and even then did not possess the velocity or weight to give consistent stopping power. Still, the single-action Model No. 1 was a handy revolver and, despite the weakness of its cartridge, a true milestone in firearms history. It featured a spur trigger, square-back, rosewood grips, a blued cylinder and barrel, and a silver-plated brass frame. It also introduced a tip-up design that allowed the octagonal barrel to hinge upward to permit the removal of the cylinder for loading and removal of the spent cartridge casings. Ejection was a relatively laborious procedure accomplished by means of a metal rod stowed underneath the barrel. The Model No. 1 enjoyed reasonably successful sales, with about 11,671 pistols manufactured. The firm followed the Model No. 1 in 1860 with the even more popular Smith & Wesson Model No. 1 Second Issue Revolver, manufacturing some 117,000 pistols until discontinuing it in 1868. Where the Second Issue Revolver differed from the First Issue in only minor details, the Smith & Wesson No. 1 Third Issue Revolver was at least superficially different in its overall appearance. Its bird’s-head grips and ribbed barrel set it apart visually from its predecessors, although it was essentially the same mechanically. Smith & Wesson manufactured some 131,163 Third Issue Revolvers from 1868 to 1881. The Smith & Wesson Model No. 1 Revolvers made the firm a nearly overnight success and were popular with both civilians and, as a privately purchased weapon, with military customers as well. Large numbers found their way to Civil War battlefields in the pock-

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

ets of soldiers of both sides and all ranks. Also, for those wealthier customers with more refined tastes and patience, specially ordered specimens were available with either pearl or ivory grips and silverplate finishes. When introduced, the standard production revolver cost $12, with a box of 100 cartridges going for $.75. Although not necessarily inexpensive—a Civil War private earned about $13 a month—orders for the little .22s quickly outpaced the factory’s production capabilities. In 1860 demand was so great that Smith & Wesson expanded into a new, larger facility in Springfield.

Smith & Wesson Model No. 2 Old Model Revolvers Still, its pitifully weak cartridge made the Model No. 1 unsuitable for anything more than a hideout pistol for last resort or as an intimidator during card games. The company attempted to address this problem with the introduction of the Smith & Wesson Model No. 2 Army Revolver. Sometimes known as the Smith & Wesson Model No. 2 Old Model Revolver, the Model No. 2 introduced a more powerful rimfire caliber .32 cartridge. In essence a larger version of the earlier .22s, the Model No. 2 was chambered for six cartridges and could be ordered with either a 4-, 5-, or 6-inch barrel. Special finishes and grips were available, but rosewood grips and blue or nickel finishes were most common. Some 77,155 Model No. 2s were manufactured between 1861 and 1874. Although often designated as an Army model, no Model No. 2 revolvers saw official acceptance by the U.S. military. Many soldiers, however, purchased them during the Civil War as personal weapons, and a very limited number were purchased by the state of Kentucky to arm the Seventh Kentucky (U.S.) Cavalry. Admirers presented the famous cavalryman and firearms connoisseur George Armstrong Custer a pair in 1869, and the Model No. 2 also earned wide popularity in the West following the Civil War. It was reputed that Wild Bill Hickok favored it and had one on his person when Jack McCall shot him to death in August 1874. As further testimony to the Smith & Wesson’s popularity, it was reported that McCall shot Hickok with a Smith & Wesson Model No. 1 Third Issue Revolver.

Smith & Wesson Model No.1_ Revolvers The company introduced a midsize caliber .32 revolver in 1865.

115

116

PISTOLS

The five-shot Smith & Wesson Model No.1_ First Issue Revolver chambered a short caliber .32 cartridge that proved disappointing, and the company replaced it in 1868, introducing the Smith & Wesson Model No. 1_ Second Issue Revolver. The Second Issue Revolver was fitted with a five-chambered fluted cylinder and chambered a more powerful, longer caliber .32 cartridge. Smith & Wesson manufactured some 100,700 Second Issues before discontinuing it in 1875. Their exclusive monopoly of the White patent placed Smith & Wesson in a unique situation that they failed to exploit to its fullest potential. Just as significant, Smith & Wesson protected its monopoly as strenuously as Colt had protected his own patents. This situation simultaneously retarded domestic firearms development by competitors and sparked numerous designs meant to infringe upon or circumvent the original patent. In the meantime, European designers, unhindered by U.S. patent laws, made great use of the boredthrough cylinder and other innovations. As a consequence, most soldiers who carried pistols during the U.S. Civil War were armed with obsolete percussion pistols rather than the breech-loading cartridge revolvers already in fairly wide use in Europe, notably France. That Smith & Wesson introduced such a small pistol chambered for the tiny caliber .22 short black-powder cartridge automatically precluded them from consideration for lucrative government contracts. Most standard U.S. military pistols of the day were chambered in the far more powerful calibers .36 and .44 (calibers set for the most part by Samuel Colt). Smith & Wesson’s cartridge was so underpowered that it was always a doubtful proposition that it could even penetrate heavy clothing at combat range, much less stop or kill an opponent. That the partners did not at first introduce a larger, more powerful caliber was at least partially owing to problems with the metal they used in their cartridge cases. The copper available during their early experiments tended to be overly brittle. This fault made it difficult to manufacture into cases that were strong enough to withstand detonation while flexible enough to be dented by the hammer nose. Timely advances in metallurgy, however, came to the partners’ rescue in the form of the annealing process. The procedure strengthened the copper cases yet imparted the ability to retain flexibility. This breakthrough did allow the partners to produce the more powerful caliber .32 cartridge, but this also did not compare well in penetration and stopping power to the big percussion pistols of the day.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

SMITH & WESSON PATENT CIRCUMVENTIONS Despite their pistols’ rather anemic loadings, Smith & Wesson did find an exploding civilian market for their wares and, inevitably, the same sort of competition in the form of patent circumvention and infringement that had so plagued Samuel Colt. Such companies as Aetna Arms Company of New York; the unidentified makers of the Bismarck Pocket Revolver; Lucius W. Pond and E. A. Prescott, both of Worcester; and Moore’s Patent Firearms Company of Brooklyn commercialized on Smith & Wesson’s success by producing nearly identical copies of various S&W models in flagrant violation of patent laws. Smith & Wesson successfully sued a number of these plagiarists and, in some cases, forced them to mark their wares with the legend “MF’D FOR SMITH & WESSON.”

Allen & Wheelock In 1860 the respected Worcester firm Allen & Wheelock attempted to circumvent the White patent by introducing a lip-fire cartridge and revolver. The basic design was very similar to their percussion revolvers, but the cylinder was completely bored through to accept a caliber .44 cartridge with its priming not held in a complete rim but in a single protrusion on one side of its base. The lip was designed to mate with a notch in the rear of the cylinder that allowed the hammer to strike the priming. Smith & Wesson successfully sued Allen & Wheelock, and only some 250 lip-fire revolvers saw production.

Slocum Other, more legally minded manufacturers stretched inventive capabilities to circumvent Smith & Wesson’s patents. Although efforts were sometimes ludicrous in the attempts to find legal loopholes, some frustrated designers approached genius in their workshops. The Brooklyn Firearms Company’s single-action Slocum Patent Pocket Revolver exhibited all the hallmarks of such ingenious impracticality. Although it was fitted with a rather eccentrically shaped walnut gripped butt, the five-chambered Slocum accepted a conventional caliber .32 rimmed cartridge and externally resembled the spur trigger Smith & Wesson pocket pistols. It was 9.5 inches in

117

118

PISTOLS

overall length with a foliage-engraved, silver-plated brass frame. The cylinder and 3-inch barrel were blued. The cylinder and method of loading the Slocum, however, were anything but conventional. The side-loading Slocum design avoided the issue of the bored-through cylinder patent by employing chambers consisting of separate tubes that slid into corresponding slots in the cylinder body. For loading and ejecting the spent cartridge casings, the Slocum required the user to slide the individual tubes forward over a fixed rod on the right side of the weapon. This allowed a cartridge to be placed in the side of the cylinder, after which the tube could be pushed back into place. A notch in the otherwise solid rear of the cylinder allowed the nose of the hammer to strike the cartridge rim. The pistol proved popular enough that somewhat more than 10,000 Slocum revolvers were produced in 1863 and 1864.

Crispin A relative latecomer to the patent circumvention field, Silas Crispin, possibly of New York, patented another strange pistol and cartridge in 1865. Crispin’s timing—he was too late to exploit the previously surging Civil War pistol market—and his pistol’s peculiar design ensured his failure, and few pistols were produced. Crispin’s revolver superficially resembled the Smith & Wesson products but featured a completely unique cartridge and cylinder. The six-chambered cylinder was manufactured in two sections divided about a third of the way from the rear of the pistol. The rear portion was mounted to the rear frame, with the upper two-thirds of the cylinder body mounted to the forward frame. The special caliber .32 cartridge was manufactured with its priming in a belt that circled its midsection and was loaded in the rear section of the cylinder. When closed, slots cut into the cylinder, where the two sections joined, and allowed the hammer to strike the cartridge’s priming belts. Another factor in Crispin’s failure may have lain in the tendency of his rather delicate cartridges to explode during loading if handled carelessly. Other inventors attempted to circumvent White’s bored-through cylinder patent by introducing metallic cartridges that loaded through the front of the cylinder. Although in no way as efficient as Smith & Wesson products, such designs allowed a number of entrepreneurs to exploit the huge pistol market generated by the

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Civil War and western expansion. The two most successful of these strange loadings were known as the cup-primed and teat-fire cartridges.

Plant Manufacturing Company Financed and marketed by the New York partnership Merwin & Bray, Plant’s Manufacturing Company of New Haven was the largest manufacturer of front-loading, cup-primed revolvers. Its pistols were based on a copper cartridge patented on 12 July 1859 by Willard C. Ellis and John H. White. The cup-fire (or hollow-base) cartridge was indented in its breech end to accept the priming and contained powder and a bullet that were seated completely within the case. This arrangement gave the cartridge the appearance of a simple tube. The cartridges were designed to be loaded into the front of the cylinder chambers that in turn were bored with a small hole in their breech to allow the hammer’s nose to strike the primer. Most were fitted with a sliding ejector rod on the right side of the frame behind the cylinder to push out the spent casings. Plant manufactured two basic sizes of its cup-fire revolvers: a large caliber .42 Army model and a scaled-down caliber .30 pocket model. Both bore a marked similarity in appearance to Smith & Wesson’s products, with ribbed, octagonal barrels. All were manufactured with spur triggers, and most had silver-plated brass frames, although a very few early Army models had iron frames. They are fitted with either rosewood or walnut grips and blued cylinders and barrels. Plant produced just more than 8,000 six-shot Army models with 6-inch barrels and, in conjunction with the Eagle Manufacturing Company of New York City, some 20,000 pocket models. Pocket models were available with both five and, more rarely, six-shot capacities and short 3.5-inch barrels. As its name implied, Plant hoped for sales of its Army model to that branch of service during the Civil War. Although the government apparently refused to issue contracts, in 1865 Merwin & Bray did advertise in Harper’s Weekly that it had contracted to supply pistols to the U.S. Revenue Service, the precursor of the modern Coast Guard. Although the claim may have been a mere marketing ploy, the company did realize a reasonably strong civilian market and private sales to military personnel. Plant also attempted to expand the versatility of its Army revolver by providing a spare percussion cylinder with its pistols. Numbers of these cylinders, as well as the cup-

119

120

PISTOLS

fire cylinders, were later completely bored through to convert them into conventional cartridge weapons.

Moore’s Patent Firearms Daniel Moore and David Williamson patented the much more successful teat-fire cartridge on 28 April 1863 and by 1864 were manufacturing a caliber .32 teat-fire pocket revolver at Moore’s Patent Firearms Company in Brooklyn. A very popular privately purchased weapon among Civil War troops, some 30,000 pistols were manufactured before it was discontinued in 1870. The cartridge resembled the cup-fire cartridge but had an elongated flattened, or rounded, teat opposite the bulleted end that contained the primer. The teat passed through a small hole in the rear of the cylinder chamber, allowing the hammer to strike it. The six-shot Moore pistol also resembles the Smith & Wesson, having a silver-plated brass frame with blued cylinder and octagonal 3.5-inch barrel. Its bird’s-head grip is stocked with either walnut or gutta percha panels, and it is 7.5-inches in overall length. A pivoting gate on the right side of the frame, forward the cylinder, prevents the cartridges from falling out once loaded. During the latter half of the 1860s, having undergone a name change to the National Arms Company, the firm also produced a large frame, six-shot pistol in caliber .45. It too had a bird’s-head grip and silver-plate frame, but its 7.5-inch barrel differed in that it was octagonal at the breech and round toward the muzzle. In 1870 Colt bought out the National Arms Company in an apparent attempt to eliminate it as competition.

CARTRIDGE CONVERSIONS The close of the Civil War in April 1865 had a predictably profound effect on the U.S. arms industry. Rapid demobilization led to an abrupt drop in demand for military firearms and forced many smaller gun makers out of business. As these companies slid into bankruptcy, the larger, more established firms such as Colt, Remington, and Smith & Wesson found themselves competing in a smaller and more discerning market. As metallic cartridges became more widely available, many originally percussion revolvers were con-

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

verted to accept the new ammunition. By the end of the 1870s, however, the vast majority of new handguns were designed from their inception as metallic cartridge weapons. Although the postwar military pistol market contracted, civilian demand increased as the United States turned its attention to its vast western territories. Western immigrants—many of them veterans—clamored for the latest in handgun designs for defense in the hostile mountains, prairies, and boomtowns beyond the Mississippi. U.S. soldiers, assigned to protect this flood of pioneers, were no less discerning in acquiring the tools of the trade. Yet despite the proven effectiveness of the revolver during the Civil War, the rigid U.S. military bureaucracy still questioned the wisdom of issuing pistols to troops. This hesitancy was rooted in the persistent dogma then current in the United States and Europe that often defied the logic of actual battlefield experience. Most military theorists of the time held that pistols were of limited value and that their compact size and limited range made them suitable at best only for cavalry and shipboard use. Many ordnance experts questioned the validity of continuing the issue of revolvers and even expressed a strong preference to return to the issue of single-shot pistols. They still argued that the traditional saber was the ideal weapon for close combat and that carbines were sufficient for any fighting requiring a firearm. Pistols, in their view, should be carried by troopers only in the unlikely event that they entered the field without sabers. Revolvers, they haughtily argued, encouraged a wasteful expenditure of ammunition, were difficult to handle while at a full gallop, and, in the hands of the less intelligent enlisted men, were more liable to accidental discharge.

1870 U.S. Small Arms and Accoutrements Board Those soldiers engaged in the unconventional warfare against hostile Indian tribes in the West suffered the most from such conservatism. Troops fighting along the frontier in the 1860s were often outnumbered, outgunned, and—many would argue—outgeneraled by their Native American opponents. Western fighting typically involved desperate, close-range actions between small military detachments and larger numbers of Indians armed with revolvers and repeating rifles. As their casualties mounted, troopers were desperate to even the odds. In 1870 the Army responded to repeated requests from frontier commands for better equipment by convening the

121

122

PISTOLS

Small Arms and Accoutrements Board in St. Louis. During its sessions the board tested a number of pistols to determine their suitability for issue to Army personnel. Colt failed to submit any pistols to the board, but a number of other manufacturers, most notably Remington and Smith & Wesson, offered their products for appraisal and possible acceptance. These included the Smith & Wesson Model 3 American First Model in caliber .44 Henry rimfire, both percussion and metallic cartridge conversion examples of the caliber .44 Remington New Model Army Revolver, and a new single-shot caliber .50 rolling block design, also by Remington. After preliminary tests, the board recommended that the percussion pistols be phased out of service and replaced with metallic-cartridge weapons. They then ordered 1,000 each for field tests of Remington’s cartridge revolvers and the Smith & Wesson Model 3 American First Model chambered for a center-fire cartridge. Yet even as late as 1870, the army was unprepared to break with tradition. It was the single-shot Remington that the board found most satisfactory, keeping with the current cavalry theories.

Remington 1865 and 1867 Navy Rolling Block Pistols The Remington entry was based on the company’s caliber .50 rimfire 1865 and center-fire 1867 Navy Rolling Block Pistols. The rolling block action consisted of a breechblock that rotated down into the frame for loading and unloading and was one of the strongest firearms actions ever produced. Remington applied the action to pistols, rifles, and carbines, and rolling block firearms gained worldwide popularity in both civilian and military circles. Although rugged, accurate, and dependable, the rolling block was by design a single shot–only action. The U.S. Navy originally bought approximately 6,500 Rolling Blocks between 1866 and 1870. These pistols exhibited Remington’s typically fine workmanship with blued barrels, casehardened frames, and walnut fore ends and grips. The Model 1865 is distinguished from later military rolling blocks in that it is chambered for the caliber .50 rimfire cartridge and is fitted with a spur trigger. The Model 1867 is essentially a Model 1865 with a conventional trigger and trigger guard and caliber .50 center-fire chambering. The Remington 1871 Army Rolling Block Pistol, as adopted by the Army, differs only slightly from the Model 1867, its main differences being in the angle of the grip and barrel length. The barrels of all the military

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

rolling block pistols were round, with the Model 1865 barrel being 8.5 inches in length, the Model 1867 7 inches, and the Model 1871 8 inches. The Army eventually bought some 5,000 pistols out of the company’s total production of about 6,000 between 1872 and 1888.

Remington 1875 and 1890 Single Action Army Revolvers The single-shot rolling block was to prove Remington’s last major offering in the way of military pistols. The percussion caliber .44 New Model Army Revolver had been one of the best pistols to see service during the Civil War, and Remington had been a pioneer in the conversion of percussion pistols to use metallic cartridges. The company attempted to challenge Colt with its metallic-cartridge Model 1875 Single Action Army Revolver, but sales were disappointing. The U.S. Department of the Interior did order 639 nickel-plate pistols for issue to its Indian Police, and Mexico ordered an additional 1,000 pistols, but the U.S. Army showed no great interest. The lack of a significant military contract and the failure of the Egyptian government to follow through with another agreement eventually prompted Remington to cease production of the Model 1875 in 1889. The company made one last attempt to market a military revolver with the Model 1890 Single Action Revolver, but that project also ended with disappointment; only some 2,020 were produced. With the failure of its revolvers, Remington turned its energies to the production of rifles, shotguns, and its single-shot rolling block pistols.

Colt Cartridge Conversions For its part, the Colt Patent Firearms Company would maintain its concentration on handgun production into the twentieth century, but it also faced daunting challenges. At the end of the Civil War the Colt factory faced a drop in demand for pistols as well as a crisis in direction. Until his death on 10 January 1862, Samuel Colt had acted as technical visionary and the business and publicity head. Following Colt’s death, Elisha K. Root, the factory superintendent, stepped in as company president to continue the steady leadership. Root was a consummate technician and businessman, and as the Civil War reached its height orders poured in and profits soared.

123

124

PISTOLS

Compared to other operations of the time, the Colt factory was an industrial palace topped by a blue dome and powered by a 250horsepower steam engine. At its apex, perhaps 1,500 employees labored to manufacture some 150,000 muskets and pistols a year. Disaster, however, struck when a fire destroyed a large part of the factory in 1864. With the death of Root in September 1865 and the loss of wartime orders, Colt was forced to lay off more than half its employees. Root’s replacement, Richard W. H. Jarvis, had little business and technical talent and owed his new position primarily to his status as Samuel Colt’s brother-in-law. The company’s new vice president, William B. Franklin, had recently been forced out of the Army in disgrace for his failure at the Battle of Fredericksburg, but at least he had training as an engineer. The company lacked a true pistol designer until William Mason joined the company in about 1869. It was the technical skill of Mason, Charles B. Richards, and later Carl J. Ehbets that carried Colt through the second half of the nineteenth century.

Colt Thuer Cartridge Conversions Once the undisputed leader of the U.S. revolver industry, Colt found itself struggling to regain prominence. As it waited out the final few months of the Rollin White patent, Colt resorted to its own circumvention of Smith & Wesson’s monopoly. Patented in September 1868 by Colt employee F. Alexander Thuer, Colt’s circumvention was actually a conversion of its current percussion pistols to accept metallic cartridges. Colt performed only some 5,000 Thuer conversions on its Models 1849 Pocket, 1851 Navy, 1860 Army, 1861 Navy, 1862 Police, and 1862 Pocket Navy Revolvers between 1869 and 1872. The Thuer conversion procedure consisted of lathing off the rear of the cylinder to accept a rotating ring assembly fitted with a firing pin and ejector. In addition, the cylinder’s chambers were milled to accept the special tapered, front-loaded Thuer cartridge. Although holding the distinction of being the first reloadable, center-fire metallic cartridge with an integral primer, the Thuer conversion ultimately proved impractical. Possibly foreseeing that customers might consider the Thuer’s mechanism and five-piece reloading tool kit a bit complicated, Colt included a spare percussion cylinder with its Thuer conversions.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Martin- and Benet-Primed Cartridges All cartridge pistols are dependent on reliable cartridges. The earliest large-caliber center-fire metallic cartridges available during the late 1860s and early 1870s were, for the most part, products of government experiments at the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia and the National Arsenal in Springfield. Known as inside-primed cartridges, these early center-fire attempts were of two basic designs: the Martin-primed cartridge and the Benet-primed cartridge. The first design, developed by E. H. Martin of Springfield Arsenal in 1866, incorporated an internal metal pin, or anvil, in the center of the cartridge head to facilitate ignition. The solid head of the case was also formed into a small internal cup to hold the fulminate in place. This gave the head of the cartridge something of a bull’s-eye external appearance. Despite a number of improvements, Martinprimed cartridges went out of production in December 1871. Colonel S. V. Benet, commander of Frankford Arsenal, offered a somewhat more successful cartridge in 1868. Owing to their flat solid heads, larger inside-primed cartridges resembled the small copper-cased rimfire cartridges but were internally quite different. Colonel Benet’s inside-primed cup-and-anvil cartridges were readily identified by a crimp near the case’s head that holds the internal priming components in place. Neither the Martin nor Benet designs, however, were readily reloadable—a feature that most ordnance officials and civilians saw as essential for practical cartridge designs. The desirability of reloadable cartridges was especially acute in the American West. Beyond the Mississippi River the cost of new cartridges was often prohibitive, and availability was always in doubt. Forced to rely on their own ingenuity, some western Indians were even reported to have punched holes in the base of cartridge cases to allow the insertion of percussion caps. This expedience allowed them to extend the use of their precious casings beyond their usual one-shot life expectancy.

The Berdan Cartridge In 1870 Colonel Hiram Berdan, famous for his Civil War leadership of Berdan’s Sharpshooters, was a key figure in the U.S. Ordnance Department. Berdan greatly improved on all earlier designs by re-

125

126

PISTOLS

placing the old copper cases with more versatile brass. He then devised a practical method of drawing the brass case into a tube with a thick base containing a cavity to accept a separate primer. Berdan’s was superior to all previous designs but did exhibit a significant flaw: It was extremely difficult to reload. In Berdan’s system the anvil was an integral component of the case. His case also employed two flash holes around the anvil to convey the primer’s ignition to the main powder charge. Although quite reliable as a single-use cartridge, Berdan’s system made it very difficult to remove the used primer.

The Boxer Cartridge On the other side of the Atlantic, Colonel Edward Mounier Boxer, a British officer and superintendent of the Royal Laboratory, Woolwich Arsenal, provided the solution. Boxer’s design incorporated the anvil within the primer, thus allowing for a single, larger vent hole in the case head. This larger aperture made it much easier to remove the spent primer with a simple punch. While many European forces favored the Berdan system for decades, the Boxer priming system, combined with the Berdan drawn-brass case, became the standard center-fire cartridge design in the United States.

Later Colt Conversions When Rollin White’s desperate attempts to extend his patent failed—an event precipitated by the direct intervention of President Ulysses S. Grant, who saw it impeding technological progress—Colt still had not developed a new breech-loading metallic-cartridge revolver. The company instead continued to convert its existing percussion models to the new system. These conversion pistols, although economical and functional weapons, were still nothing more than a stopgap until Colt could design its own real metallic cartridge revolver. Such conversions were, in any case, a rather simple procedure, merely involving the replacement of the percussion cylinder with a bored-through cylinder, the removal of the rammer, and the addition of a spent casing ejector. Between about 1873 and 1880 Colt performed thousands of such procedures, with independent gunsmiths converting thousands more.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Colt Richards-Mason Conversion In 1871 Colt patented a conversion of the Colt 1860 Army Revolver developed by Charles B. Richards that became among the most common of the Colt factory conversions. The factory converted some 9,000 pistols to the Richards system between 1873 and 1878. The Richards system consisted of a bored-through cylinder and a ring added to the breech to permit the insertion of metallic cartridges. The rammer was also removed and an ejector rod added to the right side of the barrel. In 1877 and 1878 William Mason, Colt factory manager and recently of Remington, improved on the original conversion to produce some 2,100 Richards-Mason Conversions of the 1860 Army Revolvers. Troops in the field found the various Colt conversions to be better weapons than the older percussion pistols, but the Army continued to find fault with Colt’s open-top frame design.

Colt Models 1872 and 1873 Single Action Army Revolvers Colt’s first revolver originally designed with the bored-through cylinder was the short-lived Model 1872—essentially just a modified Model 1860 with the new cylinder and manufactured without a loading lever. The Model 1872 thus retained the older Model 1860’s design flaws, and Colt replaced it the next year with its muchimproved Model 1873. The Model 1873 was the product of the engineering skills of William Mason and Charles B. Richards and met with instant success. With the Model 1873, Colt at last employed a solid frame, making the new pistol structurally much sturdier than earlier models. The pistol featured a hinged, swing-down loading gate on the rear of the frame and a spring-loaded spent-casing extractor mounted on the lower right of the barrel. Although simply designated as the Model P in original factory records, the Model 1873 was more popularly known as the Peacemaker and quickly became the most famous revolver in the world. The Model 1873 entered government service in caliber .45 Colt, a center-fire metallic cartridge thus earning two more famous nicknames—the Colt .45 and the Single Action Army (SAA). Colt initially offered three barrel lengths: The U.S. cavalry adopted the pistol with a 7.5-inch barrel, the artillery chose it with a 5.5-inch barrel, and many civilians preferred it with a 4.75-inch barrel. The Model 1873 served as the regulation U.S. Army pistol from

127

128

PISTOLS

1873 to 1892, when it was designated substitute-standard and served in that capacity until 1909. The SAA thus saw extensive usage from the Indian Wars through the Philippine actions as well as with western lawmen, outlaws, and cowboys, among whom it earned its most popular nickname—Peacemaker. The U.S. government purchased some 37,000 Model 1873s. Colt’s total production ran to 357,859 in several variations produced between 1873 and 1941. During the dark days of 1940 a desperate British government even issued 163 SAAs to the Home Guard. Owing to popular demand, spurred in no small part by the popularity of movie-house westerns during and following World War II, Colt resumed production of the Peacemaker in 1955. Colt was also quick to exploit the market for custom-ordered Peacemakers. The original model was manufactured with a blued barrel, grip straps, and trigger, a casehardened frame and hammer, and walnut grips. The factory soon offered nickel-finished guns as well as deluxe gold- and silver-embellished examples with ornate engraving. Grips could be ordered in hard rubber, carved ivory, and pearl. Barrels were available in lengths varying from 2.5 inches to 16 inches; a skeleton-style detachable shoulder stock could also be purchased for the long-barreled models. Such long-barreled models gained the nickname Buntline Specials in honor of the famed Western dime-novelist Ned Buntline. Whether Buntline actually brandished his namesake is still open to debate, but records indicate that such famous Western characters as William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Pat Garrett, the Earp brothers, and Bat Masterson did favor the more standard forms of the Peacemaker and helped further its romantic appeal. Other famous Peacemaker aficionados included President Theodore Roosevelt and General George S. Patton Jr., who in 1916 bought a pair of engraved, silver-plated custom six-shooters with ivory grips. Jonathan M. Wainwright bought a Model 1873 in 1906, the same year he graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point. He went on to carry the Colt as his personal sidearm during the 1907–1908 Moro insurrection, the Mexican expedition in 1916, and through World War I. Wainwright later commanded U.S. and Philippine forces in the Philippines at the time of the Japanese attack. When forced to surrender at Corregidor on 6 May 1942, General Wainwright refused to give up his Colt and instead hid it in a hollow tree. He recovered the badly corroded pistol in 1947; it was later acquired by his alma mater (Ezell 1981: 636). In 1878 Colt began marketing the Model 1873 on the civilian market as the Frontier Six-Shooter in calibers .44–40, .38–40, and .32–20—the same calibers as the popular Winchester saddle car-

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

bines and rifles. Frontiersmen found this arrangement handy because it allowed them to use the same cartridge in both their pistol and long arm. Colt, for its part, found this brilliant marketing ploy extremely profitable. Numerous other calibers were also available, ranging from the .22 to the .476 Eley. The Model 1873’s main deficiency lies in the fragility of its internal mechanism, which leads to frequent breakage. It is also a tedious process to individually eject the spent cartridge cases manually with the ejector rod. More inexplicably, Colt also failed to incorporate a double-action mechanism in its design. Still, the Model 1873 possessed classic lines, handled beautifully, and, despite rather rudimentary sights, was accurate. Since 1873 it has played a prominent role in countless western novels and movies and to many it is the only true cowboy’s gun. From about 1888 to 1915 Colt introduced a number of target pistols based on the Single Action Army Revolver. Intended mainly for the civilian market, these included the Colt Flattop Target Model Single Action Army, the Colt Bisley Model Single Action Army Revolver, and the Colt Bisley Model Flattop Target Revolver. Colt’s target pistols were available in a variety of calibers and with either checkered hard-rubber or walnut grips and with blued and casehardened metal finishes. The Bisley models, named for the famous British shooting competition, were distinguished by their grips’ rather dramatic drop and a wide, low-profile hammer spur. Although designed as a specialized target pistol, the Bisley did find its own following among cowboys and gunslingers in the American West.

Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 First Model Single Action Army (First Model American) Despite the Peacemaker’s success, Colt faced formidable competition from its old rival, Smith & Wesson. Quite often the more discerning western gunslingers chose Smith & Wesson revolvers over Colts. The reason was obvious: Smith & Wesson pistols were far and away better-designed weapons by nearly any standard. In another ironic twist, Smith & Wesson’s better design helped exclude it to some degree from the U.S. market. In 1870 Smith & Wesson introduced its Model No. 3 First Model Single Action Revolver. The company manufactured some 8,000 of the No. 3 First Model before replacing it in 1872. Although not quite possessing the aesthetic appeal of its Colt rival, the new Smith & Wesson was a robust weapon and marked the company’s entry into the production of large military-caliber pistols.

129

130

PISTOLS

More popularly known as the First Model American, the pistol was the company’s first large-caliber as well as top-break revolver and offered a number of advantages over its competition. The topbreak design consists of a rear frame hinged at the forward lower strap to the forward frame, cylinder, and barrel assembly. A hinged catch on the rear top strap then mates to the upper rear frame. Raising the rear catch allows the barrel to be swiveled down in an action that automatically ejects the spent shell casings and clears the cylinder for reloading. To many, the First Model American’s automatic ejection capability was its greatest feature. Daniel B. Wesson acquired the patent rights to the ejection mechanism from designers W. C. Dodge and C. A. King in 1869. Their ingenious system was based on a flat, starshaped extractor in the rear of the cylinder that fit under the cartridge rims. The action of lowering the barrel cammed the springloaded extractor rearward far enough to kick the spent casings out of the chambers, at which point it automatically snapped back into position. The Dodge-King design thus allowed all of the cases to be ejected at once (as opposed to Colt’s comparatively laborious process of manually turning the cylinder to individually eject the spent cases with the ejector rod). Despite some Colt enthusiasts’ objections that the Smith & Wesson did not allow reloading of individual chambers, the pistol quickly gained wide popularity among many in the West. Those men included such famous personalities as Buffalo Bill Cody and Wyatt Earp, who reportedly put his to effective use during the shootout at the O.K. Corral (Flayderman 1987: 197). The First Model American also introduced the respectably lethal caliber .44 Smith & Wesson American cartridge. The company’s standard product featured a six-chambered, fluted cylinder, 8-inch barrel, walnut grips, and either blued or nickel-plated finishes. Significantly, the U.S. Army also quickly took interest in the new pistol and in December 1870 ordered 200 nickel-plated and 800 blued Smith & Wessons. Evidence indicates that a number of Colonel George Armstrong Custer’s troopers were carrying First Model Americans during their disastrous encounter with the Lakota and other Native American forces at the Little Big Horn (Flayderman 1987: 197).

Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 Second Model Single Action Revolver Between 1872 and 1874 Smith & Wesson introduced a number of modifications to its original design and manufactured 20,735 Model

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

No. 3 Second Model Single Action Revolvers. These revolvers soon took on their popular name: Second Model Americans. It was the success and resultant publicity of the First and Second Model Americans that would help launch Smith & Wesson into the highly profitable international arms trade. The situation was not without a touch of irony. With its initial order of 1,000 First Model Americans, Smith & Wesson had originally beaten Colt in the race for a U.S. contract for its metallic-cartridge revolvers. It would, however, be a foreign contract that would so tie up the company’s production lines that it had no choice but to leave the U.S. military market to its greatest rival.

Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 Russian First Model Single Action Revolver Russia, with its sprawling peasant population, concentrated on maintaining a large infantry force, the primary weapons being the musket and bayonet. The pistol was thus very much a secondary weapon, and Russians saw little reason to replace its single-shot, muzzle-loaded percussion pistols until 1859. At that time the Sestroretsk Arsenal began exploring breech-loading designs and in 1863 began manufacturing a caliber .60 single-shot breechloader. Its attempts at pistol design, however, did not prove satisfactory. I. G. Norman of the Tula Arsenal next explored the possibility of manufacturing pistols based on the Beaumont-Adams as provided by that firm’s licensee, August Francotte of Liège. The Tula-manufactured pistols were designated the Tula-Norman revolver by the Russians, but only a few were manufactured. Tula-made Beaumont-Adams pistols differed from English and Belgian pistols in that they were fitted with smooth, rather than checkered, grips and displayed a more rounded butt profile. The Russian Navy adopted another foreign design: the Belgian Charles-François Galand’s self-extracting Model 1870, or Revolver Galand à extracteur automatique. The Galand is a 10.4mm (caliber .41) five-chambered weapon distinguished by its unusual leveraction extraction system. Pulling the pistol’s trigger guard down frees the cylinder and barrel assembly to slide forward on the cylinder rod to automatically eject the spent shell casings and allow reloading. The system works well enough but is rather awkward, and no other national military force adopted the design. When the Russian Army finally committed to adopting a revolver, they turned to the Americans.

131

132

PISTOLS

Smith & Wesson’s big new revolvers quickly caught the interest of Grand Duke Alexis who was on a tour of the United States at the time. The grand duke, a hunting and firearms enthusiast, had first observed a demonstration of the new Smith & Wesson before embarking on a hunting expedition in the West. None other than the famous Western celebrity Buffalo Bill Cody accompanied the Russian nobleman on his trip. Both men equipped themselves with the new revolvers and returned to the East highly impressed with their performance (Smith 1969: 166–167). Grand Duke Alexis soon passed on his impressions of the Smith & Wesson to General Aleksandr P. Gorloff of the Imperial Russian Army. General Gorloff, an ordnance expert who had lived briefly in the United States, obviously agreed with the grand duke’s assessment. The general and his staff suggested a few modifications to suit the Russian Army’s requirements and, in 1871, initiated the first of three Russian contracts for an ultimate total of nearly 150,000 pistols. The first 20,114 contract pistols were designated Model No. 3 Russian First Model Single Action Revolvers. Among later weapon collectors, they received the somewhat bizarre name Old Old Model Russian, owing to the factory’s own rather complicated nomenclature for its products. As stipulated by General Gorloff, these revolvers chambered the new caliber .44 Smith & Wesson Russian cartridge, manufactured with a slightly longer case and larger bullet than the original. Gorloff ’s modifications greatly improved the accuracy and ballistic characteristics of the cartridge. They were issued with either blued or nickel finishes and fitted with walnut grips, a lanyard swivel mounted to the butt, and an 8-inch barrel. They are further distinguished from their predecessors by the addition of the barrel marking “RUSSIAN MODEL” and Cyrillic lettering declaring “SMITH & WESSON ARMS FACTORY. SPRINGFIELD AMERICA.” Smith & Wesson also sold some 5,165 rejected Russian Models on the civilian market, one of which found its way into the lethal hands of the western badman John Wesley Hardin. In Texas, Hardin reputedly killed a lawman with a Russian Model during one of his many run-ins (Flayderman 1987: 198).

Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 Russian Second Model (Old Model Russian Revolver) Working closely with the Russian designer Captain Kasavery Or-

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

dinetz, Smith & Wesson continued its modifications of the basic Russian Model. In 1873 this collaboration resulted in the Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 Russian Second Model or, more popularly, the Old Model Russian Revolver. The company produced some 85,200 Old Model Russians before discontinuing them in 1878. The Second Model Russian’s main differences from the First Model were a more rounded butt profile, a 7-inch rather than 8-inch barrel, and a trigger-guard finger spur. The vast majority of the Second Model—some 70,000 revolvers— made up the Russian contract. The Japanese Navy, however, had also taken notice and ordered 5,000 revolvers, and Turkey ordered a significant number of pistols chambered for the caliber .44 Henry rimfire cartridge. As a result, Russian and Turkish troops were armed with Smith & Wessons during the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War. The remaining Second Models made their way into the civilian market, where many American gunslingers, annoyed by the pistol’s trigger-guard spur, had it immediately filed off.

Smith & Wesson New Model Russian (Model 3 Russian Third Model) Between 1874 and 1878 Smith & Wesson reduced its basic design’s barrel length by half an inch and manufactured 60,638 of its third and last Russian Model. Commonly called the New Model Russian, the Model 3 Russian Third Model continued to expand the company’s domestic and international reputations. At home, Pat Garrett, the famous lawman and killer of Billy the Kid, reportedly favored the big .44 (Flayderman 1987: 199). The Japanese Navy ordered an additional 1,000 revolvers, and Turkey followed up its initial order with another for 5,000, again in caliber .44 Henry. For its part, Russia contracted for another 41,138 pistols. The demand was so great upon Smith & Wesson’s strained facilities that the company licensed the Ludwig Loewe Company of Berlin as well as the Russian national armory at Tula to manufacture additional Third Model Russians.

Smith & Wesson New Model No. 3 Single Action Revolver The success of the Russian Models paved the way for Smith & Wesson’s New Model No. 3 Single Action Revolver. The new pistol

133

134

PISTOLS

closely resembled its Russian forebears but was manufactured without the trigger-guard spur and lanyard swivel. The firm produced 35,796 New Models between 1878 and 1912, with the .44 Smith & Wesson Russian as the standard caliber, though others were available. Barrel lengths could be had up to 8 inches, though 6.5-inch barrels were most common. As in earlier models, blued and nickel finishes were available, as were walnut and hard rubber grips. The new revolver proved popular in the United States—the renowned sharpshooter Annie Oakley owned at least three. On the other end of the spectrum, however, that “dirty little coward” Bob Ford was reputed to have shot Jesse James in the back of the head with his New Model No. 3 in 1882 (Flayderman 1987: 200). Although Ford’s shot was accomplished at a range of only a few inches, the company could at least point out Oakley’s use of their revolvers as a shining endorsement. Smith & Wesson also secured a number of both domestic and foreign contracts for the New Model. At home, the state of Maryland bought some 280 nickel-plated pistols in 1878, and the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service bought a limited number in 1890. Japan continued its patronage of the firm, ordering at least another 1,500 pistols for its navy as well as a number of revolvers fitted with 7-inch barrels and lanyard swivels for artillery troops. For its part, Turkey ordered another 5,461 of its own Turkish Model revolvers, again chambered for caliber .44 rimfire. The Australian Colonial Police ordered 250 pistols with 7-inch barrels and detachable shoulder stocks and an additional 30 pistols with 6.5-inch barrels. The New York firm Hartley & Graham helped the company break into the South American market by brokering some 2,000 revolvers to the Argentine government. All in all, some 40 percent of the New Model No. 3 production was exported overseas to South America, Asia, and Europe. While Colt retained its hold on the U.S. military market, Smith & Wesson could at the very least take pride in the vast number of their pistols holstered around the globe.

Smith & Wesson First Model Schofield Single Action Revolver Horace Smith retired on 1 January 1874 at the age of 65, selling his interest to his old partner, Daniel B. Wesson. Wesson retained the established company name to maintain brand-name recognition. In the meantime, an experienced U.S. Army officer, George Wheeler

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Schofield, approached Wesson with an improved version of his already successful Russian and American models. Schofield, a colonel in the 10th U.S. Cavalry and a Civil War veteran, had probably handled the earlier Smith & Wesson .44s when his brother presided over army tests of the pistol in 1870. Soon after, Schofield signed on as an agent to sell Smith & Wesson revolvers in Colorado and Kansas. Schofield greatly admired the big .44s but also realized that to be a truly great handgun it required some modifications. With an eye toward winning lucrative government contracts, Schofield proposed boosting the revolvers’ caliber up to .45 as well as a few other minor improvements. Wesson was impressed with Schofield’s proposals and, in 1875, began manufacturing what became known as the Smith & Wesson First Model Schofield Single Action Revolver. The First Model Schofield introduced the caliber .45 Smith & Wesson cartridge, somewhat shorter than the Colt .45. It was also standard with walnut grips, a blued finish, and a 7-inch barrel. The improved barrel catch was also fitted to the upper rear frame rather than the top strap. The Schofield proved an instant success, the company selling 3,000 revolvers to the U.S. Army that year. The new .45 saw extensive service on the frontier with the 4th U.S. Cavalry during the Geronimo campaign and with the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th and 10th U.S. Cavalry (Flayderman 1987: 203). Only 35 pistols made their official way into the civilian market. Still, through loss, theft, and surplus sales, the First Model Schofield saw considerable nonmilitary action. At some point in their careers, notorious western figures such as Frank and Jesse James, Cole Younger, and U.S. Marshall Ben Tilghman holstered Schofields. Outfitters Schuyler, Hartley & Graham of New York City also provided a significant number of surplus guns with their barrels shortened to 5 inches to the famous Wells Fargo & Company for use as guards’ weapons.

Smith & Wesson Second Model Schofield In 1876 Schofield added a few more minor improvements to his basic design; that year Smith & Wesson introduced the Second Model Schofield. Between 1876 and 1877 the company manufactured and sold an additional 5,285 revolvers to the Army and some 650 on the civilian market. Wells Fargo & Company also acquired a number of the Second Model to augment earlier purchases. Still, despite the favorable reception afforded the Schofield, Smith & Wesson faced a

135

136

PISTOLS

domestic military establishment seemingly obsessed with Colts. With no more government contracts on the horizon, the company ended production of the Schofield only three years after its introduction. By 1880 the Army had retired the Schofields in favor of Colts. For his part, George Schofield never seemed to recover from the commercial failure of his namesake. On 17 December 1882, as a contemporary newspaper reported, “crazed for eight or ten days after some invention,” Schofield committed suicide at Fort Apache with one of his own pistols (Peterson 1962: 217).

1870s: MILITARY THEORY AND THE PISTOL The demise of the Schofield—both revolver and the inventor—was in no small part owing to some rather thickheaded logic prevalent among U.S. ordnance officials at that time. Relying on theory rather than actual combat experience, the officials argued that during hand-to-hand combat the top-break design was vulnerable to an enemy releasing its catch and thus rendering the pistol useless. To their muddled thinking, the “new” Colt solid-frame design was infinitely superior despite its much slower loading procedure. Continuing along the same anachronistic vein, the U.S. Army also continued to reject the double-action system of operation. Ordnance officers argued passionately—if not logically—that the system offered too many chances for wasted ammunition and accidental discharge if issued to mounted troops. The nature of warfare throughout the world was changing dramatically during the 1870s. Unfortunately, the upper echelons of nearly all military bureaucracies in Europe and the United States suffered from the persistent conservatism that has seemed to plague their kind for time immemorial. They were thus painfully slow to recognize the needs of their troops in the emerging new battlefields in their colonies and, in the United States, on the frontier. It was during this period that the role of the military pistol underwent a reevaluation by the world’s military establishments and in the end gained greater importance as a combat weapon. The conventional military thinking of the time held that the pistol was essentially a secondary offensive weapon best applied to cavalry, whose primary weapons consisted of the saber and lance. Cavalry, according to the European ideal of warfare, was best used in massed charges against similarly equipped opponents and broken

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

infantry units. This concept worked well enough on European battlefields and even during the U.S. Civil War. The carbine, in this view, was at least tolerable for long-range purposes, the pistol a mere supplement. The U.S. Civil War—in many ways the first modern war—presaged the end of the massed saber charge. The general use of rifled weapons in that conflict greatly extended the killing range of musket- and carbine-armed troops and often made traditional cavalry tactics suicidal. That war also saw a number of innovative cavalry leaders who saw the potential of the new revolvers as primary offensive weapons. It was thus no coincidence that many of these officers were not regular army but citizen-soldiers who were less hidebound by military dogma. Such leaders as the Confederate partisan commander Colonel John Singleton Mosby often eschewed the saber in favor of lightning surprise attacks with blazing pairs of six-shooters. The combined firepower of braces of Colts or Remingtons in the hands of even small units often turned the tide against much larger forces in the South’s fields and woods. By the end of the war cavalrymen on both sides considered the revolver and carbine much more necessary than the traditional saber, once so essential. U.S. troopers posted on the western frontier came to a similar conclusion. They faced tribes that operated as superb light cavalry with no pretensions to the European-style niceties of battle. The Indians also displayed a remarkable tendency to adapt tactics to the latest modern weapons acquired through capture and trade. Their total lack of appreciation for the saber quickly forced U.S. Army troopers to abandon theirs and adapt to their enemies’ tactics. Frontier warfare thus often consisted of running fights on horseback across open prairie with the cartridge capacities of one’s carbine and revolver being the deciding factor. Still, as late as 1876 the famed Civil War hero General Winfield Scott Hancock declared to a congressional committee that such experience on the frontier was “entitled to no weight” in considering the overall tactics and armament of the regular army (Chamberlain and Taylerson: 177–178). It was that same year that another Civil War hero, Colonel George Armstrong Custer, and some 200 troopers lost their lives at the hands of the combined forces of the Cheyenne and Sioux at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Evidence gathered after the battle revealed that the tribes had equipped themselves with some of the most advanced weaponry of the day and that the primary weapons of most of Custer’s men were singleshot carbines.

137

138

PISTOLS

Britain boasted its own particularly obstinate opponent to modernization in the form of its field marshal, commanding-in-chief, of the British Army. Not only did His Royal Highness, George William Frederick Charles, Duke of Cambridge possess the most pompous title in the country’s army, he was particularly long-lived, serving from 1856 to 1895. The duke, a cousin of Queen Victoria, was also secure in his authority and used it to defend the army’s more traditional weapons, including the single-shot muzzle-loaded pistol, the saber, and the lance. It was thus a continuous uphill battle for progressive ordnance officers to advance modern firearms during the latter half of the nineteenth century. The traditional British Army bureaucracy considered the revolver, at best, a defensive rather than an offensive weapon. It was in that capacity that pistols were not only issued to cavalry troopers but to infantry officers and some sergeants as weapons of last resort. Artillery drivers eventually received pistols for protection following the army’s experience with unconventional warfare in Afghanistan and the colonies in Africa and India. As the privileged elite of the queen’s forces, British officers held the advantage of purchasing their own sidearms according to personal taste. They were accordingly not as subject to the whims of a central ordnance bureaucracy. Their experience in Britain’s colonial wars in India, the Sudan, Egypt, and equatorial Africa greatly influenced the British field officers’ choice in personal weapons. They had noted that many of their more fanatical opponents had continued to fight savagely even after sustaining repeated wounds from lower-powered weapons. They thus often preferred brute stopping power in their pistols to technological sophistication. As a result, even into the 1870s and 1880s many officers selected massive oneto four-barreled pistols rather than revolvers. Known as howdah pistols for the riding platforms strapped to elephants for hunting big game in India, such pistols were often of calibers as high as .75.

TRENDS IN ENGLAND Adams Mark II, Mark III, and Mark IV Robert Adams, the foremost English revolver designer, retired in 1866 and died of complications resulting from the amputation of a leg on 13 September 1870. Robert’s death left John Adams, a close

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

relative, to continue the family tradition at his small factory at 391 Strand, London. John Adams was thus the prime contractor when the British military began the transition from percussion to metalliccartridge pistols in 1868. At this time most of the early open-top London Colts were removed from service, and armorers began converting the sturdier solid-frame English service revolvers such as the Adams and Tranter to accept metallic cartridges. These conversions were rather simple procedures requiring the removal of the loading lever, the addition of an ejector rod and loading gate, and the replacement of the hammer and cylinder to accommodate the new ammunition. The cartridges provided for the conversions, however, proved disappointingly weak. As officers usually bought their own sidearms, most of the converted pistols were distributed among the lower ranks. It was not until 1872 that the British government adopted John Adams’s 1867 metallic-cartridge revolver as the Pistol, Revolver, Adams, Central Fire, Breech Loading, Interchangeable (Mark II). The new pistol replaced the earlier percussion-to-cartridge conversion Mark I and, designated as the Model 1867B, was also sold on the civilian market. Adams continued to improve his pistol and in 1872 introduced an improved extractor version designated the Mark III. A limited number of Mark IVs were also made. The Adams factory was, however, limited in its production capacity and could not supply the large number of pistols required by the British Army and British Navy and other organizations such as the Canadian NorthWest Mounted Police. The government was thus forced as a stopgap measure to issue a mixed lot of cartridge Colt, Tranter, and Webley revolvers in addition to the Adams. In 1879 it was obvious to all concerned that a single new design was required, and the search for a new service pistol began in earnest. By that year English ordnance officers had become as adamantly in favor of the top-break and double-action systems as the Americans were against them. Actual combat experience throughout the country’s extensive empire had more than convinced its soldiers of the advantages of both features in a combat revolver. There was, however, only one truly viable private revolver manufacturer emerging in England during the early metallic-cartridge era. Unable to compete against Colt’s mass manufacturing techniques, most British concerns (including Tranter, Deane, and, with the expiration of its government contracts, even Adams) eventually failed. The English companies had paralleled their U.S. counterparts by making the transition from percussion to metallic cartridges, but prevailing

139

140

PISTOLS

economic forces proved too much for their survival. By the early 1880s only the firm P. Webley & Sons survived.

Webley Philip Webley founded the company in Birmingham in 1845 and was later joined by his brother James. Two sons, Thomas and Henry, entered the family business during the 1860s. The Webleys manufactured several types of pistols over the following years, including single- and double-action percussion revolvers as well as pin-fire and center-fire revolvers. They also offered a rimfire caliber .30 tipup cartridge revolver very similar to the muzzle-loading Model 1. They followed these pistols with a caliber .45 single-action, solidframe six-shooter and a double-action revolver chambered for the caliber .577 Boxer cartridge.

Webley Model 1872 Royal Irish Constabulary Revolver In 1867 the company introduced one of its most successful series of pistols, what evolved as the Model 1872 Royal Irish Constabulary revolver (RIC). The RIC gained its name when it was adopted by that organization upon its formation in 1868. It was later adopted by police forces in South Africa and Australia, and numbers of copies were made, most notably in Belgium. The RIC was an extremely rugged and compact weapon with considerable stopping power and, in its various models, remained a popular civilian and police weapon well into the twentieth century. The first Model RIC was chambered for the caliber .442 Boxer cartridge, and soon other British police organizations adopted it in caliber .450. The basic RIC was a solid-frame, double-action, sixchambered revolver. A loading gate was hinged to the frame on the right of the frame, and ejection was accomplished with a swing-out ejector rod. Barrels were most commonly round, with lengths varying from the more common 3.25 to 3.5 inches to 2.5 inches and 4.5 inches. Grips were checkered walnut with a lanyard swivel on the butt. The Naval Service RIC Model 1884 differs from the other models in that it was manufactured with a brass frame, a blackened rather than blued finish on its steel components, and is fitted with a 2 5/8-inch round barrel.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Webley British Bulldog In 1878 Webley introduced the British Bulldog Double Action Models, a popular series of revolvers that remained in production until 1914. The Bulldog was made in a number of variations and was a solid-frame, five-chambered revolver with a short barrel and of large caliber, typically .442 or .450. Although Webley manufactured the pistol with an eye for the civilian market, at least one mounted infantry regiment stationed in South Africa received the Bulldog (Hogg 1982: 266). The Bulldog gained a degree of infamy when in July 1877 Charles Jules Guiteau used one to shoot U.S. President James A. Garfield in the back as he waited for a train. Garfield died two months later (Ezell 1981: 82).

Webley Army Express Model 1878 The rugged Army Express Model 1878 is one of the most handsome pistols Webley ever manufactured. It was a solid-frame weapon, however, and it entered the scene just as the British military was shifting its attention to break-open, automatic-ejecting designs. Such unfortunate timing excluded the Army Express from serious consideration by Britain as a primary sidearm, but it did realize limited sales abroad. A few saw service in South Africa with the Cape Mounted Rifles and the Orange Free State. Webley manufactured a number of variations of the Army Express, but the typical Model 1878 was a double-action, six-shooter chambered for the caliber .450/.455 cartridge. A spring-activated ejector rod was mounted on the right of the 6-inch octagon barrel, and a loading gate was hinged on the right of the frame. Grips of earlier pistols were of one-piece walnut and of a rather square profile, whereas later pistols, or New Expresses, were fitted with two-piece bird’s-head grips. Finishes were blue, and a lanyard ring was fitted to the butt of both models. Although the Army Express failed to attract a British contract, Webley continued to develop more suitable designs.

Webley-Pryse and Webley-Kaufman Anticipating the expiration of the earlier Adams contract, Webley was more than ready to step in and fill its country’s needs. The com-

141

142

PISTOLS

pany, having closely observed Colt’s methods, had already begun improving its manufacturing techniques to gear up for mass production using interchangeable parts and a minimum of hand-finishing. By 1882 the company could offer an extremely rugged new doubleaction revolver heavily influenced by Smith & Wesson’s top-break, automatic-ejecting designs. Indeed, compelling evidence indicates some collusion between the British Patent Office and the company to tie up Dodge’s patent with red tape, thus allowing Webley free use of his design. Various evolutionary stages of the Webley included the WebleyPryse of 1876 with Charles Pryse’s patents on frame improvements and the Webley-Kaufman of 1880 incorporating improvements on the frame latch and ejection system. Webley, as did other British makers, also employed Pryce’s rebounding hammer safety feature. Pryse invented a spring-activated mechanism that, with a slight pull and release of pressure on the trigger, forced the hammer into a safe position where it did not come into contact with the cartridge head. The rebounding hammer thus made a revolver less likely to accidentally discharge if dropped or struck. The revolver is chambered for Webley’s caliber .455 cartridge and is fitted with bird’s-head grips, a lanyard swivel, and 4-inch barrel. The latch arrangement that secured the forward and rear frames makes the Webley the strongest of all the break-open revolvers. It is of a horseshoe shape and is secured to the upper rear frame. An extension of the latch along the left side of the pistol acts as an opening lever. The rear sight is integral to the rear catch. The businesslike Model 1882 and its many successors lacks the aesthetic appeal of such classics as the Colt Peacemaker but nevertheless does hold a certain charm.

Model 1882 Enfield Unfortunately (not only for Webley but also for every British officer and mounted trooper) British Ordnance initially failed to recognize the Webley’s obvious superiority. Ordnance officers, confident of their own genius, elected to adopt a new pistol of their own design. The result was the caliber .476 Model 1882 Enfield, officially designated Pistol, Revolver, B. L. Enfield (Mark I), Interchangeable. In 1887, following a much-publicized accidental shooting death, Enfield added an extra safety catch to the Model 1882, designating the improved pistols the Mark II.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

The Model 1882 quickly proved to be one of the most unpopular sidearms ever adopted by a national government. The product of a committee and manufactured by the Enfield Royal Small Arms Factory, the Model 1882 was a true monstrosity in both appearance and operation. The Enfield was a top-break design; it was hinged not only at the lower frame but also on the front of the cylinder. The arrangement allowed the cylinder to travel on a horizontal track rather than tilt with the barrel upon opening. Although the committee inexplicably found this feature absolutely necessary, the new pistol met with near-universal derision once issued to the queen’s troops. Within seven years the Model 1882 was hooted from the ranks and finally dumped on Canada’s North-West Mounted Police, who were stuck with it until receiving replacements in 1905.

Webley Marks I-VI Revolvers On 17 July 1887 the British War Office finally saw the light and issued a contract to Webley for 10,000 caliber .455 Mark I Revolvers. They were the first of six models or “marks” of Webleys that would see continual service until well past their final manufacture in 1932. The first five marks were essentially a continual series of minor improvements on Webley’s original Model of 1882 with birdshead grips and four-inch barrels. Webleys proved themselves in their first major engagement with British General Horatio Kitchener’s troops at the September 1898 Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan, and the Mark IV served as the standard British sidearm during the Boer War of 1899–1902. Webley manufactured some 36,700 Mark IVs before ending production in 1904. Webley later improved on the design in 1913 by strengthening the cylinder of the Mark V to accept the new smokeless Cordite propellant. In 1915 the company introduced the last pistol in the series, the Mark VI. Officially designated the Webley .455 Pistol No. 1 Mark VI, the last Webley mark differed from its forbears in that it mounted a 6inch rather than a 4-inch barrel and had a square rather than a bird’s-head butt. The improvements gave the Mark VI better sighting and handling characteristics than its stubbier ancestors. More Mark VIs than any other mark were produced, with some 310,000 being manufactured during World War I, as well as a number of additional pistols made at Enfield after the war. The Mark VI was officially retired as obsolete in 1947 by the British military, but many continued in service with colonial troops.

143

144

PISTOLS

Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver In 1897 the company P. Webley & Son merged with W. & C. Scott & Sons and Richard Ellis & Son to become Webley & Scott Revolver & Arms Company Limited of Birmingham and 78 Shaftesbury Avenue, London. Webley & Scott soon debuted a unique revolver that utilized the self-cocking recoil principle at the Bisley match in July 1900. Its inventor was Colonel G. Vincent Fosbery, and the new revolver was appropriately dubbed the Webley-Fosbery Automatic Revolver. The new weapon won high praise for reliability and accuracy, and the company placed the revolver on the market the following summer. The Webley-Fosbery mechanism relied on a fixed lower frame with machined rails upon which the barrel, cylinder, and upper frame assembly slid back and forth from the force of the pistol’s recoil. This action simultaneously cocked the hammer and rotated the cylinder. Cylinder rotation was accomplished through zigzag tracks in the cylinder that mated with a diamond-shaped stud fixed in the center of the lower frame. The loading and unloading procedure was the same as the other break-open Webleys, and a thumb operated safety bolt was fitted to the lower-left frame. The safety bolt locked the revolver’s main body to the frame, thus preventing accidental discharge. The company continually modified and improved the Webley-Fosbery design throughout the pistol’s production. Both square and bird’s-head grips were offered, and 4-, 6-, and 7.5-inch barrel lengths were available. Webley & Scott intended the Webley-Fosbery to challenge the new semiautomatic pistols just then entering the scene. With an eye toward military contracts, they thus chambered it for the British caliber .455 service cartridge. They also manufactured a small number of caliber .45 Long Colt examples for U.S. government trials. The Webley-Fosbery performed very well, and its loading speed, when using the Prideaux Patent Quick-Loader, is comparable to that of semiautomatics. The automatic action also acts as a shock absorber, reducing the sharp recoil of the heavy caliber .455 cartridge, a quality greatly appreciated by target shooters. Unfortunately, despite its obvious advantages and even high praise when exhibited at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, the Webley-Fosbery failed to win the government orders that its inventors so coveted. Webley ceased production of the Webley-Fosbery in 1914 when the pressing demand for conventional revolvers outweighed the need for superior yet more complicated weapons.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Webley-Fosbery Model 1902 Still, a respectable number of British officers bought the big revolvers as personal sidearms during World War I, and Webley & Scott saw some limited success with a caliber .38 model. The smaller Model 1902 revolver was an eight-shot weapon chambered for the caliber .38 Colt Automatic cartridge. The company apparently considered but rejected the possibility of manufacturing an even smaller caliber .32 model and eventually ceased manufacture of the Webley-Fosbery altogether.

Smith & Wesson .455 Mark II Hand Ejector The sudden demand for firearms at the beginning of World War I far outstripped the manufacturing capabilities of government arsenals. During the scramble to arm its rapidly mobilizing army, the British thus bought large numbers of foreign pistols from Spain and the United States to supplement domestic production. In 1915 the government bought 5,000 Smith & Wesson New Century Hand Ejector Revolvers in the caliber .455 British-government chambering. Designated the Smith & Wesson .455 Mark II in British service and also known as the Triple Lock for an added cylinder lock, the New Century was a beautifully finished and accurate weapon with a rich, civilian-quality blued finish and checkered walnut grips.

Pistol, Revolver, Webley .38 Mark 4; Pistol, Revolver, No. 2 Mark 1 (Enfield); Pistol, Revolver No. 2 Mark 1*; Pistol, Revolver, No. 2 Mark 1** Following World War I the British Army reached another of those decisions that prompt observers to wonder how those in authority reached their success. Declaring the recoil of the caliber .455 British Service Cartridge too heavy for accurate shooting, the army announced its intent to decrease the official caliber to a more manageable .38. That the United States had made a similar mistake and corrected it before the war apparently had little impact on the Britons’ decision—a decision made worse by their choice of the specific type of .38 cartridge. The new loading, the caliber .38 British Service Cartridge, was based on (and was interchangeable with) the

145

146

PISTOLS

.38 Smith & Wesson cartridge, a cartridge that was already rapidly approaching obsolescence. Its muzzle velocity of 600 feet per second (fps) was less than the 620 fps of the 265-grain .455, thus delivering a lighter 200-grain bullet at less speed. The ballistics of the cartridge were so anemic that on a sunny day one could actually see the bullet in the air after it left the muzzle. Its penetration and stopping power were predictable. Still, in 1929 Webley answered the new requirement with the Webley .38 Mark 4, essentially just a scaled-down version of its .455 models. Proving that they had learned nothing from the fiasco of 1882, the government, in turn, then informed Webley that an official committee at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield would undertake the design of the new service pistol. The bureaucrats at last revealed its creation in 1931—the Enfield Pistol, Revolver No. 2 Mk. 1. Surprisingly, and despite its caliber and bureaucratic origins, the No. 2 Mk. 1 was a fine weapon. This was, however, an understandable outcome, as Webley was quick to point out in an ensuing patent infringement lawsuit—other than some minor changes in the pistol’s lock work, the committee had introduced an almost exact copy of Webley’s original .38 Mark 4. Although losing the suit with Webley, the British government maintained the Enfield as its official sidearm until 1955, thus making it the standard British pistol during World War II. It did, however, pose a nuisance to the many tank crews who received it. They found that its hammer spur tended to snag on the many projections within their armored vehicles. Enfield responded to the complaints by simply eliminating the hammer spur to create the Enfield No. 2 Mark 1*, a double action–only revolver. The irony that the grudging trigger pull resulting from the pistol’s modification negated the advantages of its lighter recoil apparently escaped British Ordnance officials. A wartime expedient, the Mark 1** appeared in 1942. In an attempt to speed production, Enfield simplified the manufacturing process of the Mark 1**, including the elimination of the hammer safety stop. The Mark 1** was thus more prone to accidental discharges if dropped, and most were later reworked at the arsenal. Webley was later somewhat vindicated in that Enfield found itself unable to supply sufficient quantities of the No. 2, Mark 1, Mark 1*, and Mark 1** to British troops during World War II. The government thus found it necessary to purchase more than 100,000 Webley .38 Mark IV revolvers during the war.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Pistol No. 2, Smith & Wesson (Revolver .38/200) Great Britain’s acute shortage of pistols during World War II also forced the government to again resort to buying foreign weapons. It thus purchased about 1,000,000 Smith & Wesson military and police revolvers chambered for the standard British .38/200 cartridge. Designated the Pistol No. 2, Smith & Wesson (Revolver .38/200), these weapons saw service with various Commonwealth forces as well as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Early production pistols exhibited commercial-quality blued finishes, sport checkered walnut grips fitted with the Smith & Wesson medallion, and were issued in a number of barrel lengths. Pistols manufactured after 1942 have a matte finish, plain walnut grips, and five-inch barrels.

GERMAN CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS During the last quarter of the nineteenth century many European powers favored large-frame revolvers chambered for center-fire cartridges in calibers .44 or .45 (10–12mm). The designs were typically chosen by military ordnance commissions that reviewed test weapons submitted by various manufacturers and independent designers. As the designs chosen were the product of committee decisions, the results were often somewhat lacking in aesthetics and even logic, but they were still more or less suitable for the immediate purpose of replacing obsolete percussion weapons.

Reichsrevolver The German Reichsrevolver was an example of such a poorly designed, but at least well-made, weapon. Its design was the result of a small-arms commission set up by the Prussian Army; civilian contractors as well as the Prussian Royal Arsenal at Erfurt manufactured pistols. The civilian contractors included Gebrüder Mauser & Cie, Spangenberg & Sauer, J. P. Sauer & Sohn, Schilling & Cie, C. G. Haenel & Cie, and Waffenfabrik von Dreyse. Copies were also made in Belgium. The basic models included the Modell 1879 single-action or Cavalry Model and the Modell 1883 double-action, also known as the

147

148

PISTOLS

Infantry Model or Officer Model. These vary in their minor details, with the main distinctions being barrel lengths. All share decidedly clunky lines, with an octagonal forward frame that steps down to a short section of octagonal barrel that then becomes round for the remainder of its length. The typical Reichsrevolver is a solid-frame, single-action six-shooter bored to 10.35mm. The majority are fitted with a safety switch on the left side of the frame. Although the value of a safety on a single-action revolver is highly questionable, the Reichsrevolver does have one innovative feature: The rear of the cylinders are counterbored so as to enclose the cartridge head and thus add extra support should a case rupture during firing. Early pistols received a browned finish; later pistols were blued. A raised ring around the muzzle harkens back to such earlier styles as the Queen Anne pistol and gives the Reichsrevolver a decidedly antique appearance. The revolver’s main defect is the necessity to completely remove its cylinder from the frame for reloading—a somewhat mystifying oversight on the part of the commission, as nearly every other nation had adopted much more efficient loading systems. Further slowing the process, ejection requires the use of a rod that was carried separately in the holster. The most plausible explanation for such an anachronistic feature was the Prussians’ attitude that pistols were secondary weapons. They held the typical European view that, even though the pistol was best suited for cavalry use, the cavalry’s primary weapon should remain the saber. The revolver was thus a weapon of last resort for cavalrymen and less glamorous noncommissioned and commissioned infantry officers. Although other powers adopted more practical loading systems, the Prussians seem to have decided that six shots was probably the maximum a soldier could get off in a desperate situation. For all its faults, the Reichsrevolver is meticulously finished, with such attention to detail that even its various screws are serial-numbered and inspector-proofed. This venerable pistol remained in German service until officially replaced by the Luger in 1908. Even so, numbers of Reichsrevolvers in the hands of rear-echelon troops were encountered by Allied troops during World War II.

Mauser Zig-Zag Revolver The famous bolt-action rifle pioneers Wilhelm and Peter Mauser of

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Oberndorf first tried their hands at pistol design with the 9mm falling-block C 1877 single-shot pistol. As a single-shot weapon, the C 1877 was already an anachronism at its inception, and the German military showed no interest. The brothers followed the Model 1877 with a revolver that also met with official rejection. Despite their dismissal in 1878 by the same bureaucracy that chose the Reichsrevolver for German service, the Mausers’ so-called Zig-Zag revolver did become a favorite of status-conscious officers. The revolver acquired its popular nickname from the distinctive Z-shaped grooves in its cylinder that tracked a stud in the frame to rotate the mechanism. Mauser manufactured the Zig-Zag in at least three calibers— 7.5mm, 9mm, and 10.6mm—and in two basic frame designs—solidframe and tip-up. Pulling forward a prominent ring-shaped catch in front of the trigger guard opens the pistol for loading and ejection. Most pistols are fitted with a thumb safety mounted on the left side of the frame and a lanyard ring at the base of the grip. As with most German military weapons of the period, the Zig-Zag exhibits excellent workmanship and finish. Grips were either checkered walnut or floral-pattern hard rubber.

AUSTRIAN REVOLVERS Gasser The Gasser firm of Ottakring, Vienna, and St. Polten designed and produced the majority of military handguns adopted and used by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Leopold Gasser began operations as Leopold Gasser K.u.K. Hof-und Armee-Waffenfabrik in 1862 to manufacture revolvers based on the Beaumont-Adams patents (Ezell, 1981: 90). The family business eventually passed on to his brother, Johann, in 1871 and finally to August Gasser in 1903. The firm reorganized as Rast & Gasser but eventually went out of business about 1912. During its heyday, Gasser proved to be one of the most prolific arms makers in central Europe, manufacturing some 100,000 pistols a year. These included weapons not only for Austria-Hungary but also for a number of Balkan powers. The firm’s better-known designs were based on the Lefaucheaux double-

149

150

PISTOLS

action mechanism and known as the Montenegrin Gassers, owing to their popularity and association with that kingdom.

Model 1870 Gasser Army Revolver The Model 1870 Gasser Army Revolver was issued to the AustroHungarian cavalry, noncommissioned officers, and, in slightly modified form, the navy. It is typical of the massive, open-frame revolvers produced by the company. The sheer mass of the 3.35-pound revolver is necessary to accommodate a center-fire cartridge that had previously been used in the earlier Werndl cavalry carbines and single-shot pistols. The cartridge, originally designated the 11.25 x 36mm Werndl Model 1867 carbine cartridge, eventually became more widely known as the 11mm Montenegrin. The Model 1870 was fitted with a loading gate on the right side of the frame, and a rod ejector allowed the removal of spent cartridge casings. A lanyard swivel was attached to the rounded butt; grips were of checkered wood. Disassembly was accomplished by removing a single large screw in the lower forward frame and barrel assembly. A long safety bar on the right side of the frame below the cylinder was one of the double-action Model 1870’s more distinctive features. Pulling back the hammer a short distance engaged the safety, whereas pulling the trigger fired the weapon. In 1874 Gasser began to manufacture the revolver’s frame from steel rather than iron and added a number of other minor improvements. The improved pistol was then issued as the Model 1870/74. A slightly modified form of the Model 1870/74 was also issued to the Austrian Navy.

Gasser Models 1870 and 1870/74 (Montenegrin Gassers) The Gasser Models 1870 and 1870/74 gained their designation as Montenegrin Gassers from an account that Montenegrin King Nicholas (r. 1910–1918) ordered all of his male subjects to arm themselves with such a pistol. An important factor in the decree, according to the tale, was that Nicholas held significant business interests in the firms handling the sales of the revolvers. Although the story may have been apocryphal, large numbers of surplus Austrian Gassers, as well as Belgian copies, made their way to the tiny kingdom. Actual Montenegrin Gassers are typically fitted with ivory or bone grips and are embellished with somewhat crude engraving.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Gasser-Kropatschek Model 1876 and Rast & Gasser Model 1898 Army Revolver The Gasser-Kropatschek Model 1876 Officer’s Revolver is essentially a scaled-down model 1870/74 redesigned by Alfred Kropatschek and chambered for a caliber 9mm cartridge. As manufactured by Gasser and a number of other firms, examples of the Model 1876 often exhibit lavish engraving, inlays, and grips in keeping with their owners’ status. The Rast & Gasser Model 1898 Army Revolver marked the firm’s last significant contribution to pistol design and manufacture. It is a solid-frame, 8mm revolver with an eight-cartridge capacity. Capable of both single- and double-action operation, the Model 1898 is loaded through a loading gate that is also fitted with a safety device preventing the pistol from accidental discharge when open. An ejector rod is fitted beneath the barrel, and field-stripping is accomplished by pulling down on the trigger guard to open the mechanism. The Model 1898’s main defect lies in the extremely severe, L-shaped drop of its grip that ruins its natural aiming characteristics. Still, it is an exceptionally well-made and -finished weapon, and numbers continued in service in central Europe and Italy through World War II.

FRENCH REVOLVERS Perrin & Delmas French designers continued to make significant advances in pistol design despite the army and navy’s continual disagreement on basic sidearm requirements. Introduced in 1859, the solid-frame, double action–only Perrin & Delmas was possibly the first successful center-fire revolver. Although a few saw limited action during the U.S. Civil War, its fate was sealed once the French Navy adopted the pin-fire Lefaucheux. For its part, the French Army bureaucracy’s penchant for anachronism exhibited itself as late as the FrancoPrussian War of 1870. During that debacle French cavalrymen often carried percussion horse pistols in their saddle holsters and considered their swords and lances the primary weapons. Still, a few of their more forward-thinking comrades did carry privately purchased Lefaucheuxs.

151

152

PISTOLS

Lefaucheux Mle 1870 The French Navy as well as foreign powers including Sweden, Italy, and Russia had earlier adopted the Lefaucheux and were, especially in France, determined to retain it as their sidearm. In 1870 the French Navy at last abandoned the pin-fire system in favor of center-fire pistols in the form of the Lefaucheux Mle 1870. In many ways the new double-action, solid-frame pistol resembled its predecessor and was fit ted with a loading gate on its right side and an ejector rod. The navy subsequently updated the Mle 1858 pin-fires still in its inventories by converting them to double-action, improving their ejection rods, and installing center-fire hammers. The refurbished weapons then reentered service as the Pistolet-revolver de Marine transformé 1870.

Smokeless Powder In 1884 Paul Eugène Vielle, a French chemist working for the government, made all previous firearms obsolete by introducing the first practical form of smokeless powder. The black powder then in use had long vexed gun designers, those in the military, and hunters with a number of shortcomings. These included the clouds of white, foul-smelling smoke it produced that could reveal a soldier’s position and, at the same time, obscure his intended target. Black powder was also limited in the pressure it was capable of producing and tended to leave unburned residue in the barrel and mechanism. This often led to fouling that caused difficulty in loading and ultimately corrosion of vital components. As early as 1832 Vielle’s countrymen, the chemists Henri Braconnet and T. J. Pelouze, had invented guncotton, or nitrocellulose, by treating cotton with nitric acid. Their invention proved highly explosive but far too unstable as a firearm propellant. In 1846 the German chemist Christian Frerich Schönbein invented what he called cotton powder, but it too was far too unpredictable for use in firearms. The compound’s instability was confirmed by a number of disastrous accidents at laboratories such as the Hall & Son factory in Haversham, England. Despite such catastrophes, experiments went on in Austria and Germany, led by such brave souls as General von Lenk of the Austrian Artillery and a Captain Schultz in Germany who offered his Schultz Powder for use in shotguns. In 1871 Frederick Volkmann added to the field with his invention of collodin for use in rifles. Vielle finally settled on a mixture of nitrocellulose, ether, and al-

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

cohol to produce a stable propellant suitable for use in both rifles and pistols. Other inventors, notably the famous Alfred Nobel and less-famous Sir Frederick Abel, invented their own smokeless powders—ballistite and cordite, respectively—but it was Vielle who set France on the rapid modernization of its small arms, leaving the rest of the industrialized world to follow. The French military moved with uncharacteristic and impressive speed to embrace new smokeless-powder weapons. France’s adoption of the Mle 1886 Lebel service rifle also led to a new, and unfortunate, twist in traditional military thinking. The military had long maintained that adopting the same calibers for long arms and pistols made sense in that ammunition could be interchangeable in a pinch. This theory held true during the paper-cartridge era, when long-arm cartridges could be bled of excess powder to fit pistols. That self-contained metallic cartridges could not be bled (and that rifle cartridges are larger than pistol cartridges) seemed to have made little impact on French ordnance officials. They decreed that the bullets of French service pistols be of the same caliber (8mm) as the Lebel rifle. The French were not alone in this position. By the end of the black-powder era most countries fielded caliber .44, .45, or their approximate equivalent, 11mm, rifles and pistols. The combination of heavier calibers with less powerful black powder had proven lethal at closer ranges, but the much higher pressures afforded by smokeless powder altered the equation. Tests proved that smaller bullets in the 8mm or caliber .30 sizes were much more efficient at the higher velocities capable with smokeless powder. The efficiency of these higher-velocity cartridges was also enhanced by a Swiss development introduced around 1880. At that time, Majors Bode and Rubin of the Swiss Army brought out bullets with copper- or nickel-clad jackets to protect the projectiles’ soft lead cores from the weapons’ rifling. Another innovation of the period attained a similar effect by using harder lead alloy bullets rather than the earlier soft lead projectiles. The combination of smaller caliber, smokeless powder, and jacketed bullet proved highly efficient in rifles with their longer barrels but, as the French and other nations were to discover, more than disappointing as handgun loads.

Chamelot and Delvigne Mle 1873 and Mle 1885 The French service revolvers at the time of the transition to smokeless

153

154

PISTOLS

powder had already proven themselves dismal affairs in their own right. Replacing the earlier Lefaucheuxs, the Mle 1873 was based on a design by the Belgian team of Chamelot and Delvigne. The double-action Mle 1873 was produced at the Manufacture d’Armes, Saint Étienne Arsenal, and is of sturdy design, but its caliber .44 (11mm) cartridge proved woefully underpowered. Saint Étienne manufactured two models of the Mle 1873: an enlisted version with an unfluted cylinder with no protective metal finish, and the blued Revolver d’Officier with a fluted cylinder. In 1885 the famous Swiss designer Colonel Rudolf Schmidt introduced some improvements to the Mle 1873. These included a better cylinder locking system and a hinged side plate to allow easy access to the pistol’s mechanism. Although a better pistol, the experimental Mle 1885 shared the same inadequate cartridge as the earlier Mle 1873. Unfortunately, the Mle 1873’s and Mle 1885’s ultimate replacement introduced new problems of its own.

Mle 1892 On 29 May 1886 the Ministry of War ordered Saint Étienne to begin production of 50,000 new revolvers chambered for an 8mm smokeless cartridge. Delivery was to be before 1 January 1889. The arsenal, however, was so occupied with the production of the Lebel service rifle that the new revolver encountered numerous problems and delays before reaching the assembly lines. In 1887 Saint Étienne engineers finally began the design process by merely offering a smaller version of the Mle 1885 chambered for the smaller cartridge. The new pistol proved at least adequate, and on 16 April 1887 the war ministry placed an order for 1,000 revolvers to be delivered in 1889. Still, Saint Étienne’s inspector-general Monsieur Richard, saw further room for improvement. In July 1892 the government at last approved an order for 5,000 of the new revolvers with Richard’s improvements, and the arsenal achieved full production capacity by the end of the year. The new pistol was designated the Modèle d’Ordonnance 1892 (Mle 1892). Although there is no evidence that the famous arms designer Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Lebel had any part in the pistol’s evolution, it was also known as the 8mm Lebel. Production of the Mle 1892 was carried out at the government arsenals Manufacture Nationale d’Armes de Saint Étienne, Société Alsacienne de Constructions Mécaniques , Manufacture National d’Armes de Châtellerault, and Manufacture National d’Armes de Tulle.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

The Mle 1892 is in many ways a fine pistol but does exhibit a number of significant flaws. In its favor, it does incorporate the Galand-Schmidt double-action mechanism also adopted by Colt; it also retains the hinged side plate of the earlier Mle 1885. The latter feature allows a soldier in the field, by simply loosening a large screw on the rear of the pistol, to easily swing the side plate forward and expose the pistol’s mechanism for maintenance and cleaning. The Mle 1892 design also features a solid frame and a hinge-mounted cylinder that swings out to the right rather than the more orthodox left for loading and unloading. A safety device secures the hammer unless the cylinder is securely locked in position. Extraction is accomplished by means of a spring-retained ejector rod passing through the center of the cylinder. Production began in late 1892, and by the turn of the century French arsenals had manufactured some 171,303 Mle 1892s. Troops receiving the Mle 1892 appreciated its light weight and generally sound design. The revolver’s light barrel and the rather awkward angle of its grip do, however, adversely affect its aiming characteristics. Still, this defect pales when compared to the Mle 1892’s dismally inadequate ballistics. The cartridge’s light 120grain, 8mm (caliber .32) bullet achieves a velocity of only 738 fps. The combination of light bullet and low velocity means that the Mle 1892 possesses very little stopping power against an enemy—an extremely important consideration for a soldier in a life-or-death combat situation. A major factor in the cartridge’s poor performance lies in an economic decision on the part of Saint Étienne. Rather than cut the Mle 1892 barrel with a more efficient rifling suited to its barrel length and cartridge, the arsenal opted to save retooling costs and drill the pistol bores with the same machinery used for the Lebel rifles. Although quite effective in the rifle, the same pitch of the lands and grooves proves wholly inefficient when mated with the shorter pistol barrel, lighter bullet, and lower powder charge of the Mle 1892. Despite such problems, the Mle 1892 remained in service with the French Army until it was replaced in 1935.

SWISS REVOLVERS Modell 1872 and Modell 1872/78 Switzerland, unique in that it maintained a reserve rather than

155

156

PISTOLS

standing army, nevertheless demanded excellent weapons for its military forces. In 1871 the Swiss thus convened an ordnance board to explore various designs and in 1872 began replacing outdated percussion pistols with a new metallic-cartridge revolver. The ordnance board deemed the new design, again by the Belgian team ofChamelot and Delvigne, superior to designs submitted by Galand of France and Smith & Wesson. The renowned small-arms expert Major Rudolf Schmidt then added a number of modifications to the original Chamelot-Delvigne design. The new pistol was designated the Ordonanzrevolver Modell 1872. Six hundred of the new solidframe, double-action six-shooters were manufactured by Pirlot Frères of Liège, Belgium, and chambered for a 10.4mm (caliber .41) rimfire cartridge. Loading and unloading were accomplished through a hinged loading gate on the right side of the frame. In 1878 the Swiss government discarded the rimfire cartridge and altered the vast majority of its Modell 1872s to center-fire. The converted weapons were redesignated the Modell 1872/78. That same year the Swiss began production of their own Swissdesigned and -manufactured Modell 1878 at Waffenfabrik Bern. The Modell 1878 resembled the earlier Modell 1872/78 in that it also was a six-shot double-action and was chambered for the 10.4mm center-fire cartridge. The Swiss manufactured possibly as many as 6,000 Modell 1878s before following the general trend of reducing its handgun caliber to that of its service rifle.

Modell 1882 and Modell 1882/29 Ordnance Revolvers Designed by the prolific and recently promoted Colonel Schmidt, the Modell 1882 Ordnance Revolver introduced the new 7.5mm (caliber .30) rimmed center-fire cartridge. Switzerland manufactured some 37,250 Modell 1882s, early models being fitted with plastic grips, with later pistols mounted with wood grips. A limited number of Modell 1882s were manufactured for issue to bicycle troops. Rather than a lanyard swivel, those pistols were manufactured with extended front and back straps, forming a distinctive Ushaped lanyard loop. Schmidt also designed a detachable shoulder stock/holster for the weapon to convert it into a carbine, but the government never officially adopted it. The Modell 1882 proved so rugged and reliable that a few remained in Swiss service into the early 1960s. The Modell 1882/29 was the last revolver adopted by the Swiss military. It was a significant modification of the Modell

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

1882, with improvements in strength and simplicity of manufacture that allowed greater ease of maintenance. Another factor in the Modell 1882’s and Modell 1882/29’s longevity was the Swiss Army’s insistence on issuing semiautomatic Lugers to its officers and higher noncommissioned officers and on retaining the less sophisticated revolvers for enlisted men.

ITALIAN REVOLVERS Modello 1872 and Modello 1889 Revolvers Italy also chose the Chamelot-Delvigne-Schmidt design for its standard military revolver. These early Italian Modello 1872 revolvers are chambered for a 10.35mm cartridge and were manufactured by Real Fabbrica d’Armi, Glisenti in Brescia, as well as Siderugica Glisenti in Turin. Belgium firms also manufactured the Modello 1872 for the Italian government. The Modello 1872 was, for the most part, well-made, but its successor, the Modello 1889, left much to be desired. The Pistola a Rotazione, System Bodeo, Modello 1889, was the product of a committee, Bodeo being its chairman and having little to do with the actual design work. As a design, the Modello 1889 was unremarkable. It was a gate-loaded, rod-ejected, six-shot revolver chambered for the Modello 1872 10.35mm cartridge. Its only appreciable innovation was an effective hammer block that made the pistol at least reasonably safe to carry. Two models were manufactured—an octagon-barreled version with a folding trigger guard for enlisted men, and a round-barrel, better-made pistol with a conventional trigger guard for officers. Despite Italy’s long-standing reputation as a producer of highquality firearms, the typical Modello 1889 was a decidedly poor weapon. This was in large part owing to Italy’s practice during the period of contracting the manufacture of some of its military pistols to small, independent gun shops. The quality of output varied widely, with some producing frames from such diverse materials as brass or, in extreme cases, brazed copper plates. Italy’s established factories, including Bernadelli, Castelli, Metallurgica Tempini, Real Fabbrica d’Armi, Glisenti, and Siderugica Glisenti, manufactured better-made weapons. During World War I some Spanish firms, including Errasti and Arotegui of Eibar, also produced Modello 1889s for the Italians.

157

158

PISTOLS

SPANISH REVOLVERS Modelo 1884 Spain also developed a reputation for considerable range in the quality of pistols produced in its factories and workshops. The town of Eibar in the Guipuzcoa Province is the country’s main armsproducing center, with the major companies at the time including Orbea y Compañia and Gárate, Anitua y Cia. Established concerns were capable of crafting pistols of the highest quality, but less meticulous gunsmiths turned out weapons of decidedly crude workmanship. The Spanish Army required officers to furnish their own sidearms under rather broad guidelines. Many thus chose double-action Smith & Wessons and a Merwin & Hulbert design by the Hopkins & Allen Manufacturing Company chambered for the caliber .44–40 Winchester cartridge. Spain eventually adopted the Modelo 1884, a copy of the Smith & Wesson—manufactured by Orbea y Compañia. The Eibar-based Gárate, Anitua y Cia and Trocaola, Aranzabal y Cia also produced high-quality revolvers for the British government during World War I. Britain purchased these weapons on a wartime emergency basis and designated them the Anitua Pistol Old Pattern No. 1, Mark I and the No. 2, Mark I. Both pistols are chambered for the standard British caliber .455 service cartridge and were designated obsolete in 1921.

BELGIAN REVOLVERS Fabrique d’armes Émile et Léon Nagant In 1859 two brothers founded the Fabrique d’armes Émile et Léon Nagant in the traditional arms-manufacturing center of Liège, Belgium. The firm quickly became one of the foremost European arms manufacturers. Within eight years the Nagant brothers Emile and Lèon had achieved such a reputation for high-quality arms that Samuel and Eliphalet Remington Jr. signed contracts with them to manufacture Remington-designed rolling-block rifles to fill an order to rearm the Vatican Guards. The single-shot, rolling-block design consisted of a breechblock that pivots back and down for loading and unloading. The system

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

held the advantages of strength, simplicity of construction, and speed of reloading. In 1877 the Nagants modified the basic Remington design and applied the rolling-block principle to a double-barreled pistol for issue to the Belgian Gendarmerie. The Belgian ammunition firm Bachmann manufactured a special rimmed, slightly tapered 9.4mm cartridge for the new pistol that became variously known as the 9mm Belgian or 9.4mm Nagant cartridge. Although the Nagants doubled the rolling-block system’s cartridge capacity, the pistol was nevertheless a rather ungainly affair and was already an anachronism in the age of the revolver. Only some 2,000 were manufactured.

Nagant Models 1878, Model 1883, Model 1886, and 1887 The Nagants produced their first revolver in 1878 and continued to improve and modify the basic design for a number of years. The typical Nagant was loaded and unloaded by way of a loading gate on the right side of the frame and was fitted with an ejector rod and lanyard swivel. The Nagant Model 1878 owed some of its characteristics to the brothers’ earlier association with the Chamelot-Delvigne Model 1873 manufactured by Holland’s Hembrug Arsenal. The Model 1878 was available in single- and double-action versions and was adopted by Belgium in 9.4mm. Norway, Denmark, as well as Belgium soon adopted the improved double-action Model 1883. The Model 1886 was the final improved version of the Nagant adopted by Belgium, staying in service until World War II. Sweden also adopted the Nagant and manufactured it under license at Husqvarna as the 7.5mm Model 1887.

Nagant Model 1893 The improved Model 1893 eventually followed the Models 1873 through 1887, with all models being issued concurrently until being replaced by semiautomatics during the twentieth century. Sweden and Serbia adopted the Model 1893 in 7.5mm, with the South American countries, Brazil and Argentina, choosing a larger .44 cartridge. Norway issued nearly 13,000 Model 1893s, most being manufactured by the Nagant factory, with others manufactured under license by Husqvarna and the Kongsberg Arsenal. A few Model 1893s were apparently later converted to caliber .22 for target shooting and training purposes.

159

160

PISTOLS

RUSSIAN REVOLVERS Nagant Model 1895 In 1888 Russian military officials approached the Nagants with a proposal to develop a new magazine-fed, bolt-action rifle to replace the large-caliber, single-shot Berdan rifles then in service. Their collaboration with the Russian designer Colonel Ivanovith Mosin soon produced the 7.62mm Model 1891 Mosin-Nagant service rifle. In keeping with the times, the Russians also desired a new sidearm in a caliber matching their rifles. Evidently pleased with the Belgians’ work, they quickly followed with an order for a lighter-caliber revolver to replace their aging caliber .44 Smith & Wessons. The Nagants responded to the challenge with an odd mix of conservatism and innovation. The result is one of the most unique revolvers to enter military service. Other than its seven-shot capacity, externally the new Russian Nagant Model 1895 closely resembled its predecessors. The Model 1895 also shared the solid frame, loading gate, and ejector rod of earlier Nagant pistols and thus required the laborious process of loading and unloading each chamber individually. When most other major powers had already adopted either break-open frames or swing-out cylinders, the Nagant was thus something of an anachronism from its inception. Its mechanism and cartridge, however, were different from any other revolver of its time. With this new pistol, the Nagants attempted to solve one of the more vexing problems that face all revolver designers: The small gap between the cylinder’s chambers and the barrel’s breech allowed a certain amount of gas to escape and thus reduces the pistol’s muzzle velocity. The Model 1895 mechanism eliminated the gap in that cocking the hammer advanced the cylinder to mate with the barrel’s breech. There, the counterbored chambers slid over the rear of the barrel. The seal is further enhanced by the special 7.62mm Nagant cartridge. The bullet of the elongated, slightly tapered cartridge is seated within the casing flush with its mouth. This allows the forward end of the cartridge to actually enter the barrel of the pistol, effectively doublesealing the gap. Although critics argue that the few feet per second saved in velocity hardly justify the complexity of the Nagant, it proved a popular weapon among czarist and, later, Soviet troops. The Nagants produced the first Model 1895s (approximately 20,000) at their factory in Liège until the Russians began produc-

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

tion at the Tula Arsenal in 1898. Evidence seems to indicate that the early production pistols were capable of both single- and doubleaction operation and were intended for issue solely to officers. Under the czarist regime, enlisted personnel were issued only singleaction Nagants. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution this subtle class distinction was apparently dropped, and most, if not all, Model 1895s were capable of both types of operation. A limited number were also manufactured in caliber .22 for training purposes. The Soviet government declared the Nagant obsolete in 1930 when it was to be replaced by the semiautomatic Tokarev Model 1930. Production, however, continued until after World War II (some estimates indicate that the czarist and Soviet governments manufactured possibly as many as 2 million Model 1895 revolvers between 1898 and about 1946). During World War II, Nagants manufactured at the Izhevsk Arsenal also supplemented Tula’s production of the Model 1895. The notorious Soviet secret police, the NKVD, as well as some commando units also appreciated the Nagant in that its unique characteristics made it an ideal weapon for use with a silencer. The gas seal not only reduced the escape of gas at its breech but also muffled its report. Soviet technicians fitted the muzzles of a number of Model 1895s with a silencer known as the Bramit Device for use in covert operations. The Model 1895 was the Nagants’ final significant contribution to firearms design. Following his brother’s retirement owing to illness in 1896, Léon Nagant brought his two sons, Charles and Maurice, into the family business and reorganized the firm as Fabrique d’Armes Léon Nagant. After Léon’s death in 1900, his sons focused on the manufacture of automobiles. In 1928 the Nagants sold the rights and machinery to produce the Model 1895 to Poland, where the Radom factory produced it as the Radom Ng30 until replacing it in 1935 with the 9mm Radom Model 1935.

JAPANESE REVOLVERS Type 26 Revolver In the Far East, Japan eventually moved to replace its cumbersome and aging Smith & Wesson New Model No. 3 revolvers in favor of domestically designed and manufactured pistols. In 1893 Japan

161

162

PISTOLS

adopted the 26 Nijuoku, Nenshiki (Type 26 Revolver), its designation deriving from its acceptance during the twenty-sixth year of the Meiji reign. The Type 26 was apparently a hybrid weapon based on the Smith & Wesson break-open frame mated with a Galand-type mechanism. A hinged side panel somewhat similar to that of the French Model 1892 allowed access to the internal components for cleaning and repair. The Type 26 was a double action–only weapon and fires a unique rimmed 9mm cartridge. Neither the pistol nor the cartridge were particularly good designs, and both were replaced when Japan adopted a new semiautomatic pistol in the early twentieth century. Still, despite its numerous derivative features, the Type 26 signaled a remarkable step in Japanese pistol development—only some 40 years earlier the most common domestic handguns available had been matchlocks.

LATER U.S. REVOLVERS During the final quarter of the nineteenth century the United States also followed the general trend of reducing the caliber of its service revolvers. It thus retired its older caliber .45 sidearms in favor of pistols chambered for a caliber .38 cartridge. Combat experience, however—notably against insurgent forces in the Philippines—quickly indicated that the change in caliber had been ill-advised. Troops fighting the guerrillas reported that, despite multiple caliber .38 wounds, fanatical opponents could often wound or kill U.S. troops before finally collapsing themselves. Cavalrymen also stressed the importance of a caliber heavy enough to bring down an opponent’s horse, a primary target during mounted combat. As a result, authorities moved to replace the caliber .38 weapons with more lethal caliber .45 models. The government soon placed orders for the larger revolvers with both Colt and Smith & Wesson and, as an emergency measure, even went so far as to bring numbers of the old Colt Model 1873s out of retirement.

Colt Model 1877 In 1877 Colt finally produced its first solid-frame, double-action revolver: the Colt Model 1877. The company went on to manufacture 66,849 Model 1877s before discontinuing the pistol in 1909. De-

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

spite its double-action capability, the Model 1877 suffered a number of deficiencies. Although break-open designs had more than proved themselves, Colt persisted in using a loading gate, thus requiring the slow process of individually loading and unloading each cartridge. To make matters worse, shorter-barreled models were not even fitted with ejector rods, further slowing the reloading process. The pistol was also mechanically somewhat delicate and often required repair. Still, the Model 1877 proved an almost instant success. Known as the Lightning when chambered for the caliber .38 Colt cartridge and the Thunderer when for caliber .41 Colt cartridges, the new six-shooter quickly gained a following throughout the American West. Although not the best endorsement for the pistol, the infamous Billy the Kid was armed with a Lightning when killed by Pat Garrett in 1881. It was often said that the Kid preferred the Lightning because its rather small bird’s-head grip fit his hand better than larger handguns.

Colt Model 1878 (Frontier) and Model 1892 Although the U.S. government failed to place orders for the Model 1877, it eventually showed interest in its successor, the Model 1878 Frontier Double Action Revolver, the product of a collaboration by William Mason and Charles B. Richards. Colt produced the Frontier between 1878 and 1905 and, as it had with the Peacemaker, offered it on the civilian market in a number of calibers that were interchangeable with Winchester long arms. The standard Frontier was sold with checkered hard-rubber grips and was available with either a blued or nickel finish and in a variety of barrel lengths. It was, however, only toward the end of the Frontier’s production run in 1902 that the government finally authorized a contract for some 4,600 revolvers chambered in caliber .45. The order for the Model 1902 (also known as the Alaskan Model or Philippine Model) was evidently in response to the combat failure of caliber .38 revolvers. The Models 1878 and 1902 were among Colt’s largest-frame handguns. The Model 1902, like the Model 1878, was loaded through a loading gate on the right side and was fitted with an ejector rod mounted under the right side of the barrel. Both were also equipped with lanyard swivels. The government-issue Model 1902 differed from its predecessor in that it was manufactured with a noticeably larger trigger and trigger guard. It was standard with a blue finish, a 6-inch barrel, and walnut rather than rubber grips.

163

164

PISTOLS

Colt Model 1889 Navy Double Action Revolver (U.S. Revolver, Colt New Navy, M1889) Both Colt and Smith & Wesson produced the military caliber .38 (.38 Long Colt) revolvers that incited the protests from frontline troops. Despite the criticism of their issue, the products of both makers were of high quality and design. Any blame for their disappointing performance lay with the ordnance officers who chose their caliber. The Colt design originated from a collaboration between William Mason and the German-born Carl J. Ehbets. Following Mason’s departure for Winchester in 1882, Ehbets continued to perfect the pair’s ideas to produce the Colt Model 1889 Navy Double Action Revolver. Colt manufactured the Model 1889 in both caliber .41 and .38 Colt. It was a landmark for the firm, being its first double-action revolver with a swing-out cylinder. The swingout cylinder provided the dual advantages of maintaining the strength of a solid frame with speed in reloading. Merely pressing a sliding button on the side of the frame released a hinged mount, or crane, allowing the cylinder to swing out to the right side of the pistol. This permitted the rapid removal of all the spent cases by means of a central ejection rod. The Model 1889 remained in production between 1889 and 1894, with civilian versions available with either a blue or nickel finish and hard rubber grips. The Model 1889 was also somewhat different from earlier Colt revolvers in that its cylinder rotates counterclockwise rather than clockwise. The origin of this anomaly seems to have originated with the U.S. Navy’s requirements, yet its rationale defies mechanical logic—the counterclockwise rotation works against the cylinder lock and tends to force the cylinder out of alignment with the barrel. The U.S. Navy was apparently pleased with the pistol, however, and contracted for 5,000 of the Model 1889 chambered for the caliber .38 Long Colt cartridge. The contract specified a blue finish, walnut grips, and a 6-inch barrel. Serial number 217,183 is most likely the most historic Colt Model 1889 Navy Double Action Revolver. The pistol was recovered from the wreckage o f the USS Maine after it exploded in Havana Harbor on 15 February 1898 and was later presented to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, the future president (Ezell, 1981: 636). It was this pistol that Roosevelt brandished to rally his Rough Riders during the famed charge up San Juan Hill on 1 July 1898. After the battle the exuberant Roosevelt

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

recalled, in his autobiography, seeing a Spanish soldier tumble “as neatly as a jackrabbit” after he shot him with his Colt revolver. The pistol was later engraved “FROM THE SUNKEN BATTLESHIP MAINE” and “JULY 1ST 1898, SAN JUAN HILL. CARRIED AND USED BY COL. THEODORE ROOSEVELT.”

Colt New Model Army and Navy Revolver and Colt Model 1905 Marine Corps Double Action Revolver Colt followed the Model 1889 with another counterclockwiserevolving pistol, the New Model Army and Navy Revolver. Throughout its production from 1892 through about 1907, the new revolver underwent a number of minor improvements and proved to be one of Colt’s more successful offerings on both the civilian and military markets. Other than inspector markings, the Army and Navy issues were virtually identical. Both services ordered caliber .38 revolvers with blued finishes, 6-inch barrels, and walnut grips, with the Army receiving a number of pistols with checkered hard-rubber grips. The U.S. Marine Corps (USMC) also acquired a variation of the model known appropriately as the Marine Corps Model. Only 926 were delivered, and the pistol’s main differences from the earlier models were USMC inspector markings, the addition of a lanyard swivel, and distinctively checkered walnut grips.

Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector, Military and Police Revolver (Model 1899) Smith & Wesson caliber .38 military-issue revolvers were manufactured to the same general government specifications, as were the Colts. First manufactured in 1899, the Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector, Military and Police Revolver, was also known as the Model 1899 and was available for both military and civilian purchase. The U.S. Navy received 1,000 of the Model 1899 in 1900; the Army received an additional 1,000 pistols the following year. Military Model 1899s are blued, with checkered walnut grips and 6-inch barrels. Both the Army and Navy versions were double-action, swing-out cylinder weapons chambered for the caliber .38 Long Colt cartridge. Smith & Wesson continued to improve the basic design of the Model 1899, but the military’s rejection of caliber .38 weapons soon led to the end of military contracts. Civilian and police sales remained

165

166

PISTOLS

strong, however, and the revolver, in its several improved forms, continued in production until 1942.

Colt New Service Double Action Revolver and Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector The U.S. military’s decision to abandon the caliber .38 cartridge in favor of the .45 occurred shortly before its adoption of an automatic sidearm: the caliber .45 Model 1911 Colt. During the interim, Colt produced its superb Colt New Service Double Action Revolver in caliber .45 Colt for military contracts and in various other calibers for civilian sales. For its part, Smith & Wesson produced a limited number of its Hand Ejector–type revolvers bored to caliber .455 for sales to Britain and Canada during World War I. Colt manufactured some 356,000 New Services of various types between 1898 and 1944. The U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps adopted the New Service as the Model 1909. A blued finish was standard with the Model 1909, as was a 5.5-inch barrel. Army and Navy models were fitted with smooth walnut grips, whereas Marine Corps revolvers have checkered walnut grips.

Colt Model 1917 U.S. Army New Service Revolver and Model 1917 Smith & Wesson The United States entered World War I with the semiautomatic caliber .45 Colt Model 1911 as its standard sidearm. Its production, however, was not keeping pace with the rapid U.S. mobilization. Faced with swelling ranks and not enough 1911s, the military again turned to revolvers as an emergency measure. The Model 1917 U.S. Army New Service Revolver was an improved version of the Model 1909 and, with the Model 1917 Smith & Wesson, served as a substitute standard weapon during World War I. To simplify supply issues, ordnance officials were adamant that the revolvers accept the same Colt caliber .45 Automatic Colt Pistol ammunition used in the Model 1911. This was accomplished through the use of half-moon clips—C-shaped adaptors that hold three cartridges and, when used in pairs, allow the revolver to be loaded with rimless cartridges. The half-moon clips thus act as rims, retaining the cartridges in their correct position, and prevent the cartridge from falling completely into the cylinder chamber. In emergency situations the Smith &

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

Wesson was reported to have been able to be used without halfmoon clips in that its design seated the cartridge case on its mouth rather than rim. Although possible, the cases had to be extracted individually.

POST–WORLD WAR II MILITARY REVOLVERS Soon after World War II the major powers all but abandoned the revolver for standard issue to front-line ground troops. Still, thousands of revolvers remained in service with secondary troops, specialized personnel, and security forces. Finding them more compact than the 1911A1, flight crews in the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force had for years found the shorter-barrel, or snub-nose, revolvers to be practical in the cramped confines of cockpits. Military police organizations, citing the revolver’s safety, reliability, and capability to chamber more powerful loadings, also continued to use revolvers on a wide scale. As late as 1981 the General Accounting Office reported that 172,749 caliber .38 revolvers acquired from various civilian makers were held in government inventories (Ezell 1983: 146).

Colt Detective Special, Cobra, Police Positive, Trooper, and Lawman Following World War II, Colt continued to produce rugged swingout cylinder revolvers designed to appeal to a wide market. In the eyes of proponents, the available calibers of these pistols offered a distinct advantage over semiautomatics. The majority of military and police-issue weapons were chambered for the caliber .38 Special cartridge or the high-powered caliber .357 Magnum cartridge. As an added economic advantage, .357 Magnum pistols would also chamber the less-powerful and less-expensive caliber .38 Special cartridge. Colt revolvers exhibited a number of finishes, including blue, nickel, and new corrosion-resistant types. Government issues included the 2-inch barrel, caliber .38 Special Colt Detective Special Revolver, first manufactured in 1927, and its modernized, lighter alloy-frame variant, the Cobra. The U.S.-issue Colt Police Positive Revolver was essentially the same as the Detective and Cobra but with a steel frame and a 4- or 5-inch barrel. A

167

168

PISTOLS

similar weapon, the Colt Special Official Police Revolver, was also issued. Introduced in 1953 and manufactured until 1969, the largeframe Colt Trooper was issued with a 4-inch barrel and is a heavier gun than its predecessors. The added weight, however, was an advantage in that it helped absorb recoil and improved the pistol’s handling characteristics when used with caliber .357 Magnum ammunition. Other Colts issued include the medium-frame Lawman series that, in .357 Magnum, saw service with military police units as well as Air Force and Navy pilots during the Vietnam War.

Colt Aircrewman In 1951 Colt began manufacturing a special lightweight, compact revolver for issue to Air Force flight personnel. The short-barreled Colt Aircrewman is chambered for the caliber .38 Special cartridge and incorporates an aluminum alloy frame and cylinder. It is distinguished by “AIRCREWMAN” stamped into the left side of the barrel, a U.S. Air Force medallion inset in the grip, and “PROPERTY OF UNITED STATES AIR FORCE” stamped into the rear grip strap.

Smith & Wesson Military and Police Revolver Smith & Wesson also continued to provide revolvers to the military following World War II. These included the .38 special caliber Military and Police Revolver, a well-proven design originally used by the military in the .38 Long Colt cartridge. An extremely rugged pistol, the Military and Police Revolver was issued in either blued or nickel finishes and with either a 2-, 4-, or 5-inch barrel. It was a mediumframe revolver, somewhat heavier than the Colt Cobra, but was a popular shoulder-holster weapon. Smith & Wesson also manufactured a lightweight, alloy-frame Airweight model for issue to flight crews.

Smith & Wesson Model 15 Combat Masterpiece and Model 19 Combat Magnum Although branching into semiautomatic pistol design following World War II, Smith & Wesson continued to develop modern revolvers. The company introduced its Model 15 Combat Masterpiece

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER

in 1950, basing it on its midsized K-frame. Available with either 2or 4-inch barrels, the caliber .38 Special Model 15 was used by U.S. forces in the Korean War and the Vietnam War. From 1962 to 1964 the Air Force issued the Combat Masterpiece in its 2-inch barrel form as the Model 56. The caliber .357 Model 19 entered production in early 1956 and quickly gained a reputation for reliability and accuracy. Also based on the K-frame, the Model 19 was available with either a 2.5-, 4-, or 6-inch barrel. Valued for its manageable size and hard-hitting cartridge, the Model 19 saw considerable service with U.S. forces during Vietnam.

Sturm, Ruger and Company Security Six and Speed Six Sturm, Ruger and Company began operations in 1949 and has since become a major U.S. manufacturer of quality firearms. Conventional in design, Ruger revolvers offered no significant technical innovations yet were well-made and accurate. The caliber .357 Magnum Security Six debuted in 1968 and was quickly followed by its rounded-grip variation, the Speed Six. Designated the GS-32N in government service, the Speed Six is available in calibers 9mm, .38 Special, and .357 Magnum. It has seen use by a variety of military police and other government security services.

169

CHAPTER 5

The Semiautomatic Pistol

Semiautomatic pistols are handguns that fire once with each pull of the trigger and mechanically reload and recock by diverting energy from the discharge. They are thus often referred to as selfloading pistols, in contrast to the true automatic pistols. By definition, automatic pistols are actually machine guns in that they continue firing until the trigger is released or the magazine empties. Although inherently more complex than revolvers, the main advantages of semiautomatic pistols lie in rapid operation and the potential for greater cartridge capacities. They also eliminate the gap between the cylinders’ chambers and the barrel’s breech. This helps avoid a loss of power from escaping gasses, as well as fragments shearing off from bullets fired from improperly aligned cylinders as they enter the breech. Records indicate that the semiautomatic principle was known at least as early as 1664, when Sir Robert Moray outlined the basic concept to the Royal Society in London (Smith: 1969: 179). Practical semiautomatics did not emerge, however, until the 1890s, when improved ammunition made them possible.

SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL DEVELOPMENT TO 1945 The main components of a semiautomatic pistol include: (1) a barrel; (2) a slide or moveable breechblock assembly containing a spent casing extractor and firing pin or striker; (3) one or more recoil 171

172

PISTOLS

springs; (4) a frame with an internal trigger mechanism; and (5) a cartridge magazine. The greatest problem for all semiautomatic designers was to delay the opening of the pistol’s mechanism until the bullet had left the muzzle and the barrel’s internal pressure had dropped to a safe level. This factor is critical in that a premature opening of the breech can, at best, adversely affect the pistol’s ballistics and, at worst, result in an explosion at the breech. Within the first 10 years of semiautomatic pistol development, five basic operating systems emerged to delay the rearward cycle of the action. The actions of all semiautomatics must be manually charged and cocked for the first shot. The five mechanisms that produce semiautomatic operation are: (1) blowback, consisting of a stationary barrel and recoiling slide and breechblock; (2) short recoil, in which the barrel travels rearward with the slide a short distance before disengaging; (3) long recoil, in which the barrel travels farther back than in the short recoil; (4) blow-forward, which uses the friction of the bullet in the bore to pull the barrel forward from a fixed breechblock; and (5) gas operation, in which the gas from the cartridge’s ignition is redirected backward to move the slide and breechblock to the rear. Neither the blow-forward nor the gas-operated systems saw any but very limited handgun application. The blow-forward system was abandoned very early as impractical, but the gas-operated system became a favorite of rifle and machinegun designers. The blowback is the simplest and most common of the semiautomatic actions. Most often used with lighter calibers such as the .22 (5.5mm), .25 (6.35mm), .32 (7.65mm), and .380 (9mm kurz, or short), the blowback system relies on a barrel fixed to the frame and a moving slide with an internal firing mechanism. Pressure from the cartridge’s detonation forces the slide mechanism back on a pair of machined rails in the frame far enough to eject the spent casing and cock the hammer or striker. A recoil spring, usually coiled around the barrel, is first compressed by the rearward motion and then, in its return cycle, forces the slide mechanism forward. This action strips a new cartridge from the magazine to engage the extractor and forces it into the breech. Another pull of the trigger repeats the process. A variation, the delayed (retarded) blowback system, attempts to further slow the rearward cycle through friction. The most common method employs an internal wedge or tapered block that presses between the barrel and slide. The short-recoil system emerged as the most efficient system with higher-caliber cartridges such as the 9mm Parabellum and the cal-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

iber .45 Automatic Colt Pistol (ACP)—loadings that require a fraction of a second longer hesitation than the blowback system affords. The principle employs a separate barrel that moves with the slide rearward a short distance before disengaging. At that point the slide is left free to continue its rearward cycle. This is most often accomplished by machining a number of grooves into the barrel’s upperrear surface. These grooves mate with mortises in the slide to lock the two components together during initial ignition and the first millimeter or so of the assembly’s backward travel. At that point the slanted heel of the barrel follows a ramp in the frame, camming the rear of the barrel down into the frame and disengaging it from the slide. The slide is then free to continue its rearward movement to eject the spent casing, cock the hammer, and begin its forward cycle. The long-recoil system is very similar to the short-recoil system, except that the barrel and slide remain together during the entire rearward movement. The forward cycle, powered by two springs rather than one, ejects the casing, strips another cartridge from the magazine, and chambers it. Blow-forward pistols are manufactured with a fixed breechblock assembly integral with the frame. The barrel and slide assembly, in turn, is held in place by a powerful spring and follows a rail machined into the upper frame. The mechanism relies on the friction of the bullet moving forward through the bore to pull the barrel forward. This action then allows the extractor, attached to the breechblock, to eject the spent casing. The rearward movement of the barrel then strips another cartridge from the magazine for a following shot. The blow-forward system’s greatest problem is that the violent rearward movement of the recoil spring results in what many consider too heavy a kick for its typically smaller-caliber chamberings. Few manufacturers other than the Austrian Andrea Schwarzlose manufactured blow-forward pistols in any quantities. Gas-operated pistols rely on redirecting a small percentage of the gasses generated by the cartridge’s ignition to the rear to activate the mechanism. These gasses pass through a small hole near the muzzle to compress a piston assembly that powers the ejection and reloading functions. The Clair brothers of Saint Étienne apparently invented a very early gas-operated pistol in 1887. Although it actually worked, the Clair pistol proved ridiculously heavy for practical purposes, chambered only five cartridges, and was prone to jamming (malfunctions caused by underpowered or improperly feeding cartridges or ejecting cases). Although effective, the gas system is more efficient when applied to higher-powered cartridges than are nor-

173

174

PISTOLS

mally used in handguns. For this reason it is most often applied to rifles, shotguns, and carbines. Early semiautomatic pistol designers also differed on the choice of placement of the pistols’ magazines and their methods of charging with cartridges. One school preferred the grip with either a detachable magazine inserted through the butt, or a fixed internal magazine loaded through the top with chargers or stripper clips. Other designers rejected this method in favor of placing the detachable or charger-fed magazine in front of the trigger guard. They argued that the placement of the magazine in the grip, especially in larger-caliber pistols, made the grip too bulky for comfort for those with smaller hands. In addition, they saw that a magazine situated farther to the front of the weapon aided its balance. Many early European pistol designers and manufacturers such as Mannlicher, Mauser, and Steyr were also active in the development of magazine-fed, bolt-action rifles. As nearly all of their magazine designs required stripper clips, it was only logical that they apply the same method to pistol designs. Even though a rifle designer in his own right, the renowned Hugo Borchardt rejected the fixed, clip-fed magazine in favor of the detachable box magazine. In the end, Borchardt’s designs proved more practical. Owing to their simplicity and ease of use, by the mid–twentieth century the use of detachable magazines loaded through the base of the grip far exceeded all other loading methods. Semiautomatic pistol designers also developed various safety devices that could be used singly or in combination. The most common safety consists of a thumb-operated lever on the left side of the slide. When thumbed into the safe position, this type typically raises a metal bar as a barrier to prevent the hammer from striking the firing pin. Another lever-type safety located on the frame simply engages a notch in the slide, thus preventing movement. A third type— the grip safety—prevents the pistol from firing unless it is firmly gripped in the hand. Magazine safeties also prevent pistols from firing unless a magazine is securely in place. A less-common safety consists of a pushbutton, usually near the trigger, that blocks the firing mechanism. Although hailed by many as the most modern and efficient form of handgun, semiautomatic pistols nevertheless have detractors. Early critics claimed, with some merit, that the more complicated designs were susceptible to jamming and other malfunctions than revolvers. The rigid frames used in most revolver designs also make them more suitable for higher-powered cartridges such as the .357

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

and .44 Magnum loadings. In addition, many military bureaucrats, regardless of country, often remained true to character. In their conservative view, any rapidly fired weapon could potentially allow front-line troops to waste precious ammunition and should be discouraged. Despite such objections, semiautomatics continued to improve and, eventually, universally replaced revolvers as primary combat weapons. All the major powers would adopt semiautomatics as standard sidearms during the twentieth century. The United States and Germany entered World War I with semiautomatics yet, owing to the huge demands of wartime, were forced to supplement these issues with revolvers. By World War II the majority of combatants fought with self-loaders. Other countries, such as Great Britain, experimented with semiautomatics during World War I but continued to put their trust in revolvers through World War II. Semiautomatic cartridges, unlike revolver ammunition, play a critical role in the actual mechanical functioning of the pistol. They not only provide the energy to activate the pistol mechanism; they must also cycle smoothly through the ejection and reloading process. Semiautomatic ammunition thus requires specific characteristics to avoid jamming. The three main cartridge characteristics necessary for smooth and reliable functioning include the use of smokeless powder, precise and consistent manufacture, and a rimless case. The availability of smokeless powder was the most important factor in the development of semiautomatic ammunition. Smokeless propellant is less corrosive and burns much more efficiently than black powder. This is an important advantage when applied to the close machining tolerances required in semiautomatic pistols, as it minimizes unburned residue that can jam the pistol. Smokeless ammunition also generates higher pressures than black powder and thus assures a more reliable cycling of the mechanism. The turn of the twentieth century also saw advanced manufacturing techniques that allowed more consistent and secure seating of the bullet in the case. This is necessary in semiautomatic weapons because it helps ensure precise cartridge length (an improperly seated bullet is prone to being driven back into the case during the violent cycling action and jam the weapon). If the bullet is not seated far enough into the case, it can wedge against the loading ramp or the top of the chamber. The development of the rimless cartridge case also enhanced feeding by eliminating the projecting rim at the base of the cartridge case. Rimmed cartridges are necessary for use in revolvers because they prevent the cartridge from sliding

175

176

PISTOLS

too far into the cylinder chambers and provide a gripping surface for the extractor. Rimmed cases, however, are impractical for use in semiautomatics because of the tendency of the rims to bind against one another in the magazine, again jamming the pistol. Rimless cartridge cases are manufactured with a groove in the base that eliminates the projecting rim yet allows a mating surface for the extractor. They are also generally slightly tapered to ensure that they do not slide too far into the chamber. A number of semiautomatic pistol cartridges that have survived the test of time, even into the twenty-first century, originally emerged during the late 1890s and early 1900s. These include the 9mm Parabellum cartridge as developed for the P08 Luger and Colt, and John Browning’s series of ACP cartridges—calibers .25 ACP (6.35mm), .32 ACP (7.65mm), .380 ACP (9mm Short), and .45 ACP. The 1980s and 1990s saw the growing popularity of the recent Smith & Wesson caliber .40 S&W cartridge. The .40 S&W cartridge is something of a compromise between the 9mm Parabellum and the .45 ACP cartridges, theoretically offering more stopping power than the 9mm and less recoil than the .45 ACP. The .40 S&W has become a favored chambering for many police organizations, especially in the United States. The 9mm Parabellum has become the standard cartridge of most major powers, including the United States. Many combat veterans, however, continue to disdain the 9mm for its comparative lack of stopping power and remain adamantly loyal to the venerable and deadly .45 ACP. Although many early designers, most notably John Browning, moved from country to country and exchanged ideas, military pistols typically reflect the national character of their origins.

GERMANY Hugo Borchardt Hugo Borchardt (1844–1925), a German emigrant working in Connecticut, invented both the first practical semiautomatic pistol sold on an appreciable scale and, even more significantly, its cartridge. It was Borchardt who first applied the so-called rimless cartridge to a production semiautomatic pistol. The new rimless 7.65mm Borchardt cartridge was a long bottlenecked design that tapered from the main body down to a jacketed caliber .30 bullet. The cartridge

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

proved quite accurate and was capable of superior penetration. The design was so successful that slightly modified forms survive to the present day. Borchardt, however, found little interest in the United States for either his pistol or its cartridge. Having spent a number of years working on semiautomatic rifle designs for the Winchester Repeating Arms Company as well as Sharps, he returned to Germany to find employment with Ludwig Loëwe and Company of Berlin. In 1893 Loëwe released the new pistol for sale. Borchardt’s was not the first semiautomatic pistol to be offered on the general market, but its superior design quickly forced competing models, such as those of the Austrians Gebruder Schönberger and Andrea Schwarzlose, into obscurity. The Borchardt was based on what is called the toggle-locked breech principle—a mechanism often compared to the action of the human knee. A hinge (the “knee”) in the middle of the breech mechanism allows it to buckle upward under the pressure of ignition to eject spent cartridge cases. A large recoil spring then forces the breech forward, straightening the knee, to strip a cartridge from the magazine and seat it in the chamber. The Borchardt also debuted the removable, spring-loaded, eight-round box magazine housed in the pistol’s grip. This innovation allowed the carrying of a number of spare magazines, greatly increasing one’s firepower and speed in reloading. Loëwe also offered the Borchardt with a detachable wood shoulder stock/leather holster combination that, when attached to the pistol, converted it into a carbine. The Borchardt, called the Construktion 93 or C93 in Germany, was a beautifully finished weapon with meticulous craftsmanship and was manufactured to exacting tolerances. These same qualities, however, made it infinitely unsuitable as a military weapon; even a tiny amount of dirt or mud easily jammed the mechanism. Its delicate components, moreover, are extremely prone to breakage, even under the best circumstances. It was also somewhat heavy and awkward to handle given its long barrel and bulbous recoil spring housing that extends back and over the user’s hand. Borchardt nevertheless seemed to consider the pistol a masterpiece and saw little need to tinker with perfection. One of his colleagues at Loëwe apparently disagreed.

Georg Luger and the Luger P08 Austrian-born Georg Luger had assisted Borchardt in designing his

177

178

PISTOLS

new pistol. Luger was thus intimately familiar with the pistol and soon redesigned the Borchardt with an eye toward creating a practical military sidearm. The arms giant Deutsches Waffen und Munitions Fabriken (DWM) of Berlin approved Luger’s modifications and began production of the new pistol in 1900. Known as the Luger in the United States, the redesigned Borchardt became known in some circles in Europe as the Parabellum (literally, “for war”), a reference to its cartridge. The Luger’s sleek, aggressive lines made it one of the most instantly recognizable handguns in the world. Luger greatly added to the aesthetic appeal by replacing the earlier recoil spring and its awkward housing with one placed within the grip. Luger also refined Borchardt’s design with a number of minor modifications and by shortening the pistol’s barrel. Other improvements included the addition of a manual safety on the left rear of the slide. Luger’s efforts met with rapid and enduring success. In 1900 DWM produced the first Luger contract for the Swiss, who adopted it as the Pistole, Ordonnanz 1900, System BorchardtLuger. Initial Swiss orders were limited, and most Model 1900s were issued to officers. Lower ranks were left to fend for themselves with the earlier-issue revolvers. One factor in the decision to continue arming enlisted personnel with revolvers was the pervasive attitude among military hierarchies, in Europe as well as the United States, that enlisted men lacked the intelligence to operate semiautomatics. Although similar in most respects to later Parabellum models, the 1900 Swiss contract pistols utilized a grip safety, a rather weak leaf-type recoil spring, and the 7.65mm (caliber .30 Luger) bottlenecked cartridge. The insignia—a Swiss cross within a sunburst—on the top of the receivers further distinguished Swiss Lugers. An eight-round detachable box magazine within the grip fed the Model 1900 and succeeding models. The Model 1900 impressed many who used it with its handling qualities and accuracy. But its recoil spring proved inadequate, and its caliber .30 cartridge lacked stopping power. DWM and Luger experimented with a limited number of loadings, including cartridges with a special truncated cone-type, flat-nosed bullet to boost the ballistic properties and stopping power. In 1902 DWM introduced the more powerful 9x19mm Parabellum Luger cartridge, arguably the most successful cartridge ever produced. Luger also replaced the earlier leaf-type recoil spring with a stronger coil spring and added other, less critical modifications. In 1904 the German Navy adopted the Luger in 9mm Parabellum as the Pistole, Marine-Modell 1904, System Borchardt Luger. The Model

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

1904 had a 6-inch barrel, an adjustable rear sight, and a combination extractor/loaded indicator on top of the bolt. To many Luger connoisseurs, the lines of the 6-inch barrel Navy Luger make it the most aesthetically pleasing of all the German-produced Parabellums. In 1908 the German Army officially adopted the Luger in 9mm with a 4-inch barrel as the P08 (Pistole 1908). Soon after DWM added a hold-open device to the Luger to hold the toggle open on an empty magazine—an important feature in a combat weapon because it alerts the user of the pistol’s unloaded status. In 1914 the German Army also adopted an 8-inch barrel version popularly referred to as the Artillery Luger—something of a misnomer, as most seemed to have been issued to machine-gun units. The Artillery Luger featured a tangent, rifle-style rear sight. It was often issued with a holster/shoulder stock rig consisting of a flat wood shoulder stock attached to a leather holster and shoulder strap very similar to the earlier Borchardt design. DWM also manufactured a 32-round snaildrum magazine in addition to a special magazine loading device to boost the Artillery Model’s firepower. Although most military Lugers feature a milled rib for the shoulder stock on the rear grip strap, only the Artillery Models seem to have been regularly issued with the holster/stock. The attachment of the stock and snail-drum transformed the Artillery Luger into a high magazine–capacity carbine. DWM and the Erfurt Arsenal produced more than 1.5 million P08s for the German government during the World War I period. The Swiss government also continued production at its arsenal at Bern, while Vickers Ltd. of England and, later, Mauser manufactured pistols for the Dutch military. A number of other countries adopted the Luger, including Portugal, Bulgaria, Sweden, Persia, and Brazil. Russia and China ordered limited numbers, and Finland adopted the pistol in 7.65mm as its Model 1923. The appearance of the Luger coincided with a growing interest on the part of the U.S. military in the transition from revolvers to semiautomatics. In 1901 the U.S. Army Board of Ordnance and Fortification tested the Model 1900 at the Springfield Arsenal and soon ordered 1,000 pistols for field trials. The test pistols were stamped with a prominent American eagle on the top of the breech and were chambered for the 7.65mm cartridge. Holsters were manufactured at Rock Island Arsenal. Reports from the field indicated two main flaws with the Model 1900: a tendency to jam and insufficient stopping power. Further tests with Model 1902 9mm Parabellum pistols indicated the desirability of the larger cartridge, but the pistols still

179

180

PISTOLS

jammed at an alarming rate. In 1907 the Army suspended tests; the test pistols were sold at auction. Despite this rejection, DWM and Georg Luger continued to seek a U.S. contract and entered the U.S. Ordnance Trials held in 1906–1907. The issue was complicated by the Army’s decision to require all new test pistols to be chambered for a caliber .45 cartridge—a requirement prompted by the poor performance of caliber .38 pistols during recent action in the Philippines. Such a dramatic step up in caliber could not be accomplished with the existing DWM tooling and necessitated some ingenuity on the part of DWM. In 1907 DWM submitted a very limited number of essentially hand-made caliber .45 Lugers to the U.S. Ordnance Trials. The caliber .45 Lugers performed reasonably well, but they still showed a tendency to jam and required a special German-manufactured propellant. Although placing third in the trials, DWM did not provide additional pistols for further testing. Following the 1906–1907 trials DWM abandoned its attempts to win a U.S. contract. Although the U.S. government officially rejected the Luger for military use, the pistol did enjoy moderate civilian sales. During the 1920s and 1930s most commercial Lugers were chambered for the caliber .30 Luger cartridge, and some World War I military 9mm pistols were also converted to that caliber for the civilian market. In the United States, the New York outfitting firms A. F. Stoeger and Abercrombie and Fitch marketed especially well-finished Lugers. For its part, Stoeger made the canny commercial move of actually copyrighting the Luger name for its products. The Los Angeles–based Ideal Holster Company also manufactured a limited number of special holster and shoulder stocks for use with commercial Lugers. The 7.65mm Model 1902 Carbine and Model 1920 Carbine were two of the more impressive civilian Lugers. Both were sold domestically and abroad and were fitted with rifletype sights and long (11.75-inch) barrels with woodfore ends. The attachment of a wood shoulder stock converted the pistol into a short carbine. The Treaty of Versailles, the peace treaty that ended World War I and set the stage for events that would lead to World War II, imposed dramatic arms restrictions on Germany. Small-arms production of all types declined in Germany after 1918. Between 1922 and 1932 the sporting arms manufacturer Waffenfabrik Simson and Company of Suhl assembled and reworked existing Lugers for the Weimar government for both military and police issue. These

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

post–World War I pistols exhibit a variety of markings—some were often undated or marked with an additional date to the prewar and World War I dates stamped into the top of the receiver. Simson also often omitted its company name on the pistols it assembled. The Mauser factory of Oberndorf am Neckar took up production in the mid-1930s. Despite the Nazi government’s adoption of the Walther P38, Mauser produced the P08 into 1942, and the Krieghoff firm continued to produce approximately 19,000 Lugers for the Luftwaffe (the German air arm) from 1935 into 1944, stamping the top of the toggle with the company’s anchor trademark. During World War I the Erfurt Arsenal marked the toggles of its Lugers with a crown and “ERFURT”; DWM stamped its toggles with it monogram “DWM” initials. Both factories stamped the date of manufacture on top of the breech. Soon after taking power in 1933, Adolf Hitler began to rearm Germany in violation of the Versailles Treaty. In an attempt to confuse Allied arms inspectors, German arms manufacturers thus initiated a system of identification codes. In 1934 Mauser, the primary manufacturer of German military Lugers after World War I, began stamping its toggles with the code S/42 and, after 1940, BYF. To further confuse the inspectors, Mauser also substituted the letter “K” for the 1934 date and “G” for 1935. The following year the Nazis were sufficiently confident to resume the practice of stamping the year of manufacture on the toggle. They did, however, continue the use of the manufacturer codes throughout the war. During World War II the German Army issued P08s primarily to noncommissioned officers; higher-ranking commissioned officers considered it more fashionable to holster smaller caliber 7.65mm and 9mm kurz pistols. Mauser also filled a number of minor foreign contracts for Lugers before World War II curtailed exports. These pistols were often stamped with the Mauser banner commercial markings. These contracts included orders from the Dutch Indies Army Air Force, the Royal Netherlands Navy, Turkey, Portugal, Persia, Latvia, and Sweden. Switzerland continued to manufacture Lugers at the Eidgenössische Waffenfabrik Bern. The Swiss designated their various models the Ordonnanzpistole 06; the simplified Ordonnanzpistole 06/24 was manufactured to reduce costs with plastic grips and was issued with two rather than three magazines. The final Swiss military Luger, the Ordonnanzpistole 06/29, remained in production until 1947 and was issued to officers and some noncommissioned officers. The Luger holster was a marvel of design and workmanship.

181

182

PISTOLS

World War I–issue military and, later, police holsters were usually dyed brown; Nazi military holsters were most often black. Except for a very few late World War II low-quality paper-laminate examples, most holsters were manufactured with thick, high-quality leather. The holster was not designed for fast access to the pistol but completely enclosed it, protecting it from any elements that could damage its delicate mechanism. A large flap covered the top of the holster and was secured by a strap-and-buckle arrangement. A small compartment on the internal surface of the flap contained a combination screwdriver/loading tool, and a compartment on the leading edge of the holster’s main body carried a spare magazine. As the pistol sat far down in the main body of the holster, a leather strap was provided that, when pulled, raised the pistol out of the holster far enough to grasp. The holster was attached to the belt with two straps sewn to its back. Despite being somewhat poorly balanced in its 4-inch barrel form, the Luger fits well in the hand and points naturally. It is, however, not without faults. Part of the safety and sear mechanism is exposed on the side of the pistol where it is vulnerable to mud, sand, and dirt. It was also expensive to manufacture and is temperamental if used with weak ammunition. Although mass-produced, most Lugers still exhibit an excellent finish and are handsome in appearance. The metal parts are treated with a deep blued finish, with the trigger, safety switch, and some smaller parts receiving a strawcolored heat treatment. The standard P08 has checkered walnut grips. It is 8.75 inches in overall length and weighs 1.93 pounds. When chambered for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge, it achieves a muzzle velocity of 1,050 feet per second (fps). Well over 2 million military Lugers in dozens of variations were produced from 1900 to 1943; thousands of civilian postwar models were also manufactured. Some Mauser-manufactured World War II–period Lugers, nicknamed Black Widows by collectors, were treated with a cheaper, darker finish and fitted with black plastic grips. One of the rarest of all is the so-called Baby Luger, of which no more than five were manufactured experimentally at DWM between 1925 and 1926. The brainchild of the company’s chief engineer, Heinrich Hoffman, about half of the Baby Lugers were chambered in 7.65mm (.32 ACP) with the others in 9mm kurz (.380 ACP). The Baby Luger was never put into production owing to Germany’s severe economic depression and the ready availability of cheaper pocket pistols.

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

Peter Paul Mauser and the Model 1896 Broomhandle In 1896 Peter Paul Mauser of the famous Mauser factory in Oberndorf am Neckar, Germany, introduced what was to be the Luger’s greatest early European rival. Invented by three brothers—Fidel, Friedrich, and Josef Feederle—of Mauser’s Experimental Workshop, the Model 1896 served Germany as a substitute standard sidearm during two world wars and saw wide use in other countries. Germany issued some 135,000 Model 1896s to its troops during World War I. China, Norway, Persia, Siam, Austria, Finland, Italy, Turkey, the French Gendarmerie, and Russia also signed contracts for various models. Civilian sales were also respectable, with betterfinished and engraved examples seeing use throughout the globe. In addition, Spanish companies such as Astra & Royal manufactured numerous copies of the Model 1896. The Spanish Broomhandles were often of excellent workmanship; although externally resembling the original Mausers, they were simplified for ease and economy of manufacture and were internally much different. China was by far the greatest user of Model 1896 pistols, with Nationalists, Communists, and various warlords acquiring them by the hundreds of thousands. Chinese government arsenals and small workshops churned out thousands more of widely varying quality. Many Chinese arsenal–manufactured weapons approach a high level of workmanship rivaling that of the original Mauser plant, whereas the products of some smaller shops are extremely crude. At least one naval arsenal also manufactured a limited number of Model 1896s chambered for the caliber .45 ACP cartridge. During its more than 40-year production run, Mauser advertised its self-loader in three basic models (Models 1896, 1930, and 1932), but the company’s continual modifications and improvements resulted in numerous submodels. Although Mauser officially marketed the pistol as the Model 1896 Military, it was also known as the Mauser Modell 1896 Selbstlader and, more popularly in Europe, as the Construktion-96 or C96. The distinctive shape of the pistol’s grip also prompted two nicknames. German troops soon named the new pistol the Kuhfusspistole (Cow Foot Pistol), whereas English-speaking soldiers dubbed it the Broomhandle. Regardless of the nickname used, Mauser manufactured more than 1 million C96s in dozens of variations between 1896 and the outbreak of World War II. Unlike the Luger, the magazine of the Model 1896 was located in front of the trigger guard. In its fixed magazine variations the

183

184

PISTOLS

Model 1896 was manufactured with six-, 10-, and 20-round capacities, while the removable magazine models were available in six-, 10-, 20-, and even 40-round capacities. A variety of barrel lengths were offered (including 3.9, 4.75, 5.2, and 5.5 inches), and both fixed and adjustable rear sights were available. Grips were typically of horizontally grooved walnut. One of the more famous variations is the Bolo, a shorter-gripped and -barreled weapon purportedly nicknamed for its popularity among the Bolsheviks during the Russian Revolution. The C96 is a recoil-operated, locked-breech pistol. Initial cocking is accomplished by pulling the bolt back, thus cocking the exposed hammer. Releasing the bolt and allowing its spring to carry it forward then forces a cartridge from the magazine and into the chamber. The majority of Model 1896 pistols have a 10-round fixed magazine forward of the trigger guard that is charged with stripper clips. Most C96 pistols are chambered for the bottlenecked caliber 7.63mm Mauser cartridge, based on the earlier, somewhat less powerful, caliber 7.65 Borchardt cartridge. During World War I a shortage of P08s forced the German military to order some 150,000 Broomhandles in caliber 9mm Parabellum, the official military pistol cartridge used in the Luger. These pistols are marked with a large red “9” carved into the grips to distinguish them from other calibers. A very small number were also produced for export in the larger caliber 9mm Mauser cartridge. The safeties underwent numerous improvements and were generally located on the rear of the upper frame to the left of the exposed hammer. Most World War I–issue pistols were fitted with the Neues Sicherung (New Safety) and were stamped with “NS” on the rear of the hammer. The New Safety could be applied only while the hammer was in the cocked position. The Universal Safety appeared with the Model 1930 and allowed the hammer to drop safely on a loaded chamber. The C96 also introduced a hold-open device by which the bolt remained in the open position upon emptying the magazine. This was an important feature in a combat weapon in that a soldier was instantly alerted that his pistol is empty and the pistol could be more quickly reloaded with the bolt in the rear position. The most common C96 as issued to the German Army is the socalled Model 1912. It has a 5.5-inch barrel and a 10-round magazine. Most are fitted with a tangent leaf sight optimistically marked to 1,000 meters. The Model 1912 weighs just shy of 3 pounds and, in 7.63mm, achieves a respectable velocity of 1,575 fps. A detach-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

able, combination wood shoulder stock/holster was also provided to convert the C96 into a carbine, adding to the weapon’s stability and thus to its accuracy. The Model 1896 shoulder stock differed from the Luger’s in that it was hollow with a hinged butt that permitted the entire pistol to fit inside. A leather harness arrangement allows for carrying over the shoulder. The caliber 7.63mm Model 1932, known commercially as the 712, was among Mauser’s last offerings in this popular series. The Model 1932 was a selective-fire weapon capable of both semiautomatic and automatic fire and was thus a true machine pistol. It was often referred to as the Schnellfeuer (Quick Fire) for this reason. A switch on the left side of the receiver allowed the user to select the firing mode. Owing to its heavy recoil, the Model 1932 was a difficult weapon to control in its full-automatic mode, but it nevertheless remained popular with front-line troops. The Model 1932 accepted 10- and 20-round detachable magazines and was reportedly a favorite among SS units during World War II. The Model 1896 has a number of faults. It is large and unwieldy, does not lend itself naturally to aiming, and, with the relatively light, high-velocity bullet of the 7.63mm cartridge, provides questionable stopping power. It was also expensive and complicated to manufacture and is prone to malfunction. Field-stripping the Broomhandle is also somewhat difficult, especially under combat conditions. Despite these drawbacks, the internal workings of the C96 are a true marvel of engineering: All of its components ingeniously lock together in such a way that the only screw needed in its construction secures the two grip panels. Still, few other pistols approach the Model 1896 for its legendary associations with historic events or its overtly lethal appearance. It could still be found on battlegrounds more than a century after its introduction. One of Mauser’s first clients was a young Briton named Winston Churchill, then a subaltern in the 21st Lancers. Churchill was reported to have used a Model 1896—a gift from his mother—during the 2 September 1898 Battle of Omdurman in the Sudan and later as a war correspondent during the Boer War. As late as 1977 the Model 1896 appeared in one of its more unlikely venues—the George Lucas movie Star Wars. Two main characters— Luke Skywalker and Han Solo—were equipped with Model 1896s only slightly modified by the studio’s prop department to resemble rayguns with which they fired animated blasts of energy against their enemies.

185

186

PISTOLS

Mauser Model 1910, Model 1914, and WTP Mauser’s designers also turned their talents to smaller blowback designs with magazines housed within the grips. Although intended for the civilian market, a number of these pistols saw limited police and military use through private purchases. U.S. officers also used all these pistols on a limited scale during World War I and World War II. Following a number of experiments, Mauser introduced the Model 1910, chambered for the 6.35mm Browning (.25 ACP) cartridge, and followed it with the 7.65 Browning (.32 ACP) Model 1914. The even more diminutive 6.35mm Westentaschenpistol (Vest Pocket Pistol; WTP) followed in 1918. Nearly 100,000 WTPs were manufactured in two models before production ceased in 1939.

Mauser Model 1934 Although Mauser’s pocket pistols were well-made and reliable, they paled in style when compared to the more modern-looking products marketed by Carl Walther of Zella-Mehlis in Thuringia. Mauser responded to dipping sales with the Model 1934, essentially a revamped Model 1914. The Model 1934 became a popular sidearm among German navy and army officers and police. However, it still retained a clunky appearance when compared to streamlined classics such as Walther’s Model PP and Model PPK. Mauser finally answered the Walther challenge with the even more modernistic Hahn Selbstspanner (Self-Cocking Hammer; HSc). The HSc followed two earlier prototypes—the HSa and the HSb—and was designed by Alex Seidel and his staff.

Mauser Model HSc The HSc is a wonderfully streamlined and compact weapon chambered primarily for the 7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge, with a limited number accepting the 9mm kurz (.380 ACP) round. Disassembly is simple and accomplished by pressing a small catch on the front inner surface of the trigger guard. A number of improvements make it one of the safest pistols to carry, and an abbreviated yet accessible hammer spur allowed easy thumb-cocking for a second chance in the case of a defective primer. Some 250,000 HScs were manufac-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

tured between its introduction in about 1940 and the end of World War II. It was a popular sidearm among Nazi forces in all branches of service. Following the war Mauser continued marketing the HSc and would supply the French government with another 20,000 pistols. Following the war, Alex Seidel became a cofounder of the new firm Heckler & Koch and reintroduced the HSc as the HK 4 (Ezell 1981: 409). The HK 4 was manufactured with a stamped steel rather than the earlier machined steel slide, an innovation Seidel explored during World War II as a wartime expedient.

Theodor Bergmann and the Model 1893 Although the Luger and Mauser dominated the field of early European semiautomatic pistol development and sales, they did face competition. The prolific German inventor Theodor Bergmann, famous for his machine guns and submachine guns, also collaborated with Louis Schmeisser to invent a number of important semiautomatic pistol designs. Bergmann and Schmeisser’s first semiautomatic was the Model 1893, a retarded blowback–operated weapon. The Model 1893’s magazine was located in front of the trigger guard and was charged with preloaded clips through a loading door pivoted to the right side of the pistol. The Model 1893 was, as were nearly all of Bergmann’s designs, decidedly awkward in appearance and handling characteristics.

Bergmann Models 1894, 1896, and 1897 Bergmann and Schmeisser continually refined the basic model over the next years, producing the Models 1894, 1896, and 1897, and offered the pistols with various types of holster/shoulder stock attachments. They also experimented with cartridge designs. In 1894 they introduced the No. 2 (5mm), No. 3 (6.5mm), and No. 4 (8mm) cartridges. These cartridges were made without rims or extractor grooves, and thus the pistols were manufactured without extractors. Bergmann and Schmeisser theorized that the cartridges’ sharply tapered cases would allow the gases of their ignition to eject the spent cases without the need for a mechanical extractor. Trials eventually proved the cartridges too weak for military use and the theory impractical in fouled weapons. The pair attempted to create a more powerful combination with the Model 1897 and its larger bottle-

187

188

PISTOLS

necked 7.8mm Bergmann cartridge, but sales proved dismal. Still, Bergmann persisted in seeking contracts and fabricated a special 10mm model for British trials, but it failed to impress that country’s ordnance officials.

Bergmann Simplex Bergmann and Schmeisser next introduced a pocket pistol that became known as the Bergmann Simplex semiautomatic pistol. Bergmann eventually sold the Simplex’s manufacturing rights to a Belgian concern that manufactured some 4,000 units. The Simplex became particularly popular in Spain, where local gunsmiths manufactured thousands of unauthorized copies. With its forward magazine and exposed hammer, the Simplex bore a superficial resemblance to the earlier Mauser Model 1896. The Simplex was, however, underpowered, unattractive, and, owing to the many lowquality copies, reputedly unreliable. Sales were predictably poor.

Bergmann-Bayard/Bergmann-Mars Bergmann entered the military market in 1903 with an improved recoil-operated, locked-breech pistol chambered for the potent 9mm No. 6 Bergmann-Bayard (9mm Largo) cartridge. The new pistol was alternately called the Bergmann-Mars or the Model No. 6 or 6a. The magazine was again located in front of the trigger guard and was commonly of a six-round capacity, although a 10-shot model was available. In 1905 Spain placed the first order for the new pistol, designating it the Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo 1905, but production was interrupted until Bergmann contracted with the Herstal, Belgium, firm Société Anonyme Anciens Establissement Pieper (AEP) to manufacture it in 1907. AEP then added a number of modifications suggested by the Spanish military, and production of the pistol, redesignated the Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo 1908, resumed. AEP’s most noticeable improvement was the addition of cutouts in the magazine well, which allowed for easier removal and replacement of magazines. In addition, Pieper also offered the Model 1908 with several varieties of a wood and leather shoulder stock/holster similar to the Mauser Model 1896 arrangement. In 1911 the Danish Army began the process of phasing out its old Gasser revolvers and adopted the Bergmann as the Danish Model

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

1910. Denmark purchased 4,840 Model 1910s, and in 1913, following the Second Balkan War, Greece placed an additional order. Having manufactured about 20,000 pistols, Belgium’s manufacture of the Bergmann-Bayard ceased with the country’s fall to the Germans in World War I. Danish designers later contributed a number of minor improvements to the basic design, including the replacement of the deteriorating AEP synthetic grips with more stable wood panels. In 1922 the Danish Army Manufacturing Arsenal and the Army Storage Arsenal began production of what was designated the Model 1910/21 Pistol. The arsenals produced some 2,204 Model 1910/21s and, between 1922 and 1935, updated the earlier Model 1910s to the new specifications. The Model 1910/21 is an extremely wellmade weapon and chambered one of the most powerful handgun cartridges of its day. It compares well with the Mauser Model 1896, with which it shares a marked resemblance and, with its detachable magazine, holds certain advantages over it. Still, by the 1930s its expensive manufacturing requirements, ungainly handling characteristics, and weight (2.25 pounds) marked the Model 1910/21 as obsolete in the face of a new generation of semiautomatics.

Carl Walther The Carl Walther Waffenfabrik of Zella Mehlis in Thuringia, Germany, introduced its first pistol in 1908 and over the ensuing three decades rose to become that country’s dominant semiautomatic handgun manufacturer. Carl Walther (1860–1915) founded the company in 1886 to produce hunting and target arms. His sons, Fritz, Georg, and Eric, entered the family business at the turn of the century, and the company’s focus soon turned to pistol production. Walther initially manufactured a series of small pistols, essentially pocket pistols, numerically designated Models 1 through 9, before debuting the famous models PP and PPK and ultimately the P38, the standard German World War II sidearm. The company survived World War II. The West German Army (the Bundeswehr) adopted the P38 as the P1.

Walther Model 1 and Model 2 Walther’s first pistol, the Model 1, was a diminutive 6.35mm blowback design that was quickly followed by the Model 2. The Model 1

189

190

PISTOLS

was manufactured with an open-top slide, its recoil spring is located under the barrel, and an internal striker fires it. The Model 2 entered the market in 1909 and shared its predecessor’s caliber but differed thanks to a number of improvements. These include its recoil spring that coils around the barrel and an enclosed slide, both retained by a screw-on barrel bushing at the muzzle. It also replaced the Model 1’s striker mechanism with an internal hammer and featured a combination loaded chamber/rear-sight mechanism that pops up into position when a cartridge enters the chamber.

Walther Model 3, Model 4, and Model 5 In 1910 Walther enlarged the Model 2 design to create the 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Models 3 and 4. Other than size and caliber, the major differences between the Model 2 and 3 are the switch from a screwon barrel bushing to an end cap secured by a bayonet-type lock and the placing of the ejection port from the right to the left of the slide. The latter change, although welcomed by left-handed shooters, was inconvenient to right-handed shooters in that the casings were now ejected in front of their face. The Model 4, in turn, was based on the Model 3 but was designed as a holster pistol for military and police use. It was thus made with a longer grip to accommodate the larger eight-round rather than six-round magazine. The Model 4 incorporated the same slide as the Model 3 but was fitted with a longer barrel secured with a necessarily longer bushing. Both pistols were equipped with a safety mounted on the left rear of the frame that locked the hammer. Despite its left-handed ejection, the Model 4 is, as typical of Walther’s products, reliable and well-finished, usually blued with checkered black-plastic grips. During World War I German officers bought large numbers of Walthers as personal weapons, and the government contracted for some 250,000 Model 4s in 1915. Finland also issued the Model 4 to prison and police personnel during World War II. The success of the Models 1 through 4 allowed Walther to continue expanding its operations, and in 1913 the company brought out an improved 6.35mm (.25 ACP) Model 2, designated the Model 5, followed in 1915 by the Model 6.

Walther Model 6 The Model 6 (Selbstlade Pistole Kal 9mm Walther’s Patent) proved

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

to be the company’s single major failure. By 1915 the expanding German military’s demand for handguns required emergency measures, and the Model 6 was developed solely as a wartime expedient for issue to the army. Pressed for time, Walther engineers simply turned to the already proven Model 4 and enlarged and strengthened it to accommodate the German 9mm Parabellum service cartridge. The Model 6 marked Walther’s return to placing the ejection port on the right side of the weapon, but the powerful Parabellum cartridge proved too much for the Model 4’s blowback design. Production ceased in 1917.

Walther Model 7, Model 8, and Model 9 The Model 7 appeared in 1916 and was a 6.35mm (.25 ACP) version of the Model 6. It was designed for the refined tastes of higherranking staff officers and, as a small-caliber weapon, was much more successful than its predecessor. However, its production ended at the end of World War I. Following the Armistice, all weapon production ceased at Walther and other German armaments firms pursuant to the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Production at Walther resumed in 1920 under the restrictions of the treaty, with two excellent civilian small-caliber pistols, the Model 8 of that year and the Model 9 of 1921. The Model 8 was a 6.35mm (.25 ACP) weapon fed by an eight-round magazine and was produced until 1943. With the Model 8 Walther introduced an innovative takedown system that the firm retained in its subsequent smaller-caliber pistols. The mechanism consists of a hinged trigger guard that, upon pulling down on the forward end, releases the slide and barrel. These components can then easily be pulled back to disengage the frame and then be pulled forward off the pistol. The 6.35mm (.25 ACP) Model 9 was a tiny vest-pocket pistol fired by a striker mechanism that also acted as a cocked indicator.

Walther Model PP Fritz Walther, Carl’s son, instantly set new standards for semiautomatic handgun design when he introduced the Polizei Pistole (Model PP) in 1929. As its name suggests, the Model PP was intended primarily as a police holster pistol, but it also saw extensive civilian and military use throughout the world. At 6.8 inches in overall length and with a 3.9-inch barrel, it is compact and weighs just

191

192

PISTOLS

1.5 pounds. The Model PP was initially chambered for the 7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge, the favored loading for European police forces. Other calibers followed soon after, including .22 Long Rifle, 6.35mm (.25 ACP), and 9mm kurz (.380 ACP). Walther ceased production of .22 Model PPs in 1935, thus making the small-caliber weapons the rarest of the series (the 7.65mm models are the most common). The Model PP did much to establish the 7.65mm semiautomatic as the favored sidearm of continental police organizations. In contrast, U.S. lawmen—possibly owing to their perceived Wild West heritage—remained loyal to large-caliber six-shooters into the late twentieth century. The Model PP owes much to the Model 8, including the fixed barrel, coiled recoil spring wrapped around the barrel, and hinged trigger guard takedown mechanism. However, it signaled a new generation of semiautomatics in its double-action capability, advanced safety features, and overall sleek, modern styling. A limited number were also apparently manufactured with lightweight alloy frames. Walther heralded the Model PP as one of the safest pistols to carry; The combination of the Model PP’s thumb-activated safety and double-action allows it to be carried safely with a loaded chamber. Shifting the pistol’s safety to its safe position also blocks the firing pin, allowing the hammer to harmlessly fall on a loaded chamber. With the safety off, either thumbing back the exposed hammer in singleaction mode or simply pulling the trigger for double-action firing can then discharge the pistol. Proponents praised the Model PP’s double-action capability for its safety, speed of action, and ability to provide a second chance in the event of a defective cartridge primer. The Model PP is also fitted with a small pin that protrudes from the slide above the hammer that acts as a loaded-chamber indicator. The pin, pushed backward by the base of a loaded cartridge, visually confirms a loaded chamber or can be felt by the thumb in the dark. The standard caliber 7.65mm Model PP is charged with an eight-round box magazine that is released by a button on the left of the frame behind the trigger guard. Walther manufactured some 200,000 Model PPs during World War II, and it was a favored sidearm among German officers, police units, and Nazi officials. Early Model PPs were finished in a highluster blue and bore the company’s full logo and address on their slides. As World War II progressed the pistols continued to be manufactured to the highest mechanical standards but declined cosmetically, with later pistols exhibiting machine-tool marks and a gray

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

phosphate finish. Some later pistols were also manufactured without the loaded indicator pin. Army-issue pistols fo the Nazis were stamped with a small eagle and swastika over the number “356” to indicate the Walther factory; some late pistols are marked with the Walther “AC” Nazi identification code. The Model PP proved such a success that a number of variations have appeared since its introduction. These include the caliber 7.65mm Hungarian Pistol Model 48, manufactured after World War II by Femaru es Szerszamgepgyar NV primarily as a police weapon. The Model 48 differs from the Model PP in its slightly longer length (.75 inches longer) and the placement of the loaded-chamber indicator over the chamber rather than above the hammer. Turkey also manufactured a caliber 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Model PP, the Kirikkale, for its armed forces after World War II at Makina ve Kimya Endustrisi Kurumu.

Walther Model PPK In 1931–1932 Walther followed the Model PP with the smaller Model PPK. Although some sources claimed that the “K” in the pistol’s designation refers to kurtz (German for “short,” as in Police Pistol Short), most favor kriminal as the more correct choice. The designation Polizei Pistole Kriminal thus indicates the pistol’s intended use by the Kripo or Kriminal Polizei, the detective branch of the German police. At 6.1 inches in overall length and 1.25 pounds, the Model PPK was essentially a smaller Model PP with a shorter grip and slide and a 3.4-inch barrel. It was offered in the same calibers as its larger predecessor. Walther also eliminated the Model PP’s metal back strap and instead manufactured the Model PPK with a comfortable one-piece wraparound plastic grip. Owing to the PPK’s shortened grip, its magazine accepted seven cartridges rather than the Model PP’s eight. The shorter grip also necessitated the addition of a plastic extension to the magazine base for the shooter’s little finger—a feature found on some Model PPs. Walther manufactured approximately 150,000 Model PPKs during the Nazi era. The small pistol became a favored sidearm of the civilian police and the notorious Gestapo—the Nazi secret police. High-ranking Nazi officials and military officers also considered smaller sidearms more prestigious than the larger service pistols and purchased numbers of engraved Model PPKs as personal status symbols. Some PPKs manufactured for Nazi Party officials were em-

193

194

PISTOLS

bellished with special grips molded with the Nazi eagle and swastika motif or party insignia stamped on their slides. The Model PPK played a role in hastening the end of World War II when, on 30 April 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide with his engraved, gold-plated model in his bunker in Berlin as Russian troops closed in. The pistol later soared in popularity after it was featured prominently as the sidearm of Ian Fleming’s fictional James Bond.

Walther Model P38 Walther’s growing success in the late 1920s and early 1930s coincided with the rise of the Nazi Party and Germany’s rapid remilitarization. In defiance of the restrictions imposed by the Versailles Treaty, the German military aggressively sought to modernize its arsenal and began to reassess the weapons then in use. It soon became apparent that its standard P08 Lugers were overly complicated for efficient manufacture and needed to be replaced by a more modern pistol that could be produced more rapidly with less machining time. Mauser attempted to develop a prototype to replace the Luger, but Walther firmly dominated German pistol development and ultimately won the competition to design the German military’s new standard pistol: the Model P38. The firm’s greatest obstacle in designing a new pistol lay in the necessity of chambering it for the powerful 9mm Parabellum German service cartridge. Walther initially repeated its earlier mistake with its World War I Model 6 in that it simply enlarged an existing blowback design—in this case the Model PP—to accept the 9mm Parabellum cartridge. At 8 inches in overall length with a 5-inch barrel, the new pistol, the Militärische Pistole (Model MP) shared the Model PP’s sleek lines and had fine handling characteristics. Predictably, however, its inherently weak mechanism failed under the pressures generated by the 9mm Parabellum, and Walther was forced to abandon the project. In 1935 a design team consisting of Fritz, Eric, and Georg Walther and Fritz Barthlemens began work on a new pistol specifically engineered to accommodate high-pressure military cartridges (Ezell 1981: 425). Their combined talents at last culminated in 1937 with a prototype of a strikingly new design Walther christened the Armee Pistole (Model AP). The Model AP retained the doubleaction capability of Walther’s earlier pistols but abandoned the fixed-barrel blowback design in favor of an innovative recoil-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

operated locking mechanism. Rather than being rigidly fixed to the frame, the barrel assembly of the Model AP was a separate component that rode within grooves cut into the slide that, in turn, followed tracks in the frame. The key to the mechanism was a pivoting block that was positioned under the barrel assembly and locked it to the slide when the action was closed. The force of the cartridge’s ignition forced the locked barrel and slide backward to a point where the locking block disengaged and allowed the slide to continue on its own in its rearward movement. This movement ejected the spent cartridge case and cocked the weapon’s internal hammer. The return movement of the slide stripped a new cartridge from the magazine and was aided by two small recoil springs located within either side of the frame. German ordnance officers found only one significant fault with the Model AP: its lack of an external hammer. The army had come to the conclusion that an exposed hammer held the twin advantages of allowing the pistol to be thumb-cocked for single-action shooting and indicated the pistol’s cocked status. The army’s comments prompted Walther to discontinue the short-lived Model AP and rework its basic design to provide the exposed hammer. The result of these final modifications was known as the Heeres Pistole (Service Pistol; Model HP), indicating its intended use by the military. Walther fabricated a small number of experimental models in calibers 7.65mm Parabellum (.30 Luger), Super .38, and even .45 ACP. The standard Model HP was, however, chambered for the 9mm Parabellum as specified by the German military. Although somewhat light at the muzzle, the Model HP handled well and proved accurate and reliable. It was 8.6 inches in overall length with a 4.9-inch barrel and weighed 2.1 pounds. The metal finish was a high-quality blue, and the pistol was fitted with checkered walnut or plastic grips. It was fed by an eight-round box magazine released by a catch at the base of the grip. Muzzle velocity was slightly higher than the P08 at 1,115 fps. Walther offered the Model HP to the civilian and international military markets and submitted it to the German military for final trials. After Walther added further minor changes to the safety, firing pin, and extractor, Germany at last adopted the new pistol as the Model P38. For its part, the Model HP lived on into 1944 on a limited scale as Walther continued to manufacture the pistol as a high-quality civilian alternative to the P38. Sweden also adopted the pistol as its P39, but with the advent of World War II exports ceased abruptly, with only some 1,500 pistols being delivered.

195

196

PISTOLS

Walther designed the P38 to be manufactured with a strict economy of time and machine tooling, utilizing as many stamped (rather than machined) steel components as possible. Although the P38 incorporated slightly more parts, it could thus be manufactured in half the time of the P08 with half of the machines of the older pistol. The P38 also required less-skilled workers on its production lines—a considerable advantage during wartime. The manufacturing innovations alone mark the P38 as a much more modern weapon than the vast majority of its contemporaries. Although many production records were destroyed during the war, reliable estimates hold that something over 1 million P38s were manufactured during World War II for military and police use. Walther began manufacturing the P38 in 1939. Unlike the checkered walnut grips of the Model HP, most wartime P38s were fitted with horizontally grooved brown composition or black plastic grips. The left side of the slides of early pistols was stamped with the Walther commercial banner trademark “P38” and the pistol’s serial number. The German Heereswaffenamt (Service Arms Office), however, had previously initiated a coding system for its various arms manufacturers. The purpose of this system at first was to confuse Versailles Treaty inspectors and, later, Allied intelligence agents. Walther thus replaced its trademark in 1940 with the code “480” and later in the year switched to the code “AC,” the code it maintained until 1945, when the code changed to “SVW.” Dates of manufacture were indicated by the last two digits of the year. The small Heereswaffenamt inspector proof, consisting of an eagle and swastika over the number “359,” was also applied to various parts of Walther-manufactured pistols. As World War II intensified, the Nazi war machine’s demand for Model P38s outstripped Walther’s manufacturing capabilities. The situation soon prompted the Heereswaffenamt to press other firms to manufacture complete pistols as well as various components. Mauser phased out its production of the P08 to begin producing the P38 in late 1941 and was joined in spring 1943 by Spreewerk Gmbh of Berlin. The Heereswaffenamt inspection proof for Mauser was the eagle and swastika over “135.” The slides of Mauser manufactured P38s were stamped “P38,” with the serial number, the company’s wartime “BYF” code, and the last two numbers of the date of manufacture. In 1945 Mauser’s code changed to “SVW.” Spreewerk pistols were undated but were stamped with that company’s “CYQ” code, a serial number, and the eagle and swastika over various “88,” “706,” and “359” Heereswaffenamt proofs. At some point late in the

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

war Spreewerk’s code-stamping die was damaged, and many later pistols by the company appear to be stamped “CYA.” As with other types of German pistols, P38s intended for police use were stamped with a small eagle over the “F” proof mark. The Heereswaffenamt also farmed out the manufacture of various P38 parts to domestic and captured arms facilities for assembly at main production centers. These included slides and frames by the Fabrique Nationale (FN) plant in Belgium and barrels by Böhmische Waffenfabrik of Prague. Another Czech firm, Erste Nordböhmische Waffenfabrik, manufactured large numbers of magazines stamped with the “JVD” code. Spreewerk pistols were markedly cruder than their Walther and Mauser counterparts, in large part owing to the use by that company of slave labor. For the most part they were serviceable, although numbers of defective weapons did leave the factory—either the products of incompetent workmanship or possible sabotage by the forced workers. The vast majority of wartime Walther and Mauser P38s were mechanically excellent, but their external finish deteriorated to varying degrees as the war progressed. Early-war pistols were finished in a military dull blue over relatively well-polished metal. Later pistols exhibit noticeable machine-tooling marks on their outer surfaces and a thinner blued finish. As the war entered its final months Mauser began to use a cheaper and more durable matte-gray phosphate finish. Sometimes known as Gray Ghosts for their coloring, Mauser’s later, phosphate-finished “SVW” pistols were often fitted with metal ersatz grips rather than the usual brown composition or black plastic panels. Late war pistols were also often assembled with mixed parts of both blue and phosphate finishes. The quality of P38 holsters also reflected Germany’s declining wartime fortunes. Early holsters completely enclosed the pistol and were of high-quality, heavy, molded black leather similar to the P08. These were followed by a more typical break-open style that was easier to manufacture and allows faster access to the pistol. A small number of paper composition holsters appeared very late in the war, revealing the desperate, although ingenious, measures forced upon the Reich’s armaments industry. The typical Nazi P38 holster was stamped with its manufacturer’s code and the eagle and swastika Heereswaffenamt proof and was fitted with a slot for a spare magazine. The heavy fighting at the end of World War II wrecked the P38 manufacturing centers yet did not end the pistol’s production. The Walther factory was initially occupied by U.S. forces but was soon

197

198

PISTOLS

turned over to the Soviets, who stripped the factory of most of its machinery. French forces occupied the Mauser factory long enough to assemble a number of types of weapons manufactured there. French-assembled P38s were put together from parts left over at the war’s end and bear a five-pointed star proof stamp. They were also typically phosphate-finished with either black plastic or steel grips and retain the Nazi “SVW” slide markings and “45” date. Those pistols assembled the next year were stamped “46.” The site of the Mauser factory eventually became part of the Soviet occupation zone, and its moveable machinery, as was Spreewerk’s, was removed by the Russians and shipped east. Numbers of the French-assembled P38s saw service in that country’s actions in Southeast Asia and Algeria.

J.P. Sauer & Sohn During the late 1800s the firm J.P. Sauer & Sohn of Ulm built a considerable reputation for high-grade sporting arms and its production of Reichsrevolvers. At the turn of the century the firm formed a brief association with Georg Roth to produce a semiautomatic pistol, the Roth-Sauer, before introducing its own semiautomatic, the Sauer Model 1913. The 7.65mm Model 1913 was a blowback-operated pistol with a fixed barrel and saw limited use as a privately purchased officers’ pistol during World War I.

Sauer Behörden Model In 1930 Sauer improved the Model 1913 and reintroduced it as the Behörden (Official) Modell, indicating its intended use by police and military forces. The Behörden Modell saw some police use during the 1930s and 1940s, as well as use by army staff officers during World War II. It was discontinued in 1937. The Behörden Modell utilized a tubular slide with a knurled cocking knob at the rear and loaded indicator pin similar to those used by Walther. It also featured an additional safety in the form of an elongated button on the face of the trigger. The trigger safety prevented the pistol from firing unless the trigger was deliberately pulled. The Behörden Modell was typically blued with black plastic checkered grips molded with the company’s trademark.

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

Sauer Model 38H In 1938 Sauer introduced the blowback-operated 7.65mm Model 38H, one of the most advanced pistols of the World War II era. Although Sauer’s earlier pistols were well-designed and of the highest quality of manufacture, the Model 38H set new standards for modern semiautomatic pistols. The “H” in the pistol’s designation indicates that it is fired by means of an internal hammer rather than striker. Although the use of an internal hammer was by no means a new feature, it was fitted with a unique cocking and decocking lever on the left side of the frame. Pressing down on the lever safely dropped the hammer on a loaded chamber, whereas pressing up cocked the pistol. The pistol thus possessed both single- and doubleaction firing capabilities. The Model 38H was also fitted with a magazine safety and safety lever on the left side of the slide and a loaded indicator pin. A small button on the frame behind the trigger released the eight-round magazine. Although Sauer eliminated the slide safety and company name on late-war Model 38Hs, the pistols remained mechanically excellent. The typical Model 38H was blued and fitted with black plastic checkered grips with the “SUS” monogram. Slides were stamped “J.P. SAUER & SOHN CAL 7,65.” Sauer provided some 200,000 of these superb pistols to the Nazi police and military during the war, yet the company inexplicably failed to reissue the pistol during the postwar years.

Volkspistole In 1944 and 1945 Nazi Germany’s declining fortunes necessitated the formation of the Volkssturm (People’s Army), composed of men too old, young, or infirm to serve in the traditional armed services. The Nazi military intended the Volkssturm as a rearguard or even as disposable buffer troops to protect its better-trained front-line troops in desperate situations. To arm the Volkssturm, the government set up a program to develop and manufacture appropriate and equally disposable weapons—the Volksgewehr (People’s Rifle) and the Volkspistole (People’s Pistol). Although cheaply made, Volkssturm weapons exhibited considerable ingenuity in design. The Volksgewehr program saw limited success in that a small number of rifles were manufactured and saw some degree of combat, whereas

199

200

PISTOLS

the Volkspistole project produced only a few prototypes before the war’s end. Although the Volkspistole never achieved production, its various designers did explore new techniques and concepts that were put into practice following the war and helped set the stage for a new generation of handguns. Most records and prototypes were destroyed with Nazi Germany’s fall, but apparently three firms were involved in the project: Walther, Mauser, and Gustloff Werk of Suhl. The main criteria set by the government were that the pistol could be assembled by minimally skilled workers, was to be chambered for the standard 9mm Parabellum service cartridge, and that its construction consist of as little high-quality materials as possible. As in the case of the American Liberator, the Volkspistole was fabricated primarily with stamped, brazed, and welded sheet metal. Although the designers explored blowback, locked-breech, and gas-operating systems, their lasting contribution lay in the use of more easily and economically fabricated materials and holding expensively machined components to a minimum.

UNITED STATES John Browning A uniquely American figure, John Moses Browning was the most versatile and prolific firearms genius in history. He was born in 1855 near the frontier in Ogden, Utah, the first child of his Mormon father Jonathan’s second wife. As a youth, John Browning followed in his gunsmith father’s footsteps and, while still in his teens, produced his first firearm, a breech-loading, dropping-block rifle. After their father’s death, Browning and his brother, Matthew Sandefur Browning, continued the family business, eventually renaming it J. M. Browning & Brother. John continued in his role as the inventive heart of the company, with the more commercially astute Matthew handling the partnership’s business affairs. The unions between their father and his three wives provided additional manpower in half-brothers Sam, George, and Ed. John Browning’s skill alone was sufficient to earn him a reputation as one of the finest frontier gunsmiths. Yet it was the business acumen of Matthew that helped propel him to international prominence. Matthew was instrumental in convincing John to abandon

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

the typical frontier gunsmiths’ concentration on the production of custom-made weapons and repairs. Using equipment their father had laboriously hauled by wagon from Council Bluffs, Iowa, the brothers set up a workshop for John. There he experimented with new designs and, with the assistance of his brothers, began a production line to manufacture a new rifle. The brothers quietly patented John’s dropping-block design and manufactured 600 rifles on their makeshift assembly line. Rather than sell the rifles immediately, the Brownings stockpiled them and thus built up an economic base from which to compete with the established firearms firms in the Northeast. The Brownings’ activities soon attracted the attention of T. G. Bennett, vice president of the Winchester Repeating Firearms Company. Bennett, who also served as general manager of Winchester, saw the potential for competition or for profit from the brothers’ efforts. Choosing the latter route, in 1883 he traveled to Ogden and bought the patent rights to Browning’s rifle design, plus their total inventory of the 600 rifles. The Brownings then wasted no time in reinvesting the proceeds of the transaction into expanding their hunting and fishing supply store in Ogden and refitting John’s workshop on the building’s second floor. Browning’s genius did not lie in inventing totally new systems of firearms operation but in perfecting the basic ideas of others—a talent for which he had no peers. He followed up his initial success by patenting a succession of brilliant designs for lever and pump-action rifles and shotguns that were then manufactured by Winchester. Some years later, however, he severed the relationship over what he perceived as a combination of shortsightedness and fast dealing by Winchester concerning an automatic shotgun design. In an exhibition of his sometimes prickly nature, he then sold the manufacturing rights to the shotgun to Winchester’s chief rival, Remington. Browning did not limit his interests to civilian arms. In 1889 he began experiments in self-loading designs that eventually led to a series of heavy, medium, and light machine guns as well as the famous Browning Automatic Rifle, more popularly known as the BAR. During this period he also fabricated his first self-loading pistol, a caliber .38 weapon with a gas-operated mechanism that evolved from his work with semiautomatic rifles. Its gas system relied on tapping the propulsive gas behind the bullet as it passed by a hole in the barrel and redirecting it rearward to automatically reload and cock the pistol. The pistol worked but was impractical—the large gas piston assembly bucked upward into the line of sight with each shot and made the pistol difficult to aim and control.

201

202

PISTOLS

Browning nevertheless demonstrated his prototype pistol in early July 1895 for Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company’s vice president, John H. Hall, and the company’s chief designer, Carl J. Ehbets. More meetings followed, with Browning producing three more designs for the company’s consideration. Ehbets, too, had been experimenting with self-loading designs, but Browning’s designs seemed to hold more promise. On 24 July 1896 Browning and Hall formally agreed that Colt would develop, manufacture, and distribute Browning’s designs in the United States. To his credit, Ehbets did not seem to resent that Browning’s designs were chosen over his own for development by Colt. The two men became close collaborators, and Ehbets contributed greatly to perfecting Browning’s patents. Both Browning and Ehbets remained friends until their deaths the same year, 1926. Having struck agreements with such domestic arms giants as Winchester and Colt, Browning next turned to Europe for what he considered even more equitable and profitable opportunities. John Browning maintained two parallel careers by continually dividing his time between the Belgian Fabrique Nationale plant and the Colt factory in the United States. He was thus positioned to set the standards for handgun design on both continents and, through the two factories’ extensive exports, the world. German forces occupied the FN plant on 16 August 1914 following their invasion of Belgium. This prompted Browning to remain in the United States during World War I. During his absence the factory’s directorgeneral, Alfred Andri, shut down all arms production and refused to collaborate with the German invaders. He was subsequently imprisoned for his patriotic stand. Still, despite his absence, Browning’s influence was so great that “Browning” became synonymous with “semiautomatic pistol” on the continent. Browning’s association with the Colt factory at Hartford began with the essentially experimental Colt Model 1900. Colt produced only some 3,500, the majority being sold commercially, with about 200 going to the Navy and 275 to the Army for trial purposes. The Model 1900 chambers the caliber .38 rimless smokeless cartridge and is loaded with a seven-round detachable box magazine. Grips were available in plain or checkered walnut panels or hard rubber. The finish was blue with a casehardened combination hammer safety and rear-sight device. The 6-inch barrel was attached to the slide with corresponding grooves and lugs. These disengaged during the rearward movement of the action, allowing the barrel, attached to the frame by a swiveling link assembly, to continue back to eject

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

the spent casing, cock the exposed hammer, and strip a new cartridge from the magazine. The Model 1900 was, as were subsequent large Colt Browning designs, a single-action pistol that required pulling the slide to the rear or cocking the hammer with the thumb before firing. Although a good start, the Model 1900 did exhibit a number of faults. It was relatively heavy with an unloaded weight of 36 ounces (more than 2 pounds), and its long barrel and correspondingly heavy slide made it unwieldy to aim. The rear sight was also inadequate, as it was integral to the hammer safety catch—an awkward arrangement that Colt corrected within a year by removing the safety and installing a more sturdy sight. Colt and Browning addressed still more of the Model 1900’s faults with the Model 1902 Sporting Automatic version of the pistol. Colt manufactured the Model 1902 Sporting Automatic until 1908, and it differed little from the Model 1900 outwardly other than it was fitted with checkered hard-rubber grips emblazoned with “COLT” and the company’s rampant colt trademark. Early pistols were cut with serrations on the front of the slide to provide a grip for pulling back the slide. The serrations were on the rear part of the slide on later pistols. Its greatest improvement was internal. The Model 1900 had a long firing pin that rested on the cartridge primer and could thus be accidentally fired if dropped. The Model 1902 Sporting Automatic was much safer to handle, having a shorter firing pin that relied on inertia to carry it to the primer when struck by the hammer. The last of the Long Slide series of Colt automatics, the Colt Model 1902 Military Automatic Pistol was the most successful and was manufactured until 1929. Despite this military designation, however, the Army bought only about 200 of the approximately 18,000 production run for test purposes. It was a more rugged pistol than the Sporting Model and had a slightly larger grip, an improvement that allowed the expansion of the magazine capacity to eight and improved the handling characteristics. The rear butt profile was also somewhat more squared than the Sporting Model and was fitted with a lanyard swivel on its left side. The slide serrations on earlier pistols, including the army test pieces, were at the front of the slide, whereas the serrations were on the rear of the slides of later pistols. Mechanical improvements included the addition of a slide stop on the left side of the frame as well as a magazine hold-open catch. The ultimate goal of both Browning and the Colt officials was to win the upcoming trials for a new U.S. military sidearm. Designers and manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic were well aware

203

204

PISTOLS

that the winner of the trials would realize continuous and highly profitable government contracts well into the future. The first decade of the twentieth century was thus a whirlwind of development activities in the Colt factory, with technicians attempting to perfect a large-caliber military automatic suitable for the grueling tests required by the U.S. military. But John Browning was not one to confine himself or his ideas. The scope and breadth of his talents allowed him not only to simultaneously design pistols on two continents but also to revolutionize shotgun, rifle, and machine-gun development as well. As he did with FN, Browning provided Colt with designs for pistols for military and civilian applications. He thus continued designing smaller pocket pistols for Colt’s ever-growing civilian clientele. Browning’s pocket automatics proved highly popular among the general population, and they even won some acceptance among the military. High-ranking officers prized Colt’s diminutive, Browning-designed pocket pistols as symbols of rank and status and often personally ordered the pistols with custom engraving and deluxe grips. The pistols’ size also made them ideal for covert purposes and for issue to aircrews (larger pistols were impractical inside cockpits). As a result, limited numbers of the various smaller Colts were purchased by the military and stamped “U.S.” or “UNITED STATES PROPERTY” to denote government ownership. The Colt Model 1903 Pocket Automatic Pistol was nothing more than a shortened Model 1902 Sporting Automatic. The barrel length was reduced to 4.5 inches, and the slide and recoil spring were shortened accordingly. Although the shorter barrel and slide improve the pistol’s handling somewhat, the Model 1903 Pocket was still large for a pocket pistol, and sales were disappointing. Colt sold only some 26,000 before discontinuing the line in 1929. As sales of the Model 1903 Pocket Automatic foundered, FN realized a ready U.S. market for its own finely made pocket pistols. The new foreign competition created a decidedly odd situation for Browning, as he found himself having to design a new Colt-manufactured pistol to compete with his own FN-manufactured weapon. He rose to the occasion with the excellent recoil-operated Colt Model 1903 Hammerless .32 Pocket Auto. Also known as the Model M, the new Browning was one of Colt’s greatest successes and remained in production until 1946 with total sales of more than 572,000. Early models mounted a 4-inch barrel that was later reduced to 3.75 inches for the balance of production. The magazine capacity was eight rounds. The Model 1903 Ham-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

merless introduced a slide lock mounted on the left side of the frame, and later pistols were also fitted with a magazine safety. Although it chambers the relatively weak caliber .32 ACP cartridge, it was a well-made, compact pistol with fine handling characteristics. Unlike the Model 1903 Pocket Automatic, the Model 1903 Hammerless is ideal for pocket carrying. Fitted with a grip safety, it weighed only 23 ounces, and its rounded contours and concealed hammer made it less likely to snag on clothing. A blued finish with hard rubber or walnut grips was standard, but Colt also produced large numbers of nickel-finished guns with pearl grips. The grips were inset with a medallion depicting the company’s rampant colt trademark. The U.S. Army purchased a number of the later models of the Hammerless. The combination of the “UNITED STATES PROPERTY” stamping, checkered walnut grips, and either a blued or military Parkerized finish distinguish these from their civilian counterparts. Colt and Browning followed the success of the 1903 Pocket Hammerless with the Model 1908 Hammerless, also known as the Colt Model M Hammerless .380 Pocket Auto. The Model 1908 was nearly identical in appearance to the Model 1903, its main difference being the caliber. The new pistol chambers another of Browning’s highly successful inventions, the caliber .380 ACP cartridge, also known as the 9mm Browning Short and, in Germany, the 9mm kurz. The .380 ACP was much more efficient in its ballistics than the underpowered caliber .32 ACP yet lacked the recoil of more potent rounds such as the 9mm Parabellum. It was thus an effective compromise for use in pocket pistols, as it possessed respectable stopping power yet was not unpleasant to fire. Owing to the slightly larger size of the .380 ACP cartridge, the Model 1908’s magazine capacity was reduced by one round from the Model 1903’s eight. Although the Model 1908 remained in production into 1945, its sales of about 138,000 were disappointing when compared to the Model 1903. The U.S. Army also bought a small number of the latter production Model 1908s. Military pistols were distinguished by the combination of their blued finish and “UNITED STATES PROPERTY” markings. Colt realized much greater success with another Browningdesigned pistol that had originally been manufactured in large numbers by FN in Belgium. Having acquired the patent rights from FN, Colt debuted this automatic the same year as the Model 1908 Hammerless. The Colt Model 1908 Hammerless .25 Caliber Auto, designated by the Colt factory as the Model N, is the smallest of all of

205

206

PISTOLS

Colt’s semiautos and enjoyed strong sales of 409,061 pistols until its manufacture ended in 1941. Owing to the excessively poor ballistics of its cartridge, the Hammerless .25 is of very questionable value as a practical weapon. The .25 ACP cartridge is a good-looking round but is capable of even less penetration and stopping power than the smaller rimfire caliber .22. Although a very lucky shot can possibly injure or even kill an individual, wounds from a caliber .25 bullet fired through the Hammerless’s 2-inch barrel are more likely to further anger a large or heavily dressed attacker. The attraction of the cartridge and the pistol are thus more dependent on their appeal as neat, handy gadgets along the lines of Smith & Wesson’s first small .22 revolvers. Despite its anemic cartridge, the Hammerless .25 is a marvelous pistol. It is only 4.5 inches in overall length and weighs just 13 ounces. The magazine holds six rounds, and the tiny .25 cartridge makes recoil negligible. Safety features have always appealed to those individuals who carry weapons in their pockets, and the Hammerless .25 is well-equipped to avoid accidental discharges. It is fitted with a grip safety, slide lock, and a magazine safety that prevents the pistol from firing with its magazine removed. Early pistols are fitted with hard rubber grips that were superseded on later pistols with walnut panels. The majority are blued, with a substantial number being nickel-plated. U.S. officers purchased some Hammerless .25s as personal weapons, but no documentation indicates that Colt officially contracted with the government for the pistol. Strong evidence such as “U.S. PROPERTY” or “UNITED STATES PROPERTY” stampings and Ordnance Department–marked weapons do, however, indicate that a number of Hammerless .25s did find their way into government service. Such pistols were quite possibly issued during World War II to operatives of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition to the Hammerless .25s the OSS also used a small number of caliber .22 Long Rifle Colt Woodsman civilian target pistols fitted with silencers for assassinations. Still, no issue at the turn of the century was more pressing to Browning and Colt than the upcoming trials to choose a new U.S. government sidearm. They, as did countless other designers and manufacturers, anticipated the potential contract as one of the most prestigious and lucrative in the history of firearms. The Army’s combat experience in the Philippines and the failure in stopping power of the caliber .38 revolvers weighed heavily on its criteria for the

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

new pistol. In 1904 the Ordnance Office established a committee of ordnance and medical corps officers to address the caliber issue and recommend the best possible man-stopping cartridge for military use. After a series of tests on live steers and human cadavers, the board at last reached a consensus. As the trials approached, the government thus issued one main requirement for submitted test weapons: Whether revolvers or semiautomatics, they were to be of caliber .45. All candidate pistols were to be tested using cartridges manufactured by the Union Metallic Arms Company (UMC) of Bridgeport, Connecticut. Although the army announced the trials in January 1906, numerous delays forced postponement until 1907. The board then eliminated all but three of the nine test pieces delivered for consideration. The finalists were all semiautomatics and included designs by Colt and Browning, the newly established Savage Arms Company of Utica, New York, and DWM’s Georg Luger. DWM and Luger soon dropped out, owing to various production problems. These included the difficulties and the inherent expense of retooling to adapt Luger’s design to a caliber .45 cartridge, and the unavailability of the special propellant it required for its cartridges. Colt and Browning thus found themselves facing another U.S. company for the final competition. Arthur W. Savage, an expatriate Jamaican-born Englishman, had only recently founded the firm in 1894. The Savage entry itself was designed by a Philadelphian, Elbert Hamilton Searle. It incorporated an eight-round magazine, a striker rather than hammer, and its mechanism also utilized a breechblock that locked with the 5.5-inch barrel by means of lugs. The force of the igniting cartridge and the torque of the bullet as it traveled down the barrel caused the barrel to rotate slightly to unlock the lugs and operate the action. A coiled spring wrapped around the barrel within the slide buffered the recoil. It was fitted with checkered walnut grips, and the metal components were blued. Searle’s pistol was theoretically sound but required refinements. Unfortunately for Savage, the company was forced to try to perfect its entry under the most trying circumstances. The company had not yet firmly established itself in the arms field and suffered from a lack of financial backing. Savage thus entered the competition underfinanced to design and tool up to manufacture the 200 test pistols required by the government. Still, with a confidence born of some degree of desperation, the company pressed on. For their part, Colt and Browning were ideally situated to dominate the trials. Whereas each pistol manufactured by Savage was es-

207

208

PISTOLS

sentially an experimental piece in itself with all the pitfalls of an untried design, Colt and Browning had years of experience in design and manufacturing. By the time of the trials Browning had already worked out many of the bugs of his basic entry—the caliber .45 Model 1905—with the caliber .38 Model 1900 and Model 1902. Carl Ehbets, James Peard, and George Tansley headed the team at Colt assigned to refine Browning’s design into the ideal military pistol (Ezell 1981: 297). The Model 1905 chambers a smokeless, rimless caliber .45 cartridge derived from the earlier caliber .45 Long Colt cartridge. Internally, it strongly resembles the Model 1902 with a swiveling double-link assembly securing the barrel to the frame. Magazine capacity was seven rounds, and at 5 inches its barrel was 1 inch shorter than the Model 1902. The hammer was casehardened, with the balance of the metal parts blued. Grips were of varnished checkered walnut with two larger diamond-shaped areas in each panel. Whereas Savage struggled to produce individual units for the army trials, Colt’s secure position allowed the company to accelerate its Model 1905 into production for civilian as well as military sales. Colt ultimately manufactured some 6,100 Model 1905s for the civilian market, including a small number slotted for a holster/shoulder stock attachment. The 201 government trial pistols, sometimes known as the Model 1907, were serial-numbered separately and stamped with government inspector markings. They also differed from the civilian model in being manufactured with a grip safety, loaded-chamber indicator, lanyard loop, and a spur rather than rounded hammer. After some delay, the pistols were delivered to the government in the fall of 1908. Although the Ordnance Department had committed to a semiautomatic pistol, field commanders, most notably those in the infantry and cavalry, still regarded the new weapons with suspicion. Both the Colt and Savage entries thus met with resistance from officers who stubbornly deemed the revolver the best sidearm for combat use. The most frequent complaints during field trials concerned breakage of minor parts, cartridge feeding problems, mounted troops’ inability to operate the semiautomatics with one hand, and the continued concerns over their use by what the officers deemed the less intelligent enlisted personnel. Of the two contenders, Colt by far outstripped its opponent in at least addressing and correcting the technical deficiencies of its pistol. The Colt Browning design evolved rapidly in response to the army’s suggestions. The so-called Model 1909 introduced the sin-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

gle-link connector between the barrel and frame and was soon followed by the Model 1910, essentially the final form of what would become the famous Model 1911. It also introduced the new caliber .45 ACP government cartridge. Frankford Arsenal created the new round by simply increasing the existing Colt cartridge’s bullet weight from 200 to 230 grains. The pistol also had a more slanted grip profile to improve aiming characteristics, as well as a seven-shot magazine. The magazine was released by a button on the left side of the frame within easy reach of the thumb. Disassembly was accomplished by removing a bushing at the front of the slide and retracting the slide stop that engages the swiveling link attached to the barrel. The final Model 1911 was also an extremely safe pistol to carry, having both a thumb-operated and grip safety. Although Savage continually improved its entry, the final trials in March 1911 proved the Colt-Browning pistol the clear winner for reliability, accuracy, and overall design. On 29 March 1911 the government announced its decision for Colt. Savage ultimately purchased its test pistols back from the government, refurbished them, and resold them on the civilian market. Savage was more successful with a line of caliber .32 ACP pocket-type pistols that were essentially .45 test pistols on a smaller scale. Portugal adopted the Savage Model 1907 as its M/908 and later purchased a slightly modified version as the M/915. During World War I France also purchased a limited number of Savage pistols to supplement its wartime issues. Colt began tooling up for mass production of the Model 1911 and began deliveries to the Army on 4 January 1912. The Equipment and Harness Shops at Rock Island Arsenal originally made the holsters issued with the pistols. The new pistol was officially designated the U.S. Pistol, Automatic, Caliber .45, Model 1911. Classified as locked-breech, recoil-operated weapons, World War I–era Model 1911s are blued and the slides are stamped “MODEL OF 1911.” Other markings indicate the manufacturer and the branch of service to which the pistol was issued—either “U.S. ARMY,” “U.S. NAVY,” or “U.S.M.C.” The frame is stamped “UNITED STATES PROPERTY” to denote government ownership. The Colt factory in Hartford, Connecticut, was the primary manufacturer, with additional pistols being produced under license by the government’s Springfield Arsenal, Remington-UMC, and a very small lot of some 100 pistols by the North American Arms Company of Ontario, Canada. Total production of the Model 1911 for the government during the World War I period totaled 723,275 pistols. Colt also manufactured Model 1911s for Brazil and some 21,000

209

210

PISTOLS

pistols for Britain in 1915 and 1916 chambered for that country’s caliber .455 service cartridge. Czarist Russia also purchased about 14,500 Model 1911s in caliber .45 ACP. The Model 1911 proved immensely popular among U.S. troops during World War I. Although designed primarily as a defensive arm, it was occasionally used as an offensive weapon. The famous Corporal Alvin York remarkably illustrated its latter role on 9 October 1918 as he led a squad against a German machine-gun battalion. The semiautomatic capability of the Model 1911 combined with the fearsome knockdown power of its cartridge stood York well in the broken terrain in which the action occurred. York, armed with a caliber .30-06 Model 1917 Enfield service rifle and a Model 1911, single-handedly killed as many as 25 Germans and, with only seven of his surviving soldiers, captured 132 of the enemy. For his part in the action York received the Distinguished Service Cross and the Congressional Medal of Honor (Ezell 1981: 632, 635). Still, combat use during World War I did reveal that the Model 1911 required a number of minor improvements to make the pistol more comfortable to handle. The improvements included rounding and knurling the mainspring housing, shortening and seriating the trigger, lengthening the tang and trigger spur, and dishing out the frame behind the trigger. The latter two improvements were to ease handling of the pistol by soldiers with smaller hands. The sights were improved, and the bore was also modified slightly to improve accuracy. Finally, the two large diamonds on the walnut grip panels were eliminated. On 15 June 1926 the Army adopted the improved pistol as the Model 1911A1. Although some troops still complained that the pistol was heavy (39 ounces with an empty magazine) and possessed an uncomfortable recoil, none could fault its reliability, combat accuracy, and knockdown power. During the 1920s and 1930s the smaller peacetime Army required fewer weapons, and military orders for the Model 1911A1 fell significantly. Moreover, by 1940 even its continued issue was in question. The recently introduced semiautomatic M1 Carbine impressed many military theorists as a logical replacement for the pistol. The M1 was light, compact, and, in its M2 form, was capable of full-automatic fire. The rationale behind the pistol’s proposed retirement lay in the theory that the carbine would be the more logical weapon, retaining a degree of compactness yet having greater range and magazine capacity. To counter this trend and with major land combat operations imminent, pistol proponents in 1942 pushed through the establish-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

ment of the Pistol Industry Integration Committee and the Pistol Inspector’s Council. The two organizations were formed to revitalize pistol manufacturing, to coordinate the production of pistols between the various firms, and to assure the interchangeability of parts between manufacturers. Their efforts proved instrumental in addressing the huge demands placed on U.S. industry to manufacture the Model 1911A1 for World War II (Ezell 1981: 316). The continued issue of pistols was quickly vindicated during the war, as the Model 1911A1 proved ideal as a compact, powerful personal weapon for noncommissioned officers, commissioned officers, and armored vehicle personnel. Colt’s Hartford factory was the primary manufacturer of the Model 1911A1 during World War II, producing some 520,316 pistols. Its output was also greatly supplemented by a number of other contractors. These included Remington Rand, Inc., of Syracuse, New York, with a production of over 900,000; Ithaca Gun Company, Inc., of Ithaca, New York, producing about 400,000 pistols; and Union Switch & Signal Company of Swissvale, Pennsylvania, manufacturing between 40,000 and 55,000. Even a sewing-machine maker, Singer Manufacturing Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey, interrupted its usual manufacturing to produce a limited run of 500 Model 1911A1s. It was to the credit of the agencies and ordnance inspectors involved that parts from all the manufacturers of Model 1911s and Model 1911A1s could be interchanged as needed. With the exception of the blued pistols manufactured by Singer, most wartime Model 1911A1 pistols were treated in a matte gray-green Parkerized finish and fitted with brown plastic checkered grips. Although probably incorrect, official records place total World War II production of the Model 1911A1 at 1,878,742. Colt also enjoyed brisk civilian and foreign sales of the Model 1911 and 1911A1. Civilian pistols were easily identified by the addition of the letter “C” as a prefix to their serial numbers. Norway was the first foreign country to adopt the Model 1911 and placed an initial order of 300 pistols with Colt to begin replacing its caliber 7.5 Model 1893 Nagant revolvers. Soon after, the Norwegians signed a licensing agreement with Colt to manufacture nearly exact copies of the Model 1911 at the government arsenal at Kongsberg. Norway designated the Colt Browning as its Model 1912, and deliveries by Kongsberg began in December 1917. After some minor modifications, the pistol was officially redesignated the 11.25mm Automatisk Pistol Model 1914. Kongsberg manufactured some 21,941 Model 1914s from 1919 until Nazi forces occupied

211

212

PISTOLS

Norway in 1940. The Nazis then continued to produce some 10,000 Model 1914s at Kongsberg for issue to German troops during World War II. The Nazis designated these pistols the Pistole 657 (n)-Norw. 14. Argentina also purchased the new Colt-Brownings for its military. In Argentine service the Model 1911 was the Pistolà Automatica Sistema Colt, Calibre 11,25mm, Modelo 1916, with the later Model 1911A1 being designated the Pistolà Automatica Sistema Colt, Calibre 11,25mm, Modelo 1927. During the 1930s Argentina negotiated an agreement with Colt to manufacture the Modelo 1927 under license at its government arsenal at Rosario, the Fabrica Militar de Armas Portatiles. The Colt-Browning design proved so popular in Argentina that another firm, Hispano Argentina de Automovites, S.A. (HAFDASA) of Buenos Aires, produced a somewhat simplified unauthorized copy of the Model 1911A1 incorporating some Star features. The Argentine pistol is usually known as the BallesterMolina for HAFDASA’s founders, Arturo Ballester and Eugenio Molina. It is also sometimes identified as the Ballester-Rigand for two other HAFDASA engineers, Rorice Rigaud and Eugenio Molina. The most apparent external difference between the Ballester-Molina and the original Colt is the Argentine pistol’s vertically grooved rather than checkered grips and a unique style of grip serrations on the slide. During WWII the clandestine British Strategic Operations Executive (SOE) purchased a small number of Ballester-Molinas for issue to its agents and such pistols exhibit British proof marks. After World War I Mexico also adopted the Model 1911 and purchased both the original model and the Model 1911A1 when it became available. Between about 1934 and 1938 the Fabrica Nacional de Armas Mexico in Mexico City began production of a design by Alejandro Obregon that externally resembled the Colt-Browning but utilizes a rotating-bolt locking system. For its part, the Mexican army adopted a draconian policy to address the perennial problem of lost pistols by making the loss of a soldier’s sidearm a capital offense. As a result, very few Mexican-issue Obregons ever found their way to the civilian market. Following 7 December 1941 the U.S. weapons industry was illprepared to meet the needs of the country’s rapidly growing forces. Facing an emergency situation, U.S. ordnance officials soon called on the civilian manufacturing sector to retool their machinery to produce military equipment and weapons. The need to redirect civilian skills toward wartime needs prompted weapons designers to ex-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

periment with innovative methods to provide vast numbers of weapons for the war effort. Both the Singer Sewing Machine Company and Union Switch & Signal Company manufactured Model 1911A1 pistols, while other companies such as International Harvester and General Motors converted their machinery to produce M1 rifles and carbines. The high standards of government inspectors ensured that the weapons produced by these manufacturers met the high standards of the traditional gun makers and that their parts were interchangeable. The need for weapons that could be produced quickly and cheaply, however, prompted U.S. designers to experiment with pistols utilizing as many brazed and welded sheet-metal components as possible. Although approximately 12 experimental Model 1911A1 pistols with sheet-metal frames and slides were fabricated during the war, none ever saw issue. Still, one U.S. firm did produce a very simple little sheet-metal pistol that saw at least limited use during the war.

The Liberator In 1942 the U.S. Joint Psychological Warfare Committee called for a cheaply made pistol that could be provided to the various resistance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe. Agents of the OSS were to provide the pistols to local guerillas and partisans, who would then use them to kill German soldiers and capture their service weapons. The new pistols were thus designed from the outset to be disposable once a more suitable firearm was obtained. A wellknown firearms designer, George Hyde, soon produced plans for the pistol, which was officially designated a “flare projector” for security purposes. The committee assigned the Guide Lamp Division of the General Motors Corporation the task of fabricating the new pistols. A manufacturer of automobile headlights before the war, Guide Lamp proved its versatility during World War II by manufacturing thousands of welded sheet-metal weapons. Although reasonably functional, the most famous of these, the M3 and M3A submachine guns, were usually called Grease Guns for their decidedly homely appearance. The flare projector, more commonly known as the Liberator, shares the industrial looks of the Grease Gun. Made up of only 23 parts, its brazed and welded sheet-steel construction bespeaks of its

213

214

PISTOLS

speed of manufacture—Guide Lamp produced some 1 million Liberators at a cost of $1.72 per unit in just four weeks. Such speed and cheapness were aided by the Liberator’s simplicity. It is a singleshot, smoothbore pistol with no safety, extractor, or magazine. Cartridges were simply stored in the handle, and a stick was provided to manually push out empty casings. Cocking the firing pin is accomplished by pulling back the zinc knob on the rear of the pistol. The Liberator was packaged in a cardboard box with ten caliber .45 ACP cartridges and the ejector stick. As the pistol was to be dropped in a number of countries, a simple cartoon-style instruction sheet without text was included that showed the use of the pistol in pantomime. Roughly half of the Liberator production was shipped to the European theater of operation, with the other half making its way to the Pacific. In the end, few Liberators actually found their way into the hands of underground fighters, and most were eventually dumped overboard from cargo ships or melted down as scrap.

BELGIUM Fabrique Nationale By the late nineteenth century Liège, Belgium, was recognized as one of the great arms manufacturing centers of the industrialized world. Dozens of gun shops large and small turned out hundreds of thousands of firearms of all types and of varying quality each year. The sheer volume of the city’s output both hurt and helped its reputation. Its ability to churn out vast quantities of weapons was unquestioned, and its better gunsmiths had few equals. In contrast, Liège, and Belgium in general, also gained a reputation for producing cheaply made, low-quality firearms. In 1889 Liège industrialists and the German firm Ludwig Loewe and Company of Berlin formed a consortium that would permanently establish the city’s reputation for efficiently mass-produced weapons of superior design and quality. The new Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de Guerre was originally formed to produce Model 1889 Mauser rifles for the Belgian Army and soon expanded to manufacture other rifles, pistols, and machine guns. Near the turn of the century FN attracted the talents of John Browning, who began a two-continent business relationship with the Belgian firm and Colt. Negotiations eventually clarified the arrangement in 1901, with Colt monopolizing the manufacture and

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

sales of Browning’s designs in the United States while FN covered the European market. The combination of the two industrial giants’ manufacturing capabilities and Browning’s inventive genius were to profoundly affect the course of firearms history. While alternating between FN and Colt, Browning produced his most successful handgun designs. Browning and FN began their pistol collaboration in 1898 when the firm’s engineers began the development of the American’s 1897 patents for a blowback semiautomatic. Browning had planned the new pistol with an eye toward ease of mass production, and FN engineers added further simplifications. They produced a limited number of experimental models in 1898 and 1899 before finalizing the design as the Modèle 1900. The Modèle 1900 was a businesslike, rugged design with a 4-inch barrel permanently attached to the frame and a seven-shot detachable box magazine. It differed somewhat from other blowback designs in that the recoil spring was housed in the slide above the barrel and provided the additional function of powering the striker. The pistols received a blued finish with checkered hard-rubber grips, and a lanyard loop was added to the rear of the grip soon after production began. Browning was also instrumental in developing a new cartridge for the Modèle 1900, the rimless caliber .32 ACP, known as the 7.65mm Browning in Europe. The 7.65mm became instantly popular on the continent, although its rather weak ballistic properties excluded it as a primaryissue military cartridge in the United States. The Belgian Army, however, adopted the new pistol in March 1900 as the Modèle 1900 Pistolet Automatique Browning, and civilian and foreign military and police sales followed soon after. The Modèle 1900 remained in production into 1912, with 724,450 being manufactured by FN. The Modèle 1900 was also copied extensively in Afghanistan and China. These foreign copies were infringements on Browning’s patents and varied greatly in quality depending on the skill of the craftsmen who produced them. Afghan- and Chinesemade Modèle 1900s often exhibit rather bizarre proof marks and other markings as the more conscientious gunsmiths attempted to copy the pistols down to the most minute detail—a daunting task. A Modèle 1900 earned notoriety as the pistol used to fire the first shot of World War I. The Bosnian nationalist Gavrilo Princip was just days shy of his twentieth birthday when he assassinated the heir to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and his consort, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Princip had been trained and armed by the Black Hand, a

215

216

PISTOLS

Serbian secret terrorist society, and entered the Bosnian capital with a number of other conspirators earlier in the month. The assassins’ first attempt on the archduke’s life failed when a bomb tossed by Nedjelko Abrinovi bounced off of his car to explode under a following vehicle in the motorcade. Franz Ferdinand’s luck ran out later in the day when his driver took a wrong turn and stopped—by sheer chance—directly in front of Gavrilo Princip. Princip immediately jumped onto the car’s running board and fired two shots from his Browning directly into the archduke and his consort, killing her and mortally wounding Franz Ferdinand. The incident provided the basis for Austria to declare war, thereby precipitating the chain of events leading to further escalation. Convicted for the shootings, Princip died in a hospital prison of tuberculosis on 28 April 1918. Although deadly as a point-blank assassin’s weapon, the Modèle 1900 had a number of deficiencies that prevented it from being an ideal military pistol. FN and Browning attempted to address these problems with an improved blowback weapon, the Modèle 1903, known at FN as the Pistolet Automatique Grande Modèle. The recoil spring of the Modèle 1903 was more conventionally placed under the barrel rather than above it as in the Modèle 1900. It was also fitted with an internal hammer and a rear grip safety, and the barrel was secured to the frame by interlocking grooves and lugs in the two components. The Modèle 1903 was also much easier to manufacture and disassemble for cleaning. To disassemble the weapon, one pulled the slide back to where a catch located on the frame engaged a small notch in the slide. With the slide locked in the rearward position, the front of the barrel could then be rotated to disengage its lugs from the grooves in the frame. Unlocking the catch then allowed the slide and barrel to be removed from the frame. The Modèle 1903 exhibits more graceful lines than its predecessor that are more in keeping with Browning’s later designs. Although a number of nations refused to consider the Modèle 1900 because of its blowback operation, it was adopted by Belgium, Holland, Peru, Russia, Serbia, and Sweden. Its simplicity in construction made the Modèle 1903 a popular pistol for copyists, and hundreds of thousands of unlicensed knockoffs were manufactured in Spain and other countries. Producing only 58,442 pistols, FN itself ceased production of the Modèle 1903 in the 1920s. Sweden’s Husqvarna Vapenfabriks began its own production of the Modèle 1903 when the Germans commandeered the FN plant during World War I. Husqvarna continued to produce a total of 94,731 pistols under license as the Model 1907 into the 1940s.

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

The Modèle 1903 was a blowback weapon normally fitted with a seven-round detachable box magazine, although a 10-shot magazine was produced for use with a detachable shoulder stock/holster. The pistol, as are most FN pistols, was usually finished in blue with checkered hard-rubber grips. Browning and FN engineers also designed a new cartridge for the Modèle 1903 that proved somewhat disappointing. The 9mm Browning Long cartridge was meant to be more powerful and thus more suited to military applications than the anemic 7.65mm cartridge. Its power, however, was necessarily limited to the stresses that the simple blowback design of the Modèle 1903 could withstand. The compromises incorporated into the design of the 9mm Browning Long eventually doomed it to obsolescence, and it never gained the wide acceptance of Browning’s and FN’s other loadings. Browning and FN followed the Modèle 1903 with a pocket pistol that was little more than a miniaturized version of the original. The Modèle 1906 also introduced the caliber 6.35mm (caliber .25 ACP) cartridge. Both the pistol and cartridge were not powerful enough to be practical military weapons but proved popular on the civilian market. On the last day of January 1914 FN crafted two Modèle 1903s, each with the gold inlayed legend “UN MILLION,” to celebrate the one-millionth Browning pistol manufactured by the factory. King Albert of Belgium, the recipient of one of the pistols, presented the other as well as the Cross of Knighthood of the Order of Leopold to Browning. FN followed the Modèles 1903 and 1906 with another successful series, including the Modèle 1910 and its direct descendant, the Modèle 1910/22 or 1922. The basic design and appearance of the Modèle 1910 Pistolet Automatique Browning was a considerable departure from earlier FN pistols. It was a blowback weapon with the recoil spring wrapped around the barrel rather than housed separately within the slide. The cylindrical slide gave the Modèle 1910 a sleeker appearance than its predecessors and was retained by a collar around the muzzle. The Modèle 1910 employed an internal striker rather than a hammer and was fitted with magazine, manual, and grip safeties. The magazine had a capacity of seven rounds and the barrel is 3.42 inches in length. Most Modèle 1910s and 1922s are chambered for the 7.65mm Browning (.32 ACP) cartridge, but significant numbers also chamber the much more efficient 9mm Browning Short (.380 ACP) cartridge. The Modèle 1910 was widely distributed in Europe commercially and as a police-issue sidearm there and in Japan. Only very limited numbers saw official military use. It was also copied in Czechoslova-

217

218

PISTOLS

kia, Finland, and Germany. The Modèle 1910 gained its own share of infamy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on 8 September 1935. There, in the capitol building, Carl Austin Weiss pressed his Browning into the stomach of the populist governor of Louisiana, Huey P. Long, the “Kingfish,” and fired a single shot. Weiss was immediately felled by a fusillade from Long’s bodyguard, and the governor died the next day. The Modèle 1922 was FN’s successful attempt to attract more military sales by enlarging and modifying the basic Modèle 1910 design. For economy, the plant accomplished these changes by an efficient use of existing machinery rather than retooling for a totally new product. The barrel of the Modèle 1922 was thus lengthened to 4.5 inches and the magazine capacity increased to eight. The slide was lengthened by adding an extension that attached to the front of the slide in place of the earlier Modèle 1910 retaining collar. The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes placed an initial order for 60,000 of the new pistols, which saw extensive use in the fighting that eventually resulted in the Communist takeover of what became Yugoslavia. Belgium adopted the Modèle 1922 as its service pistol, as did Holland and Yugoslavia. The Modèle 1922 also enjoyed strong civilian sales and was bought by police forces in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, France, and Sweden. Nazi forces captured the FN plant during World War II and continued to manufacture the Modèle 1922 as a substitute standard pistol for the German military. The German-produced 7.65mm pistols were designated the Pistole Modell 626(b), and those chambered for the 9mm Browning cartridge were the Pistole Modell 641(b). The quality of Nazi-produced Modèle 1922s deteriorated steadily as the war progressed and are often fitted with checkered wood rather than hard rubber grips. They are also stamped with Nazi proof marks, including the Nazi eagle over the number “140,” denoting FN manufacture. Out of a total production of more than 760,000 Modèle 1922 pistols by FN, 363,200 were manufactured under Nazi occupation. Following its liberation, FN continued production of the popular Modèle 1922 in a slightly modified form as the Browning .380.

Model 1935 High Power John Browning died in his office at the FN plant in 1926. Although he died in Belgium, there was never a question as to where his loyalties lay. Throughout his long and prolific career he had allowed the

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

U.S. government to set the royalties it paid for using his designs rather than negotiate for higher returns. Browning’s last pistol, the High Power (Modèle 1935 Grande Puissance in Belgium and France), appeared in prototype form in 1923 and entered production in 1935. Browning considered the High Power a great improvement over the Models 1911 and 1911A1, but he died before seeing its remarkable success. Following Browning’s death it fell to the capable Dieudonne J. Salve to complete the final details of the master’s legacy. The High Power was chambered for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge and externally resembled its predecessors, the Model 1911 and 1911A1 pistols. It too was single-action, recoil-operated, and locked by means of corresponding lugs cut into the barrel and interior of the slide. Browning, however, refined his basic design by incorporating fewer but more sophisticated components. Improvements include the elimination of the grip safety as well as the forward barrel bushing and the swiveling link connecting the barrel to the frame. In place of the link assembly Browning designed an extension on the bottom of the rear of the barrel that follows a cam in the frame to guide it during the firing process. Although lacking a grip safety, the High Power introduced a magazine safety that prevents the pistol firing on a loaded chamber with its magazine removed. The High Power was also fitted with a thumb-operated positive hammer safety that securely locked the hammer in a safe position. A small button on the left of the frame behind the trigger released the magazine. The High Power was in all respects a well-designed modern pistol, but its most striking feature was its 13-round box magazine. By redesigning the magazine and chambering his new pistol for the smaller 9mm Parabellum cartridge rather than the Models 1911 and 1911 A1’s caliber .45 ACP, Browning nearly doubled the capacity of the standard semiautomatics then in service. He accomplished this feat by staggering the cartridges in a double row within the magazine instead of placing them in a straight line as in the earlier pistols. Rather surprisingly, although increasing the magazine capacity necessitated an enlargement of the pistol’s grip, many shooters find the pistol more comfortable to handle and aim than the more conventional Models 1911and 1911A1. The 9mm Parabellum cartridge also adds to the High Power’s appeal in that, although possessing less stopping power than the caliber .45 ACP, it is still a powerful cartridge and yields much less recoil. FN initially offered the High Power in two models: the Ordinary Model with fixed sights, and the Adjustable Rear Sight Model. The

219

220

PISTOLS

latter was fitted with a ramp-type rear sight graduated to 500 meters and was slotted to accept a detachable wood shoulder stock with an attached leather holster. The pistols were blued with checkered walnut grip panels. Belgium moved rapidly to adopt the new pistol as the Pistolet Automatique Browning Modèle a Grande Puissance (GP), and civilian sales and orders from foreign governments followed soon after. Ironically, Browning offered the High Power to France in its early design stage, but that country declined it in favor of its own Model 1935, itself a rather inferior modification of Browning’s Model 1911. More than 60 countries adopted the High Power, including Argentina, the Belgian Congo, China, Denmark, El Salvador, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Paraguay, Rumania, Siam, Syria, and Venezuela. Following the Nazi occupation of Belgium in 1940 the FN plant came under control of the Germans, who continued the production of the High Power, designating it the Pistole 640(b). The Pistole 640(b) shared the same cartridge as the standard German Walther P38 and P08 Luger and was thus considered a substitute standard sidearm in German service. Its high magazine capacity and handling characteristics made it valuable to elite front-line troops such as the Waffen SS and paratroopers. As with nearly all weapons made by the Nazis, the overall finish of wartime High Powers deteriorated over the course of the conflict owing to shortages of manpower and materials combined with urgency for higher production. Although a considerable number of Nazi-produced High Powers were manufactured without magazine safeties, they were reliable weapons despite their evident external machining marks and thin bluing. The Nazis produced approximately 200,000 High Powers during the war. A number of FN technicians escaped Belgium as it fell to the Nazis and eventually found their way to Canada. There they offered their skills to the John Inglis Company of Toronto to manufacture some 200,000 High Powers for the Allied cause. The first Inglis High Power contract was to Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Chinese, with later pistols primarily seeing service with British and Canadian paratroop and commando units. The slides of Inglis-manufactured High Powers were stamped “BROWNING-FN” with the company’s name and “CANADA.” Additional large Chinese characters above the standard markings distinguished Chinese contract pistols. Inglis High Powers were essentially identical to those made at FN with a few minor modifications as reflected by their British and Canadian nomenclature. The pistol (officially: Pistol, Browning, FN, 9mm, HP, No. 1 Mark 1) mounted a tangent rear sight gradu-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

ated to 500 meters and was slotted for a wood shoulder stock/holster similar to that issued for the Mauser Broomhandle. Like later Inglis pistols, it was also fitted with a lanyard ring mounted to the base of the left grip. Another model (Pistol, Browning, FN, 9mm, HP, No. 1 Mark 1*) was manufactured with a larger ejector and slightly modified rear sight. As the war progressed, Inglis again made changes to the extractor and replaced the tangent with a simple notch rear sight and eliminated the shoulder-stock cut in the butt. Later Inglis High Powers were designated the Pistol, Browning, FN, 9mm, HP, No. 2 Mark 1 followed by the No. 2 Mark 1*. The High Power proved such a success that it remained the standard sidearm of UK and other forces long after World War II. During the 1970s and 1980s FN produced the High Power Marks 2, 3, and 3S. These pistols featured more comfortable grips, ambidextrous safeties, and improved sights. A more durable matte oxidized finish was standard.

GREAT BRITAIN The acceptance of semiautomatic pistols was delayed in the United States and Britain by a traditional preference for revolvers by their respective military establishments. U.S. troops had relied on sixshooters through the Civil War and the Indian Wars and were loath to surrender them for an unfamiliar and untried substitute. In Britain the Webley series had gained the trust and respect of the rank and file, and a replacement seemed almost a betrayal of an old friend. Still, the semiautomatic was a mark of progress, and inventors in both countries attacked the problem.

Gabbet-Fairfax Mars Britain lagged behind all the major powers in its development of semiautomatic pistols and was the last to abandon the revolver as its standard sidearm. The few British semiautomatics that did reach any appreciable level of production tended to exhibit rather poor handling characteristics as well as a remarkable lack of aesthetic appeal. Appearing around 1895, the huge Gabbet-Fairfax Mars SelfLoading Pistol was one of Britain’s earliest semiautomatic pistols. It was the brainchild of Hugh W. Gabbet-Fairfax, who in 1899 entered

221

222

PISTOLS

into an agreement with Webley & Scott to develop, manufacture, and distribute the pistol. In that year Webley technicians fabricated a small number of essentially handmade test models in calibers 8.5mm, 9mm, .360, 10mm, and .45 Long. Unfortunately, Webley never achieved a final form of the pistol suitable for production and eventually dropped the project in 1901. The caliber .450 Mars is probably the most representative of Gabbet-Fairfax’s pistols. As made by Webley & Scott, it was an accurate, beautifully made pistol with a blued finish, checkered walnut grips, and fine machining. A detachable box magazine was loaded through the base of the grip, and capacities varied between eight and 10 rounds. Some pistols were made to accept a detachable shoulder stock. The Gabbet-Fairfax is also one of the most powerful handguns ever made, firing a heavy 230-grain bullet that achieves a devastating velocity of 1,180 fps. For his part, Gabbet-Fairfax had invested considerable time and money into his pistol and was desperate to see his project through to a profitable conclusion. Following his break with Webley & Scott he arranged financial backing to organize the Mars Automatic Pistol Syndicate, Ltd., to continue the venture. The syndicate, based in Birmingham, never lived up to Gabbet-Fairfax’s expectations; what pistols were made under its auspices were apparently farmed out to small shops. Gabbet-Fairfax repeatedly submitted the Mars to the British Small Arms Committee for trials, but thorough testing ultimately condemned it as overly heavy, complicated, and expensive to manufacture. Cartridge-feeding was especially involved in that the design incorporated a mechanical lifter that transferred the cartridges from the magazine to the chamber. To make matters worse, the Gabbet-Fairfax had excessive trigger pull, a massive recoil, and a disconcerting tendency to eject its spent casings directly back into its user’s face—an unneeded feature in any weapon. With the military’s decision final and facing mounting debts, Gabbet-Fairfax declared bankruptcy in 1903. A few small Birmingham shops made a very limited number of Mars pistols following its inventor’s bankruptcy, but around 1906 they too shelved the project. All in all, probably fewer than 80 Mars pistols were made by the combined efforts of Webley & Scott, the Mars Automatic Pistol Syndicate, Ltd., and the various independent makers.

Webley & Scott Webley & Scott found better success with a semiautomatic design

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

by one of its own employees, William John Whiting. Whiting had assisted Gabbet-Fairfax in developing the Mars and began working in earnest on his own semiautomatic after Webley & Scott abandoned the Mars project. Beginning in about 1903, the company manufactured Whiting’s basic recoil-operated design in a number of sizes and calibers. These included caliber .32 chamberings for pocket and police use and larger calibers, including 9mm Browning Long, 9mm Parabellum, and the large British service-issue caliber .455. Although well-made and neatly finished, the contrast between the boxy frame and slide assembly and the slender barrel gave Webley & Scott automatics of all sizes a clumsy appearance— an impression reinforced by the pistol’s awkward grip angle. Despite their appearance, the production models of the military Webley & Scott Automatics were reliable and achieved a respectable muzzle velocity of 710 fps. Webley & Scott was anxious to obtain government contracts for the new autoloader and in 1904 submitted test pistols to the Small Arms Committee. After extensive testing and a number of modifications, Whiting finalized his design in 1910. The committee subsequently found the Webley & Scott a better pistol than a competing design submitted by Colt and Browning and at last approved it for government service. Two years later the Royal Navy adopted the pistol as the .455 Pistol, Self-Loading Mark I, 1912 and retained it, along with its Webley & Scott revolvers, as a standard-issue sidearm through World War II. The automatic found more resistance from the other services. The Royal Horse Artillery accepted some 100 pistols, a number fitted with detachable shoulder stocks, for trials but ultimately abandoned the idea. The Royal Flying Corps also distributed a few of the pistols to aircrews during World War I, but the issues were stopped before the end of the war. South Africa issued the Webley & Scott in caliber 9mm Parabellum. The military Webley & Scott Automatic weighs 2.43 pounds and is 8.5 inches in overall length with a 5-inch barrel. A detachable seven-round box magazine in the grip feeds the pistol. Two notches in the Webley’s unique magazine allow it to operate as both a single-shot weapon and as a conventional semiautomatic. Inserting the magazine until it engages with the first notch secures it out of the way so that the weapon can be loaded and fired with individual cartridges. A catch holds the slide open after each discharge. Pushing the magazine completely into its well in the grip engages the second notch for its semiautomatic function. The Mark I is also fitted with a manual safety as well as a grip safety, with a lanyard swivel at the base of the grip. A later model, the Mark I No. 2, was

223

224

PISTOLS

developed at Enfield and features an adjustable rear sight and modified manual safety.

Welrod Mark I and Mark II In 1942 BSA Ltd. began limited production of the Mark I Hand Firing Device, also known as the Welrod Mark I. The Welrod was a special assassination pistol developed for the clandestine British Special Operations Executive at Welwyn Garden City and also saw use by operatives of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. The 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Welrod was fitted with a grip safety and an integral silencer. It was a single shot-only weapon, although a six-round magazine within the grip charged it. Twisting and retracting a knob at the rear of the receiver ejected the spent casings. Pushing the knob forward reloaded the chamber and cocked the striker, and a final turn locked the action. A lever within the trigger guard behind the trigger released the entire grip assembly to permit reloading. The Welrod Mark II lacked a trigger guard, and the magazine/grip release was located at the base of the grip.

AUSTRIA Mannlicher Model 1894 At the turn of the century, the Austrian baron Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher (1848–1904) was one of the most original and prolific firearms designers in the world. Trained as an engineer, Mannlicher became interested in firearm design after visiting the 1876 American Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Although he achieved fame for scores of developments as applied to long arms, Mannlicher’s pistol designs were innovative yet, owing to their underpowered cartridges, not as commercially successful. Mannlicher developed a blow-forward design in 1893 that he followed the next year with the Model 1894, originally manufactured by the Fabrique d’Armes Neuhausen and chambered for the rimmed 8mm cartridge. Production then shifted to the Österreichische Waffenfabrik Gesellschaft at Steyr, and the new pistols were rechambered to accept the rimmed 7.6mm Mannlicher loading. The Model 1894 was somewhat unusual in that, although the recoil action of

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

the pistol reloaded the chamber, the external hammer requires manual cocking. Only about 100 Model 1894s were manufactured at the two factories.

Mannlicher Model 1896 Mannlicher’s Model 1896 (I) is a somewhat better pistol than the Model 1894 but shares its predecessor’s relatively weak 7.6mm Mannlicher cartridge. It is blowback-operated and employs a fixed barrel and recoiling bolt. A six-round, charger-fed fixed magazine is positioned in front of the trigger guard. The action of the Model 1896 (I) loads the pistol but, as with the Model 1894, does not cock the weapon. Pressing an external lever is required to cock the pistol’s internal hammer. The Model 1896 (I) generated little interest in the arms market, forcing Mannlicher to follow it with the Model 1896 (II), commonly known as the Model 1903. The Model 1896 (II) operates on the locked-breech principle and was also manufactured by Steyr. It, too, was crippled by Mannlicher’s decision to chamber it for a weak cartridge. Its special 7.63mm cartridge, although similar to the Mauser’s, contained less powder. The Model 1896 (II) did achieve somewhat more success than its predecessors, but only some 3,000 saw production.

Mannlicher Model 1900 In 1900 Mannlicher and Steyr introduced an improved retardedblowback pistol—the Model 1900—but unfortunately chambered it for the old and underpowered 8mm cartridge used in the Model 1894. The next year Mannlicher at last chambered the pistol for a cartridge with enough power to satisfy military requirements. The new Model 1900/1901’s loading was a straight-sided, 7.63 by 21mm rimless cartridge that became known as the 7.63 Mannlicher. Although a few saw limited service with German and Austrian officers during World War I, the pistol was ultimately rejected by Austria as its official sidearm, with only some 12,000 being manufactured. Mannlicher’s pistol at least gained the attention of Argentine Army officials, who adopted it as the Model 1905. The Model 1905 shared many of its contemporaries’ disadvantages regarding weight and balance but was also crippled by its special cartridge, which was available only from Austria. The magazine held eight stripper-clip or charger-fed car-

225

226

PISTOLS

tridges and was located in the pistol’s grip. Unloading the pistol requires pulling the slide back, pressing a button on the right side of the grip, and pulling the cartridges from the top of the magazine.

Roth-Steyr Models 1907 and 1912 Austria-Hungary finally moved to replace its aging Rast-Gasser revolvers with the Roth-Steyr 8mm Pistol Model 1907 and the 9mm Steyr Pistol Model 1912. Österreichische Waffenfabrik Gesellschaft (Steyr) manufactured some 60,000 Model 1907s; Fegyvergyr of Budapest produced another 30,000. The Model 1907, or Repetier Pistole M. 07, served as Austria’s first semiautomatic pistol and, issued to the Kaiserliche und Königliche Armee (Ku.K), saw wide use during World War I. Its well-publicized use by aircrews during the war also earned it the title Flieger-Pistole (Flyer Pistol). Austrian pistols were stamped with the Austrian double-headed eagle and date, with Hungary marking its pistols with the country’s crest and date of issue. A brass disk fixed to the right grip panel denoted regimental issue. In addition to Austria-Hungary, the Model 1907 also saw service with the Australian Air Service. The Model 1907 is a recoil-operated weapon and was designed by Georg Roth and Karel Krnka. Its 10-round internal magazine in the grip is loaded with chargers or stripper clips. The Model 1907 is also somewhat unusual in that although the action of the breech mechanism reloads the pistol it does not cock its striker. The striker was activated by an independent trigger mechanism that, as in a double-action, required a deliberate and heavy trigger pull to cock and fire the pistol. This feature was most probably intended as a safety measure, as the Model 1907 was initially destined for issue to cavalry units. It may have lessened the chances of accidental discharge while on horseback, but unfortunately for infantrymen and others it did make the Model 1907 difficult to aim accurately. The Roth-Steyr was a well-built weapon but was expensive and difficult to manufacture. It was also somewhat bulky, with a large knob on the rear of its bolt, giving it something of the appearance of a child’s ray gun. The most widely issued semiautomatic pistol among Austrian forces during World War I was chambered for the 9mm Steyr cartridge and was known by a number of names. It was variously called the Model 1911 (or M11) in its civilian version, the Steyr Pistol Model 1912 (or M12) in its military form, and officially as the Selbstiade Pistol M12. It was also popularly known as the Steyr Hahn,

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

(hahn meaning to “hand” or “hammer”), in contrast to earlier hammerless models. Some 250,000 Model 1912s were manufactured and issued before Steyr ended its production in 1919. The Model 1912 was also used by Chile and Romania, and during World War II a number were rebarreled to 9mm Parabellum and issued to Nazi troops. The slides of Nazi reissue Model 12s were stamped “08” to distinguish them from their original 9mm Steyr chamberings. Unlike the Model 1907, the Model 1912 was more conventional in its outer appearance, superficially resembling the squared lines of the Colt-Brownings of its day. Still, the eight-round magazine, although located in the grip, was not removable and was charged by means of stripper clips guided by a slot machined into the top of the slide. It was also fitted with a hold-open device that keeps the slide open after firing the magazine’s last cartridge. This was a distinct advantage to combat troops in that it alerted them to an empty magazine in the heat of battle. The Model 1912 was equipped with a thumb safety on the left side of the frame near the hammer, and another safety prevents the pistol from discharging unless the slide was fully closed. Despite such measures, it was still possible for the Model 1912’s main safety to become partially disengaged, allowing it to accidentally fire. The locking of the action was accomplished by means of corresponding slots and ribs in the barrel and inside of the slide. Upon ignition, the barrel and slide remain locked during the initial recoil, but as the bullet passed through the barrel the internal cams twisted the barrel to the left, freeing the slide and allowing it to continue in its rearward cycle. This movement opened the action to eject the casing, cocks the pistol’s exposed hammer, and strips a fresh cartridge from the magazine. The Model 1912 was a rugged pistol but, as were other Steyr designs, already outdated when it was introduced, owing to its lack of a detachable magazine.

HUNGARY Frommer Stop While a member of the Austro-Hungarian Empire during World War I, Hungary insisted on arming its Honved (Army) officers with a domestic semiautomatic pistol—the Frommer Stop—rather than its allies’ Steyrs. The early designs of Rudolf Frommer (1868–1936) of

227

228

PISTOLS

the small arms firm Fegyver és Gépgyár Részvénytarsaság of Budapest reflected his close association with both Krnka and Roth. His pistols were thus beautifully engineered but typically overly difficult to manufacture and maintain for military use. Frommer patented the Frommer Stop pistol in 1912, and it became known in Hungary (for obscure reasons) as the 19 Minta Pisztoly, or Model 1919 Pistol. Possibly as many as 329,000 were manufactured before production ceased in the 1930s (Ezell 1981: 233). The pistol operates on a turning bolt mechanism and is a long recoil-operated weapon—a needlessly complicated system for its relatively underpowered 7.65mm (caliber .32) Browning cartridge. The Frommer Stop also presents a somewhat unique appearance in the use of a tubular spring housing above the barrel. The housing contains both the recoil- and bolt-operating spring; a clever economical use of space, it presents a tricky arrangement for a soldier to disassemble in the field. Unlike the Steyrs, the Frommer is fitted with a grip safety and a more modern detachable seven-round box magazine released by a catch at the base of the grip. External metal components are blued, and grips are of vertically grooved walnut and marked with the “FS” logo in an oval. The Frommer was generally unpopular among Hungarian troops, as it lacks stopping power and is more delicate when compared to other contemporary military pistols. Fegyvergyar manufactured a more powerful Frommer chambered for the 9mm Browning (caliber .380 ACP) cartridge at the end of World War I, but apparently few if any made their way to front-line troops.

Frommer Model 29 In 1929 Frommer incorporated a number of John Browning’s concepts to at last move toward a more simplified and modern pistol. Some 50,000 of his blowback-operated 9mm Browning (caliber .380) Pisztoly 29 Minta (or Model 29) were manufactured between 1929 and 1935. Despite the simplifications, the Model 29 remained an unnecessarily complicated weapon, and, coinciding with Frommer’s death in 1936, a new, more modern Hungarian pistol at last emerged.

Model 37M The Model 37M was a blowback, caliber .380 pistol based primarily

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

on the conventional Browning models and was fed by a detachable seven-round magazine. It had a blued finish and vertically grooved walnut grips. Except for a curved finger extension integral with the front strap, it resembled any number of the contemporary Browning designs. Hungary fell under Nazi domination during World War II, and in 1941 the German Luftwaffe ordered 50,000 37M pistols to be delivered in 7.65mm. Soon after the first deliveries the Germans ordered that Fegyvergyar add a manual safety to the left side of the receiver; most Nazi-issue pistols were equipped with the new feature. Other orders from the Heereswaffenamt followed, and German-issues of the 37M were some 90,000 of the total estimated production of 250,000. The left side of Nazi 37M pistols’ slides are stamped with the firm’s Nazi code, “JVH” and “PISTOLE M.37 KAL. 765MM.” After World War II Hungry issued a modified Walther PP, the 7.65mm Model 48, to its police forces and a domestic copy of the Soviet TT33, the Model 48 in the bottlenecked 7.63mm, to its military. The M60 was a slightly modified Model 48 manufactured with an aluminum frame.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA At its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in October 1918 Czechoslovakia’s small arms inventory consisted of a chaotic mix of castoff foreign weapons. In March 1919 the new government set up a national arsenal, the Cˇeskoslovenské Závody na Vy´robu Zbrani at Brno in Moravia, to wring some semblance of order out of the situation. The Brno arsenal’s essential purpose was to anchor a coherent Czechoslovakian arms industry to equip the country’s military. Its initial activity centered on the manufacture of Mauser Model 98 rifles but soon turned to pistol production as well. In 1920 the government began trials to determine the best design for a new pistol. Two leading designs emerged from the government pistol trials: a 7.65mm modified Browning design by Vaclav Holek of the newly established Praga Zbrojovka (Prague Small Arms Company), and a 9mm Parabellum by Josef Nickl of Brno. Although Nickl’s design eventually won the trial committee’s approval, various manufacturing and development delays at Brno forced the army to order 4,600 Praga pistols as an emergency stopgap measure. The Praga weapons were poorly received by Czech troops, who found them

229

230

PISTOLS

unreliable and prone to breakage. The army happily retired the Pragas as soon as the Brno pistols became available, and many of the old Pragas were reissued to police organizations. Unable to recover from the lack of government patronage, Praga Zbrojovka closed in 1926. Josef Nickl was an engineer and small-arms designer employed by Mauser and had arrived in Czechoslovakia to help install new Mauser machinery at Brno. During World War I Mauser had shown little interest in Nickl’s pistol designs, but the Czech arsenal proved fertile ground for his ambitions. As originally submitted, the Nickl pistol reflected some aspects of the Mauser Model 1910/14 and locked and unlocked by means of a rotating barrel, much like the Steyr-Hahn Modell 12. Unlike Nickl’s first designs, it was fitted with an external hammer. It was originally chambered for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge, but by the time of its acceptance the caliber was reduced to 9mm Browning (.380 ACP).

CZ Model 1922 (vz. 22) and CZ Model 1924 (vz. 24) The new pistol evolved slowly, delayed by the limited manufacturing capabilities at Brno and basic design flaws. Brno manufactured only some 18,000 of the original Armádni Pistole Vzor 22 (Army Pistol Model 1922) before more modifications were ordered and production shifted to the Cˇ eská Zbrojovka (CZ) works at Prague and Strakonitz. Before production began, Frantisˇ ek Mysˇ ka, a technician at CZ, further modified the Model 1922 by adding a magazine safety to create the Model 1924. Deliveries finally began in 1926. CZ delivered a total of 171,400 pistols to the Army into 1936 and sold the Model 1924 commercially, including small export contracts to Finland, Lithuania, and Poland. The Model 1924 is meticulously crafted and exhibits an excellent finish. Typical markings, stamped on a rib on the top of the slide, are “Cˇ ESKÁ ZBROJOVKA A.S. V PRAZE.” Early production Model 1924s are fitted with one-piece, smooth wood grips, with later pistols having checkered plastic grips bearing the “CZ” trademark. Magazine capacity is eight rounds, and a Mauser Model 1910–style safety switch is mounted to the left of the pistol. The magazine is secured by a catch at the rear base of the grip and is equipped with a safety that prevents the pistol from firing without the magazine in place.

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

CZ Model 1927 (vz. 27) Technicians at CZ realized that the relatively complex locking system of the Model 1924 was unnecessary for lower-powered cartridges such as the caliber 9mm Browning (.380 ACP). The next pistol in the factory’s line—the Model—was chambered for the even lower-powered 7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge. Frantisˇek Mysˇka redesigned the pistol as a more logical and economical blowback-operated weapon primarily for use by police and security forces. Unlike many blowback weapons, the Model 1924 utilized a removable barrel similar to some Colt designs rather than the fixed barrels favored by many European makers. The Model 1927 shared the magazine capacity and somewhat boxy appearance of its predecessors, as well as their fine workmanship. To further distinguish the Model 1927 from the Model 1924, the left side of the slide was stamped “PISTOLE MODELL 27 KAL. 7.65” in large letters. During World War II German forces commandeered the CZ plant and continued to manufacture a slightly modified Model 1927 as the Pistole Modell 27(t). Nazi-manufactured pistols often exhibited a poorer finish than prewar models and are stamped with the Nazi “FNH” code signifying CZ manufacture. The Nazis also fabricated a limited number of Model 1927s with an extended barrel for the attachment of a silencer device. Following World War II CZ resumed operations as Cˇ eská Zbrojovka Národni Podnik (Bohemian Arms Factory People’ Enterprise) and continued the production of the Model 1927, adding “NARODNI PODNIK” and “MADE IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA” to the prewar markings. All told, CZ manufactured more than 500,000 Model 1927s between 1927 and 1951.

CZ Model 1938 (vz. 38) CZ and Mysˇ ka returned to the 9mm Browning (.380 ACP) chambering with the Model 1938 pistol. The Model 1938 retains the blowback operation of the Model 1927 and introduced a double-action capability to the CZ line. Disassembly of the Model 1938 is somewhat unusual in that, after the removal of the slide, a hinge on the front of the frame allows the barrel to pivot forward and upward for cleaning. Although this system allows for remarkably easy maintenance, the vz. 38 was an unpopular weapon. It is awkward to point, and its excessively heavy trigger pull makes it almost impossi-

231

232

PISTOLS

ble to maintain accurate aim. Apparently none were delivered to the Czech Army before Nazi forces occupied the country. The Nazi designation for the Model 1938 was the Pistole Modell 39(t). Very few Model 1938s, however, were manufactured by the Nazis, and production ended with the war. A limited number were used by a desperate Finland during their 1944 Continuation War with the Soviet Union.

POLAND Radom VIS35 In 1936 Poland began production of a 9mm Parabellum variation on the Colt Browning theme as developed by Piotr Wilniewczyc and Jan Skrzypinski. The pistol, known to the Polish military as the Vis Pistolet wojskowy wzor 1935, was adopted to replace the Ng 30, a Polish-made copy of the Russian Nagant Model 1895 revolver, as well as various other pistols then in service. The new pistol was manufactured at Fabryka Broni, the government arsenal at Radom, south of Warsaw. It was originally to be called the “W” and “S” or “WIS” in honor of its inventors, but government officials changed the “W” to a “V” to spell “VIS,” the Latin word for “force” (Ezell 1981: p. 233). The pistol was thus often known as the VIS35, or, more commonly, the Radom. The Radom is a recoil-operated semiautomatic fed by an eightround magazine fitted in the grip. It bears a strong resemblance to the Colt-Browning Model 1911A1 but introduced a number of innovations to make it faster and more economical to manufacture. Although locking in the typical Browning manner, the Radom design eliminates the swiveling link system in favor of a cammed surface on the bottom of the barrel. The Radom is equipped with a grip safety but, despite the three levers on the left side of the pistol, none is a thumb safety. The two switches or levers in the frame are intended to aid field-stripping. The forward lever can be removed to allow the pistol to be disassembled, and the rear lever engages a notch in the slide to lock the slide in the open position during the process. The lever attached to the rear of the slide automatically retracts the firing pin and allows a cocked hammer to fall safely on a loaded chamber. The rear grip strap is also grooved to accept a shoulder stock, and a lanyard loop is attached to the rear of the pistol’s butt.

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

The Radom is extremely well made of a steel alloy and finished in a high-polish blue. Owing to its weight, grip angle, and cartridge combination, it aims well and is pleasant to shoot. The slides of pre–World War II Radoms are stamped with the Polish eagle, the patent number, year of manufacture, and “FB RADOM VIS WZ 35.” The black plastic checkered grips are molded with a triangular shield on each panel, the left side containing “FB” (for Fabryka Broni) and the right panel with “VIS.” Following the fall of Poland in 1939, the Nazis installed supervisors from Steyr-Daimler-Puch at Radom to continue the manufacture of the VIS35 as the P35(p). The Nazis manufactured approximately 310,000 VIS35s at Radom before Soviet forces captured the factory in 1944 and production ceased. These arms lack the Polish eagle and date and instead bear the Nazi Waffenamt stamp “WAA77.” Radoms manufactured during the Nazi occupation also exhibit a continuous decline in finish and overall quality as the war progressed. The factory soon abandoned the shoulder-stock cut, slide lock, and hammer release levers and began using a matte graygreen phosphate finish rather than the earlier high-gloss blue. Although reliable, very late production Radoms are decidedly crude in appearance, with plain wood grips and evident machining marks. Some pistols may have been assembled from Polish-manufactured parts at Steyr after the loss of the Radom plant, as they are stamped with that company’s Nazi “BNZ” manufacturing code.

SOVIET UNION/RUSSIA Tokarev TT30 and TT33 The Model 1895 Nagant Revolver was the standard czarist sidearm during World War I. Still, a number of foreign semiautomatic pistols, most notably the Mauser Model 1896, saw use by czarist as well as Red Army and White Army troops during World War I and the Russian Revolution and civil war. The revolution and subsequent hostilities in 1917 and 1918 disrupted arms manufacture at Russia’s three primary arsenals, Tula, Izhevsk, and Sestroretsk. In late 1918, as the new Soviet government assumed more authority, the factories resumed operations, including the production of the Model 1895 Nagant revolver. The Soviet government, however, desired a more modern sidearm and ordered development of a new

233

234

PISTOLS

semiautomatic service arm. The Soviets tested a number of domestic prototypes and foreign pistols during the 1920s before selecting a modified locked breech Browning design by a Russian, Fedor Vasilevich Tokarev (1871–1968). Tokarev, a former army officer, had served as a technical director and engineer at all three major arsenals and had developed a selective-fire machine pistol and improved Maxim machine gun before submitting his pistol. The pistol was designated the TT30, or TulaTokarev 1930, indicating its arsenal and designer as well as its adoption date. The TT30 was chambered for the Soviet caliber 7.62mm Type P bottlenecked cartridge. This was a key advantage in that it was interchangeable with the caliber 7.63mm cartridge already in use in the thousands of Mauser Model 1896 pistols in Soviet service. Magazine capacity was eight rounds. The TT30 was designed for rapid and economical production and has no safety mechanism other than a half-cock notch position on its exposed hammer. It does have two notable improvements over other Browning-type pistols then in use. The pistol was manufactured with a removable back strap that allowed easy removal of its lock mechanism. Cartridge-feed “lips” were also machined into the frame rather than being integral to the magazine. The latter improvement helped prevent jamming in that the sheet steel lips of detachable magazines are prone to damage and metal fatigue. The magazine itself was released by a button on the left of the frame behind the trigger. Possibly as many as 93,000 Model TT30s were manufactured before an improved model, the TT33, replaced it in 1936. The main differences between the TT33 and the TT30 was the omission of the removable back strap in favor of one integral to the frame, as well as changes in the machining of the barrel locking lugs to speed manufacture. The TT33 was the primary Soviet sidearm during World War II and remained in production in that country to at least 1954. It remained in service after the Makarov officially replaced it, and thousands were supplied to Communist regimes such as North Korea and North Vietnam. Soviet TT33s, especially wartime examples, exhibited a noticeably crude external finish and roughly checkered wood grip panels. Typical TT33s were fitted with vertically grooved black-plastic grips with a Soviet star within a circle in their center. In addition, the letters “CCCP” were interspersed between the tines of the star. Tula also manufactured the TT33 in two .22 variations—the R-3, a training pistol, and the longer-barreled R-4 target pistol. The TT33 was also manufactured in the Soviet satellite countries

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

as well as the People’s Republic of China, where it was called the Type 51. Poland’s Radom plant manufactured the Tokarev for its armed forces as the Pistolett TT and also supplied it to East Germany and Czechoslovakia. It was manufactured in Hungary as the 48M and in Yugoslavia as the M-57. Chinese Tokarevs were stamped with arsenal proofs and Chinese characters, with Polish pistols being distinguished by Radom’s distinctive “FB” (Fabryka Broni Radom) and “WP” (Wojskowe Polska, for “Polish Army”) markings on the grip panels. Relatively large numbers of Tokarevs were later sold as surplus in the United States through various importers. These pistols were very often fitted with safeties to comply with U.S. firearms regulations.

FINLAND Finland won independence from Russia in 1917 but was immediately immersed in a civil war between the Finnish Red Guards and the White Finnish Defense Corps. Following the defeat of the Red forces in 1918, the new country next turned to building its defenses against the Soviet Russian threat on its border. A critical factor in this process was the replacement of the obsolescent Russian weapons in Finland’s possession, including the 7.62mm Russian Nagant Model 1895 revolvers. In 1919 the government purchased 9,000 surplus 7.65mm Spanish Ruby-type pistols from France as a stopgap measure, designating them the Pistooli malli/19. In 1923 Finland contracted with the well-known German firm DWM (Deutsches Waffen und Munitions Fabriken) for deliveries of the caliber 7.65mm Parabellum P08 Luger. DWM eventually delivered more than 5,000 P08s, designated the Pistooli m/23 Pb in Finnish service, and a lesser number of detachable wood shoulder stocks before shipments ended in 1935. Finnish Lugers were distinguished by the Finnish Army (Suomen Armeija) “SA” stamp and a brass unit-identification disk in the wood grip. Characteristically, Finland rarely disposed of damaged or defective weapons and continually overhauled its Lugers during their long service. As a result of this policy, typical Finnish Lugers were refitted with black plastic rather than the original walnut grips and refinished in a durable black phosphate. The new barrels installed in refitted Finnish Lugers were also typically 1 inch longer than the originals. No effort

235

236

PISTOLS

was made during the rebuilding process to rematch the serial numbers of various components. A limited number of pistols were also reworked to chamber caliber .22 Long Rifle cartridges and were known as Salobellum target and practice pistols.

Lahti L-35 Intent on establishing an autonomous weapons industry, Finland quickly established two main arsenals. In 1921 the Finnish Volunteer Guards, a militia-style organization, established its own arsenal, Suojeluskuntain Ase-ja Konepaja Oy (SAKO) in Riihimäki, north of Helsinki. The national government followed the Guards’ lead in 1926 by opening the Valtion Kivääritehdas in Jyväskylä (VKT). These factories were initially engaged in reworking and repairing captured Russian weapons as well as those purchased from France and Germany. As the Finnish arms industry matured, the military began to press for a more suitable, domestically manufactured pistol that could stand up to the country’s severe winters. Development began at VKT in 1929 under the direction of the designer Aimo Johannes Lahti (1896–1970), and in 1935 Finland officially adopted the new sidearm as the 9mm Parabellum Pistoolit L-35. Although its appearance invites comparison to the German P08s that were then in Finnish service, the L-35 design is mechanically very different from the P08’s toggle locking system. The L-35 employs a short-stroke recoil-activated bolt housed in a barrel extension that encloses the internal mechanism. Upon firing, the L-35’s rectangular bolt recoils rearward with the barrel extension about 6–8 millimeters. At that point a U-shaped locking yoke slides vertically out of the way to allow it to continue to full recoil. A curved lever acts as a mechanical accelerator to provide extra force to this action—a device Lahti found necessary for reliable functioning in Finland’s subzero conditions. Two extensions on the rear of the bolt allow it to be pulled back to cock the firing-pin spring. The L-35 proved somewhat heavy, and full disassembly requires special tools. These defects paled when compared to the excellent workmanship and quality of materials used in its construction. The L-35 is highly accurate and so reliable that field repair was rarely required—a catch on the left side of the pistol allows enough disassembly for simple cleaning and maintenance. The magazine has a capacity of eight rounds and is released by a catch at the base of the grips. A safety is located on the left of the slide, and a loaded-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

chamber indicator is provided. Early-production pistols are equipped with beech grip panels that were changed to checkered black plastic on later models. The “VKT” in a diamond trademark is molded into each grip panel. The rear grip strap is also milled, with a lug to accept a Mauser-type wood shoulder stock/holster. Although only 200 shoulder rigs were actually manufactured, all L-35s retain the stock lug. The L-35 was issued with a black leather holster complete with spare magazine, dismantling tools, and a magazine loader, made necessary by the highly tensioned magazine spring. Deliveries of the L-35 proceeded sporadically, owing to the large degree of hand-fitting required in its manufacture and the interruptions of the 1939–1940 Winter War and 1944 Continuation War with the Soviet Union. Total production of the L-35 was approximately 9,000 by 1954, plus an additional 1,250 modified L-35s manufactured in 1958. The limited numbers of available L-35s during the Continuation War forced Finland to supplement its pistol issues with Browning Model 1935 High Powers, as well as various other foreign pistols obtained through Germany. Despite the L-35’s limited production, VKT sold small lots to Switzerland, Israel, and Sweden. Sweden was so impressed by the L-35 that its Husqvarna factory obtained a license from VKT to manufacture the L-35 as that country’s M-40. The rugged, accurate L-35 proved a deadly weapon in the hands of the heavily outnumbered but tough Finish troops during the Russo-Finnish conflicts. During a particularly one-sided action in December 1939 near the villages of Suomussalmi and Hulkoniemi, a first lieutenant armed only with an L-35 faced down two Soviet T28 tanks. Braving heavy machine-gun fire at a range of only 40 meters, the lieutenant brazenly stood up and fired his Lahti at the tanks’ observation ports. No one recorded the effect of his fire within the tanks, but after having emptied at least three magazines the lieutenant still held his ground as the T-28s retreated toward safety (Trotter 1991: 157).

SWEDEN Lahti M-40 Before 1939 Sweden issued the 7.5mm Model 87 Nagant revolver and a 9mm Browning Long FN Browning semiautomatic designated

237

238

PISTOLS

the Model 07. In 1939 the country adopted the caliber 9mm Parabellum Walther P38 as its P-39. Sweden’s decision to adopt the Finnish L-35 as the M-40 was necessitated by the suspension of exports of the Walther to the country by Germany during World War II. The Husqvarna Vapenfabrik made its first deliveries of the M-40 to the Swedish Army in 1942 and manufactured some 83,950 Lahtis before production ended in 1946. The M-40 differed from the L-35 in a number of minor details, including its somewhat longer barrel and a short hexagonal section at the barrel’s base. The loaded-chamber indicator was also omitted, and the grips were marked with the Husqvarna crown-over-“H” trademark. Husqvarna unfortunately used a lesser-quality steel than VKT in its pistols, with the result that some M-40s were known to fail when inadvertently used with higher-powered submachine-gun ammunition. The Swedish Army finally replaced the M-40 with the Glock 17/19, known as the M88/88b in Swedish service.

FRANCE Modèle 1935A and 1935S The caliber 8mm Mle 1892 revolver was the official French sidearm during World War I. It was a reasonably serviceable although underpowered weapon, but most French officers considered it obsolete as a revolver. The growing dissatisfaction with the Mle 1892 and, more pressingly, the lack of sufficient numbers of pistols during the war prompted the French to buy huge quantities of foreign pistols. These included 7.65mm Browning-type pistols made by various Spanish makers such as Ruby and Star, as well as 27,500 U.S. 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Savage Model 1917s. By the war’s end the French pistol inventory was so chaotic that in 1923 the Ordnance Department announced its intention to acquire a single semiautomatic pistol for standard issue. Some 22 models, both domestic and foreign, were submitted for tests, with Ordnance eventually choosing a modified Browning design by Swiss-born Charles Gabriel Petter. In 1934 Petter served as a director at the French arsenal Société Alsacienne de Constructions Méchaniques (SACM) in Cholet, Alsace. The new pistol, designated the Pistolet Automatique, cal. 7,65L., Modèle 1935 (or Mle

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

1935), exhibits a sleek appearance and excellent workmanship. Grips are of checkered wood, and the magazine, released by a button next to the trigger, has a capacity of eight rounds. The Mle 1935 is essentially a slightly scaled-down Colt Model 1911 with the improvement of having a lock assembly capable of being removed as a single unit for maintenance or replacement. The safety mechanism, however, is inferior to the Colt-Browning’s in that it is an overly simplified bar that merely blocks the hammer. Unfortunately, such a defect paled in comparison to the inadequacies of the Mle 1935 cartridge. The French 7.65x20mm Long cartridge was based on a cartridge initially used in the experimental U.S. Model 1918 Pederson Device, an apparatus that allowed the caliber .30-06 U.S. Model 1903 Springfield rifle to fire as a semiautomatic. Although the Americans abandoned both the Pederson Device and its cartridge as impractical, the French seem to have been much impressed by the latter. The French 7.65x20mm Long cartridge is, admittedly, superior in its ballistics to the 7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge but only comparable to the caliber .380 ACP (9mm kurz) for range and stopping power. It is much weaker than the caliber 9mm Parabellum, the growing favorite among many European countries at the time as the ideal service cartridge. With the Mle 1935 and its 7.65x20mm Long cartridge, the French army continued its tradition of well-made, underpowered sidearms. Production of the Mle 1935 began at SACM in 1938 and was continuing at a leisurely pace when the French at last realized that they would need as many weapons as possible very soon. To speed production, the Manufacture d’Armes de St. Étienne reworked the Mle 1935 design by simplifying its locking system and lock work and reducing the work required on external machining and finishing. The result was a shorter, less aesthetically pleasing pistol that was just as effective as the original and could be produced faster. The original design was then redesignated the Mle 1935A, and the St. Étienne pistol became the Mle 1935S. The manufacture of the Mle 1935 pistols also took place at the arsenals Manufacture d’Armes de Tulle (MAT) and Manufacture d’Armes de Chatellerault (MAC). SACM had only manufactured about 3,500 of the Mle 1935A when Nazi forces captured the facility on 23 June 1940; a scant 1,404 Mle 1935Ss had been finished at St. Étienne when it was captured that same month. Approximately 40,000 Mle 1935A pistols were later manufactured under Nazi supervision at SACM, with apparently no Mle 1935S pistols being produced during the war. The Nazi designation for the Mle 1935A was 7.65mm Pistole 625 (f).

239

240

PISTOLS

MAB Modèle D, Unique Modèle 17, Pistolet Automatique Union A number of smaller manufacturers, in addition to the four major French arsenals, produced pistols for the government to supplement Mle 1935A and Mle 1935S issues. These pistols were typically copies of Spanish pistols from the Eibar region that were, in turn, copies of designs by John Browning. Following the Nazi conquest of France in 1940 these companies continued production for the Germans (either willingly under the Vichy regime or by force). In 1933 the Manufacture d’Armes Automatiques de Bayonne (MAB) began manufacturing a copy of the FN Browning Model 1906, the 7.65mm Modèle D. During World War II MAB provided the Germans with well over 50,000 of the pistols that were marked with German proofs and “PISTOLE MAB KALIBER 7.65.” The civilian firm Manufacture d’Armes des Pyrénées at Hendaye near the Spanish border began operations in 1923 to build copies of the Spanish Ruby—copies of Browning-type pistols. Chambered in either calibers 6.35mm or 7.65mm, these pistols were marketed under the decidedly misleading brand-name “Unique.” The Nazis began manufacturing the nine-shot caliber 7.65mm Unique Modèle 17 as their Selbstlade pistole Unique soon after occupying Hendaye on 26 June 1940. The pistol was later redesignated the Kriegsmodell (War Model) after the Nazis ordered it redesigned with an external hammer. Approximately 25,000 of the Kriegsmodell were manufactured under German occupation. M. Seytres of St. Étienne manufactured another Eibar-type Pistol, the Pistolet Automatique Union, a sevenshot 7.65mm weapon for the French Army. The company also produced limited numbers of the Union with a longer barrel and a bizarre, U-shaped 35-round magazine.

ITALY Although the elite of Italy’s private gun makers continued to turn out superb weapons at the turn of the century, the military exhibited a decided inconsistency in its choice of sidearms. During World War I Italian troops thus entered the field with one of the worst military handguns ever made—the Glisenti Model 1910—and one of the best—the Beretta Model 1915. Italy’s first military semiautomatic, the Glisenti 9mm Model 1910, evolved from the slightly earlier

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

Brixia pistol, a design apparently based on Swiss patents by Paul Häussler and Pierre Roch. In 1905 Bethel Abiel Revelli, an Italian army officer, also known for his work with machine guns, patented a pistol with striking similarities to that of Häussler and Roch. It was Revelli’s patents that ultimately led to the Glisenti Model 1910. Siderugica Glisenti, Societa Anonima, of Carcina Val Trompia began the initial production of the Revelli pistol and was later joined by the firm Metellurgica Bresciana gia Tempini (MBT) of Brescia.

Glisenti Model 1910 The Glisenti Model 1910 was reasonably well made and, although notably boxier, held a general outer resemblance to the Luger P08. Unfortunately, both its basic design and cartridge combined to make it one of the poorest military sidearms of any era. Trigger pull was dismally poor, and the Glisenti operated on a delayed blowback principle utilizing a locked breech. This mechanism was more suited for some types of machine guns and was thus unusual for a pistol—a peculiarity that indicates Revelli may have been more suited to design the former. The Glisenti was also structurally weak in that the left side of the slide was actually a removable plate secured by a large screw on the front of the pistol. Intended to facilitate maintenance, the side plate robbed the pistol of its structural integrity, leading many Model 1910s to become loose and unsafe after repeated use. The Model 1910 was chambered for the 9mm Glisenti cartridge, also known as the Model 1910 cartridge, and was loaded with a seven-round detachable box magazine. The Glisenti cartridge itself contributed greatly to the pistol’s deficiencies. Although weaker, the Model 1910 cartridge had the same dimensions of the 9mm Parabellum cartridge. This oversight thus gives the Glisenti less stopping power than other military 9mm pistols. More alarmingly, it has been reported that if accidentally loaded with the more powerful Parabellum cartridges, the Italian pistols are capable of exploding in the user’s hand.

Beretta Model 1915, Model 1915/19, and Model 1923 In 1915 Italy adopted a blowback-operated pistol by the venerable and well-known Fabrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta of Brescia. Pietro

241

242

PISTOLS

Beretta had founded the business in 1660, and the new semiautomatic signaled a new and prosperous era for the family of gun makers. A namesake of the company’s founder, Pietro Beretta, and a company engineer, Tullio Marengoni, designed the Beretta Modello 1915, which reflects the family heritage of superior gun making. The Model 1915 was fitted with a thumb-operated safety, manufactured with a fixed barrel and internal hammer, and fed by a detachable seven-shot magazine in the grip. The pistol quickly became a favorite among Italian troops and police owing to its easy disassembly for cleaning and its compactness and reliability. Model 1915s issued to police forces were stamped “PS” (Public Security) (indicating Publica Sicurezza) with army-issue pistols being marked “RE” (for Regio Esercito, or Royal Army). A limited number of Model 1915s also saw use by Finnish support troops during the 1944 Continuation War with the Soviet Union. The majority of Model 1915s were, however, chambered for the 7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge—a popular cartridge for pocket and European police pistols but underpowered for a combat weapon. A lesser number of pistols were also chambered for the 9mm Model 1910 Glisenti cartridge. Beretta continued to improve and modify its basic design, resulting in the 7.65mm Model 1915/19 manufactured from 1922 to 1931 and issued to Italian military and police forces. The Model 1915/19 was equipped with sheet-metal grips rather than the earlier wood panels. It also introduced the open-top slide, a distinguishing feature in following Beretta models. Chambered for the caliber 9mm Glisenti cartridge, only some 3,000 Model 1923s were manufactured, with most going to the Italian military. A limited number were also sold to the Policia de la Provincia de Buenos Aires. The Model 1923’s main improvement over previous Berettas was the introduction of an exposed hammer, allowing the user to cock and decock it more easily. The magazine capacity of the Models 1915/19 and 1923 is eight rounds.

Beretta Model 1931 and Model 1934 Beretta continued to improve its designs, briefly manufacturing the transitional 7.65mm Model 1931 for the Italian Navy. The wood grips of the 1931 were inset with a plate inscribed “RM” (for Rigio Marina, or Royal Navy) and an anchor to indicate its naval issue. The Model 1934 followed soon after and quickly became a favorite of the Army, Carabiniere (elite police units), and police personnel

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

who received it. In honor of Benito Mussolini’s assumption of power, fascist-era Model 1934s are not only stamped with their date of production in Arabic letters but also the year of Il Duce’s rule in Roman numerals. It is light and compact, weighing just 1.25 pounds, and measures 6 inches in overall length. Its simple blowback mechanism functions smoothly, and its exposed hammer allows it to be lowered on a loaded chamber for safer carrying. A catch on the bottom of the grip secures the seven-round magazine that is equipped with a finger extension to aid steadier aiming. The Model 1934 is also chambered for a much more efficient cartridge than most earlier Italian service pistols. Known in Italy as the caliber 9mm corto (short) cartridge, the Model 1934’s loading is also known as the 9mm Kurz in Germany and the caliber .380 ACP in the United States. Although not as powerful as the 9mm Parabellum, it is ideal for such a compact weapon and much more powerful in its ballistics than such cartridges as the popular caliber 7.65mm (.32 ACP). The Model 1934 was also used by Romanian and Finnish troops during World War II. Actual usage of the Model 1934 by Italian troops during World War II did little to prove its value as a combat weapon, but thousands were acquired by both Nazi and Allied troops who prized it as a souvenir.

JAPAN Kijiro Nambu Kijiro Nambu dominated Japanese small-arms development during the first half of the twentieth century. Born in southern Japan in 1869, Nambu entered the Imperial Japanese Army and, in 1897, was posted to the Tokyo Artillery Arsenal as a lieutenant. During his military career Nambu played a key role in the development and manufacture of Japanese machine guns, rifles, and handguns and ultimately rose to the rank of lieutenant general. For better or worse, his position as Japan’s preeminent pistol designer was such that “Nambu” eventually became synonymous with “Japanese semiautomatic pistol.” At best, early Nambus were more advanced than the Type 26 Revolvers they replaced. They were also at least comparable to other mediocre World War I–era military semiautomatic pistols such as

243

244

PISTOLS

the Italian Glisenti. Nambu, however, seemed to have felt little need to improve his basic design despite important technological advances beyond Japan’s shores. As a result of such conservatism, Japanese soldiers eventually entered World War II with one of the most obsolete pistols of all the major powers and by the war’s end received an even worse pistol. Nambu’s special 8mm bottlenecked cartridge did little to improve the pistol’s performance. It was weaker than nearly every other military loading of its time and could not be interchanged with any other cartridge.

Type 04 In 1909 Colonel Nambu publicly demonstrated his first semiautomatic pistol, having arranged for its manufacture by the civilian firm Kayaba Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha. The pistol was typically called the Type 04, indicating the fourth year of the Taisho Era (1915 in the Western calendar), but was officially designated the Nambu Shiki Jido Kenjo Ko, (Nambu Automatic Pistol Type A). Kayaba produced approximately 2,250 pistols, and Nambu evidently sold them on a commercial basis, including some 500 bought by Siam. Although there were apparently no contracts given by the Japanese government, Japanese officers privately purchased a number, and some of Nambu’s early pistols were used by Japanese troops during World War I and World War II. In appearance, the Type 04 resembles the German Luger and the Italian Glisenti, being somewhat more graceful than the Italian pistol but less so than the German. Its quality of manufacture is extremely good, with a polished blued finish and finely checkered wood grips. It balances well in the hand and the trigger pull is pleasant. The Type 04 is a recoil-operated weapon utilizing an internal bolt and a single recoil spring. A large grooved knob on the rear of the bolt allows cocking. A grip safety is situated on the front grip strap below the trigger guard, and the rear sight is of the adjustable sliding-ramp type. The rear strap of the majority is slotted to accept a detachable wood holster/shoulder stock that incorporates a unique extendable wrist section. A button in the left grip behind the trigger releases the eight-round magazine. Very early Type 04 pistols were manufactured with small trigger guards and wood magazine bases. Later pistols underwent a number of minor modifications, including an enlarged trigger guard to accommodate a gloved finger, an aluminum rather than wood magazine base, and the elimination of the

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

shoulder-stock slot. Manufacture of the Type 04 eventually shifted to the government’s Tokyo Arsenal and the Tokyo Gas & Electric Company (Tokyo Gasu Denki Kabushiki Kaisha). The receivers of Tokyo Arsenal–manufactured pistols are stamped with its four interlocking rings emblem, and Tokyo Gas & Electric Type 04s received that company’s “GTE” within a circle logo. Nambu followed his Type 04 pistol with the smaller, Nambu Shiki Jido Kenju Otsu (Nambu Automatic Pistol Type B) chambered for a bottlenecked 7mm cartridge. Owing to the diminutive size of the Type B, it was often called the Baby Nambu by Westerners, with the Type A receiving the title Papa Nambu. Manufactured at the Tokyo Arsenal, the Type B was essentially a scaled-down Type 04 but with a simpler V-notch rear sight and seven-round magazine. The Type A’s cartridge made it unsuitable for a true combat weapon, but its small size and excellent finish made it popular among higher-ranking staff officers and some aircrews.

Type 14 In 1925 the Japanese Army adopted the 14 Nen Shiki Kenju (14th Year Type Pistol), also known as the Type 14. Production continued into 1945, with possibly as many as 400,000 being manufactured. The Type 14 was a modified Type 1904, simplified and improved to make it more suitable as a mass-produced military weapon. The Type 14 thus differed from its predecessor in a number of details. It was fitted with horizontally grooved grips rather than the finely checkered grips of the Type 1904, and the complicated adjustable rear sight was also eliminated and replaced with a simple V-notch. Various components of the bolt were modified, including the addition of a second recoil spring and a knurled rather than grooved cocking knob. Although the addition of a magazine safety is an improvement, the elimination of the grip safety for a manual safety was a definite step backward. The new safety outwardly resembled the switch-type safeties used in numerous other designs, but Nambu designed it with absolutely no consideration for its practicality in a combat situation. Located above the trigger guard on the left side of the pistol, it is beyond the thumb’s reach and thus all but impossible to operate with one hand. The safety’s inaccessibility is further aggravated by the extreme 180-degree rotation required to switch it between the safe and fire positions. Nambu’s last significant modification to the Type 14 occurred in the late 1930s as a result of Japa-

245

246

PISTOLS

nese troops’ experiences in Manchuria—the trigger guard was further enlarged to accept an even more heavily gloved hand. In addition to its unfortunate safety arrangement, the Type 14 exhibits a number of other shortcomings. Field repair of damaged pistols is complicated by the overreliance of the arsenals on handfinishing and hand-fitting the pistols’ individual components. The Type 14 also became notorious for its consistently weak firing-pin striker spring. After repeated use the spring tends to lack sufficient power to ignite the cartridge’s primer—an extremely dangerous defect in a combat weapon. The caliber 8mm Nambu cartridge is also underpowered for military purposes, and some pistols lack a bolt hold-open device. To make matters worse, the primers and propellant used in Japanese cartridges were often of uneven quality during World War II, especially when used in the humid jungle conditions that prevailed in the Pacific theater. An earthquake destroyed the Tokyo Arsenal in 1923, and initial production of the Type 14 thus began at the new Kokura Arsenal on the island of Kyushu in about 1928. The Nagoya Arsenal began manufacturing the pistol the next year and eventually became the sole producer of the Type 14. Pre–World War II Type 14s are wellmade and, although light at the muzzle, are capable of a respectable degree of accuracy at close ranges. Wartime-issue Type 14s exhibit much less attention to exterior appearance, such as evident machining marks, a lack of polishing, and thin bluing, but are nevertheless quite functional. Type 14 holsters are constructed with a large flap and completely enclose the pistol and contain compartments for an extra magazine and striker spring. Early examples were well-made and constructed of thick leather, whereas wartime shortages necessitated the use of inferior materials and workmanship in later holsters.

Type 94 In 1934 the Japanese military adopted the truly dreadful 94 Shiki Kenju (Type 94 Pistol), an even worse weapon than the Type 14. The pistol’s designation was derived from the recently adopted practice by the Japanese of dating weapon types based on the reign of the country’s first emperor. Under this system, the modern date 1934 represented the old Japanese year 2594. Nambu Toyamatsu carried out manufacture of the Type 94. The recoil-operated Type 94 shared the same 8mm cartridge as the Type 14 but, owing to its

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

shorter grip, accepted a six- rather than eight-round magazine. In the eyes of many Japanese troops, the Type 94’s smaller size was its only advantage when compared to its predecessor. Its more compact size makes it more convenient for use by aircraft and tank crews, and the smaller grip makes it more comfortable to use by men with small hands. The machining and overall finish, however, were typically crude; worse still, the Type 94’s weak recoil spring could sometimes allow it to fire on an open breech. It was also manufactured with an exposed bar sear on its left side. This oversight allowed one to accidentally discharge the Type 94 by pressing the outside of the pistol without touching the trigger. During World War II this feature gained the Type 94 the reputation of a suicide gun among Allied forces. Many soldiers and Marines swore that Japanese troops would feign surrender of the Type 94, only to squeeze the sear and shoot their potential captors.

SPAIN During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Spain’s government arsenals were less committed to the manufacture of pistols than rifles, the army’s primary weapon. As a result, semiautomatic pistol development in Spain initially lagged somewhat behind that in other European countries. When Spain adopted its first semiautomatic—the Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo 1908—it ordered it from the Belgian firm AEP (Société Anonyme Anciens Establissement Pieper). Despite this apparent slight to domestic gun makers, Spain had a strong tradition in the craft and eventually became an international leader in pistol production. The Spanish pistol-making industry was chiefly concentrated in the Basque towns of Eibar, Elgolibar, and Guernica and ranged from small, family-owned shops to larger companies capable of mass production. The Basque region thrived from the sale of handguns—chiefly copies of various designs by John Browning—to domestic as well as foreign customers. These pistols became known collectively, regardless of manufacturer, as Eibartype, or Ruby, pistols. World War I proved particularly profitable to the area because other European countries, most notably France and Italy, bought tens of thousands of these Spanish semiautomatics to supplement their own output. Owing to lax government proofing

247

248

PISTOLS

standards at the time, many of these pistols were of dubious quality; the reputation of Spanish pistols suffered accordingly. During the period leading up to and including the Spanish Civil War (1936–1937), fighting between the opposing forces disrupted the region, including its arms production. After the war, Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s regime exerted more control over Spain’s arms makers and began a more selective and systematic approach to obtaining sidearms for the military and police. By 1940 most of the smaller makers were forced to close shop, and the large concerns of Astra, Star, and Llama dominated Spanish handgun manufacture. The reduced number of manufacturers and more stringent government inspections contributed greatly to the reemergence of Spain as a producer of pistols equal to those of other major arms-manufacturing countries.

Astra The firm that eventually became known as Astra was founded in 1908 by the partnership of Don Juan Pedro de UncetaBaerenechea Cendoya and Don Juan Esperanza. The production of some 50,000 6.35mm and 7.65mm Browning-type Victoria pistols began at Eibar, but operations soon shifted to Guernica. Following 1914 the company began marking its pistols using the Astra brand. During World War I Astra manufactured more than 35,000 Browning-type Ruby pistols for the French and Italians. The company then went on to develop the Campo-Giro Models 1913 and 1913/16 into its highly successful Model 1921/400 series, followed by the Models 300, 600, and 900. The forces of Francisco Franco as well as those of the Republicans used Astras during the Spanish Civil War. The factory escaped the widely condemned destruction of Guernica by the Germans’ infamous Condor Legion bombing attack of 25 April 1937.

Campo-Giro Model 1913 and 1913–1916 Early Spanish military semiautomatics, although somewhat heavy, were well-made and reliable. In 1904 a former Spanish Army officer, Don Venancio Lopez de Ceballos y Aguirre, Conde del Campo-Giro, patented an autoloader that he developed at the government’s Fabrica de Armas Portátiles de Oviedo. Campo-Giro’s was a locked-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

breech design chambered for the Model 1908’s powerful 9mm Bergmann-Bayard cartridge (known as the 9mm Largo in Spain). Campo-Giro continued to refine his pistol and by 1912 had discarded the pistol’s locked-breech mechanism in favor of a simpler blowback design. Esperanza y Unceta manufactured the new pistol, known as the Campo-Giro Model 1913. As most blowback weapons were designed for weaker cartridges, the Model 1913 and its successors were fitted with a very stiff spring coiled around the barrel to absorb the recoil. The recoil spring thus required considerable effort to pull the slide rearward to cock the weapon for a first shot. The Model 1913 was loaded with an eight-round magazine fitted in the base of the grip. A thumb-operated safety was located on the left of the pistol. Three years after introducing the Model 1913, Unceta brought out a slightly improved model, the Model 1913–1916. Slightly more than 14,000 of both types were manufactured, and further development ceased following Campo-Giro’s accidental death soon after their introduction (Ezell 1981: 539).

Astra Model 400/ Model 1921 Esperanza y Unceta continued to develop Campo-Giro’s pistol and submitted the reworked design to the Spanish military in 1920. Known as the Astra Model 400 in its civilian form and designated the Pistola de 9 millimetros modelo 1921 (Model 1921) for military use, the new Astra offered a very unique feature. Rather than accepting a single type of cartridge, the Model 1921/400 was chambered to fire both the 9mm Largo and 9mm Parabellum cartridges. Moreover, under emergency circumstances it could also accommodate 9mm Steyr, 9mm Browning Long, and the .38 Super Automatic cartridges. Among some circles this unusual ability earned the pistol a rather unflattering nickname: the “Ashcan.” Such versatility was, however, an advantage during wartime when the availability of proper ammunition is sometimes tenuous. The commercial Model 400 is most readily distinguishable from the military Model 1921 in that most Model 400s are fitted with hard rubber grips (most military pistols had wood grips). Civilian pistols are also somewhat better-finished and often have nickel- or chrome-plated minor components. Both models are equipped with manual, grip, and magazine safeties. Typical markings on the tubular shaped slide include the Astra starburst logo on the top and ei-

249

250

PISTOLS

ther “ESPERANZA Y UNCETA” or “UNCETA Y COMPANIA, GUERNICA ESPANA” and “PISTOLA DE 9M/M MODELO 1921.” The insignia of the various Spanish military and police organizations indicate the issue of Spanish government–owned pistols. During the Spanish Civil War the Republicans also produced Model 1921 copies marked “RE” (Republica Española, or “Spanish Republic”). The French Army and Chilean Navy procured small quantities of Model 1921s, and the German Wehrmacht purchased approximately 6,000. Total production of the Model 400 and Model 1921 was 106,175 (Ezell, 1981: p. 558). The Modelo 400 remained in Spanish service until 1950.

Model 300 In 1922 Astra scaled down the Model 400 to chamber the 9mm Browning (.380 ACP or 9mm kurz) cartridges to produce the Model 300 for issue to Spanish prison personnel. The next year the company also began producing the pistol in 7.65mm (.32 ACP) for civilian and export sales. In 1928 the Spanish Navy adopted the Model 300 in its 9mm chambering. The company made 171,300 Model 300s until production ceased in 1947. During World War II the German Luftwaffe purchased 63,000 pistols in caliber 9mm kurz and an additional 22,390 in 7.65mm. The Nazi designation for the Model 300 was Pistole Astra 300.

Model 600 The later Astra Model 600 also bore a strong resemblance to the Model 400 but was not accepted by the Spanish Army. Owing to the close ties between the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, and Adolf Hitler, however, Nazi forces acquired approximately 10,450 of the Model 600 in 9mm Parabellum. The Nazi designation for the Model 600 was Pistole Astra 600/43, with those issued to the West German police after the war being designated the P3.

Model 900 series The severe arms limitations imposed on Germany by the Versailles Treaty crippled such companies as Mauser’s export trade yet pro-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

vided Spanish makers, including Astra, new opportunities. Eastern warlords, especially in China, were particularly fond of the Mauser Model 1896 Broomhandle and were eager to acquire more. Astra thus stepped in with the Model 900, chambered for the 7.63mm Mauser cartridge, very similar in appearance to the Broomhandle, and equipped with a wood shoulder stock/holster rig. Although the Model 900 shares the Broomhandle’s looks and 10-round integral magazine, it is internally quite different. Astra simplified the internal design of the Model 900 to make it more economical to manufacture and modified its locking system. A screwed-on side plate allowed internal access (avoiding Mauser’s method of inserting the entire mechanism in one unit through the back of the pistol frame). Production of the Model 900 continued from 1928 until the Spanish Civil War interrupted Astra’s operations in 1937. In 1928 Astra also began manufacturing selective-fire versions of the Model 900—the Models 901 and 902. The actual military value of such selective-fire pistol-carbines as the Astras and Mauser Schnellfeuer is often the subject of debate—the light weight of the weapons combined with their rapid rate of fire rendered them all but impossible to accurately aim after the first shot. The continued recoil of the weapon then tended to push the barrel ever higher until the last shot of the burst was launched at a 90-degree angle to the first. By that point the magazine had typically been emptied owing to its small capacity and the pistol’s blazing cyclic rate. Still, such pistols appealed to the more dramatic sort and enjoyed a certain popularity during the period. The selective-fire pistols have slightly larger hammers and grips than the Model 900 and are fitted with a firing-mode selector lever on the right side of the frame above the trigger. Pressing the lever down allows full-automatic fire, with the upper position providing semiautomatic use. The longer-barreled Model 903 appeared in 1932 and can accept either 10- or 20-round detachable magazines. The Model F was intended to arm Spain’s Guardia Civil (Civil Guard) and as such is chambered for the country’s official caliber 9mm Largo cartridge. Only 950 were delivered before Basque forces captured the factory in 1936. The Model F’s greatest improvement over the earlier selective-fires consists of a flywheel device in its grip that lowers the pistol’s cyclic rate from 900 to 350 rounds per minute. The reduction of the firing rate lessens the tendency of the pistol to climb during full-automatic fire and thus aids accuracy.

251

252

PISTOLS

Royal Two brothers, Juan and Cosme Beistegui, established Beistegui Hermanos in 1909. During World War I the brothers produced Rubytype pistols for France and Italy and in 1926 began manufacturing selective-fire copies of the Mauser Broomhandle for the Chinese market under the brand name Royal. The Royal shares the Broomhandle’s caliber 7.63mm cartridge and wood shoulder stock/holster but, like the Astra, was easier to manufacture. It incorporated a cylindrical bolt rather than the Mauser’s squared bolt and was manufactured with 10- and 20-round integral magazines as well as models accepting 10-, 20-, and 30-round detachable magazines. A later model was also fitted with a mechanism to retard its cyclic rate. Beistegui Hermanos manufactured about 23,000 Royals before the factory was destroyed in 1937.

Star Modelo Militar 1920 José-Cruz Echeverria and his son, Bonifacio, of Eibar manufactured Ruby-type pistols for France and Italy during World War I before adopting the Star trade name in 1919. The firm then made its first foray into the military market with the Star Modelo Militar 1920, a design based on the Colt-Browning swinging link system and chambered for the 9mm Largo cartridge. The pistol’s appearance is also highly derivative of the U.S. design and, other than its lack of a grip safety, looks very much like the Colt Model 1911. The pistol’s safety, mounted on the back of the slide, was at least somewhat original to Echeverria and blocks the hammer and firing pin. Although disappointed by a lack of interest by the Spanish Army, Star did win a contract for the Model Militar 1920 with the Guardia Civil. Slide markings are generally “BONIFACIO ECHEVERRIA, S.A.-EIBAR-ESPAÑA STAR.”

Star Model 1921 and 1922 Although generally pleased with the Modelo Militar 1920, the Guardia Civil objected to the slide-mounted safety and requested suitable modifications. Star responded quickly and soon followed the Modelo Militar 1920 with the Model 1921, a pistol that incorporated a frame-mounted safety as well as a grip safety. The grip

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL

safety, however, proved unpopular with Guardia Civil officers, forcing Star to resubmit the design without the safety as the Model 1922. The Model 1922 at last satisfied the Guardia Civil. Designating it the Model A, Star also offered the new pistol on the civilian market. Star continued to improve the design with the Model 1931, adding a curved and checkered back strap to provide a more comfortable grip and giving the pistol an even closer resemblance to the Colt Model 1911. Following the Spanish Civil War the pistol was redesignated the Model 1940 and in 1946 replaced the Astra Model 1921 (Model 400) in Spanish Army service. The improved Super Star was used by a number of South American nations and remained in Spanish service until production ended in 1983. In keeping with the Spanish fascination with full-automatic handguns, Star also offered a selective-fire version of the Model 1922 equipped with a wood shoulder stock/holster and available in a variety of calibers.

Llama Pistola Automatica Llama 9mm Marque IX Gabilondo y Urresti began business in 1904 in Guernica. The company then moved to Elgolibar after producing as many as 200,000 of the obligatory Ruby pistols for France and Italy during World War I. Later, under its new name, Gabilondo y Compañia, the company manufactured and marketed a number of Browning-derived pistols during the 1920s and 1930s. These included a 7.65mm (.32 ACP) selective-fire model that found some acceptance in the Chinese market, with a small number going to Japanese air forces (Ezell 1981: 564). The 9mm Llama Especial also saw use with Nationalist troops during the Spanish Civil War (Hogg 2001: 62). During the 1930s Gabilondo y Compañia continued its expansion by manufacturing quality copies of the Colt Model 1911 in various calibers under the brand name Llama. A typical pistol of the World War II period, the Pistola Automatica Llama 9mm Marque IX was chambered in 9mm Largo for Spanish military and police use. It was also used by various other powers, primarily in South America, in 9mm Parabellum and 9mm Short.

253

CHAPTER 6

Post–World War II Developments

The Cold War—the decades-long confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union following 1945—saw both superpowers consolidating their respective spheres of influence. In 1949 the United States was instrumental in the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to counter the Soviets in Europe. The Soviet Union responded in 1955 with the Warsaw Pact, a forced alliance of formerly independent Eastern European nations that fell under Soviet domination at the close of World War II. Both the Eastern and the Western military establishments quickly recognized the potential logistical problems posed by these rapidly imposed alliances. NATO and the Warsaw Pact thus moved to standardize weapon types and calibers among their respective allies to ensure interchangeability. The Warsaw Pact nations and, by extension, the People’s Republic of China and its satellites thus adopted the Soviet 7.62mm Tokarev TT33 pistol as their standard military sidearm. As a result, the arsenals of the previously independent Eastern nations suspended the production of native designs and retooled to manufacture domestic versions of the Soviet weapon. NATO’s signatories were, especially concerning the question of caliber, less than unanimous in their choice of both military pistols and calibers. Nearly all European nations had made the transition from revolvers to semiautomatics before World War II and had adopted the 9mm Parabellum cartridge (9x19mm NATO) as the

255

256

PISTOLS

ideal front-line combat loading. With the most notable exception of West Germany’s post–World War II Walther P38, the P1, most European NATO members adopted John Browning’s Model 1935 High Power or a variation of its basic design. The United States, for its part, remained firmly committed to another of Browning’s creations: the tried-and-true caliber .45 ACP Colt Model 1911A1. Lighter caliber weapons also retained popularity for use by officers, some police forces, and secondary or specialized military personnel. The 7.65mm Browning cartridge (.32 ACP), disdained by most U.S. agencies as being too anemic for practical use, remained the loading of choice for many European police forces and higherranking military officers. A leading factor in the longevity of the caliber .32 ACP cartridge was its suitability for use with the simplest semiautomatic operating principle—the blowback mechanism. Another rationale behind the retention of caliber .32 weapons for police was based on their use in the closer confines of European cities (the light caliber .32 bullet is less likely to pass through the intended target and strike an innocent bystander). The 9mm Short (.380 ACP) cartridge, however, had rapidly gained in popularity in the postwar years owing to its marked lethality over the .32 and its easy accommodation in blowback weapons. U.S. police and security forces continued to favor revolvers well into the second half of the twentieth century. Their preference was grounded not only in a traditional affection for the reliable sixshooter but the revolver’s inherent structural strength. More concerned with the man-stopping capabilities of their sidearms, U.S. lawmen typically holstered weapons chambered for the potent .357 Magnum cartridge or, to a lesser extent, the even more powerful .44 Magnum—cartridges that are too powerful for the standard semiautomatic to safely chamber. The 1980s and 1990s, however, saw the rapidly escalating acceptance in the U.S. law enforcement community of military-style semiautomatics. The new trend grew out of the availability of a new generation of high-powered, high magazine–capacity pistols and a number of new cartridges, most notably the .40 Smith & Wesson. The .40 S&W offered a logical compromise between the caliber 9mm Parabellum and the .45 ACP, being more powerful than the former but having less recoil than the latter. During this period U.S. manufacturers lost significant ground as European manufacturers such as SIG-Sauer, Heckler & Koch, and Glock set higher standards for military handgun design. The new

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

pistols offered the multiple advantages of high magazine capacities, advanced construction techniques and materials, and the ability to be carried safely with a cartridge in the chamber yet capable of instant use. The U.S. companies’ loss of prominence is no better illustrated than by the controversial choice of an Italian pistol, the 9mm NATO Beretta 92, as a replacement for the venerable caliber .45 ACP Colt Model 1911A1.

SOVIET UNION/RUSSIA Makarov PM The Soviet Union and a number of other Warsaw Pact countries officially replaced the Tokarev TT33 in 1951 with the 9x18mm Pistolet Makarova (PM). The new pistol was intended to be easier to control than the Tokarev, but, as typical of many Soviet-made weapons, it is more awkward to handle and has a much worse trigger pull than comparable Western handguns. The Makarov is a fixed-barrel, doubleaction, blowback pistol that externally resembled the Walther PP. Although pulling the hinged trigger guard downward also disassembled the Makarov, it lacked a loaded indicator pin and differed from the Model PP in a number of internal details. The magazine has a capacity of eight rounds and was released by a catch on the bottom of the grip. The safety switch was mounted on the left rear of the slide. The Makarov also chambered a new caliber 9x18mm cartridge that in size and power place it between the .380 Browning (9mm kurz) and 9mm NATO. The caliber 9mm Makarov cartridge, although very similar to a caliber 9x18mm Police cartridge introduced in Western Europe, would not chamber correctly in western pistols.

PSM In 1980 a number of Soviet security forces began issuing the PSM (Pistolet Samosarjadnij Malogabaritnij, “self-loading small pistol”). Designed by Lev Koulikov, Tikhon Lashnev, and Anatoliy Simarin, the PSM is a blowback weapon designed for easy concealment. Its most notable feature is its unique 5.45x18mm bottlenecked cartridge capable of considerable penetration against body armor. The

257

258

PISTOLS

PSM is 160mm (6.3”) in overall length and has an 85mm (3.35”) barrel. Magazine capacity is eight cartridges.

Stetchkin Machine Pistol (APS) The Automaticheskia Pistolet Stetchkina (APS) shares the appearance and basic blowback mechanism of the Makarov but is somewhat larger and capable of selective fire. A selector mounted on the left rear slide indicates safe in its lower position, semiautomatic in the middle, and full automatic in the top position. The Stechkin utilizes a 20round magazine and was issued with a wood shoulder stock/holster very similar to that of the Mauser Model 1896. Its cyclic rate of fire on full-automatic mode is approximately 750 rounds per minute. The Stechkin’s main fault lies in that it is too large to be a practical handgun and too light to be controlled effectively as a submachine gun. It was eventually phased out and replaced by the Makarov.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA CZ Model 1950 and Model 1970 The postwar Model 1950 was the product of the Kratochvil brothers’ design team at CZ (_eska Zbrojovká) and, chambered in caliber 7.65mm (.32 ACP), was intended for use by the Czech police. Although much more modern in appearance than earlier Czech pistols, the Model 1950 is of a conventional blowback design, with an external hammer and many features apparently derived from the Walther PP. It differs from the Model PP in that the loaded indicator pin is located on the side of the slide rather than above the hammer, a catch on the side of the frame allows dismantling, and the safety is located on the frame rather than slide. CZ later modernized the Model 1950 to produce the Model 1970 for issue to police personnel and higher-ranking military officers.

CZ Model 1952 Immediately following World War II Czechoslovakia followed other Soviet bloc nations in issuing Soviet weapons, including the

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

7.63mm Tokarev TT33. In the early 1950s CZ began production of an excellent new domestic pistol to replace the aging Tokarevs. The CZ Model 1952 was fitted with an external hammer and accepted an eight-round magazine; a unique clip arrangement rather than the typical screw secures its composition grips. Its recoil-operated mechanism relied on a roller-locking system derived from the German MG-42 machine gun. This arrangement was necessary owing to the pistol’s highly potent 7.62mm Czech Model 48 cartridge, a loading based on the Soviet 7.62mm Type P cartridge but with 20 percent more propellant. The resultant impressive ballistics of the Model 1952, combined with its easy handling and sleek lines, made it a popular sidearm among those receiving it. The Model 1952 was manufactured between 1953 and 1970 and was eventually phased out of front-line Czech service and relegated to reserve units.

CZ75 and CZ85 As a member of the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovakia was required to issue weapons chambered to accept cartridges interchangeable with those of the Soviet Union. The 9mm Parabellum (NATO) CZ75 was thus initially not accepted for Czech service but released as an export pistol. Its debut on the international market in 1975 won the CZ75 instant acclaim as one of the finest military-style pistols to appear in the post–World War II years. Its basic mechanism and appearance are of the traditional Browning High Power type but exhibit some characteristics found in the SIG P220 and other significant improvements. Constructed of highgrade materials with superior craftsmanship, the CZ75 is a doubleaction weapon with either plastic (for civilian use) or walnut (military issue) grips and accepts a 15-round magazine. The CZ85 followed in 1985 and is essentially a CZ75 with the addition of ambidextrous safety and slide stops. Both models were manufactured in selective-fire versions with somewhat longer barrels and a provision to use a spare magazine as a forward grip. In 1984 the Swiss firm Sphinx Engineering SA of Porrentruy began offering its AT2000S, a modification of the CZ75 design.

CZ82 and CZ83 The CZ82 (CZ8-3 in its civilian form) appeared in 1984 and is a

259

260

PISTOLS

blowback-operated, double-action pistol similar in purpose and operation to the Walther PP and Soviet Makarov. It has an ambidextrous safety, slide lock, and magazine release controls, a firing-pin locking safety, and a large trigger guard to accommodate a gloved finger. The civilian CZ83 is available chambered in 7.65mm (.32 ACP) and 9mm Short (.380 ACP), with the military CZ82 being chambered for the 9mm Short or 9mm Makarov cartridge. Magazine capacity is 15 rounds for 7.65mm models and 13 rounds for 9mm pistols. Caliber 9mm Makarov-chambered pistols also differ from the other models in that they are bored with polygonal rifling rather than traditional lands and grooves.

POLAND Model 65 and 64 As a Soviet satellite, Poland adopted the 9x18mm (9mm Makarov) P65, a domestically manufactured variation of the Makarov. It also issued the double-action, 9x18mm P64, a Polish design that shares characteristics of both the larger Makarov and the Walther PPK. The select-fire 9x18mm Model 63 Machine Pistol also shows considerable Soviet influence and in a number of ways resembles the Soviet Stechkin. It is a blowback weapon and accepts either 15- or 20-round magazines.

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA Type 51 Before World War II, the Chinese government and various warlords armed their forces with a large variety of imported pistols such as the Mauser Model 1896, the Browning Model 1900, and the FN High Power. In addition, small domestic shops and larger factories fabricated many thousands of copies of foreign pistols. The Chinese also acquired huge numbers of Japanese arms from the Soviets, who captured them in Manchuria, as well as U.S. weapons taken from the Nationalists during the civil war. The Communist Chinese government later began a gradual move toward standardization based

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

on Soviet weapons with the Type 51 Pistol, a reasonably accurate copy of the 7.62mm Soviet Tokarev TT33.

Type 64 and Type 67 Adopted in 1964, the blowback-operated Chinese Type 64 is a uniquely diabolical weapon with an integral silencer designed specifically for assassinations. The rubber baffles and extremely fine wire mesh within the tubular silencer effectively muzzle the report of its special subsonic 7.65x17mm rimless Type 64 cartridge—a loading similar in appearance to the .32 ACP but interchangeable in no other weapon. A latch on the side of the pistol also locks the slide to prevent the mechanical noise and rear escape of the report that accompanies a semiautomatic pistol. A mechanical safety is located on the left side of the pistol above the grip. The magazine capacity is nine rounds. In 1968 Communist China put into service an improved and more compact assassination pistol, the Type 67. The Type 67 features a more streamlined and efficient silencer and a cross bolt to lock the slide to the barrel. Although in many respects similar to the Type 64, the Type 67 is chambered for yet another unique cartridge, the 7.62x17mm Type 67.

NORTH KOREA (DEMOCRATIC PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF KOREA) Type 64 North Korea originally armed its forces with a mix of captured Japanese, foreign imports, and Soviet and Chinese weapons. The country’s first domestically manufactured service pistol, the Type 64, is a relatively direct copy of the Browning Model 1900 Old Model in 7.65mm (.32 ACP). A limited number were also manufactured with a shortened slide that exposed a length of barrel sufficient to attach a silencer.

Type 68 The North Korean Type 68 was a significantly modified Tokarev

261

262

PISTOLS

TT33 design that locks in a manner similar to the Browning High Power. It retains the Tokarev’s 7.62mm chambering but is somewhat shorter, with the magazine release located in the base of the grip rather than the button type behind the trigger guard found on Soviet weapons.

Type 70 The Type 70 is a blowback-operated 7.65mm weapon of conventional design. Its main distinguishing feature is a large star insignia on the upper portion of the grip panels.

UNITED STATES The decision to join its NATO allies in a sidearm chambered for the standard 9x19mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) cartridge proved particularly traumatic for the U.S. military. The United States flirted with the idea during the Korean War but abandoned the transition as uneconomical considering the vast numbers of caliber .45 Model 1911A1s then in service. That those Model 1911A1s were perfectly serviceable and proven combat veterans further strengthened the Army’s decision to retain them for the indefinite future.

Colt General Officer Model Pistol, M15 Colt again broached the subject on a limited scale during the Vietnam War. In 1969 the company offered a modified version of its 9mm Commander as a replacement for the older model pistols then issued to general officers. The Army, for its part, declined Colt’s submission in favor of a more sophisticated version of the caliber .45 ACP 1911A1. Originally manufactured at the government’s Springfield Arsenal and later the Rock Island Arsenal, the new pistol entered service in 1972 as the Caliber .45 General Officer Model Pistol, M15. The M15 was somewhat more compact than the Model 1911A1 and was fitted with select-grade walnut grips with a brass insert engraved with the owner’s name. It also exhibited a much superior finish to standard-issue weapons. To further distinguish it

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

from the pistols issued to the rank and file, its slide also bears, in script, the legend “GENERAL OFFICER MODEL” and “RIA,” indicating its manufacturer. The M15 issue package includes a two-magazine pouch and flapless holster.

Beretta M9 (Model 92FS) In 1977 new small-arms studies undertaken at the U.S. Air Force Armaments Laboratory at Elgin Air Force Base reignited the 9mm transition debate. The Florida laboratory’s initial findings indicated that government inventories contained not only thousands of Model 1911A1s but also a bewildering variety of various caliber .38 revolvers. The Air Force quickly reached the obvious conclusion: The U.S. military faced a pressing need to restandardize its handgun issues. The Air Force findings soon found their way to the other services, as well as Congress, with predictable results. By 1979 the standardization issue and 9mm transition debate were embroiled in a bureaucratic quarrel complete with the requisite committees and government tests. In 1981 the government at last announced its decision to finally join its allies in adopting the 9x19mm NATO chambering and called on various foreign and domestic manufacturers for test pistols. To the dismay of many, only one U.S.-made pistol—a Smith & Wesson—reached the final testing stages. It faced entries by Beretta, Fabrique Nationale, Heckler & Koch, and SIG-SACO Defense Systems. After seemingly interminable delays, in 1985 the U.S. government officially announced its decision to replace the caliber .45 ACP Colt Model 1911A1 with the Italian entry: the Beretta 92FS. Designated the M9 in U.S. service, the new Beretta was manufactured in Italy and now in the United States by Beretta USA Corp. of Accokeek, Maryland. Beretta’s concession to manufacture the pistol in the United States and its relatively low cost were major factors in the decision to adopt the foreign-designed weapon. In the wake of the military’s action, numerous police departments followed its lead, phasing out traditional revolvers in favor of the Model 92. The M9 is a double-action weapon and accepts a 15-round magazine. It is equipped with a trigger-disconnect safety, is coated in a durable matte Bruniton finish, and fitted with a lanyard ring and chrome-lined barrel. The forward trigger-guard strap is also recurved to accommodate a two-hand grip.

263

264

PISTOLS

Inevitably, the adoption of Beretta by the U.S. government prompted a considerable ongoing debate as to the military effectiveness of the pistol and its 9mm cartridge. Its proponents continue to argue the advantage that they more conform to U.S. allies’ issues. They further press that the 9mm cartridge produces less recoil than the caliber .45 ACP and is thus more suited for use by the growing number of women entering the U.S. military. Both the pistol and its cartridge, however, have found some of their greatest opposition among U.S. combat veterans who witnessed enemies sustain multiple wounds from 9mm ammunition and still continue an attack. The critics’ resistance has been further strengthened by reports from Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other recent arid battlegrounds: A number of troops involved in those actions have complained that the Beretta requires frequent maintenance to maintain reliability and does not stand up well in harsh combat conditions. In a scenario hauntingly reminiscent of the Philippines in the early 1900s, many U.S. soldiers locked away their government-issue pistols in favor of more powerful caliber .45 weapons. Adding to the irony, many U.S. troops still prefer the supposedly obsolescent Colt Model 1911A1 to the advanced M9, while others holster pistols manufactured by SIG, Heckler & Koch, and Smith & Wesson. In addition to the issue of personal weapons, in 1996 the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) adopted the caliber .45 ACP Heckler & Koch Mark 23 mod 0 for issue to certain elite units. At the beginning of the twenty-first century the United States is no closer to standardization than it was in 1900.

Smith & Wesson Model 39, Model 59, and Model 459 The Model 459, Smith & Wesson’s entry in the government trials, was based on designs the company had introduced in the 1950s. The company began production of the double-action, eight-round Model 39 and its 14-round counterpart, the Model 59, in 1954. The two pistols marked something of a breakthrough in the U.S. handgun industry, as both were chambered for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge so popular in Europe but as yet relatively untried in the United States. The two pistols have seen service with the U.S. Navy, Air Force, and Army Special Forces (Green Berets). The Model 459 was essentially an updated version of the Model 59

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

with improved sights. Despite its loss in the U.S. government trials, it is an excellent weapon and has seen some use by U.S. forces. During the 1990s Smith & Wesson continued to expand its semiautomatic offerings with its Third Generation series and the Sigma, a high magazine–capacity pistol utilizing modern polymers in its construction.

GERMANY Walther P1 Its original facilities devastated and lost to the Soviets in the final days of World War II, Walther eventually established a new factory at Ulm/Donau in the early 1950s and renewed production of the P38 in 1957. That year the new German Federal Republic Army, the Bundeswehr, adopted the pistol as the Pistole 1, or P1. The P1 differs from the earlier P38 only in its lighter alloy frame, slight changes in its safety and extractor, and a matte-black finish and black plastic checkered grips. The P1 was also adopted at various times by the armed forces of Austria, Norway, and Portugal, as well as Sweden, its initial contractor. The company also manufactured a more meticulously finished model for the civilian market and sold it, in addition to the standard caliber 9mm Parabellum, in calibers .22 Long Rifle and 7.65 Parabellum. Shorter-barreled versions, the P38K and the P4, were also manufactured for police use in the 1970s but were soon discontinued.

Walther P5 In 1975 Walther introduced the caliber 9mm NATO P5 in response to changing German police requirements for a high magazine– capacity, double-action sidearm that could be safely carried and quickly put into action. Externally the P5 is a sleek, modern-looking pistol with a slide enclosing all but the muzzle of the barrel. Its locking system, however, is essentially the same tilting wedge as that of the P38. The P5 also shares the same eight-round magazine capacity of its predecessor, as well as its trigger mechanism. Although the P5’s basic mechanics harken to the 1930s, its safety features are much more advanced. A large lever on the left side of

265

266

PISTOLS

the frame acts as both a safety and decocking switch that safely lowers the exposed hammer. In addition, a spring maintains the firing pin itself in a position out of alignment with the hammer’s striking surface. Only when the trigger is deliberately pulled does this spring allow the pin to shift into firing position. A number of police organizations in Germany and other countries adopted the P5, as did the Portuguese Army. Walther followed the basic P5 in 1988 with the shorter P5 Compact and later the improved-safety P1A1. Although an excellent pistol, the P5 series was destined for rapid obsolescence owing to its relatively small magazine capacity and outmoded locking system.

Walther P88 In 1988 Walther combined the best features of the P5 with a modified Browning locking system to offer the P88, a cost-efficient, 15round capacity, double-action pistol suitable for police and military use. The P88 thus shares the excellent trigger and safety mechanisms of the P5, as well as an ambidextrous decocking lever. It does, however, abandon the tilting wedge for a system similar to that of the Glock, SIG-Sauer, and other new and popular pistols. The tilting barrel, combined with its method of locking into the ejection port, allowed for much more efficient machining, with a resultant positive effect on the pistol’s overall cost. In 1996 Walther discontinued the P88 in favor of the less bulky P88 Compact.

Heckler & Koch Model HK 4/ P 11 In the 1950s Heckler & Koch GmbH began operations at the site of the former Mauser factory in Oberndorf/Neckar, the old Mauser machinery having been confiscated by French forces. Alex Seidel, formally of Mauser, was a cofounder of the new firm and reintroduced the Mauser HSc as the Heckler & Koch HK 4. The blowback HK 4, known as the P11 in German service, is manufactured with a stamped steel rather than the earlier machined steel slide and an aluminum alloy frame. It differs externally in its basic lines and black plastic checkered grips molded with a more comfortable thumb rest. A catch on the base of the grip releases the magazine. Heckler & Koch designed the HK4 to be easily converted to a variety of calibers. By switching barrels, magazines, and recoil spring,

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

the pistol can chamber 6.35mm (.25 ACP), 7.65mm (32 ACP), and 9mm kurz (.380 ACP) cartridges. The breechblock is also fitted with a faceplate that can be rotated 180 degrees to convert the pistol to the more economical rimfire caliber .22 Long Rifle cartridge. The HK4 was manufactured from 1967 to 1984 and issued to the Zollpolizei (Customs Police) among other military and police units.

Heckler & Koch Model P7 (PSP) The 9mm NATO Model P7 was introduced in the early 1970s as a police weapon (thus its alternate designation, Polizei Selbstlade Pistole, or PSP). The P7 introduced a unique cocking and decocking device on the front grip strap activated by squeezing the pistol grip. The pistol is also unusual in that it incorporates the gas-delayed blowback principle. This system relies on a small hole drilled in the barrel that siphons off a portion of the ignition gasses to operate a piston attached to the slide. The pressure exerted by the gas thus delays the opening of the breech until the bullet leaves the barrel. Heckler & Koch first offered the improved P7 M8 and P7 M13 pistols in 1983. These pistols feature ambidextrous magazine releases and enlarged trigger guards. The P7 M13 also offers the advantage of a 13-round staggered-row magazine. Other variants in the series include the blowback-operated P7 K3 in caliber .22 Long Rifle and 9mm Short and the P7 M10 in caliber .40 S&W. Some units of the Bundeswehr adopted the P7, as did various police agencies, including the federal Bundesgrenzschutz (GSG9) and the state police departments of Baden-Wurttemberg, Bavaria, and Lower Saxony.

Heckler & Koch Model P9 and Model P9S Manufactured between about 1972 and 1984, the Heckler & Koch Model P9 and its military and police-type counterpart, the P9S, incorporate numerous modern synthetic components. The civilian Model P9 differs primarily from the P9S in that it is a single-action rather than double-action weapon and is fitted with adjustable rear sights. Both pistols were offered in 9mm Parabellum (NATO) and 7.65 Parabellum (.30 Luger). The company introduced a caliber .45 ACP model in 1977. The pistols operate on the delayed blowback system and lock and unlock by means of rollers that engage the slide and two-piece breechblock, an arrangement used in the company’s

267

268

PISTOLS

G-3 rifle. Typical slide markings are “HK MOD P9S HECKLER & KOCH OBERNDORF/N,” with the “HK” initials also appearing on the lower grip panels. The P9 and P9S are fitted with a thumb-operated lever to cock and decock the internal hammer, as well as a loaded indicator pin. A manual safety is positioned on the left rear of the slide, and a durable black polymer finish protects the metal parts. Later versions of the P9S were manufactured with a reverse-curve front trigger guard to accommodate a more comfortable two-handed grip. The P9 and P9S also incorporate an advanced polygonal bore that, unlike conventional rifling, presents a smoother internal surface that discourages fouling and provides twist without overly deforming bullets as they pass through. The P9S was adopted a number of police organizations, including the Saarland state police.

Heckler & Koch Model VP70 Heckler & Koch intended its Model VP70 as a compact selectivefire combat pistol for modern military and police use. Manufactured from about 1970 to 1984, it incorporates a largely polymer frame and enclosed striker. Its sophisticated blowback, fixed-barrel design allows it to efficiently chamber 9mm NATO ammunition, an achievement that had long eluded earlier manufacturers. A special shock-absorbing system helps reduce recoil and thus aids control while in full-automatic mode. Cartridge capacity is an impressive 18 rounds and is accomplished with a double-row magazine that does not overly widen the grips. Disassembly is easily accomplished by pulling down a catch within the trigger guard on the bottom of the frame. Optional equipment for the VP70 includes a push-through safety behind the trigger guard and a detachable shoulder stock. The VP70 A1 is equipped with a three-shot burst feature; the VP70 Z was offered in semiautomatic only. European police and border guards have used it extensively.

Heckler & Koch USP Series In 1993 Heckler & Koch debuted its Universal Selbstlade Pistole (Universal Self-Loading Pistol, or USP) series in calibers 9mm NATO and .40 S&W. A caliber .45 ACP model, intended primarily for sales in the United States, appeared in 1995. All USP pistols are

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

designed to accommodate both standard military cartridges as well as the more powerful +P loadings. Intended as highly versatile military and police weapons, the USP pistols incorporate the most advanced manufacturing techniques and materials available. The basic USP models are the Standard, Compact, Match, Expert, and Tactical. The Standard was adopted by the Bundeswehr as the P8 and the Compact by German police as the P10. Both the P8 and P10 are chambered for the 9mm NATO cartridge. The USP series is based on a modified Browning locking design assisted by an original Heckler & Koch recoil reduction system to ease handling. Truly modern weapons, the USP pistols are manufactured with steel-reinforced, high-strength polyamide frames capable of withstanding extreme temperatures, wear, and corrosion. Barrels are polygonal-bored cold-hammer forged chromium steel; the slides are of machined steel. To withstand corrosion, external metal parts are treated in a nitro-gas carburized and black oxide coating, with internal parts receiving a protective Dow-Corning antifriction treatment. As a result of such advanced technologies and exacting Heckler & Koch craftsmanship, the USP has proved one of the most accurate, powerful, and defect-free handguns ever manufactured. Heckler & Koch also designed the USP as a highly versatile, good-handling weapon capable of filling a variety of roles and needs. Grooves cast in the frame allow the attachment of either a laser aiming module (LAM) or tactical light. The combined safety and decocking lever is mounted on the frame above the trigger and can be easily moved from one side to the other for either right- or left-handed use. The magazine release, protected by the trigger guard, allows the magazine to drop free of the pistol and is also designed for ambidextrous use. Caliber 9mm and .40 S&W magazines are constructed of a stainless steel–reinforced translucent polymer; caliber .45 ACP magazines are of steel. The nonslip polymer grips are ergonomically slanted for comfortable aiming. A wide variety of trigger and control-lever options also give USP pistols nine potential combinations of safety as well as singleand double-action modes.

Heckler & Koch Mark 23 mod 0 In 1991 USSOCOM, the overall command for special operations, awarded contracts to Heckler & Koch and to Colt Manufacturing Co. to submit test pistols for a new Offensive Handgun Weapon

269

270

PISTOLS

System (OHWS). As the name of the system suggests, the new pistol was not to perform in a traditional defensive role but as a specialized offensive weapon for special operations. The government intended to issue the new weapons to elite organizations such as the Army’s Special Forces (Green Berets) and Rangers, Special Operations Aviation, the Navy SEALS, and the Air Force Special Operations Wings. The new weapon system required chambering for the caliber .45 ACP cartridge, a sound and flash suppressor, and a LAM. More powerful than the general-issue 9mm NATO Beretta M9, the OHWS was to be the first caliber .45 ACP government pistol since the Colt Model 1911A1. After extensive testing, USSOCOM awarded the final contract to Heckler & Koch; the first pistols were delivered on 1 May 1996. Although larger and heavier, the winning design, designated the Mark 23 mod 0, shares many design features of the H&K caliber .45 USP, including its locking system, steel-reinforced polymer components, and advanced anticorrosion coatings. The polygonal bore is also chrome-plated to resist wear and corrosion. The trigger guard is recurved at the front for two-handed use, and the magazine release and safety are ambidextrous. Unlike the USP, the decocking lever is a separate component to allow the silent lowering of the hammer in close or covert combat situations. Frames are grooved for the attachment of the LAM, and the muzzle is threaded to accept a silencer supplied by Knight’s Manufacturing USA. Magazine capacity is 12 rounds. The Mark 23 mod 0 is possibly the most thoroughly tested handgun ever built and exceeded all government specifications during trials. The issue pistol achieves match-grade accuracy and operates almost flawlessly in the most extreme environments.

GERMANY/SWITZERLAND SIG-Sauer Following World War II the Swiss firm Schweizerische Industrie Gesellschaft (SIG) negotiated an agreement with Germany’s J. P. Sauer & Sohn to develop and manufacture pistols in Germany. This arrangement was made necessary by Switzerland’s strict nonexportation laws against firearms—a restriction not imposed in Germany. The collaboration between SIG and Sauer has produced a series of

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

semiautomatics universally hailed as some of the finest, most advanced combat handguns ever manufactured.

Swiss SIG P210/P49 SIG began development of the single-action P210 during the 1940s to replace the obsolescent Lugers still in service at that time. Known as the P210 in its civilian form and the Pistole 49 (designating the year it was accepted by the Swiss military), the new SIG exhibited the superb materials, craftsmanship, and accuracy typical of Swiss arms. The design originated in 1937 when France’s SACM negotiated an agreement with the Swiss firm SIG to manufacture a modified Petter-designed Mle 1935 in that country. After a number of improvements SIG developed the SIG SP47/8 (Self-Loading Pistol M1947—eight-round magazine) and, after more modifications, introduced the P49. Denmark also adopted the P49 for its military, as did West Germany’s Bundesgrenzpolizei (Border Patrol). The P49 is a locked-breech, recoil-operated modified Browning design and is fed by an eight-round magazine. Unlike the earlier designs, the slide of the SIG rides on rails inside rather than outside the frame. The P49 is equipped with both a frame-mounted safety and a magazine safety, preventing the pistol from firing without the magazine in place. It is chambered for the 9mm NATO cartridge rather than the earlier caliber 7.65 Parabellum of the Model 1900 Swiss Lugers. The pistol is, however, easily converted to the caliber 7.65 cartridge by simply changing the barrel and to the caliber .22 Long Rifle with a conversion kit. Military pistols are finished in a dull matte finish and plastic grips, with civilian versions usually receiving a blue finish and wood grips. Although Switzerland adopted the P49, export military sales suffered—the precise machining tolerances and quality of materials used in the P49, as in all SIG products, made it a prohibitively expensive weapon for general issue. Switzerland replaced the P49 in 1975 with the SIG-Sauer Pistole 75.

SIG-Sauer P220/Pistole 75 Designated the P220 in its civilian version and P75 for military use, SIG-Sauer’s next pistol was originally designed as a double-action,

271

272

PISTOLS

less-expensive replacement for the Swiss P49. It quickly gained a reputation as one of the finest combat pistols ever made. Available in a number of calibers, the new pistol was adopted in 9mm NATO by Switzerland as the P75 and later by the Japanese Defense Forces. The P220 locking system is a great improvement both in efficiency and manufacturing costs over earlier pistols. Rather than rely on a series of complicated links or machining processes, the P220 barrel is machined with a single large lug that locks into the ejection port. A number of other features found on the P220/75 had appeared earlier on the Sauer 38H. Sauer-designed components include the P220/75’s double-action mechanism and cocking and decocking lever. Unlike the 38H, the P220/75 is fitted with an external hammer. Original P220/75s were manufactured with aluminum alloy frames and Sauer’s machined breechblock pinned to the interior of stamped steel slides. The P220/75 is not equipped with a manual safety owing to the very effective hammer and firing-pin lock. This mechanism prevents the pistol from firing unless the trigger is deliberately pulled. A slide stop is located above the left grip. The magazine holds eight caliber 9mm cartridges (seven .45 ACP) and is released by a catch at the rear base of the grip on European pistols. Those exported to the United States are fitted with a button-type magazine release behind the trigger guard. The P220/75 is also a highly accurate combat handgun. Sights are of the patented Stavenhagen type, with white-highlighted rear and front sights to facilitate more precise aiming in dim conditions. The front trigger guard is also reverse-curved and grooved to allow a steadier two-hand grip.

SIG-Sauer P225 (P6) In 1980 SIG-Sauer lightened the P220/75 design and reduced its length to offer a more compact weapon, the 9mm NATO P225. It was adopted by the West German military and various state police agencies as the P6 and saw extensive police use in other European countries.

SIG-Sauer P226 In 1983 SIG-Sauer modified the basic P220 design to accept a high-capacity magazine (15 9mm NATO or 12 caliber .40 S&W or

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

.357 SIG cartridges). The caliber .40 S&W cartridge is a recent development by the U.S. firm Smith & Wesson, and the caliber .357 SIG is essentially a necked-down version of the Smith & Wesson cartridge. Although the new pistol, designated the P226, failed to win the U.S. government trials to replace the Colt Model 1911A1, the U.S. Navy SEALs, as well as some police and military organizations in Europe, adopted it for issue.

SIG-Sauer P228 and P229 Introduced in 1989, the P228 is a compact version of the P226 and mechanically is virtually identical. It is constructed with an aluminum alloy frame with a machined steel block pinned inside the stamped steel slide. The magazine holds 13 caliber 9mm NATO cartridges. The U.S. Army adopted the P228 in 1992 as the M11 for issue to aircrews and military police personnel; it is also issued to the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division. The P229 shares the same internal mechanism and aluminum alloy frame as the P228. It is, however, chambered for the more potent caliber .40 S&W and .357 SIG cartridges and as a result is fitted with a sturdier machined-steel slide. The P229 magazine capacity is 12 rather than the P228’s 13 owing to its larger cartridge size. Both the P228 and P229 earned universal reputations as highly reliable and accurate weapons for military and police use. U.S. government organizations issuing the P229 include the FBI; the Secret Service; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; and the Drug Enforcement Agency. The P229 also offers the added versatility of interchangeable .40 S&W, .357 SIG, and 9mm NATO barrels. A Sig-Sauer subsidiary, SIGArms, manufactures the P229 in the United States.

AUSTRIA Glock Gaston Glock founded the small firm of Glock GmbH in Deutsch-Wagram near Vienna in 1963. During its first 17 years the company manufactured an array of products for the Austrian Army, including fighting knives, entrenching tools, machine-gun ammuni-

273

274

PISTOLS

tion links, and practice grenades. Glock made his first foray into the handgun field in 1980 when the Austrian Army announced that it was accepting submissions for a new service pistol. Gaston Glock had little experience in firearms but approached the project with a combination of originality and logic. He first consulted a number of weapons experts to determine the features most desirable in a combat handgun and then applied his own engineering experience to the problem. Following a six-month whirlwind of research and development Glock revealed his new pistol: the Glock 17, a revolutionary combination of the best existing technology and Glock’s innovative application of polymers to firearm construction. The Austrian Army adopted the recoil-operated, 9mm NATO Glock 17 in 1983 as the P80 and was soon joined by the armed forces of the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Sweden, and Thailand. The pistol quickly became the weapon of choice worldwide among military and police organizations. In the United States the Glock played a major role during the transition from revolvers to semiautomatics as the preferred police sidearm. In the process the previously tiny Glock GmbH grew to become an international arms giant. The appearance of the Glock initially sparked a frenzy among some members of the press and antigun lobbyists, who feared that its polymer components would make it undetectable by airport security scanning devices and thus be an ideal terrorist weapon. These concerns were unfounded in that the Glock barrel and slide, as well as numerous other components, are of high-grade steel and are thus easily detectable by metal detectors and x-ray machines. Above all, Glock pistols have won a reputation for accuracy and reliability in all types of combat conditions.

Glock 17 Gaston Glock gained instant recognition by pioneering the use of high tensile-strength polymers in the Glock 17. The frames, with the exception of integral steel guide rails for the slide, are of a molded polymer that has a stronger resistance to shock damage than aluminum and most steels. The polymer frame offers the triple advantages of reduced costs in fabrication, imperviousness to corrosion, and light weight. The slide is milled from a single piece of steel and treated with an extremely hard and corrosion-resistant Tenifer heat treatment. The pistol is rugged, accurate, compact, and lightweight. It also easily dismantles for cleaning and incorporates only 33 components in its construction.

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

The Glock 17 shares with SIG-Sauer the sophisticated modified Browning tilting-barrel locking principle in which a single lug on the top of the barrel locks into the ejection port. The bore of the 4.5-inch barrel, however, is of a hexagonal type, in contrast to the lands and grooves of conventional pistols and the polygonal SIG-Sauer bores. The Glock Safe Action trigger mechanism is also a significant improvement over earlier systems and is designed for instant yet safe use under combat conditions. It is based on two molded polymer triggers (a large outer trigger that protects a smaller middle trigger from accidental activation); there is no external safety switch. The pistol can thus be fired only with a deliberate finger-pull on the center of the trigger arrangement. Pulling the trigger first disengages the internal safety mechanism and then moves the striker from half-cock to full-cock and then releases it to strike the cartridge primer. The action of the slide then returns the striker to the half-cock position. The only external controls other than the trigger are the slide stop and magazine release button, both mounted on the left of the frame. The standard polymer magazine has a capacity of 17 9mm NATO cartridges. Nineteen- and 31-round magazines that extend below the grip are also available, as is a 10-round model for civilian sales. The Glock accepts a laser sight attachment as well as a special amphibious kit that permits underwater firing at very close range. Although rather boxy in appearance, the Glock 17 is well-balanced and ergonomically designed, with a raked grip with finger grooves on the front for comfortable and instinctive aiming. A recurved front trigger guard also aids two-handed use. In 1986 the company offered the Glock 18, a select-fire version of the original model. The Glock 18 is fitted with a slightly extended barrel with dorsal compensator cuts and a selector switch on the left rear of the slide. Other variations of the Glock 17 include two more compact pistols: the Glock 19 in 9mm NATO, and the Glock 23 in .40 Smith & Wesson. The Glock 20 was offered in 1990 and is chambered in the new 10mm Auto cartridge and was followed by the Glock 21 in caliber 1.45 ACP and the Glock 22 in .40 Smith & Wesson.

Steyr Pi18 and GB80 The Austrian army’s choice of the Glock was a disappointment to that country’s long-established Steyr dynasty. In 1981 Steyr-Daimler-Puch AG (later Steyr-Mannlicher AG) pinned its hopes for the Army’s upcoming trials on its double-action 9mm NATO Steyr

275

276

PISTOLS

GB80, an improvement over the earlier P18 of 1974. The GB80 is based on an advanced gas-delayed locking design with a polygonal chrome-lined bore, exposed hammer, and 18-round magazine. It is an accurate, comfortably handling weapon yet also loses out to the Beretta 92FS-B in the U.S. trials to replace the Colt Model 1911A1. Owing to its high price, reliability questions, and the stiff competition from other contemporary designs, the GB80 was discontinued in 1988.

Steyr M Series In 2000 Steyr-Mannlicher GmbH introduced the much more advanced caliber 9mm NATO Model M9 and caliber .40 S&W M40. The more compact M9S and M40A, as well as a model in .357 SIG, soon followed. Available with a 10-round magazine, the striker-fired M Series utilizes high-strength polymer and steel construction and mounts a loaded-chamber indicator below the rear sight. Locking and unlocking is accomplished by the familiar Browning tilting barrel combined with a single barrel lug that locks into the ejection port. The magazine release allows ambidextrous use. Its innovative sighting and safety features distinguish the M Series. The M Series Triangle-Trapezoid sights consist of a triangular profile front sight and a corresponding triangular rear notch that allows instinctive aiming. White highlights on the sights also aid aiming under poor light conditions. Safeties include a finger-operated safety switch and a Glock-style trigger safety. A separate safety key also locks the pistol against unauthorized use and disassembly.

BELGIUM FN BDA 9 In 1993 FN modernized the High Power by adding a double-action trigger mechanism, improved ergonomic grips, and an ambidextrous cocking and decocking lever. The magazine release can also be switched to either side of the pistol for left- or right-handed use. The trigger guard of the BDA 9 is also somewhat longer than the original GP-35, and its front strap is recurved for two-handed use.

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

FN Five-seveN Introduced in 1998, the Five-seveN is FN’s most recent attempt to recapture its preeminent position as a manufacturer of modern military handguns. It is chambered for the new 5.7x28mm FN cartridge, a loading interchangeable with FN’s P90 personal defense weapon. Although the caliber 5.7x28mm cartridge is much longer than the average pistol cartridge and the magazine capacity is 20 rounds, the Five-seveN fits comfortably in the hand and aims well. The Five-seveN is a delayed blowback weapon that relies on the forward motion of the bullet moving out of the barrel to slightly interrupt its rearward movement. Following the bullet’s exit from the muzzle the barrel is then freed to rotate and disengage two lugs from slots in the slide. This allows the slide and extractor to eject the spent casing and to chamber a fresh cartridge. Although complicated, the Five-seveN mechanism absorbs much of the powerful 5.7x28mm cartridge’s recoil and further enhances the pistol’s handling characteristics. The Five-seveN has no manual safety and instead relies on a unique two-stage trigger that first compresses the firing-pin spring before moving on to actually release the firing pin.

ITALY Beretta Model 1951 Following World War II Beretta introduced the Model 1951, also known as the Model 951, chambered in caliber 9mm NATO. The Model 1951’s locked-breech, recoil-operated mechanism is somewhat similar to the Walther P38, although the Italian pistol lacks the Walther’s double-action capability. With the Model 1951, Beretta experimented with an innovative aluminum alloy receiver, but it proved unsatisfactory, and later pistols were built with heavier but more durable steel frames. The Model 1951 is also fitted with a push-through button-type safety and is fed with an eight-round magazine. The Model 1951 was issued to the Italian Army and Navy from 1953 to 1982. The Nigerian police also used the Model 1951, as did the armed forces of Israel and Egypt, where it was manufactured under license as the Helwan. Beretta offered a select-fire version of the Model 1951—the M1951R that was issued to the Carabiniere and counterterrorist organizations. The Model 1951R is

277

278

PISTOLS

fitted with a 10-round magazine, longer barrel, heavier slide, and extra grip mounted under the muzzle for extra control. The selector switch is positioned on the frame above the trigger guard. The Model 1951R, as are most true machine pistols, is extremely difficult to control in full-automatic fire, and many arms experts have questioned the practicality of such weapons.

Beretta 92 In 1976 Beretta began manufacturing the Model 92—an improved aluminum alloy frame, double-action design based on the Beretta Model 1951. The company continually modified the basic Model 92 to offer a considerable number of later models varying in size, caliber, and external features. Calibers offered include 9mm NATO and .40 S&W with standard magazine capacities of 15 rounds in standard-size pistols and 13, 11, and eight in various compact models. The Italian Army and police adopted the 9mm NATO Beretta 92S with a slide-mounted safety/decocking lever. Numerous other countries adopted the Model 92, including Brazil, where Forjas Taurus SA, Porto Alegre, manufactures it under license. In 1985 the U.S. government adopted the Model 92Fs as its official sidearm, designated the M9.

Beretta Model 84 In 1976 Beretta also began offering the Model 84, a modern high magazine–capacity, 9mm Short (.380 ACP), blowback pistol based on the company’s earlier caliber 7.65 (.32 ACP) Model 81. The pistol is also made by the Belgian arms giant Fabrique Nationale and sold as the FN BDA380. The standard Model 84 accepts a 13-round magazine with a number of variants available with such features as loaded-chamber indicators and decocking levers. The Model 84 has proven a high-quality compact sidearm for police use.

Beretta Model 93R The Model 93R was Beretta’s attempt to make a more controllable machine pistol than the 1951R for use by Italian special forces–type units. It is essentially a scaled-up, selective-fire Model 92 fitted with

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

a muzzle compensator, folding front grip, and detachable stock to help reduce muzzle climb during full-automatic fire. It also accepts either 15- or 20-round magazines. The Model 93R’s greatest advantage over the earlier 1951R is that it is fitted with a three-shot burst selector that minimizes the chances of the user losing control of the pistol during automatic fire.

SPAIN Spain’s three main pistol manufacturers, Astra, Star, and Llama, carried on their tradition of manufacturing high-quality weapons during the second half of the twentieth century. All three companies maintained their facilities in the Basque region and continue to produce pistols for the Spanish military and police forces, as well as weapons for foreign governments. Current post–World War II Spanish pistols are, for the most part, modified Browning designs.

Astra A-50, A-70, A-75, A-80, A-90, and A-100 Astra, reorganized as Astra-Unceta y Cia, introduced the blowback A50 Constable in 1960 as an affordable alternative to the Walther PPK for the police and civilian markets. Although available in calibers .22 Long Rifle and 7.65mm (.32 ACP), it was also offered in the more potent 9mm Short (.380 ACP) chambering. The short-recoil operated Astra A-80 appeared in 1981 and was that company’s contribution to the new generation of high magazine–capacity, double-action military-type handguns. It was made available in a range of calibers, including 9mm NATO, 7.65mm Parabellum, .38 Super Auto, and .45 ACP. Magazine capacity is 15 rounds in the smaller calibers, with the caliber .45 ACP version accepting an eight-round magazine. It is an accurate and reliable weapon with polymer grips and recurved front trigger-guard strap for two-handed aiming. Although not equipped with a manual safety, the A-80 is a very safe pistol to handle, being fitted with a decocking lever as well as a firing-pin lock. The A-90 replaced the A-80 in 1985 and is a slightly improved and safer version of the original design. It employs a manual safety attached to the slide that locks the rear section of the pistol’s twopiece firing pin. Astra continued its development and improvement of the series and dispensed with the manual safety in 1990 with the

279

280

PISTOLS

M-100. The A-100 is chambered for either the 9mm NATO or .45 ACP cartridge with a magazine capacity of 15 in 9mm and nine in .45 ACP. The A-70 and A-75, introduced in 1992 and 1993, respectively, are more compact pistols available in calibers 9mm NATO and .40 S&W. Magazine capacities are eight in 9mm and seven in .40 S&W.

Star Model 30M and 30PK Star Bonifacio Echeverria SA of Eibar has continued to maintain its reputation for excellent-quality pistols based on the Browning locking system. It continued its Modelo A series in production as the Super Star until 1983. Spanish police organizations adopted the Star Model 30M as their standard sidearm soon after its debut in 1988. It is a 15shot 9mm NATO weapon and operates on a slightly modified ColtBrowning locking system. Star also incorporated the Swiss SIG system of manufacturing in that the M30 slide rides on rails within the frame to allow a more positive fit and to increase accuracy. The 30M is fitted with an ambidextrous safety that withdraws and locks the firing pin and prevents the hammer from striking it. Star also manufactures a more compact version of the 30M, the 30PK.

Llama M82 The Spanish Army adopted Llama’s new double-action M82 in the 1980s. The M82 retains much of the Colt 1911 styling with more raked-back and angular lines that give it a distinctly more modern appearance. It does depart from the earlier Colt-Astra locking mechanism in that it employs the locking-wedge principle introduced in the Walther P38 and also used in the Beretta 92. It is chambered in 9mm NATO and is fitted with a 15-round magazine and a slidemounted safety.

FRANCE MAS-1950 The postwar French Army was armed with a mixture of native Mle

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS

1935A and 1935S and foreign pistols, including the Colt Model 1911A1 and Walther P38 (some P38s actually being assembled by the French after they were allowed to occupy the Walther factory). Their experience with the latter convinced them to at last demand a more potent weapon chambered for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge. St. Etienne thus modified the Mle 1935S to accept the larger cartridge and increased its magazine capacity to nine to produce the new MAS-1950. St. Étienne and Châtellerault then carried out production of the pistol. The MAS-1950 is fitted with a loaded-chamber indicator on its slide, horizontally grooved grip panels, and either a Parkerized or enamel finish. The MAS-1950 saw extensive use by French forces in the heavy fighting in Algeria and Indochina.

MAB Pistolet Automatique 15 (Model F 1) Produced by Manufacture d’Armes Automatiques, Lotissement Industriel des Pontots, Bayonne, the double-action MAB 9mm Parabellum Pistolet Automatique 15 appeared in the late 1970s and was originally designed as a competition pistol. In appearance, the PA 15 closely resembles the earlier Browning and Petter designs, with checkered wood grips and a blued finish. It is fitted with an exposed hammer and both a frame-mounted safety as well as a magazine safety. A recoil-operated weapon, it is locked by a rotating barrel and fed by a 15-round, staggered-row magazine. Although an excellent military weapon, the PA 15 ceased production in the late 1980s with the financial failure of MAB, which prompted the French government’s decision to adopt the Beretta 92G.

JAPAN New Nambu Models 57A and 57B The production of the caliber 8mm Types 14 and 94 pistols ceased with the end of World War II. The postwar Japanese Self-Defense Forces initially adopted as standard issue the Colt caliber .45 ACP Model 1911A1 as used by the United States and, later, the 9mm NATO SIG-Sauer P220. During the 1950s Shin Chuo Kogyo K. K. of Tokyo began manufacturing a line of revolvers and semiautomat-

281

282

PISTOLS

ics that it marketed as the New Nambu. The New Nambu Model 57A, as considered for adoption by the Self-Defense Forces, is a modified Browning-Colt design chambered for the caliber 9mm NATO cartridge. The company also produced the smaller caliber 7.65mm (.32 ACP) blowback Type 57B, also a modified Browning design.

SOUTH AFRICA Vektor Z-88 and SP1 The Republic of South Africa initially issued FN Browning High Powers to its forces. Imports ended, however, with a United Nations–mandated ban on arms shipments in response to the country’s policy of apartheid. The embargo, in turn, prompted the country to initiate its own domestic arms industry in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The first South African–manufactured pistol was the Vektor Z-88, a licensed copy of the 9mm NATO Beretta Model 92. In 1992 Lyttleton Engineering Company of Pretoria began production of the Vektor SP1 for issue to the South African Defence Force. The caliber 9mm NATO SP1 incorporates a Walther-type tilting-wedge locking system in combination with a number of more modern features. It is a double-action weapon constructed with a machined steel slide and aluminum alloy frame with checkered polymer grips. It is fitted with a firing-pin safety, an ambidextrous manual safety, and a magazine release easily positioned on either side of the frame. Magazine capacity is 15 rounds. The Vektor SP2 differs from the SP1 in that it is chambered in caliber .40 S&W and is fitted with an 11-round magazine. Lyttleton offers a conversion kit that allows the SP2 to fire 9mm ammunition. The SP-1 and SP-2 General Officer’s Pistols are scaled-down versions of the original models intended for use by higher-ranking officers.

Individual Pistol Models

EARLY PISTOLS Appearing in the fifteenth century, the earliest pistols incorporated the matchlock principle, relying on a smoldering length of cord for ignition. Their vulnerability to damp conditions and general unreliability, however, made them impractical combat weapons and relatively few saw actual use. The wheel lock appeared in about 1500 and, although relatively delicate and expensive to manufacture, finally provided a suitable weapon for mounted troops. The wheel lock relied on sparks from a spring-activated serrated steel wheel spinning against iron pyrites to ignite its priming. This innovation eliminated the need for a smoldering match and provided a firearm that could safely be carried loaded and ready to fire from horseback. The wheel lock was instrumental in making the pistol an integral part of the cavalryman’s arsenal and helped lead to the obsolescence of the mounted knights’ traditional lances and swords. By the mid1500s firearms designers began abandoning the wheel lock mechanism in favor of systems relying on the striking of flint against steel for ignition. Handgun evolution subsequently produced such types as the snaphaunce, dog lock, and miquelet before culminating in the true flintlock in about 1630. Relatively simple and rugged, the flintlock remained in wide use until the first half of the nineteenth century.

283

284

PISTOLS

The Matchlock: circa early fifteenth to centuries 294 The Wheel Lock: circa fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries 294 English Lock: early seventeenth century 295 French Lock: circa 1610 to nineteenth century 295 Scottish Pistol: seventeenth to eighteenth centuries 296 Queen Anne Pistol: seventeenth to eighteenth centuries 296 Dueling Pistol: eighteenth to nineteenth centuries 297 Duck Foot Pistol: eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries 298

PERCUSSION PISTOLS In 1807 the Reverend Alexander Forsyth of Belhelvie, Scotland patented the use of fulminate powder for firearms ignition. Highly explosive when struck a sharp blow, fulminates made possible the elimination of the complex flintlock priming procedure and introduced the percussion ignition system. Within fifteen years other inventers devised a method of containing fulminates in a small metal cup—the percussion cap—and quickly rendered all earlier firearms obsolete. During the 1840s and 1850s all major powers began manufacturing percussion pistols and converted thousands of the older flintlocks to the new system. In 1836 the American Samuel Colt patented the first practical percussion revolver, thus initiating a worldwide revolution in firearms manufacturing and technological innovation. The percussion revolver was the standard sidearm of the American Civil War and saw wide use by other nations until it was eventually phased out in the 1870s in favor of metallic cartridge weapons. The Pepperbox: late 1830s–early 1860s 300 United Kingdom: Adams Percussion Revolver, 1851–1860s 300 United Kingdom: Tranter Percussion Revolver, 1853–1860s 301 United Kingdom: Webley Percussion Revolver, circa 1853–1860s 301 United States: Colt Paterson Revolver, circa 1838–1840 302 United States: Colt Walker Model, 1847 302

INDIVIDUAL PISTOL MODELS

United States: Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver, 1850–1873 303 United States: Colt Model 1860 Army Revolver, 1860–1873 304 United States: Remington New Model Army Revolver, circa 1863–1875 304 United States: LeMat Two-Barrel Revolver, circa 1856–1865 303 United States: Starr Revolver, double-action circa 1858–c. 1863; single–action circa 1863–1865 305 United States: Savage Revolving Firearms Company Navy Model Revolver, circa 1861–1865 305

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS The self-contained metallic cartridge offers the advantages of speed in reloading and resistance to moisture. In the 1850s designers combined the metallic cartridge with the bored-through cylinder to create the first modern breech-loading revolvers. Primitive forms of metallic cartridges had appeared in Europe during the early years of the nineteenth century; in about 1836 the Frenchman Casimir Lefaucheux introduced the pinfire system. The pinfire cartridge utilized a small metal pin that extended from the side of the cartridge base and protruded through a notch in the rear of the revolver’s cylinder. The strike of the pistol’s hammer on the pin forced it against the priming within the cartridge base, thus detonating the cartridge. Although popular in Europe during the mid-nineteenth century, the pinfire cartridge proved liable to accidental detonation and reached obsolescence by the 1870s. In 1857 the Americans Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson combined the bored-through cylinder patented by Rollin White with a small, caliber .22 cartridge of their own invention containing its priming in the cartridge base’s rim. Their caliber .22 Model No.1 Revolver was the first mass-produced rimfire pistol and the partners’ venture proved so successful that both the firm of Smith & Wesson and various forms of their cartridge survive into the twenty-first century. Later innovations included the larger caliber centerfire cartridge offering the twin advantages of being easily reloaded and a lethality suited to military weapons. By the 1880s metallic cartridge revolvers

285

286

PISTOLS

had replaced the muzzle-loading percussion system and continue to see worldwide usage in the present day. Italy: Model 1889 308 Japan: Type 26, 1893 308 Russia/Soviet Union: Nagant Model 1895 308 United Kingdom: Webley .45 WG, 1889 309 United Kingdom: Webley Mark IV, 1899 309 United Kingdom: Webley .455 Mark VI Revolver, 1915 310 United Kingdom: Webley .38 Mark IV, 1929 311 United Kingdom: Webley Mark V, 1929 311 United Kingdom: Enfield Pistol, Revolver, No. 2 Mk1 and Mk1*, 1931 312 United Kingdom: Smith & Wesson .38 Pistol, circa 1940 312 United States: Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army Revolver, 1872–1940 313 United States: Smith & Wesson .44 Pistol, 1873–1878 313 United States: Colt New Navy, Army, and Marine Revolvers, 1889 314 United States: Colt New Service Double Action Revolver, 1898–1944 315 United States: Colt New Service Revolver, Military Model 1917, World War I Issue 316 United States: Smith & Wesson Military & Police 10, 1905 317 United States: Smith & Wesson New Century Hand Ejector, 1908 317 United States: Smith & Wesson .38/200 British Service, circa 1940 318 United States: Colt Python, 1953 318 United States: Ruger Security Six, 1968 320 United States: Ruger Speed-Six, 1968 320 United States: Colt Lawman, 1969 319 United States: Ruger GP 100, 1987 320

SEMIAUTOMATICS Semiautomatic—or self-loading—pistols fire once with each pull of the trigger and mechanically reload and recock themselves by divert-

INDIVIDUAL PISTOL MODELS

ing a portion of the energy from their discharge. Semiautomatics offer numerous advantages over revolvers in their ease of reloading, expanded cartridge capacities, and higher rate of fire. Appearing at the end of the nineteenth century, semiautomatics soon replaced revolvers in the arsenals of the major military powers and are issued universally at the present time. Although Germany at first led the world in semiautomatic developments it was soon challenged by other nations, most notably the United States. In 1896 Peter Paul Mauser introduced the Model 1896, the first mass-produced autoloading pistol that saw worldwide military usage. The P08, another German development by Georg Luger, was essentially a refinement of an earlier design by Hugo Borchardt. The most prolific and successful of all pistol designers, however, was an American, John Browning. Browning’s Model 1900, manufactured by Colt, became the model for countless other designs throughout the world. His greatest fame came from his celebrated caliber .45 ACP Colt Models 1911 and 1911A1, the United States’ primary sidearms from WWI through the Vietnam War. The legacy of Browning continues in the widespread incorporation of his ideas by others—the vast majority of modern semiautomatics still utilize the basic Browning principles established over a century ago. Argentina: Ballester Molina, circa 1930 322 Austria: Roth-Steyr Model 1907 322 Austria: Steyr Model 1912 323 Austria: Steyr Pi18, 1974 322 Austria: Glock 17, adopted by Austria 1983 324 Austria: Steyr GB, 1981 323 Austria: Steyr M Series, 2000 323 Belgium: FN Model 1900 325 Belgium: FN Model 1903 325 Belgium: FN Model 1910 325 Belgium: FN Model 1922 326 Belgium: FN Browning GP-35 High Power, 1935 327 Belgium: FN BDA 9, 1993 328 Belgium: FN Five-seveN, 1998 329 China: Type 64, 1964 330 China: Type 67, 1967 330 Czechoslovakia: CZ 22, 1922 330 Czechoslovakia: CZ 24, 1924 330

287

288

PISTOLS

Czechoslovakia: CZ Model 1927 (vz. 27), 1927 330 Czechoslovakia: CZ 38, 1938 331 Czechoslovakia: CZ 1950 (vz. 50), 1950 331 Czechoslovakia: CZ Model 1952, 1952 331 Czechoslovakia: CZ 75, 1975 332 Czechoslovakia: CZ 85, 1985 332 Finland: Lahti L-35, 1935 333 France: Modèle 1935A, 1938 333 France: Modèle 1935S, 1940 333 France: MAS 1950 334 France: MAB PA-15, circa 1979 334 Germany: Mannlicher Model 1900 335 Germany: Luger Model 1900 335 Germany: Mauser Model 1896/1912 336 Germany: P-08 Parabellum Luger, 1908 337 Germany: Mauser Model 1910 338 Germany: Luger Model 1914 “Artillery Model,” 1914 338 Germany: Walther Model 6, 1915 338 Germany: Walther Model PP, 1929 339 Germany: Walther Model PPK, 1931 340 Germany: Mauser Model 1932 341 Germany: Mauser Model 1934 341 Germany: Sauer Behorden Model 1930 341 Germany: Sauer Model 38H, 1938 341 Germany: Walther P38, 1938 342 Germany: Mauser Model HSc, circa 1940 343 Germany: Volkspistole, circa 1944–1945 343 Germany: Heckler & Koch, 1967 343 Germany: Walther P1 1951 344 Germany: Heckler & Koch P7, 1973 345 Germany: Heckler & Koch P7 K3, circa 1973 345 Germany: Heckler & Koch P9/ P9S, circa 1972 346 Germany: Walther P5, 1975 347 Germany: Walther P88, 1988 347 Germany: Heckler & Koch USP Series, 1993 347 Germany: Heckler & Koch Mk.23 mod 0, 1996 348 Hungary: Frommer Stop Model 19, 1912 348 Hungary: Model 37M, 1937 348 Hungary: Model 48, 1948 348 Italy: Glisenti Model 1910 349

INDIVIDUAL PISTOL MODELS

Italy: Beretta Model 1915 350 Italy: Beretta Model 1915/19 350 Italy: Beretta Model 1923 350 Italy: Beretta Model 1931 351 Italy: Beretta Model 1934 351 Italy: Beretta Model 1951 352 Italy: Beretta Model 92, 1976 353 Italy: Beretta Model 94, 1976 353 Italy: Beretta Model 93R, 1986 353 Japan: Nambu Type 04, 1909 354 Japan: Nambu Type 14, 1925 355 Japan: Type 94, 1934 356 Japan: New Nambu Model 57A, circa 1988 356 Mexico: Obregon, 1934 356 Poland: Radom VIS, 1935 357 Poland: Model 64, 1964 357 Portugal: M908 Savage Model, 1907 358 Portugal: M915 Savage Model, 1915 358 South Africa: Vektor SP1, 1992 358 Soviet Union: Tokarev TT-33, 1936 359 Soviet Union: Makarov, 1951 360 Soviet Union: Stetchkin APS, 1951 361 Soviet Union: PSM, 1980 362 Spain: Campo-Giro Model 1913 363 Spain: Campo-Giro Model 1913–1916 363 Spain, Astra Model 400, Model 1921, 1921 363 Spain: Star Model Militar 1921, Model 1921, Model A series, 1921 363 Spain: Astra Model 300, 1922 363 Spain: Astra Model 900, 1928 364 Spain: Astra Model 902, 1928 364 Spain: Llama Pistola Automatica Marque IX, 1930s 364 Spain, Super Star, circa 1940 364 Spain: Astra A-50, 1960 364 Spain: Astra A-80, 1981 365 Spain: Llama M82, 1985 365 Spain: Astra A-100, 1990 365 Spain: Star Model 30M and 30PK, 1998 365 Spain: Astra A-70 and A-75, 1992–1993 366 Sweden: Lahti M-40, 1942 366

289

290

PISTOLS

Switzerland: SIG P210/P49, 1949 367 Switzerland: Sphinx AT-2000S 367 Switzerland: SIG-Sauer P220/Pistol 75, 1975 368 Switzerland: SIG-Sauer P-225/P6, 1980 369 Switzerland: SIG-Sauer P-226/XM9, 1983 370 Switzerland/Germany: SIG-Sauer P-228/229, 1989 371 United Kingdom: Webley & Scott .455 Pistol, Self-Loading Mark I, 1912 372 United Kingdom: Welrod Mark 1, 1942 372 United States Colt Caliber .45 Model 1911 and Model 1911A1, 1911 373 United States: Guide Lamp “Liberator,” 1942 374 United States: Smith & Wesson Model 39, 1954 374 United States: Smith & Wesson Model 59, 1954 374 United States: Colt M15 General Officers Pistol, 1972 374

INDIVIDUAL PISTOL MODELS

SPECIFICATIONS Caliber: The diameter of the bore of a firearm or a projectile in thousandths to the inch. Overall Length: The distance from the rear of the grip to the end of the muzzle. Barrel Length: The length of the barrel. Weight Empty: Weight without cartridges. Cylinder Capacity: Number of cartridges held by the cylinder. Muzzle Velocity: The speed in meters- or feet-per-second the projectile travels when it leaves the muzzle of the pistol. Operation (note: semiautomatics only): The mechanical method by which a semiautomatic ejects spent casings and reloads a fresh cartridge. Common types of operation are “blowback” and “recoil.”

291

EARLY PISTOLS

293

294

EARLY PISTOLS

THE MATCHLOCK Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Circa early fifteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. Japanese Matchlock.

THE WHEEL LOCK Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Circa fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries.

EARLY PISTOLS

ENGLISH LOCK Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Early seventeenth century.

FRENCH LOCK Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Circa 1610 to nineteenth century.

295

296

EARLY PISTOLS

SCOTTISH PISTOL Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Seventeenth to eighteenth centuries.

QUEEN ANNE PISTOL Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Seventeenth to eighteenth centuries.

EARLY PISTOLS

DUELING PISTOL Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Eighteenth to nineteenth centuries.

297

298

EARLY PISTOLS

DUCK FOOT PISTOL Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Eighteenth to nineteenth centuries.

PERCUSSION PISTOLS

299

300

PERCUSSION PISTOLS

THE PEPPERBOX Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Late 1830s–early 1860s.

UNITED KINGDOM: ADAMS PERCUSSION REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. 1851–1860s.

PERCUSSION PISTOLS

UNITED KINGDOM: TRANTER PERCUSSION REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. 1853–1860s.

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY PERCUSSION REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. 1853–1860s.

301

302

PERCUSSION PISTOLS

UNITED STATES: COLT PATERSON REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Circa 1838–1840.

UNITED STATES: COLT WALKER MODEL Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. 1847.

PERCUSSION PISTOLS

UNITED STATES: COLT MODEL 1851 NAVY REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. 1850–1873.

UNITED STATES: LEMAT TWO-BARREL REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Confederate States, 1856–1865.

303

304

PERCUSSION PISTOLS

UNITED STATES: COLT MODEL 1860 ARMY REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. 1860–1873.

UNITED STATES: REMINGTON NEW MODEL ARMY REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. 1863–1875.

PERCUSSION PISTOLS

UNITED STATES: STARR REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. Double-action circa 1858–circa 1863; single–action circa 1863–1865.

UNITED STATES: SAVAGE REVOLVING FIREARMS COMPANY NAVY MODEL REVOLVER Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. 1861–circa 1865.

305

C A R T R I D G E R E V O LV E R S

307

308

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

RUSSIA/SOVIET UNION: NAGANT MODEL 1895 Caliber: 7.62mm Overall Length: 230mm (9.06”) Barrel Length: 110mm (4.33”)

Weight empty: 748g (1.65 lbs) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: c. 272 mps (892 fps)

ITALY: MODEL 1889 Caliber: 10.35mm Overall Length: 260mm (10.25”) Barrel Length: 133mm (5.25”)

Weight empty: 998g (2.2 lbs) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: c. 256 mps (840 fps)

JAPAN: TYPE 26, 1893 Caliber: 9mm Overall Length: 239mm (9.4”) Barrel Length: 119mm (4.7”)

Weight empty: 907g (2 lbs) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: c. 193 mps (634 fps)

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY FOSBERY AUTOMATIC REVOLVER, 1900 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical. 1900.

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY .45 WG, 1889 Caliber: .455 Webley Overall Length: 286mm (11.25”) Barrel Length: 152mm (6”)

Weight empty: 1138g (40 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY MARK IV, 1899 Caliber: .45 Webley Overall Length: 235mm (9.25”) Barrel Length: 102mm (4”)

Weight empty: 1020g (36 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6

309

310

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY .455 MARK VI REVOLVER, 1915 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .455 Webley Overall Length: 286mm (11.25”) Barrel Length: 152mm (6”)

Weight empty: 1066 oz (2.37 lbs) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: c. 189 mps (620 fps)

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY .38 MARK IV, 1929 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .38 British Service or .38 S&W Overall Length: 266mm (10.5”) Barrel Length: 127mm (5”)

Weight empty: 760g (27 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY MARK V, 1929 Caliber: .455 Webley Overall Length: 235mm (9.25”) Barrel Length: 102mm (4”)

Weight empty: 1005g (35.5 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6

311

312

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED KINGDOM: ENFIELD PISTOL, REVOLVER, NO. 2 MK1 AND MK1*, 1931 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .38 British Service or .38 S&W Overall Length: 260mm (10.23”) Barrel Length: 127mm (5”)

Weight empty: 780g (27.5 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: c. 183 mps (600 fps)

UNITED KINGDOM: BRITISH SMITH & WESSON .38 PISTOL, C. 1940 Caliber: .38 British Service, .38 S&W Overall Length: 259mm (10.2”) Barrel Length: 127mm (5”)

Weight empty: 821g (1.81 lbs) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: c. 183 mps (600 fps)

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

313

UNITED STATES: COLT MODEL 1873 SINGLE ACTION ARMY REVOLVER, 1872–1940 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

UNITED STATES: SMITH & WESSON .44 PISTOL, 1873–1878 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

314

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED STATES: COLT NEW NAVY, ARMY, AND MARINE REVOLVERS, 1889 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .38 Long Colt Overall Length: 280mm (11”) Barrel Length: 152mm (6”)

Weight empty: 965g (34 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6Caliber: .45 ACP

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED STATES: COLT NEW SERVICE DOUBLE ACTION REVOLVER, 1898–1944 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .45 Colt plus other calibers Overall Length: 275mm (10.8”) Barrel Length: 140mm (5.5”)

Weight empty: 1162g (41 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6

315

316

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED STATES: COLT NEW SERVICE REVOLVER, MILITARY MODEL 1917, WORLD WAR I ISSUE Caliber: .45 ACP Overall Length: 274mm (10.78”) Barrel Length: 140mm (5.5”)

Weight empty: 1020g (2.25 lbs) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: c.253 mps (830 fps)

AND Caliber: .45 ACP Overall Length: 273mm (10.75”) Barrel Length: 140mm (5.5”)

Weight empty: 1134g (40 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: c.253 mps (830 fps)

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED STATES: SMITH & WESSON MILITARY & POLICE (MODEL 10), 1905 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .38 Special Overall Length: 235mm (9.25”) Barrel Length: 101mm (4”)

Weight empty: 865g (30.5 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6Caliber: .38

UNITED STATES: SMITH & WESSON NEW CENTURY HAND EJECTOR, 1908 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .44 S&W Special, .45 Colt, .44 S&W Russian, .450 Eley, .44-40 Winchester Overall Length: 298mm (11.75”)

Barrel Length: 165mm (6.5”) Weight empty: 1075g (38 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6

317

318

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED STATES: SMITH & WESSON .38/200 BRITISH SERVICE, C. 1940 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .38 British Service, .38 S&W, .38 Colt New Police Overall Length: 258mm (10.15”)

Barrel Length: 127mm (5”) Weight empty: 680g (24 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6

UNITED STATES: COLT PYTHON, 1953 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .357 Magnum Overall Length: 255mm (10”)

Weight empty: 1116 g (39 oz)

(with 102mm (4”) barrel) Barrel Lengths: 64mm (2.5”), 102mm (4”), 152mm (6”), or 203mm (8”)

Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: 450 mps (1476 fps)

(w 102mm (4”) barrel)

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

319

UNITED STATES: COLT LAWMAN, 1969 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .357 Magnum Overall Length: 235mm (9.25”) Barrel Length: 51mm (2”) or 102mm (4”)

Weight empty: 1022 g (36 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: 430 mps (1411 fps)

320

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

UNITED STATES: RUGER SPEED-SIX, 1968 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Parabellum, .38 Special, or .357 Magnum

Overall Length: 197mm (7.75”) Barrel Length: 70mm (2.75”) or

Weight empty: 964g (34 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: 260 mps (853 fps) (.38 Special)

102mm (4”)

UNITED STATES: RUGER SECURITY SIX, 1968 Caliber: .357 Magnum Overall Length: 235mm (9.25”) Barrel Length: 102mm (4”)

Weight empty: 950g (33.5 oz) Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: 430 mps (1411 fps)

UNITED STATES: RUGER GP 100, 1987 Caliber: .357 Magnum Overall Length: 235mm (9.25”) Barrel Length: 152mm (6”), 102mm (4”) or 70 mm (2.75”)

Weight empty: 1247g (44 oz) with 152mm (6”) barrel

Cylinder capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: 260 mps (853 fps) (.38 Special)

S E M I A U T O M AT I C S

321

322

SEMIAUTOMATICS

AUSTRIA: ROTH-STEYR MODEL 1907 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 8mm Roth-Steyr Operation: recoil Length overall: 233mm (9.18”) Barrel length: 131mm (5.18”)

Weight empty: 567g (20 oz) Magazine capacity: 10 Muzzle velocity: 332 mps (1045 fps)

ARGENTINA: BALLESTER MOLINA, CIRCA 1930 Caliber: .45 ACP Operation: recoil Length overall: 228 mm (8.5”) Barrel length: 127mm (5”)

Weight empty: 1021g (36 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: 262 mps (830 fps)

AUSTRIA: STEYR Pi18, 1974 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: gas Length overall: 216mm (8.5”)

Barrel length: 136mm (5.35”) Weight empty: 845g (30oz) Magazine capacity: 18

SEMIAUTOMATICS

323

AUSTRIA: STEYR 1912 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Steyr or 9mm Parabellum Operation: recoil Length overall: 216mm (8.5”) Barrel length: 128mm (5.2”)

Weight empty: 1020g (36oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 335 mps (1100 fps)

AUSTRIA: STEYR GB, 1981 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: gas Length overall: 216mm (8.4”) Barrel length: 136mm (5.35”)

Weight empty: 845g (30oz) Magazine capacity: 18 Muzzle velocity: 360–420 mps (1125 fps)

AUSTRIA: STEYR M SERIES, 2000 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum); .40 Smith& Wesson Operation: Recoil, striker fired Length overall: 180mm (7.08") Barrel length: 100mm (3.09")

Weight empty: 780g (21.84 oz) Magazine capacity: 14 (9mm)/ 12 (.40)

Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1148 fps) (9mm), 285 mps (935 fps) (.40)

324

SEMIAUTOMATICS

AUSTRIA: GLOCK MODEL 17, 1983 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 188mm (7.4”) Barrel length: 114mm (4.49”)

Weight empty: 650g (18.2 oz) Magazine capacity: 17 Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1148 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

325

BELGIUM: FN MODEL 1900 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 170mm (6.75”) Barrel length: 101mm (4”)

Weight unloaded: 624g (22 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: 290 mps (950 fps)

BELGIUM: FN MODEL 1903 Caliber: 9mm Browning Long, 7.65mm (.32 ACP), and 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Operation: Blowback Length overall: 203mm (8.07”) Barrel length: 127mm (5”)

Weight empty: 910g (32 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 (9mm) 8 (7.65mm)

Muzzle velocity (9mm Browning Long): 320 mps (1050 fps)

BELGIUM: FN MODEL 1910 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP), 9mm Short (.380 ACP)

Operation: blowback Length overall: 153mm (6.02”)

Barrel: 89mm (3.5”) Weight empty: 600g (21oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: 282 mps (925 fps)

326

SEMIAUTOMATICS

BELGIUM: FN MODEL 1922 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP), 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Operation : blowback Length overall: 178mm (7”) Barrel length: 114mm (4.5”)

Weight empty: 709g (25 oz) Magazine capacity: 9 Muzzle velocity (.380) : 266 mps (875 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

327

BELGIUM: FN BROWNING GP-35 HIGH POWER, 1935 Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 197mm (7.75”) Barrel length: 120mm (4.65”)

Weight empty: 930g (32.8oz) Magazine capacity: 13 Muzzle velocity: 335mps (1100 fps)

328

SEMIAUTOMATICS

BELGIUM: FN BDA 9, 1993 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: delayed blowback/short recoil

Length overall: 200mm (7.87”)

Barrel length: 118mm (4.65”) Weight empty: 915g (32 oz) Magazine capacity: 14 Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1148 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

BELGIUM: FN FIVE-SEVEN, 1998 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 5.7x28mm FN Operation: recoil, rotating barrel Length overall: 208mm (7.8”) Barrel length: 122.5mm (4.42”)

Weight empty: 618g (21 oz) Magazine capacity: 20 Muzzle velocity: c. 650 mps (2132 fps)

329

330

SEMIAUTOMATICS

CHINA: TYPE 64, 1964 Caliber: 7.65x17mm Type 64 rimless Operation: blowback Length overall: 230mm (9.05”) Barrel length: 95mm (3.74”)

Weight empty: 810g (40 oz) Magazine capacity: 9 Muzzle velocity: 205 mps (673 fps)

CHINA: TYPE 67, 1967 Caliber: 7.62x17mm Type 64 rimless Operation: blowback Length overall: 226mm (8.90”)

Barrel length: 89mm (3.5”) Weight empty: 1050g (2.25 lbs) Magazine capacity: 9

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 22, 1922 Caliber: 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Operation: recoil Length overall: 152mm (6”) Barrel length: 91mm (3.55”)

Weight empty: 680 g (24 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 295 mps (970 fps)

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 24, 1924 Caliber: 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Operation: recoil Length overall: 152mm (6”) Barrel length: 91mm (3.55”)

Weight empty: 680g (24 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 295 mps (970 fps)

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 27 (VZ27), 1927 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 158mm (6.25”) Barrel length: 100mm (3.9”)

Weight empty: 709g (25 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity (.32 ACP): c.280 mps (920 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

331

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 38, 1938 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 206mm (8.11”) Barrel length: 118mm (4.65”)

Weight empty: 936g (33 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 304 mps (1,000 fps)

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 1950 (VZ50), 1950 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 167mm (6.6”) Barrel length: 97mm (3.75”)

Weight empty: 680g (24 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 280 mps (919 fps)

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 52 (VZ52), 1952 Caliber: 7.62mm Czech M48 (7.62 Soviet)

Operation: recoil, roller locked breech Length overall: 209mm (8.25”)

Barrel length: 120mm (4.71”) Weight empty: 960g (33. 8oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 396 mps (1300 fps)

332

SEMIAUTOMATICS

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 75, 1975 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: short recoil Length overall: 203mm (8”) Barrel length: 120mm (4.72”)

Weight empty: 980g (34.5 oz) Magazine: 15 Muzzle velocity: 338 mps (1214 fps)

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 85, 1985 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: short recoil Length overall: 206mm (8.11”)

Barrel length: 120mm (4.74”) Weight empty: 992g (35 oz) Magazine capacity: 15

SEMIAUTOMATICS

333

FINLAND: LAHTI L-35, 1935 Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: recoil Length overall: 245mm (9.68”) Barrel length: 105mm (4.18”)

Weight empty: 1219g (43 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 350 mps (1150 fps)

FRANCE: MODÈLE 1935A, 1938 Caliber: 7.65mm Long Operation: recoil Length overall: 193mm (7.6”) Barrel length: 109mm (4.3”)

Weight empty: 737g (26 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 345 mps (1132 fps)

FRANCE: MODEL 1935S, 1940 Caliber: 7.65mm Long Operation: recoil Length overall: 188mm (7.4”) Barrel length: 104mm (4.1”)

Weight empty: 794g (28 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 345 mps (1132 fps)

334

SEMIAUTOMATICS

FRANCE: MAB PA-15, CIRCA 1979 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: recoil Length overall: 203mm (7.9”) Barrel length: 114mm (4.48”)

Weight empty: 1070g (38.5 oz) Magazine capacity: 15 Muzzle velocity: c. 335 mps (1156 fps)

FRANCE: MAS 1950 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: recoil Length overall: 192mm (7.6”) Barrel length: 112mm (4.4”)

Weight empty: 822g (29 oz) Magazine capacity: 9 Muzzle velocity: c. 335mps (1100 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

335

GERMANY: MANNLICHER MODEL 1900 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 7.65mm Mannlicher Operation: retarded blowback Length overall: 244mm (9.62”) Barrel length: 160mm (6.31”)

Weight empty: 907g (32 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 312 mps (1025 fps)

GERMANY: LUGER MODEL 1900 Caliber: 7.65mm Parabellum Operation: recoil Length overall: 241mm (9.5”) Barrel length: 121mm (4.75”)

Weight empty: 1021g (36 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 366 mps (1200 fps)

336

SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMANY: MAUSER MODEL 1896/1912 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 7.63mm Mauser and 9mm Parabellum

Operation: recoil Length overall: 318mm (12.5”) Barrel length: 140mm (5.51”)

Bolo Model: 99mm (3.89”) Weight empty: 1250g (44oz) Magazine capacity: 10 Muzzle velocity: 440 mps (1450 fps) (7.63 Mauser cartridge)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

337

GERMANY: P-08 PARABELLUM LUGER, 1908 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: recoil Length overall: 222mm (8.75”) Barrel length: 102mm (4.06”)

Weight empty: 850g (31 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1050 fps)

338

SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMANY: MAUSER MODEL 1910 Caliber: 7.65mm Operation: blowback Length overall: 153mm (6.2”) Barrel length: 87mm (3.4”)

Weight empty: 600g (21 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 304 mps (950 fps)

GERMANY: LUGER MODEL 1914, “ARTILLERY MODEL,” 1914 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: recoil Length overall: 313mm (12.24”) Barrel length: 192mm (7.5”)

Weight empty: 1060g (37.3 oz) Magazine capacity: 8-round box or 32-round drum

Muzzle velocity: 381 mps (1250 fps)

GERMANY: WALTHER MODEL 6, 1915 Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: Blowback Length overall: 210mm (8.25”) Barrel length: 121mm (4.75”)

Weight empty: 963g (34oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 335 mps (1100 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

339

GERMANY: WALTHER MODEL PP, 1929 Caliber: .22LR, 6.35mm, 7.65mm, 9mm Short

Operation: Blowback Length overall: 162mm (6.38”) Barrel length: 85mm (3.35”)

Weight empty: 710g (25oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: (7.65mm) 290 mps (950 fps)

340

SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMANY: WALTHER MODEL PPK, 1931 Caliber: 22LR, 6.35mm, 7.65mm, 9mm Short

Operation: Blowback Length overall: 148 mm (5.83”) Barrel length: 80mm (3.15”)

Weight empty: 590g (21oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: (7.65mm) 290 mps (950 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

341

GERMANY: MAUSER MODEL 1932 Caliber: 7.63mm Operation: recoil Length overall: 298.5mm (11.75”) w/o stock; 648mm (25.5”) w stock Barrel length: 143mm (5.63”)

Weight empty: 1332 g (47 oz) w/o stock; 1786g (63 oz) w/stock

Magazine capacity: 10 or 20 Muzzle velocity: 472 mps (1575 fps)

GERMANY: MAUSER MODEL 1934 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 159mm (6.25”) Barrel length: 87mm (3.42”)

Weight empty: 600g (21oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 297 mps (975 fps)

GERMANY: SAUER BEHORDEN MODEL, 1930 Caliber: 7.65mm Operation: blowback Length overall: 146mm (5.75”) Barrel length: 77mm (3.03”)

Weight empty: 624g (22 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: 274 mps (900 fps)

GERMANY: SAUER MODEL 38H, 1938 Caliber: 7.65mm Operation: blowback Length overall: 171mm (6.75”) Barrel length: 83mm (3.27”)

Weight empty: 720g (25 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 274 mps (920 fps)

342

SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMANY: WALTHER P-38, 1938 Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 213mm (8.6”) Barrel length: 127mm (4.9”)

Weight empty: 960g (33.6 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1115 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

343

GERMANY: MAUSER MODEL HSC, CIRCA 1940 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 152mm (6”) Barrel length: 86mm (3.38”)

Weight empty: 600g (21oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 291 mps (950 fps)

GERMANY: VOLKSPISTOLE, 1944–1945 Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: delayed blowback Length overall: 213 mm (8.38”) Barrel length: 127mm (5”)

Weight empty: 964g (34 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 350 mps (1150 fps)

GERMANY: HECKLER & KOCH, 1967HK4/ P11 Caliber: .22LR, 6.35mm (.25 ACP), 7.65mm (.32 ACP), 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 157mm (6.18”)

Barrel length: 85mm (3.34”) Weight empty: 520g (17oz) Magazine capacity: 7 or 8 Muzzle velocity: (.380 ACP) 295 mps (968 fps)

344

SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMANY: WALTHER P1, 1951 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 213mm (8.6”) Barrel length: 127mm (4.9”)

Weight empty: 960g (33.6 oz) Magazine: 8 Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1148 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMANY: HECKLER & KOCH P7, 1973 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum); .40 S&W (other calibers available) Operation: delayed blowback Length overall: 171mm (6.7”) Barrel length: 105mm (4.1”)

Weight empty: 800g (33.5 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 (P7M8), 13 (P7M10)

Muzzle velocity: (9mm) 350 mps (1148 fps)

GERMANY: HECKLER & KOCH P7 K3, CIRCA 1973 Caliber: 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Operation : blowback Length overall: 160mm (6.3”)

Barrel length: 96.5mm (3.8”) Weight empty : 750g (26.5oz) Magazine capacity: 8

345

346

SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMANY: HECKLER & KOCH P9/ P9S, CIRCA 1972 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) or .45 ACP

Operation: delayed blowback Length overall: 192mm (7.6”) Barrel length: 102mm (4.01”)

Weight empty: 880g (31 oz) Magazine capacity: 9 (9mm) or 7 (.45 ACP)

Muzzle velocity: 351 mps (1152 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

347

GERMANY: WALTHER P5, 1975 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 180mm (7.12”) Barrel length: 90mm (3.54”)

Weight empty: 795g (28 oz) Magazine: 8 Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1148)

GERMANY: WALTHER P88, 1988 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 187mm (7.36”) Barrel length: 102mm (4”)

Weight empty: 900g (32 oz) Magazine capacity: 15 Muzzle velocity : 350 mps (1148 fps)

GERMANY: HECKLER & KOCH USP, 1993 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum); .40 S&W; .45ACP Operation: recoil, double-action, hammer fired Length overall: 194mm (7.64”) (9mm & .40); 200mm (.45) Barrel length: 108mm (4.25”) (9mm & .40); 112mm (.45)

Weight empty: 780g (27 oz) (9mm & .40); 887g (31 oz) (.45)

Magazine capacity: 15 (9mm); 13 (.40); 12 (.45)

Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1148 fps) (9mm); 285 mps (935 fps) (.40); 270 mps (886 fps) (.45)

348

SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMAN: HECKLER & KOCH MARK 23 MOD 0, 1996 Caliber: .45 ACP Operation: Recoil, dropping barrel Length overall: 245mm (9.65”); w/suppressor 421mm (16.57”)

Weight empty: 1210g (42 oz); w/suppressor and full magazine 1920g (68 oz) Magazine capacity: 12 Muzzle velocity: c. 270 mps (886 fps)

Barrel length: 149mm (5.87”)

HUNGARY: FROMMER STOP MODEL 19, 1912 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP), 9mm Short (.380 ACP)

Operation: long recoil Length overall: 165mm (6.5”)

Barrel length: 95mm (3.8”) Weight empty: 624g (22 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: c. 280 mps (920 fps)

HUNGARY: MODEL 37M, 1937 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP), 9mm Short (.380 ACP)

Operation: blowback Length overall: 182mm (7.17”) Barrel length: 110mm (4.33”)

Weight empty: 765g (27 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity (.32 ACP): c. 280 mps (920 fps)

HUNGARY: MODEL 48, 1948 Caliber: 7.62mm Operation: recoil Length overall: 195mm (7.68”) Barrel length: 116mm (4.57”)

Weight empty: 851g (30 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 420 mps (1,378 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

ITALY: GLISENTI MODEL 1910 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Glisenti Operation: delayed blowback Length overall: 207mm (8.22”) Barrel length: 100mm (3.91”)

Weight empty: 822g (29 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: c. 320 mps (1050 fps)

349

350

SEMIAUTOMATICS

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1915 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 149mm (5.85”) Barrel length: 84mm (3.32”)

Weight empty: 567g (20 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: c. 266 mps (875 fps)

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1915/19 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 146mm (5.75”) Barrel length: 87mm (3.5”)

Weight empty: 652g (23 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 297 mps (975 fps)

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1923 Caliber: 9mm Glisenti Operation: blowback Length overall: 177mm (7”) Barrel length: 87mm (3.5”)

Weight empty: 851g (30 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 305 mps (1000 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

351

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1934 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Corto (.380 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 152mm (6”) Barrel length: 94mm (3.7”)

Weight empty: 680g (24 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: c. 251 mps (825 fps)

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1931 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 152mm (5”)

Barrel length: 88mm (3.46”) Weight empty: 700g (24.6 oz) Magazine capacity: 8

352

SEMIAUTOMATICS

ITALY: BERETTA 1951 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 203mm (8”) Barrel length: 114mm (4.51”)

Weight empty: 890g (31 oz); 709g (25 oz) w/aluminum receiver

Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 350 mps (1182 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

353

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 92, 1976 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: short recoil Length overall: 217mm (8.54”) Barrel length: 125mm (4.92”)

Weight empty: 950g (33.5 oz) Magazine capacity: 15 Muzzle velocity: 390 mps (1280 fps)

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 94, 1976 Caliber: 9mm Short (.390 ACP) Operation: blowback Length overall: 172mm (6.8”)

Barrel length: 97mm (3.8”) Weight empty: 660g (23 oz) Magazine capacity: 13

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 93R, 1986 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil, selective fire Length overall: 240mm (9.45”) Barrel length: 156mm (6.14”)

Weight empty: 1129g (39.8 oz) Magazine capacity: 15 or 20 Muzzle velocity: 375 mps (1230 fps) Cyclic rate: 1100 rpm

354

SEMIAUTOMATICS

JAPAN: NAMBU TYPE 04, 1909 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 8mm Nambu Operation: recoil Length overall: 228mm (9”) Barrel length: 120mm (4.7”)

Weight empty: 879g (31 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 320 mps (1050 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

JAPAN: NAMBU TYPE 14, 1925 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 8mm Nambu Operation: recoil Length overall : 227mm (8.93”) Barrel length: 121mm (4.75”)

Weight empty: 907g (32 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 320 mps (1050 fps)

355

356

SEMIAUTOMATICS

JAPAN: TYPE 94, 1934 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 8mm Nambu Operation: recoil Length overall: 180mm (7.13”) Barrel length: 79mm (3.13”)

Weight empty: 794g (28 oz) Magazine capacity: 6 Muzzle velocity: c. 305 mps (1000 fps)

JAPAN: NEW NAMBU MODEL 57A, CIRCA 1988 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: recoil Length overall: 198mm (7.8”) Barrel length: 117mm (4.6”)

Weight empty: 364g (34 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1148 fps)

MEXICO: OBREGON, 1934 Caliber: .45 ACP Operation: recoil Length overall: 210mm (8.25”) Barrel length: 124mm (4.88”)

Weight empty: 595g (21oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: c. 260 mps (850 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

357

POLAND: RADOM VIS, 1935 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: recoil Length overall: 211mm (7.8”) Barrel length: 115mm (4.7)

Weight empty: 1021g (36 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 350 mps (1150 fps)

POLAND: MODEL 64, 1964 Caliber: 9mm Makarov Operation: blowback Length overall: 155mm (6.1”) Barrel length: 84mm (3.3”)

Weight empty: 680g (24 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 310 mps (1017 fps)

358

SEMIAUTOMATICS

PORTUGAL: M908 SAVAGE MODEL, 1907 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: delayed blowback Length overall: 167mm (6.6”) Barrel length: 87mm (3.5”)

Weight empty: 595g (21 oz) Magazine capacity: 10 Muzzle velocity: c. 289 mps (950 fps)

PORTUGAL: M915 SAVAGE MODEL, 1915 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) and 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Operation: delayed blowback Length overall: 167mm 6.5”

Barrel length: 96mm (3.8”) Weight empty: 625g (22 oz) Magazine capacity: 10 Muzzle velocity: c. 289 mps (950 fps)

SOUTH AFRICA: VEKTOR SP1, 1992 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 210mm (8.27”) Barrel length: 118mm (4.65”)

Weight empty: 995g (35 oz) Magazine capacity: 15 Muzzle velocity: 360 mps (1181 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

SOVIET UNION: TOKAREV TT-33, 1936 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 7.62x35 mm Operation: recoil Length overall: 193mm (7.68”) Barrel length: 116mm (4.57”)

Weight empty: 830g (29 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 418 mps (1375 fps)

359

360

SEMIAUTOMATICS

SOVIET UNION: MAKAROV, 1951 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Makarov Operation: Blowback Length overall: 160mm (6.35”) Barrel length: 98mm (3.85”)

Weight empty: 663g (23 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 325 mps (1070 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

361

SOVIET UNION: STETCHKIN APS, 1951 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm Makarov Operation: blowback Length overall: w/o stock: 225mm (8.85”); w stock: mm 21.25”

Barrel length: 140mm (5.5”)

Weight empty: w/o stock: 1030g (36 oz); w/stock: 1786g (63 oz)

Magazine capacity: 20 Muzzle velocity: 335 mps (1100 fps) Cyclic rate: 750 rpm

362

SEMIAUTOMATICS

SOVIET UNION: PSM, 1980 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 5.45mm Soviet Operation: blowback Length overall: 160mm (6.3”)

Barrel length: 85mm (3.35”) Weight empty: 460g (16.2 oz) Magazine capacity: 8

SEMIAUTOMATICS

363

SPAIN: CAMPO-GIRO MODEL 1913 Caliber: 9x23mm Largo (9mm Bergmann Bayard) Operation: blowback Length overall: 204 mm (8.03”) Barrel length: 165 mm (6.49”)

Weight empty: 1049g (37 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 355 mps (1165 fps)

SPAIN: CAMPO-GIRO MODEL 1913–16 Caliber: 9x23mm Largo (9mm Bergmann Bayard) Operation: blowback Length overall: 204 mm (8.03”)

Barrel length: 165 mm (6.49”) Weight empty: 1049g (37 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 355 mps (1165 fps)

SPAIN: ASTRA 400, MODEL 1921, 1921 Caliber: 9x23mm Largo (9mm Bergmann Bayard)

Operation: blowback Length overall: 235mm (9.25”)

Barrel length: 140mm (5.5”) Weight empty: 1049g (37 oz) Magazine: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 345 mps (1210 fps)

SPAIN: STAR MODEL MILITAR 1921, MODEL 1921, MODEL A SERIES, 1921 Caliber: 9mm Largo (Bergmann-Bayard) Operation: recoil Length overall: 202mm (7.95”) Barrel length: 127mm (5”)

Weight empty: 964g (34 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 365 mps (1200 fps)

SPAIN: ASTRA MODEL 300, 1922 Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) and 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Operation: —

Length overall: 165mm (6.5”)

Barrel length: 90mm (3.54”) Weight empty: 560g (19.75 oz) Magazine capacity: 7

364

SEMIAUTOMATICS

SPAIN: ASTRA MODEL 900, 1928 Caliber: 7.63 mm Mauser Operation: recoil Length overall: 317 mm (12.5”) Barrel Length: 140 mm (5.5”)

Weight empty: 1304g (46 oz) Magazine capacity: 10 Muzzle velocity: c. 476 mps (1450 fps)

SPAIN: ASTRA MODEL 902, 1928 Caliber: 7.63mm Mauser Operation: recoil, select-fire Length overall: 362 mm (14.25”) Barrel Length: 183 mm (7.25”)

Weight: 1332g (47 oz) Magazine capacity: 20 Muzzle velocity: c. 456 mps (1500 fps)

SPAIN: LLAMA PISTOLA AUTOMATICA MARQUE IX, 1930S Caliber: 9mm Largo (Bergmann-Bayard) Operation: recoil Length overall: 158mm (6.25”) Barrel length: 87mm (3.5”)

Weight empty: 595g (21 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity: c. 260 mps (850 fps)

SPAIN: SUPER STAR, CIRCA 1940 Caliber: 9mm Largo (Bergmann-Bayard) Operation: recoil Length overall: 204mm (8.03”) Barrel length: 134mm (5.25”)

Weight empty: 1021g (36 oz) Magazine capacity: 9 Muzzle velocity: c. 365 mps (1200 fps)

SPAIN: ASTRA A-50, 1960 Caliber: .22 Long Rifle, .32 ACP, or .380 ACP

Operation: blowback Length overall: 160mm (6.31”)

Barrel length: 89mm (3.5”) Weight empty: 680g (24 oz) Magazine capacity: 10 (.22 LR), 8 (.32), 7 (.380)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

365

SPAIN: ASTRA A-80, 1981 Caliber: 9mm Largo, 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum), .38 Super Auto, .45ACP, or 7.65 Parabellum Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 180mm (7”)

Barrel length: 95mm (3.74”) Weight empty : 985g (35 oz) Magazine capacity: 15 (8 in .45) Muzzle velocity: 350 mps (1148 fps) (9mm)

SPAIN: LLAMA M82, 1985 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 209mm (8.2”) Barrel length: 114mm (4.5”)

Weight empty: 1110g (39 oz) Magazine capacity: 15 Muzzle velocity: 345 mps (1132 fps)

SPAIN: ASTRA A-100, 1990 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum), .40 S&W, .45 ACP Operation: short recoil Length overall: 180mm (7.1”)

Barrel length: 95mm (3.8”) Weight empty: 985g (35 oz) Magazine capacity: 15 (9mm), 13 (.40 S&W), 9 (.45 ACP)

SPAIN: STAR MODEL 30M AND 30PK, 1998 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 205mm (8”) (30M); 193mm (7.5”) (30PK) Barrel length: 120mm (4.7”) (30M); 98mm (3.9”) (30PK)

Weight empty: 1014g (36 oz) (30M); 860g (30 oz) (30PK)

Magazine capacity: 15 Muzzle velocity : 375 mps (1230 fps)

366

SEMIAUTOMATICS

SPAIN: ASTRA A-70 AND A-75, 1992–1993 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) or .40 S&W

Operation: recoil Length overall: 166mm (6.54”)

Barrel length: 89mm (3.5”) Weight empty: 840g (31 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 (9mm), 7 (.40 S&W)

SWEDEN: LAHTI M-40, 1942 Caliber: 9mm Parabellum Operation: recoil Length overall: 272mm (10.7”) Barrel length: 140mm (5.5”)

Weight empty: 1077g (38 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: c. 387 mps (1250 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

367

SWITZERLAND: SIG P210/P49, 1949 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: recoil Length overall: 215mm (8.5”) Barrel length: 120mm (4.75”)

Weight empty: 900g (34 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 351 mps (1150 fps)

SWITZERLAND: SPHINX AT-2000S, 1984 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum); .40 S&W

Operation: short recoil Length overall: 204mm (8.03”)

Barrel length: 115mm (4.53”) Weight empty: 1030g (36.3 oz) Magazine capacity: 15 Muzzle velocity: 352 mps (1155 fps)

368

SEMIAUTOMATICS

SWITZERLAND/GERMANY: SIG-SAUER P-220/ PISTOL 75, 1975 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 198mm (7.79”) Barrel length: 112mm (4.41”)

Weight empty: 830g (23.53 oz) Magazine capacity: 9 Muzzle velocity: 345 mps (1132 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

369

SWITZERLAND/GERMANY: SIG-SAUER P-225 / P6, 1980 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 180mm (7.09”) Barrel length: 97.6mm (3.84”)

Weight empty: 820g (23.25 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity : 350 mps (1148 fps)

370

SEMIAUTOMATICS

SWITZERLAND/GERMANY: SIG-SAUER P-226 / XM9, 1983 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 196mm (7.72”)

Barrel length: 112mm (4.41”) Weight empty: 900g (25.52 oz) Magazine capacity: 15

SEMIAUTOMATICS

371

SWITZERLAND/GERMANY: SIG-SAUER P-228/229, 1989 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 180mm (7.08”) Barrel length: 98mm (3.86”)

Weight empty : 830g (29 oz) Magazine capacity: 13 Muzzle velocity : 340 mps (1115 fps)

372

SEMIAUTOMATICS

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY & SCOTT .455 MARK I, 1912 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .455 Webley automatic Operation: recoil Length overall: 216mm (8.5”) Barrel length: 127mm (5”)

Weight empty: 1106g (39 oz) Magazine capacity: 7 Muzzle velocity : c. 228 mps (750 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS

373

UNITED STATES: COLT MODEL 1911 AND MODEL 1911A1, 1911 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .45 ACP Operation: Short recoil Length overall: 219mm (8.62”) Barrel length: 127mm (5”)

Weight empty: 1130g (39 oz) Magazine capacity: 8 Muzzle velocity: 253 mps (830 fps)

UNITED KINGDOM: WELROD MARK 1, 1942 Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) Operation: single-shot Length overall: 312 mm (12”)

Barrel length: 111mm (4.4”) Weight empty: 1011g (36oz.) Magazine capacity: 6

374

SEMIAUTOMATICS

UNITED STATES: GUIDE LAMP “LIBERATOR,” 1942 Caliber: .45 ACP Operation: single shot Length overall: 141mm (5.55”) Barrel length: 102mm (4”)

Weight empty: 445g (15.6 oz) Magazine capacity: n/a Muzzle velocity: c. 250 mps (820 fps)

UNITED STATES: SMITH & WESSON MODEL 39, 1954 Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: recoil Length overall: 188mm (7.4”)

Barrel length: 101mm (4”) Weight empty: 750g (26.5 oz) Magazine capacity: 8

UNITED STATES: SMITH & WESSON MODEL 59, 1954. Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) Operation: recoil Length overall: 189mm (7.4”)

Barrel length: 101mm (4”) Weight empty: 785g (27.7 oz) Magazine capacity: 14

UNITED STATES: COLT M15 GENERAL OFFICERS PISTOL, 1972 Caliber: .45 ACP Operation: recoil Length overall: 200mm (7.88”)

Barrel length: 108mm (4.25”) Weight empty: 1021g (36 oz) Magazine capacity: 7

GLOSSARY

back action: a type of percussion lock with the main spring located to the rear of the tumbler Baltic lock: an early form of the flintlock appearing at the beginning of the seventeenth century barrel: the metal tube that guides the pistol’s projectile barrel band: a flattened metal ring that secures the barrel to the stock on some early military pistols barrel pin: a metal pin that passes through the stock and an extension on the bottom of the barrel to secure the two components battery: also known as the frizzen, the hardened metal component of the flintlock mechanism upon which the flint strikes to create sparks and thus ignite the priming powder black powder: early propellant created by mixing potassium nitrate (saltpeter), charcoal, and sulfur blowback action: mechanism used in lower-powered semiautomatic pistols without a mechanical locking system. Blowback pistols typically utilize a strong spring to hold the breech closed until the bullet leaves the muzzle blueing: a heat and chemical treatment for metal components that results in a protective blue finish blunderbuss: a firearm with a dramatically swelled muzzle bolt: an internal component of some semiautomatic pistols that recoils to the rear from the energy of firing and then, powered by a recoil spring, moves forward to strip a new cartridge from the magazine and seat it in the chamber bootleg pistol: a concealable, usually muzzleloading pistol traditionally carried in a boot as a secondary weapon bore: the inside of the barrel box lock: an early firearms mechanism utilizing a hammer attached to the inside of the lock plate brace: a pair, as in a brace of pistols

375

376

GLOSSARY

breech: the rear end of the barrel breech plug: a threaded metal plug that seals the breech of a flintlock or percussion barrel bridle: a metal component on the interior of a flint or percussion lock that secures the tumbler and sear to the lockplate browning: an early metal treatment for weapons that resulted in a purplish-brown protective finish bullet: the actual projectile, usually of lead, that is fired from a pistol or long arm bullet patch: a small piece of material, usually cloth, placed around a round bullet to aid in gripping the bore’s rifling butt cap: a protective, sometimes ornamental, metal piece that covers the base of the stock’s butt caliber: the diameter of the bore of a firearm or a projectile in thousandths of an inch (e.g.: caliber .50 equals a bore or bullet that is one-half of an inch) cartridge: the combination of bullet and powder, usually wrapped in a paper or skin tube in early forms, and requiring separate priming for percussion and flintlock pistols. Self-contained metallic cartridges employ a primer in their base casehardening: a heat treatment that hardens metal components. Color casehardening imparts a decorative swirling pattern on metal parts. chamber: the rear segment of the barrel that holds the cartridge checkering: the often decorative texturing of the stock to provide a secure grip cock: an early term for the hammer of flintlock pistols. It is also the action that prepares a pistol for immediate firing cone: also known as a nipple, a small hollow tube that screws into a percussion weapon’s breech and provides a seat for the percussion cap cylinder: the revolving drum-shaped component of a revolver bored with typically five or six chambers to contain the cartridges dag: an archaic term for a large pistol derringer: a generic term for a small pocket pistol. The term originates from the pistols produced by the American Henry Deringer dog lock: early English flintlock incorporating a “dog,” or catch, that engages a notch on the lower rear of the hammer doghead: the component of the wheel-lock mechanism that presses the iron pyrites against the wheel double-action: the mechanism that automatically cocks and releases the hammer with a single pull of the trigger dueling pistol: a typically unadorned yet highly accurate single-shot flintlock or percussion pistol specifically made for dueling English lock: an early form of flintlock, often incorporating a “dog,” or safety catch, behind the hammer

GLOSSARY

extractor: the component that engages the rim of the cartridge case in order to remove it from the chamber fence: a vertical projection on the rear of the pan of flintlock pistols designed to divert the flash of ignition away from the user’s eyes flint: the small piece of stone gripped by a flintlock’s hammer that strikes against the frizzen to create the sparks necessary for ignition flintlock: a mechanism utilizing the striking of a flint against a hardened steel frizzen to create sparks to ignite its priming frame: the major metal component that connects the barrel, cylinder, action, and grips of a revolver. Also, the lower major component of a semiauto to which the slide is attached French lock: also known as the true flintlock frizzen: also known as the battery, the hardened steel component of a flintlock that the flint strikes to create sparks for ignition grip: the handle of a pistol, usually made of wood grooves: the channels cut in a rifled bore half-cock: a notch cut in the rear of the hammer or tumbler that allows the sear to engage it in a safe position halfway between its resting and fully cocked position. In revolvers, the half-cock position also allows the cylinder to rotate freely half stock: usually found on single-shot flintlock or percussion pistols, a stock that extends for half the length of the barrel hammer: the spring-powered, pivoting component of a firearm mechanism that strikes the priming to ignite the main powder charge; in early weapons known as the cock hand: a revolver component attached to the hammer that pushes upward against notches in the rear of the cylinder to rotate it to the next chamber hang fire: a dangerous delay between the striking of the primer and the actual ignition of the main powder charge. It is usually caused by defective or damp priming or damp powder in the chamber. horse pistol: a large, usually single-shot military pistol, typically carried as pairs in saddle holsters lands: the raised part of the grooves cut in a rifled bore loading gate: a hinged “door” on the frame at the rear of a revolver’s cylinder that allows cartridges to be loaded into the chambers and spent cases to be extracted loading lever: a hinged ramrod mounted on percussion revolvers lock plate: the metal plate to which the major mechanical components of a muzzleloading, single-shot pistol are attached magazine: the reservoir that holds the cartridges in a semiautomatic pistol. Most semiautomatic pistols utilize a detachable “box” magazine fitted in the grip that holds seven or more cartridges mainspring: the high-tension spring that powers the hammer

377

378

GLOSSARY

match: the length of potassium nitrate-impregnated hemp cord that when lit provides the ignition for matchlock weapons matchlock: the first and most simple type of firing mechanism, typically utilizing a “serpentine” cock and glowing, saltpeter-impregnated hemp cord, or “match” miquelet: early form of flintlock popular in Spain and distinguished by an external mainspring and large ring at the top of the hammer screw muzzle: the open end of the barrel muzzleloader: a weapon loaded through the muzzle with a ramrod nipple: also known as the cone, a small hollow tube that screws into a percussion weapon’s breech and allows a seat for the percussion cap nose cap: a protective metal cap attached to the front of a single-shot, muzzleloader’s fore end pan: small metal dish next to the vent that holds the priming powder on matchlocks, wheel locks, and flintlocks pepperbox: a percussion pistol with multiple revolving barrels percussion cap: a small copper or brass cup containing a fulminate of mercury priming compound and placed on the nipple of a percussion weapon pill lock: early percussion system using a small “pill” of fulminate bound with gum arabic rather than contained in a metallic cap pin fire: early cartridge system utilizing a metallic cartridge with internal priming ignited by the hammer striking a small metal pin protruding at a right angle from the base of the case primer: highly combustible material used to ignite a pistol’s main powder charge. In later center-fire pistols it is contained in a small metal cap contained in the cartridge base pyrites: shortened form of iron pyrites, or “fool’s gold.” Used in wheel locks to create sparks against the serrated edge of the action’s wheel to ignite the priming. Owing to the pyrites’ tendency to crumble, they were later replaced with a piece of flint in the flintlock Queen Anne pistol: popular in England during the early eighteenth century, a pistol lacking a fore end and with a barrel that unscrews at the breech for loading and unloading rammer/ramrod: a metal or wood rod used to push a muzzleloading pistol’s powder and ball securely into the breech of the weapon revolver: a handgun with a revolving cylinder typically bored with five or six chambers rifling: spiral grooves cut into the bore of the barrel to impart a stabilizing spin to the ball or bullet sear: a component of the lock that engages a notch in the hammer upon cocking and is released by the trigger, thus firing the weapon serpentine: the S-shaped cock of an early matchlock that holds the piece of smoldering match

GLOSSARY

single-action: a handgun that must be manually cocked by pulling back the hammer before firing smokeless powder: a mixture of nitrocellulose, ether, and alcohol used as the propellant in modern firearms smoothbore: a nonrifled firearm snaphaunce: an early form of flintlock characterized by having a separate frizzen and pan cover stock: the usually wood component of a pistol that connects the metal components and provides a grip for the user striker: the firing pin in a semiautomatic pistol that hits the cartridge primer to cause ignition tang: an extension of the breech plug that generally provides a support for a screw to secure the breech of the barrel to the stock tangent sight: an adjustable, ladder-shaped rear sight thimble: a metal ring or ferrule in the ramrod channel under the barrel of single-shot flintlock or percussion pistols to provide extra support to the ramrod in its stowed position top jaw: the upper component of a flintlock hammer through which the top jaw screw passes to secure the flint top strap: in some revolvers, the section of the frame that extends over the top of the cylinder touchhole: also known as the vent, the hole in the breech of a matchlock, wheel lock, or flintlock through which the flame from the priming powder in the pan passes to ignite the main powder charge trigger: the projection at the bottom of the pistol that, when pressed by the finger, releases the sear to fire the weapon trigger guard: a bow-shaped metal component that protects the trigger tumbler: the pivoting internal component of the lock to which the hammer is attached and which is also cut with the half-cock and full-cock notches to engage the sear underhammer pistol: a typically percussion handgun with the hammer mounted on the bottom of the weapon vent: also known as the touchhole, the hole in the breech of a matchlock or flintlock through which the flame from the priming powder in the pan passes to ignite the main powder charge wheel lock: early ignition system incorporating a spring-powered serrated wheel that spins against iron pyrites to create the sparks to ignite the priming powder

379

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bailey, De Witt and Douglass A. Nie. English Gunmakers: The Birmingham and Provincial Gun Trade in the 18th and 19th Century. (New York: Arco Publishing Company, Inc. 1978). Baldick, Robert. The Duel. (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1965). Bishop, Chris, ed. Combat Guns and Infantry Weapons. (Shrewsbury: Airlife Publishing, Ltd., 1996). Blair, Claude. Pistols of the World. (New York: The Viking Press, 1968). ———. ed., Pollard’s History of Firearms. (New York: MacMillan Publishing Company: 1983). Chamberlain, W.H.J. and A.W.F. Taylerson. Adams’ Revolvers. (London: Barrie & Jenkins Ltd., 1976). Excellent info/ well illustrated/ tables Cochran, Hamilton, Noted American Duels and Hostile Encounters. (Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1963). Curtis, Chris C. System Lefaucheux: Continuing the Study of Pinfire Cartridge Arms Including Their Role in the American Civil War. (Santa Ana, CA: Armslore Press, 2002). Dowell, William Chipchase. The Webley Story. (Kirkgate, Leeds: The Skyrac Press, 1967). Edwards, William B. Civil War Guns. (Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, 1962). Ezell, Edward C, Handguns of the World: Military Revolvers and Self-Loaders from 1870 to 1945. (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1981). Comprehensive/ illustrated/ social/cultural/technical Ezell, Edward Clinton. Small Arms of the World, 12th revised edition. (Harrisburg: Stackpole Books, 1983). Flayderman, Norm. Flayderman’s Guide to Antique American Firearms, 7th Edition. (Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1998). George, J.N. English Pistols & Revolvers. (New York: Arco Publishing Company, Inc., 1962). Hogg, Ian V., Handguns and Rifles. New York: Gramercy Books, 1999). ———. Jane’s Guns Recognition Guide. (Glasgow: Harper Collins, 2002).

381

382

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hogg, Ian V. and John Weeks. Military Small Arms of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World’s SmallCalibre Firearms, 6th edition. (Iola, WI: DBI Books, 2000). ———. Pistols of the World: The Definitive Illustrated Guide to the World’s Pistols and Revolvers, 3rd edition. (Iola, WI: DBI Books, Inc., 1992). Hogg, Ian V. Small Arms Pistols and Rifles. (London: Greenhill Books, 2001). Kenyon, Charles, Jr. Lugers at Random. (Chicago: Handgun Press, 1969). Lord, Francis. Civil War Collector’s Encyclopedia. (Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, 1977). McAleer, Kevin. Dueling. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994). Moore, Warren. Guns: The Development of Firearms, Air Guns and Cartridges. (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1963). O’Connell, Robert L. Soul of the Sword: An Illustrated History of Weaponry and Warfare from Prehistory to Present. (New York: The Free Press, 2002). Peterson, Harold L. ed. Encyclopedia of Firearms. (New York: E.P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1964). ———. The Treasury of the Gun. (New York: Golden Press, 1962). ———. The Remington Historical Treasury of American Guns. (New York: Grosett & Dunlap, 1966). Sellers, Frank M. and Samuel E. Smith. American Percussion Revolvers. (Ottawa: Museum Restoration Service, 1971). Detailed/ many photos/ rare and prototypes Smith, W. H. B. Small Arms of the World, 9th edition. (Harrisburg, PA: The Stackpole Company, 1969). Taylerson, A.W.F., R.A.N. Andrews, and J. Frith. The Revolver 1818–1865. (New York: Crown Publishers, 1968). Trotter, William R. A Frozen Hell: The Russo-Finnish War of 1939–1940. (Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991). Wilkinson, Frederick. Antique Firearms. (San Rafael, CA: Presidio Press, 1977). Zhuk, A.B. The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Handguns, Pistols and Revolvers of the World, 1870 to the Present. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Greenhill Books, 1997).

INDEX

Astra A-100, 1990 (Spain), 279, 290, 365 Astra Model 300, 1922 (Spain), 250, 290, 363 Astra Model 400, Model 1921, 1921 (Spain), 249-50, 290, 363 Astra Model 600 (Spain), 250 Astra Model 900, 1928 (Spain), 25051, 290, 364 Astra Model 902, 1928 (Spain), 251, 290, 364 Augusta Machine Works, 103 Austria cartridge revolvers in, 149-51, 286 matchlocks in, 6 post-WWII developments in, 27376 semiautomatic pistols in, 224-27, 288, 328-30 Austro-Hungarian Model 1870 Gasser Army Revolver (Austria), 150, 286

Abel, Sir Frederick, 153 Abercrombie and Fitch, 180 Adams, John, 74, 138-39 Adams, Robert, 74, 75, 138 Adams Percussion Revolver (U. K.), 74, 75-77, 81, 285, 300 Aetna Arms Company, 117 Africa, 3, 9 Age of Discovery, 23 Alexis, Grand Duke, 132 Allen, Ethan, 56, 62 Allen & Thurber, 56 Allen & Wheelock, 56, 117 Allen & Wheelock Army Revolver (U. S.), 97 Alsop, Charles R., 91 American Revolution, 45, 46 Ames, J. T., 112 Ames, N. P., 59 ammunition flintlocks and, 26 semiautomatic pistols and, 175 Andri, Alfred, 202 Ansley, Jesse A., 101 Anti-Dueling Association, 33 antigun laws, 2 Argentina, 212, 288, 328 arquebus (matchlock musket), 6 Aston, Henry, 60 Astra A-50, 1960 (Spain), 279, 290, 365 Astra A-70 and A-75, 1992-1993 (Spain), 279, 290, 366 Astra A-80, 1981 (Spain), 279, 290, 371 Astra A-90 (Spain), 279

Bacon, Roger, 1 Bacon, Thomas, 98 Bacon Arms Company, 98 Bacon Manufacturing Company, 98 Ballester Molina (Argentina), 288, 322 Barthlemens, Fritz, 194 Beals, Fordyce, 83, 85-86, 93 Beaumont, Frederick, 74, 77 Beauregard, P. G. T., 103 Beistegui, Juan and Cosme, 252 Belgium cartridge revolvers in, 158-59 percussion pistols in, 62 383

384

PISTOLS

post-WWII developments in, 27677 semiautomatic pistols in, 214-21, 288, 331-35 Benet, S. V., 125 Bennett, T. G., 201 Berdan, Hiram, 125-26 Beretta, Pietro, 241-42 Beretta family, 28 Beretta M9 (Model 92FS0) (U. S.), 263-64 Beretta MOD (Italy), 359 Beretta Model 84 (Italy), 278 Beretta Model 92, 1976 (Italy), 257, 276, 278, 289, 353 Beretta Model 93R, 1986 (Italy), 27879, 290, 353 Beretta Model 94, 1976 (Italy), 289, 353 Beretta Model 1915 (Italy), 240-41, 241-42, 289, 350 Beretta Model 1915/19 (Italy), 24142, 289, 350 Beretta Model 1923 (Italy), 241-42, 289, 350 Beretta Model 1931 (Italy), 242-43, 289, 351 Beretta Model 1934 (Italy), 242-43, 289, 351 Beretta Model 1951 (Italy), 277-78, 289, 352 Bergman Models 1894, 1896, 1897 (Germany), 187-88 Bergmann, Theodor, 187 Blake, Eli Whitney, 92 Blake, Philos, 92 blunderbuss pistols, 36 Blunt and Sims, 62 Bomford, George, 58 Booth, John Wilkes, 57 boot pistols, 56 Borchardt, Hugo, 174, 176-77, 288 Boutet, Nicolas-Noël, 25 Boutet, Noël, 25-26, 28 Boutet, Pierre-Nicolas, 26 Bowie, James, 59 Boxer, Edward Mounier, 126 Branconet, Henri, 152 Britain. See United Kingdom British East India Company, 79 Browning, John, 3, 200-201, 214, 21819, 288 Browning, Matthew Sandefur, 200

Browning .45 ACP Colt Models 1911 and 1911A1 (U. S.), 288 Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) (U. S.), 201 Browning Model 1900 (U. S.), 260, 288 Buntline, Ned, 128 Burr, Aaron, 32 Burton, Sir Richard Francis, 72 C. B. Allen, 59 Campo-Giro Model 1913 (Spain), 248-49, 290, 363 Campo-Giro Model 1913-16 (Spain), 248-49, 290, 363 cannons, 1, 5 cartridge revolvers in Austria, 149-51 in Belgium, 158-59 cavalry and, 136-37 Colt, 106, 123-24, 162-65 conversions and, 120-36 development of, 105-6 Dreyse, 108-9 Flobert, 111 in France, 109-11, 151-55 in Germany, 147-49 individual models of, 285-86, 308-11 in Italy, 157 in Japan, 161-62 Lefaucheux, 109-10 Pauly, 106-8 in Prussia, 108 Remington, 122-23 in Russia, 131-32, 160-61 Smith & Wesson, 111-20, 129-36, 165-67 smokeless powder and, 152-53 in Spain, 158 in Switzerland, 106-8, 155-57 in United Kingdom, 138-47 in United States, 120-36, 162-67 Webley, 140-46 See also percussion pistols; pistols; semiautomatic pistols Catherine the Great, 22 Catlin, George, 71-72 cavalry cartridge revolvers and, 136-37 firearms and, 2 flintlocks and, 39-40 matchlocks and, 2, 9

INDEX

pistols and, 3 revolvers and, 3 wheel locks and, 2, 283 Ceballosy Aguirre, Don Venancio Lopez de, 248 Cendoya, Don Juan Pedro de UncetaBaerenechea, 248 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 206 Chamelot and Delvigne Mle 1873 and Mle 1885, 153-54 Charles I, 20 Charleville arsenal (France), 46 Chase, Anson, 64 Chatham, Lord, 50 Cheney, Elisha, 46 Chiang Kai-shek, 220 China, 1, 288, 336 See also People’s Republic of China chivalry, 2, 7 CIA. See Central Intelligence Agency City Company (United Kingdom), 20 Clapp, Everett, 87 Cochran Turret Revolver, 64-65 Code Duello, 30, 32 Codex Atlanticus (da Vinci), 11 Cody, William “Buffalo Bill”, 128, 130, 132 Cold War, 255 Collier, Elisha H., 43-44, 64 Collier pistols, 43-44, 284 Colt, Samuel, 89 background of, 63-64 cartridge revolvers and, 106, 11213 invention of revolvers and, 3 patents of, 85, 97-98 percussion revolvers and, 284 semiautomatic pistols and, 202-9 in United Kingdom, 72-74, 78-79 Colt Aircrewman (U. S.), 168, 286 Colt Caliber .45 Model 1911 and Model 1911A1, 1911 (U. S.), 173, 176, 209-11, 257, 262, 263-64, 291, 373 Colt Lawman 1969 (U. S.), 287, 319 Colt M15 General Officers Pistol, 1972 (U. S.), 262-63, 291, 374 Colt Model 1848 Baby Dragoon Revolver (U. S.), 69-70 Colt Model 1849 Pocket Revolver, 7071

Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver (U. S.), 71-72, 98-99, 101, 102, 284, 303 Colt Model 1855 Sidehammer Revolver (U. S.), 69-70, 74 Colt Model 1860 Army Revolver (U. S.), 81-83, 127, 285, 304 Colt Model 1861 Navy Revolver (U. S.), 82, 98-99 Colt Model 1862 Police Revolver (U. S.), 99 Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army Revolver (U. S.), 127-28, 286, 313 Colt Model 1877 Revolver (U. S.), 162-63 Colt Model 1878 (Frontier) Revolver (U. S.), 163 Colt Model 1892 Revolver (U. S.), 163 Colt Model 1900 (U. S.), 202-3 Colt Model 1902 Military Automatic Pistol (U. S.), 203 Colt Model 1903 Hammerless .32 Pocket Auto (U. S.), 204-5 Colt Model 1908 Hammerless .25 Caliber Auto (Model N) (U. S.), 205-6 Colt Model 1917 Revolver (U. S.), 287, 321 Colt Model 1917 New Service Revolver, Military Model (U. S.), 166-67, 286, 316 Colt Model M Hammerless .380 Pocket Auto (U. S.), 205 Colt New Navy, Army, and Marine Revolvers, 1889 (U. S.), 164-65, 286, 314 Colt New Service Double Action Revolver (U. S.), 166, 286, 315 Colt New Service Revolver 1898 (U. S.), 287 Colt Patent Firearms Company, 123, 202 Colt Paterson Revolver (U. S.), 65-68, 284, 302 Colt Python (U. S.), 287, 318 Colt Richards-Mason Cartridge Conversion (U. S.), 127, 286 Colt-Root Model. See Colt Model 1855 Sidehammer Revolver (U. S.) Colt Walker Model (U. S.), 67-68, 71, 92, 284, 302

385

386

PISTOLS

Colt Whitneyville Hartford Dragoon Revolver (U. S.), 68-69 Columbus Fire Arms Manufacturing Company, 103 Cominazzo, Fortunato Lazarino, 17 Cominazzo, Lazarino, 17-18 Committee for the Admiralty and Navy (1658), 21 Confederate Griswold & Gunnison Revolver (U. S.), 101, 285 Conrad, Charles M., 58 Constable, Richard, 55 Continuation War (1944), 237 Cotter, August, 6 Crispin, Silas, 118 Cromwell, Oliver, 13, 14 Crosse, J. G., 76 Custer, George Armstrong, 82, 87, 115, 130, 137 CZ 22, 1922 (Czechoslovakia), 230, 288, 330 CZ 24, 1924 (Czechoslovakia), 230, 288, 330 CZ 38, 1938 (Czechoslovakia), 23132, 288, 331 CZ 75, 1975 (Czechoslovakia), 259, 288, 332 CZ 82 (Czechoslovakia), 259-60 CZ 83 (Czechoslovakia), 259-60 CZ 85, 1985 (Czechoslovakia), 259, 288, 332 CZ 1950 (vz. 50), 1950 (Czechoslovakia), 258, 288, 331 Czechoslovakia, 228-32, 259, 288, 336-38 CZ Model 1927 (vz.27), 1927 (Czechoslovakia), 231, 288, 330 CZ Model 1952, 1952 (Czechoslovakia), 258-59, 288, 331 CZ Model 1970 (Czechoslovakia), 258 dagger pistols, 38 Darling, Benjamin and Barton, 61, 62 da Vinci, Leonardo, 11 Deane, Adams & Deane, 75, 76-77 Deane, George and John, 75 Decatur, Stephen, 32 de Milamete, Walter, 1 Denmark, 19, 21, 110, 188-89 Deringer, Henry, 55, 58, 59 Deringer, Henry, Jr., 57

Desaintes, Louise-Émile, 25 De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae (Bacon), 1 Deutsches Waffen und Munitions Fabriken (DWM), 178, 179, 181, 235 Dickens, Charles, 73 Dodge, W. C., 130 dog lock (English lock), 26, 283, 295 Dragoon pistols, 41-42, 68-69, 284 Dreyse, Franz von, 108 Dreyse, Johann Nickolaus von, 108 duck foot pistol, 36, 284, 298 dueling pistols, 29-33, 55, 284, 297 DWM. See Deutsches Waffen und Munitions Fabriken E. Allen & Co., 56 E. Remington & Sons, 83 Earp brothers, 128, 130 Echeverria, José-Cruz, 252 Edict of Nantes (1685), 21 Egg, Durs, 52, 106 Egg, Joseph, 28, 55 Ehbets, Carl J., 124, 164, 202, 208 Elgin, George, 59 Elizabeth I, Queen, 15-16 Elliott, George Augustus, 41 Elliott, William H., 86 Ellis, Willard, 119 Enfield factory (United Kingdom), 54 Enfield Pistol, Revolver, No. 2 Mk1 and Mk1*, 1931 (U. K.), 14546, 286, 312 England. See United Kingdom English Civil War (1642-1649), 13-14, 20 Esperanza, Don Juan, 248 Fabrique d’armes Émile et Léon Nagant, 158-59 Fabrique Nationale (FN), 197, 202, 214-18 Fawcett, David, 33 Feederle, Fidel, Friedrich, and Josef, 183 Finland, 235-37, 289, 339 flintlocks, 3, 16-26 accessories and, 28-29 American colonial pistols, 45-46 ammunition and, 26 Baltic lock, 19 blunderbuss pistols, 36

INDEX

cavalry and, 39-40 characteristics of, 16 collier pistols, 43-44 Collier pistols, 284 dagger pistols, 38 dog lock, 26, 283 Dragoon pistols, 41-42, 284 duck foot pistol, 36, 284, 298 dueling pistols, 28, 29-33, 284, 297 English, 20-21 English lock (dog lock), 23-25, 283, 295 French lock, 24-26, 283, 295 French pistols, 44-45 gunpowder and, 27 Harpers Ferry Armory models, 47 holster pistols, 34 ignition and, 17, 18, 23, 25, 50, 283 improvements of, 27 Kalthoff pistols, 37-38 Lorenzoni pistols, 37-38 miquelet (Spanish), 16, 22-23, 283 multiple-shot pistols, 35 naval pistols, 40 Nock pistols, 42-43, 284 percussion pistols vs., 51 pocket pistols, 34-35 Prussian pistols, 45 Rappahannock Forge, 46 Roman candle pistols, 37 Russian pistols, 22 Scandinavian snaplock, 21 Scottish pistols, 19-20, 41, 284 snaphaunce, 16-18, 21, 27, 283 standardization of, 38-39, 40-41, 44 superimposed pistols, 36-37 traveling pistols, 33, 284 turn-off pistol (Queen Anne pistol), 34, 284, 296 types of, 28-38 See also matchlocks; wheel locks Flobert, Louis Nicolas Auguste, 111, 113 Floyd, John B., 81 FN BDA 9, 1993 (Belgium), 276-77, 288, 328 FN Browning GP-35 High Power, 1935 (Belgium), 218-21, 256, 288, 327 FN five-SeveN, 1998 (Belgium), 277, 288, 329

FN Model 1900 (Belgium), 215-16, 288, 325 FN Model 1903 (Belgium), 216-17, 288, 325 FN Model 1910 (Belgium), 217-18, 288, 325 FN Model 1922 (Belgium), 218, 288, 326 Ford, Bob, 134 Forsyth, Alexander John, 49-51, 52, 105, 106, 284 Fosbery, G. V., 76, 144 France cartridge revolvers in, 109-11, 15155, 286 dueling in, 31 flintlocks in, 17, 24-26, 44-45, 283, 295 percussion pistols in, 55, 62 post-WWII developments in, 28081 semiautomatic pistols in, 238-40, 289, 339-40 wheel locks in, 16 Franco, Francisco, 250 Francotte, August, 78, 131-32 Frankford Arsenal, 125 Franklin, William B., 124 Franz Ferdinand, Archduke, 215-16 Freeman, Austin T., 95 Freeman Army Revolver (U. S.), 95 French and Indian War, 45 French Model 1777, 46, 47 French Revolution, 25 Frommer, Rudolf, 227-28 Frommer Model 29 (Hungary), 228 Frommer Stop Model 19, 1912 (Hungary), 227-28, 289, 348 Gabbet-Fairfax, Hugh W., 221-22, 223 Gabbet-Fairfax Self-Loading Pistol (U. K.), 221-22 Gabilondo y Urresti, 253 Galand, Charles-François, 131 Galy-Cazalat, M., 109 Garrett, Pat, 128, 133, 163 Gasser, Leopold, 149-50 Gasser-Kropatschek Model 1876 (Austria), 151 General Motors Corporation, 213 Germany cartridge revolvers in, 147-49, 286 dueling in, 31

387

388

PISTOLS

flintlocks in, 19-20 matchlocks in, 6 percussion pistols in, 55 post-WWII developments in, 26570, 270-73 semiautomatic pistols in, 176-200, 287-88, 289, 290, 341-54 wheel locks in, 11, 13, 14 Giovanbattista, 8 Girard, Charles F., 103 Glaze, William, 58 Glisenti Model 1910 (Italy), 240-41, 242, 289, 349 Glock, 257, 273-74 Glock, Gaston, 273 Glock 17 (Austria), 274-75, 288, 324 Gorloff, Aleksandr P., 132 Grant, Ulysses S., 126 Grease Guns. See Guide Lamp “Liberator”, 1941 (U. S.) Great Britain. See United Kingdom Greece, 189 Griswold, Samuel, 101 Guérard, Nicholas, 22 Guide Lamp “Liberator”, 1941 (U. S.), 213-14, 291, 374 Gunnison, A. W., 101 gunpowder, 1, 26, 27 Häussler, Paul, 241 Hall, John H., 47-48, 89, 202 Hamilton, Alexander, 32 Hamilton, Philip, 32 Hancock, Winfield Scott, 137 hand cannons, 1, 5 Harper’s Weekly, 119 Harpers Ferry Armory, 47, 58, 92 Heavy Dragoons, 41, 41-42 Heckler & Koch, 1967 (Germany), 289, 343 Heckler & Koch Mark 23 mod 0 (Germany), 269-70 Heckler & Koch Mk.23 mod 0, 1996 (Germany), 289, 348 Heckler & Koch Model HK 4/ P 11 (Germany), 266-67 Heckler & Koch Model VP70 (Germany), 268 Heckler & Koch P7, 1973 (Germany), 267, 289, 345 Heckler & Koch P7 K3 (Germany), 289, 345

Heckler & Koch P9/P9S (Germany), 267-68, 289, 346 Heckler & Koch USP Series, 1993 (Germany), 268-69, 289, 347 Henry IV, King, 24 Henry VIII, King, 8 Hickock, Wild Bill, 115 Hitler, Adolf, 181, 194, 250 Hoard, Charles B., 94-95, 96 Hoffmann, Heinrich, 181 Holland, 13 holster pistols, 34 Houllier, M., 109, 111 Household Words (Dickens), 73 Hungary, 227-29, 289, 354 Hunt, Walter, 111 Hunter, James, 46 Hunter Iron Works (Rappanhannock Forge), 46 Hyde, George, 213 ignition flintlocks and, 17, 18, 23, 25, 50, 283 matchlocks and, 5 percussion pistols and, 49-54, 57, 61, 284 revolvers and, 64 wheel locks and, 283 India, 3, 9 Indian Wars, 60 Institute of Civil Engineers, London, 73 Ireland, 29-30 iron pyrites, 11-12, 18 Italy cartridge revolvers in, 157, 286 flintlocks in, 17-18, 21, 23 pistols in, 1 post-WWII developments in, 27779 revolvers in, 287, 314 semiautomatic pistols in, 240-43, 289-90, 355-59 wheel locks in, 11, 13 J. & F. Garrett & Company, 103 J. H. Dance & Brothers, 103 J. M. Browning & Brother, 200 J. M. Cooper & Co., 98-99 J. P. Sauer & Sohn, 198 Jackson, Thomas “Stonewall”, 110 James, Frank and Jesse, 87, 134, 135

INDEX

Japan cartridge revolvers in, 161-62, 286 early pistol production in, 3 matchlocks in, 9-10 post-WWII developments in, 28182 revolvers in, 287, 314 semiautomatic pistols in, 243-47, 290, 360-62 Jarvis, Richard W. H., 124 Jennings, Lewis, 112 Johnson, Cornelius, 6 Johnson, Ira N., 60 Johnson, Robert, 47 Joslyn Army Model Revolver (U. S.), 97 Josyln Firearms Company, 97 Joyce, Frederick, 53 Köllner, Caspar, 6 Kalthoff pistols, 37-38 Keen, C. R., 101 Kerr, John, 74, 77, 78 Kerr Percussion Revolver (U. K.), 74, 77-78, 81, 285 Kiefuss, Johann, 11 King, C. A., 130 Kirkpatrick, Judson, 101 Korean War, 169 Koulikov, Lev, 257 Krnka, Karel, 226 Kronberg Gebaerfabrik, 110 Lahti, Aimo Johannes, 236 Lahti L-35, 1935 (Finland), 236-37, 289, 333 Lahti M-40, 1942 (Sweden), 237-38, 290, 366 Lashnev, Tikhon, 257 law enforcement, 4 Lawrence, Richard, 61 Lebel, Nicholas, 154 Le Bourgeoys, Marin, 24-25 Leech, Thomas, 102 Lefaucheux, Casimir, 109, 285 Lefaucheux Mle 1870 (France), 152 Lefaucheux Model 1858 French Navy Revolver (France), 81, 109-10, 286 LeMat, Jean Alexandre Francois, 103 LeMat Grapeshot Revolver (U. S.), 103-4

LeMat Two-Barrel Revolver (U. S.), 285, 303 Light Dragoons, 41, 41-42 light snapping lock. See snaplock Lincoln, Abraham, 57 Lindsay, John P., 99-100 Llama M82, 1985 (Spain), 290, 365 Llama Pistola Automatica Marque IX, 1930s (Spain), 253, 290, 364 London Armoury, 78 London Times, 73 Lord Landsdowne’s Act, 33 Lorenzoni, Michel, 37-38 Louis XIII, 24 Lovell, George, 54 Ludwig Loewe Company, 133, 177, 214 Luger, Georg, 177-78, 207, 288 Luger Model 1900 (Germany), 178, 289, 335 Luger model 1914 “Artillery Model”, 1914 (Germany), 179, 289, 338 M908 Savage Model, 1907 (Portugal), 290, 358 M915 Savage Model, 1915 (Portugal), 290, 358 MAB PA-15, 1979 (France), 240, 281, 289, 334 Makarov, 1951 (Soviet Union), 260, 289, 360 Manhattan Arms Company, 62 Manhattan Firearms Company, 97-98 Mannlicher, Ferdinand Ritter von, 224 Mannlicher Model 1894 (Austria), 224-25 Mannlicher Model 1896 (Austria), 225 Mannlicher Model 1900 (Germany), 225-26, 289, 335 Manton, Joseph, 28, 51-52, 55, 62 Manufacture de Versailles, 25 Marengoni, Tullio, 242 Marquart family, 14 Martin, E. H., 125 MAS 1950 (France), 280-81, 289, 334 Mason, William, 124, 127, 163, 164 Massachusetts Arms Company, 78, 112 Masterson, Bat, 128 matchlocks, 5-10, 16, 283, 294 See also flintlocks; wheel locks

389

390

PISTOLS

Mauser, Peter Paul, 148-49, 183-85, 288 Mauser, Wilhelm, 148-49 Mauser Model 1896 (Germany), 188, 258, 260, 288 Mauser Model 1896/1912 (Germany), 183-85, 289, 336 Mauser Model 1910 (Germany), 186, 289, 338 Mauser Model 1914 (Germany), 186 Mauser Model 1932 (Germany), 185, 289, 341 Mauser Model 1934 (Germany), 186, 289, 341 Mauser Model HSc (Germany), 18687, 289, 343 Mauser Wetentaschenpistol (Vest Pocket Pistol; WTP) (Germany), 186 Mauser Zig-Zag Revolver (Germany), 148-49 Maynard, Edward, 60 McCall, Jack, 115 McClellan, George, 82 McLanahan, J. K., 101-2 Memphis Novelty Works, 102 Merwin & Bray, 119-20 Merz, Martin, 6 metallic cartridges. See cartridge revolvers Metropolitan Arms Co., 98-99 Mexican War, 60, 67 Mexico, 212, 290, 362 military pistols. See pistols miquelet (Spanish), 3, 16, 17 Mle 1886 Lebel service rifle (France), 153 Mle 1892 (France), 154-55, 286 Modéle 1935A, 1938 (France), 23839, 289, 333 Modéle 1935S, 1940 (France), 23839, 288, 333 Model 37M, 1937 (Hungary), 228-29, 288, 348 Model 48, 1948 (Hungary), 348 Model 64, 1964 (Poland), 260, 289, 357 Model 65 (Poland), 260 Model 1842 Percussion Navy Pistol (U. S.), 59-60 Model 1855 Pistol-Carbine, 60-61

Model 1872/78 Cartridge Revolver (Switzerland), 155-56 Model 1882 Enfield (U. K.), 286, 309 Model 1895 (Russia), 286, 308, 314 Model 1917 WWI issue (U. S.), 287 Modell 1882 and Modell 1882/29 Ordnance Revolvers (Switzerland), 156-57 Modello 1872 Revolver (Italy), 157 Modello 1889 Revolver (Italy), 157, 286, 308 Modelo 1884 Revolver (Spain), 158 Moira, Lord, 50 Moore, Daniel, 120 Moray, Sir Robert, 171 Mordecai, Alfred, 78 Morocco, 19 Morrill, Mosman, and Blair, 59 Morse, Samuel F. B., 64 Mosby, John Singleton, 137 Mosin, Ivanovith, 160 mounted troups. See cavalry multiple-shot pistols, 35 Munroe, Alexander, 33 Mussolini, Benito, 243 Nagant, Charles, 161 Nagant, Maurice, 161 Nagant, Emile and Léon, 158-59 Nagant Model 1893 (Belgium), 159 Nagant Model 1895 (Russia), 160-61, 308 Nagant Models 1878, 1883, 1886, and 1887 (Belgium), 159 Nambu Type 04, 1909 (Japan), 24445, 290, 354 Nambu Type 14, 1925 (Japan), 24546, 290, 355 Napoleon, 25, 26, 106 Napoleonic Wars, 22, 42 National Arms Company, 117 NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty Organization Navy Elgin Cutlass Pistol, circa 1838 (U. S.), 284 Navy Elgin Cutlass Pistol (U. S.), 59 Netherlands, 16 New Haven Arms Company, 112 New Nambu Model 57A (Japan), 28182, 289, 356 New Nambu Model 57B (Japan), 28182

INDEX

Nicholas, King, 150 Nichols and Childs, 64, 65 Nickl, Josef, 229-30 Nobel, Alfred, 153 Nock, Henry, 42-43 Nock pistols, 284 Norman, I. G., 131-32 North, Simeon, 32, 46, 47, 58 North Africa, 19 North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), 255-57 North Korea, 261-62 Norway, 21, 211-12 Oakley, Annie, 134 Obregon, Alejandro, 212 Obregon (Mexico), 212, 290, 356 Offensive Handgun Weapon System (OHWS), 270 Office of Strategic Services (OSS), 206, 213 OHWS. See Offensive Handgun Weapon System Opus Majus (Bacon), 1 Ordinentz, Kasavery, 132-33 Ordnance Office (United Kingdom), 40 Ordonanzrevolver Modell 1872 (Switzerland), 155-56 OSS. See Office of Strategic Services P08 Parabellum Luger, 1908 (Germany), 178-82, 288, 289, 337 Palmetto Arsenal, 58, 60 patchlocks, 51 Patent Arms Manufacturing Company, 65, 67 Patent Double Shooting Firearms, 99100 Patent Firearms Company, 117, 120 Patter 1796, 42-43 Patton, George S., Jr., 128 Pauly, Samuel Johannes, 106 Pauly Pistol (Switzerland), 106-8, 286 Peard, James, 208 Pearson, John, 64 pellet locks, 51 Pelouze, T. J., 152 People’s Republic of China, 255, 26061 See also China The Pepperbox, 61-63, 284, 300

percussion pistols boot pistols, 56 civilian, 54-56 Colt, 63-74 confederate, 100-104 conversion, 54-55 dueling pistols, 55 flintlocks vs., 51 Forsyth and, 49-51 ignition and, 49-54, 57, 61, 284 individual models of, 300-305 invention of, 3 metallic cartridges and, 49 patchlocks, 51 pellet locks, 51-52 The Pepperbox, 61-63, 284, 300 pocket and coat pistols, 57 Remington, 83-87 revolvers and, 3 Starr, 87-100 tube locks, 52 U. S. Civil War and, 80-104, 284 U. S. military pistols, 58-61 underhammer pistols, 56-57 See also cartridge revolvers; pistols; semiautomatic pistols Perrin & Delams, 151 Perry, Matthew, 9 Peter the Great, 22 Pettengill, C. S., 95-96 Pettengill Revolvers (U. S.), 95 Petter, Charles Gabriel, 238 Pfister, Laux, 12 Phillipines, 128 Pinkerton, Allan, 78 Pistol, Revolver, Adams, Central Fire, Breech Loading, Interchangealbe, (Mark II) (U. K.), 139 Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo 1905 (Germany), 188 Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo 1908 (Germany), 188 Pistol No. 2, Smith & Wesson (U. K.), 147 pistols as combat weapon, 3-4 development of, 1-4 dueling, 28, 29-33 early, 5-48, 283-84, 294-98 firearms and, 1 flintlock, 16-48 gunpowder and, 1, 26

391

392

PISTOLS

matchlock, 5-10 as personal weapons, 3, 4 purposes of, 3 standardization of, 3 uses of, 3-4 wheel lock, 10-16 See also percussion pistols Pitt, William, 50 Plant Manufacturing Company, 11920 pocket and coat pistols, 57 pocket pistols, 34-35 Poland, 232-33, 260, 290, 363 Pomeroy, Lemuel, 58 Pond, Lucius W., 117 Portugal, 9, 22, 290, 364 Pottet, Clement, 109 Potzdam Magazin (Prussia), 45 Prélat, M., 52, 106 Prescott, E. A., 117 Princip, Gavrilo, 215-16 Prussia, 45, 108 Pryse, Charles, 142 PSM, 1980 (Soviet Union), 257-58, 290, 362 Puckle, James, 26 Purdey, James, 50, 62 Queen Anne pistol (turn-off pistol), 34, 284, 296 Radom VIS, 1935 (Poland), 232-33, 289, 357 Rappahannock Forge (Hunter Iron Works), 46 Rast & Gasser Model 1989 Army Revolver (Austria), 151 Raymond, Edward, 95-96 Reichsrevolver (Germany), 147-48, 198, 286 Remingron 1875 and 1890 Single Action Army Revolvers (U. S.), 123 Remington, Eliphalet, III, 83 Remington, Eliphalet, Jr., 83, 158 Remington, Eliphalet, Sr., 83 Remington, Philo, 83 Remington, Samuel, 83 Remington 1865 and 1867 Navy Rolling Block Pistols (U. S.), 122-23 Remington-Beals Pocket Revolver (U. S.), 84-85

Remington New Model Army Revolver (U. S.), 85-87, 285, 304 Remington Rand, Inc., 211 Remington-Rider Pocket Revolver (U. S.), 85 repeating weapons. See revolvers Restoration, 21 Revelli, Bethel Abiel, 241 revolvers cavalry and, 3 development of, 63-104 flint locks vs., 3 ignition and, 64 individual models of, 287, 314-25 invention of, 3, 63-65 mass production and, 3 metallic cartridges and, 285-86 Pepperbox and transition, 63 percussion pistols and, 3 semiautomatic pistols vs., 287 in U. S. Civil War, 3 warfare and, 80 See also cartridge revolvers; percussion pistols; semiautomatic pistols Richards, Charles B., 124, 127, 163 Rider, Joseph, 85 Rifles and Volunteer Corps (Crosse), 76 Rigby, William and John, 29, 62 Rigdon, Ansley & Co., 101, 102 Rigdon, Charles, 101 Ripley, James W., 93 Robert, J. A., 109 Roberts, W. A., 95 Robitaille, Charles, 95-96 Roch, Pierre, 241 Rock Island Arsenal, 179, 209 Rogers, Henry S., 96 Rogers & Spencer, 94-95, 95-96 Rogers & Spencer Army Model Revolver (U. S.), 96-97 Roosevelt, Theodore, 128, 164-65 Root, Elisha King, 82, 123-24 Roth, Georg, 198, 226 Roth-Steyr Model 1907 (Austria), 226, 288, 322 Roth-Steyr Model 1912 (Austria), 22627, 323 Royal Manufactory (France), 44 Ruger GP 100 1987 (U. S.), 286, 320 Ruger Security Six 1968 (U. S.), 169, 286, 320

INDEX

Ruger Speed-Six 1968 (U. S.), 169, 286, 320 Rupert, Prince, 20 Russia cartridge revolvers in, 131-32, 16061, 286, 308 flintlocks in, 22 revolvers in, 287, 314 See also Soviet Union Russian Revolution (1917), 161 Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), 133 Salado, Juan, 14 Salve, Dieudonne J., 219 Sauer Behorden Model 1930 (Germany), 198, 288, 341 Sauer Model 38H, 1938 (Germany), 199, 288, 341 Sauer Model 1913 (Germany), 198 Savage, Arthur W., 207-8, 209 Savage & North, 89-90 Savage Revolving Firearms Company Navy Model Revolver (U. S.), 91, 285, 305 Scandinavia, 16-17, 21 Schöbein, Christian Frerich, 152 Schönberger, Gerbruder, 177 Schmeisser, Louis, 187, 188 Schmidt, Rudolf, 156 Schneider, Eugène, 109 Schneider & Glassick, 103 Schofield, George Wheeler, 134-36 Schuyler, Hartley & Graham, 86, 93, 134, 135 Schwarzlose, Andrea, 173, 177 Scotland flintlocks in, 16, 17, 19-20, 41, 284, 296 percussion pistols in, 284 Scott, Winfield, 58 Searle, Elbert Hamilton, 207 Second Balkan War, 189 Seidel, Alex, 187 semiautomatic pistols advantages of, 287 ammunition and, 175 in Austria, 224-27, 328-30 in Belgium, 214-21, 331-35 in China, 336 Colt, 202-9 criticism of, 174-75 in Czechoslovakia, 228-32, 336-38 in Denmark, 188-89

in Finland, 235-37 in France, 238-40, 339-40 in Germany, 176-200, 341-54 in Hungary, 227-29, 354 individual models of, 287-91 in Italy, 240-43, 355-59 in Japan, 243-47, 360-62 metallic cartridges and, 3 in Poland, 232-33 post-WWII developments and, 257-58 pre-WWII development of, 171-76 revolvers vs., 287 safety and, 174, 184 smokeless powder and, 3 in Soviet Union, 233-35, 365-68 in Spain, 247-53, 369-72 in Sweden, 237-38, 372 in Switzerland, 373-77 in United Kingdom, 221-24, 378 in United States, 200-214, 379-80 See also percussion pistols; pistols Sharps, Christian, 60-61 Shaw, Joshua, 52, 53 Shawk, William, 101-2 Sherman, William T., 102 SIG P210/P49, 1949 (Switzerland), 271, 290, 367 SIG-Sauer, 256-57, 270-71 SIG-Sauer P220/ Pistole 75, 1975 (Switzerland), 271-72, 290, 368 SIG-Sauer P-225/P6, 1980 (Switzerland), 272, 290, 369 SIG-Sauer P226 (Switzerland), 272-73 SIG-Sauer P-226/XM9, 1983 (Switzerland), 290, 370 SIG-Sauer P-228/229, 1989 (Switzerland), 273, 290, 371 Simarin, Anatoliy, 257 Skinner, Chauncy D., 89 Slocum Patent Pocket Revolver (U. S.), 117-18 Smith, Horace, 111, 112, 113, 134, 285 Smith & Wesson, 89, 285-86 patent circumventions of, 117-20 Smith & Wesson .38/200 British Service (U. S.), 286, 318 Smith & Wesson .38 Pistol (U. K.), 286, 312 Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector, (U. S.), 165-66, 317

393

394

PISTOLS

Smith & Wesson Military & Police Model 10, 1905 (U. S.), 286, 317 Smith & Wesson Model 3 American First Model (U. S.), 122 Smith & Wesson Model 15 Combat Masterpiece and Model 19 Combat Magnum (U. S.), 16869 Smith & Wesson Model 39, 1954 (U. S.), 264-65, 291, 374 Smith & Wesson Model 59, 1954 º0(U. S.), 264-65, 291, 374 Smith & Wesson Model 459 (U. S.), 264-65 Smith & Wesson Model No. 1 Revolver (U. S.), 114-15, 115-16 Smith & Wesson Model No. 2 Old Model Revolvers (U. S.), 115 Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 First Model Single Action Army (First Model American) (U. S.), 129-30 Smith & Wesson .44 Pistol (U. S.), 131-33, 286, 313 Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 Second Model Single Action Revolver (U. S.), 130-31 Smith & Wesson New Century Hand Ejector 1908 (U. S.), 286, 316 Smith & Wesson New Model No.3 Single Action Revolver (U. S.), 133-34 Smith & Wesson New Model Russian (Model 3 Russian Third Model) (U. S.), 133 Smith & Wesson Schofield Single Action Revolver (U. S.), 134-36 Smith & Wesson U. S. Model 1917, 287, 320 smokeless powder, 3, 152-53 Smythe, A. J., 101, 102 snaphaunce, 3, 16, 17-18, 20-21, 27 snaplocks (luntenschnappsloss), 6 South Africa, 282, 290, 364 Soviet Union post-WWII developments in, 25758 revolvers in, 314 semiautomatic pistols in, 233-35, 290, 365-68

Warsaw Pact and, 255 See also Russia Spain cartridge revolvers in, 158 flintlocks in, 3, 16, 17, 22-23, 283 matchlocks in, 6 miquelet, 3, 16, 17, 22-23 post-WWII developments in, 27980 semiautomatic pistols in, 247-53, 290, 369-72 wheel lock in, 14-15 Spanish Civil War (1936-1937), 248, 253 Sphinx AT-2000S, 1984 (Switzerland), 290, 367 Spiller & Burr, 102-3 Springfield Arms Company, 72 Springfield arsenal (U. S.), 47, 58 Star Model 30M and 30PK, 1998 (Spain), 289, 371, 365 Star Model Militar 1921, Model 1921, Model A series, 1921 (Spain), 252-53, 289, 363 Starr, Ebenezer, 87 Starr, Nathan, 58 Starr, Nathan, Jr., 87 Starr Arms Company, 87, 89, 95 Starr Revolver, (double-action circa 1858-1863; single-action circa 1863-1865) (U. S.), 87-100, 285, 305 Stetchkin APS, 1951 (Soviet Union), 258, 289, 361 Stevens, Joshua, 112 Steyr GB80 (Austria), 275-76 Steyr GB 1981 (Austria), 287, 323 Steyr Model 1912 (Austria), 287, 329 Steyr M Series 2000 (Austria), 276, 287, 323 Steyr Pi18 1974 (Austria), 275-76, 287, 322 Stockwell, Elisha, 99-100 Stoeger, A. F., 180 Sturm, Ruger and Company, 169 superimposed pistols, 36-37 Super Star (Spain), 289, 364 Sweden, 21, 237-38, 290, 372 Switzerland cartridge revolvers in, 106-8, 15557, 286 matchlocks in, 6

INDEX

post-WWII developments in, 27073 semiautomatic pistols in, 290, 37377 Talcott, George, 58-59 Tansley, George, 208 Taylor, Zachary, 67 Texas Paterson. See Colt Paterson Revolver (U. S.) Thiry Years’ War (1618-1648), 12, 13, 20 Thuer, F. Alexander, 124 Tiffany, Louis Comfort, 82 Tilgham, Ben, 135 tinder lock. See snaplock Tocqueville, Alexis de, 32 Todd, George, 103 Tokarev, Fedor Vasilevich, 234 Tokarev TT-33, 1936 (Soviet Union), 233-35, 255, 259, 261-62, 289, 359 Tower of London, 6, 40, 50 The Transition Revolver, 284 Tranter, William, 74, 77 Tranter Percussion Revolver (U. K.), 77-78, 285, 301 traveling pistols, 33, 284 Treaty of Versailles, 180, 181 tube locks, 52 Tucker, Sherrard & Company, 103 turn-off pistols, 34, 284 Twain, Mark, 62-63 Type 26 Revolver (Japan), 161-62, 243-44, 286, 287, 314 Type 64, 1964 (China), 261, 287, 330 Type 64 (North Korea), 261 Type 67, 1967 (China), 261, 287, 330 Type 68 (North Korea), 261-62 Type 70 (North Korea), 262 Type 94, 1934 (Japan), 246-47, 290, 356 U. S. Civil War cartridge revolvers and, 115-16 percussion pistols and, 60-61, 80104 percussion pistols in, 71 percussion revolvers and, 284 revolvers in, 3 U. S. Coast Guard, 59-60, 119 U. S. Model 1779, 46

U. S. Model 1805, circa 1806-1808, 47, 284 U. S. Model 1816, 1817, 1819, 1826, and 1836, 47-48 U. S. Revenue Cutter Service, 59-60, 119 UMC. See Union Metallic Arms Company underhammer pistols, 56 Union Knife Company, 99 Union Metallic Arms Company (UMC), 207 United Kingdom cartridge revolvers in, 138-47, 286, 308-9 dueling in, 32-33 flintlocks in, 16, 20-21, 23-25, 4041, 41-45, 283-84, 295, 296 matchlocks in, 6, 15-16 percussion pistols in, 50-51, 54, 72-79, 300-301 revolvers in, 287, 314-17 semiautomatic pistols in, 221-24, 290, 378 standardization in, 40-41, 44 United States cartridge revolvers in, 111-20, 12036, 162-67, 286 dueling in, 30, 32 flintlocks in, 45-46, 46-48 mass production in, 3 NATO and, 255-57 percussion pistols in, 55, 58-74, 302-5 post-WWII developments and, 26265 revolvers in, 3, 287, 318-25 semiautomatic pistols in, 200-214, 288, 291, 379-80 Vektor SP 1, 1992 (South Africa), 282, 290, 358 Vektor Z-88 (South Africa), 282 Vician, Sir Richard Hussey, 44 Victoria, Queen, 33, 138 Vielle, Paul Eugène, 152-53 Vietnam War, 169, 288 Virginia Manufactory, 58 Volcanic Arms Company, 112 Volkspistole (Germany), 199-200, 289, 349 Wainwright, Jonathan M., 128

395

396

PISTOLS

Walch, John, 99-100 Walch Firearms Company, 99 Walker, Samuel H., 67-69 Walker Replacement Dragoon (U. S.), 68-69 Walther, Carl, 186, 189, 191 Walther, Eric, 194 Walther, Fritz, 191, 194 Walther, Georg, 194 Walther Model 6, 1915 (Germany), 288, 338 Walther Model HP (Germany), 195-96 Walther Model PP, 1929 (Germany), 186, 189, 191-93, 257, 260, 288, 339 Walther Model PPK, 1931 (Germany), 186, 189, 193-94, 288, 340 Walther Models 1-9 (Germany), 189-91 Walther P1, 1951 (Germany), 189, 256, 265, 288, 344 Walther P5, 1975 (Germany), 265-66, 288, 347 Walther P38, 1938 (Germany), 181, 194-98, 256, 288, 342 Walther P88, 1988 (Germany), 266, 288, 347 Warner, James, 72 Warsaw Pact, 255, 257, 259 Waters, Asa, 47, 58 Watt, James, 50 Webley, Henry, 140 Webley, James, 74, 77-78 Webley, Philip, 74, 140 Webley, Thomas, 140 Webley & Scott .455 Pistol, SelfLoading Mark I, 1912 (U. K.), 223-24, 290, 372 Webley .38 Mark IV, 1929 (U. K.), 145-46, 286, 311 Webley .45 WG, 1889 (U. K.), 286, 309 Webley .45 WG 1889 (U. K.), 140 Webley .455 Pistol No. 1 Mk VI 1915 (U. K.), 145, 286, 319 Webley Army Express Model 1878 (U. K.), 141 Webley Fosbery Automatic Revolver (U. K.), 144, 286, 309 Webley Mark IV, 1899 (U. K.), 287, 314 Webley Marks I-VI Revolvers, 143 Webley Mark V, 1913 (U. K.), 315

Webley Mark V 1929 (U. K.), 286, 311 Webley Mark VI Revolver (U. K.), 286 Webley Model 1872 Royal Iriah Constabulary Revolver (U. K.), 140 Webley Percussion Revolver (U. K.), 74, 77-78, 81, 285, 301 Weiss, Carl Austin, 218 Wellington, Duke of, 33 Welrod Mark I, 1942 (U. K.), 224, 290, 372 Werk, Gustloff, 200 Wesson, Daniel B., 111-13, 134, 285, 130 Wesson, Edwin, 112 Wheeler, Artemus, 43 wheel locks, 10-16, 283, 294 cavalry and, 2, 10, 283 flintlocks vs., 18, 20-21 ignition and, 283 impact of, 12-13 invention of, 11 matchlocks vs., 2 mechanism of, 11-13 society and, 12-13 warfare and, 2, 12-13 See also flintlocks; matchlocks White, John H., 119 White, Rollin, 104, 113, 118, 124, 126 Whiting, William John, 223 Whitney, Eli, 58, 83, 91, 92 Whitney, Eli, Jr., 68, 92, 94 Whitney-Beals Patent Pocket Revolver (U. S.), 93 Whitney Hooded Cylinder Pocket Revovler (U. S.), 92 Whitney Model 1798 flintlock musket, 91-92 Whitney Navy Revolver (U. S.), 91-94, 285 Whitney New Model Pocket Revolver (U. S.), 94 Whitney Pocket Model Percussion Revolver (U. S.), 94 Whitney Ring Trigger Pocket Revolver (U. S.), 92-93 Whitney Two Trigger Pocket Revolver (U. S.), 92-93 Whitneyville Armory, 91-94 Wilkes-South Sea Exploring Expedition, 59 Wilkinson, Henry, 36

INDEX

Williamson, David, 120 Winchester, Oliver, 89, 112 Winchester Repeating Arms Company, 112, 177, 201 Winchilsea, Earl of, 33 Winter War (1939-1940), 237 Wogdon, Robert, 28, 29 Woolcott, H. H., 87

World War I, 180, 288 World War II, 180 Wright, E. Goode, 53 York, Alvin, 210 Younger, Cole and Bob, 87, 135 Zeppelin, Ferdinand von, 106

397