Pistols: An Illustrated History of Their Impact

PISTOLS

Other Titles in ABC-CLIO’s

WEAPONS AND WARFARE SERIESSpencer 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 briefquotations in a review, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataKinard, Jeff, 1954-

Pistols : 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.

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v

C O N T E N T S

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 105

chapter five

The Semiautomatic Pistol 171

chapter six

Post–World War II Developments 255

Individual Pistol Models 283

Glossary 375

Bibliography 381

Index 383

I N T R O D U C T I O N T O

W E A P O N S A N D W A R F A R E

S E R I E S

Weapons both fascinate and repel. They are used to kill andmaim individuals and to destroy states and societies, and occasion-ally whole civilizations, and with these the greatest of man’s culturaland artistic accomplishments. Throughout history tools of war havebeen the instruments of conquest, invasion, and enslavement, butthey have also been used to check evil and to maintain peace.

Weapons have evolved over time to become both more lethal andmore complex. For the greater part of man’s existence, combat wasfought at the length of an arm or at such short range as to representno real difference; battle was fought within line of sight and seldomlasted more than the hours of daylight of a single day. Thus individ-ual weapons that began with the rock and the club proceededthrough the sling and boomerang, bow and arrow, sword and axe, togunpowder weapons such as the rifle and machine gun of the latenineteenth century. Study of the evolution of these weapons tells usmuch about human ingenuity, the technology of the time, and thesocieties that produced them. The greater part of technological de-velopment of weaponry has taken part in the last two centuries, es-pecially the twentieth century. In this process, plowshares have beenbeaten into swords; the tank, for example, evolved from the agricul-tural caterpillar tractor. Occasionally, the process is reversed andmilitary technology has impacted society in a positive way. Thusmodern civilian medicine has greatly benefited from advances tosave soldiers’ lives, and weapons technology has impacted such ar-eas as civilian transportation and atomic power.

vii

Weapons can have a profound impact on society. Gunpowderweapons, for example, were an important factor in ending the era ofthe armed knight and the feudal age. They installed a kind of roughdemocracy on the battlefield, making “all men alike tall.” We canonly wonder what effect weapons of mass destruction might have onour own time and civilization.

This series will trace the evolution of a variety of key weapons sys-tems, describe the major changes that occurred in each, and illus-trate and identify the key types. Each volume begins with a descrip-tion of the particular weapons system and traces its evolution whilediscussing its historical, social, and political contexts. This is fol-lowed by a heavily illustrated section that is arranged along chrono-logical lines that provides more precise information on at least 80key variants of that particular weapons system. Each volume con-tains a glossary of terms, a bibliography of leading books on that par-ticular subject, and an index. Individual volumes in the series areeach written by a specialist in that particular area of expertise.

We hope that this series will be of wide interest to specialists, re-searchers, and even general readers.

Spencer C. TuckerSeries Editor

viii SERIES INTRODUCTION

A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

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

ix

PISTOLS

C H A P T E R 1

Introduction

This volume traces the history of the military pistol and its placein society from the medieval period to the present. The origins ofgunpowder and the firearms it made possible are obscured by timeand legend. Evidence indicates that an early form of gunpowder—amixture of sulfur, saltpeter, and ground charcoal—first appeared inChina in approximately A.D. 850. Over the next few centuries theChinese adapted the mixture to a number of lethal devices includingbombs, a primitive flamethrower, and a bottle-shaped gun capableof launching large arrows. Gunpowder’s first appearance in Europeis also not well documented, but in about 1248 an English monk,Roger Bacon of Merton College, Oxford, recorded its formula in hisDe Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae and in the 1268 Opus Majus.In a 1327 manuscript, another Englishman, Walter de Milamete, il-lustrated a bottle-shaped gun very similar to the Chinese model.

Although the gun first appeared in China, the country’s rulingelite soon discouraged its use for fear of the potential social and mil-itary threat it posed to their authority. Europe, however, proved fer-tile ground for this “deadlye and horrible Engine” (O’Connell 2002:111), and the late Middle Ages saw ever more improved firearmsemerging from its blacksmith shops and armories. The first firearmswere small artillery pieces but were soon followed by so-called handcannons, capable of being operated by one person and setting thestage for the development of the musket and later the pistol.

The origin of the word “pistol” is also obscure. Some sources as-cribe its earlier form, pistolet, as deriving from a short knife orsword, the pistolese, produced in the Italian town of Pistoia; othersascribe its origins to the pistala, a Bohemian firearm. Still, what doc-

1

uments and specimens that have survived do allow for a reasonablepicture of the pistol’s evolution. As a general trend, most very earlyfirearms were designed not as pistols but as long arms for infantryand, to a lesser degree, sporting use. The main reason for this wasthat pistols were most effective as weapons in the hands of mountedtroops, and the early matchlocks were simply too difficult to operatefrom horseback. To prepare his weapon to fire, a cavalryman firsthad to load it at the muzzle with a charge of black powder and alarge, usually lead ball, and then force the charge to the pistol’sbreech with a ramrod. He then had to prime the weapon with asmaller amount of finer-grained powder stored in a separate flask.These maneuvers had to be accomplished while maintaining a burn-ing match near highly explosive black gunpowder and taking carenot to drop the rammer. As firearms eventually became more practi-cal, gun makers began producing greater quantities of pistols for useby mounted troops and wealthy clients.

The first gunsmiths were most probably skilled craftsmen whohad honed their skills and reputations making edged weapons andarmor. Their ability to work metal and wood translated well to thenew technology, and nobles and kings soon vied to attract the mostproficient gunsmiths to arm themselves and their armies. Eventuallysuch cities as Vienna, Augsburg, Brescia, and Liège grew into majorfirearms manufacturing centers, with each developing distinctive re-gional characteristics. These early gunsmiths organized themselvesin guilds, as did their counterparts in the other skilled trades.

The appearance of the wheel lock in the late fifteenth and earlysixteenth centuries greatly increased the practicality of carrying thepistol on horseback. Although the wheel lock was more complicatedand expensive than the matchlock, it did allow a horseman to carry apistol loaded and ready for instant use. The wheel lock quicklychanged the nature of warfare by extending the killing range of thecavalry, which had traditionally been armed with the lance andsword. More significantly, a firearm allowed a minimally trainedcommon peasant to kill an armored knight who had spent a lifetimelearning his trade. For this reason, firearms in general played a keyrole in the end of the concept of chivalry in combat. The wheel lock,in its more ornate forms, also took its place among finely craftedswords and daggers as an object of prestige among the aristocracy.As the wheel lock became more commonplace in society, it also be-came available to assassins and other criminals, prompting theworld’s first antigun laws.

The various flint and steel weapons such as the snaphaunce,

2 PISTOLS

miquelet, and flintlock at last established the pistol as a primaryweapon in European arsenals. By the eighteenth century most Euro-pean monarchies had established some form of national supply ofreasonably standardized pistols, primarily for cavalry and naval use.In addition, European explorers spread firearms technology withthem around the globe, sparking pistol production in Africa, India,Japan, and the Americas. The flintlock era also brought about spe-cialized pistol designs with various models designed for not only mil-itary use but also such purposes as self-defense, target shooting, anddueling.

Percussion pistols appeared in the early nineteenth century andquickly paved the way for the first truly practical repeatingweapon—the revolver, its invention credited to the AmericanSamuel Colt. The mass-produced revolver revolutionized the role ofthe cavalry and set the standard for pistol designs for much of thecentury. The revolver, on average, allowed the cavalryman, armedwith a pair of pistols, some dozen or more shots before reloading, incontrast to the earlier brace of flintlocks’ two. It was thus the re-volver that provided mounted troops the firepower to act as highlymobile shock troops on the battlefield. The revolver’s introductioncoincided with the advent of the general use of mass-productiontechniques, resulting in, especially in the United States, the widestdistribution of advanced personal weapons in history.

Percussion revolvers saw extensive use during the U.S. Civil Warbut were soon replaced in that country and in Europe by pistols thatutilized self-contained metallic cartridges. Metallic cartridges pro-vided numerous advantages, including moisture-resistant ammuni-tion as well as much faster loading. The metallic cartridge and theinvention of smokeless powder then paved the way for the semiauto-matic pistols that appeared in the late nineteenth century. It was yetanother American, John Browning, who pioneered firearms develop-ment for a new era. His first successful semiautomatic pistols ap-peared in the early years of the twentieth century and served as thestarting point for countless other designs and millions of copies.Even into the twenty-first century, the most advanced semiautomat-ics are more often than not variations on the theme Browning intro-duced more than a century earlier.

As the military pistol has evolved, so has the debate concerningits role and effectiveness as a combat weapon. It offers the advan-tages of light weight, compactness, and the ability to be operatedwith one hand. Its detractors have, with justification, argued thatthe pistol’s short barrel limits its range and accuracy and that it re-

INTRODUCTION 3

quires more practice than long arms to be used effectively. Thesecharacteristics have contributed to the parallel argument concern-ing the suitability of the pistol to either a secondary defensive or pri-mary offensive use. Although the debate over the actual value of thepistol as an effective combat weapon continues, pistols remain thestandard personal weapons of law enforcement officers and mem-bers of all branches of the world’s armed services.

Military pistols are, by definition, handguns designed specificallyfor use by the armed forces of various nations. The necessities ofwar and the caprices of personal tastes, however, have often blurredthis definition, and many thousands of “civilian” pistols have seencombat over the centuries. Pistols of this type, which have beenused in significant numbers (and sometimes labeled secondary mar-tial weapons or were privately purchased by military personnel), arealso included in this volume.

4 PISTOLS

C H A P T E R 2

The Match, the Wheel, the Flint, and Steel

THE MATCHLOCK

The first personal-sized firearms were essentially scaled-down artillery pieces, hence their designation as hand cannons. In-troduced in Europe around 1350, approximately 50 years after thefirst true cannons were developed, the earliest hand cannons wererather crude affairs. They were cumbersome muzzle-loadedweapons with a small ignition hole drilled through the top of thebreech. This allowed flame to ignite their black-powder charges tofire stone, lead, and iron projectiles. The earliest ignition systemconsisted of a hand-held smoldering coal or length of cord (gener-ally known as a match) that was applied to the weapon’s vent to ig-nite the powder charge. This system’s disadvantages—the difficultyin aiming while holding the match, its vulnerability to dampness,and the likelihood of the operator dropping the match in the heat ofbattle—were obvious soon after its inception.

Early fifteenth-century inventors attempted to address these prob-lems with the introduction of the matchlock. Matchlocks were thepredominate firearms in Europe for roughly 250 years and were usu-ally unadorned, functional weapons. These pistols exhibited an almoststraight profile with little curve toward the butt, as in later handguns.

5

The earliest matchlocks lacked a trigger—they were fitted with a sim-ple 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 surfacefor the cock and prevented wear on the wood stock. The top of thecock was split to accept a slow match consisting of a saltpeter-impregnated hemp fuse that burned at the rate of approximately 3–5inches an hour. The operator lowered the cock and its match manu-ally to a priming pan containing a small amount of gunpowder. Asmall hole drilled through the right side of the barrel next to the panthen allowed the ignited powder in the pan to discharge the mainpowder charge in the barrel.

The typical matchlock, however, featured a sickle-shaped cockthat pivoted to a simple trigger device mounted under the stock,adding greatly to the user’s ability to aim more accurately. On earlyweapons the pan was integral to the barrel until, in the seventeenthcentury, it was attached to the lock plate. The barrels were usually ofiron and were either round or octagonal, although some were octag-onal at the breech with the remainder round. The rear of the barrelwas fitted with a breech plug that sealed the breech and was forgedwith a projection, or tang, through which a screw passed to secure itto the stock. The forward part of the barrel was attached to the stockby loops brazed or dovetailed to the bottom of the barrel throughwhich pins passed through the wood. As a safety measure, later ver-sions were fitted with a spring that held the cock clear of the pan,requiring deliberate pressure on the trigger to force the match to thepan. The trigger guard, a protective metal loop attached to the stock,also helped prevent the accidental tripping of the trigger. Under anycircumstances, firing a matchlock weapon was not a pleasant experi-ence. The cock and its smoldering match pivoted backward, towardthe operator, often sending a shower of sparks and flames into hiseyes and face at the ignition of the priming.

Although early matchlock pistols were relatively impractical formilitary use, the arquebus, or matchlock musket, gradually earnedits place as a viable battlefield weapon. Soldiers armed with the ar-quebus found that they could somewhat compensate for theirweapons’ inaccuracy and slow rate of fire with massed volleysagainst enemy troops. The European nobility, however, met the ap-pearance of the matchlock with considerable resistance. They cor-rectly saw firearms as a dangerous threat to both their political andsocial status.

Before the advent of the matchlock, Europe’s aristocracy hadused their wealth and position to arm themselves as mounted

6 PISTOLS

knights. As such, they viewed ideal combat as between opponents ofrelatively equal rank who followed shared concepts of chivalry.Common soldiers of the late medieval and early Renaissance periodswere typically poorly armed peasants and thus of little consequenceto expensively armored and mounted knights trained since youth inthe art of war. In the hands of simple peasants, matchlocks, requir-ing only a few hours’ training, soon proved their potential to undo allof the advantages enjoyed by armored knights. Despite the wide-spread protests of nobility, more pragmatic and ambitious militaryleaders eventually incorporated firearms into their armies.

During the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, German inno-vators such as Martin Merz tended to lead their English, Austrian,Swiss, and Spanish counterparts in the perfection of the matchlocksystem. By 1475 Merz had combined the serpentine or S-shapedcock, a trigger, and pan with a more sophisticated lever and springlock. One of Merz’s major contributions was to reverse the directionof the cock to lever the match forward and away from the shooter’sface. Although rarely used, this improvement significantly reducedthe amount of sparks and fire that were prone to fly in the user’sface with the rearward-facing cock. Other later improvements in-cluded a cover to protect the powder from moisture and spillage,and a fence, or vertical projection behind the pan, to divert flamefrom the user’s face. The button lock, otherwise called the snaplockor luntenschnappsloss, also evolved during this period. It utilized aflat button trigger that when depressed activated a sear that then re-leased the spring-activated cock. The sear of early weapons con-sisted of a pin that passed through the lock plate to engage a notchin the bottom front of the cock or the bottom rear of the cock,known as the toe and heel, respectively. Pressing the trigger alloweda spring to retract the sear, thus freeing the cock to lower the match.

During these years, arms designers also experimented with otherinnovations that would be perfected in later weapons. Althoughmainly confined to long arms rather than pistols, the matchlock erasaw the earliest attempts at sights and stabilizing spiral-grooved ri-fled barrels to impart spin to the bullet and improve accuracy. A1498 document credited the Viennese gunsmith Caspar Köllnerwith cutting the first grooves in a gun barrel, but these were straightand not spiraled, probably indicating that they were meant to aidcleaning. Other records credit August Cotter of Nuremberg with in-venting true rifling between 1500 and 1520. Early designers also ex-perimented with revolving multiple-shot weapons as well as a crudeform of breechloader. Known as chamber pieces, these early

THE MATCH, THE WHEEL, THE FLINT, AND STEEL 7

breechloaders relied on a preloaded steel tube that could be insertedinto the pistol’s breech. Although used in both pistols and longarms, the chamber piece proved impractical for its time owing to thedifficulty of applying it to the matchlock system. Early revolvingmatchlock pistols were extremely rare during their time, and fewhave survived. One example, probably Italian-made, features threebarrels that had to be manually turned on a central axis after eachdischarge.

Although probably originating in Germany, reliable evidence doc-uments the production of the pressure lock, the perfectedmatchlock, under the direction of Cornelius Johnson of the Towerof London in 1521. Still used in many firearms designs today, thepressure lock principle combines two flat springs, a cock pivoted onan internal tumbler retained by a sear, and a trigger. Pressing thetrigger depresses the sear, releasing it from a notch cut in the tum-bler. This action allows the spring-activated tumbler and cock as-sembly to rotate forward and touch the match to the powder in thepriming pan.

The snaplock, a variation of the matchlock also known as the lightsnapping lock or tinder lock, appeared in the 1570s. Probably a Ger-man development, the snaplock was an apparent attempt to mini-mize the drawbacks of the exposed, glowing match. Rather than us-ing a dangling, previously lit match, the snaplock utilized a cock thatheld a small tube in its jaws containing a piece of tinder or smallpiece of slow match that could be lighted just before action.

Among the most unique of the matchlock pistols are a number ofcombination pistol-shields produced by the Ravenna gunsmith Gio-vanbattista for England’s Henry VIII’s (1509–1547) personal guard.These oddities include a small matchlock pistol, approximately cal-iber .38, whose barrel projects through the center of the round,richly ornamented shield. A grilled opening above the barrel allowssighting. These pistols are also chamber pieces, fed with preloadedmetal tubes inserted into the hinged breech of the weapon. Possiblyirked by having to import such firearms, Henry began urging foreignas well as domestic firearms makers to settle and set up shop in theMinories, a neighborhood near the Tower of London. The Minoriesremained an important center of the English weapons trade into thenineteenth century.

Despite the many efforts to improve the matchlock system, twomain defects appeared insurmountable: the vulnerability of thematch to dampness and rain, and the tendency of the glowing matchto reveal its location to the enemy at night. Loading was especially

8 PISTOLS

difficult on horseback, precluding their use by cavalry, and therewas the constant danger of the lit fuse in proximity to volatile blackpowder. If a soldier’s match went out he was forced to relight it us-ing sparks from his tinderbox, further compounding the problem.Still, the matchlock was cheap to produce and served as the primaryEuropean firearm system for more than two centuries, even seeingwide usage after the invention of the wheel lock.

Early European explorers, most notably the Portuguese, includedmatchlocks among their weapons in their travels to the Americas,Africa, India, and the Orient. These firelocks proved effectiveweapons and awed the local inhabitants with the seemingly magicalpowers of the newcomers. As trade increased with the Europeans,leaders in Africa, India, and the East demanded matchlocks and, astheir popularity increased, ordered domestic copies be made by localcraftsmen. These indigenously made matchlocks varied greatly inquality and decoration but essentially left the basic design unalteredfor centuries, even into the twentieth century in some remote areas.

Japanese matchlocks deserve special mention in this section. ThePortuguese had introduced the matchlock to Japan in 1543 andwith it a potential threat to the very basis of the country’s society. Atthat time the powerful samurai warrior clans had built a feudalisticculture built upon a formalized, individual form of warfare devotedto the art of swordsmanship. The lifetime of training required to be-come a samurai warrior necessarily excluded all but those withintheir own privileged ranks. The Japanese at first embraced the newand alien firearm technology but soon recognized the social and po-litical implications posed by the new weapon. Requiring but a fewhours of training, matchlocks provided mere peasant soldiers themeans to defeat even the most skilled samurai. In 1637 Japan beganto repress the manufacture of firearms and—in contrast to the par-allel events in Europe—thus delayed the erosion of its warrior-nobility’s status. By the time of Commodore Matthew Perry’s arrivalin Japan in 1853 the matchlock had devolved into an essentially cer-emonial accessory.

Still, Japanese smiths, famous as sword makers, applied theirskills to making both matchlock long guns and pistols. Their pistolswere essentially scaled-down versions of the longer weapons andwere avidly acquired by the noble Japanese families and samurai,who often ordered their family crests inlaid in the stocks. Thesmiths employed many of their sword-making techniques in the bar-rel-making process by heating and hammering strips of metal intothe final, usually octagonal, shape of the finished product. The bar-


rel and stock were often finely decorated with engraving and inlays.Barrels tend to be slightly flared at the muzzle and are often fittedwith both front and rear sights.

The Japanese matchlock pistol displayed a rather straight profilewith 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 doesnot hold tension well and is prone to breakage. Japanese smiths alsoused pins rather than screws to hold the barrel and other compo-nents in place and fitted their products most often with simple but-ton triggers. In addition to full-sized weapons, the Japanese crafteda number of miniature pistols of as little as a few inches in lengthfor use by boys in certain festivals.

THE WHEEL LOCK

The wheel lock, appearing around 1500, eliminated the match andmarginally addressed the firearm’s vulnerability to damp conditions.Utilizing the same principle used in modern cigarette lighters, theoperator pressed a trigger that freed a spring-actuated, serrated steelwheel. The serrated edge of the rapidly spinning wheel then (theo-retically) struck against iron pyrites to create a shower of sparks thatin turn ignited the powder in the priming pan. With the wheel lock,the cavalryman no longer had to worry about maintaining a lightedmatch and at last had a pistol that could be carried on horsebackloaded, primed, and ready for use at a moment’s notice. The wheellock, however, was both expensive to manufacture and inherentlyfragile to use. Only the finest, skilled craftsmen could fabricate itsintricate clockwork mechanism, and it required constant repairs.

These factors eliminated the wheel lock for issue to commonrank-and-file troops and placed it out of the financial reach of theaverage citizen. But the wheel lock did infinitely increase the prac-ticality of the pistol as a weapon for mounted troops and estab-lished the pistol as a primary cavalry weapon. As a result, thewealthiest troops in European armies of the period, members ofelite cavalry units, bought wheel-lock pistols by the thousands. Inaddition, members of the nobility acquired highly decorated wheel-lock pistols as status symbols and as objets d’art. Owing to theirpracticality, many more wheel-lock pistols were produced thantheir matchlock predecessors.

10 PISTOLS

Early sources attribute the invention of the wheel lock to variousindividuals. These include the German Johann Kiefuss and therenowned Renaissance figure Leonardo da Vinci, whose drawings oftwo wheel-lock devices are included in his Codex Atlanticus. Al-though these early inventors may have primarily intended to applythe principle to mechanical tinderboxes, the wheel lock soon foundits way to more deadly purposes. Some of the very earliest knownwheel lock pistols are combination weapons including crossbow-pistols, battleaxe-pistols, as well as war hammer–pistols and sword-and dagger-pistols. One particularly favorite novelty pistol of thetime included a dagger blade intricately etched with a perpetual ec-clesiastical calendar. With such a weapon the owner could not onlydefend himself but could tell the day of the week along with its ap-propriate saint. Although most European countries produced wheel-lock weapons, Germany was the largest manufacturer and exporterof complete pistols as well as individual components. German wheellocks were heavily constructed and adorned with horn inlay in theornate baroque style of the era. The second largest exporter of finewheel locks—Brescia, Italy—was known for pistols that tended tobe lighter in weight and exhibited more restraint in decoration thantheir northern counterparts.

The typical wheel-lock mechanism consists of a serrated steelwheel, approximately .25 inches thick, fitted into a mortise on theoutside of the lock plate. Either a domed or flat external metal plateusually protects the wheel. A shaft or arbor passes through the cen-ter of the wheel and secures it to the lock plate. A short, usuallythree-link chain then attaches the shaft to a spring mounted inter-nally to the front of the lock plate. The outer section of the shaftprotruding through the wheel is square to accept a spanner orwrench used to tighten the chain around the internal shaft and thuscompress the mainspring. When wound to the correct tension, ahole in the lock plate allows a spring-actuated sear-pin to engage acorresponding hole drilled into the inside of the wheel, thus secur-ing the wheel in its cocked, or “spanned,” position. The top edge ofthe wheel protrudes through a close-fitting slot in the bottom of thepriming pan to allow contact with the pyrites for ignition. Pan cov-ers on the earliest pistols have to be manually moved aside beforeuse, whereas later pistols are fitted with spring-actuated pan coversthat automatically uncover the pan.

The iron pyrites are gripped by a swiveling clamp called the dog-head that is secured on the outside of the lock plate forward of thewheel. A spring provides tension to hold the doghead in a safe, for-


ward position away from the wheel or in a lowered, rearward positionpressing the pyrites against the wheel’s edge. Later versions internallylink the doghead to the mainspring so that levering the doghead for-ward 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 thatwas easily lost during combat, making the pistol useless.

The first wheel locks often suffered from excessively stiff triggersthat required heavy finger pressure to release the firing mechanism.To counteract the flinching and resultant loss of accuracy caused bythis tendency, some later wheel locks are fitted with double-set trig-gers. Pulling the first trigger thus readies the weapon while the sec-ond trigger then releases the first trigger with minimal pressure.

The wheel-lock mechanism also necessitated improvements insafety devices to prevent accidental discharges. The two simplestmethods of rendering a tensioned pistol relatively safe at the timewere to leave the cock in the forward position away from the pan orto allow it to rest on the pan cover. The unperfected metallurgy ofthe day also affected the wheel lock’s safety. The point of contact be-tween the tip of the sear where it contacted the corresponding de-pression on the wheel’s inner surface often became worn after evenminimal use. As a result, the constant jostling of a rider on horse-back or simply rough handling could jar the sear from position, re-sulting in the accidental discharge of the pistol. Some pistols werethus fitted with a second sear that pressed the primary sear morefirmly against the wheel. The trigger pressed against the secondsear, which would then release the primary sear, allowing the wheelto rotate and fire the pistol.

On some rather early wheel-lock pistols the primary sear extrudedthrough the wheel, where it was engaged by a loaded button-and-hook arrangement that provided an extra measure of security. Theadded complexity of this safety to the already complex wheel-lockmechanism caused it to be abandoned in most later models. Still,despite the most ingenious efforts to make the wheel lock safer tohandle, there were those who managed to circumvent even the mostfoolproof devices. A 1515 German account gives us the first firearmaccident recorded in history: One Laux Pfister wounded a prostitutehe was patronizing while playing with his new wheel lock; local au-thorities ordered Herr Pfister to compensate the disfigured womanfor her potential lifetime lost wages.

In the hands of more skilled individuals, however, the wheel lockchanged both warfare and society. Although their expense limited

12 PISTOLS

their general distribution, wealthy noblemen, officers, and elite cav-alrymen rapidly embraced the wheel-lock pistol as a companion tothe sword for mounted troops. As the wheel lock’s distribution andproduction passed through Germany from northern Italy to the restof Europe, the German Reiters (riders, or horsemen) recognized itspotential and developed new tactics to exploit it. The wheel lock sawextensive use by all belligerents during the Thirty Years’ War, and de-mand for and the manufacture of wheel-lock pistols expanded rap-idly during the period.

The wheel-lock mechanism transformed the pistol into a compact,practical weapon suitable for mounted troops. The new pistol couldbe carried loaded, ready for instant use, and significantly extended thekilling range. The advent of the wheel-lock pistol made possible thecaracole, a military maneuver in which close-order waves of sword andpistol-armed cavalrymen rode within close range of infantry, firedtheir pistols, and then broke away, allowing successive waves to follow.The massed fire of the caracole proved effective against denselypacked squares of pikemen and other formations of ground troops. Al-though short-ranged owing to their relatively short, smoothbore bar-rels, the wheel-lock pistols did reach significantly farther than thepike, and massed fire compensated for the pistol’s inaccuracy. Thewheel lock also gave a similarly deadly advantage when used againstcavalry armed conventionally with sword and lance.

Most mounted troops preferred a pair of pistols (known as abrace) that were carried in leather holsters slung on either side ofthe saddle’s pommel. Other, usually larger and even double-barreledpistols were fitted with large metal hooks for suspension from thesaddle. Style, size, and decoration of individual pistols varied consid-erably depending on the country of origin and the owner’s taste andwealth. Stocks were often of fine woods such as walnut or ebonyand could also be ordered—especially popular in Holland—in solidivory. Although later locks became smaller owing to more refinedtechniques, the large wheel-lock mechanism tended to weaken thewood stock, making it vulnerable to damage. As a result, many gun-smiths, notably in Germany, manufactured pistols with metalstocks. No matter the material used, civilian wheel-lock pistol stockstended to display rich carvings, inlays, or engravings. The barrels,locks, and other metal fittings were equally embellished with en-graving and silver or gold inlay. Predictably, pistols issued toCromwell’s New Model Army during the English Civil War(1642–1649) were an exception to the norm, eschewing such orna-mentation for a simpler, more utilitarian appearance.


During the English Civil War the new Council of War attemptedto set out specifications for military pistols. In practice, however, thespecifications acted more as general guidelines, giving only thelength of the barrel, bore size, and proof testing. A typical militarypistol of the Cromwellian era was about 20 inches in overall lengthwith a 14-inch smoothbore barrel. It was a muzzle-loaded weaponthat fired a large-caliber ball, usually of musket caliber. The barrelwas secured to the stock by a screw through the tang at the rear ofthe barrel and pins passing through the forward stock through smallloops brazed to the bottom of the barrel. The barrel was often octag-onal at the breech and round toward the muzzle, and a rammer wasstowed through metal pipes in a channel cut in the stock below. Thestock was relatively straight in profile with a gradual curve down atthe butt, where it flared slightly and terminated with a simple metalreinforcing band.

Earlier stocks were almost straight, but most pistols had at least aslight curvature in their lines. Some German pistols were made witha dramatic L-shaped drop from lock to butt. These pistols usuallywere fitted with large, ball-shaped pommels, although the butts ofwheel-lock pistols could vary from a simple wood flare to extrava-gantly inlayed and faceted pommels of various materials. Mostwheel-lock pistols were single-barreled weapons, but double-barreled pistols were also popular. Sizes ranged from small pocketpistols of about 7 inches overall to massive cavalry oddities ap-proaching 3 feet in length.

Stylistic similarities suggest that southern German gunsmiths ex-erted considerable influence over their Spanish counterparts. Thetwo main Spanish firearms producing cities, Madrid and Ripoll,however, soon developed their own distinctive forms. During thesecond half of the sixteenth century Madrid, as exemplified by suchfamous gun makers as the Marquart family and Juan Salado, set thestandards for Spanish firearms. Pistols, however, did not gain gen-eral popularity in Spain until the seventeenth century. Madridwheel-lock pistols combine an austere, unadorned appearance withfinely crafted workmanship. Stocks are generally of walnut or fruit-wood, such as cherry. Barrels are pinned to the stock and usuallysmoothbore. The barrels are typically octagonal at the breech andbecome round about midway to the muzzle, with a decorative ringaround the barrel separating the octagonal and round sections. Theotherwise conventional wheel-lock mechanism has the wheelmounted internally to the lock plate. The lock plates are mounted

14 PISTOLS

flush with the stock, the pan is fitted with a sliding cover, and thereis no provision for a safety.

Where Madrid’s gunsmiths avoided ornamentation, their Ripol-lian counterparts in Catalonia reveled in richly carved and inlayedstocks and chiseled metalwork. During the last decade of the six-teenth century, Ripoll craftsmen began producing wheel locks withrather small wheels and raised and beveled lock plates attached tothe stock with three screws. The pan cover swiveled away from thepan, 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 mostdistinctive of Ripoll’s products and was popular early in the seven-teenth century. The pedrenyal barrel was octagonal at the breechand gradually changed to round midway down its length. Barrelswere pinned to the stocks and were often fitted with a rear sight.Early pedrenyals had fishtail-style pommels and spurred triggerguards, whereas later pommels tended to be ball-shaped and thetrigger guard spur was eliminated.

The arrival of the wheel-lock pistol also foretold a deeper impactof firearms on the greater society. When crafted and ornamented byskilled gunsmiths, wheel-lock pistols as well as long guns served ashighly coveted treasures for wealthy clients. Such patrons acquiredand presented one another with pistols embellished with richlycarved stocks inlayed with horn, ivory, and precious metals. Theyalso favored metal fittings, locks, and barrels with engraved mytho-logical themes as well as family crests and mottos. In the hands ofthe best gunsmiths, even accessories such as the spanner used towind the wheel spring, powder flasks, and bullet molds became mi-nor works of art.

Inevitably, wheel-lock pistols found their way into the hands ofless desirable elements of European society. Highwaymen, assassins,and other criminals discovered the obvious application of the wheellock to their own professions. For the nobility of the time it was alsoundesirable to have possibly disenchanted townsmen and peasantsarmed with weapons that required little skill to operate and couldkill at a distance. The ability to conceal smaller wheel-lock pistols,often known as pocket dags, as well as their ability to be carriedloaded, alarmed authorities. As early as 1517, with gun-relatedcrimes escalating, various governments attempted to enforce limita-tions on pistol distribution and ownership. During the early six-teenth century governments throughout Europe passed strict lawsrestricting possession and use. In 1594 Queen Elizabeth I of En-


gland ordered a ban on pocket dags, and around 1612 stricter lawswent into effect against the import and manufacture of pistols andcalled for their confiscation.

Despite its improvements over the matchlock, the complicatedwheel-lock system still posed significant disadvantages in both oper-ation and manufacture. The intrinsically complicated nature of thewheel lock made it expensive to manufacture and prone to breakage.Although much easier than with a matchlock, preparing the wheellock for firing required a specific set of maneuvers that could bequite difficult for a horseman in the midst of battle. The loss of thespanner to wind the spring—a frequent occurrence among mountedtroops—rendered the pistol useless. The pyrites also tended to bebrittle and needed frequent replacement to avoid all-too-commonmisfires. The wheel lock was also underpowered and inaccuratewhen mated with a short, smoothbore pistol barrel. Unless firing atnearly point-blank range, a horseman armed with a wheel lock pistolhad little hope of hitting an individual target, let alone piercing thearmor of his opponent. The wheel lock did, however, solve the prob-lem of maintaining a burning match and very slightly alleviated thefirearm’s vulnerability to damp conditions. Its invention laid thefoundation for the practical handgun. The last documented wheellocks produced by a well-known master were two magnificentanachronisms crafted in Paris by Le-Page in 1829.

THE FLINTLOCK

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

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

The Snaphaunce

There is some evidence that the snaphaunce may have been a Span-ish or German invention, but the term snaphaunce, sometimesspelled snaphance, probably derives from the old Dutch wordschnapphan, meaning approximately “snapping hen” or “snappingchicken.” Another variation of the term can be translated as “snap-cock,” a possible source for “cock,” the older synonym for “ham-mer.” The snaphaunce can most apparently be distinguished fromlater flintlocks in that its pan cover and battery are two separatepieces. The snaphaunce became very popular in Scotland, where itevolved into a distinct variation of its European cousins and reachedits height of sophistication in the finely crafted weapons producedby such masters as the Cominazzo family in Brescia, Italy, between1630 and 1665. Lazarino Cominazzo gained such a reputation forhis fine barrels that a number of other gunsmiths counterfeited hissignature on their own work.

The Cominazzo dynasty was, in many ways, typical of the finestgun-making operations of the period. Probably founded by LazaroCominazzo in the mid-1500s, the family business emerged from themedieval and Renaissance guild system to achieve fame and socialstatus on a level of the most sought-after decorative artists. Likemany fine gunsmiths, the Cominazzos rarely manufactured com-plete guns. They instead focused their attention on one key compo-nent—in their case, the barrel. The Cominazzos reached theirheight of artistry and production under Fortunato Lazarino duringthe second half of the seventeenth century. His barrels were typi-cally of about caliber .50—a relatively small bore for the period—and exhibited slim, elegant lines, octagonal at the breech and roundtoward the muzzle. Italian gunsmiths, as well as those from Englandand northern Europe, sought Lazarino’s barrels for installation in


their finest weapons. To his ultimate detriment, descendantLazarino Cominazzo did not confine his activities to making highquality gun barrels. He was shot and killed in 1696 during a revoltagainst the Venetian government.

The snaphaunce held several major advantages over the wheellock. It was much simpler in design and easier to maintain andcould be produced for about 25 percent of the cost of the earlier pis-tol. The flint used to produce the sparks during ignition was alsomore 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 pro-duction and use for a number of years before the snaphaunce finallygained ascendancy. In a number of cases gunsmiths converted olderwheel locks and even matchlocks to the newer snaphaunce system.Many snaphaunces, in turn, saw extended service as they were con-verted to later ignition systems.

The snaphaunce introduced a cock with a pair of jaws that held awedge-shaped piece of flint rather than iron pyrites. Upon release,the flint struck the hardened steel battery to produce sparks thatnext ignited a small amount of powder in the priming pan. The bat-tery and pan cover, in contrast to later flintlocks, were separate com-ponents, unlike the L-shaped combined battery-pan covers of trueflintlocks. Most snaphaunces were equipped with a lever mecha-nism that automatically uncovered the pan upon pulling the triggeralthough a few required the pan to be uncovered manually. The bat-tery could be pivoted into two positions where it was held in placeby a single V-shaped spring mounted forward on the lock plate.Lowering the battery to the rear placed it over the pan within reachof the flint in its fire position. The forward position held the batteryout of the way to allow priming and render the pistol safe.

This arrangement was necessary, as the snaphaunce, oncecocked, had no other safety features. The cock was mounted on alug that passes through the lock plate and connected it to an inter-nal tumbler. The rear of the tumbler lacked the second, or half-cock, safety notch of later flintlocks. The snaphaunce tumbler wascut with a single notch that engaged the sear and trigger assemblywhen in the cocked position. Upon cocking, the horizontally movingsear passed through a hole in the lock plate and engaged a notch cutinto the heel of the hammer, arresting its movement. Pressing thetrigger retracted the sear and allowed the hammer to spring forward.An internally mounted mainspring that pressed against the front ofthe tumbler provided the tension to propel the cock forward.

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Baltic Lock

The earliest form of snaphaunce, commonly called the Baltic lock,appeared in the mid–sixteenth century. It can most easily be distin-guished from later snaphaunce pistols in that its mainspring wasmounted externally on the lock plate and provided tension for boththe cock and the battery. With no half-cock provision, this arrange-ment was much more prone to accidental discharges than the wheellock and probably led to the evolution of the separate pan cover andbattery arrangement as an added safety device. In early Baltic lockpistols the pan cover had to be manually moved to the side beforefiring.

Dutch gunsmiths retained the basic principle of the Baltic lockbut soon moved the mainspring to a more protected position insidethe lock plate. A round shield attached to the outer surface of thepan readily distinguished Dutch pistols from other snaphaunces. Aform of the Dutch snaphaunce survived into the late nineteenthcentury in North Africa with Morocco as the primary manufacturingcenter. Dutch snaphaunces also greatly influenced Scottish gun-smiths, and their efforts produced a distinct yet closely related off-shoot of the mainland weapon. Scottish snaphaunces retained thebasic mechanical features of their Low Country cousins but evolveddistinct characteristics in overall appearance.

Early Scottish Pistols

The pommels of Scottish-made pistols often betray their origin, asthey were often of the slightly flared fishtail or heart butt profiles orthe even more distinctive ramshorn or scroll style. The gunsmithsusually fitted a vent pick with a decorated ball-shaped handle in thebutt between the horns or scrolls. The Scots also dispensed with theconventional trigger and trigger guard and favored an exposed but-ton or ball-shaped trigger. In addition, the majority of Scottish pis-tols were fitted with belt hooks fixed to the pistol opposite the lock.Such pistols were sometimes made in matched pairs for the purposeof being dramatically wielded in each hand, as the pairs were madewith one pistol with a left-mounted lock and the other with a right-mounted lock. Although produced in other countries, principallyGermany, the all-metal stock became another national feature asso-ciated with Scottish pistols. Scottish craftsmen, although not aban-doning wood as material, favored steel, brass, German silver, or


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

Early English Pistols

England trailed behind its European neighbors at the beginning ofthe seventeenth century in the production of firearms and reliedheavily on imports to arm its soldiers. At the turn of the century En-glish ordnance records list numbers of purchases of French longepistolls with holsters, bullet molds, and powder flasks. Although thecontemporary records are somewhat vague, these French importswere probably snaphaunces with some wheel locks and evenmatchlocks thrown in for good measure. The recognition of Londongun makers in 1638 as an official City Company marked a signifi-cant step toward England’s autonomy in gun innovation and manu-facture. Although English-manufactured pistols proved of betterquality, disputes over cost and other contract considerations stillprompted the government to import quantities of mainly French andBelgian pistols prior to the English Civil War.

During this same period, English ordnance officials recognized theneed to standardize small arms issues for both infantry and cavalryuse. Although many of the pistols in question were wheel locks, thetransition to snaphaunce still proceeded, albeit somewhat haphaz-ardly. The typical English pistol of the 1630s, regardless of ignitionsystem, featured an 18-inch barrel, was about 26 inches in overalllength, and was of the same caliber as contemporary carbines. Papercartridges were introduced from the continent in the 1620s. Suchcartridges could be used in carbines and, when torn in half, in pis-tols. In late 1639, ordnance experiments indicated that a 16-inchbarrel was just as accurate as the 18-inch, but the traditionally con-servative army officials retained the 18-inch barrel as standard.

The pistol had proven its value as a cavalry weapon during theThirty Years’ War, and English veterans of those battles brought theirexperience to bear during the civil war. Prince Rupert, nephew ofCharles I and known as the Mad Cavalier, favored a disciplinedmassed charge with swords, saving pistols for the melee among theenemy’s broken ranks. By copying these tactics, the Parliamentari-ans added a much-needed element to their own previously chaoticcavalry attacks.

Domestic English gun makers enjoyed welcome patronage underCromwell’s regime. Although wheel locks saw much use during the

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English Civil War, the period was one of transition as more andmore snaphaunces came into use. Records indicate that the gov-ernment awarded contracts to Birmingham as well as London con-cerns during the Protectorate. One 1646 document mentions or-ders for pairs of “English Snaphance” pistols with lacqueredcalfskin holsters. A 1658 Committee for the Admiralty and Navycontract stipulated a three-year agreement calling for 500 pairs ofsnaphaunce pistols per year. Also during the late 1640s and early1650s, locks became smaller and improved sears and springs wereintroduced.

The Restoration brought a renewed French influence into En-glish pistol design. French tastes of the period favored long, slenderpistols with heart-shaped pommels and rich ornamentation. Thiswas due in part to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685,prompting large numbers of French Huguenot gunsmiths and silver-smiths to leave their home country for London. As their trade flour-ished, domestic gun makers began adapting their own designs to thenew style. Although cocks retained the external safety back catch,they were largely superfluous, owing to an improved half-cock notchin the tumbler. A lock with a rounded contour face was introduced,replacing the earlier flat-faced lock, and a simplified brass butt capbecame standard. The new, thinner barrels were typically 14 inchesin length, octagonal at the breech, and usually flared at the muzzlefor extra strength. A single pipe retained the rammer in its channelunder the barrel.

Scandinavian Snaplock

Both the Scandinavian countries and Italy produced their own re-gional styles of snaphaunce. Manufactured by both local and north-ern German gunsmiths, the pistols of Sweden, Norway, and Den-mark, known as Scandinavian snaplocks, remained popular from themid–sixteenth century into the eighteenth. Their locks have a some-what squat profile and were made with both swing-out pan coversand steels. The Italian snaphaunce was typically the most sophisti-cated of the type and possibly evolved independently from thenorthern forms. Italian gunsmiths began crafting these finely madepistols around the turn of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,making it a contemporary of the true flintlock, the only distinctionbetween the Italian snaphaunce and the French, or “true” flintlockbeing the Italian pistol’s separate pan and steel.


Russian Pistols

In Russia, Peter the Great saw European-style arms production asone method of modernizing his country. In 1705 he ordered the es-tablishment of the great arsenal at Tula in central Russia and re-cruited German, Swedish, and Danish gunsmiths to oversee produc-tion. Other arms manufacturing was also carried out in the Kremlinin Moscow. By 1720 Tula was operating at full capacity, producingboth military and presentation quality pistols and muskets generallyfitted with French-style locks. Russians also tended to favor pistolswith pronounced, ball-shaped pommels. French Baroque and Ro-coco styles became even more evident in pistols made during thereign of Catherine the Great. Influenced by the great Parisian gun-smith Nicholas Guérard, Tula’s presentation-grade pistols exhibitedextravagant engraving and gold inlay.

Spanish Miquelet

Early Spanish gunsmiths, influenced by German trends, producedfinely crafted, although relatively austere, wheel locks andsnaphaunces before developing their own national form, themiquelet. The miquelet, or Spanish lock, first appeared in Spain atthe end of the sixteenth century. In little more than twenty-fiveyears it replaced both the wheel lock and the snaphaunce as the pri-mary product of Spain’s Madrid and Ripoll gun shops. Spanishcraftsmen, already famous for their fine metallurgy, enhanced theirreputations with their high-quality firearms. During the 1640sSpanish gunsmiths led their competitors with such innovations aslining vent holes with gold to prevent corrosion. Spanish barrelswere particularly prized, and other European gunsmiths oftenbought and installed them in their own higher-quality guns. Spanishsmiths also claimed that they led other countries in producing com-plete pistols within a single shop rather than assembling compo-nents from other sources.

The miquelet derived its name in the late nineteenth centuryfrom the miquelets, Spanish mercenaries who carried Spanish lockmuskets during the Napoleonic Wars between 1805 and 1813. Al-though superceded in Europe by later flintlock developments, thesturdy miquelet remained a favored weapon in Portugal, Spain, andother Mediterranean countries and survived in such areas as NorthAfrica for some 250 years. Miquelets saw extensive service with

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Spanish explorers during their expeditions during the Age of Discov-ery and subsequent colonizations. The miquelet also remained pop-ular in areas of Italy formerly controlled by Spain, and Cossack pis-tols, a form of the miquelet, were manufactured in Italy andexported to eastern Europe. These unique pistols exhibited long,thin barrels, button triggers, and large pommels. The wood stockswere often covered with brass or leather.

The miquelet incorporated a one-piece flash-pan cover and bat-tery combination. Shaped like the letter L, this component simpli-fied both the manufacture of the pistol as well as its operation. Themiquelet also differed from other flintlocks in that its battery wasscored with vertical grooves to enhance ignition, and the jaws of thecock were rectangular or squared rather than curved. The cock wasnot attached to an internal tumbler but pivoted on an axle to a sim-ple bridle attached to the internal lock face. The sear operated hori-zontally, passing through the lock plate to engage the base of thecock. The forward motion of the cock knocked the battery-pan coverassembly forward to expose the priming charge and, in the same mo-tion, struck the flint against the battery, creating the requisitesparks. The miquelet cock also had a half-cock position allowing forsafer priming of the pan. The miquelet could be distinguished fromother flintlocks by its prominent external V-shaped mainspring andthe large finger hole in the top of the jaw screw. The short travel ofthe cock required a very stiff spring and thus necessitated the fittingof the large ring for better leverage. The mainspring bore against theheel of the cock and also economically provided tension to the bat-tery, thus eliminating the need for a separate battery spring. ManySpanish pistols were also fitted with belt hooks.

English Lock (Dog Lock)

Appearing in England during the 1620s, the short-lived English lockwas obsolete by the 1650s. It was, however, a favored militaryweapon during its service, and numerous examples made their wayto the English colonies. Sometimes known as the Jacobean lock, itimproved on the miquelet in having its main spring as well as mostother essential components attached to the inside of the lock platerather than externally, thus protecting them from damage.

The two distinguishing features of the English lock were its com-bined pan cover and battery (tensioned by an external V-shapedspring) and a sear arrangement that allowed a half-cock position.


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

French Lock

Credited to the remarkable Marin le Bourgeoys, the “true” flintlockfirst appeared in France before 1630 and is thus often known as theFrench lock. Born into a noted artisan family in the Norman town ofLisieux, le Bourgeoys was probably initially trained as a painter. Helater attained fame not only as an artist but also as a gunsmith, in-ventor, and luthier. In 1598 his talents attracted the attention ofKing Henry IV, who, in order to free le Bourgeoys from the re-straints of the Parisian guild, appointed him valet de chambre in theroyal court. In 1608 the king further honored le Bourgeoys by grant-ing him rooms in the Grand Gallery of the Louvre. The master arti-san did not confine his efforts to firearms but also produced cross-bows, air guns, and moveable globes for the king’s enjoyment. Hecontinued in royal service under the reign of Louis XIII(1610–1642), for whom he designed the new flintlock. Suchweapons as those produced by le Bourgeoys and his successors wereviewed as artwork in themselves, and kings often gave them to fa-vored courtiers and visitors as tokens of esteem. Louis was so enam-ored of fine firearms that he amassed his Cabinet d’Armes, a vastcollection of the gunsmith’s art.

The French lock combined the L-shaped frizzen of the miqueletwith an improved form of the internal mechanism of the Englishlock. The two major internal improvements were the perfection of areliable sear that pivoted in a vertical motion to engage a tumbler cutwith two notches to provide both half-cock and full-cock positions

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for the attached hammer. Le Bourgeoys’s design thus eliminated theoften temperamental horizontal sear and replaced it with a sear thatoperated much like a seesaw or lever. The forward nose of the searengaged either of the two tumbler notches, arresting the cock’s mo-tion. Pressure from the trigger then pushed upward against a hori-zontal 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 saferthan earlier designs, although conservative English gunsmiths usu-ally retained the external dog catch as an additional safety measure.The true flintlock replaced almost all other French ignition systemsby mid-century and, with the exception of the miquelet in Spain, wasalmost universal in Europe by the early 1700s.

Early French lock pistols retained the general overall lines of thelate snaphaunces, being rather straight in profile and, in betterspecimens, highly ornamented. Later pistols exhibited a more pro-nounced drop toward the grip and were less decorated. Early buttcaps were often a simple metal reinforcing band of iron or brasswith gold or silver used in the finest weapons. As the form evolved,the butt caps acquired long extensions, or spurs, on either side ofthe grip that eventually grew shorter in later weapons. At the veryend of the French lock era the spurs were eliminated, and in manyEuropean nations the entire butt cap was eventually abandoned forthe sake of economy. Early lock plates and cocks usually had flatfaces, but French styling, favoring a rounded contour with bevelededges, quickly became the fashion throughout the gun-producingworld. The cock also achieved its graceful swan-neck or S shapeduring this period, although some military pistols were fitted withthe sturdier throat-hole cocks.

The career of the French gunsmith Nicolas-Noël Boutet reflectedthe status that the craftsmen of the finest firearms could claimamong their contemporaries. He was born in 1761, the son of thefamous gun maker to the king, Noël Boutet, who held the positionof arquebusier des chevaux legers du Roi (Gunmaker for the King’sLight Cavalry). Following family tradition, Boutet trained under hisfather and went so far as to marry Louise-Émile Desaintes, thedaughter of another royal gunsmith. He eventually assumed his fa-ther’s position and, after the French Revolution, directed the newgovernment arsenal, the Manufacture de Versailles, where he con-tinued after Napoleon’s rise to power.

Boutet’s duties included directing the manufacture of standard-issue military weapons as well as fine presentation guns and swords.He was particularly well known for his fusils d’honneur, specially


made muskets for award to soldiers in recognition of bravery. Boutetwas also charged with crafting exquisite pistols and sporting armsfor presentation to favored officials and foreign dignitaries and withtraining younger gunsmiths. In 1804 Boutet took on his son, Pierre-Nicolas, as partner and, after the fall of Napoleon in 1815, contin-ued as the most respected gunsmith in Paris until his death in 1833.

AMMUNITION

Ammunition for flintlock pistols remained relatively unchangedfrom earlier weapons—the powder charge was approximately half ofthe usual amount for a musket or carbine. The pistol was oftenloaded with loose powder from a flask followed by a lead ball thatwas held in place by a paper or cloth patch. A small amount of pow-der was then poured into the priming pan. A more efficient methodconsisted of a self-contained paper cartridge holding both the pow-der and bullet. To load, one tore the end from the cartridge with histeeth and poured a small amount of powder into the priming pan.He then rammed the remainder of the cartridge down the barrel ofthe pistol, with the paper acting as the wad to secure the charge inplace. Bullets were almost invariably round balls of cast lead. Arather eccentric early eighteenth-century London notary public,gunsmith, and inventor did, however, offer an alternative to theround bullet. Announcing his theory that only fellow Christianswere worthy of being perforated with round bullets, James Puckleproduced a novel rapid-fire weapon that fired square bullets for useagainst non-Christian foes. Puckle went bankrupt.

During the eighteenth century improvements in the manufactureof gunpowder also affected pistol design. Early forms of gunpowder,a mixture of potassium nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal, tended to be ofpoor quality and burned unevenly. Any powder that had not burnedby the time the bullet left the muzzle was thus wasted, lessening thebullet’s velocity, and contributed to residue buildup and foulingwithin the barrel. As a result, early gunsmiths attempted to lengthenthe powder’s burning time by fitting long barrels to their pistols. Al-though the long barrel allowed the majority of the powder to burnbefore the bullet left the barrel, it tended to make the pistol ratherunwieldy. The more precise methods of measuring and granulatinggunpowder during the 1700s allowed gunsmiths to craft more effi-cient shorter-barreled pistols than previously possible.

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FLINTLOCK IMPROVEMENTS

Although the flintlock’s basic design remained unchanged for some250 years, it underwent numerous improvements and cosmetic al-terations. Rather than attach the lock to the stock with three screws,as had the snaphaunce, the flintlock more economically used twoscrews. The flintlock also utilized a sturdier method of securing thecock to the lock plate than had been used in earlier pistols. The newsystem replaced the earlier square shaft that had connected thecock through the lock plate to the tumbler with an integral squareprojection of the tumbler. This innovation eliminated two extracomponents—the separate shaft and a screw—and greatly increasedthe mechanism’s strength and resistance to wear. The new designalso incorporated a better designed bridle to firmly support the tum-bler and sear in alignment within the lock.

Later improvements included the incorporation of roller bear-ings on the points of contact between the mainspring and tumblerand battery spring and battery. Such additions reduced the wear onthese parts and provided smoother operation. Another addition wasa stirrup-like link between the mainspring and tumbler that alsohelped reduce friction. Gunsmiths also addressed the problems as-sociated with the corrosion and residue inherent in black-powderarms. Unless pistols were cleaned immediately after use, suchresidue tended to foul the vent and rust such components as thepan and vent area. To counter this problem, gun makers fitted theirfiner-quality pistols with rust-resistant brass and even platinum andgold-lined pans and vents. English gunsmiths also favored the addi-tion of a metal stop at the rear of the pan to prevent the cock fromtraveling too far forward and damaging the pan. This arrangementwas later dropped in favor of a notch on the inside of the cock thatcontacted the top of the lock plate.

The improved gunpowder also produced higher pressure, requir-ing stronger barrels. Gunsmiths met the challenge by perfecting thetwist steel welding technique of barrel construction. They producedhigh-strength barrels by hammering flat iron bands around a steelmandrel under intense heat. The result was a strong steel barrel thatexhibited a spiral pattern down its length. English gunsmiths tendedto exploit this twist pattern as a decorative device in their finer pistolsand accentuated its contrasts with chemical coloring agents. TheirFrench counterparts preferred to hide the twist pattern with chemi-cally blued barrels but often indicated their high quality by gildingthe legend CANON TORDUE and their name on the top of the barrel.


TYPES OF PISTOLS

The true flintlock’s straightforward mechanism lent itself to wideproduction by the most mediocre of gunsmiths as well as those ofthe highest order. After about 1650, the proliferation of pistols af-forded even those of moderate means pistol ownership. Gunsmithsaccommodated their needs with a wide variety of features and mod-els from which to choose. The size of the pistol generally indicatedits purpose. Many civilians (including criminals) favored pocket andlarger traveling, or overcoat, pistols. Duelers were somewhat larger,and the military-style holster pistols were largest. To satisfy the de-mand of the European elite, English, French, Italian, and Germangun makers produced some of the finest handguns ever made.

In general, dueling pistols tended to be rather plain in appearancecompared to the often highly embellished coat and traveling pistols.Earlier weapons were also typically smoothbore weapons employinga patched ball, whereas later pistols were usually rifled. The most fa-mous test for such a weapon’s mechanical perfection was to pull thetrigger while holding it upside down. Only a fraction of a secondseparated the finest, most skillfully tuned weapons that would stillfire their charge from the more mediocre pistols whose primingwould fall from the pan before the spark reached it.

Accessories

Renowned manufacturers such as Boutet, England’s Joseph Man-ton, Robert Wogdon, and Joseph Egg, and Italy’s Beretta family of-fered their better pistols as cased, matched pairs complete with ac-cessories. The pistol cases and accessories added in no small part tothe desirability of the pistols themselves. Fine woods such as wal-nut, mahogany, and cherry were chosen for the quality of their grainand color. Eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century Englishand American craftsmen tended to divide the interior of their felt- orbaize-lined cases into compartments separated by wood inserts. Eu-ropeans preferred form-fitted depressions in their plush, silk-linedboxes. A printed label announcing the maker’s name and addresspasted to the inner lid was almost universal. In addition to the twopistols, the cases contained numerous articles for cleaning and load-ing the weapons. These included cleaning rods, spare cloth patches,extra flints, disassembly tools, and a powder flask and measure. Sets

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

Dueling Pistols

Duelers announced their deadly purpose in their elegant simplic-ity. Eschewing ornamentation for balance and accuracy, dueling pis-tols exhibited a graceful appearance with little else to distract theiruser or attract the eye of one’s opponent. The stock of a typical du-eler lacked any carving other than simple hatching to enhance theuser’s grip and was not fitted with a metal butt cap. The steel or ironfittings, including the 9- or 10-inch barrel, were treated with either amatte blue or browned finish to minimize glare. Early pistols usuallyhad round barrels with full stocks, whereas later pistols were half-stocked with octagonal barrels. Barrels also tended to be rather heavyto help steady one’s aim and absorb recoil. Large calibers up to about.57 were favored, and sights were almost universal. Hair triggers arecommon and, around 1805, spur trigger guards appeared to providean extra extension for the middle finger, allowing a steadier grip.

Pistols required less skill and practice to achieve proficiency, andmany continental gentlemen never fully abandoned their blades tosettle affairs of honor. Still, during the eighteenth century pistolsgradually replaced the sword as the weapon of choice to end dis-putes among upper-class Europeans and Americans. Such special-ized weapons appeared in the 1770s and, by 1800, had reachedtheir 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 trialby combat and ordeal greatly affected the dueling pistol’s design andproper use.

For these reasons a peculiar idea of fairness required that mostdueling pistols be smoothbore rather than rifled. The less accurate(and less predictable) smoothbore barrels thus, to the eighteenthcentury mind, allowed the hand of God to play a more active role insuch deadly affairs. Still, celebrated gunsmiths such as the English-man Robert Wogdon and Dublin’s William and John Rigby did at-tempt to make their smoothbore pistols as accurate as possible. Byboring barrels at a slight angle rather than straight down the center,they gave clients a slight edge in compensating for the general ten-dency for shooters to miss high. Still, to evade the rule altogether,


some less scrupulous gentlemen, motivated more by self-preserva-tion than personal honor, secretly ordered pistols with hidden riflingthat stopped an inch or two short of the muzzle.

Despite such occasional blackguards, dueling, especially in Ire-land, was considered crucial to a young gentleman’s reputation andstanding among his peers. “Did he ever blaze?” was a common in-quiry of the time concerning one’s character. Various codes of rulesto ritualize and legitimize dueling were published throughout Eu-rope, the most famous of which, the Code Duello, appeared in Ire-land in 1777. The Code Duello was divided into 26 rules, or com-mandments, and formed the basis for later codes that were followedon the continent and in the United States. The primary assumptionof the Code Duello was that duels could be fought only among socialequals and that these equals were gentlemen. An encounter be-tween a general, for example, and a mere lieutenant or captainwould have been unthinkable. An equal fight among commonerswould not have been dignified as a duel, being merely a lowly crimi-nal brawl subject to the criminal courts.

Manuals provided remarkably detailed protocols in the various as-pects of the dueling ritual. Following a suitable insult, an offendedparty dispatched a carefully worded challenge that, once received,required an equally stylish reply. Arrangements, including choice ofweapons, the location and time of the meeting, and the inclusion ofthe opponents’ seconds and physicians soon followed. The distancebetween the combatants, measured in paces, varied. A distance of10–15 yards was common, although some duels were fought at al-most point-blank range. Some manuals even suggested appropriatefoods, drinks, and reading material to prepare oneself for the im-pending duel.

While the duelists fought their nerves, their seconds performedthe vital tasks of inspecting, cleaning, and loading the pistols. Theseconds made sure that the pistols operated smoothly, prepared theflints for reliable sparking, and checked the dryness of the powder.The measuring of the powder and seating of the ball on the chargewere crucial elements of the process. If the second measured too lit-tle powder into the bore, the bullet would have had little effect onits intended victim. Slightly too much powder adversely affected theaccuracy of the pistol. More than one second, suffering from nervesand an overindulgence in alcohol, overloaded his pistol to the de-gree that it exploded in the duelist’s hand, removing his fingers andinjuring nearby spectators. There were other instances of poorly

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patched and seated balls rolling harmlessly out of the barrel of thepistol onto the ground at the crucial moment before firing. Althoughembarrassing, such an incident could be deadly; according to somerules, that could be counted as a legitimate discharge and be an-swered with a loaded pistol.

On the continent, especially in France, the dueling ritual evolvedeven more elaborate rules and variations that carried over into thepercussion era. Under French rules, conventional duels could notbe fought at less than 15 paces, and at that range the order of firewas determined by lot. At 35 paces the challenger had the right tofire first. Duels beginning with the opponents back-to-back were, aselsewhere, rare. The French love of drama was particularly evidentin one variant, the duel à volonté (“at pleasure”). Before the duel be-gan, the two seconds paced the ground and marked starting lines at35 paces. From the starting lines they then paced toward one an-other and marked their respective finish lines 15 paces apart. Takingtheir places at the start lines, the two duelists would then stand withtheir pistols raised until given the command “March!” They wouldthen walk forward and could stop and fire at any time before reach-ing the stop line. Having fired, however, combatants had to stop andstand still to receive fire if the opponent was still standing. The du-elist who had not fired could then march to the finish line and had afull, heart-stopping minute to carefully aim and fire back, an occur-rence that some of the more sadistic practitioners relished. If an an-tagonist was downed by a shot he was allowed two minutes to regainhis feet and return fire.

Other French forms included the duel à marche, also popular inGermany, in which the opponents approached one another followingzigzag lines two paces at a time, as well as the duel au signal. In thelatter, commands were conveyed via handclaps by the challenger’ssecond. With their muzzles pointed downward, the duelists began towalk forward at the first clap, raised their pistols and aimed threeseconds later at the second clap, and fired at another three-secondinterval on the third clap. Duels exceptionelles, when conducted onhorseback with pistols, required the opponents to sit on their mountsand blaze away at one another at 25 paces until the duel was satisfac-torily concluded. The deadliest form of French dueling must have re-quired true hatred on the part of the participants. It required onlyone pistol to be loaded with a full charge and ball, the other loadedwith a blank charge. Not knowing which was loaded, the duelistswould then rely on chance in the selection of their weapons. They


then aimed as each held one end of the same handkerchief awaitingthe handclap signal to fire. The results were predictable.

The formal use of the pistol also delineated the boundary be-tween gentlemen and the lower classes in the United States. In thenew, rough-hewn nation, most settled man-to-man disputes in vio-lent brawls using whatever came to hand, including knives, rocks, ri-fles, and shotguns. As noted by Alexis de Tocqueville in 1831, actualduels among gentlemen in the United States were less frequentthan those in Europe but were more often fatal in result. WhereasEuropean duelists would often declare satisfaction after merely go-ing through the motions of the ritual, often firing harmlessly in theair, Americans tended to fight one another to the death. ThoseAmericans who considered themselves gentlemen did emulate theirEuropean cousins in following the Code Duello but with a some-what more violent intensity. Most American gentlemen preferredBritish-made pistols, although Simeon North of Middletown, Con-necticut, produced fine examples. Duels were a common means ofsettling disputes between officers of the Navy and Army, resulting inthe deaths of such able leaders as Stephen Decatur. The South andthe West led the country in numbers of duels, with Charleston,South Carolina, and New Orleans, Louisiana, being major centersof the activity. During the early nineteenth century, Charleston evenboasted a formal dueling society until its president called for its dis-bandment from his deathbed after being mortally wounded by a vis-iting Englishman.

The most famous American duel, however, occurred in 1804 nearNew York City between Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton on thebanks of the Hudson River in Weehawken, New Jersey. The pistolsused were a fine pair of English-made duelers by Wogdon. Ironically,Hamilton borrowed them from his brother-in-law, who had previ-ously loaned the set to Hamilton’s son Philip, who had died on thesame spot chosen for his father’s duel with Burr. The popularAlexander Hamilton’s death at the hands of Burr added to the an-tidueling sentiment that had been growing in both the United Statesand Europe.

Antidueling laws had been enacted in Europe and the UnitedStates well before the Hamilton-Burr duel but were indifferently en-forced. If charged at all most duelers, as members of the gentry,were typically exonerated as a matter of course. The overriding logicof such decisions (aside from the social rank of the accused) wasthat both men had entered the duel of their free will and shared

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equal risk. Still, many saw dueling as another example of the arro-gant disregard for the common law held by England’s elite.

Such well-publicized incidents as the 1829 farcical meeting be-tween the aged Duke of Wellington and the Earl of Winchilsea atBattersea Common helped spur popular pressure against the insti-tution. Years earlier, the duke, alarmed that the attrition of his juniorofficers from dueling nearly rivaled that in battle, had forbidden du-eling in the army. Furthermore, just months earlier, Parliament hadenacted Lord Lansdowne’s Act, declaring dueling a capital offense.The opponents’ open disregard for the law, as well as the relativelytrivial nature of the dispute (Winchilsea’s opposition to Wellington’ssupport of the King’s College, London), added fuel to the antiduel-ing movement in Britain. Later, following an 1843 duel betweenbrothers-in-law Lieutenant-Colonel David Fawcett and LieutenantAlexander Munroe (resulting in Fawcett’s death), the Anti-DuelingAssociation was organized. In 1844 an amendment to the Articles ofWar officially banned dueling in the army. Eventually, pressure fromQueen Victoria, calls from the press, and public outcry led to a morevigorous prosecution of survivors for murder. The threat of an igno-minious death by public hanging quickly took the shine off the no-ble art of dueling and led to a general cessation by the middle of thenineteenth century.

Traveling Pistols

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, highwaymen werea common threat to travelers, who thus began viewing a pair of pis-tols as a necessity on the road. Traveling pistols, sometimes knownas overcoat pistols, were relatively large weapons at about 10–12inches and were often fitted with metal belt hooks. Although some-what deadlier than their dueler cousins because of their rifled bar-rels, traveling pistols served something of a dual role as fashion ac-cessories to gentlemen of leisure. For this reason such pistols oftenfeatured finely checkered, high-quality wood stocks and engravedmetal fittings, often inlaid with gold or silver. The finer pistols weresold in cased pairs with the usual loading and cleaning accessories,including a small hammer for driving the slightly oversized bulletdown the rifled barrel. Most military officers of any standing greatlypreferred their own fancy pistols rather than the serviceable yetlowly standard-issue arms of their subordinates.


Holster Pistols

Sharing many of the general characteristics of contemporary duelersand often used as such, large holster pistols were best suited for mil-itary use. Holster pistols were usually of the large musket calibersand were issued in pairs to be carried in leather holsters slungacross the saddle. Military holster pistols were fairly devoid of deco-ration, sturdily built, and presented a businesslike overall appear-ance. Holster pistols were also a popular size among the civilianpopulation and were decorated according to their owners’ tastes andpocketbook. As made by fashionable gunsmiths, such pistols wereusually produced in matched cased pairs.

Turn-Off Pistols: The Queen Anne Pistol

So-called turn-off pistols—pistols with barrels that unscrewed at thebreech—appeared during the snaphaunce period and maintainedpopularity during the flintlock period. Turn-off pistols were particu-larly effective when mated with rifled barrels. In such cases, thebreech was slightly larger than the rifled barrel and, once the barrelwas removed, easily accepted the powder charge and bullet. Whenloading a turn-off pistol, the user did not have to ram the bullethome and thereby risk deforming the projectile with a resultant lossof accuracy. Instead, he simply screwed the barrel back on; the dis-charge of the pistol forced the bullet into the lands and grooves ofthe barrel. The smaller bore also eliminated the need for a patchand prevented the ball from rolling out of the barrel.

The Queen Anne pistol, the finest of the turn-off pistols, ap-peared in the early eighteenth century and remained popular longafter its namesake’s death in 1714. Queen Anne pistols usually ex-hibited 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 tocarry loaded, and the pocket pistol provided a welcome means ofpersonal protection. Pocket pistols, about 7–9 inches in total length,

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were small enough to carry in one’s coat pocket and were usuallysold in pairs, like many of the civilian pistols. The box lock was aparticular favorite form of pocket pistol in that its mechanism is, forthe most part, contained within the lock itself. As the cock and bat-tery assembly were centrally mounted, they did not protrude fromthe side of the pistol and offered fewer components to catch onone’s clothing when drawing the pistol.

The prospect of carrying a loaded firearm on one’s person, espe-cially in a pants pocket, gave fresh impetus to the addition of moresafety features. The sliding bar safety, attached to the top of the pis-tol, was especially suitable to box-lock pistols. Pushing the bar for-ward allowed the bar’s two extensions to pass around the cock andengage corresponding slots or shoulders in the cock. This actionlocked the cock into place, preventing accidental discharge. A vari-ant of the sliding bar safety allowed the bar to travel to the pointwhere it also engaged two small holes drilled into the base of thebattery, thereby sealing the priming in the pan. Concealed triggerswere also a popular safety feature. Concealed triggers were heldflush with the bottom of the pistol frame by a spring until the pistolwas cocked. The action of pulling the cock back to its fully cockedposition allowed the trigger to drop down for use.

Multiple-Shot Pistols

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


Blunderbuss Pistols

Blunderbuss pistols, with large bores and dramatically flared muz-zles, were popular among coachmen for use against highwaymen.Some blunderbuss pistols and carbines were also issued to guardson English mail coaches. Blunderbuss pistols were, in concept,scaled-down shotguns that could be loaded with large amounts ofshot or larger bullets that would spray from the bell-shaped muzzlein a wide pattern. The blunderbuss thus required only approximateaiming and could conceivably wound a number of attackers withone discharge. Many blunderbuss pistols were fitted with brass bar-rels, and some mounted a spring-retained bayonet blade that couldbe extended for serious menacing. In 1831 Henry Wilkinsonpatented a blunderbuss pistol with a unique, horizontally flattenedmuzzle that he claimed would more efficiently spread its shot.Wilkinson also offered a detachable shoulder stock and a special pa-per cartridge loaded with 12 segmented projectiles.

Duck-Foot Pistol

The duck-foot pistol was another attempt to deliver a large amountof lead spread over a wide area. The duck foot derived its name fromits four barrels that were fixed to its box-lock action at angles so thatthey 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 forcontrolling crowds and shipboard mutinies. Its low production,however, mirrored its success.

Superimposed Pistols

Any attempts to produce multiple-shot pistols, although often in-genious, yielded bizarre results that could be as dangerous to theuser as to the intended victim. One concept—the use of so-calledsuperimposed firearms—was especially resistant to practical appli-cation. Such weapons utilized multiple loads, placed on top of oneanother in a single barrel, that were intended to be fired in succes-sion. To be successful, the theory required that the fire from the pis-tol’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

36 PISTOLS

from the first shot from igniting the powder in the loadings below.Different inventors applied various means of ignition to superim-posed pistols. These included sliding locks that could be pushed upand down the barrel to the appropriate vent hole, and internal tubesthat were meant to carry the ignition flame past the rear loads to thefront load. The successful use of a superimposed pistol required ab-solutely precise measurements in powder and bullet sizing andmeticulous cleaning, chores few soldiers or civilians were willing orable to perform consistently. The penalty for any failure, no matterhow slight, in loading a superimposed pistol usually required a mor-tician or at least a physician, and few such weapons were made;even fewer survive. A variant of the superimposed pistol, the aptlynamed Roman candle pistol, was at least more realistic in expecta-tions. Acting on the same principle as the firework, one pull of thetrigger set off a chain reaction of multiple discharges that was, atworst, highly intimidating.

The Kalthoff and Lorenzoni Pistols

Two brilliantly conceived multishot weapon designs that reliedon internal magazines—the Kalthoff and the Lorenzoni—emerged during the early seventeenth century. The origins of bothweapons are obscure—the names of their inventors were lost, andtheir current names originated with the two prominent gun-mak-ing families that seemed to have advanced the designs. The ma-jority of, if not all, Kalthoffs were apparently long arms, but anumber of Lorenzoni pistols survived to attest to their manufac-ture and use.

The Lorenzoni derived its name from the Florentine gunsmithMichel Lorenzoni, whose work was most associated with perfectingthe mechanism. The heart of the Lorenzoni system was in two tubu-lar magazines located in its stock, one containing loose powder, andthe other a number of balls. Priming for its flintlock mechanism washeld in a container attached to the lock. To load, one pointed thebarrel up while pulling back a prominent lever on the left side of thegun, thus rotating a cylindrical breechblock. The user then pointedthe pistol down to allow the measured powder and a single ball tofall into their respective chambers. Closing the lever returned thebreechblock to its firing position and automatically primed andcocked the weapon. The Lorenzoni was capable of six or more shots


depending on the individual weapon’s size and caliber. Its remark-able rate of fire was, however, somewhat offset by the inherentfragility of the mechanism and a rather disconcerting tendency forself-destruction if the powder magazine was improperly sealed fromthe firing chamber.

An English gun maker, Abraham Hill, appropriated and patentedthe Lorenzoni system in London on 3 March 1664. The date is pos-sibly significant, for the next day the famous diarist Samuel Pepysrecorded: “There were several people by trying a new-fashion gunbrought my Lord this morning, to shoot off often, one after another,without trouble or danger, very pretty” (Pepys: found in Peterson1962: 229). Although the gun Pepys witnessed being test-fired willprobably never be confirmed as the one patented by Hill, the designdid enjoy a certain popularity during the period. The Lorenzoni sys-tem even saw use in the American colonies, where it was known asthe Cookson gun after the English gun maker John Cookson. Even-tually a number of Cookson’s relatives apparently immigrated toMassachusetts, where they were producing the weapon as late asthe mid–eighteenth century .

Dagger Pistols

As an additional last-chance provision, some pistols were fitted withspring-activated bayonets that were attached to either the side ortop of the barrel. By releasing a catch, the bayonet would flip outand snap in a forward position, where it could be used as a dagger.Few such pistols saw military use, but they proved quite popularamong the rougher elements of society.

EARLY STANDARDIZATION

During this period the great national armories and government con-tractors in Europe began producing large numbers of relatively stan-dardized military flintlock pistols. Standardization, it should benoted, was not synonymous with interchangeability. Weapons of theperiod conformed to basic types, but all fitting and assembly wasdone by hand, and pistols from the same shops and arsenals couldexhibit variations in manufacture to some degree. Prior to the late

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sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, following older feudalpractices, individual commanders armed most military units. Thesecommanders, invariably noblemen, saw their troops almost as pri-vate armies and provided uniforms and arms tailored to their per-sonal tastes and whims. As a result, many early military pistols bearthe coat of arms of various noble families rather than the king. Al-though these military pistols are sturdy and reliable, they are typi-cally rather plain in appearance.

These weapons were generally for cavalry and marine applicationsand accepted a muzzle-loaded paper cartridge. To fire his weapon,the pistoleer would tear off the base of the cartridge, pour a smallamount of powder in the pan, and load the rest of the cartridge intothe muzzle of the pistol. He would then ram home the charge withthe ramrod that was typically stowed in a channel in the pistol’s stockunder the barrel. These weapons were usually of the same caliber asthe infantry muskets and cavalry carbines of the time and fired heavylead balls (perhaps caliber .69 to as much as caliber .80). The deci-sion to adopt the same caliber for both long arms and pistols wassound. As the pistol cartridge used half the powder charge of themusket, the paper musket charge could be torn in half, or bled, foruse in a pistol if pistol cartridges became unavailable. Forgetting tobleed a cartridge during the heat of battle, as often happened, attimes led to disaster for excited horsemen. At best, a full or almostfull musket charge could blow the pistol out of the user’s hand, butjust as likely it could explode the pistol into shrapnel that could re-move fingers and even blind and kill the unfortunate cavalryman.

Cavalry Pistols

Most cavalrymen during the flintlock era considered the saber andlance as their primary, more gentlemanly weapons. Still, manysupplemented sabers, carbines, and lances with a brace (pair) ofpistols 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 incapableof accurate fire over a few yards. Still, the horseman’s pistol waseffective at close range and, when combined in massed fire,proved moderately effective at medium range. Although many au-thorities have debated the actual effectiveness of the inherentlyshort-ranged and inaccurate pistol in combat, few have disputed


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

Naval Pistols

The introduction of the flintlock pistol also added a welcome addi-tion to the sailor’s arsenal. Earlier boarding and counterboardingweapons were of the hand-to-hand variety, including pikes, cut-lasses, clubs, and axes. The naval pistol added reach to the typicalsailor’s lethality. The typical flintlock naval pistol had a belt hook op-posite the lock, and a sailor often attached at least a brace of pistolsto his belt prior to action. Having discharged his pistols, the sailorwould often reverse his weapon and use it as a convenient club inclose-quarters fighting.

Early Standardization: England

The beginning of the eighteenth century saw attempts by the En-glish government to more closely control costs and to centralize do-mestic arms manufacturing. These priorities were placed under theauthority of the Ordnance Office in the Tower of London. Althoughstill awarding small arms contracts to the Dutch, English ordnanceofficials focused on more efficient methods of regulating the domes-tic manufacture of both pistols and long arms. These efforts dis-couraged the assembly of complete weapons by individual gun mak-ers and instead promoted the manufacture of various componentsby a number of shops to be assembled at centralized locations. Al-though there were many exceptions, London thus became a centerfor stock manufacturing, whereas Birmingham produced the lion’sshare of locks and barrels. Proof houses were established in bothcities, and military weapons were tested and their barrels stampedwith proof marks signifying their ability to withstand large powdercharges. Other markings generally included the royal cipher—abroad arrow stamp denoting military ownership, the date of manu-facture, and, in some cases, regimental markings. Around 1764 thedate of manufacture was omitted (owing to the troops’ tendency torefuse older weapons, no matter the condition in favor of the verylatest manufactured). As gun production in London and Birming-ham increased, local barrel, lock, and stock makers saw their in-comes and status rise accordingly.

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During the eighteenth century England’s Ordnance Board con-stantly tested new designs with which to best equip the nation’sforces. The board’s task was complicated in that most units, such asthe Light Dragoons, Heavy Dragoons, as well as others, demandedweapons tailored to their perceived individual needs. As a result, theboard found it necessary to approve several standard pistols ratherthan the preferred single standard for all branches of service. Still,English military pistols of the period reflected the board’s attemptsto balance effectiveness and economy. One such pistol, possibly de-signed by Colonel George Augustus Elliott, inventor of a carbinebearing his name, was the Light Dragoon pistol that entered servicearound 1759. The pistol was both simple in appearance and func-tional. It was fitted with a 9-inch round barrel and a plain side plateand butt cap. Its lock plate was smaller than those on previous pis-tols, and it had a wood, brass-tipped rammer stowed in a single pipein a channel under the barrel.

Scottish Pistols

A much more distinctive weapon had been issued to Scottish High-land troops in about 1757. Isaac Bissell and John Waters made theScottish pistols in Birmingham. Typical of other Scottish pistols,they are of all-metal construction and have a button trigger and notrigger guard. They are fitted with an 8-inch barrel, and the metalstock ends in a decorative ramshorn butt. The Scottish pistols arealso equipped with a belt hook for attachment to the cross strap andare often marked “R.H.R.” for “Royal Highland Regiment.” Thereare some accounts of charging Highlander troops discharging theirpistols at the enemy, hurling the empty pistols in their opponents’faces, and then laying on with their traditional basket-hiltbroadswords. Still, many deemed the later, mass-produced Scottishpistol an inferior weapon, and its unpopularity led to its retirementfrom service by 1795.

Dragoon Pistols

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


reled Light Dragoon pistol for issue to other mounted troops. In1776, they adopted a 10-inch barreled, 16-inch overall, pistol to re-place the Heavy Dragoons’ 12-inch barreled pistol. Although thenew Heavy Dragoon pistol at least simplified ammunition issues byretaining the same caliber as the Dragoons’ carbine, its new lengthfurther complicated standardization.

Henry Nock

In the 1790s the famous artist, engineer, and gun maker HenryNock further complicated the English pistol question. In 1793,Nock, a brilliant innovator, manufactured 80 side-by-side, double-barreled pistols for the Royal Horse Artillery. The barrels were 18inches in length; the left barrel was rifled and fired by the rear of thetwo triggers. Nock fitted his double-barreled pistol with a detach-able shoulder stock, referred to as a shifting butt in contemporarymilitary records. Nock’s pistol was almost impossible to aim and firecomfortably without the stock, owing to its weight and general awk-wardness, but with the stock it proved a very serviceable carbine.

A 1796 Board of General Officers meeting to address new car-bines and pistols for heavy dragoons soon presented Nock with anew opportunity. The board called for a new 9-inch barrel of thesame caliber as the new carbine to be issued singly per man ratherthan in the customary braces. The next year Nock began manufac-ture of the new pistol, utilizing conventional locks as well as those ofhis own unique design. Nock’s design utilized removable pins ratherthan screws, making it more easily dismantled for repair and clean-ing; 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 Pattern1796 was not fitted with a butt cap, and its rammer was stowed inthe holster rather than a channel under the barrel.

Although infinitely logical, these late-eighteenth-century at-tempts to standardize pistol and carbine issues unfortunately evapo-rated during the Napoleonic Wars. The overwhelming need to armvast numbers of regular troops and volunteer units forced Englandto press into service any arms available. Even as domestic manufac-turers churned out the latest pistol models, ordnance officialsscoured arsenals for retired weapons, and agents sailed abroad withcontracts for foreign arms makers. Liège, Belgium, one of Europe’s

42 PISTOLS

largest firearms production centers, provided England with thou-sands of pistols that were serviceable but of lesser quality than En-gland’s domestic products. Volunteer units also muddied the watersby procuring pistols wherever they could find them. Volunteer pis-tols were generally distinguished by the application of a “V” to theirbutt caps to denote their issue. This chaotic situation often resultedin mounted troops being armed with carbines and pistols of differ-ent calibers—an extreme and dangerous disadvantage for them anda real problem for ordnance officers and sergeants.

Still, innovators such as Nock continued to improve the pistol’sdesign. Nock’s pistols during the first two decades of the nineteenthcentury retained the simple lines of his Pattern 1796 with its 9-inchbarrel. Significantly, the new-style pistols were fitted with a rammerpermanently attached by a swivel device under the muzzle to pre-vent loss during use. Later, the new swivel assembly was added toolder pistols. The locks, theoretically interchangeable with the issuecarbine, originally were fitted with a sliding flat safety behind thehammer, which was abandoned in later pistols. In an attempt tomake the pistol more waterproof, a raised pan without a fence wasadded to discourage water from collecting in the mouth of the panand seeping into the priming powder.

Collier Pistol

In 1818 the American engineer Elisha H. Collier patented a re-volving pistol in England and the next year submitted it for adoptionby the British Army to the Select Committee at Woolwich. Collierprobably based his pistol on an earlier design by his fellow country-man Captain Artemus Wheeler. As originally submitted, Collier’spistols employed a cylindrical magazine bored with four, five, oreight chambers that rotated automatically upon cocking by means ofa prewound spiral spring. Another spring then advanced the cylinderagainst the breech of the barrel. The fronts of the chambers werechamfered, or recessed, to allow them to slide over the breech of thepistol’s single barrel. This formed a relatively tight seal to minimizethe loss of energy upon ignition. A third spring allowed the cylinderto retract for further rotation. A self-priming magazine attached tothe battery speeds the pistol’s operation. Although the committeeacknowledged the ingenuity of Collier’s pistol, it declared it too ex-pensive and ultimately judged it overly complicated and delicate for


hard field use. Having simplified his design by omitting the auto-matic rotating feature, Collier resubmitted his pistol, only to receivea final rejection. Realizing only modest civilian sales of his inven-tion, Collier eventually ceased production.

Later English Standardization Efforts

Later developments toward the end of the flintlock era in Englandincluded the shortening of Sea Service (or Navy) pistol barrels to aslittle as 4.5 inches in 1822, as well as the possibility of abandoningthe issue of pistols to mounted troops altogether. The last proposal,made in 1828 by a board of officers under Sir Richard Hussey Vi-vian, proposed arming cavalry with carbines without the added fire-power of pistols. Scorned for its uselessness by the British Army, thepistol was eventually dropped as a cavalry weapon, although Lancersreceived one pistol each.

French Pistols

From 1650 through the eighteenth century France tended to domi-nate its rivals in firearms design and production. One key to thissuccess lay in their early centralization of production in key manu-facturing centers. During the seventeenth century skilled Belgiangunsmiths had relocated from the famed firearms producing city ofLiège to Charleville. Charleville quickly grew into a major manufac-turing center with a royal arsenal that produced well-made musketsand pistols. Other royal arsenals were set up in Saint Étienne,Maubeuge, and Paris. The Royal Manufactory of Versailles also pro-duced presentation firearms of extremely high quality for the kings’pleasure.

Regardless of their arsenal of origin, French military pistolstended to conform well to standard patterns and were robust, logi-cally designed weapons. Both English and French designs securedthe breech of the barrel to the stock by means of a screw throughthe tang, requiring a screwdriver for disassembly. The Frenchmethod of securing the barrel to the forestock, however, held a sig-nificant advantage over that of the English. The English preferredto attach their barrels by means of metal pins that passed throughthe stock and through loops brazed to the bottom of the barrel, a

44 PISTOLS

method that made disassembly of the pistol difficult. This was asignificant defect in that black gunpowder leaves a highly corrosiveresidue that requires thorough cleaning with hot, soapy water toprevent rust and fouling. Although a pistol could be cleaned withthe barrel in place, it was not an ideal option, and the hot watercould eventually damage the wood stock. To accomplish an effec-tive cleaning required dismounting the barrel completely to cleanunder the vent hole and the inner lock plate surface. The Frencheased the field disassembly of their firearms by utilizing metalbands that wrap around the stock and barrel, securing it in place.Simply pressing a spring retaining catch allowed the barrel band toslide off, freeing the barrel. Later eighteenth-century French pis-tols can also be distinguished from English weapons in their lack ofbutt-cap spurs and reinforcing metal straps connecting the butt capto the barrel tang and trigger guard.

Prussian Pistols

Military pistols of the German states during the time, most notablyPrussia, differ in only superficial details from those of other Euro-pean nations. A significant number were used by Hessian troops inthe American colonies during the Revolutionary War. Early eigh-teenth-century German pistols were generally fitted with long, ap-proximately 13-inch, smoothbore barrels. The barrels were pinnedto metal-tipped stocks that extended to the muzzle. In 1789 Pruss-ian arsenals such as the venerable Potzdam Magazin reduced thebarrel lengths to 11 inches. The barrels of considerable numbers ofearlier models were also reduced to that length during the period. In1808 Prussia further reduced its pistols’ barrel lengths to 8 inches.The arsenals also produced a number of types of wood shoulderstocks that could be attached to the butts of the pistols to convertthem into carbines.

American Colonial Pistols

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


almost useless as a hunting weapon, and thus few were manufac-tured in the colonies before the wars. In addition, British authori-ties banned the export of arms to the colonies in expectation ofcoming hostilities. The necessities of war did spark American gun-smiths to begin manufacturing pistols; understandably, they pri-marily based their products on British models. These pistols wereproduced in small quantities in gun shops throughout the coloniesand exhibit great variations in quality and appearance. Americanpistols were usually somewhat cruder in construction than theirBritish counterparts and were often less graceful in their lines.They were typically fitted with iron rather than brass fittings andemploy maple or cherry stocks rather than English walnut. Ameri-can troops also relied on Dutch and German weapons as well asnumerous pistols from the royal French arsenals at Saint Étienne,Charleville, and Maubeuge.

Rappahannock Forge

During the American Revolution, James Hunter’s Hunter IronWorks, more popularly known as the Rappahannock Forge, pro-duced the first true American-made military pistol. Hunter’s factorywas located at Falmouth, Virginia, on the Rappahannock River andproduced a close copy of the British Light Dragoon pistol undercontract to the state of Virginia. The Rappahannock pistol wasabout 15 inches in overall length with a 9-inch barrel. Calibers be-tween various specimens vary from .66 to .69. Other gun shops pro-duced copies of the French Models 1763 and 1777 then being sup-plied by France to American forces.

North and Cheney U.S. Model 1779

Following the Revolution, the fledgling United States contractedwith Simeon North and Elisha Cheney of Berlin, Connecticut, tomanufacture the first official-issue U.S. military pistol. As Francehad provided the Continental Army with much of its equipment dur-ing the Revolution, North and Cheney relied on the French Model1777 pistol as the prototype for the U.S. Model 1779. It shared thesame caliber .69 of the standard American military musket and con-tinued in production until 1802.

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Harpers Ferry Armory Models 1805, 1808, 1811, and 1813

In 1806 the recently established Harpers Ferry Armory introducedthe first U.S. government–manufactured pistol, the Model 1805.The Model 1805 was a caliber .54 smoothbore weapon and returnedAmerican pistols to a more British rather than Gallic appearance.The main difference in English and French pistols of the period layin the method of attaching the barrel to the stock. English gun-smiths soldered loops to the underside of the barrel through whichmetal pins secured the barrel to the fore stock. Although the FrenchModel 1777, like the U.S. Model 1779, lacked a fore stock, mostFrench pistols utilized metal barrel bands to secure the barrels. TheModel 1805 was fitted with the English-style pins and continued inproduction until 1808. Later designs included the caliber .64 Model1808 and caliber .69 Models 1811 and 1813. During the Model1811 production the United States began utilizing metal barrelbands rather than pins; this method made pistols easier to disassem-ble for cleaning. The pressing need for additional pistols necessi-tated by the War of 1812 also prompted state and national authori-ties to issue contracts to numerous gun makers to supplement theHarpers Ferry production. Such pistols exhibited many variations infittings and caliber but generally conformed to the basic design ofthe military holster pistols.

U.S. Models 1816, 1817, 1819, 1826, and 1836

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


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

Later Flintlock Pistols

The late flintlocks of the first quarter of the nineteenth century dis-played the sophistication of more than two centuries of constant re-finement. The ignition of the flintlock was, however, its greatestdrawback. No matter how well-made the pistol, it could always berendered useless by damp or windy conditions that could saturatethe loose priming or simply blow it out of the pan. Vents oftenclogged if not cleaned well and produced the flash in the pan thatfails to ignite the main charge. In addition, flints were prone to chipand break, and batteries (frizzen) lost their temper and thus spark-ing ability with constant use. Just as important, the flintlock did notlend itself to use in practical repeating arms, which would becomethe greatest firearms achievement of the nineteenth century.

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C H A P T E R 3

The Percussion System

REVEREND ALEXANDER JOHN FORSYTH

An 1807 British patent registered by Reverend Alexander JohnForsyth of Belhelvie, Scotland, signaled the great turning point infirearms development. Forsyth’s invention would pave the way forthe metallic cartridge as well as viable repeating weapons. Hispatent called for the use of fulminates as an ignition system. Com-pounds produced by dissolving various metals in acids and thendried into a powder, fulminates are so unstable that they explodewhen struck with a sharp blow. Earlier inventors had grasped thepotential advantages of fulminates for primary ignition over the flintsystem, but their efforts had met with little success. For the mostpart their efforts failed owing to their use of the compound as boththe ignition and main propellant in their arms. As fulminates tend toproduce a greater explosive power than conventional black powder,many of these failures were rather spectacular, often resulting in thedestruction of the weapons and injury to the experimenters. Rev-erend Forsyth wisely retained the old predictable black powder asthe main propellant and confined his use of fulminates to ignition.Forsyth thus pursued experiments that relied on the percussion ofhis weapon’s hammer directly on the fulminates to ignite the mainpowder charge.

Forsyth, an avid sportsman and tinkerer, began his initial trials inan attempt to develop a faster ignition system for hunting guns. As a

49

bird hunter, the good reverend was often irritated by the brief inter-val between the flash of the flintlock’s pan and the firing of his shot-gun’s main charge. Although this interval was a mere fraction of asecond, Forsyth believed that it allowed the canniest of his prey toavoid the ensuing load of shot. He built his first percussion gun in1805 and followed it with numerous improved patterns.

Forsyth fitted his guns with what he termed detonating locks, al-though they were more popularly known as scent bottles for the ful-minate magazines he used, which resembled perfume bottles. Hisimproved lock featured a flask-shaped magazine filled with fulmi-nate powder and pivoted to the lock plate. To operate the weapon,one would conventionally muzzle-load the pistol with the maincharge and ball. He would then rotate the magazine back to a panattached next to the vent, where the magazine would deliver a meas-ured amount of fulminate. The resulting detonation of the hammerstriking the powder would then send flame through the vent to ig-nite the main powder charge. Forsyth and others also experimentedwith other magazine designs that could be either levered or slid intoposition, but the scent-bottle magazine dominated the field duringthe early percussion era.

Like many true visionaries, Forsyth found little official recogni-tion for his achievements during his lifetime. Seeking governmentsponsorship, he at first demonstrated his new invention to LordMoira, Master of the Ordnance. Impressed, Moira arranged forForsyth to continue his experiments under the government’s aus-pices in the Tower of London. Unfortunately, Forsyth lost his gov-ernment sponsorship in 1807 when Lord Moira’s shortsighted polit-ical successor, Lord Chatham, brother of Prime Minister WilliamPitt, ordered him out of the Tower.

The loss of government backing did not end the intrepid rev-erend’s efforts. In 1812 he entered a partnership with James Watt,the renowned inventor of the steamboat. Watt was instrumental inguiding Forsyth through the necessary patent process and helpedhim obtain a British patent dated back to 1807, thus securing hisplace in history. James Purdey, one of the foremost English gun-smiths of the era, joined Forsyth and Watt to begin the manufac-ture of Forsyth’s percussion designs. Although Forsyth was reason-ably successful as a private gun maker, the lack of the Britishgovernment’s appreciation for his efforts plagued him for the restof his life. Despite the British military’s adoption of Forsyth’s per-cussion system in 1839, the government delayed payment for theuse of his patent and even then offered Forsyth a paltry £200. In

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1843 public outrage at this injustice eventually prompted the au-thorities to award an additional £800 to the initial royalties, butthe payment was too late for Forsyth to enjoy it—he had died justmonths earlier.

As with any new invention there was some initial resistance to theuniversal acceptance of the percussion system. There was, for exam-ple, a general feeling among sportsmen that percussion weaponswere not quite as powerful as the old tried-and-true flintlocks. In ad-dition, percussion weapons delivered greater recoil than flintlocks,as the flintlocks’ vent released a certain amount of pressure on igni-tion. Accordingly, many gentlemen ordered pistols with interchange-able flint and fulminate locks. The scent bottle and its variationswere just as expensive as their flintlock competitors and in manycases were more complicated to manufacture and operate. As a re-sult, their early use was confined to only the most sophisticated gunenthusiasts. Fulminates were also more corrosive than black powderand thus tended to damage the pistols’ mechanisms if the weaponswere not meticulously cleaned immediately after use. Still, Forsythand his competitors found a market among wealthy gentleman-sportsmen hungry for the latest status-laden gadget.

THE PATCH LOCK, PILL LOCK, AND TUBE LOCK

A number of other percussion systems quickly followed and com-peted with the early scent bottles. The later patch lock, used byForsyth and others, employed what was termed a patch primer—asmall amount of fulminate sandwiched between two pieces of paper.This patch, depending on the pistol’s design, was either adhered tothe hammer’s face or placed directly over a hollow tube attached tothe barrel that directed the flash of ignition into the main powderchamber. In 1816 the renowned London gun maker Joseph Mantonpatented the pill lock, also known as the pellet lock. Although suc-cessfully sued by Forsyth for patent infringements, Manton pro-duced fine weapons that used fulminate mixed with gum arabic androlled into small pills or pellets coated with wax or varnish. Variouspill-lock designs either relied on the placing of the pill or pellet intothe weapon’s pan or into a hollow tube, or plug, inserted into thepistol’s hammer. The main defect of these designs from the militarypoint of view lay in the small size of the pellets, which made them

THE PERCUSSION SYSTEM 51

easy to lose in combat situations, and the tendency of the wax orvarnish binding agents to melt in hot weather.

Manton followed his pill lock with his tube lock, patented in1818. The tube lock utilized a small copper tube, open at both endsand filled with fulminate. The tube was inserted into the pistol’svent with an exposed section resting on a small anvil in the pan ofthe lock. The hammer would then strike the exposed section, simul-taneously exploding the fulminate, flattening and thus closing theoutside end of the tube, and directing the flame into the main pow-der chamber. The tube lock’s main defect lay in that the hammerdid not always seal the exposed end of the tube and allowed theflame to flash into the shooter’s or a companion’s face. In some in-stances the entire tube blew out of the vent, causing severe injury tothose nearby. Although sufficient for sporting arms, these designswere also impractical for use in military pistols. During the confu-sion and excitement of battle, the pellets, patches, and tubes wereeasily dropped or improperly inserted into the pistol. In any case,few of these alternate percussion systems gained significant popu-larity, and most of those manufactured and sold in the UnitedStates and Europe were later converted to the more reliable percus-sion-cap ignition.

THE PERCUSSION CAP

Although a number of gentlemen claimed the invention of the per-cussion cap as their own, the most likely candidate was JoshuaShaw, an English-born landscape artist who immigrated to Philadel-phia in 1817. Shaw received a U.S. patent for the percussion cap in1822. Shaw’s closest rivals for the honor were the famed Englishgun maker Durs Egg, who received an English patent the same year,and a Frenchman named Prélat, who obtained a French patent in1818. The discrepancy in patent dates does not indicate that Shawwas not the inventor of the percussion cap but merely misinformedon patent law. Having invented the percussion cap in England, heapparently failed to patent it owing to his mistaken belief thatForsyth’s patents covered all fulminate-ignition systems. He haddemonstrated his invention publicly, and other, cannier entrepre-neurs had made quick runs to their respective patent offices to ex-ploit the new invention. For his part, the Frenchman Prélat appar-ently made something of a career of exploiting France’s lax patent

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laws by registering others’ ideas before the original inventors couldreach Paris themselves.

The invention of the percussion cap was arguably the greatestsingle development in nineteenth-century firearms history. Shaw’scontribution was to place a small amount of fulminate into a tinymetal cup, or cap, and seal the powder in with a piece of foil and adab of varnish. The cap was then placed firmly on a metal cone ornipple screwed into the breech of the pistol to direct the flash of thecap into the powder chamber. In later years Shaw claimed that theidea came to him through a fortuitous accident. By Shaw’s own ac-count, he had sealed a small steel tube of a fulminate mixture withone of his drawing pencils that then rolled off of a table and struckthe floor, discharging the fulminate. Shaw first experimented withreusable iron and pewter caps but found the results unsatisfactory.He finally settled on copper as the ideal material for his caps, a deci-sion also arrived at by his competitor, Egg, and other rivals such asthe Londoner Frederick Joyce and E. Goode Wright of Hereford. In1823 Wright developed and rigorously promoted an improved cop-per cap that replaced earlier fulminates with the less corrosive ful-minate of mercury.

Having settled on the materials for both the primer and cap,Shaw and his competitors faced a final obstacle in producing a trulypractical percussion cap. During experimental trials the early capsdisplayed a distressing tendency to blow apart into small dangerousfragments upon ignition. Shaw and the others found a two-prongedsolution. By manufacturing the larger musket caps with integralsplits in their sides and scoring the pistol caps with tiny grooves, theinventors found they could control the caps’ self-destruction. Theythen recessed the nose of the hammer—the point of contact be-tween hammer and cap—to cover the cap and to prevent fragmentsof the cap from flying in the user’s face. The new percussion systemoffered the twin advantages of simplifying and thus shortening theloading time, as well as greatly reducing the pistol’s vulnerability todamp conditions. Shaw later developed mass-production machineryfor his caps and helped set up the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphiafor 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 tech-nology, military officials were somewhat slower in abandoning theirflintlocks, which had been proven under fire. Their initial objectionswere similar to those of their civilian counterparts, but during the1830s ordnance boards in Europe and the United States began test-


ing percussion prototypes. By the mid-1840s most modern nationshad adopted the percussion system as standard and began manufac-turing percussion weapons and converting older flintlocks to thenew system.

EARLY BRITISH PERCUSSION PISTOLS

In England, it fell to Inspector of Small Arms George Lovell to over-see the conversion of older military pistols and the design and test-ing of new percussion weapons. A talented designer and administra-tor, Lovell assumed his post in 1840, shortly after the cavalry’srejection of pistols as “ineffectual.” Nevertheless, Lovell supervisedthe government factory at Enfield and ordnance shops in Londonand Birmingham in fabricating percussion pistols from older flint-lock components for the Sea Service, Navy, and Coast Guard.These pistols were fitted with 6-inch barrels and belt hooks. In1848 he also was instrumental in the manufacture of 500 box-lockpocket pistols for issue to undercover agents of the Royal Irish Con-stabulary.

Lovell also designed a new percussion pistol for lancers and cav-alry sergeant majors and trumpeters. More interested in the designof carbines and muskets, Lovell came up with a practical, reliablepistol that was decidedly lacking in visual appeal. His new weaponwas fitted with a swivel rammer and a 9-inch barrel bored to thestandard carbine caliber. It was, however, extremely plain in appear-ance and was markedly stubby owing to its short grip.

CONVERSION PERCUSSION PISTOLS

The percussion system ushered in a new era of private gun owner-ship and was to help revolutionize warfare. The civilian shootingpublic was the first to embrace the percussion system, first in En-gland and soon after in the rest of Europe and America. Enthralledby the new technology, many owners of flintlock pistols had themconverted to percussion—a relatively simple procedure. In mostcases a gunsmith removed the pan, battery, and battery spring fromthe lock plate and replaced the flint cock with a simplified percus-sion hammer. Screwing a bolster and cone assembly into the vent

54 PISTOLS

completed the conversion. National governments, in both Europeand the United States, also began a systematic program of convert-ing older weapons in their stores to the new system. National ar-mories as well as private contractors working under government su-pervision carried out these conversions.

CIVILIAN PERCUSSION PISTOLS

By the 1830s most fine pistols were designed from their inception aspercussion weapons. The first of these weapons were expensivesporting guns intended for a well-heeled clientele. Crafted by suchmasters as Joseph Manton and Joseph Egg, these guns were beauti-fully proportioned and tastefully ornamented in the traditions of thegreat artisans of the 1600s and 1700s.

Pairs of single-shot dueling pistols remained very popular amongboth the American and European elite. That dueling had been de-clared illegal in the majority of these venues made little real impacton the manufacture or acquisition of such weapons—most ownerssaw dueling pistols more as works of art than as devices to kill oth-ers. Many such weapons produced during the decline of duelingwere more accurately termed target pistols, as their superior accu-racy lent them naturally to precision recreational shooting. Finegunsmiths typically sold duelers and target pistols in matched pairsin fine wood cases complete with the requisite accessories that hadbecome so popular during the flintlock era. Typical percussion duel-ing pistols, especially in France, Germany, and the United States,tended to be rifled while retaining the same general lines of theolder smoothbore flintlock duelers.

During the period between 1840 and 1870 the United Statesboasted a number of talented pistol smiths, including Philadelphia’sRichard Constable and Henry Deringer, as well as Mullin of NewYork and Happoldt of Charleston, South Carolina. In St. Louis,Missouri, Hawken, the famous frontier rifle maker, also crafted afew high-quality pistols. Their output included duelers, target pis-tols, and belt pistols that could be worn on a belt rather than a sad-dle holster. For the most part these gunsmiths took their stylistic in-spiration from the British, crafting rather large half-stocked pistolsaveraging about 17 inches in overall length with 10- or 11-inch oc-tagonal barrels. Bores were usually rifled and between calibers .48and .54.


The advent of the percussion era also greatly accelerated the de-mocratization of private gun ownership. The 1840s, 1850s, and1860s saw an enormous increase in production of pistols for theU.S. civilian market. The United States, where gun ownership wasconsidered a fundamental right, saw a rapid rise in the productionand sales of mass-produced, affordable pistols. The industrial revo-lution had a significant impact on U.S. pistol manufacturing. Asboth the population and frontier expanded, numbers of privatelyowned arms factories sprang up to meet the needs of the growingand often violent society. Powered by steam and water, these newfactories clustered in the northern states and competed to supply pi-oneers, miners, gamblers, and common citizens with cheap personalprotection. Although large numbers of these pistols were cheaplymade, low-quality weapons, others were affordable and well-made.Ethan Allen in his various partnerships in Massachusetts was one ofthe 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 bootlegpistols, or boot pistols. As their nickname suggests, such pistolscould be easily concealed high in the top of riding boots typical ofthe period. Although there were some multibarreled boot pistols,most were simply constructed, rifled, single-shot weapons of cal-ibers between .36 and .44 that could deliver a lethal charge at closequarters. Most boot pistols were also purposely built along the linesof a blackjack, so as to be reversed in the hand and used as a trun-cheon if the bullet failed to discourage an opponent.

UNDERHAMMER PISTOLS

Self-described underhammer pistols were a popular variation of thestandard boot pistol. Located under the barrel, the low-profile ham-mer was less liable to snag on one’s clothing in a fast draw and didnot obstruct the sighting line of the pistol. Underhammer pistolswere also safer to shoot, because copper percussion caps often blew

56 PISTOLS

apart upon ignition and, on conventional pistols, could even blindthe shooter. On underhammer pistols any cap debris simply flew to-ward the ground. Such handy weapons were considered indispensa-ble on the frontier and along the highways and back alleys of thenew nation.

POCKET AND COAT PISTOLS

Pocket pistols, also known as coat pistols, were small in size yet oflarge caliber that could easily be carried in one’s trouser pocket or,more commonly, the coat pocket. These pistols were manufacturedin both single- and multibarreled versions, but by far the most popu-lar and sought-after pocket pistols were those made by Philadelphiagunsmith Henry Deringer Jr. Having founded his business in 1806,Deringer made a name for himself producing flintlock weapons forthe U.S. Army and, from the 1820s through the 1840s, high-qualitypercussion dueling, target, and pocket pistols for the civilian mar-ket. Between the mid-1850s and the mid-1860s Deringer achievedhis greatest fame and notoriety with the diminutive percussion pis-tols that would make his a household name.

So famous was Deringer’s product that it quickly attracted imi-tators who, attempting to circumvent patent and copyright laws,intentionally stamped their products with such names as “DER-RINGER.” Their efforts, combined with those of sloppy journalists,permanently labeled any small, one- or two-shot pocket pistol withthe misspelled name of its inventor. This was the case of JohnWilkes Booth’s derringer following the assassination of AbrahamLincoln. Although Booth used an original Deringer, now on exhibitat 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 prod-uct than its generic derringer competitors. Deringer’s skilled crafts-men combined fine, checkered walnut and German silver engravedmountings with a short, rifled barrel to produce their handsome yetdeadly little pistols. Most Deringers were sold as cased pairs, com-plete with a bullet mold, and some deluxe models featured silver orgold mountings. Americans prized the Deringer for its easily con-cealed size and its lethally large bore. Booth’s pistol, for example,was a mere 5.87 inches long, yet was bored to caliber .41.


U.S. MILITARY PISTOLS

Private contractors under the direction of military ordnance inspec-tors manufactured the vast majority of U.S. percussion militarypistols. The two U.S. arsenals at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, and Spring-field, Massachusetts, manufactured few pistols, instead concentrat-ing on long-arm production. The arrangement, originating with theMilitia Act of 1808, reflected the new nation’s reliance on a smallnational army supplemented by a large militia. The national arsenalsthus channeled most of their arms to regular units, while the privatearsenals supplied the national government with most of its pistolsand the various states with both pistols and muskets. An annual ap-propriation of $200,000 distributed among the states financed theirarms acquisitions.

The six primary private arsenals were: Asa Waters of Sutton (laterrenamed Milbury), Massachusetts; Simeon North of Berlin (latermoved to Middletown), Connecticut; Nathan Starr of Middletown,Connecticut; Eli Whitney of New Haven (Whitney’s factory town,also called Whitneyville), Connecticut; Henry Deringer of Philadel-phia; and Lemuel Pomeroy of Pittsville, Massachusetts. Two privatesouthern 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 untilits abrupt demise in 1848 in what came to be known as the TalcottScandal. In that year Colonel George Talcott replaced ColonelGeorge Bomford as Chief of Ordnance and almost immediately con-tracts to the private contractors ceased. Despite desperate inquiriesby the cash-strapped contractors, Talcott, by then a brevet brigadiergeneral, remained mute on the subject. Suspicions of misconducton Talcott’s part soon arose following subsequent routine inspec-tions of the various national forts and arsenals by Secretary of WarCharles M. Conrad. These investigations revealed a massive surplusof new cannon balls overflowing the installations. An ensuing ex-change between the Secretary and the arrogantly evasive Talcott ledConrad to the verge of issuing a challenge to a duel. Denied a duelowing to the two men’s offices, the Secretary resorted to ordering acourt-martial.

The court-martial, on which General Winfield Scott served asjudge advocate, soon ferreted out the cause of the contractors’ prob-lems. Talcott, it was learned, happened to own a large foundry inRichmond that was in the business of casting cannonballs. Having

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diverted nearly the entire funds for other ordnance to his own fac-tory, Talcott had made himself wealthy, complete with a lavishlifestyle and extensive real estate holdings. The outraged court-mar-tial stripped Talcott of his rank and office and erased his name fromthe army’s officers roll. Unfortunately, the army’s actions were toolate to save most of the contractors from bankruptcy. Only the EliWhitney firm managed to continue as a major supplier of militaryarms.

U.S. Navy Elgin Cutlass Pistol

The first officially adopted U.S. percussion pistol, the U.S. Navy El-gin Cutlass, is also one of the most unique. Only 150 cutlass pistolswere made between 1837 and 1838 for the express purpose of arm-ing the Wilkes–South Sea Exploring Expedition, and a very limitednumber of smaller pistols were made for private sale. George Elgin,who found inspiration in the exploits of the legendary frontiersmanJames Bowie, patented the pistol that was then manufactured byC. B. Allen of Springfield.

The military contract pistol was a single-shot, caliber .54 smooth-bore mounting an 11-inch Bowie knife blade under the barrel.Forged by the famous cutler N. P. Ames of Springfield, the bladestretched the pistol’s length to an imposing 17 inches. A brass orGerman silver mounted sheath manufactured by Ames completedthe ensemble. The cutlass pistol also holds the distinction of beingthe only combination pistol weapon adopted by the U.S. military.The unwieldiness of the blade and the relative expense in manufac-ture were the major factors in the government’s decision not to ex-tend the contract beyond the initial 150 pistols. Although Allen andthe firm of Morrill, Mosman, and Blair of Amherst, Massachusetts,attempted to market small and medium-sized versions of the navypistol, neither met with appreciable success, and the firm soonended 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 per-cussion pistols by contracting N. P. Ames and Henry Deringer ofPhiladelphia to manufacture the Model 1842 Percussion Navy Pis-tol. The U.S. Revenue Cutter Service, the precursor of the Coast


Guard, also purchased a limited number in 1843. The Navy Model1842 is a caliber .54, smoothbore weapon of rather simple lineswith a swivel mounted ramrod and brass mountings. Its most dis-tinctive feature is its box lock with the hammer mounted inside thelock plate.

U.S. Model 1842 Percussion Pistol

The Model 1842 was the first general issue percussion pistoladopted by the U.S. Army, but its production was delayed untilabout 1845. The firms of Henry Aston and Ira N. Johnson of Mid-dletown, Connecticut, manufactured the Model 1842 under con-tract to the government until production ended in 1852. The Pal-metto Arsenal of Columbia, South Carolina, also produced a smallnumber of Model 1842s for issue to South Carolina militia units.The Model 1842 closely resembles the earlier Model 1836 flintlockbut was fitted with brass rather than iron mountings, giving it asomewhat more handsome appearance. The Model 1842 was issuedin pairs to be carried in saddle holsters, as was the Model 1836.Both pistols saw significant use by U.S. troops during the IndianWars, 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, aWashington dentist, and the famed arms designer ChristianSharps—made significant contributions to percussion technology.In 1845 Maynard obtained a patent for his ingenious tape primerlock. Employing the principle still used in modern toy cap pistols,Maynard’s lock utilized a milled circular compartment to hold a rollof caps consisting of 50 drops of fulminate sandwiched between twonarrow paper strips. The tape compartment was protected by a smallhinged door forward of the hammer. A simple mechanism attachedto the pistol’s hammer would automatically feed the drops of fulmi-nate to the nipple with each cock of the hammer.

The U.S. military adopted the Maynard system for use in theModel 1855 Pistol-Carbine. A caliber .54, single-shot muzzle-loader, the Model 1855 could be easily distinguished from other pis-tols of the period by its detachable shoulder stock and Maynard de-vice. The Model 1855 found favor among some cavalrymen who

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preferred its automatic capping system rather than manually cap-ping their pistols with conventional caps. Still, the Maynard tapeswere often difficult to obtain under field conditions, and eventuallymost Civil War soldiers came to rely on the more readily availablepercussion caps that could also be fitted to the pistol’s nipple.

The Sharps design, just as ingenious as Maynard’s, ultimately alsoproved to be impractical in the field. The Sharps system relied on aspring-fed tube of 25 small primer discs that was inserted into amagazine behind the nipple. The falling hammer would then triggerthe magazine to eject a single disk that would then, in theory, fall be-tween the nipple and hammer in time to spark the pistol’s mainpowder charge. The tiny, fragile springs of the mechanism as well asthe split-second timing required for its successful operation doomedthe disk primer. Minute amounts of dirt, rust, and moisture—allabundant elements of combat situations—could render the disk sys-tem useless. As a result, in 1859 Richard Lawrence patented hisLawrence cutoff. Rather strangely, in retrospect, the cutoff wastouted as an improvement in that it effectively disengaged the discfeed so that conventional percussion caps could be used.

THE PEPPERBOX

Gunsmiths had attempted to design multiple shot weapons as farback as the matchlock era. Although some of their designs hadshown considerable ingenuity, all were crippled by the ignition sys-tems then available. The invention of the percussion cap at lastmade practical repeating weapons possible. The first widely manu-factured pistols in this category employed multiple barrels that re-volved around a central pin. Usually employing four to six barrels,these pistols, known popularly as pepperboxes, were produced bothin the United States and Europe from the 1820s until about 1860.Although pepperboxes did not become widely accepted as militaryarms, they did see considerable usage by officers who purchasedthem privately.

The earliest pepperboxes required the barrels to be rotated manu-ally, but after 1830 most pistols were equipped with a pawl that au-tomatically rotated the barrels as the hammer was cocked. Oddly, noEuropean filed a patent for the automatic barrel rotation, leavingAmericans Benjamin and Barton Darling free to claim a U.S. patentin 1836. The following year the Massachusetts firearms innovator


Ethan Allen patented the first double-action pepperbox. Earlier pep-perboxes had been single-action weapons, requiring the hammer tobe pulled back manually to cock the weapon. Allen’s double-actiondesign automatically cocked and fired the pistol by pulling the trig-ger. This improvement made Allen’s pepperboxes the fastest-firingrepeating arms of the era. Also, nearly all pepperboxes were manu-factured with their nipples screwed into the barrels’ breeches atright angles, necessitating a vertical hammer fall. This made earlierpepperboxes very difficult to aim, owing to the high hammer profilein the shooter’s line of sight. A low-profile bar hammer also gaveAllen’s pepperboxes a sleek profile, allowing for quick drawing froma pants or coat pocket and a less obstructed aiming view.

Other U.S. manufacturers included the Darlings, Blunt andSims, and the Manhattan Arms Company. The typical Americanpepperbox is a utilitarian weapon of either four or six barrels. Mostwere rather plain in appearance, being intended for mass produc-tion and sale at moderate prices. Any decoration usually consisted ofmachine-engraved scrollwork. British and continental Europeanpepperboxes were often of much better craftsmanship and exhibitfiner embellishments. Many were also fitted with belt hooks, a rarefeature in U.S.-made pepperboxes. British manufacturers includedsuch famous firms as those of James Purdey, Joseph Manton, andthe Rigbys of Dublin.

The number of barrels fitted to European pepperboxes varies morewidely than in the United States, ranging from three to 24. JosephManton offered an 18-barreled pistol with six nipples designed to firethree barrels simultaneously. Manton also offered knife blades thatcould be screwed into the butts of his pistols, converting them intoemergency daggers. The Mariete system, patented in Belgium in1837, was popular among Belgian and French gunsmiths and em-ployed separate barrels that screwed into a common breechblock.Ring triggers and Damascus twist barrels were other common conti-nental features not typically found on other pepperboxes.

Although pepperboxes enjoyed wide popularity during the firsthalf of the nineteenth century, they do suffer from some significantdrawbacks. Their multiple barrels tended to make them ungainly,and accuracy was compromised by the heavy trigger pull required tocock the hammer and rotate the barrels. The weight of the barrelsalso made aiming difficult, and the hammer, usually located cen-trally on the top of the frame, tended to obstruct the pistols’ line ofsight.

Mark Twain, during an 1861 stagecoach journey in the West, en-

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countered a fellow passenger proudly brandishing an Allen pepper-box. The author’s description of both pistol and owner was less thanflattering. Although conceding that his Allen was somewhat prone todischarge all of its barrels at once, the man insisted on demonstrat-ing its accuracy. Taking careful aim, according to Twain, the intrepidmarksman then managed to shoot a hapless mule standing some 30yards from the intended target. Having paid the mule’s shotgun-tot-ing owner, the hapless man joined Twain and the others in thestagecoach.

The Transition Revolver

Despite such obvious deficiencies, the pepperbox continued to re-tain a few loyal adherents. In addition, the aptly named transition re-volver emerged as something of an evolutionary link between therapidly obsolescing pepperbox and the up-and-coming true revolver.The transition revolver retained the internal mechanism of the pep-perbox but substituted the multiple revolving barrels with a short-ened revolving cylinder for individual loadings. This rear assemblywas typically attached to a single barrel by means of its cylinder pinpassing through a hole underneath the barrel in the forward section.A metal wedge secured the components. This arrangement, despitevarious efforts to strengthen it, made the transition revolver inher-ently weaker in design than either the pepperbox or true revolver.Repeated use thus loosened the joint between the two sections, withan inevitable loss of accuracy. In addition, many transition revolversshared the common pepperbox defect of lacking partitions separat-ing the individual nipples. This oversight allowed flame to jumpfrom one nipple to another in a dangerous chain-fire reaction (thesimultaneous ignition of one or more chambers). It would take acompeting revolving pistol system to finally prove the pepperbox’sand transitional revolver’s obsolescence.

SAMUEL COLT

In February 1836 an American patented the first practical single-barreled revolver. Born in 1814 in Hartford, Connecticut, SamuelColt epitomized the entrepreneurial spirit of nineteenth-centuryAmerica. At an early age Colt exhibited a talent for combining his


interests in mechanics and science with self-promotion. At 15 headvertised his intentions to blow up a raft on a local pond with anelectrically detonated mine. He succeeded in not only destroyingthe raft but also drenching the spectators gathered on the bank. Helater assisted Samuel F. B. Morse in a telegraph company ventureand set out on a traveling tent show where he demonstrated theamusing effects of laughing gas on paying audiences. In 1830 Coltset sail as a trainee midshipman aboard the Corco, a brig bound forCalcutta. While his shipmates filled their spare time practicingscrimshaw, Colt picked up knife and wood to carve a legend.

Colt’s wood prototype of his first revolver still survives to prove hewas no great artist with the knife. Colt was always looking for thosewith talents to augment his own and turned to another Hartford res-ident, Anson Chase, to produce the necessary patent models anddrawings. Chase’s first model unfortunately blew up during test fir-ing—the result of flame jumping from one nipple to the next and ig-niting multiple chambers. Colt quickly modified his original designto avoid that danger by machining partitions between each nipple toprotect them from their neighbors’ ignition. The constant perfec-tionist, Colt then commissioned John Pearson’s Baltimore firm tofine-tune Chase’s work. In December 1835 Colt obtained his firstrevolver patent in England, following it with a U.S. patent in Febru-ary 1836.

Despite the claims of legions of jealous detractors, Colt neverpersonally claimed to have invented the revolver. Revolvingfirearms designs had appeared during the matchlock period, andfellow American Elisha H. Collier had patented a revolving flint-lock pistol in England in 1818. These earlier designs had beenhampered, however, by overly complicated and fragile mechanismsand, more important, by the unavailability of a reliable ignitionsystem such as the percussion cap. Although at least two revolvingpistols appeared in the late 1830s, neither provided Colt with ap-preciable competition.

The partnership of Nichols and Childs of Conway, Massachu-setts, produced only a limited number of pistols based on the earlierCollier principle. Another contemporary design, the Cochran TurretRevolver, manufactured by C. B. Allen of Springfield, had the dis-tinction of being one of the most bizarre pistols ever produced.Rather than revolving a cylinder around a horizontal shaft, theCochran employed a flattened wheel-shaped magazine that rotatedaround a vertically mounted axle. As the Cochran’s chambersfanned out from the central axis like the spokes of a wheel, an acci-

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dental chain-fire was capable of a theoretically 360-degree swath ofdestruction. In addition to the pistol’s dubious safety, a large ham-mer mounted underneath the pistol enhanced the Cochran’s un-gainly appearance. Unlike Cochran and Nichols and Childs, Coltapplied improvements that, when combined with the percussioncap, offered a handsome, practical, and reliable revolving pistol suit-able for mass production.

Colt’s originality lay in his ability to synthesize, simplify, and im-prove existing designs. He dispensed with the complicated spring forcylinder rotation as used by Collier in favor of a simple pawl at-tached to the hammer. Simply cocking the hammer pressed the pawlagainst a notch in the back of the cylinder, rotating its chambersinto position. He also notched the base of the hammer with a half-cock position, allowing the cylinder to turn freely for easier loadingand capping. Pulling the hammer to full cock locked the cylinder inplace for firing. Colt then minimized the possibility of one cap acci-dentally igniting adjacent chambers by machining partitions be-tween each nipple. A flash shield, machined into the frame behindthe cylinder, helped protect the user’s face against exploding capfragments.

The last two improvements were important safety considerationsto those using percussion revolvers. No matter how carefully oneloaded such a weapon, there was always the possibility of chain-fire.In an extreme case a chain-fire could result in blindness or the lossof fingers, or even a hand.

Colt Paterson Revolvers

Colt succeeded in raising the considerable $230,000 in financialbacking necessary and, on 5 March 1836, formed the Patent ArmsManufacturing Company in Paterson, New Jersey. In 1837 the newfactory produced its first product, the tiny, five-shot Pocket ModelPaterson Revolver. The new pistol was bored to caliber .28, fittedwith a fold-down trigger, and its octagonal barrel was available inlengths from only 1.75 to 4.75 inches. Colt’s factory also producedthe larger, five-chambered, caliber .31 Colt Belt Model Paterson Re-volvers No. 2 and No. 3. The most famous of all Colt’s early produc-tion, 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 wasthe largest of Colt’s early pistols. It also boasted exceptionally clean


lines, and it balanced easily in the hand. A roll-engraved cylinderscene depicting a stagecoach holdup, and a handsome blued barreland cylinder with color casehardened frame and hammer added tothe pistol’s visual appeal. In addition, the Texas Paterson’s five cylin-ders and octagonal barrel were also bored to a respectable caliber.36 and could be ordered in lengths from 4 to 12 inches, with 7.5-inch and 9-inch barrels being the most common. The Texas Pater-son, like the smaller pistols, was fitted with a folding trigger thatdropped down for instant use on cocking the hammer. Later Pater-son pistols were fitted with a hinged loading lever mounted underthe barrel and a milled depression on the right side of the flashshield to facilitate capping the nipples.

The Paterson No. 5 appeared on the market only two years afterTexas won independence from Mexico and during one of the great-est periods of western expansion by the United States. Those at-tempting to tame the new frontier found it a violent and hostileplace where one lived and died by the gun. Texans, most notably thefamed Texas Rangers, quickly recognized the advantages of Colt’sbig 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. TheRangers, usually outnumbered in unequal encounters with hostileIndians, Mexicans, and desperadoes, appreciated the extra firepowerof the Colt’s five shots. By carrying a brace of Colts with extraloaded cylinders, small parties of Rangers found that they couldmore than match significantly larger opposing forces armed with theolder weapons. In the hands of such famed Rangers as Jack Hays,the Paterson No. 5 quickly attained legendary status, its name per-manently associated with Texas and the frontier.

Unfortunately for Colt, sales of his new pistols failed to matchtheir growing reputation. In 1837 he submitted the Paterson No. 5to an army committee at West Point for government trials. Exhibit-ing the conservatism that characterized the military leadership, thecommittee rejected the pistol for a number of predictable reasons.The committee judged the No. 5 too complicated (and thus too ex-pensive) and, worst of all, too wasteful of ammunition with its five-shot capacity. The army would retain its single-shot muzzle-loadingpistols for another 10 years before accepting a revolver for govern-ment issue. Desperate, Colt personally carried a number of hisfirearms to Florida in an attempt to impress troops in actual combatwith the Seminoles. Although he sold a few rifles to the governmentand a few pistols to individual soldiers, he returned to Hartford

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without the large government contract he needed. Despite somepurchases by the Republic of Texas Navy, civilian sales, and privatepurchases by military personnel, Colt managed to market only about1,000 Texas Patersons. Sales of his various smaller models wereeven less encouraging, and by 1842 the Patent Arms ManufacturingCompany was bankrupt.

The following four years found Colt in constant litigation with hisformer partners and stockholders. During this period John Ehlers, apartner in the firm, took over as head of the factory and oversaw theassembly and sales of the remaining pistols left on the workbenchesafter Colt’s departure. For his part, Samuel Colt was without moneyor a factory.

The Colt Walker and Dragoon Models

It was Captain Samuel H. Walker, a former Texas Ranger and an oldacquaintance, who offered Colt a proposition that would establishhim as the premier revolver manufacturer. During the first monthsof the Mexican War, troops armed with Texas Patersons had provenits superiority over their standard-issue single-shot muzzleloaders.Walker had personally enjoyed the revolver’s advantages bothagainst the Mexicans and especially against Indian attacks. Duringfrontier skirmishes Indian warriors had noticed that troops armedwith single-shot weapons were vulnerable as they reloaded betweenvolleys. They had thus altered their tactics accordingly to attack dur-ing the lulls in firing. Walker and other troops armed with Colt’s re-volvers found the new pistols most effective in countering suchrushes.

General Zachary Taylor, commanding U.S. troops in Mexico, ap-preciated the Paterson’s advantages and determined to get more re-volvers into the hands of his troops. Taylor consulted with Walker,then serving with the U.S. Mounted Rifles, and ordered him to meetwith Colt to design an improved revolver for military issue. The col-laboration between the experienced combat officer and gifted de-signer resulted in one of the most formidable pistols ever issued tomounted troops.

Although the Texas Paterson had proven its potential, it had evi-denced significant deficiencies under the harsh combat conditionsin Mexico. Its major deficiencies as a military weapon lay in itsrather fragile construction and relatively light caliber. The Texas Pa-tersons also required special tools for disassembly and reloading, re-


sulting in an involved procedure all but impossible for mountedtroops in combat situations. Relying heavily on Walker’s sugges-tions, Colt rapidly redesigned the Texas Paterson into a rugged, pow-erful weapon ideal for the army’s needs. Lacking manufacturing fa-cilities of his own, Colt contracted with Eli Whitney Jr. to producethe pistol at his Whitneyville factory.

Christened the Colt Walker Model, their collaboration resulted ina monster of a handgun. It weighed a full 4 pounds, 9 ounces—soheavy that it could only practically be carried in twin saddle holsters,as were the older single-shot pistols. The Walker, like the Texas Pa-terson, was a single-action pistol, meaning that thumbing the ham-mer back cocked the pistol and simultaneously revolved the cylin-der. It also mounted a conventional trigger protected by a triggerguard instead of the Texas Paterson’s fragile folding trigger. Otherimprovements over the Texas Paterson included an integral loadinglever, the use of preloaded paper- or skin-wrapped cartridges forfaster loading, six chambers rather than five, and a much heavierpowder capacity to fire its heavy caliber .44 bullet. The Walker wasalso manufactured with a 9-inch rifled barrel that aided accuracy.Although a handful, the Walker’s massive weight did aid in absorb-ing the recoil of the pistol’s large powder charges. Still, Colt laterfound it necessary to produce numbers of replacement cylinders andeven completed U.S. Walker Replacement Dragoon pistols to re-place weapons that exploded from overcharging.

The Colt Walker Model was fitted with one-piece walnut gripsand finished with a color casehardened frame, hammer, and loadinglever. The barrel, grip straps, and trigger were blued, and the triggerguard was of polished brass. The cylinder, machine roll–engravedwith a scene commemorating a famous 1844 Texas Ranger–Co-manche battle, was polished “in the white,” that is, without a blue orcolor casehardened finish.

In the summer of 1847, the army issued 1,000 Colt Walker Mod-els to five companies of the U.S. Dragoons deployed in Mexico. Coltmanufactured an additional 100 Walkers for civilian sales and pro-motional purposes. The new revolver proved an instant success, andColt followed it with the Colt Whitneyville Hartford Dragoon Re-volver the same year. The success of his dragoon pistols at last al-lowed Colt the publicity and financial resources to reestablish him-self in the arms industry. Unfortunately, Walker was killed inOctober 1847 during the Battle of Huamantla in Mexico.

The following year, Colt, who had presented Walker with twoWalker Dragoon pistols, opened his new factory back in Hartford.

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The new mass-production facility was a model of the modern indus-trial age, outfitted with the most advanced machinery available. Coltalso acquired a showroom and sales offices in New York City tomore efficiently market his new products. Although Colt’s pistolswere manufactured in the Hartford factory, his innate marketingsense prompted him to stamp his new products with the more cos-mopolitan New York City address.

Colt sensibly exploited the success of the Walker Model, and thefirst pistols manufactured at the Hartford factory were essentially im-proved versions of the original. Colt continued to improve the Dra-goon design, and it progressed through its First, Second, and Thirdmodels during its production run from 1848 through 1861. Some20,200 Dragoon revolvers left the Hartford production lines and sawmilitary, militia, and civilian sales. The rear sights on most Colts con-sisted of a simple notch cut into the top of the hammer nose, but anumber of Third Model Dragoons were equipped with folding rearsights. These pistols were also available with detachable shoulderstocks for alternate use as repeating carbines. Some shoulder stocksalso 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’sofferings with revolving rifles and carbines as well as pocket pistols.Between 1847 and 1850 the factory produced about 15,000 Model1848 Baby Dragoon Revolvers, a scaled-down version of the largerpistol. The popular Baby Dragoon was a five-shot, caliber .31 re-volver that was manufactured either with or without a loading lever.Colt also offered the Model 1855 Sidehammer Pocket Revolver incalibers .28 and .31. The Sidehammer achieved some 40,000 insales and remained in production until its retirement in about 1870.The Sidehammer was also unique among Colt’s earlier pistols inthat it was of a solid frame design rather than the open-top framesfor which he was best known.

That Colt refused to abandon the inherently weaker open-top de-sign in favor of the solid frame is something of a mystery. His tradi-tional design consisted of a rear frame assembly including the grips,trigger, and hammer. The cylinder revolved on a cylinder pin or shaftmounted to the rear frame. The shaft, as well as two small projec-tions in the lower frame, then mated with the pistol’s forward as-


sembly consisting of the forward frame, barrel, and loading lever. Ametal wedge, passing through slots in the forward frame and barrelshaft, secured the various components. The arrangement presentedtwo significant problems. Repeated use tended to caused wear onthe points of contact between the wedge and cylinder pin and thetwo studs on the lower frame. Over time, this wear caused a loosen-ing of the pistol, leading to alignment problems between the cylin-der and barrel. In addition, reloading required partial disassembly ofthe 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 consistedof a single casting that included a metal top-strap connecting thefront and rear frames. The barrels of most solid-frame pistols wereusually threaded at the breech and then screwed securely into theframe. This much more structurally sound arrangement preventedthe loosening of the pistol’s components even after repeated use.Solid-frame revolvers also allowed for the use of sliding rather thanfixed cylinder pins, resulting in faster cylinder replacement. To re-place a cylinder in a solid-frame percussion revolver, one simplyplaced the pistol on half-cock and either slid the cylinder pin for-ward or backward (depending on the pistol’s design), removed theempty cylinder, and replaced it with a loaded one.

Colt was well aware of the solid-frame design; he himself de-signed the Model 1855, although it is often referred to as the Colt-Root Model after one of his employees. It is possible that he re-tained his open-top design out of sheer stubbornness or that hepreferred the sleeker lines of his original models. As a businessman,Colt was certainly aware that most people associated the open-frame design with the Colt name and was thus probably loathe toabandon 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, thelargest production model of all his percussion weapons. A refinementof the Baby Dragoon, the caliber .31 Model 1849 was available withoctagonal barrels from 3 to 6 inches in length and five- and six-chambered cylinders. The vast majority were equipped with loadinglevers. The Model 1849 was fitted with one-piece, varnished walnut

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grips and finished with a casehardened frame, hammer, and lever.The barrel and cylinder were blued, the latter roll engraved with astagecoach holdup scene. The grip straps and trigger guard were sil-ver-plated brass. Production of the Model 1849 ended in 1873.

Colt realized the need for a compromise between the Model 1849and the huge caliber .44 Colt Walker Model. With both civilian andmilitary sales in mind, Colt thus introduced the midsized caliber .36percussion Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver. Anticipating sales tothat branch of service, Colt helped set the precedent of designatingcaliber .36 pistols as “Navy” while retaining the Walker’s caliber .44as the bore more suitable to “Army” pistols. Neither the Army northe Navy designated specific calibers for their pistols—bothbranches bought quantities of pistols in both calibers—but othermanufacturers tended to follow Colt’s lead in assigning calibers .36and .44 to the respective branches of service.

Essentially a scaled-up Model 1848, the six-chambered Colt Navyproved so popular that it too remained in production until 1873.The Model 1851 was also copied by Colt’s competitors as well as byConfederate arms makers during the Civil War. The Colt Navy sawextensive use by both sides during the Civil War; was carried by pio-neers, miners, and cowboys in the West; and was, in many cases,later converted to the cartridge system to prolong its useful life. Coltproduced a combined total of more than 257,398 Model 1851s.

A truly classic weapon, the Model 1851 is finished in the samemanner as the Model 1849, with the cylinder embellished with aroll-engraved scene of a naval battle between the Texan and Mexicannavies. During the Model 1851’s long production, Colt producedfour basic models of the Hartford Navy and two types manufacturedin his London facilities, with numerous minor variations among thebasic models. Some Model 1851s were also manufactured to accepta detachable wood shoulder stock for conversion into a repeating car-bine. As with other Colt percussion revolvers, the Model 1851 couldbe loaded with either loose powder and ball or with paper or skin car-tridges. Colt and other suppliers also provided molds to cast roundballs as well as conical bullets as projectiles.

To market these products Colt relentlessly exploited whatever me-dia presented itself. As part of his advertising campaign, he commis-sioned sculptors to produce numbers of bronzes of the now-famous“rampant colt.” This play on his name, first displayed in his NewYork showroom, became his company’s trademark. He also providedthe famous western artist George Catlin with Colt firearms for hispainting expeditions into the frontier. Catlin, in turn, provided Colt


with paintings and lithographs featuring Colt’s products in thehands of fearless adventurers taming the dangerous wilds of Northand South America. Colt issued a set of 10 Catlin lithographs as ad-vertisements for his various models. Even the Colt factory itself be-came a monument to both Colt and the new industrial age, whichColt believed he embodied. A blue, star-speckled onion-shapeddome surmounted by the rampant colt soared above the lateststeam-powered milling machines and assembly lines filling hissprawling Hartford plant.

To grease the wheels of commerce, Colt also shamelessly pre-sented influential figures with presents of his beautifully engravedweapons. Dozens of congressmen, ordnance officials, heads of state,and other famous personages thus found themselves the proud own-ers of Colt pistols and long guns. His Model 1851 Navy was the fa-vored weapon of such diverse nineteenth-century figures as WildBill Hickok and the British explorer Captain Sir Richard FrancisBurton. Colt anticipated the concept of the celebrity endorsementby decades, alerting the media of any exploit involving his products.The Colt Navy soon became indispensable to any would-be gun-slinger who took to wearing his holstered Colts butt-forward in emu-lation of Hickok. Potential adventurers, contemplating the hordes ofsavages awaiting them beyond the borders of civilization, also madea stop at a Colt dealer a priority before departure to points un-known.

A key element to Colt’s success lay in his jealous protection ofhis patent rights. The initial registration of his patents did little todeter imitators, and Colt found himself in almost constant litiga-tion. In nearly every case his lawyers successfully managed to shutdown such competitors as the Springfield Arms Company of Mass-achusetts. Established around 1850 by a group of businessmen anddesigners, including the talented James Warner, the company man-ufactured revolvers in Dragoon, Navy, Belt, and Pocket sizes.Within a year Colt’s lawsuits forced Springfield Arms Company outof business.

London Colts

Soon after establishing his Hartford factory, Colt set his sights onexploiting the rich European market. Drawing on the showman-ship he had developed during his early tent-show days, he organ-ized a spectacular display of his wares at the Great Exhibition at

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Hyde Park, London, in 1851. At a time when most exhibitorsshowed only a limited number of display models, Colt over-whelmed his audiences with flamboyant arrangements of scores ofpistols and long guns. He also continued his practice of ingratiat-ing himself with potential backers by presenting cased engravedColt revolvers to such appropriate officials as Britain’s MasterGeneral 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 In-stitute of Civil Engineers in London. The membership rewarded hisefforts by awarding him their prestigious Telford Gold Medal. Fewcould have seen it as a mere coincidence when Colt appointedCharles Manby, recent secretary of the Institute of Civil Engineers,to manage his new London facilities.

Colt established his London operation near Vauxhall Bridge onthe Thames River and began production on 1 January 1853. ManyLondoners saw Colt’s installation of the most advanced steam-pow-ered machinery as proof of America’s growing position as a leaderin modern industrial production. On a tour of the factory, CharlesDickens was so impressed with the state-of-the-art facilities that herecorded his favorable comments in the 1854 work HouseholdWords. Most significant, the Colt factory’s machines mass-pro-duced interchangeable parts that could be easily and cheaply puttogether on assembly lines using standardized patterns and gauges.To the dismay of London’s professional gunsmiths, Colt’s factoryturned not to them but to relatively unskilled labor to fill its work-benches.

With his factory in place, Colt set up a showroom and offices atNo. 1 Spring Gardens. Although Colt’s London-manufacturedfirearms were better-finished than their U.S.-made cousins, initialsales were disappointing. Colt, aware that his enterprise’s successdepended on lucrative government contracts, set out to ensure thatColts were in the holsters of every British officer, cavalryman, andsailor. British Ordnance, however, exhibited little interest in hiswares, leaving Colt no other recourse than to turn to his other per-sona—salesman extraordinaire.

Soon after Colt’s initial rebuffs by Ordnance, uncannily well-timed letters began to appear in the London Times touting thepraises of his revolvers in the hands of the Russian czar’s navy. Noneof the allegedly unsolicited letters happened to mention the threegold-engraved Colts recently presented to the czar, but all did hintof the dire consequences of a Russian military that was better-


armed than the British. In 1854 the British Admiralty ordered 4,000Navy Model Colt revolvers.

Setting his sights on the British Army, Colt again resorted to hisclever manipulation of the press and gifts of complementary en-graved pistols to key personages. More letters to the Times soon ap-peared, and public opinion eventually prompted the British Army toinvite Colt to submit his revolvers for trials. In 1855 Ordnance re-lented and placed an order for 5,000 pistols for army issue. The offi-cer in charge of the trials, a Colonel Chambers, must have glowedwith pride in his two new engraved Colts. Despite a following orderlater in the year for an additional 9,000 pistols, Colt failed to con-vince Ordnance to adopt his revolver as the general-issue sidearmfor the army. The Twelfth and Seventeenth Lancers were the onlyregiments to be fully equipped with Colts, with the remaindermainly going to infantry company officers and sergeant majors. Stillothers were issued to troops embarking on the Crimean Railway Ex-pedition. Despite numerous privately purchased pistols by variousmilitary personnel, Colt gradually realized that his sales were failingto meet his previously high expectations.

BRITISH REVOLVER TRIALS

The expiration of Colt’s English patents in 1851 further complicatedhis efforts to make inroads into the British arms market. Withindays of the expiration, British gun makers rushed the British PatentOffice with their own revolver designs. Robert Adams was the mostinfluential 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, soonemerged as Colt’s rivals for British government contracts. Adamsand his countrymen appealed to British nationalism, as well as anumber of improvements they had developed over Colt’s originalmodels, to promote their revolvers. Colt’s English rivals did offertwo significant advances in revolver technology: solid-frame con-struction and the double-action mechanism. The double-action fea-ture allowed the pistol to be cocked and fired with one pull of thetrigger rather than requiring the hammer to be first thumbed backto cock the pistol. During government trials at Woolwich a selectcommittee charged with studying revolver designs exhibited amarked preference for Adams’s design over Colt’s.

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The committee found numerous faults with the Dragoon Modelsubmitted by Colt. They deemed it overly cumbersome and objectedto the fearsome recoil of its caliber .44 charges. The committee alsofound the Dragoon’s open-frame design a major structural weaknessthat would require expensive repairs in the future. Adams’s revolver,patented in 1851, seemed to offer significant advantages over theAmerican Dragoon. Although only chambered for five shots, theAdams was of a stronger, solid-frame design and was of a muchmore manageable size. More significant, the committee found theAdams’s double-action, or self-cocking, design much faster and farmore advanced than Colt’s single-action. The committee down-played the Adams’s loss in accuracy resulting from the increasedtrigger pull required by the double-action. Somewhat twisting theknife, they also declared the Adams’s English craftsmanship supe-rior to the American contender.

The Adams Revolvers

Robert Adams oversaw the manufacturing and marketing of his pis-tols under the aegis of his partnership with George and John Deane.Based in London, Deane, Adams & Deane continually upgradedAdams’s basic design, including, most significantly, incorporatingFrederick Beaumont’s improved lock in 1855. It was Beaumont’s im-provement that allowed the Adams to be fired as both a double- andsingle-action weapon. Deane, Adams & Deane produced the newBeaumont-Adams in a number of calibers and sizes, from smallpocket pistols to large military models. The British Crown officiallyadopted the caliber .442 Beaumont-Adams in 1856, with Hollandand Russia following suit. To meet the growing government, civilian,and foreign demand for its revolvers, Deane, Adams & Deane alsocontracted firms in Birmingham and Liége as licensed manufactur-ers of their products. Although not exhibiting the modern inter-changeability of parts so touted by Colt, the Adams revolvers were,by European standards, acceptable in their consistency to set stan-dards according to pattern.

Testimonials from British officers in the field did confirm thevalue of the Adams over the Colt under the battlefield conditionsof the Crimean War and various colonial conflicts. Many at thetime noted that the Colt had proven itself more in the wide-openexpanses of the U.S. West, where combat tended to be of a morelong-range, mounted skirmishing nature. British infantry officers


were quick to point out that their combat experiences were muchmore of a desperate, face-to-face, close-quarters nature, wherethe speed of a revolver’s action counted more than long-rangeaccuracy.

In 1860 one J. G. Crosse of the 88th Regiment published a letterto Robert Adams in Rifles and Volunteer Corps, a volunteer pam-phlet, praising his pistols in such conditions:

Sir,

In these days of warfare, any invention of improvements in fire-armsshould be patronised and assisted, and with that view I write you thisletter. I had one of your largest-sized Revolver Pistols at the bloodybattle of Inkermann, and by some chance got surrounded by Rus-sians. I then found the advantages of your pistol over that of ColonelColt’s, for had I to cock before each shot I would have lost my life. Ishould not have had time to cock, as they were too close to me, beingonly a few yards from me: so close that I was bayoneted through thethigh immediately after shooting the fourth man. I hope this may beof service to you, as I certainly owe my life to your invention of theRevolver Pistol. (George 1962: 200)

In an April 1896 lecture, Lieutenant Colonel G. V. Fosbery fur-ther elaborated on the Adams’s advantages over its U.S. rival duringan incident in the Great Mutiny:

An officer, who especially prided himself on his pistol-shooting, wasattacked by a stalwart mutineer armed with a heavy sword. The offi-cer, unfortunately for himself, carried a Colt’s Navy pistol, which, asyou may remember, was of small caliber, and fired a sharp-pointedpicket bullet of 60 to the pound and a heavy charge of powder, itsrange being at least 600 yards, as I have frequently proved. This heproceeded to empty into the sepoy as he advanced, but, having doneso, he waited just one second too long to see the effect of his shoot-ing, and was cloven to the teeth by his antagonist, who then droppeddown and died beside him. My informant, who witnessed the affair,told me that five of the six bullets had struck the sepoy close togetherin 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 initialAdams design—defects that Deane, Adams & Deane quickly moved

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to correct. The Adams’s double action allowed a much faster rate offire than the Colt but significantly affected the pistol’s accuracy.The heavy trigger pull necessary to revolve the cylinder and to cockand release the hammer invariably forced the user to shoot abovethe target. It was the incorporation of Frederick Beaumont’s im-provement in 1855 that allowed both double- and single-actionoperation. The improved revolver, commonly known as the Beau-mont-Adams, thus allowed the double-action feature for close,hand-to-hand combat while providing the single-action option forlonger, aimed shots.

Deane, Adams & Deane also manufactured its earlier pistolswithout loading levers. They instead introduced a special conicalbullet with a greased felt patch attached to its base that allowed it tobe thumb-pressed into the cylinder’s chambers. This arrangementquickly proved ill-advised, as the bullets could easily be jarred looseby the pistol’s recoil or by prolonged jostling of the pistol in its hol-ster. Adams subsequently experimented with a number of loading-lever designs, ultimately settling on an efficient lever patented byJames Kerr. Kerr’s lever held an added advantage in that, beingmounted on the left side of the pistol, it did not in any way infringeon Colt’s existing patents.

The third defect, common to many early British revolvers, lay inthe Adams’s lack of a recoil shield behind the cylinder. This was astandard feature on Colt’s revolvers and helped keep the percussioncaps in place on the nipples. More important, the shield protectedthe user’s face and eyes from the flash and copper percussion capfragments that often resulted from ignition. Most probably respond-ing to complaints from officers in the field, Adams and other Britishgun makers eventually incorporated flash shields in their revolvers.

Tranter, Webley, and Kerr

William Tranter, James Webley, and John Kerr also made significantinroads into the domestic British and export revolver trade. TheTranter resembled the Beaumont-Adams in appearance and func-tion but differed in its unique trigger and cocking mechanism. Inthe Tranter, a second trigger-like device extended through the bot-tom of the trigger guard and served to cock the hammer and rotatethe cylinder. The actual trigger, within the guard, released the ham-mer. Although seemingly unnecessarily complicated, Tranter’s sys-tem worked very well, and the trigger extension allowed a grip for a


second finger, giving steadier aim. It was reported that the famedScottish-born detective Allan Pinkerton favored the Tranter and en-couraged its use among his agents during the U.S. Civil War.

James Webley’s revolvers also tended to resemble the Adams, butmany did not share its solid-frame construction. Many early Web-leys were manufactured with a separate forward frame and barrelassembly. This assembly was secured to the rear frame by means ofsmall studs and a slot and wedge that secures the rear-mountedcylinder pin to the forward frame, similar to Colt’s method. SomeWebleys, however, were fitted with top straps, giving them greaterstructural integrity than their U.S. counterpart.

In 1856 Adams parted with the Deanes to form the London Ar-moury Company with James Kerr. The new firm continued produc-tion of the Beaumont-Adams and, in 1858, began production ofKerr’s new side-hammer revolver. In its finalized form, the Kerr wasa robust, solid-frame, five-shot weapon with a newly designed load-ing lever mounted under the barrel. It was soon issued to Britishtroops and was officially adopted by Portugal. The Kerr also foundgreat popularity in the British colonies, with many seeing use inAustralia, Canada, and elsewhere. The Kerr proved a particular fa-vorite among Confederate officers, who procured them through thefederal 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 anAdams made under license by August Francotte of Liége and recom-mended it to his superiors. Between 1857 and 1861 the Massachu-setts Arms Company of Chicopee Falls subsequently manufacturedsome 5,500 Adams revolvers in calibers .31 and .36. The U.S. gov-ernment bought approximately 600 of the Massachusetts Arms re-volvers, with a significant number of the balance seeing use by bothUnion 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 whathe saw as the perfection of his own invention. This very stubborn-

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ness was a key factor in his failure in London. Rather than alter hisbasic design to meet British requirements for solid-frame double-action revolvers, he persisted in manufacturing only his open-topsingle-actions. Facing mounting competition and with a much antic-ipated contract from the British East India Company failing to ma-terialize, he eventually bowed to the inevitable. Unable to justify theLondon factory’s mounting expenses with disappointing sales, Coltclosed his English shops in 1856 after only four years of operation.Over the next few months his workmen crated and shipped the fac-tory’s machinery and unassembled firearms components back toAmerica.

Although his London venture had failed, Colt could console him-self with the knowledge that it had helped spread his name through-out the world. Colt firearms spread within the British Empire to itscolonies in India, Australia, Africa, and anywhere its navy sailed. Tomany, the name Colt was synonymous with revolver, and they usedthe terms interchangeably regardless of the actual manufacturer ofthe weapon. Belgian factories went so far as to manufacture Colt’sdesigns both with and without his permission, often stamping themwith either “Colt Patent” or “Colt Brevete” markings. With the expi-ration of his original patents, Colt soon found others following theBelgians’ lead.

Colt Expansion in the West

Despite the failure of Colt’s London factory, his domestic businesswas thriving, with sales agents operating throughout the country.The combination of Colt’s introduction of the mass-produced re-volver, his skillful salesmanship, and the opening of the West cre-ated a revolution in the firearms industry. It seemed that everyoneneeded a revolver. The continual flood of settlers embarking fromsuch staging areas as St. Louis for the western territories created agrowing demand for firearms for personal protection. The settlerswere not the only ones requiring weaponry of all sorts. Miners foundColt’s revolver handy protection against the desperadoes infestingthe silver and gold fields from the Dakotas to California. The gam-blers, prostitutes, and bartenders of the saloons also found pocketpistols indispensable to their professions. And of course there werethe lawmen who had to try to maintain order—everyone seemed toneed a Colt.


PREPARATION FOR WAR

The late 1850s also saw the nation on the verge of civil war. As ten-sions mounted, national as well as state governments scrambled tofind armaments for the projected flood of volunteers. Governmentarms procurement in the United States during the mid–nineteenthcentury was a relatively haphazard affair that created headaches forordnance officers as well as opportunities for entrepreneurs. Tocomplicate matters, the states maintained militias that also requiredarms and at times competed with the national government forweapons and military equipment. The two national arsenals atSpringfield and Harpers Ferry were almost exclusively occupied withproducing government-pattern rifles, muskets, and carbines. Al-though some states, most notably Virginia and South Carolina, hadestablished state-run facilities, the production of pistols, swords,and various accoutrements fell to private contractors. Under the su-pervision of federal inspectors, private arsenals such as the EliWhitney Arsenal in Connecticut were indispensable in arming thecountry’s military organizations.

Prior to the expiration of his patents, Colt had monopolized thesupply of revolvers to the U.S. government. Although denying themthe opportunity of selling their inventions, Colt’s patents did not de-ter other arms innovators from devoting countless hours at drawingtables and workbenches. The year 1857 saw a torrent of new re-volver designs—some superior, others almost laughable—to com-pete with Colt’s original.

Colt had also established the revolver as what was considered anabsolutely essential weapon for modern warfare. A brace of six-shooters afforded cavalrymen an unprecedented level of firepowerthat, when combined with carbine and saber, greatly increased theireffectiveness as mobile shock troops. During the early days of theCivil War the demand for pistols also grew among the otherbranches of the Union Army. Vast numbers of infantrymen enteredthe war carrying pistols of all sorts that they had purchased them-selves or had received as gifts from relatives and admirers. Hardcampaigning soon convinced foot soldiers, however, that the per-ceived value of their pistol was not worth its added weight. As a re-sult, most sent their sidearms home, sold them, or simply discardedthem along the roadside.

Although dozens of manufacturers vied for lucrative governmentcontracts during the Civil War, only between 18 and 20 actuallyachieved official military purchase status, with prices ranging from

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about $12 to $27. Government records are somewhat contradictory,but the following is a reasonable estimate of U.S. government pistolpurchases during the Civil War era. In addition, individual combat-ants and state governments purchased many thousands of other pis-tols from domestic and foreign sources. Foreign-made pistols in-cluded the English Adams, Adams-Beaumont, Webley, and Kerrrevolvers, as well as a number of French Lefaucheux pin-fire re-volvers. Government records also list the purchase of some64,385,403 pistol cartridges of various calibers.

Colt 1860 Army Model

Despite his growing competition, by 1860 Colt’s enterprise hadearned his factory, according to Secretary of War John B. Floyd, “thestatus of a National Work.” Sensing opportunity, Colt speeded theexpansion of his Hartford works, anticipating contracts for govern-ment-model rifled muskets and his own revolving long arms. De-


U.S. Government Civil War Pistol Purchases

Revolver Caliber Number Purchased

Starr .44 47,952Colt Navy .36 17,010Colt Army .44 129,730Remington Army .44 125,314Colt Pocket .31 17,010Savage Navy .36 14,952Lefaucheux Army .43/ .35 12,374Whitney Navy .36 11,214Rogers & Spencer .44 5,000Remington Navy .36 4,901Beals .36/.44 2,814Pettingill .43 2,001Joslyn Army .44 1,100Rafael .41 978Allen .44 536Adams .44 415 Perrin .44 200 Horse Pistols 200Foreign Pistols 100

(Lord, 207)

spite a whirlwind of activity, he and his chief designer, Elisha KingRoot, also found time to design another classic revolver.

It was apparent to Colt that there was a ready market, both civilianand military, for a pistol of the handy size of the caliber .36 Colt NavyRevolver but with the heavier firepower of the caliber .44 Colt Dra-goon. As a result, in 1860 he introduced the percussion caliber .44Model 1860 Colt Army Revolver. The sleek Model 1860 was to re-main in production until about 1873, with a total production of some200,500 pistols. Colt also manufactured a detachable wood shoulderstock that could be fitted to pistols milled to accept them.

To minimize retooling and to hold down costs, Colt and Root com-bined the best features of the Navy and the Dragoon. They retainedthe lighter Model 1851 frame to reduce weight and only slightlymodified it to accept the larger-caliber cylinder. Colt and Root thenredesigned the interior of the six-chambered cylinder so that thefront was bored to caliber .44 but tapered toward the rear for alighter powder charge. This was a necessary alteration; whereas theheavy Dragoons absorbed the massive recoil of their powerful loads,the lighter Navy frame did not. They also stepped down the outer di-ameter of the cylinder from the caliber .44 dimension in the front tothe smaller caliber .36 dimension in the rear. They finalized the de-sign with a round barrel and more streamlined front receiver assem-bly and an improved “creeping” loading lever designed earlier byRoot. Although the Model 1860 retained the single-action operationand still failed to address the structural defect of the earlier Colts—its lack of a reinforcing top strap—it proved an instant success andwas to see usage in the Civil War and during the expansion of theWest. Colt’s Model 1860 Army became one of the most widely usedrevolvers by both sides during the Civil War. The Colt Model 1861Navy Revolver, a caliber .36 version of the 1860 Army, saw less use.

Considered the most refined of all the Colt percussion pistols, thestandard Model 1860 Colt Army Revolver featured varnished, one-piece walnut grips and an 8-inch barrel. The barrel was blued, aswere the cylinder and grip straps. The frame, loading lever, andhammer were casehardened. The trigger guard was brass, and thecylinder was decorated with a roll-engraved scene between the Texasand Mexican navies. Colt also offered highly engraved Model 1860s,some with ivory or even silver grips by the famed New York jewelerand designer Louis Comfort Tiffany. Such Civil War luminaries asgenerals George McClellan and George Armstrong Custer were tocarry the finest-quality Model 1860 Army Revolvers that Colt’s en-gravers could produce.

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Colt found ready markets for his goods both in the Southern as wellas the Northern states and, despite the impending conflict, had nocompunction to sell to either if cash was involved. As a consequence,many Southerners went off to war carrying Colt revolvers. To hiscredit, Colt did cease deliveries to the South soon after the bombard-ment of Fort Sumter. He then went so far as to offer his services to theNorthern cause by forming and arming his own volunteer unit, theFirst Regiment Colt’s Revolving Rifles of Connecticut. Colt received acommission as a colonel in the Connecticut militia and began recruit-ing and drilling his regiment as elite skirmishers. Colt’s dreams of mar-tial glory were dashed, however, when his political enemies convincedthe government to revoke his commission and to disband the regi-ment. Although he had lost his military rank, Colt retained the title asa personal vanity, ever after styling himself as “Colonel Colt.”

As mobilization intensified, Colt repeatedly proved his genius forsqueezing the last penny of profit out of every transaction. He ruth-lessly increased his profits by reducing production costs while main-taining his relatively high prices. As his employees, working a mini-mum of 10-hour shifts, assembled pistols from both new andsurplus London parts, Colt’s agents scoured Britain and the conti-nent, acquiring the most inexpensive musket components for sale tovarious militias. Colt personally supervised the entire operation andlobbied tirelessly for the most lucrative government contracts. Therelentless pace of building the country’s greatest private firearms en-terprise increasingly taxed Colt’s health. On 10 January 1862,Samuel Colt died at the age of 48 of complications most probablyassociated with chronic syphilis.

Colt’s passing was little mourned by his Hartford neighbors. Manyof the town’s higher levels of society had found him abrasive and re-sented his nouveaux-riche ways. They also saw his sprawling, smoke-belching industrial complex as a blight on their formerly pastoral lit-tle town. Yet Colt’s contributions to the nation’s war effort could notbe ignored, and Colonel Colt was buried with full military honors.Upon Colt’s passing it fell to his chief engineer, Elisha King Root, tocarry on as the firm’s president. A much less flamboyant man, Rootguided the company through the war years with a quiet competenceuntil his own death just days after the war’s end.

Remington

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


firearms business: E. Remington & Sons of Ilion, New York. Al-though founded in 1816 by the father-son team of Eliphalet Rem-ington Sr. and Eliphalet Remington Jr., the firm was a newcomer tomanufacturing handguns. During the first half of the nineteenthcentury the Remington family had moved away from a tradition offarming into the realm of industrial mass production. Eliphalet Jr.built his first rifle in their family farm’s forge in Ilion Gulph thatyear, and as his reputation grew he and the elder Remington ex-panded their facilities. In 1828 they moved to new shops on the re-cently completed Erie Canal. Although a wagon mishap claimedEliphalet Sr.’s life later that year, the younger Remington continuedto expand the family business. Eventually the town of Ilion grewaround the factory on the canal.

In 1845 Remington acquired his first government contract formilitary rifles and took on his son, Philo, as partner and renamedthe business E. Remington & Son. Another government contract in1852 led to further expansion and the recruitment of two moresons—Samuel and another Eliphalet—prompting another namechange to E. Remington & Sons. Each son brought his own talent tothe family business. Philo inherited his father’s mechanical skillsand business acumen. Neither Samuel or Eliphalet III were particu-larly mechanically inclined, but Eliphalet III was a skilled book-keeper, and Samuel was a natural salesman.

The expiration of Colt’s U.S. patents in 1857 afforded the Rem-ingtons, along with dozens of others, the opportunity to enter the lu-crative revolver trade. His company’s previous success providedEliphalet Remington with the considerable capital necessary for ex-pansion, but he had little experience in the production of pistols.The company had produced a few specially ordered handguns, butthese had been single-shot weapons lacking the sophistication of therevolvers. Aware of his inexperience in the field, the always prag-matic Remington sought an expert designer and found one inFordyce Beals. Beals, who had designed a revolver manufactured byEli Whitney’s factory in 1854, refined his earlier drawings and mod-els to provide Remington with his first revolver.

Remington-Beals and Remington-Rider Pocket Revolvers

In 1857 Remington entered the revolver market with the Reming-ton-Beals Pocket Revolver. The first model Remington-Beals was a

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five-shot, caliber .31 pistol with a 3-inch octagonal barrel. Reming-ton packaged his new product with a bullet mold and powder flask.As the little Remington lacked the loading lever found on Colt’s pis-tols, a bullet seater was included and had to be carried separately.The pistol was also fitted with grips made of an early composite ma-terial similar to plastic known as gutta percha—the height of moder-nity for the time. Still, sales were disappointing, and Remington fol-lowed with two more improved models of the pistol, both fitted withhard rubber grips and the last mounting an integral loading lever.Despite such efforts, the only real advantage of the Remington-Bealover Colt’s pocket pistol was in its solid-frame design. In 1860 Rem-ington ceased production of the Remington-Beals Pocket Revolver.

Undaunted, Remington adopted a strategy that, within fiveyears, would make him second only to Colt in the U.S. revolvermarket. His new plan essentially mirrored Colt’s in that Remingtonsettled on manufacturing small pocket pistols for the civilian mar-ket and large military revolvers with an eye toward lucrative govern-ment contracts. Remington eventually hired Joseph Rider, a de-signer from Newark, Ohio, who provided the plans and models fora pistol that Remington manufactured as the Remington-RiderPocket Revolver. The Remington-Rider shared the same basic size,caliber, and capacity of the earlier Remington-Beals but was a sig-nificant improvement in that it is a double-action weapon. Itproved a success, and production continued into the cartridge era.Fordyce Beals next turned his attention to creating arguably thebest revolver of the percussion era.

Remington Army and Navy Revolvers

The big new Remington revolver underwent a number of improve-ments between its introduction in 1860 and its final form in 1863.Beals designed the revolver in two calibers with hopes of sales toboth the Army and Navy, the Army Model chambered in .44 and theNavy Model chambered in .36. But Beals and Remington first foundthemselves in a dilemma that faced every revolver manufacturer ofthe era: Sam Colt seemed to have foreseen and patented every con-ceivable revolver improvement, whether or not he used it. Despitethe expiration of his original patent, his strategy effectively ham-strung the efforts of most of his competition. Colt’s mechanationsthus forced other inventors to divert considerable time and ingenu-ity to seeking loopholes in the patent laws.


The one patentable feature in the original 1858 Beals design wasthus a relatively minor detail in the arrangement of the cylinder pinand loading-lever assembly. Ironically, his innovation quickly provedimpractical, and Beals’s successor in the project, William H. Elliott,later eliminated it. The first of the series, the Remington-Beals Armyand Navy Revolvers, reflects Beals’s previous experience workingwith Eli Whitney Jr. on his earlier, unsuccessful pistol. Despite theoriginal patent, the actual keys to the pistol’s design was in its solidframe, simplified construction, and method of securing the cylinder.These basic features would lead to Remington’s success as a pistolmanufacturer.

The Remington-Beals solid frame carried a number of advantagesover Colt’s pistols. Not only was it inherently much stronger; it alsorequired less machinery and fewer steps to manufacture, thus re-ducing production costs. Remington further reduced costs by notembellishing his pistol with an elegant but unnecessary cylinderscene. He issued it with a businesslike blued finish with casehard-ened hammer and plain, two-piece walnut grips.

Beals mounted the cylinder in the frame with a sliding rod thatentered the front of the frame and was secured by the hinged load-ing-arm assembly. The sliding pin arrangement allowed for muchfaster reloading, as the Remington did not have to be partially disas-sembled to accomplish the procedure. Both Colt and Remingtonrecommended the purchase of extra cylinders to facilitate faster re-loading in combat situations. The Colt design required knocking outthe wedge securing the pistol’s barrel to the fixed cylinder pin, slid-ing a fresh cylinder into place, and then reassembling the weapon, aticklish operation on horseback while in action. With Elliott’s finalimprovement to the Remington-Beals revolver, one merely loosenedthe loading lever and slid the cylinder pin forward to release thecylinder. Remington designated his final 1863 improved pistols asthe Remington New Model Army and Navy Revolvers.

Although somewhat less stylish than the elegant Colts, the Rem-ington was a technically superior weapon. The gregarious SamuelRemington exploited this superiority, as well as the revolver’s com-petitive price, to press for civilian and government sales. Initial civil-ian sales, primarily through the retailer Schuyler, Hartley & Gra-ham, were disappointing, but cost-conscious government officialssaw the Remington’s potential. At only $12 per unit, the Remingtoncost less than half of the Colt’s $25 contract price. With some132,000 manufactured, the caliber .44 New Model Army proved so

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popular that it followed only Colt’s Model 1851 Navy and Model1860 Army as the most widely used pistol during the U.S. Civil War.

Like Colt, Remington found some of its original customers in therapidly mobilizing South. In 1860 South Carolina purchased 1,000revolvers to arm its militia, but by November of that year Remingtonpatriotically declined further Southern orders. Captured and pri-vately purchased Remingtons, however, did find their way into thou-sands of Confederate hands, including those in such irregular unitsas Quantrill’s Raiders. Former Quantrill men Frank and Jesse Jamesand Cole and Bob Younger were known for using Remingtons duringtheir postwar outlaw careers. George Armstrong Custer, the self-promoting general and firearms connoisseur, not only owned an en-graved Colt but also a rare engraved New Model Remington com-plete with ivory grips carved with his own portrait.

THE STARR REVOLVER

The third most widely issued revolver of the Civil War was also themost technologically advanced. Ebenezer T. Starr of Yonkers, NewYork, received his first patent for a pepperbox in 1856 and soonthereafter finalized a revolver design that would win him fame. Starrwas the son of Nathan Starr Jr. of the famous gun- and sword-makingfamily. By 1858 he had gained the financial backing from a group ofNew York investors led by H. H. Woolcott and Everett Clapp to estab-lish the Starr Arms Company with facilities in Binghamton andYonkers. 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 two10-hour shifts, assembling Starr’s revolvers and equally well-designedcarbines.

The Starr Double Action Model 1858 Navy Revolver introduced anumber of unique features that rendered the better-known Colts andRemingtons instantly obsolete. That the Starr did not achieve thefame of its two rivals attests to the conservatism of contemporarymilitary thinking, as well as the power of Colt’s and Remington’s ad-vertising skills. As its name suggested, it was a double-action pistol inthat it could be automatically cocked and fired with one pull of thetrigger. But it was not a conventional double-action, as was theAdams that beat Colt in the earlier British trials. A pistol capable of


only double-action was faster to operate than a single-action but re-quired considerable trigger pull that tended to make accurate aimingdifficult. Starr’s design not only allowed for double-action operationbut also, by pressing a small projection behind the trigger, gave thecapability of firing the pistol in a more accurate single-action mode.

Two other features place the Starr mechanically far ahead of itscompetition. Unlike the Colt and the Remington, it was of a hinged,break-open design that allowed fast cylinder replacement while notcompromising the pistol’s strength. Removing a large knurled screwat the upper rear of the frame allowed the forward frame and barrelassembly to hinge downward from a pin in the lower front of theframe. The design also eliminated the central cylinder shaft by in-corporating a short projection in the front of the cylinder that mateswith a recess in the forward frame. A larger recess in the rear frameaccepted the rear of the cylinder. This latter innovation greatly re-duced the tendency of powder residue to accumulate between theshaft and cylinder and foul the pistol. The Starr’s cylinder arrange-ment was also much easier to clean.

Only about 3,000 Starr Navy Revolvers were produced between1858 and 1860. A rather clunky-appearing pistol compared to theColts and Remingtons, it is a six-shot, caliber .36 weapon with a 6-inch round barrel. It is fitted with one-piece walnut grips, and themetal parts are blued (other than the casehardened hammer, trigger,and loading lever). Disappointed with the Navy’s sales, Starr soonreplaced it with his caliber .44 Starr Double Action Model 1858Army Revolver. The Army Model differs from the Navy only in itscaliber, yet won Starr some 23,000 sales. Despite the new StarrArmy’s relative success, a military commission raised two significantand related objections against its advanced double-action design.

The inherent complexity of the Starr’s design, although rugged andreliable, was more expensive to produce than either the Colt or theRemington. In addition, its modern features tended to baffle many ofthe less well-trained farm boys who filled many of the Union’s sad-dles. Starr answered these complaints with his improved Single Ac-tion Model 1863 Army Revolver. Ironically, by improving his pistolStarr eliminated its most unique feature: the double-action mecha-nism. The improvement did, however, answer the Army’s complaintsby lowering the pistol’s price to $20 and making it less intimidatingfor users. The new single-action mollified the conservative Armycommissions, and Starr eventually sold about 32,000 to the UnionArmy between 1863 and 1865. Other than its longer 8-inch barrel,the single-action revolver closely resembled its predecessor.

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The surrender of Confederate forces in the spring of 1865 fore-told the ultimate demise of the Starr Arms Company. Like many ofthe other smaller operations that had sprung up during the war tocapitalize on the nation’s mobilization, Starr found it impossible tomake the transition to a peacetime economy. With no more govern-ment contracts, the company quickly slid into bankruptcy and in1867 ceased to exist.

Savage & North

It fell to one of America’s oldest and most respected concerns toproduce one of the oddest revolvers of the war. The Middletown,Connecticut, firm of Simeon North and Josiah Savage was one ofthe major arms suppliers to the government during the first half ofthe nineteenth century. The company primarily manufactured pis-tols as well as the famous breech-loading carbines patented by JohnH. Hall. North and Savage underwent a number of reorganizationsand name-changes, becoming the Savage & North Company in1831. When Simeon North died in 1850, the family business, heav-ily weakened by complicity in the Talcott scandal, was well on itsway to phasing out its formerly lucrative federal carbine contracts.The following year the new head of the family business, Henry Sav-age North, aided by Chauncy D. Skinner, patented his first revolvingbreech weapon. Although his first design ultimately proved unsuc-cessful, 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 onthe part of its inventors to defy aesthetics and practicality. It derivedits nickname from its odd-shaped ring-trigger cocking mechanismthat resembled the numeral 8. To fire the revolver, one first pulledthe lower ring with the middle finger to simultaneously rotate thecylinder and cock the hammer; a second pull with the trigger fingerof the upper ring fired the pistol. The idea was not new: SamuelColt, Oliver Winchester, and Smith & Wesson had tried and quicklydiscarded the principle. The arrangement was indeed awkward. Thelarge trigger-cocking assembly not only compromised the alreadyquestionable lines of the pistol’s profile but also tended to snag onanything nearby. The inventors found it necessary to add a spur tothe upper back of the walnut grips to provide a surer grip whenpulling the cocking ring. Also, neither North nor Savage seemed toappreciate the difficulty that the pistol would present to a cavalry-


man caught up in the excitement of battle. Merely forgetting the or-der in which to pull the rings made the pistol useless.

Mechanically, the Figure 8 resembles earlier pepperboxes in itsinternal workings and incorporates a solid frame. Despite its consid-erable shortcomings, the pistol does possess one ingenious feature.The correct alignment of the mouths of the cylinder’s chambers andthe breech of the barrel is one of the most critical considerations inrevolver design. If the alignment, or registration, is not perfect thebullet can strike the side of the breech, sending dangerous frag-ments to either side of the weapon. In extreme cases, such accidentscan destroy the gun as well as the shooter’s hand. In even perfectlyregistering revolvers there is also a problem with the escape ofgasses and consequent pressure through the small gap betweenchamber and breech.

Savage & North addressed these issues by adding an extra springto the design that forced the cylinder forward against the barrel’sbreech. To further contain the energy of the weapon’s discharge andto add velocity, they also experimented with various methods to cre-ate an effective gas seal. With their first 10 or so pistols, they re-cessed the mouth of the breech to accept corresponding extensionsmilled to the face of the chambers. Finding this unacceptable, theyreversed the arrangement and recessed or chamfered the cylindermouths to fit over the breech. The final experiment proved success-ful, and they incorporated its principle into the balance of their pro-duction. Still, despite the design’s final success in the workshop, ac-tual use eventually revealed that the improvements led to continuousmalfunctions under field conditions. The cylinder-advancing spring,with its necessary cylinder-retracting spring, added to the Figure 8’scomplexity and thus to its fragility.

Savage & North manufactured only some 500 Figure 8 Revolversin four basic models, each a slight improvement over its predeces-sor. All were caliber .36 six-shooters with 7.5-inch barrels. Earliermodels were manufactured with round brass frames, the final modelhaving a flat-sided iron frame with a blued finish. The Figure 8 wasalso somewhat unusual in the placement of nipples that enter therear of the cylinder vertically rather than from the back, as is thenorm with more conventional pistols.

The Savage Revolving Firearms Company

The company underwent another reorganization and name-change

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to reemerge as the Savage Revolving Firearms Company on 12 Au-gust 1861. Although his name was dropped from the company’s ti-tle, North remained with the firm, which also employed another tal-ented gunsmith, Charles R. Alsop. Within weeks the company beganproduction of the new pistol based on the Figure 8 Revolver. TheSavage Revolving Firearms Company Navy Model retained the samebasic specifications and lines of the Figure 8. Its main differenceswere the reduction in size of the spur on the back of the grips andthe addition of a large, heart-shaped trigger guard that did little toadd to the pistol’s visual appeal.

Somewhat ironically, the Savage firm apparently did not try to in-terest the Union Navy in its new Navy Revolver but instead concen-trated its efforts on the Union Army. The Army, more concerned inprocuring large numbers of rifled muskets for the infantry, as well asmore conventional revolvers, proved highly resistant to the com-pany’s sales agents. Only the pressing need for pistols eventuallyweakened resistance, and the government, out of a total productionof some 20,000 Savage Navy Models, purchased 11,984. Havingfound itself committing so much effort and expense to developingits revolver, the Savage Revolving Firearms Company ultimatelyfound the necessity of manufacturing 25,520 muzzle-loading, sin-gle-shot Model 1861 rifled muskets to remain solvent.

The Whitneyville Armory

The Whitneyville Armory contributed one of the finest revolvers tothe North’s war effort with its caliber .36 Whitney Navy Model Re-volver. Eli Whitney, of cotton-gin fame, founded the armory nearNew Haven, Connecticut, in 1798. Within a few years the companyshops and surrounding workers’ houses grew to become the smallcompany village known as Whitneyville. Whitney, a Yale graduate,had patented the gin in 1793, but numerous patent infringementshad denied him the profits that his invention should have rightlygarnered. It did, however, win him fame. The cotton gin attractedthe attention of a number of investors who provided Whitney withthe funds necessary to set up shop to manufacture firearms. Havingrevolutionized the nation’s agriculture, he set himself to revolution-izing its industry.

Whitney won his first government contract to manufacture10,000 Model 1798 flintlock muskets. He claimed he could pro-duce the muskets with completely machine-made interchangeable


parts rather than the hand-crafted and hand-fitted components thenused by the nation’s workshops. His concept, although not com-pletely original, called for sophisticated machinery that could millthe muskets’ various components so that each was identical, requir-ing little, if any, hand-finishing. The process would make possiblemuch faster mass production, utilizing less skilled and thereforecheaper labor. Repair costs would also be much less in that rela-tively unskilled workmen and even soldiers in the field could simplyreplace broken parts with new ones and cannibalize unserviceableweapons to repair others.

Whitney never quite achieved his goal of complete interchange-ability with the Model 1798; the Harpers Ferry Arsenal finally ac-complished the feat with the Model 1819 Hall Flintlock Rifle. Still,Whitney greatly contributed to the use of interchangeable parts byinventing much of the machinery that made the idea practical.Whitney’s business continued to thrive exclusively on governmentmusket contracts until his death in 1825. The Whitney Armory con-tinued under the direction of his nephews, Philos and Eli WhitneyBlake, until young Eli Whitney Jr. was old enough to take over in1842.

Five years later Whitney signed the contract with Samuel Coltthat led to Whitney’s first foray into handgun manufacturing: theColt Walker Model. The younger Whitney never seemed to havepossessed either the inventive or business acumen of his father. Atthe time of his contract with Colt he was struggling with a money-losing contract with the government for Model 1841 Mississippi Ri-fles. When Whitney tentatively ventured into the revolver market onhis own in 1850, he faced not only financial problems but also a fearof Sam Colt. Colt’s fierce protection of his patents in the courts ap-parently caused Whitney such concern that his first revolver designsverged on the ludicrous to avoid patent infringement.

His first pistol, known as the Whitney Hooded Cylinder PocketRevolver, was a far cry from the Colt Walker. Whitney made onlyabout 200 of these small, caliber .28 six-shooters, and he followed itwith another, even stranger little pistol: the Whitney Two TriggerPocket Revolver. Introduced in 1852, the caliber .32, five-shot TwoTrigger derived its name from an extra trigger mounted forward ofthe actual trigger’s guard. Whitney was so apprehensive of Colt’s po-tential wrath that he dispensed with the almost universally acceptedmechanically rotated cylinder. Instead, the cylinder required rota-tion by hand, with the extra trigger serving as a locking and unlock-ing device. The Ring Trigger Pocket Revolver followed the Two Trig-

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ger’s production run of 600 but was even less successful. It replacedthe two triggers with a single ring-shaped trigger. Although the newpistol did return to mechanical cylinder rotation, it was so poorly de-signed that Whitney manufactured less than 50 before abandoningthe project.

Sometime around 1854 Whitney’s fortunes made a shift for thebetter thanks to his association with the talented innovator FordyceBeals of future Remington fame. In that year Whitney introducedthe Whitney-Beals Patent Pocket Revolver. The new pistol was aroaring success compared to Whitney’s earlier models, remaining inproduction until just after the Civil War with a total production ofabout 3,200. The Whitney-Beals was available in calibers .28 and.31 and was offered with either six- or seven-shot cylinders. In 1857Whitney briefly summoned up the nerve to join the legions of Coltcopycats with a close approximation of the Model 1851 Colt Navyupon the expiration of the Colonel’s patents but soon followed itwith a successful design of his own.

With a production of about 33,000, the Whitney Navy Revolverwas by far the most successful of Whitney’s percussion pistols. ThatFordyce Beals contributed heavily to the revolver’s design is evidentin its close resemblance to the solid-frame revolvers Beals wouldsoon design for Remington. The Whitney Navy Revolver was pro-duced in two basic models, with numerous minor variations appear-ing in each. All models were offered in caliber .36 with six cham-bers. A 7.5–inch barrel was standard, though other lengths wereavailable. Unlike Colt, Whitney produced very few pistols with suchcustom features as engraving and ivory grips. Most had grips of two-piece walnut, and all metal parts were blued except the casehard-ened loading lever. For protection against corrosion at sea, someNavy contract revolvers were tinned. For some unknown reasonWhitney marked a small number of his earliest models “EAGLECO.” rather than his customary “E. WHITNEY/NEW HAVEN.” Thecylinders of most Whitney Navy Revolvers are roll-engraved with theimages of an eagle, lion, and shield, with some later models featur-ing a naval scene.

Whitney was reasonably successful in gaining coveted governmentcontracts for his new revolver. Initial sales were through such well-known agents as Schulyer, Hartley & Graham of New York, but inJune 1862 the head of the Ordnance Department, General James W.Ripley, sent purchasing officers directly to Whitney to gain more rea-sonable prices. Eventually the government bought some 11,214 re-volvers for both the Army and Navy, with additional pistols selling


through state contracts. The Whitney Navy proved rugged and reli-able and was a popular arm among troops receiving it.

The Whitney Pocket Model Percussion Revolver met with nearlyequal success, with some 32,500 made from after 1857 through theearly part of the Civil War. The five-chambered, caliber .31 PocketModel was popular among both officers and civilians and was avail-able with an octagonal barrel from 3 to 6 inches in length. Whitneyfollowed the earlier pistol with the less successful, spur-trigger NewModel Pocket Revolver that saw a production run of only about2,000.

Eli Whitney Jr. still seemed unable to escape financial pressuresdespite the success of his Navy and Pocket Revolvers. Contracts forModel 1861 percussion muskets for the Army and the Model 1861Plymouth Navy Rifle kept the company barely solvent. To keep hisarmory afloat, Whitney also resorted to manufacturing nonregula-tion muskets out of various surplus and rejected parts for sale tostates and militia units. He was indeed fortunate in his associationwith Fordyce Beals for the revolver designs that helped maintain thefamily 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 competi-tive revolver field. During the period marked by the expiration ofColt’s patent and the outbreak of the Civil War, dozens of inventorstried and failed to find a niche in civilian and government markets.All tacitly acknowledged Colt as the benchmark of revolver designby almost invariably touting their own products as either “superior”or “improved” models over their famous competition. In their desireto become successful gun makers, Rogers & Spencer found itselfenmeshed in the maze of government bureaucracy, patents, patent-ees, and shop owners that typified the gun industry of their time.

The Rogers & Spencer saga began with an economic dilemmasuffered by a prominent Watertown, New York, factory owner namedCharles B. Hoard. Hoard owned a steam-engine factory as well ashalf-interest in a factory that made farm implements. Like manyNorthern industrialists, he had sold a significant amount of hisproducts in the South, but the war had cut off that profitable venue,leaving his shops largely idle. Sensing an opportunity to profit byfilling the country’s pressing need for weapons, Hoard began invest-

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ing large amounts of capital into converting his shops into an armsfactory.

Hoard had every reason to expect success. He had the facilities toproduce weapons, and he had the requisite political connections. Af-ter intense lobbying on the part of Hoard and his friends in the statelegislature as well as Congress, Hoard obtained a government con-tract for 50,000 Model 1861 Rifled Muskets. To boost profits, Hoardalso decided to diversify by manufacturing pistols as well. To this endhe enlisted Austin T. Freeman of Binghamton to design a suitable re-volver. 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 Companywas particularly evident in his design. The Freeman’s single-actionmechanism, cylinder, loading lever, and overall profile exhibited aclose similarity to the single-action Starr Army Revolver. W. A.Roberts, a Remington employee whom Hoard recruited as his factorysuperintendent, also added a number of Remington characteristics tothe pistol, most evident in its forward frame assembly.

With its distinguished pedigree, the Freeman promised to be aprofitable venture for Hoard. It is a rugged, solid-frame six-shooterthat compares well with its Starr and Remington cousins. Yet despitehis manufacture of well-made weapons and his political connec-tions, Hoard found little profit and much frustration in the armsbusiness. His negotiations with government officials quickly brokedown, reducing his original contract for 50,000 rifled muskets toonly some 12,000, with no orders at all for his revolver. Hoard’s ven-ture ended with a final sale of some 800 rifled muskets, probably tostate militia units. Some of his only 2,000 or so revolvers made in1863 and 1864 possibly went to the state or were sold on the com-mercial market.

Pettengill Revolvers

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


1858, and Rogers & Spencer began manufacturing the pistol in acaliber .31 Pocket Model and a caliber .34 Navy Model. By the early1860s it became apparent that the pistol still required modificationsto make it a practical military pistol. It was thus, in 1862, thatHenry S. Rogers of Rogers & Spencer attempted to perfect the Pet-tengill.

As manufactured by Rogers & Spencer, the final Pettengill re-volver, the Pettengill Army Revolver, is a caliber .44, double-action,hammerless six-shooter with a 7.5-inch octagonal barrel. It had two-piece walnut grips and was blued with a casehardened loading leverand frame. The company immediately submitted both the Navy andArmy revolvers to the government for tests. With encouraging initialreports and an apparently solid order for pistols, Rogers & Spencerbegan full production but immediately ran afoul of government bu-reaucracy and red tape.

The initial order was not as ironclad as the partners first assumed.An ensuing storm of correspondence and desperate face-to-facemeetings eventually revealed that the order was premature. Pressedto obtain arms to equip the rapidly expanding cavalry, the first gov-ernment official had ordered the Pettengills before an army commis-sion had thoroughly tested them. The tests proved the Pettengill’stendency to accumulate powder fouling around the cylinder pin,rendering the revolver inoperable after repeated use. The inaccuracythat resulted from the revolver’s excessive double-action trigger pullwas also a determining factor in the Army’s ultimate condemnationof the Pettengill. Although the Army finally condescended to acceptsome 2,000 Pettengills, the rest, some 1,600 pistols, were forcedinto the less lucrative civilian market.

Rogers & Spencer Army Model Revolver

With the loss of the Pettengill contract, Rogers & Spencer facedbankruptcy. In a last-ditch effort to maintain solvency, the firm ap-proached that other frustrated arms maker, Charles B. Hoard, andobtained the rights to his failed Freeman Revolver. It was to Rogers’scredit that, in a limited amount of time, he managed to combine thebest elements of two rather bad pistols into a single, battle-worthy re-volver. The caliber .44 Rogers & Spencer Army Model Revolver was asolid-frame single-action weapon that, from the frame backward, re-sembled the Freeman and its relative, the Starr. The barrel and load-ing-lever assembly were almost identical to the final Pettengill, being

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

Joslyn Revolver

Benjamin F. Joslyn sold fewer pistols to the government but could atleast console himself with the knowledge that they contributed tothe war effort. Having established the Joslyn Firearms Company inStonington, Connecticut, he manufactured well-designed cavalrycarbines and his caliber .44 Joslyn Army Model Revolver. Producedearly in the war, the Joslyn was a five-shot, single-action revolverwith checkered walnut grips, a blued frame, and casehardened load-ing lever and hammer. It also bore some similarity to the Colt Rootpocket revolvers in that it had a side-mounted hammer that allowedthe cylinder pin to be extracted from the rear of the pistol. The Armyand 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 re-volvers made by brothers-in-law Ethan Allen and Thomas P. Whee-lock of Worcester, Massachusetts. Their solid-frame pistol, manu-factured between 1861 and 1862, features a unique loading leverthat when stowed curved backward to form the front of the triggerguard. Although well-made, the Allen and Wheelock, like so manyother revolvers of the Civil War period, was edged out in the rough-and-tumble competition for government patronage.

The Manhattan Firearms Company

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


ments—were to reduce Colt’s profits yet fill the need for serviceablearms during the Civil War. The Manhattan Firearms Company wasthe largest and most successful of the Colt imitators. Althoughfounded in Norwich, Connecticut, in 1856 and ultimately located inNewark, New Jersey, in 1859, the company’s officers emulated Colteven in choosing a more sophisticated New York City address withwhich to stamp their pistols. Although bearing a great similarity inappearance to Colts, even down to roll-engraved cylinder scenes,the Manhattan did possess a number of minor improvements overthe original. Under the initial supervision of the well-known de-signer Thomas Bacon, Manhattan manufactured single-shot pistolsand pepperboxes before turning its facilities over to its Colt imita-tions.

Between 1858 and 1868 the company manufactured some 4,800caliber .31 Colt-type pocket pistols and some 78,000 caliber .36Navy-style pistols out of a total production of about 150,000 pistolsof all kinds. Manhattan pistols were well-made and were popularwith the civilian market and as privately purchased militarysidearms. Bacon eventually left the Manhattan Firearms Companyto start his own firm, the Bacon Arms Company, later the BaconManufacturing Company of Norwich. Although harried by lawsuitsby his old company, Bacon produced a number of Colt-inspired cal-iber .31 pocket pistols.

J. M. Cooper & Co. and the Metropolitan Arms Co.

Other Colt imitators included J. M. Cooper & Co. of Philadelphiaand later Pittsburgh, as well as the Metropolitan Arms Company ofNew York City. Cooper manufactured some 15,000 caliber .31pocket and caliber .36 Navy revolvers between 1864 and 1869. Al-though externally a close copy of the Colt, Cooper’s revolvers heldthe distinct improvement of being capable of double-action opera-tion. In contrast, the products of the Metropolitan Arms Companywere nearly exact copies of the Colt in all respects other than beingof somewhat less quality. A rather blatant example of war profiteer-ing, the company was founded in 1864 to take advantage of the in-terruption of Colt’s manufacturing after an extensive fire in theHartford facilities. In an attempt to inflate sales totals, Metropolitanalso apparently inserted large gaps in the serial-numbering of its pis-tols. Metropolitan manufactured some 6,063 copies of the Colt

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Model 1851 Navy, Model 1861 Navy, and the Model 1862 PoliceRevolvers 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 insearch of increasing handgun firepower. Both men were among anumber of inventors who experimented with and attempted to mar-ket various forms of multishot weapons. Walch, a New Yorker,founded the Walch Firearms Company but did not own his ownmanufacturing facilities. He contracted with the Union Knife Com-pany of Naugatuck, Connecticut, to manufacture his caliber .36Navy Model Revolvers and the New Haven Arms Company to pro-duce his caliber .31 Pocket Model Revolver.

Walch’s 1859 patent covered revolvers with extended cylinders toaccommodate two superimposed loads with two triggers and ham-mers as well as two nipples for each chamber. The Walch six-cham-bered Navy Model Revolver was thus capable of 12 shots, with theWalch five-chambered Pocket Model Revolver having a 10-shot ca-pacity. Walch’s sometimes collaborator, John P. Lindsay of NewHaven, improved the Walch Pocket Model by designing a single,spur trigger that activated both triggers. Both pistols were blued andfitted with two-piece walnut grips.

As with any superimposed firearms, the complex loading and op-eration of Walch’s revolvers tended to somewhat counterbalancetheir theoretical advantages. All black-powder weapons required fre-quent and meticulous cleaning to prevent the propellant’s corrosivetendencies from causing rust and pitting in the cylinders. Such pit-ting could allow flame to escape around the bullet upon discharge,reducing its velocity and possibly igniting adjacent chambers. As therear bullet acted as a gas seal for the forward charge, it had to beloaded perfectly in an unpitted chamber to avoid an accidental dis-charge of both loads.

The need for such meticulous care in loading the Walch made itan impractical weapon in the mayhem of battle. The most vivid ac-count of a Walch in actual wartime use would not have lent itselfwell to extolling the pistol’s effectiveness. Elisha Stockwell, a Wis-consin private, recounted an incident in which he and a fellow sol-dier armed with a Walch attempted to supplement their rations in a


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 getnear them.” Although Stockwell did not comment on the accuracyof Reeder’s shooting, his narrative does reveal the ineffectiveness ofthe Walch Pocket Model’s relatively small caliber .31 bullets com-bined with the double-loaded chambers’ smaller powder charges.That the disgusted Stockwell “went to camp without any meat” andswore not to accompany the Walch-armed Reeder on future forag-ing expeditions helps explain Walch’s low sales of about 3,200 pis-tols of both models.

John P. Lindsay was a former Springfield Arsenal employee andconcentrated his efforts on what he advertised as Lindsay’s PatentDouble Shooting Firearms. Lindsay designed both a rifled musketand a number of models of his Young America–brand pistols. A con-temporary account explains Lindsay’s fixation with superimposed,double-shot weapons. Although possibly apocryphal, the account re-lates that Indians had killed Lindsay’s brother, a soldier on the fron-tier, while he was reloading his single-shot weapon. Indian tactics ofthe time relied on waiting for opponents to empty their muskets involley fire and then to attack while the troops reloaded. Lindsay, thetale went, cleverly designed his weapons to look like the conven-tional weapons of the time but with an additional load hidden in theweapons’ single barrel.

Unfortunately for Lindsay, Colt’s revolvers and a number of otherrepeating weapons had already reduced his two-shot weapons toanachronisms by the time they reached production. More mysteri-ously, the Army actually ordered about 1,000 of the superimposed ri-fled muskets for issue to troops in the field. The muskets proved fail-ures in service, and Lindsay manufactured even fewer of his NewAmerica pistols made in pocket, belt, and martial sizes. Although theLindsay rifles accepted standard-issue cartridges, his pistols werehampered by the need for specially designed bullets to create an effec-tive gas and flame shield between the two cartridges. Each pistol wasthus 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 out-break of the war, and most Confederate troops carried imported,captured, or privately purchased pistols manufactured in the North.

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Still, Southern arsenals did produce a limited number of handguns.With a few exceptions, most Confederate handguns bore a generalsimilarity to either the Colt or Whitney Navy revolvers in their basicdesign and appearance. Their most obvious differences from North-ern-made pistols were in the substitution of brass for certain ironcomponents 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 Con-federate revolver. In 1862 Connecticut native Samuel Griswold andA. W. Gunnison converted Griswold’s cotton-gin factory into a pri-vate arsenal. With a workforce of some 24 men, 22 of whom wereslaves, the partners originally manufactured pikes before turning topistol production. The arsenal, located in Griswoldville, Georgia,turned out well-made, caliber .36 revolvers bearing a general simi-larity to the Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver. Its main differenceswith the Colt lay in its brass frame and round rather than octagonalbarrel. The Griswold & Gunnison firm produced the bulk of its pis-tols for the Confederate government until its destruction by GeneralJudson Kirkpatrick’s cavalry in the Battle of Griswoldville in 1864.

Captain A. J. Smythe, one of the unsuccessful defenders of Gris-woldville, was also one of Griswold & Gunnison’s major competitorsin the Southern firearms business. Earlier in 1864 Smythe, as wellas C. R. Keen, Jesse A. Ansley, and Charles H. Rigdon, formed Rig-don, Ansley & Co. in nearby Augusta, Georgia. Rigdon, the seniormember of the company, had previously been associated with atleast two firearms ventures before organizing Rigdon, Ansley & Co.

Shawk & McLanahan

Rigdon apparently provided machinery in prewar Missouri toWilliam Shawk of Pennsylvania and J. K. McLanahan of Ohio forthe production of the Shawk & McLanahan Revolver. The factorywas located in Carondelet, on the outskirts of St. Louis, and manu-factured only about one hundred caliber .36 Whitney Navy–stylebrass-framed revolvers before going out of business. The company’ssudden dissolution may have in part owed to the divided loyalties of


the principals. Rigdon eventually joined Thomas Leech, who was as-sociated with the Memphis Novelty Works in Tennessee, to producerevolvers 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 ColtModel 1851 Navy Revolver except for its typically Southern-styleround barrel. They had finished only a limited number of pistolswhen the Union naval presence on the Mississippi River forcedthem 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 Unionforces, again moved the company’s machinery. Rigdon at last fin-ished the final 500 of the company’s approximately 1,500-pistol gov-ernment contract in Augusta and recruited his new partners.

Rigdon, Ansley & Co.

The Rigdon, Ansley & Co. Revolver was essentially a continuation ofthe earlier Leech & Rigdon, being manufactured with the same ma-chinery. Although the fresh infusion of capital provided by the newpartnership allowed Rigdon to produce another 1,000 revolvers, hecould not escape the advancing Union Army. Soon after the com-pany’s organization, Ansley lost his exemption from the draft, owingto the Confederacy’s overwhelming need for troops to face Sher-man’s March to the Sea. Following Ansley’s departure, Smytheformed the Rigdon Guards, a home guard unit made up of some 60company employees and their neighbors. Smythe himself waswounded at the Battle at Griswoldville, as were a number of hismen. Rigdon, Ansley & Co. survived a few more weeks after the bat-tle before it too succumbed to the advancing Federals.

Spiller & Burr and Other Confederate Manufacturers

The firm of Spiller & Burr was founded in Richmond before beingpurchased by the government and moved to Atlanta and later Ma-

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con. Spiller and Burr manufactured some 1,450 WhitneyNavy–style, brass-framed, octagon-barreled revolvers in caliber .36.Most other Confederate pistol manufacturers produced only a fewhundred pistols at most. These included Georgia’s Augusta MachineWorks and Columbus Fire Arms Manufacturing Company; NorthCarolina’s J. & F. Garrett & Company; Schneider & Glassick of Ten-nessee; and the Texas shops of J. H. Dance & Brothers, GeorgeTodd, and Tucker, Sherrard & Company.

LeMat Grapeshot Revolver

The Confederate LeMat Revolver was possibly the most unique pis-tol issued to any troops during the Civil War. Jean Alexandre Fran-cois LeMat of New Orleans patented his two-barrel, 10-shot re-volver, also known as the Grapeshot Revolver, in 1856. LeMat’slarge caliber .42 pistol featured a nine-chamber cylinder that re-volved around a caliber .63 smoothbore shotgun barrel rather than aconventional cylinder pin. A selector on the hammer allowed the op-erator to fire either the pistol or shotgun barrel, which was typicallyloaded with a paper buckshot cartridge. LeMat and his partnerP. G. T. Beauregard, the future Confederate general, found that lo-cal Southern factories were incapable of producing their compli-cated pistol. They thus made arrangements with Charles F. Girardof Paris to manufacture the pistol in France, later expanding opera-tions to facilities in England.

The partners envisioned a rich civilian market for their pistols aswell as sales to the new Confederate government. But despite theirpistol’s celebrated use by a number of famous high-ranking Confed-erate Army and Navy officers, the LeMat venture ultimately proveda failure. LeMats never saw large production, and many units failedto reach Southern shores owing to the Union blockade. Productionceased at the end of the Civil War, and the pistols eventuallyclaimed their due as expensive historical oddities in arms collec-tions.

The LeMat was a heavy, bulky weapon with checkered walnutgrips, a blued frame and barrel, and casehardened hammer andloading lever. It was manufactured in three main models. The FirstModel’s 6.5-inch barrel was octagonal at the breech half and roundtoward the muzzle, and it had a spurred trigger guard. The SecondModel omitted the trigger-guard spur and had an octagonal barrel.The much less common and more compact Baby LeMat had a 4.5-


inch octagonal barrel and was chambered for caliber .32 pistol bul-lets with a caliber .41 shotgun barrel.

CONCLUSION

Despite the ingenuity of U.S. pistol designers during the 1850s and1860s, nearly every pistol that emerged from their shops was alreadyobsolete by European standards. By 1860 two breakthrough innova-tions—the self-contained metallic cartridge and the bored-throughcylinder—were known and in use in Europe. Both ideas had roots inthe United States, but a number of factors delayed their general ac-ceptance there. These included Samuel Colt’s failure to realize thepotential of Rollin White’s bored-through cylinder patents, as wellas the general conservatism of the country’s military hierarchy. Itwould not be until after the Civil War that the metallic cartridgewould revolutionize the U.S. firearms industry.

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C H A P T E R 4

The Metallic Cartridge andthe Modern Revolver

Shortly before the U.S. Civil War two key developments atlast came together to make the modern revolver possible. The metal-lic cartridge appeared in Europe during the early 1800s and com-bined the primer, propellant, and projectile into one self-contained,waterproof unit. And then, in the 1850s, designers applied themetallic cartridge to revolver cylinders, with chambers bored com-pletely through their length. This combination provided the basis forpractical breech-loading revolvers that eventually replaced themuzzle-loading percussion system. Despite the advent of semiauto-matic pistols in the late nineteenth century, metallic-cartridge re-volvers have proven so reliable and efficient that they have seen con-tinual use to the present day.

Early designers had envisioned the numerous advantages of self-contained ammunition but had been hampered by the lack of a suit-able ignition compound. The discovery of fulminate priming in thelate eighteenth century ultimately made the self-contained cartridgefeasible. Yet despite the growing availability of fulminates during thefirst half of the nineteenth century, the next steps in pistol develop-ment were anything but consistent. As the century progressed, twomain avenues of exploration evolved. The good Reverend AlexanderJohn Forsyth pioneered the more conservative of the two paths: Heand his successors could never quite abandon the use of a separateprimer. Although making great strides in firearms technology, by em-

105

bracing the percussion cap they ensured their own obsolescence bythe middle of the century.

Samuel Colt himself illustrated the paradoxical nature of thetime. His invention of the revolver still stands as one of the pivotalinnovations in firearms history. Yet during the 1850s and 1860s,Colt’s jealous protection of his early patents greatly impeded overallfirearms development. His preoccupation with patent infringementsuits not only slowed his own company’s transition to the cartridgesystem, it also blocked other firms from pursuing new designs.Moreover, Colt’s policies forced some other competing inventors togreater creativity by denying them key features of his mechanism.Moreover, when Colt’s original patents finally expired, the companyfound itself facing patent restrictions such as that held by up-and-coming Smith & Wesson for the bored-through cylinder.

Yet Colt, as well as other legitimate inventors, had to protect him-self from such types as the notorious M. Prélat. The Frenchman,like a number of others of his ilk, seemed to have made a career byobtaining others’ working drawings and models and registering thembefore the originator could reach the appropriate patent office. Nev-ertheless, Colt’s attachment to his percussion, muzzle-loading re-volvers allowed other designers to create and market much more ad-vanced designs once his original patents expired. While mainstreamfirearms development followed the path set by Forsyth and Colt,other lesser-known inventors paved the way for the truly modernpistol.

PAULY

In 1812 a Swiss-born former artillery officer named Samuel Jo-hannes Pauly obtained a French patent for a unique caliber .64 pis-tol that utilized a new self-contained, center-fire cartridge. The mosttypical Pauly pistol was a single-shot, breech-loading weapon with ahinged barrel that tilted down and forward for loading. The geniusof Pauly’s design, however, lay in his pistol’s cartridge. The earliestPauly cartridge had a brass base, or rosette, made with a small cen-tral depression containing the priming compound. This consisted ofa fulminate mixture of potassium chlorate, sulfur, and powderedcharcoal bound with gum arabic. The priming was retained in therosette by a small patch of paper; a paper tube inserted into therosette contained the powder and bullet. The end of the paper tube

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was tied with a small thread or string to prevent the bullet fromfalling out. Later improvements of the cartridge replaced the paperbody of the cartridge with a brass tube, creating a one-piece car-tridge case.

The Pauly cartridge paved the way for the self-contained metalliccartridge, and it was also reloadable. The reloading process, how-ever, was by no means simple. For the procedure, Pauly made avail-able a wonderfully crafted cased set of specialized reloading tools forthe paper-bodied cartridges. These tools included a dowel for form-ing the paper tube and a clamp to hold the paper in place as the gluethat held it together dried. Various other implements included apowder measure, cleaning equipment, and a spring-activated toolfor automatically cutting the paper and wads. A special three-bladescrewdriver completed the ensemble. The Pauly cartridge was a vastimprovement over predecessors but was not without its faults; itsthick-rimmed brass base failed to expand sufficiently to preventflame and gasses venting from the pistol’s breech during ignition.

Although externally resembling the conventional percussion pis-tols of its day, the Pauly pistol was internally quite different. Paulyabandoned the use of an external ignition mechanism in favor of aninternal firing pin that struck the primer compound on the cartridgebase. The hammer was, in the Pauly design, a cocking lever to com-press the spring that powered the pistol’s firing pin. Pressing thetrigger released the firing pin to travel forward, striking the primingin the base of the cartridge. In 1814 Pauly obtained a British patentfor 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 heatgenerated by a fast-moving piston to ignite the cartridge’s priming.

Despite his obvious ingenuity, Pauly was one of those somewhatmysterious and eccentric inventors so far ahead of his time that hewas doomed to personal failure. Working alternately between En-gland and France, he seems to have either anglicized or gallicizedhis name to suit the locale. In both countries he experimented ex-tensively in the development of artillery, artillery projectiles, and di-rigibles. Years later, the German Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin in-corporated a number of Pauly’s balloon designs in his famousairships. Still, Pauly’s venture inevitably ended in financial disaster,including the loss of a £10,000 investment by the famous Englishgunsmith Durs Egg. Other disappointments included the trials andrejection of Pauly’s breech-loading weapons by the Russian czar’sgovernment and Napoleon’s ordnance officials. Both committeesfound Pauly’s designs promising but too delicate for hard field use.

THE METALLIC CARTRIDGE AND THE MODERN REVOLVER 107

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

DREYSE

Although Pauly would become a footnote to history, one of his pro-tégés found both wealth and fame. A Prussian, Johann Nickolaus vonDreyse worked for Pauly in Paris from 1809 to 1814. Returning toPrussia, Dreyse cofounded a percussion-cap factory and continued toexperiment with pistol, rifle, and cartridge designs. Dreyse applied les-sons learned from Pauly to perfecting his famous bolt-action needlegun and cartridge. He adapted his former employer’s firing-pin mech-anism to help solve the most glaring flaw in Pauly’s cartridge. Paulyhad originally developed his cartridge before the widespread availabil-ity of the percussion cap. He was thus denied a reliable method of in-corporating fulminate powder into his cartridge cases. This often re-sulted in the powder becoming dislodged from the depression in thecartridge base during use. Dreyse addressed the problem by securingthe 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 de-velopment of the aptly named needle-fire mechanism for which hegained fame. The Prussian modified the original Pauly internal fir-ing pin by lengthening it so that it could pierce the length of the car-tridge, passing through the powder charge to strike and detonate thefulminate in the bullet’s base. Prussia adopted the Dreyse bolt-action needle gun as its standard rifle in 1848, and it played a majorrole in Prussia’s subsequent military expansion and the unificationof the German states. A number of defects did, however, contributeto the ultimate demise of Dreyse’s system. The heat and corrosiveaction of the cartridges’ ignition tended to damage the needle andmake it brittle. The long, pointed firing pin was thus prone to bend-ing and breakage, and the advent of pin-fire and true center-firemetallic cartridges quickly made it obsolete. Dreyse’s son and suc-cessor, Franz von Dreyse, did produce a limited number of needle-fire single-shot target pistols and revolvers that he exhibited at theGreat Exhibition in London in 1851. His efforts, however, attractedlittle interest, owing to the competition from the revolvers of Colt,Adams, and, to a lesser extent, Lefaucheux.

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Lefaucheux

Both the Colt and Adams were percussion pistols, but theLefaucheux Pistolet-Revolver Mle. 1858 holds the distinction of be-ing the first metallic-cartridge revolver adopted by a national govern-ment. During the first half of the nineteenth century French design-ers consistently held the vanguard in the development of theself-contained cartridge. Frenchmen such as M. Galy-Cazalat,Clement Pottet, Eugène Schneider, and J. A. Robert made signifi-cant contributions to cartridge technology. Still, none achieved thesuccess of their countryman, Casimir Lefaucheux.

In 1836 the Parisian gunsmith introduced the pin-fire system—aself-contained cartridge consisting of a conical bullet, cardboardpowder tube, and copper base containing a primer pellet. A smallmetal pin extended from the rim of the cartridge base and, whenloaded in the chamber, protruded through a notch in the rear of thecylinder. The force of the pistol’s hammer striking down on the pinforced the pin against the priming, thus detonating the cartridge. In1846 another Frenchman, M. Houllier (sometimes Houiller) ofParis, improved on Lefaucheux’s design by introducing an entirelymetallic cartridge of copper or brass. Although the cartridges wereprone to accidental discharge if handled carelessly, the pin-fire pis-tol offered numerous advantages over its contemporary percussionrivals. Not only were the cases thin enough to expand for an effi-cient gas seal, they were also easily reloadable.

Unhindered by U.S. patent laws, Lefaucheux and his son, Eu-gène, incorporated a bored-through cylinder that allowed rapid load-ing through a hinged gate in the right recoil shield. TheLefaucheuxs also added an extension, or shroud, to the recoil shieldthat protected the cartridges’ exposed pins from accidental blows.An ejector rod, mounted through the right side of the frame underthe barrel, provided easy removal of the spent cartridge cases. Thetypical Lefaucheux was an open-top pistol, manufactured without atop strap, with the barrel and forward frame assembly secured to therear frame by a single screw.

Lefaucheux displayed his new system in the form of a pepperboxat the Great Exhibition of 1851, but more adept showmen, particu-larly Samuel Colt, overshadowed his efforts. Despite theLefaucheux’s obvious merits—it was faster than any other contem-porary revolver to load, and its metallic cartridges were highly resist-ant to moisture—even the French Army showed little interest. TheFrench Navy, however, eventually put the pin-fire through trials and


was impressed. The naval committee appreciated the increased fire-power of the six-shot, quickly loaded Lefaucheux over the single-shot percussion muzzleloaders in its fleet’s gun lockers. They espe-cially valued the watertight cartridge for issue in the humidenvironment of ships on prolonged voyages.

The French Navy adopted the Lefaucheux in 1858, and orderssoon poured in from the governments of Sweden, Italy, Russia,Spain, and Norway. Although the French Army still did not adoptthe Model 1858, the pistol proved so popular that a number ofFrench cavalry units demanded and received Lefaucheuxs beforedeployment to Mexico in 1862. Some 12,000 pistols also foundtheir way into both Confederate and Union hands during the U.S.Civil War. The 12mm Lefaucheux cartridge compared reasonablywell with the caliber .44 loadings of the Colt Army. The only noteddefect with the French Trantor, as the Americans sometimes calledit, lay in the unavailability of its unique ammunition under wartimeconditions. Despite this problem, a famous Confederate general,Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson, among others, was reputed to have fa-vored the French import over domestic models.

Still, quite probably owing to a degree of jingoism in both coun-tries, the pin-fire system found only slight acceptance in the UnitedStates and Britain. It was in Europe, especially in France and Bel-gium, that the Lefaucheux found its greatest success. Tens of thou-sands of pin-fire pistols, from high-quality engraved specimens tolow-quality knockoffs, were manufactured well into the twentiethcentury. These pistols, often with folding triggers, were produced ina wide variety of calibers and with both single-action and double-action mechanisms. For its part, the single-action, caliber 12mmModel 1858 was the most advanced military pistol of its day. It wasso rugged and popular that the French Navy was reluctant to releaseit from service. In 1870 most Model 1858s underwent reworkingthat added a protective ejector housing and updated them intodouble-action, center-fire weapons.

Denmark also adopted pin-fire revolvers that, after conversion tocenter-fire, remained in service through the end of the century. In1865 the Danish army chose a 12mm Lefaucheux-Francotte thatthe Kronberg Gevaerfabrik ultimately converted to 11.45mm center-fire. The modified pistols were designated the Model 1865/97, de-noting the initial year of adoption and the year of conversion. TheDanish Navy experimented with pinfires in 1861 but adopted theModel 1871 Gasser-Kropatschek that became the Model 1871/1881after its conversion to 11mm center-fire.

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FLOBERT

The rimfire cartridge, a contemporary of the pin-fire, also originatedin France but survived into the present as one of the most success-ful cartridges ever invented. As originally conceived by Louis Nico-las Auguste Flobert around 1845, the first rimfire cartridges werenot technically rimfires but nothing more than a small caliber .22lead pellet pressed into the open end of a modified percussion cap.In Flobert’s cartridge the fulminate acted as both primer and propel-lant. The following year M. Houllier improved Flobert’s design intowhat became generally known as the B-B cap or bulleted breech cap.This configuration resulted in a very low-powered cartridge thatproved ideal for parlor or gallery shooting, a highly popular sport inthe taverns and beer halls of nineteenth-century Europe. Somemanufacturers even produced smaller cartridges such as the 4mmB-B cap for gallery shooting.

Gallery shooting, especially in Germany, combined the two manlypastimes of beer drinking and shooting and saw the introduction oflight-caliber, low-powered weapons specifically made for the activity.Both rifles and pistols were produced and were generally of single-shot, breech-loading design. The contests typically took place inspecially designated parlors in beer halls with rounds of beer as thestakes. If tempers flared during such matches, wives at home couldassuage their fears in that the B-B caps were capable of little realdamage should a shootout ensue.

SMITH & WESSON

Two Americans, Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson, introducedthe first modern rimfire revolver in 1857. The evolution of this part-nership, and their intertwining relations with other innovators, weretypical of the complex nature of the U.S. firearms industry duringthe 1800s. In 1849 a New Yorker named Walter Hunt patented a re-peating rifle and cartridge very similar to an earlier English designpatented in 1841. Hunt was another of that breed of talented inven-tors who lacked even a modicum of business acumen. He developedhundreds of brilliant designs for such diverse devices as spinningand sewing machines and fountain pens and was apparently the in-ventor of the modern safety pin. Unfortunately, Hunt tended to selloff the rights for his inventions at fractions of their true value to


stave off chronic debt. The Rocket Ball, as Hunt called it was a self-contained loading cartridge with the propellant sealed in the hollowbase of its lead bullet. True to form, Hunt soon sold off the rights tohis new cartridge and weapon. A fellow American, Lewis Jennings,then improved on Hunt’s ideas, and the Windsor, Vermont, firm ofRobbins & Lawrence manufactured a limited number of his riflesbefore discontinuing them, as the cartridge proved too weak for anypractical purpose.

Fortunately for entrepreneurs Smith and Wesson, one of Robbins& Lawrence’s employees, B. Tyler Henry, appreciated the Hunt-Jennings concept, added his own improvements, and eventually pre-sented his drawings to Horace Smith in Worcester, Massachusetts.Smith in turn joined with a colleague, Daniel Wesson, to patent andproduce pistols and ammunition partially based on Henry’s informa-tion. In 1853 Smith and Wesson formed their first partnership inNorwich, Connecticut, and began manufacturing a series of lever-action caliber .31 and .41 cartridge pistols. These weapons were fit-ted with a tubular magazine mounted under the barrel that fed self-contained cartridges based on Hunt’s original design.

Smith and Wesson left the company in 1855 after selling theirshares to clothing manufacturer Oliver F. Winchester, a formerConnecticut governor. For a limited period Winchester continued tomanufacture the original Smith & Wesson pistol as the VolcanicArms Company and eventually as the New Haven Arms Company.Winchester went on to hire B. Tyler Henry and finally founded thefamous Winchester Repeating Arms Company. For their part, Smithand Wesson set up shop in Springfield to produce their own leg-endary revolvers. Through his brother, Edwin, Daniel Wesson wasalso associated with the Massachusetts Arms Company, a firm es-tablished by him with a number of other well-known arms makers,including Joshua Stevens and J. T. Ames. In 1851 the Massachu-setts Arms Company earned the dubious distinction of being thefirst significant defendant against a Colt patent infringement suit.Colt’s successful action forced the firm to produce a number of pis-tols requiring the cylinder to be turned ignominiously by handrather than mechanically.

Smith & Wesson reestablished their own partnership in 1856 tomanufacture revolvers chambering a diminutive caliber .22 rimfirecartridge that they had patented in 1854. To their frustration, how-ever, earlier patents restricted the use of two critical components oftheir design. Colt’s patent still covered the mechanically revolvingcylinder mechanism and was not due to expire until 1857. A further

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patent search also proved that Rollin White of New Haven, Con-necticut, had already patented another equally important neces-sity—the bored-through cylinder—in 1855 in an attempt to circum-vent Colt’s patents. Negotiations with the industrial giant Coltwould have been fruitless, and Smith and Wesson settled on waitingout the few years until the patent’s expiration. Fortunately, Whitewas to prove more pliable.

Horace Smith and Daniel Wesson were formidable inventors andbusinessmen. For his part, Rollin White apparently came up withonly one significant contribution throughout his firearms career andthat contribution, for its part, was not necessarily original to RollinWhite. White’s claim to fame lay in his patent itself and its ability toblock other inventors’ progress. The pistol for which he received thepatent did feature the bored-through cylinder, but it required papercartridges and was of such poor design that it never reached produc-tion. With no hope of producing his own pistols and facing stronglitigation challenging his tenuous claim to the bored-through cylin-der, White, who had earlier been turned away by Colt, settled on adeal with Smith and Wesson to use his patent on a royalty basis.

The agreement quickly proved a brilliant coup for the astute Ho-race Smith and Daniel Wesson and plunged the gullible White intoeven worse financial straits. It stipulated that although White did re-ceive royalties from any sales, it was his responsibility to defend theoriginal patents against what eventually became a series of finan-cially ruinous lawsuits. With their legal issues being handled atWhite’s expense, Smith and Wesson were free to go on their merryand profitable path—once Colt’s patent ran out in 1857. On thevery day of the Colt patent’s expiration, the Smith and Wesson work-shops were already staffed, supplied, and ready for business. Oncein business, from 1857 until the early 1870s, Smith & Wesson pro-tected its designs as ruthlessly as Samuel Colt had his own. PoorRollin White soon sank into bankruptcy before finding better luckwith sewing machines and steam cars.

Smith and Wesson’s contributions to cartridge development were,if possible, even more significant than their efforts at perfecting therevolver. After early unsuccessful experiments with a center-fire car-tridge, Wesson ultimately turned to Flobert’s designs as a startingpoint. He first increased the potential power of the cartridge by ex-tending the length of the cartridge case to accommodate a smallcharge of black powder. He further replaced the round bullet of theB-B cap with a longer, conical projectile. Priming was initially ac-complished by coating the entire inner surface of the cartridge base


with a fulminate mixture. Experiments with this priming arrange-ment quickly proved impractical, as the early copper cases tended tobulge upon detonation and jam against the flash shield, stoppingcylinder rotation. Wesson corrected the problem with a cartridgecontaining the primer in its rim only. The rim also served the pur-pose of preventing the cartridge case from sliding too far into thechamber.

Smith & Wesson Model No. 1 Revolvers

For all of the drama, intrigue, and design brilliance involved in itsconception, Smith & Wesson’s first offering was not a very intimi-dating weapon. Manufactured from 1857 to 1860, the Smith &Wesson Model No. 1 First Issue Revolver was a small pocket pistolwith a barrel barely more than 3 inches in length. Although thecylinder chambered seven cartridges, the short, caliber .22 loadswere capable of only very short ranges and even then did not possessthe velocity or weight to give consistent stopping power.

Still, the single-action Model No. 1 was a handy revolver and, de-spite the weakness of its cartridge, a true milestone in firearms his-tory. It featured a spur trigger, square-back, rosewood grips, a bluedcylinder and barrel, and a silver-plated brass frame. It also intro-duced a tip-up design that allowed the octagonal barrel to hinge up-ward to permit the removal of the cylinder for loading and removalof the spent cartridge casings. Ejection was a relatively laboriousprocedure accomplished by means of a metal rod stowed under-neath the barrel. The Model No. 1 enjoyed reasonably successfulsales, with about 11,671 pistols manufactured. The firm followedthe Model No. 1 in 1860 with the even more popular Smith & Wes-son Model No. 1 Second Issue Revolver, manufacturing some117,000 pistols until discontinuing it in 1868. Where the SecondIssue Revolver differed from the First Issue in only minor details,the Smith & Wesson No. 1 Third Issue Revolver was at least superfi-cially different in its overall appearance. Its bird’s-head grips andribbed barrel set it apart visually from its predecessors, although itwas essentially the same mechanically. Smith & Wesson manufac-tured some 131,163 Third Issue Revolvers from 1868 to 1881.

The Smith & Wesson Model No. 1 Revolvers made the firm anearly 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-

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ets of soldiers of both sides and all ranks. Also, for those wealthiercustomers with more refined tastes and patience, specially orderedspecimens were available with either pearl or ivory grips and silver-plate finishes. When introduced, the standard production revolvercost $12, with a box of 100 cartridges going for $.75. Although notnecessarily inexpensive—a Civil War private earned about $13 amonth—orders for the little .22s quickly outpaced the factory’s pro-duction 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 unsuitablefor anything more than a hideout pistol for last resort or as an intim-idator during card games. The company attempted to address thisproblem with the introduction of the Smith & Wesson Model No. 2Army Revolver. Sometimes known as the Smith & Wesson ModelNo. 2 Old Model Revolver, the Model No. 2 introduced a more pow-erful rimfire caliber .32 cartridge. In essence a larger version of theearlier .22s, the Model No. 2 was chambered for six cartridges andcould be ordered with either a 4-, 5-, or 6-inch barrel. Special fin-ishes and grips were available, but rosewood grips and blue or nickelfinishes were most common.

Some 77,155 Model No. 2s were manufactured between 1861and 1874. Although often designated as an Army model, no ModelNo. 2 revolvers saw official acceptance by the U.S. military. Manysoldiers, however, purchased them during the Civil War as personalweapons, and a very limited number were purchased by the state ofKentucky to arm the Seventh Kentucky (U.S.) Cavalry. Admirers pre-sented the famous cavalryman and firearms connoisseur GeorgeArmstrong Custer a pair in 1869, and the Model No. 2 also earnedwide popularity in the West following the Civil War. It was reputedthat Wild Bill Hickok favored it and had one on his person when JackMcCall shot him to death in August 1874. As further testimony tothe Smith & Wesson’s popularity, it was reported that McCall shotHickok 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.


The five-shot Smith & Wesson Model No.1_ First Issue Revolverchambered a short caliber .32 cartridge that proved disappointing,and the company replaced it in 1868, introducing the Smith & Wes-son Model No. 1_ Second Issue Revolver. The Second Issue Re-volver was fitted with a five-chambered fluted cylinder and cham-bered a more powerful, longer caliber .32 cartridge. Smith &Wesson manufactured some 100,700 Second Issues before discon-tinuing it in 1875.

Their exclusive monopoly of the White patent placed Smith &Wesson in a unique situation that they failed to exploit to its fullestpotential. Just as significant, Smith & Wesson protected its monopolyas strenuously as Colt had protected his own patents. This situationsimultaneously retarded domestic firearms development by competi-tors and sparked numerous designs meant to infringe upon or cir-cumvent the original patent. In the meantime, European designers,unhindered by U.S. patent laws, made great use of the bored-through cylinder and other innovations. As a consequence, most sol-diers who carried pistols during the U.S. Civil War were armed withobsolete percussion pistols rather than the breech-loading cartridgerevolvers already in fairly wide use in Europe, notably France.

That Smith & Wesson introduced such a small pistol chamberedfor the tiny caliber .22 short black-powder cartridge automaticallyprecluded them from consideration for lucrative government con-tracts. Most standard U.S. military pistols of the day were cham-bered in the far more powerful calibers .36 and .44 (calibers set forthe most part by Samuel Colt). Smith & Wesson’s cartridge was sounderpowered that it was always a doubtful proposition that it couldeven penetrate heavy clothing at combat range, much less stop orkill an opponent. That the partners did not at first introduce alarger, more powerful caliber was at least partially owing to prob-lems with the metal they used in their cartridge cases. The copperavailable during their early experiments tended to be overly brittle.This fault made it difficult to manufacture into cases that werestrong enough to withstand detonation while flexible enough to bedented by the hammer nose. Timely advances in metallurgy, how-ever, came to the partners’ rescue in the form of the annealingprocess. The procedure strengthened the copper cases yet impartedthe ability to retain flexibility. This breakthrough did allow the part-ners to produce the more powerful caliber .32 cartridge, but thisalso did not compare well in penetration and stopping power to thebig percussion pistols of the day.

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SMITH & WESSON PATENT CIRCUMVENTIONS

Despite their pistols’ rather anemic loadings, Smith & Wesson didfind an exploding civilian market for their wares and, inevitably, thesame sort of competition in the form of patent circumvention andinfringement that had so plagued Samuel Colt. Such companies asAetna Arms Company of New York; the unidentified makers of theBismarck Pocket Revolver; Lucius W. Pond and E. A. Prescott, bothof Worcester; and Moore’s Patent Firearms Company of Brooklyncommercialized on Smith & Wesson’s success by producing nearlyidentical copies of various S&W models in flagrant violation ofpatent laws. Smith & Wesson successfully sued a number of theseplagiarists and, in some cases, forced them to mark their wares withthe legend “MF’D FOR SMITH & WESSON.”

Allen & Wheelock

In 1860 the respected Worcester firm Allen & Wheelock attemptedto circumvent the White patent by introducing a lip-fire cartridgeand revolver. The basic design was very similar to their percussionrevolvers, but the cylinder was completely bored through to accept acaliber .44 cartridge with its priming not held in a complete rim butin a single protrusion on one side of its base. The lip was designed tomate with a notch in the rear of the cylinder that allowed the ham-mer 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 capa-bilities to circumvent Smith & Wesson’s patents. Although effortswere 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 PatentPocket Revolver exhibited all the hallmarks of such ingenious im-practicality. Although it was fitted with a rather eccentrically shapedwalnut gripped butt, the five-chambered Slocum accepted a conven-tional caliber .32 rimmed cartridge and externally resembled thespur trigger Smith & Wesson pocket pistols. It was 9.5 inches in


overall length with a foliage-engraved, silver-plated brass frame. Thecylinder and 3-inch barrel were blued.

The cylinder and method of loading the Slocum, however, wereanything but conventional. The side-loading Slocum design avoidedthe issue of the bored-through cylinder patent by employing cham-bers consisting of separate tubes that slid into corresponding slots inthe cylinder body. For loading and ejecting the spent cartridge cas-ings, the Slocum required the user to slide the individual tubes for-ward over a fixed rod on the right side of the weapon. This allowed acartridge to be placed in the side of the cylinder, after which thetube could be pushed back into place. A notch in the otherwise solidrear of the cylinder allowed the nose of the hammer to strike thecartridge rim. The pistol proved popular enough that somewhatmore than 10,000 Slocum revolvers were produced in 1863 and1864.

Crispin

A relative latecomer to the patent circumvention field, SilasCrispin, possibly of New York, patented another strange pistol andcartridge in 1865. Crispin’s timing—he was too late to exploit thepreviously surging Civil War pistol market—and his pistol’s peculiardesign ensured his failure, and few pistols were produced. Crispin’srevolver superficially resembled the Smith & Wesson products butfeatured a completely unique cartridge and cylinder. The six-cham-bered cylinder was manufactured in two sections divided about athird of the way from the rear of the pistol. The rear portion wasmounted to the rear frame, with the upper two-thirds of the cylin-der body mounted to the forward frame. The special caliber .32cartridge was manufactured with its priming in a belt that circledits midsection and was loaded in the rear section of the cylinder.When closed, slots cut into the cylinder, where the two sectionsjoined, and allowed the hammer to strike the cartridge’s primingbelts. Another factor in Crispin’s failure may have lain in the ten-dency of his rather delicate cartridges to explode during loading ifhandled carelessly.

Other inventors attempted to circumvent White’s bored-throughcylinder patent by introducing metallic cartridges that loadedthrough the front of the cylinder. Although in no way as efficientas Smith & Wesson products, such designs allowed a number ofentrepreneurs to exploit the huge pistol market generated by the

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Civil War and western expansion. The two most successful ofthese strange loadings were known as the cup-primed and teat-firecartridges.

Plant Manufacturing Company

Financed and marketed by the New York partnership Merwin &Bray, Plant’s Manufacturing Company of New Haven was thelargest manufacturer of front-loading, cup-primed revolvers. Its pis-tols were based on a copper cartridge patented on 12 July 1859 byWillard C. Ellis and John H. White. The cup-fire (or hollow-base)cartridge was indented in its breech end to accept the priming andcontained powder and a bullet that were seated completely withinthe case. This arrangement gave the cartridge the appearance of asimple tube. The cartridges were designed to be loaded into thefront of the cylinder chambers that in turn were bored with a smallhole 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 theframe behind the cylinder to push out the spent casings.

Plant manufactured two basic sizes of its cup-fire revolvers: alarge caliber .42 Army model and a scaled-down caliber .30 pocketmodel. Both bore a marked similarity in appearance to Smith &Wesson’s products, with ribbed, octagonal barrels. All were manu-factured with spur triggers, and most had silver-plated brass frames,although a very few early Army models had iron frames. They are fit-ted with either rosewood or walnut grips and blued cylinders andbarrels. Plant produced just more than 8,000 six-shot Army modelswith 6-inch barrels and, in conjunction with the Eagle Manufactur-ing Company of New York City, some 20,000 pocket models. Pocketmodels were available with both five and, more rarely, six-shot ca-pacities and short 3.5-inch barrels.

As its name implied, Plant hoped for sales of its Army model tothat branch of service during the Civil War. Although the govern-ment apparently refused to issue contracts, in 1865 Merwin & Braydid advertise in Harper’s Weekly that it had contracted to supply pis-tols to the U.S. Revenue Service, the precursor of the modern CoastGuard. Although the claim may have been a mere marketing ploy,the company did realize a reasonably strong civilian market and pri-vate sales to military personnel. Plant also attempted to expand theversatility of its Army revolver by providing a spare percussion cylin-der with its pistols. Numbers of these cylinders, as well as the cup-


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

Moore’s Patent Firearms

Daniel Moore and David Williamson patented the much more suc-cessful teat-fire cartridge on 28 April 1863 and by 1864 were manu-facturing a caliber .32 teat-fire pocket revolver at Moore’s PatentFirearms Company in Brooklyn. A very popular privately purchasedweapon among Civil War troops, some 30,000 pistols were manu-factured before it was discontinued in 1870. The cartridge resem-bled the cup-fire cartridge but had an elongated flattened, orrounded, teat opposite the bulleted end that contained the primer.The teat passed through a small hole in the rear of the cylinderchamber, 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 octagonal3.5-inch barrel. Its bird’s-head grip is stocked with either walnut orgutta percha panels, and it is 7.5-inches in overall length. A pivotinggate on the right side of the frame, forward the cylinder, preventsthe cartridges from falling out once loaded. During the latter half ofthe 1860s, having undergone a name change to the National ArmsCompany, the firm also produced a large frame, six-shot pistol incaliber .45. It too had a bird’s-head grip and silver-plate frame, butits 7.5-inch barrel differed in that it was octagonal at the breechand round toward the muzzle. In 1870 Colt bought out the Na-tional Arms Company in an apparent attempt to eliminate it ascompetition.

CARTRIDGE CONVERSIONS

The close of the Civil War in April 1865 had a predictably profoundeffect on the U.S. arms industry. Rapid demobilization led to anabrupt drop in demand for military firearms and forced manysmaller gun makers out of business. As these companies slid intobankruptcy, the larger, more established firms such as Colt, Reming-ton, and Smith & Wesson found themselves competing in a smallerand more discerning market. As metallic cartridges became morewidely available, many originally percussion revolvers were con-

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verted to accept the new ammunition. By the end of the 1870s,however, the vast majority of new handguns were designed fromtheir inception as metallic cartridge weapons.

Although the postwar military pistol market contracted, civiliandemand increased as the United States turned its attention to itsvast western territories. Western immigrants—many of them veter-ans—clamored for the latest in handgun designs for defense in thehostile mountains, prairies, and boomtowns beyond the Mississippi.U.S. soldiers, assigned to protect this flood of pioneers, were no lessdiscerning in acquiring the tools of the trade. Yet despite the proveneffectiveness of the revolver during the Civil War, the rigid U.S. mil-itary bureaucracy still questioned the wisdom of issuing pistols totroops.

This hesitancy was rooted in the persistent dogma then current inthe United States and Europe that often defied the logic of actualbattlefield experience. Most military theorists of the time held thatpistols were of limited value and that their compact size and limitedrange made them suitable at best only for cavalry and shipboard use.Many ordnance experts questioned the validity of continuing the is-sue of revolvers and even expressed a strong preference to return tothe issue of single-shot pistols. They still argued that the traditionalsaber was the ideal weapon for close combat and that carbines weresufficient for any fighting requiring a firearm. Pistols, in their view,should be carried by troopers only in the unlikely event that they en-tered the field without sabers. Revolvers, they haughtily argued, en-couraged a wasteful expenditure of ammunition, were difficult tohandle while at a full gallop, and, in the hands of the less intelligentenlisted men, were more liable to accidental discharge.

1870 U.S. Small Arms and Accoutrements Board

Those soldiers engaged in the unconventional warfare against hos-tile Indian tribes in the West suffered the most from such conser-vatism. Troops fighting along the frontier in the 1860s were oftenoutnumbered, outgunned, and—many would argue—outgeneraledby their Native American opponents. Western fighting typically in-volved desperate, close-range actions between small military detach-ments and larger numbers of Indians armed with revolvers and re-peating rifles. As their casualties mounted, troopers were desperateto even the odds. In 1870 the Army responded to repeated requestsfrom frontier commands for better equipment by convening the


Small Arms and Accoutrements Board in St. Louis. During its ses-sions the board tested a number of pistols to determine their suit-ability for issue to Army personnel.

Colt failed to submit any pistols to the board, but a number ofother manufacturers, most notably Remington and Smith & Wes-son, offered their products for appraisal and possible acceptance.These included the Smith & Wesson Model 3 American First Modelin caliber .44 Henry rimfire, both percussion and metallic cartridgeconversion examples of the caliber .44 Remington New Model ArmyRevolver, and a new single-shot caliber .50 rolling block design, alsoby Remington. After preliminary tests, the board recommended thatthe percussion pistols be phased out of service and replaced withmetallic-cartridge weapons. They then ordered 1,000 each for fieldtests of Remington’s cartridge revolvers and the Smith & WessonModel 3 American First Model chambered for a center-fire car-tridge. Yet even as late as 1870, the army was unprepared to breakwith tradition. It was the single-shot Remington that the boardfound 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 rim-fire 1865 and center-fire 1867 Navy Rolling Block Pistols. Therolling block action consisted of a breechblock that rotated downinto the frame for loading and unloading and was one of thestrongest firearms actions ever produced. Remington applied the ac-tion to pistols, rifles, and carbines, and rolling block firearms gainedworldwide popularity in both civilian and military circles. Althoughrugged, accurate, and dependable, the rolling block was by design asingle shot–only action.

The U.S. Navy originally bought approximately 6,500 RollingBlocks between 1866 and 1870. These pistols exhibited Reming-ton’s typically fine workmanship with blued barrels, casehardenedframes, and walnut fore ends and grips. The Model 1865 is distin-guished from later military rolling blocks in that it is chambered forthe caliber .50 rimfire cartridge and is fitted with a spur trigger. TheModel 1867 is essentially a Model 1865 with a conventional triggerand trigger guard and caliber .50 center-fire chambering. The Rem-ington 1871 Army Rolling Block Pistol, as adopted by the Army, dif-fers only slightly from the Model 1867, its main differences being inthe angle of the grip and barrel length. The barrels of all the military

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rolling block pistols were round, with the Model 1865 barrel being8.5 inches in length, the Model 1867 7 inches, and the Model 18718 inches. The Army eventually bought some 5,000 pistols out of thecompany’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 of-fering in the way of military pistols. The percussion caliber .44 NewModel Army Revolver had been one of the best pistols to see serviceduring the Civil War, and Remington had been a pioneer in the con-version of percussion pistols to use metallic cartridges. The com-pany attempted to challenge Colt with its metallic-cartridge Model1875 Single Action Army Revolver, but sales were disappointing.The U.S. Department of the Interior did order 639 nickel-plate pis-tols for issue to its Indian Police, and Mexico ordered an additional1,000 pistols, but the U.S. Army showed no great interest. The lackof a significant military contract and the failure of the Egyptian gov-ernment to follow through with another agreement eventuallyprompted Remington to cease production of the Model 1875 in1889. The company made one last attempt to market a military re-volver with the Model 1890 Single Action Revolver, but that projectalso ended with disappointment; only some 2,020 were produced.With the failure of its revolvers, Remington turned its energies tothe production of rifles, shotguns, and its single-shot rolling blockpistols.

Colt Cartridge Conversions

For its part, the Colt Patent Firearms Company would maintain itsconcentration on handgun production into the twentieth century,but it also faced daunting challenges. At the end of the Civil Warthe Colt factory faced a drop in demand for pistols as well as a cri-sis in direction. Until his death on 10 January 1862, Samuel Colthad acted as technical visionary and the business and publicityhead. Following Colt’s death, Elisha K. Root, the factory superin-tendent, stepped in as company president to continue the steadyleadership.

Root was a consummate technician and businessman, and as theCivil War reached its height orders poured in and profits soared.


Compared to other operations of the time, the Colt factory was anindustrial palace topped by a blue dome and powered by a 250-horsepower steam engine. At its apex, perhaps 1,500 employees la-bored to manufacture some 150,000 muskets and pistols a year.Disaster, however, struck when a fire destroyed a large part of thefactory in 1864. With the death of Root in September 1865 and theloss of wartime orders, Colt was forced to lay off more than half itsemployees. Root’s replacement, Richard W. H. Jarvis, had little busi-ness and technical talent and owed his new position primarily to hisstatus as Samuel Colt’s brother-in-law. The company’s new vicepresident, William B. Franklin, had recently been forced out of theArmy in disgrace for his failure at the Battle of Fredericksburg, butat least he had training as an engineer. The company lacked a truepistol designer until William Mason joined the company in about1869. It was the technical skill of Mason, Charles B. Richards, andlater Carl J. Ehbets that carried Colt through the second half of thenineteenth century.

Colt Thuer Cartridge Conversions

Once the undisputed leader of the U.S. revolver industry, Coltfound itself struggling to regain prominence. As it waited out the fi-nal few months of the Rollin White patent, Colt resorted to its owncircumvention of Smith & Wesson’s monopoly. Patented in Septem-ber 1868 by Colt employee F. Alexander Thuer, Colt’s circumventionwas actually a conversion of its current percussion pistols to acceptmetallic cartridges. Colt performed only some 5,000 Thuer conver-sions on its Models 1849 Pocket, 1851 Navy, 1860 Army, 1861Navy, 1862 Police, and 1862 Pocket Navy Revolvers between 1869and 1872.

The Thuer conversion procedure consisted of lathing off the rearof the cylinder to accept a rotating ring assembly fitted with a firingpin and ejector. In addition, the cylinder’s chambers were milled toaccept the special tapered, front-loaded Thuer cartridge. Althoughholding the distinction of being the first reloadable, center-firemetallic cartridge with an integral primer, the Thuer conversion ulti-mately proved impractical. Possibly foreseeing that customers mightconsider the Thuer’s mechanism and five-piece reloading tool kit abit complicated, Colt included a spare percussion cylinder with itsThuer conversions.

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Martin- and Benet-Primed Cartridges

All cartridge pistols are dependent on reliable cartridges. The earli-est large-caliber center-fire metallic cartridges available during thelate 1860s and early 1870s were, for the most part, products of gov-ernment experiments at the Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia andthe National Arsenal in Springfield. Known as inside-primed car-tridges, these early center-fire attempts were of two basic designs:the Martin-primed cartridge and the Benet-primed cartridge. Thefirst design, developed by E. H. Martin of Springfield Arsenal in1866, incorporated an internal metal pin, or anvil, in the center ofthe cartridge head to facilitate ignition. The solid head of the casewas also formed into a small internal cup to hold the fulminate inplace. This gave the head of the cartridge something of a bull’s-eyeexternal appearance. Despite a number of improvements, Martin-primed cartridges went out of production in December 1871.

Colonel S. V. Benet, commander of Frankford Arsenal, offered asomewhat more successful cartridge in 1868. Owing to their flatsolid heads, larger inside-primed cartridges resembled the smallcopper-cased rimfire cartridges but were internally quite different.Colonel Benet’s inside-primed cup-and-anvil cartridges were readilyidentified by a crimp near the case’s head that holds the internalpriming components in place. Neither the Martin nor Benet de-signs, however, were readily reloadable—a feature that most ord-nance officials and civilians saw as essential for practical cartridgedesigns.

The desirability of reloadable cartridges was especially acute inthe American West. Beyond the Mississippi River the cost of newcartridges was often prohibitive, and availability was always indoubt. Forced to rely on their own ingenuity, some western Indianswere even reported to have punched holes in the base of cartridgecases to allow the insertion of percussion caps. This expedience al-lowed them to extend the use of their precious casings beyond theirusual one-shot life expectancy.

The Berdan Cartridge

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


placing the old copper cases with more versatile brass. He then de-vised a practical method of drawing the brass case into a tube with athick base containing a cavity to accept a separate primer. Berdan’swas superior to all previous designs but did exhibit a significantflaw: It was extremely difficult to reload. In Berdan’s system theanvil was an integral component of the case. His case also employedtwo flash holes around the anvil to convey the primer’s ignition tothe main powder charge. Although quite reliable as a single-use car-tridge, Berdan’s system made it very difficult to remove the usedprimer.

The Boxer Cartridge

On the other side of the Atlantic, Colonel Edward Mounier Boxer, aBritish officer and superintendent of the Royal Laboratory, Wool-wich Arsenal, provided the solution. Boxer’s design incorporated theanvil within the primer, thus allowing for a single, larger vent hole inthe case head. This larger aperture made it much easier to removethe spent primer with a simple punch. While many European forcesfavored the Berdan system for decades, the Boxer priming system,combined with the Berdan drawn-brass case, became the standardcenter-fire cartridge design in the United States.

Later Colt Conversions

When Rollin White’s desperate attempts to extend his patentfailed—an event precipitated by the direct intervention of Presi-dent Ulysses S. Grant, who saw it impeding technologicalprogress—Colt still had not developed a new breech-loadingmetallic-cartridge revolver. The company instead continued toconvert its existing percussion models to the new system. Theseconversion pistols, although economical and functional weapons,were still nothing more than a stopgap until Colt could design itsown real metallic cartridge revolver. Such conversions were, in anycase, a rather simple procedure, merely involving the replacementof the percussion cylinder with a bored-through cylinder, the re-moval of the rammer, and the addition of a spent casing ejector.Between about 1873 and 1880 Colt performed thousands of suchprocedures, with independent gunsmiths converting thousandsmore.

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Colt Richards-Mason Conversion

In 1871 Colt patented a conversion of the Colt 1860 Army Revolverdeveloped by Charles B. Richards that became among the most com-mon of the Colt factory conversions. The factory converted some9,000 pistols to the Richards system between 1873 and 1878. TheRichards system consisted of a bored-through cylinder and a ringadded to the breech to permit the insertion of metallic cartridges.The rammer was also removed and an ejector rod added to the rightside of the barrel. In 1877 and 1878 William Mason, Colt factorymanager and recently of Remington, improved on the original con-version to produce some 2,100 Richards-Mason Conversions of the1860 Army Revolvers. Troops in the field found the various Colt con-versions to be better weapons than the older percussion pistols, butthe 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 cylin-der was the short-lived Model 1872—essentially just a modifiedModel 1860 with the new cylinder and manufactured without aloading lever. The Model 1872 thus retained the older Model 1860’sdesign flaws, and Colt replaced it the next year with its much-improved Model 1873. The Model 1873 was the product of the en-gineering skills of William Mason and Charles B. Richards and metwith instant success. With the Model 1873, Colt at last employed asolid frame, making the new pistol structurally much sturdier thanearlier models. The pistol featured a hinged, swing-down loadinggate on the rear of the frame and a spring-loaded spent-casing ex-tractor mounted on the lower right of the barrel.

Although simply designated as the Model P in original factoryrecords, the Model 1873 was more popularly known as the Peace-maker and quickly became the most famous revolver in the world.The Model 1873 entered government service in caliber .45 Colt, acenter-fire metallic cartridge thus earning two more famous nick-names—the Colt .45 and the Single Action Army (SAA). Colt ini-tially offered three barrel lengths: The U.S. cavalry adopted the pis-tol with a 7.5-inch barrel, the artillery chose it with a 5.5-inchbarrel, and many civilians preferred it with a 4.75-inch barrel.

The Model 1873 served as the regulation U.S. Army pistol from


1873 to 1892, when it was designated substitute-standard andserved in that capacity until 1909. The SAA thus saw extensive us-age from the Indian Wars through the Philippine actions as well aswith western lawmen, outlaws, and cowboys, among whom it earnedits most popular nickname—Peacemaker. The U.S. government pur-chased some 37,000 Model 1873s. Colt’s total production ran to357,859 in several variations produced between 1873 and 1941.During the dark days of 1940 a desperate British government evenissued 163 SAAs to the Home Guard. Owing to popular demand,spurred in no small part by the popularity of movie-house westernsduring and following World War II, Colt resumed production of thePeacemaker in 1955.

Colt was also quick to exploit the market for custom-orderedPeacemakers. The original model was manufactured with a blued bar-rel, grip straps, and trigger, a casehardened frame and hammer, andwalnut grips. The factory soon offered nickel-finished guns as well asdeluxe gold- and silver-embellished examples with ornate engraving.Grips could be ordered in hard rubber, carved ivory, and pearl. Barrelswere available in lengths varying from 2.5 inches to 16 inches; a skele-ton-style detachable shoulder stock could also be purchased for thelong-barreled models. Such long-barreled models gained the nick-name Buntline Specials in honor of the famed Western dime-novelistNed Buntline. Whether Buntline actually brandished his namesake isstill open to debate, but records indicate that such famous Westerncharacters as William “Buffalo Bill” Cody, Pat Garrett, the Earp broth-ers, and Bat Masterson did favor the more standard forms of thePeacemaker and helped further its romantic appeal. Other famousPeacemaker aficionados included President Theodore Roosevelt andGeneral 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 sameyear he graduated from the United States Military Academy at WestPoint. He went on to carry the Colt as his personal sidearm duringthe 1907–1908 Moro insurrection, the Mexican expedition in 1916,and through World War I. Wainwright later commanded U.S. andPhilippine forces in the Philippines at the time of the Japanese at-tack. When forced to surrender at Corregidor on 6 May 1942, Gen-eral Wainwright refused to give up his Colt and instead hid it in ahollow tree. He recovered the badly corroded pistol in 1947; it waslater acquired by his alma mater (Ezell 1981: 636).

In 1878 Colt began marketing the Model 1873 on the civilianmarket as the Frontier Six-Shooter in calibers .44–40, .38–40, and.32–20—the same calibers as the popular Winchester saddle car-

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bines and rifles. Frontiersmen found this arrangement handy be-cause it allowed them to use the same cartridge in both their pistoland long arm. Colt, for its part, found this brilliant marketing ployextremely 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 inter-nal mechanism, which leads to frequent breakage. It is also a te-dious process to individually eject the spent cartridge cases manu-ally with the ejector rod. More inexplicably, Colt also failed toincorporate a double-action mechanism in its design. Still, theModel 1873 possessed classic lines, handled beautifully, and, de-spite rather rudimentary sights, was accurate. Since 1873 it hasplayed a prominent role in countless western novels and movies andto many it is the only true cowboy’s gun.

From about 1888 to 1915 Colt introduced a number of target pis-tols based on the Single Action Army Revolver. Intended mainly forthe civilian market, these included the Colt Flattop Target ModelSingle Action Army, the Colt Bisley Model Single Action Army Re-volver, and the Colt Bisley Model Flattop Target Revolver. Colt’s tar-get pistols were available in a variety of calibers and with eithercheckered hard-rubber or walnut grips and with blued and case-hardened metal finishes. The Bisley models, named for the famousBritish shooting competition, were distinguished by their grips’rather dramatic drop and a wide, low-profile hammer spur. Althoughdesigned as a specialized target pistol, the Bisley did find its own fol-lowing 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 competitionfrom its old rival, Smith & Wesson. Quite often the more discerningwestern gunslingers chose Smith & Wesson revolvers over Colts. Thereason was obvious: Smith & Wesson pistols were far and awaybetter-designed weapons by nearly any standard. In another ironictwist, Smith & Wesson’s better design helped exclude it to some de-gree from the U.S. market. In 1870 Smith & Wesson introduced itsModel No. 3 First Model Single Action Revolver. The company man-ufactured some 8,000 of the No. 3 First Model before replacing it in1872. Although not quite possessing the aesthetic appeal of its Coltrival, the new Smith & Wesson was a robust weapon and marked thecompany’s entry into the production of large military-caliber pistols.


More popularly known as the First Model American, the pistolwas the company’s first large-caliber as well as top-break revolverand offered a number of advantages over its competition. The top-break design consists of a rear frame hinged at the forward lowerstrap to the forward frame, cylinder, and barrel assembly. A hingedcatch on the rear top strap then mates to the upper rear frame. Rais-ing the rear catch allows the barrel to be swiveled down in an actionthat automatically ejects the spent shell casings and clears the cylin-der for reloading.

To many, the First Model American’s automatic ejection capabilitywas its greatest feature. Daniel B. Wesson acquired the patent rightsto the ejection mechanism from designers W. C. Dodge and C. A.King in 1869. Their ingenious system was based on a flat, star-shaped extractor in the rear of the cylinder that fit under the car-tridge rims. The action of lowering the barrel cammed the spring-loaded extractor rearward far enough to kick the spent casings out ofthe chambers, at which point it automatically snapped back into po-sition. The Dodge-King design thus allowed all of the cases to beejected at once (as opposed to Colt’s comparatively laborious processof manually turning the cylinder to individually eject the spent caseswith the ejector rod). Despite some Colt enthusiasts’ objections thatthe 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 BillCody and Wyatt Earp, who reportedly put his to effective use duringthe shootout at the O.K. Corral (Flayderman 1987: 197). The FirstModel American also introduced the respectably lethal caliber .44Smith & Wesson American cartridge. The company’s standard prod-uct featured a six-chambered, fluted cylinder, 8-inch barrel, walnutgrips, and either blued or nickel-plated finishes. Significantly, theU.S. Army also quickly took interest in the new pistol and in Decem-ber 1870 ordered 200 nickel-plated and 800 blued Smith & Wes-sons. Evidence indicates that a number of Colonel George Arm-strong Custer’s troopers were carrying First Model Americansduring their disastrous encounter with the Lakota and other NativeAmerican 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 ofmodifications to its original design and manufactured 20,735 Model

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No. 3 Second Model Single Action Revolvers. These revolvers soontook on their popular name: Second Model Americans. It was thesuccess and resultant publicity of the First and Second ModelAmericans that would help launch Smith & Wesson into the highlyprofitable international arms trade. The situation was not without atouch 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 aforeign contract that would so tie up the company’s production linesthat it had no choice but to leave the U.S. military market to itsgreatest rival.

Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 Russian First Model Single Action Revolver

Russia, with its sprawling peasant population, concentrated onmaintaining a large infantry force, the primary weapons being themusket and bayonet. The pistol was thus very much a secondaryweapon, and Russians saw little reason to replace its single-shot,muzzle-loaded percussion pistols until 1859. At that time the Ses-troretsk Arsenal began exploring breech-loading designs and in 1863began manufacturing a caliber .60 single-shot breechloader. Its at-tempts at pistol design, however, did not prove satisfactory. I. G.Norman of the Tula Arsenal next explored the possibility of manu-facturing pistols based on the Beaumont-Adams as provided by thatfirm’s licensee, August Francotte of Liège. The Tula-manufacturedpistols were designated the Tula-Norman revolver by the Russians,but only a few were manufactured. Tula-made Beaumont-Adamspistols differed from English and Belgian pistols in that they werefitted with smooth, rather than checkered, grips and displayed amore rounded butt profile.

The Russian Navy adopted another foreign design: the BelgianCharles-François Galand’s self-extracting Model 1870, or RevolverGaland à extracteur automatique. The Galand is a 10.4mm (caliber.41) five-chambered weapon distinguished by its unusual lever-action extraction system. Pulling the pistol’s trigger guard downfrees the cylinder and barrel assembly to slide forward on the cylin-der rod to automatically eject the spent shell casings and allow re-loading. The system works well enough but is rather awkward, andno other national military force adopted the design. When the Rus-sian Army finally committed to adopting a revolver, they turned tothe Americans.


Smith & Wesson’s big new revolvers quickly caught the interestof Grand Duke Alexis who was on a tour of the United States at thetime. The grand duke, a hunting and firearms enthusiast, had firstobserved a demonstration of the new Smith & Wesson before em-barking on a hunting expedition in the West. None other than thefamous Western celebrity Buffalo Bill Cody accompanied the Rus-sian nobleman on his trip. Both men equipped themselves with thenew revolvers and returned to the East highly impressed with theirperformance (Smith 1969: 166–167). Grand Duke Alexis soonpassed on his impressions of the Smith & Wesson to General Alek-sandr P. Gorloff of the Imperial Russian Army. General Gorloff, anordnance expert who had lived briefly in the United States, obvi-ously agreed with the grand duke’s assessment. The general and hisstaff suggested a few modifications to suit the Russian Army’s re-quirements and, in 1871, initiated the first of three Russian con-tracts for an ultimate total of nearly 150,000 pistols. The first20,114 contract pistols were designated Model No. 3 Russian FirstModel 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 itsproducts.

As stipulated by General Gorloff, these revolvers chambered thenew caliber .44 Smith & Wesson Russian cartridge, manufacturedwith a slightly longer case and larger bullet than the original.Gorloff ’s modifications greatly improved the accuracy and ballisticcharacteristics of the cartridge. They were issued with either bluedor nickel finishes and fitted with walnut grips, a lanyard swivelmounted to the butt, and an 8-inch barrel. They are further distin-guished from their predecessors by the addition of the barrel mark-ing “RUSSIAN MODEL” and Cyrillic lettering declaring “SMITH & WES-SON ARMS FACTORY. SPRINGFIELD AMERICA.” Smith & Wesson alsosold some 5,165 rejected Russian Models on the civilian market,one of which found its way into the lethal hands of the western bad-man John Wesley Hardin. In Texas, Hardin reputedly killed a law-man with a Russian Model during one of his many run-ins (Flayder-man 1987: 198).

Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 Russian Second Model (Old Model Russian Revolver)

Working closely with the Russian designer Captain Kasavery Or-

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dinetz, Smith & Wesson continued its modifications of the basicRussian Model. In 1873 this collaboration resulted in the Smith &Wesson Model No. 3 Russian Second Model or, more popularly, theOld Model Russian Revolver. The company produced some 85,200Old Model Russians before discontinuing them in 1878. TheSecond Model Russian’s main differences from the First Modelwere a more rounded butt profile, a 7-inch rather than 8-inch bar-rel, 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, hadalso taken notice and ordered 5,000 revolvers, and Turkey ordered asignificant number of pistols chambered for the caliber .44 Henryrimfire cartridge. As a result, Russian and Turkish troops werearmed with Smith & Wessons during the 1877–1878 Russo-TurkishWar. The remaining Second Models made their way into the civilianmarket, where many American gunslingers, annoyed by the pistol’strigger-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’sbarrel length by half an inch and manufactured 60,638 of its thirdand last Russian Model. Commonly called the New Model Russian,the Model 3 Russian Third Model continued to expand the com-pany’s domestic and international reputations. At home, Pat Garrett,the famous lawman and killer of Billy the Kid, reportedly favored thebig .44 (Flayderman 1987: 199). The Japanese Navy ordered an addi-tional 1,000 revolvers, and Turkey followed up its initial order withanother for 5,000, again in caliber .44 Henry. For its part, Russiacontracted for another 41,138 pistols. The demand was so greatupon Smith & Wesson’s strained facilities that the company licensedthe Ludwig Loewe Company of Berlin as well as the Russian nationalarmory 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 & Wes-son’s New Model No. 3 Single Action Revolver. The new pistol


closely resembled its Russian forebears but was manufactured with-out the trigger-guard spur and lanyard swivel. The firm produced35,796 New Models between 1878 and 1912, with the .44 Smith &Wesson Russian as the standard caliber, though others were avail-able. Barrel lengths could be had up to 8 inches, though 6.5-inchbarrels were most common. As in earlier models, blued and nickelfinishes were available, as were walnut and hard rubber grips. Thenew revolver proved popular in the United States—the renownedsharpshooter Annie Oakley owned at least three. On the other endof the spectrum, however, that “dirty little coward” Bob Ford was re-puted to have shot Jesse James in the back of the head with his NewModel No. 3 in 1882 (Flayderman 1987: 200). Although Ford’s shotwas accomplished at a range of only a few inches, the companycould at least point out Oakley’s use of their revolvers as a shiningendorsement.

Smith & Wesson also secured a number of both domestic and for-eign contracts for the New Model. At home, the state of Marylandbought some 280 nickel-plated pistols in 1878, and the U.S. Rev-enue Cutter Service bought a limited number in 1890. Japan con-tinued its patronage of the firm, ordering at least another 1,500 pis-tols for its navy as well as a number of revolvers fitted with 7-inchbarrels and lanyard swivels for artillery troops. For its part, Turkeyordered another 5,461 of its own Turkish Model revolvers, againchambered for caliber .44 rimfire. The Australian Colonial Policeordered 250 pistols with 7-inch barrels and detachable shoulderstocks and an additional 30 pistols with 6.5-inch barrels. The NewYork firm Hartley & Graham helped the company break into theSouth American market by brokering some 2,000 revolvers to theArgentine government. All in all, some 40 percent of the New ModelNo. 3 production was exported overseas to South America, Asia, andEurope. While Colt retained its hold on the U.S. military market,Smith & Wesson could at the very least take pride in the vast num-ber 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 hisinterest to his old partner, Daniel B. Wesson. Wesson retained theestablished company name to maintain brand-name recognition. Inthe meantime, an experienced U.S. Army officer, George Wheeler

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Schofield, approached Wesson with an improved version of his al-ready successful Russian and American models. Schofield, a colonelin the 10th U.S. Cavalry and a Civil War veteran, had probably han-dled the earlier Smith & Wesson .44s when his brother presidedover army tests of the pistol in 1870. Soon after, Schofield signed onas an agent to sell Smith & Wesson revolvers in Colorado andKansas. Schofield greatly admired the big .44s but also realized thatto 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 wellas a few other minor improvements. Wesson was impressed withSchofield’s proposals and, in 1875, began manufacturing what be-came known as the Smith & Wesson First Model Schofield SingleAction 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-inchbarrel. The improved barrel catch was also fitted to the upper rearframe rather than the top strap.

The Schofield proved an instant success, the company selling3,000 revolvers to the U.S. Army that year. The new .45 saw exten-sive service on the frontier with the 4th U.S. Cavalry during theGeronimo campaign and with the Buffalo Soldiers of the 9th and10th U.S. Cavalry (Flayderman 1987: 203). Only 35 pistols madetheir official way into the civilian market. Still, through loss, theft,and surplus sales, the First Model Schofield saw considerable non-military action. At some point in their careers, notorious western fig-ures such as Frank and Jesse James, Cole Younger, and U.S. Mar-shall Ben Tilghman holstered Schofields. Outfitters Schuyler,Hartley & Graham of New York City also provided a significantnumber of surplus guns with their barrels shortened to 5 inches tothe 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 ba-sic design; that year Smith & Wesson introduced the Second ModelSchofield. Between 1876 and 1877 the company manufactured andsold an additional 5,285 revolvers to the Army and some 650 on thecivilian market. Wells Fargo & Company also acquired a number ofthe Second Model to augment earlier purchases. Still, despite thefavorable reception afforded the Schofield, Smith & Wesson faced a


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

1870s: MILITARY THEORY AND THE PISTOL

The demise of the Schofield—both revolver and the inventor—wasin no small part owing to some rather thickheaded logic prevalentamong U.S. ordnance officials at that time. Relying on theory ratherthan actual combat experience, the officials argued that duringhand-to-hand combat the top-break design was vulnerable to an en-emy releasing its catch and thus rendering the pistol useless. Totheir muddled thinking, the “new” Colt solid-frame design was infi-nitely superior despite its much slower loading procedure. Continu-ing along the same anachronistic vein, the U.S. Army also continuedto reject the double-action system of operation. Ordnance officersargued passionately—if not logically—that the system offered toomany chances for wasted ammunition and accidental discharge if is-sued to mounted troops.

The nature of warfare throughout the world was changing dra-matically during the 1870s. Unfortunately, the upper echelons ofnearly all military bureaucracies in Europe and the United Statessuffered from the persistent conservatism that has seemed to plaguetheir kind for time immemorial. They were thus painfully slow torecognize the needs of their troops in the emerging new battlefieldsin their colonies and, in the United States, on the frontier. It wasduring this period that the role of the military pistol underwent areevaluation by the world’s military establishments and in the endgained greater importance as a combat weapon.

The conventional military thinking of the time held that the pis-tol was essentially a secondary offensive weapon best applied to cav-alry, whose primary weapons consisted of the saber and lance. Cav-alry, according to the European ideal of warfare, was best used inmassed charges against similarly equipped opponents and broken

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infantry units. This concept worked well enough on European bat-tlefields and even during the U.S. Civil War. The carbine, in thisview, was at least tolerable for long-range purposes, the pistol amere supplement.

The U.S. Civil War—in many ways the first modern war—pre-saged the end of the massed saber charge. The general use of rifledweapons in that conflict greatly extended the killing range of mus-ket- and carbine-armed troops and often made traditional cavalrytactics suicidal. That war also saw a number of innovative cavalryleaders who saw the potential of the new revolvers as primary offen-sive weapons. It was thus no coincidence that many of these officerswere not regular army but citizen-soldiers who were less hideboundby military dogma. Such leaders as the Confederate partisan com-mander Colonel John Singleton Mosby often eschewed the saber infavor of lightning surprise attacks with blazing pairs of six-shooters.The combined firepower of braces of Colts or Remingtons in thehands of even small units often turned the tide against much largerforces in the South’s fields and woods. By the end of the war caval-rymen on both sides considered the revolver and carbine much morenecessary than the traditional saber, once so essential.

U.S. troopers posted on the western frontier came to a similarconclusion. They faced tribes that operated as superb light cavalrywith no pretensions to the European-style niceties of battle. The In-dians also displayed a remarkable tendency to adapt tactics to thelatest modern weapons acquired through capture and trade. Theirtotal lack of appreciation for the saber quickly forced U.S. Armytroopers to abandon theirs and adapt to their enemies’ tactics. Fron-tier warfare thus often consisted of running fights on horsebackacross open prairie with the cartridge capacities of one’s carbine andrevolver being the deciding factor.

Still, as late as 1876 the famed Civil War hero General WinfieldScott Hancock declared to a congressional committee that such ex-perience on the frontier was “entitled to no weight” in consideringthe overall tactics and armament of the regular army (Chamberlainand Taylerson: 177–178). It was that same year that another CivilWar hero, Colonel George Armstrong Custer, and some 200 troop-ers lost their lives at the hands of the combined forces of theCheyenne and Sioux at the Battle of the Little Big Horn. Evidencegathered after the battle revealed that the tribes had equippedthemselves with some of the most advanced weaponry of the dayand that the primary weapons of most of Custer’s men were single-shot carbines.


Britain boasted its own particularly obstinate opponent to mod-ernization in the form of its field marshal, commanding-in-chief, ofthe British Army. Not only did His Royal Highness, George WilliamFrederick Charles, Duke of Cambridge possess the most pompoustitle in the country’s army, he was particularly long-lived, servingfrom 1856 to 1895. The duke, a cousin of Queen Victoria, was alsosecure in his authority and used it to defend the army’s more tradi-tional weapons, including the single-shot muzzle-loaded pistol, thesaber, and the lance. It was thus a continuous uphill battle for pro-gressive ordnance officers to advance modern firearms during thelatter 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 thatcapacity that pistols were not only issued to cavalry troopers but toinfantry officers and some sergeants as weapons of last resort. Ar-tillery drivers eventually received pistols for protection following thearmy’s experience with unconventional warfare in Afghanistan andthe colonies in Africa and India.

As the privileged elite of the queen’s forces, British officers heldthe advantage of purchasing their own sidearms according to per-sonal taste. They were accordingly not as subject to the whims of acentral ordnance bureaucracy. Their experience in Britain’s colonialwars in India, the Sudan, Egypt, and equatorial Africa greatly influ-enced the British field officers’ choice in personal weapons. Theyhad noted that many of their more fanatical opponents had contin-ued to fight savagely even after sustaining repeated wounds fromlower-powered weapons. They thus often preferred brute stoppingpower in their pistols to technological sophistication. As a result,even into the 1870s and 1880s many officers selected massive one-to four-barreled pistols rather than revolvers. Known as howdah pis-tols for the riding platforms strapped to elephants for hunting biggame 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 in1866 and died of complications resulting from the amputation of aleg on 13 September 1870. Robert’s death left John Adams, a close

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relative, to continue the family tradition at his small factory at 391Strand, London. John Adams was thus the prime contractor whenthe British military began the transition from percussion to metallic-cartridge pistols in 1868. At this time most of the early open-topLondon Colts were removed from service, and armorers began con-verting the sturdier solid-frame English service revolvers such as theAdams and Tranter to accept metallic cartridges. These conversionswere rather simple procedures requiring the removal of the loadinglever, the addition of an ejector rod and loading gate, and the re-placement of the hammer and cylinder to accommodate the newammunition. The cartridges provided for the conversions, however,proved disappointingly weak. As officers usually bought their ownsidearms, most of the converted pistols were distributed among thelower ranks.

It was not until 1872 that the British government adopted JohnAdams’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 conver-sion Mark I and, designated as the Model 1867B, was also sold onthe civilian market. Adams continued to improve his pistol and in1872 introduced an improved extractor version designated the MarkIII. A limited number of Mark IVs were also made. The Adams fac-tory was, however, limited in its production capacity and could notsupply the large number of pistols required by the British Army andBritish Navy and other organizations such as the Canadian North-West Mounted Police. The government was thus forced as a stopgapmeasure to issue a mixed lot of cartridge Colt, Tranter, and Webleyrevolvers in addition to the Adams. In 1879 it was obvious to all con-cerned that a single new design was required, and the search for anew service pistol began in earnest.

By that year English ordnance officers had become as adamantlyin favor of the top-break and double-action systems as the Ameri-cans were against them. Actual combat experience throughout thecountry’s extensive empire had more than convinced its soldiers ofthe advantages of both features in a combat revolver. There was,however, only one truly viable private revolver manufacturer emerg-ing in England during the early metallic-cartridge era. Unable tocompete against Colt’s mass manufacturing techniques, mostBritish concerns (including Tranter, Deane, and, with the expirationof its government contracts, even Adams) eventually failed. The En-glish companies had paralleled their U.S. counterparts by makingthe transition from percussion to metallic cartridges, but prevailing


economic forces proved too much for their survival. By the early1880s only the firm P. Webley & Sons survived.

Webley

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

Webley Model 1872 Royal Irish Constabulary Revolver

In 1867 the company introduced one of its most successful series ofpistols, what evolved as the Model 1872 Royal Irish Constabularyrevolver (RIC). The RIC gained its name when it was adopted bythat organization upon its formation in 1868. It was later adopted bypolice forces in South Africa and Australia, and numbers of copieswere made, most notably in Belgium. The RIC was an extremelyrugged and compact weapon with considerable stopping power and,in its various models, remained a popular civilian and police weaponwell into the twentieth century.

The first Model RIC was chambered for the caliber .442 Boxercartridge, and soon other British police organizations adopted it incaliber .450. The basic RIC was a solid-frame, double-action, six-chambered revolver. A loading gate was hinged to the frame on theright of the frame, and ejection was accomplished with a swing-outejector rod. Barrels were most commonly round, with lengths vary-ing from the more common 3.25 to 3.5 inches to 2.5 inches and 4.5inches. Grips were checkered walnut with a lanyard swivel on thebutt. The Naval Service RIC Model 1884 differs from the othermodels in that it was manufactured with a brass frame, a blackenedrather than blued finish on its steel components, and is fitted with a2 5/8-inch round barrel.

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Webley British Bulldog

In 1878 Webley introduced the British Bulldog Double Action Mod-els, a popular series of revolvers that remained in production until1914. The Bulldog was made in a number of variations and was asolid-frame, five-chambered revolver with a short barrel and of largecaliber, typically .442 or .450. Although Webley manufactured thepistol with an eye for the civilian market, at least one mounted in-fantry regiment stationed in South Africa received the Bulldog(Hogg 1982: 266). The Bulldog gained a degree of infamy when inJuly 1877 Charles Jules Guiteau used one to shoot U.S. PresidentJames A. Garfield in the back as he waited for a train. Garfield diedtwo months later (Ezell 1981: 82).

Webley Army Express Model 1878

The rugged Army Express Model 1878 is one of the most handsomepistols Webley ever manufactured. It was a solid-frame weapon,however, and it entered the scene just as the British military wasshifting its attention to break-open, automatic-ejecting designs.Such unfortunate timing excluded the Army Express from seriousconsideration by Britain as a primary sidearm, but it did realize lim-ited sales abroad. A few saw service in South Africa with the CapeMounted 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 cham-bered for the caliber .450/.455 cartridge. A spring-activated ejectorrod was mounted on the right of the 6-inch octagon barrel, and aloading gate was hinged on the right of the frame. Grips of earlier pis-tols were of one-piece walnut and of a rather square profile, whereaslater pistols, or New Expresses, were fitted with two-piece bird’s-headgrips. Finishes were blue, and a lanyard ring was fitted to the butt ofboth models. Although the Army Express failed to attract a Britishcontract, Webley continued to develop more suitable designs.

Webley-Pryse and Webley-Kaufman

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


pany, having closely observed Colt’s methods, had already begun im-proving its manufacturing techniques to gear up for mass produc-tion using interchangeable parts and a minimum of hand-finishing.By 1882 the company could offer an extremely rugged new double-action revolver heavily influenced by Smith & Wesson’s top-break,automatic-ejecting designs. Indeed, compelling evidence indicatessome collusion between the British Patent Office and the companyto tie up Dodge’s patent with red tape, thus allowing Webley free useof his design.

Various evolutionary stages of the Webley included the Webley-Pryse of 1876 with Charles Pryse’s patents on frame improvementsand the Webley-Kaufman of 1880 incorporating improvements onthe frame latch and ejection system. Webley, as did other Britishmakers, also employed Pryce’s rebounding hammer safety feature.Pryse invented a spring-activated mechanism that, with a slight pulland release of pressure on the trigger, forced the hammer into a safeposition where it did not come into contact with the cartridge head.The rebounding hammer thus made a revolver less likely to acciden-tally discharge if dropped or struck.

The revolver is chambered for Webley’s caliber .455 cartridge andis fitted with bird’s-head grips, a lanyard swivel, and 4-inch barrel.The latch arrangement that secured the forward and rear framesmakes the Webley the strongest of all the break-open revolvers. It isof a horseshoe shape and is secured to the upper rear frame. An ex-tension of the latch along the left side of the pistol acts as an open-ing lever. The rear sight is integral to the rear catch. The busi-nesslike Model 1882 and its many successors lacks the aestheticappeal of such classics as the Colt Peacemaker but neverthelessdoes hold a certain charm.

Model 1882 Enfield

Unfortunately (not only for Webley but also for every British officerand mounted trooper) British Ordnance initially failed to recognizethe Webley’s obvious superiority. Ordnance officers, confident oftheir own genius, elected to adopt a new pistol of their own design.The result was the caliber .476 Model 1882 Enfield, officially desig-nated Pistol, Revolver, B. L. Enfield (Mark I), Interchangeable. In1887, following a much-publicized accidental shooting death, En-field added an extra safety catch to the Model 1882, designating theimproved pistols the Mark II.

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The Model 1882 quickly proved to be one of the most unpopularsidearms ever adopted by a national government. The product of acommittee and manufactured by the Enfield Royal Small Arms Fac-tory, the Model 1882 was a true monstrosity in both appearance andoperation. The Enfield was a top-break design; it was hinged notonly at the lower frame but also on the front of the cylinder. Thearrangement allowed the cylinder to travel on a horizontal trackrather than tilt with the barrel upon opening. Although the commit-tee inexplicably found this feature absolutely necessary, the new pis-tol met with near-universal derision once issued to the queen’stroops. Within seven years the Model 1882 was hooted from theranks 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 is-sued a contract to Webley for 10,000 caliber .455 Mark I Revolvers.They were the first of six models or “marks” of Webleys that wouldsee continual service until well past their final manufacture in1932. The first five marks were essentially a continual series of mi-nor improvements on Webley’s original Model of 1882 with bird-shead grips and four-inch barrels. Webleys proved themselves intheir first major engagement with British General Horatio Kitch-ener’s troops at the September 1898 Battle of Omdurman in the Su-dan, and the Mark IV served as the standard British sidearm duringthe Boer War of 1899–1902. Webley manufactured some 36,700Mark IVs before ending production in 1904. Webley later improvedon the design in 1913 by strengthening the cylinder of the Mark Vto accept the new smokeless Cordite propellant. In 1915 the com-pany introduced the last pistol in the series, the Mark VI.

Officially designated the Webley .455 Pistol No. 1 Mark VI, thelast Webley mark differed from its forbears in that it mounted a 6-inch rather than a 4-inch barrel and had a square rather than abird’s-head butt. The improvements gave the Mark VI better sight-ing and handling characteristics than its stubbier ancestors. MoreMark VIs than any other mark were produced, with some 310,000being manufactured during World War I, as well as a number of ad-ditional pistols made at Enfield after the war. The Mark VI was offi-cially retired as obsolete in 1947 by the British military, but manycontinued in service with colonial troops.


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 uti-lized the self-cocking recoil principle at the Bisley match in July1900. Its inventor was Colonel G. Vincent Fosbery, and the new re-volver was appropriately dubbed the Webley-Fosbery Automatic Re-volver. The new weapon won high praise for reliability and accuracy,and the company placed the revolver on the market the followingsummer.

The Webley-Fosbery mechanism relied on a fixed lower framewith machined rails upon which the barrel, cylinder, and upperframe assembly slid back and forth from the force of the pistol’s re-coil. This action simultaneously cocked the hammer and rotated thecylinder. Cylinder rotation was accomplished through zigzag tracksin the cylinder that mated with a diamond-shaped stud fixed in thecenter of the lower frame. The loading and unloading procedure wasthe same as the other break-open Webleys, and a thumb operatedsafety bolt was fitted to the lower-left frame. The safety bolt lockedthe revolver’s main body to the frame, thus preventing accidentaldischarge. The company continually modified and improved theWebley-Fosbery design throughout the pistol’s production. Bothsquare and bird’s-head grips were offered, and 4-, 6-, and 7.5-inchbarrel lengths were available.

Webley & Scott intended the Webley-Fosbery to challenge thenew semiautomatic pistols just then entering the scene. With an eyetoward military contracts, they thus chambered it for the British cal-iber .455 service cartridge. They also manufactured a small numberof caliber .45 Long Colt examples for U.S. government trials. TheWebley-Fosbery performed very well, and its loading speed, whenusing the Prideaux Patent Quick-Loader, is comparable to that ofsemiautomatics. The automatic action also acts as a shock absorber,reducing the sharp recoil of the heavy caliber .455 cartridge, a qual-ity greatly appreciated by target shooters. Unfortunately, despite itsobvious advantages and even high praise when exhibited at the 1904St. Louis World’s Fair, the Webley-Fosbery failed to win the govern-ment orders that its inventors so coveted. Webley ceased productionof the Webley-Fosbery in 1914 when the pressing demand for con-ventional revolvers outweighed the need for superior yet more com-plicated weapons.

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Webley-Fosbery Model 1902

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

Smith & Wesson .455 Mark II Hand Ejector

The sudden demand for firearms at the beginning of World War I faroutstripped the manufacturing capabilities of government arsenals.During the scramble to arm its rapidly mobilizing army, the Britishthus bought large numbers of foreign pistols from Spain and theUnited States to supplement domestic production. In 1915 the gov-ernment bought 5,000 Smith & Wesson New Century Hand EjectorRevolvers in the caliber .455 British-government chambering. Des-ignated the Smith & Wesson .455 Mark II in British service and alsoknown as the Triple Lock for an added cylinder lock, the New Cen-tury 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 thosedecisions that prompt observers to wonder how those in authorityreached their success. Declaring the recoil of the caliber .455British Service Cartridge too heavy for accurate shooting, the armyannounced its intent to decrease the official caliber to a more man-ageable .38. That the United States had made a similar mistake andcorrected it before the war apparently had little impact on theBritons’ decision—a decision made worse by their choice of the spe-cific type of .38 cartridge. The new loading, the caliber .38 BritishService Cartridge, was based on (and was interchangeable with) the


.38 Smith & Wesson cartridge, a cartridge that was already rapidlyapproaching obsolescence. Its muzzle velocity of 600 feet per sec-ond (fps) was less than the 620 fps of the 265-grain .455, thus deliv-ering a lighter 200-grain bullet at less speed. The ballistics of thecartridge were so anemic that on a sunny day one could actually seethe bullet in the air after it left the muzzle. Its penetration and stop-ping power were predictable.

Still, in 1929 Webley answered the new requirement with theWebley .38 Mark 4, essentially just a scaled-down version of its .455models. Proving that they had learned nothing from the fiasco of1882, the government, in turn, then informed Webley that an offi-cial committee at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield wouldundertake the design of the new service pistol. The bureaucrats atlast revealed its creation in 1931—the Enfield Pistol, Revolver No. 2Mk. 1. Surprisingly, and despite its caliber and bureaucratic origins,the No. 2 Mk. 1 was a fine weapon. This was, however, an under-standable outcome, as Webley was quick to point out in an ensuingpatent infringement lawsuit—other than some minor changes in thepistol’s lock work, the committee had introduced an almost exactcopy of Webley’s original .38 Mark 4.

Although losing the suit with Webley, the British governmentmaintained the Enfield as its official sidearm until 1955, thus mak-ing it the standard British pistol during World War II. It did, how-ever, pose a nuisance to the many tank crews who received it. Theyfound that its hammer spur tended to snag on the many projectionswithin their armored vehicles. Enfield responded to the complaintsby simply eliminating the hammer spur to create the Enfield No. 2Mark 1*, a double action–only revolver. The irony that the grudgingtrigger pull resulting from the pistol’s modification negated the ad-vantages of its lighter recoil apparently escaped British Ordnanceofficials.

A wartime expedient, the Mark 1** appeared in 1942. In an at-tempt to speed production, Enfield simplified the manufacturingprocess of the Mark 1**, including the elimination of the hammersafety stop. The Mark 1** was thus more prone to accidental dis-charges if dropped, and most were later reworked at the arsenal.Webley was later somewhat vindicated in that Enfield found itselfunable to supply sufficient quantities of the No. 2, Mark 1, Mark1*, and Mark 1** to British troops during World War II. The gov-ernment thus found it necessary to purchase more than 100,000Webley .38 Mark IV revolvers during the war.

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Pistol No. 2, Smith & Wesson (Revolver .38/200)

Great Britain’s acute shortage of pistols during World War II alsoforced the government to again resort to buying foreign weapons. Itthus purchased about 1,000,000 Smith & Wesson military and po-lice 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 aswell as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Early production pis-tols exhibited commercial-quality blued finishes, sport checkeredwalnut grips fitted with the Smith & Wesson medallion, and were is-sued in a number of barrel lengths. Pistols manufactured after 1942have a matte finish, plain walnut grips, and five-inch barrels.

GERMAN CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century many Europeanpowers favored large-frame revolvers chambered for center-fire car-tridges in calibers .44 or .45 (10–12mm). The designs were typicallychosen by military ordnance commissions that reviewed testweapons submitted by various manufacturers and independent de-signers. As the designs chosen were the product of committee deci-sions, the results were often somewhat lacking in aesthetics andeven logic, but they were still more or less suitable for the immedi-ate purpose of replacing obsolete percussion weapons.

Reichsrevolver

The German Reichsrevolver was an example of such a poorly de-signed, but at least well-made, weapon. Its design was the result of asmall-arms commission set up by the Prussian Army; civilian con-tractors as well as the Prussian Royal Arsenal at Erfurt manufac-tured 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 alsomade in Belgium.

The basic models included the Modell 1879 single-action or Cav-alry Model and the Modell 1883 double-action, also known as the


Infantry Model or Officer Model. These vary in their minor details,with the main distinctions being barrel lengths. All share decidedlyclunky lines, with an octagonal forward frame that steps down to ashort section of octagonal barrel that then becomes round for theremainder of its length. The typical Reichsrevolver is a solid-frame,single-action six-shooter bored to 10.35mm. The majority are fittedwith a safety switch on the left side of the frame.

Although the value of a safety on a single-action revolver is highlyquestionable, the Reichsrevolver does have one innovative feature:The rear of the cylinders are counterbored so as to enclose the car-tridge head and thus add extra support should a case rupture duringfiring. Early pistols received a browned finish; later pistols wereblued. A raised ring around the muzzle harkens back to such earlierstyles as the Queen Anne pistol and gives the Reichsrevolver a de-cidedly antique appearance.

The revolver’s main defect is the necessity to completely removeits cylinder from the frame for reloading—a somewhat mystifyingoversight on the part of the commission, as nearly every other nationhad adopted much more efficient loading systems. Further slowingthe process, ejection requires the use of a rod that was carried sepa-rately in the holster. The most plausible explanation for such ananachronistic feature was the Prussians’ attitude that pistols weresecondary weapons. They held the typical European view that, eventhough the pistol was best suited for cavalry use, the cavalry’s pri-mary weapon should remain the saber. The revolver was thus aweapon of last resort for cavalrymen and less glamorous noncom-missioned and commissioned infantry officers. Although other pow-ers adopted more practical loading systems, the Prussians seem tohave decided that six shots was probably the maximum a soldiercould get off in a desperate situation. For all its faults, the Reichsre-volver is meticulously finished, with such attention to detail thateven its various screws are serial-numbered and inspector-proofed.This venerable pistol remained in German service until officially re-placed by the Luger in 1908. Even so, numbers of Reichsrevolversin the hands of rear-echelon troops were encountered by Alliedtroops during World War II.

Mauser Zig-Zag Revolver

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

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Oberndorf first tried their hands at pistol design with the 9mmfalling-block C 1877 single-shot pistol. As a single-shot weapon, theC 1877 was already an anachronism at its inception, and the Ger-man military showed no interest. The brothers followed the Model1877 with a revolver that also met with official rejection. Despitetheir dismissal in 1878 by the same bureaucracy that chose the Re-ichsrevolver for German service, the Mausers’ so-called Zig-Zag re-volver did become a favorite of status-conscious officers. The re-volver acquired its popular nickname from the distinctive Z-shapedgrooves in its cylinder that tracked a stud in the frame to rotate themechanism.

Mauser manufactured the Zig-Zag in at least three calibers—7.5mm, 9mm, and 10.6mm—and in two basic frame designs—solid-frame and tip-up. Pulling forward a prominent ring-shaped catch infront of the trigger guard opens the pistol for loading and ejection.Most pistols are fitted with a thumb safety mounted on the left sideof the frame and a lanyard ring at the base of the grip. As with mostGerman military weapons of the period, the Zig-Zag exhibits excel-lent workmanship and finish. Grips were either checkered walnut orfloral-pattern hard rubber.

AUSTRIAN REVOLVERS

Gasser

The Gasser firm of Ottakring, Vienna, and St. Polten designed andproduced the majority of military handguns adopted and used bythe Austro-Hungarian Empire. Leopold Gasser began operations asLeopold Gasser K.u.K. Hof-und Armee-Waffenfabrik in 1862 tomanufacture revolvers based on the Beaumont-Adams patents(Ezell, 1981: 90). The family business eventually passed on to hisbrother, Johann, in 1871 and finally to August Gasser in 1903. Thefirm reorganized as Rast & Gasser but eventually went out of busi-ness about 1912. During its heyday, Gasser proved to be one of themost prolific arms makers in central Europe, manufacturing some100,000 pistols a year. These included weapons not only for Aus-tria-Hungary but also for a number of Balkan powers. The firm’sbetter-known designs were based on the Lefaucheaux double-


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

Model 1870 Gasser Army Revolver

The Model 1870 Gasser Army Revolver was issued to the Austro-Hungarian cavalry, noncommissioned officers, and, in slightly modi-fied form, the navy. It is typical of the massive, open-frame revolversproduced by the company. The sheer mass of the 3.35-pound re-volver is necessary to accommodate a center-fire cartridge that hadpreviously been used in the earlier Werndl cavalry carbines andsingle-shot pistols. The cartridge, originally designated the 11.25 x36mm Werndl Model 1867 carbine cartridge, eventually becamemore widely known as the 11mm Montenegrin.

The Model 1870 was fitted with a loading gate on the right side ofthe frame, and a rod ejector allowed the removal of spent cartridgecasings. A lanyard swivel was attached to the rounded butt; gripswere of checkered wood. Disassembly was accomplished by removinga single large screw in the lower forward frame and barrel assembly. Along safety bar on the right side of the frame below the cylinder wasone 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 beganto manufacture the revolver’s frame from steel rather than iron andadded a number of other minor improvements. The improved pistolwas then issued as the Model 1870/74. A slightly modified form ofthe 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 asMontenegrin Gassers from an account that Montenegrin KingNicholas (r. 1910–1918) ordered all of his male subjects to armthemselves with such a pistol. An important factor in the decree, ac-cording to the tale, was that Nicholas held significant business in-terests in the firms handling the sales of the revolvers. Although thestory may have been apocryphal, large numbers of surplus AustrianGassers, as well as Belgian copies, made their way to the tiny king-dom. Actual Montenegrin Gassers are typically fitted with ivory orbone grips and are embellished with somewhat crude engraving.

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Gasser-Kropatschek Model 1876 and Rast & Gasser Model 1898 Army Revolver

The Gasser-Kropatschek Model 1876 Officer’s Revolver is essen-tially a scaled-down model 1870/74 redesigned by AlfredKropatschek and chambered for a caliber 9mm cartridge. As man-ufactured by Gasser and a number of other firms, examples of theModel 1876 often exhibit lavish engraving, inlays, and grips inkeeping with their owners’ status. The Rast & Gasser Model 1898Army Revolver marked the firm’s last significant contribution topistol design and manufacture. It is a solid-frame, 8mm revolverwith an eight-cartridge capacity. Capable of both single- and dou-ble-action operation, the Model 1898 is loaded through a loadinggate that is also fitted with a safety device preventing the pistolfrom accidental discharge when open. An ejector rod is fitted be-neath the barrel, and field-stripping is accomplished by pullingdown on the trigger guard to open the mechanism. The Model1898’s main defect lies in the extremely severe, L-shaped drop ofits grip that ruins its natural aiming characteristics. Still, it is anexceptionally well-made and -finished weapon, and numbers con-tinued in service in central Europe and Italy through World WarII.

FRENCH REVOLVERS

Perrin & Delmas

French designers continued to make significant advances in pistoldesign despite the army and navy’s continual disagreement on basicsidearm requirements. Introduced in 1859, the solid-frame, doubleaction–only Perrin & Delmas was possibly the first successfulcenter-fire revolver. Although a few saw limited action during theU.S. Civil War, its fate was sealed once the French Navy adoptedthe pin-fire Lefaucheux. For its part, the French Army bureaucracy’spenchant for anachronism exhibited itself as late as the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. During that debacle French cavalrymen of-ten carried percussion horse pistols in their saddle holsters and con-sidered their swords and lances the primary weapons. Still, a few oftheir more forward-thinking comrades did carry privately purchasedLefaucheuxs.


Lefaucheux Mle 1870

The French Navy as well as foreign powers including Sweden, Italy,and Russia had earlier adopted the Lefaucheux and were, especially inFrance, determined to retain it as their sidearm. In 1870 the FrenchNavy at last abandoned the pin-fire system in favor of center-fire pis-tols in the form of the Lefaucheux Mle 1870. In many ways the newdouble-action, solid-frame pistol resembled its predecessor and was fitted with a loading gate on its right side and an ejector rod. The navysubsequently updated the Mle 1858 pin-fires still in its inventories byconverting them to double-action, improving their ejection rods, andinstalling center-fire hammers. The refurbished weapons then reen-tered service as the Pistolet-revolver de Marine transformé 1870.

Smokeless Powder

In 1884 Paul Eugène Vielle, a French chemist working for the gov-ernment, made all previous firearms obsolete by introducing thefirst practical form of smokeless powder. The black powder then inuse had long vexed gun designers, those in the military, and hunterswith a number of shortcomings. These included the clouds of white,foul-smelling smoke it produced that could reveal a soldier’s posi-tion and, at the same time, obscure his intended target. Black pow-der was also limited in the pressure it was capable of producing andtended to leave unburned residue in the barrel and mechanism. Thisoften led to fouling that caused difficulty in loading and ultimatelycorrosion of vital components.

As early as 1832 Vielle’s countrymen, the chemists Henri Bracon-net and T. J. Pelouze, had invented guncotton, or nitrocellulose, bytreating cotton with nitric acid. Their invention proved highly explo-sive but far too unstable as a firearm propellant. In 1846 the Germanchemist Christian Frerich Schönbein invented what he called cottonpowder, but it too was far too unpredictable for use in firearms. Thecompound’s instability was confirmed by a number of disastrous ac-cidents at laboratories such as the Hall & Son factory in Haversham,England. Despite such catastrophes, experiments went on in Austriaand Germany, led by such brave souls as General von Lenk of theAustrian Artillery and a Captain Schultz in Germany who offered hisSchultz Powder for use in shotguns. In 1871 Frederick Volkmannadded to the field with his invention of collodin for use in rifles.

Vielle finally settled on a mixture of nitrocellulose, ether, and al-

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cohol to produce a stable propellant suitable for use in both riflesand pistols. Other inventors, notably the famous Alfred Nobel andless-famous Sir Frederick Abel, invented their own smokeless pow-ders—ballistite and cordite, respectively—but it was Vielle who setFrance on the rapid modernization of its small arms, leaving the restof the industrialized world to follow.

The French military moved with uncharacteristic and impressivespeed to embrace new smokeless-powder weapons. France’s adop-tion of the Mle 1886 Lebel service rifle also led to a new, and unfor-tunate, twist in traditional military thinking. The military had longmaintained that adopting the same calibers for long arms and pistolsmade sense in that ammunition could be interchangeable in apinch. This theory held true during the paper-cartridge era, whenlong-arm cartridges could be bled of excess powder to fit pistols.That self-contained metallic cartridges could not be bled (and thatrifle cartridges are larger than pistol cartridges) seemed to havemade little impact on French ordnance officials. They decreed thatthe bullets of French service pistols be of the same caliber (8mm) asthe Lebel rifle.

The French were not alone in this position. By the end of theblack-powder era most countries fielded caliber .44, .45, or their ap-proximate equivalent, 11mm, rifles and pistols. The combination ofheavier calibers with less powerful black powder had proven lethalat closer ranges, but the much higher pressures afforded by smoke-less powder altered the equation. Tests proved that smaller bullets inthe 8mm or caliber .30 sizes were much more efficient at the highervelocities capable with smokeless powder. The efficiency of thesehigher-velocity cartridges was also enhanced by a Swiss develop-ment introduced around 1880. At that time, Majors Bode and Rubinof the Swiss Army brought out bullets with copper- or nickel-cladjackets to protect the projectiles’ soft lead cores from the weapons’rifling. Another innovation of the period attained a similar effect byusing harder lead alloy bullets rather than the earlier soft lead pro-jectiles. The combination of smaller caliber, smokeless powder, andjacketed bullet proved highly efficient in rifles with their longer bar-rels but, as the French and other nations were to discover, morethan disappointing as handgun loads.

Chamelot and Delvigne Mle 1873 and Mle 1885

The French service revolvers at the time of the transition to smokeless


powder had already proven themselves dismal affairs in their ownright. Replacing the earlier Lefaucheuxs, the Mle 1873 was based on adesign by the Belgian team of Chamelot and Delvigne. The double-ac-tion Mle 1873 was produced at the Manufacture d’Armes, Saint Éti-enne Arsenal, and is of sturdy design, but its caliber .44 (11mm) car-tridge proved woefully underpowered. Saint Étienne manufacturedtwo models of the Mle 1873: an enlisted version with an unflutedcylinder with no protective metal finish, and the blued Revolver d’Of-ficier with a fluted cylinder. In 1885 the famous Swiss designerColonel Rudolf Schmidt introduced some improvements to the Mle1873. These included a better cylinder locking system and a hingedside plate to allow easy access to the pistol’s mechanism. Although abetter pistol, the experimental Mle 1885 shared the same inadequatecartridge as the earlier Mle 1873. Unfortunately, the Mle 1873’s andMle 1885’s ultimate replacement introduced new problems of its own.

Mle 1892

On 29 May 1886 the Ministry of War ordered Saint Étienne to be-gin production of 50,000 new revolvers chambered for an 8mmsmokeless cartridge. Delivery was to be before 1 January 1889. Thearsenal, however, was so occupied with the production of the Lebelservice rifle that the new revolver encountered numerous problemsand delays before reaching the assembly lines. In 1887 Saint Éti-enne engineers finally began the design process by merely offering asmaller version of the Mle 1885 chambered for the smaller car-tridge. The new pistol proved at least adequate, and on 16 April1887 the war ministry placed an order for 1,000 revolvers to be de-livered in 1889. Still, Saint Étienne’s inspector-general MonsieurRichard, saw further room for improvement. In July 1892 the gov-ernment at last approved an order for 5,000 of the new revolverswith Richard’s improvements, and the arsenal achieved full produc-tion 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 de-signer Lieutenant Colonel Nicholas Lebel had any part in the pis-tol’s evolution, it was also known as the 8mm Lebel. Production ofthe Mle 1892 was carried out at the government arsenals Manufac-ture Nationale d’Armes de Saint Étienne, Société Alsacienne deConstructions Mécaniques , Manufacture National d’Armes deChâtellerault, and Manufacture National d’Armes de Tulle.

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The Mle 1892 is in many ways a fine pistol but does exhibit anumber of significant flaws. In its favor, it does incorporate the Ga-land-Schmidt double-action mechanism also adopted by Colt; it alsoretains the hinged side plate of the earlier Mle 1885. The latter fea-ture allows a soldier in the field, by simply loosening a large screwon the rear of the pistol, to easily swing the side plate forward andexpose the pistol’s mechanism for maintenance and cleaning. TheMle 1892 design also features a solid frame and a hinge-mountedcylinder that swings out to the right rather than the more orthodoxleft for loading and unloading. A safety device secures the hammerunless the cylinder is securely locked in position. Extraction is ac-complished by means of a spring-retained ejector rod passingthrough the center of the cylinder. Production began in late 1892,and by the turn of the century French arsenals had manufacturedsome 171,303 Mle 1892s.

Troops receiving the Mle 1892 appreciated its light weight andgenerally sound design. The revolver’s light barrel and the ratherawkward angle of its grip do, however, adversely affect its aimingcharacteristics. Still, this defect pales when compared to the Mle1892’s dismally inadequate ballistics. The cartridge’s light 120-grain, 8mm (caliber .32) bullet achieves a velocity of only 738 fps.The combination of light bullet and low velocity means that the Mle1892 possesses very little stopping power against an enemy—an ex-tremely important consideration for a soldier in a life-or-death com-bat situation. A major factor in the cartridge’s poor performance liesin an economic decision on the part of Saint Étienne. Rather thancut the Mle 1892 barrel with a more efficient rifling suited to itsbarrel length and cartridge, the arsenal opted to save retooling costsand drill the pistol bores with the same machinery used for theLebel rifles. Although quite effective in the rifle, the same pitch ofthe lands and grooves proves wholly inefficient when mated with theshorter pistol barrel, lighter bullet, and lower powder charge of theMle 1892. Despite such problems, the Mle 1892 remained in serv-ice 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


standing army, nevertheless demanded excellent weapons for its mil-itary forces. In 1871 the Swiss thus convened an ordnance board toexplore various designs and in 1872 began replacing outdated per-cussion pistols with a new metallic-cartridge revolver. The ordnanceboard deemed the new design, again by the Belgian teamofChamelot and Delvigne, superior to designs submitted by Galandof France and Smith & Wesson. The renowned small-arms expertMajor Rudolf Schmidt then added a number of modifications to theoriginal Chamelot-Delvigne design. The new pistol was designatedthe Ordonanzrevolver Modell 1872. Six hundred of the new solid-frame, double-action six-shooters were manufactured by PirlotFrères of Liège, Belgium, and chambered for a 10.4mm (caliber .41)rimfire cartridge. Loading and unloading were accomplishedthrough a hinged loading gate on the right side of the frame. In1878 the Swiss government discarded the rimfire cartridge and al-tered the vast majority of its Modell 1872s to center-fire. The con-verted weapons were redesignated the Modell 1872/78.

That same year the Swiss began production of their own Swiss-designed and -manufactured Modell 1878 at Waffenfabrik Bern.The Modell 1878 resembled the earlier Modell 1872/78 in that italso was a six-shot double-action and was chambered for the10.4mm center-fire cartridge. The Swiss manufactured possibly asmany as 6,000 Modell 1878s before following the general trend ofreducing 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 manufac-tured some 37,250 Modell 1882s, early models being fitted withplastic grips, with later pistols mounted with wood grips. A limitednumber of Modell 1882s were manufactured for issue to bicycletroops. Rather than a lanyard swivel, those pistols were manufac-tured with extended front and back straps, forming a distinctive U-shaped lanyard loop. Schmidt also designed a detachable shoulderstock/holster for the weapon to convert it into a carbine, but thegovernment never officially adopted it. The Modell 1882 proved sorugged and reliable that a few remained in Swiss service into theearly 1960s. The Modell 1882/29 was the last revolver adopted bythe Swiss military. It was a significant modification of the Modell

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1882, with improvements in strength and simplicity of manufacturethat allowed greater ease of maintenance. Another factor in theModell 1882’s and Modell 1882/29’s longevity was the Swiss Army’sinsistence on issuing semiautomatic Lugers to its officers andhigher noncommissioned officers and on retaining the less sophisti-cated revolvers for enlisted men.

ITALIAN REVOLVERS

Modello 1872 and Modello 1889 Revolvers

Italy also chose the Chamelot-Delvigne-Schmidt design for its stan-dard military revolver. These early Italian Modello 1872 revolversare chambered for a 10.35mm cartridge and were manufactured byReal Fabbrica d’Armi, Glisenti in Brescia, as well as SiderugicaGlisenti in Turin. Belgium firms also manufactured the Modello1872 for the Italian government. The Modello 1872 was, for themost part, well-made, but its successor, the Modello 1889, leftmuch to be desired.

The Pistola a Rotazione, System Bodeo, Modello 1889, was theproduct of a committee, Bodeo being its chairman and having littleto do with the actual design work. As a design, the Modello 1889was unremarkable. It was a gate-loaded, rod-ejected, six-shot re-volver chambered for the Modello 1872 10.35mm cartridge. Its onlyappreciable innovation was an effective hammer block that madethe pistol at least reasonably safe to carry. Two models were manu-factured—an octagon-barreled version with a folding trigger guardfor enlisted men, and a round-barrel, better-made pistol with a con-ventional trigger guard for officers.

Despite Italy’s long-standing reputation as a producer of high-quality firearms, the typical Modello 1889 was a decidedly poorweapon. This was in large part owing to Italy’s practice during the pe-riod of contracting the manufacture of some of its military pistols tosmall, 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 Fabbricad’Armi, Glisenti, and Siderugica Glisenti, manufactured better-madeweapons. During World War I some Spanish firms, including Errastiand Arotegui of Eibar, also produced Modello 1889s for the Italians.


SPANISH REVOLVERS

Modelo 1884

Spain also developed a reputation for considerable range in thequality of pistols produced in its factories and workshops. The townof Eibar in the Guipuzcoa Province is the country’s main arms-producing center, with the major companies at the time includingOrbea y Compañia and Gárate, Anitua y Cia. Established concernswere capable of crafting pistols of the highest quality, but lessmeticulous gunsmiths turned out weapons of decidedly crudeworkmanship.

The Spanish Army required officers to furnish their own sidearmsunder rather broad guidelines. Many thus chose double-actionSmith & Wessons and a Merwin & Hulbert design by the Hopkins &Allen Manufacturing Company chambered for the caliber .44–40Winchester cartridge. Spain eventually adopted the Modelo 1884, acopy of the Smith & Wesson—manufactured by Orbea y Compañia.The Eibar-based Gárate, Anitua y Cia and Trocaola, Aranzabal y Ciaalso produced high-quality revolvers for the British government dur-ing World War I. Britain purchased these weapons on a wartimeemergency basis and designated them the Anitua Pistol Old PatternNo. 1, Mark I and the No. 2, Mark I. Both pistols are chambered forthe standard British caliber .455 service cartridge and were desig-nated obsolete in 1921.

BELGIAN REVOLVERS

Fabrique d’armes Émile et Léon Nagant

In 1859 two brothers founded the Fabrique d’armes Émile et LéonNagant in the traditional arms-manufacturing center of Liège, Bel-gium. The firm quickly became one of the foremost European armsmanufacturers. Within eight years the Nagant brothers Emile andLèon had achieved such a reputation for high-quality arms thatSamuel and Eliphalet Remington Jr. signed contracts with them tomanufacture Remington-designed rolling-block rifles to fill an orderto rearm the Vatican Guards.

The single-shot, rolling-block design consisted of a breechblockthat pivots back and down for loading and unloading. The system

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held the advantages of strength, simplicity of construction, and speedof reloading. In 1877 the Nagants modified the basic Remington de-sign and applied the rolling-block principle to a double-barreled pis-tol for issue to the Belgian Gendarmerie. The Belgian ammunitionfirm Bachmann manufactured a special rimmed, slightly tapered9.4mm cartridge for the new pistol that became variously known asthe 9mm Belgian or 9.4mm Nagant cartridge. Although the Nagantsdoubled the rolling-block system’s cartridge capacity, the pistol wasnevertheless a rather ungainly affair and was already an anachronismin 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 toimprove and modify the basic design for a number of years. The typ-ical Nagant was loaded and unloaded by way of a loading gate on theright side of the frame and was fitted with an ejector rod and lanyardswivel. The Nagant Model 1878 owed some of its characteristics tothe brothers’ earlier association with the Chamelot-Delvigne Model1873 manufactured by Holland’s Hembrug Arsenal. The Model1878 was available in single- and double-action versions and wasadopted by Belgium in 9.4mm. Norway, Denmark, as well as Bel-gium soon adopted the improved double-action Model 1883. TheModel 1886 was the final improved version of the Nagant adoptedby Belgium, staying in service until World War II. Sweden alsoadopted the Nagant and manufactured it under license at Husq-varna as the 7.5mm Model 1887.

Nagant Model 1893

The improved Model 1893 eventually followed the Models 1873through 1887, with all models being issued concurrently until beingreplaced by semiautomatics during the twentieth century. Swedenand Serbia adopted the Model 1893 in 7.5mm, with the SouthAmerican countries, Brazil and Argentina, choosing a larger .44 car-tridge. Norway issued nearly 13,000 Model 1893s, most being man-ufactured by the Nagant factory, with others manufactured under li-cense by Husqvarna and the Kongsberg Arsenal. A few Model 1893swere apparently later converted to caliber .22 for target shootingand training purposes.


RUSSIAN REVOLVERS

Nagant Model 1895

In 1888 Russian military officials approached the Nagants with aproposal to develop a new magazine-fed, bolt-action rifle to replacethe large-caliber, single-shot Berdan rifles then in service. Their col-laboration with the Russian designer Colonel Ivanovith Mosin soonproduced the 7.62mm Model 1891 Mosin-Nagant service rifle. Inkeeping with the times, the Russians also desired a new sidearm in acaliber matching their rifles. Evidently pleased with the Belgians’work, they quickly followed with an order for a lighter-caliber re-volver to replace their aging caliber .44 Smith & Wessons.

The Nagants responded to the challenge with an odd mix of con-servatism and innovation. The result is one of the most unique re-volvers to enter military service. Other than its seven-shot capacity,externally the new Russian Nagant Model 1895 closely resembledits predecessors. The Model 1895 also shared the solid frame, load-ing gate, and ejector rod of earlier Nagant pistols and thus requiredthe laborious process of loading and unloading each chamber indi-vidually. When most other major powers had already adopted eitherbreak-open frames or swing-out cylinders, the Nagant was thussomething of an anachronism from its inception.

Its mechanism and cartridge, however, were different from anyother revolver of its time. With this new pistol, the Nagants at-tempted to solve one of the more vexing problems that face all re-volver designers: The small gap between the cylinder’s chambersand the barrel’s breech allowed a certain amount of gas to escapeand thus reduces the pistol’s muzzle velocity. The Model 1895mechanism eliminated the gap in that cocking the hammer ad-vanced the cylinder to mate with the barrel’s breech. There, thecounterbored chambers slid over the rear of the barrel. The seal isfurther enhanced by the special 7.62mm Nagant cartridge. The bul-let of the elongated, slightly tapered cartridge is seated within thecasing flush with its mouth. This allows the forward end of the car-tridge to actually enter the barrel of the pistol, effectively double-sealing the gap. Although critics argue that the few feet per secondsaved in velocity hardly justify the complexity of the Nagant, itproved a popular weapon among czarist and, later, Soviet troops.

The Nagants produced the first Model 1895s (approximately20,000) at their factory in Liège until the Russians began produc-

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tion at the Tula Arsenal in 1898. Evidence seems to indicate thatthe early production pistols were capable of both single- and double-action operation and were intended for issue solely to officers. Un-der the czarist regime, enlisted personnel were issued only single-action Nagants. Following the 1917 Russian Revolution this subtleclass distinction was apparently dropped, and most, if not all, Model1895s were capable of both types of operation. A limited numberwere also manufactured in caliber .22 for training purposes.

The Soviet government declared the Nagant obsolete in 1930when it was to be replaced by the semiautomatic Tokarev Model1930. Production, however, continued until after World War II(some estimates indicate that the czarist and Soviet governmentsmanufactured possibly as many as 2 million Model 1895 revolversbetween 1898 and about 1946). During World War II, Nagantsmanufactured at the Izhevsk Arsenal also supplemented Tula’s pro-duction of the Model 1895. The notorious Soviet secret police, theNKVD, as well as some commando units also appreciated the Na-gant in that its unique characteristics made it an ideal weapon foruse with a silencer. The gas seal not only reduced the escape of gasat its breech but also muffled its report. Soviet technicians fitted themuzzles of a number of Model 1895s with a silencer known as theBramit Device for use in covert operations.

The Model 1895 was the Nagants’ final significant contributionto firearms design. Following his brother’s retirement owing to ill-ness in 1896, Léon Nagant brought his two sons, Charles and Mau-rice, into the family business and reorganized the firm as Fabriqued’Armes Léon Nagant. After Léon’s death in 1900, his sons focusedon the manufacture of automobiles. In 1928 the Nagants sold therights and machinery to produce the Model 1895 to Poland, wherethe Radom factory produced it as the Radom Ng30 until replacing itin 1935 with the 9mm Radom Model 1935.

JAPANESE REVOLVERS

Type 26 Revolver

In the Far East, Japan eventually moved to replace its cumbersomeand aging Smith & Wesson New Model No. 3 revolvers in favor ofdomestically designed and manufactured pistols. In 1893 Japan


adopted the 26 Nijuoku, Nenshiki (Type 26 Revolver), its designa-tion deriving from its acceptance during the twenty-sixth year of theMeiji reign. The Type 26 was apparently a hybrid weapon based onthe Smith & Wesson break-open frame mated with a Galand-typemechanism. A hinged side panel somewhat similar to that of theFrench Model 1892 allowed access to the internal components forcleaning and repair. The Type 26 was a double action–only weaponand fires a unique rimmed 9mm cartridge. Neither the pistol nor thecartridge were particularly good designs, and both were replacedwhen Japan adopted a new semiautomatic pistol in the early twenti-eth century. Still, despite its numerous derivative features, the Type26 signaled a remarkable step in Japanese pistol development—onlysome 40 years earlier the most common domestic handguns avail-able had been matchlocks.

LATER U.S. REVOLVERS

During the final quarter of the nineteenth century the United Statesalso followed the general trend of reducing the caliber of its servicerevolvers. It thus retired its older caliber .45 sidearms in favor of pis-tols chambered for a caliber .38 cartridge. Combat experience, how-ever—notably against insurgent forces in the Philippines—quicklyindicated that the change in caliber had been ill-advised. Troopsfighting the guerrillas reported that, despite multiple caliber .38wounds, fanatical opponents could often wound or kill U.S. troopsbefore finally collapsing themselves. Cavalrymen also stressed theimportance of a caliber heavy enough to bring down an opponent’shorse, a primary target during mounted combat. As a result, author-ities moved to replace the caliber .38 weapons with more lethal cal-iber .45 models. The government soon placed orders for the largerrevolvers with both Colt and Smith & Wesson and, as an emergencymeasure, even went so far as to bring numbers of the old ColtModel 1873s out of retirement.

Colt Model 1877

In 1877 Colt finally produced its first solid-frame, double-action re-volver: the Colt Model 1877. The company went on to manufacture66,849 Model 1877s before discontinuing the pistol in 1909. De-

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spite its double-action capability, the Model 1877 suffered a num-ber of deficiencies. Although break-open designs had more thanproved themselves, Colt persisted in using a loading gate, thus re-quiring the slow process of individually loading and unloading eachcartridge. To make matters worse, shorter-barreled models were noteven fitted with ejector rods, further slowing the reloading process.The pistol was also mechanically somewhat delicate and often re-quired repair. Still, the Model 1877 proved an almost instant suc-cess. Known as the Lightning when chambered for the caliber .38Colt cartridge and the Thunderer when for caliber .41 Colt car-tridges, the new six-shooter quickly gained a following throughoutthe American West. Although not the best endorsement for the pis-tol, the infamous Billy the Kid was armed with a Lightning whenkilled by Pat Garrett in 1881. It was often said that the Kid preferredthe Lightning because its rather small bird’s-head grip fit his handbetter than larger handguns.

Colt Model 1878 (Frontier) and Model 1892

Although the U.S. government failed to place orders for the Model1877, it eventually showed interest in its successor, the Model 1878Frontier Double Action Revolver, the product of a collaboration byWilliam Mason and Charles B. Richards. Colt produced the Fron-tier between 1878 and 1905 and, as it had with the Peacemaker, of-fered it on the civilian market in a number of calibers that were in-terchangeable with Winchester long arms. The standard Frontierwas sold with checkered hard-rubber grips and was available with ei-ther 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 in1902 that the government finally authorized a contract for some4,600 revolvers chambered in caliber .45. The order for the Model1902 (also known as the Alaskan Model or Philippine Model) wasevidently in response to the combat failure of caliber .38 revolvers.

The Models 1878 and 1902 were among Colt’s largest-framehandguns. The Model 1902, like the Model 1878, was loadedthrough a loading gate on the right side and was fitted with an ejec-tor rod mounted under the right side of the barrel. Both were alsoequipped with lanyard swivels. The government-issue Model 1902differed from its predecessor in that it was manufactured with a no-ticeably larger trigger and trigger guard. It was standard with a bluefinish, a 6-inch barrel, and walnut rather than rubber grips.


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 frontlinetroops. Despite the criticism of their issue, the products of bothmakers were of high quality and design. Any blame for their disap-pointing performance lay with the ordnance officers who chose theircaliber.

The Colt design originated from a collaboration betweenWilliam Mason and the German-born Carl J. Ehbets. FollowingMason’s departure for Winchester in 1882, Ehbets continued toperfect the pair’s ideas to produce the Colt Model 1889 Navy Dou-ble Action Revolver. Colt manufactured the Model 1889 in bothcaliber .41 and .38 Colt. It was a landmark for the firm, being itsfirst double-action revolver with a swing-out cylinder. The swing-out cylinder provided the dual advantages of maintaining thestrength of a solid frame with speed in reloading. Merely pressing asliding button on the side of the frame released a hinged mount, orcrane, allowing the cylinder to swing out to the right side of thepistol. This permitted the rapid removal of all the spent cases bymeans of a central ejection rod. The Model 1889 remained in pro-duction between 1889 and 1894, with civilian versions availablewith either a blue or nickel finish and hard rubber grips. TheModel 1889 was also somewhat different from earlier Colt re-volvers in that its cylinder rotates counterclockwise rather thanclockwise. The origin of this anomaly seems to have originatedwith the U.S. Navy’s requirements, yet its rationale defies mechan-ical logic—the counterclockwise rotation works against the cylin-der lock and tends to force the cylinder out of alignment with thebarrel. The U.S. Navy was apparently pleased with the pistol, how-ever, and contracted for 5,000 of the Model 1889 chambered forthe caliber .38 Long Colt cartridge. The contract specified a bluefinish, walnut grips, and a 6-inch barrel.

Serial number 217,183 is most likely the most historic ColtModel 1889 Navy Double Action Revolver. The pistol was recov-ered from the wreckage o f the USS Maine after it exploded in Ha-vana Harbor on 15 February 1898 and was later presented to Assis-tant Secretary of the Navy Theodore Roosevelt, the futurepresident (Ezell, 1981: 636). It was this pistol that Roosevelt bran-dished to rally his Rough Riders during the famed charge up SanJuan Hill on 1 July 1898. After the battle the exuberant Roosevelt

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recalled, in his autobiography, seeing a Spanish soldier tumble “asneatly as a jackrabbit” after he shot him with his Colt revolver. Thepistol 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 counterclockwise-revolving pistol, the New Model Army and Navy Revolver. Through-out its production from 1892 through about 1907, the new revolverunderwent a number of minor improvements and proved to be oneof Colt’s more successful offerings on both the civilian and militarymarkets. Other than inspector markings, the Army and Navy issueswere virtually identical. Both services ordered caliber .38 revolverswith blued finishes, 6-inch barrels, and walnut grips, with the Armyreceiving a number of pistols with checkered hard-rubber grips. TheU.S. Marine Corps (USMC) also acquired a variation of the modelknown appropriately as the Marine Corps Model. Only 926 were de-livered, and the pistol’s main differences from the earlier modelswere 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 manufac-tured to the same general government specifications, as were theColts. First manufactured in 1899, the Smith & Wesson Hand Ejec-tor, Military and Police Revolver, was also known as the Model 1899and was available for both military and civilian purchase. The U.S.Navy received 1,000 of the Model 1899 in 1900; the Army receivedan additional 1,000 pistols the following year. Military Model 1899sare blued, with checkered walnut grips and 6-inch barrels. Both theArmy and Navy versions were double-action, swing-out cylinderweapons chambered for the caliber .38 Long Colt cartridge. Smith& Wesson continued to improve the basic design of the Model1899, but the military’s rejection of caliber .38 weapons soon led tothe end of military contracts. Civilian and police sales remained


strong, however, and the revolver, in its several improved forms, con-tinued 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 infavor of the .45 occurred shortly before its adoption of an automaticsidearm: the caliber .45 Model 1911 Colt. During the interim, Coltproduced its superb Colt New Service Double Action Revolver incaliber .45 Colt for military contracts and in various other calibersfor civilian sales. For its part, Smith & Wesson produced a limitednumber of its Hand Ejector–type revolvers bored to caliber .455 forsales to Britain and Canada during World War I. Colt manufacturedsome 356,000 New Services of various types between 1898 and1944. The U.S. Army, Navy, and Marine Corps adopted the NewService as the Model 1909. A blued finish was standard with theModel 1909, as was a 5.5-inch barrel. Army and Navy models werefitted with smooth walnut grips, whereas Marine Corps revolvershave checkered walnut grips.

Colt Model 1917 U.S. Army New Service Revolver andModel 1917 Smith & Wesson

The United States entered World War I with the semiautomatic cal-iber .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 againturned to revolvers as an emergency measure. The Model 1917 U.S.Army New Service Revolver was an improved version of the Model1909 and, with the Model 1917 Smith & Wesson, served as a substi-tute standard weapon during World War I. To simplify supply issues,ordnance officials were adamant that the revolvers accept the sameColt caliber .45 Automatic Colt Pistol ammunition used in theModel 1911. This was accomplished through the use of half-moonclips—C-shaped adaptors that hold three cartridges and, when usedin pairs, allow the revolver to be loaded with rimless cartridges. Thehalf-moon clips thus act as rims, retaining the cartridges in theircorrect position, and prevent the cartridge from falling completelyinto the cylinder chamber. In emergency situations the Smith &

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Wesson was reported to have been able to be used without half-moon clips in that its design seated the cartridge case on its mouthrather than rim. Although possible, the cases had to be extracted in-dividually.

POST–WORLD WAR II MILITARY REVOLVERS

Soon after World War II the major powers all but abandoned therevolver for standard issue to front-line ground troops. Still, thou-sands of revolvers remained in service with secondary troops, spe-cialized personnel, and security forces. Finding them more com-pact than the 1911A1, flight crews in the U.S. Army, Navy, and AirForce had for years found the shorter-barrel, or snub-nose, re-volvers to be practical in the cramped confines of cockpits. Mili-tary police organizations, citing the revolver’s safety, reliability, andcapability to chamber more powerful loadings, also continued touse revolvers on a wide scale. As late as 1981 the General Account-ing Office reported that 172,749 caliber .38 revolvers acquiredfrom 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 swing-out cylinder revolvers designed to appeal to a wide market. In theeyes of proponents, the available calibers of these pistols offered adistinct advantage over semiautomatics. The majority of military andpolice-issue weapons were chambered for the caliber .38 Specialcartridge or the high-powered caliber .357 Magnum cartridge. As anadded economic advantage, .357 Magnum pistols would also cham-ber the less-powerful and less-expensive caliber .38 Special car-tridge. Colt revolvers exhibited a number of finishes, including blue,nickel, and new corrosion-resistant types.

Government issues included the 2-inch barrel, caliber .38 SpecialColt Detective Special Revolver, first manufactured in 1927, and itsmodernized, lighter alloy-frame variant, the Cobra. The U.S.-issueColt Police Positive Revolver was essentially the same as the Detec-tive and Cobra but with a steel frame and a 4- or 5-inch barrel. A


similar weapon, the Colt Special Official Police Revolver, was alsoissued. Introduced in 1953 and manufactured until 1969, the large-frame Colt Trooper was issued with a 4-inch barrel and is a heaviergun than its predecessors. The added weight, however, was an ad-vantage in that it helped absorb recoil and improved the pistol’s han-dling characteristics when used with caliber .357 Magnum ammuni-tion. Other Colts issued include the medium-frame Lawman seriesthat, in .357 Magnum, saw service with military police units as wellas Air Force and Navy pilots during the Vietnam War.

Colt Aircrewman

In 1951 Colt began manufacturing a special lightweight, compactrevolver for issue to Air Force flight personnel. The short-barreledColt Aircrewman is chambered for the caliber .38 Special cartridgeand incorporates an aluminum alloy frame and cylinder. It is distin-guished by “AIRCREWMAN” stamped into the left side of the barrel, aU.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 militaryfollowing World War II. These included the .38 special caliber Mili-tary and Police Revolver, a well-proven design originally used by themilitary in the .38 Long Colt cartridge. An extremely rugged pistol,the Military and Police Revolver was issued in either blued or nickelfinishes and with either a 2-, 4-, or 5-inch barrel. It was a medium-frame revolver, somewhat heavier than the Colt Cobra, but was apopular shoulder-holster weapon. Smith & Wesson also manufac-tured a lightweight, alloy-frame Airweight model for issue to flightcrews.

Smith & Wesson Model 15 Combat Masterpiece and Model 19 Combat Magnum

Although branching into semiautomatic pistol design followingWorld War II, Smith & Wesson continued to develop modern re-volvers. The company introduced its Model 15 Combat Masterpiece

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in 1950, basing it on its midsized K-frame. Available with either 2-or 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 1964the Air Force issued the Combat Masterpiece in its 2-inch barrelform as the Model 56. The caliber .357 Model 19 entered produc-tion in early 1956 and quickly gained a reputation for reliability andaccuracy. Also based on the K-frame, the Model 19 was availablewith either a 2.5-, 4-, or 6-inch barrel. Valued for its manageablesize and hard-hitting cartridge, the Model 19 saw considerable serv-ice 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 sincebecome a major U.S. manufacturer of quality firearms. Conven-tional in design, Ruger revolvers offered no significant technical in-novations yet were well-made and accurate. The caliber .357 Mag-num Security Six debuted in 1968 and was quickly followed by itsrounded-grip variation, the Speed Six. Designated the GS-32N ingovernment service, the Speed Six is available in calibers 9mm, .38Special, and .357 Magnum. It has seen use by a variety of militarypolice and other government security services.


C H A P T E R 5

The Semiautomatic Pistol

Semiautomatic pistols are handguns that fire once with each pullof the trigger and mechanically reload and recock by diverting en-ergy from the discharge. They are thus often referred to as self-loading pistols, in contrast to the true automatic pistols. By defini-tion, automatic pistols are actually machine guns in that theycontinue firing until the trigger is released or the magazine emp-ties. Although inherently more complex than revolvers, the mainadvantages of semiautomatic pistols lie in rapid operation and thepotential for greater cartridge capacities. They also eliminate thegap between the cylinders’ chambers and the barrel’s breech. Thishelps avoid a loss of power from escaping gasses, as well as frag-ments shearing off from bullets fired from improperly aligned cylin-ders as they enter the breech. Records indicate that the semiauto-matic principle was known at least as early as 1664, when SirRobert Moray outlined the basic concept to the Royal Society inLondon (Smith: 1969: 179). Practical semiautomatics did notemerge, however, until the 1890s, when improved ammunitionmade them possible.

SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL DEVELOPMENT TO 1945

The main components of a semiautomatic pistol include: (1) a bar-rel; (2) a slide or moveable breechblock assembly containing a spentcasing extractor and firing pin or striker; (3) one or more recoil

171

springs; (4) a frame with an internal trigger mechanism; and (5) acartridge magazine. The greatest problem for all semiautomaticdesigners was to delay the opening of the pistol’s mechanism untilthe bullet had left the muzzle and the barrel’s internal pressurehad dropped to a safe level. This factor is critical in that a prema-ture opening of the breech can, at best, adversely affect the pistol’sballistics and, at worst, result in an explosion at the breech.Within the first 10 years of semiautomatic pistol development, fivebasic operating systems emerged to delay the rearward cycle of theaction.

The actions of all semiautomatics must be manually charged andcocked for the first shot. The five mechanisms that produce semiau-tomatic operation are: (1) blowback, consisting of a stationary barreland recoiling slide and breechblock; (2) short recoil, in which thebarrel travels rearward with the slide a short distance before disen-gaging; (3) long recoil, in which the barrel travels farther back thanin the short recoil; (4) blow-forward, which uses the friction of thebullet in the bore to pull the barrel forward from a fixed breech-block; and (5) gas operation, in which the gas from the cartridge’s ig-nition is redirected backward to move the slide and breechblock tothe rear. Neither the blow-forward nor the gas-operated systems sawany but very limited handgun application. The blow-forward systemwas abandoned very early as impractical, but the gas-operated sys-tem became a favorite of rifle and machinegun designers.

The blowback is the simplest and most common of the semiauto-matic actions. Most often used with lighter calibers such as the .22(5.5mm), .25 (6.35mm), .32 (7.65mm), and .380 (9mm kurz, orshort), the blowback system relies on a barrel fixed to the frame anda moving slide with an internal firing mechanism. Pressure from thecartridge’s detonation forces the slide mechanism back on a pair ofmachined rails in the frame far enough to eject the spent casing andcock the hammer or striker. A recoil spring, usually coiled aroundthe barrel, is first compressed by the rearward motion and then, inits return cycle, forces the slide mechanism forward. This actionstrips a new cartridge from the magazine to engage the extractor andforces it into the breech. Another pull of the trigger repeats theprocess. A variation, the delayed (retarded) blowback system, at-tempts to further slow the rearward cycle through friction. The mostcommon method employs an internal wedge or tapered block thatpresses between the barrel and slide.

The short-recoil system emerged as the most efficient system withhigher-caliber cartridges such as the 9mm Parabellum and the cal-

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iber .45 Automatic Colt Pistol (ACP)—loadings that require a frac-tion of a second longer hesitation than the blowback system affords.The principle employs a separate barrel that moves with the sliderearward a short distance before disengaging. At that point the slideis left free to continue its rearward cycle. This is most often accom-plished by machining a number of grooves into the barrel’s upper-rear surface. These grooves mate with mortises in the slide to lockthe two components together during initial ignition and the firstmillimeter or so of the assembly’s backward travel. At that point theslanted heel of the barrel follows a ramp in the frame, camming therear of the barrel down into the frame and disengaging it from theslide. The slide is then free to continue its rearward movement toeject the spent casing, cock the hammer, and begin its forward cy-cle. The long-recoil system is very similar to the short-recoil system,except that the barrel and slide remain together during the entirerearward movement. The forward cycle, powered by two springsrather than one, ejects the casing, strips another cartridge from themagazine, and chambers it.

Blow-forward pistols are manufactured with a fixed breechblockassembly integral with the frame. The barrel and slide assembly, inturn, is held in place by a powerful spring and follows a rail ma-chined into the upper frame. The mechanism relies on the frictionof the bullet moving forward through the bore to pull the barrel for-ward. This action then allows the extractor, attached to the breech-block, to eject the spent casing. The rearward movement of the bar-rel then strips another cartridge from the magazine for a followingshot. The blow-forward system’s greatest problem is that the violentrearward movement of the recoil spring results in what many con-sider too heavy a kick for its typically smaller-caliber chamberings.Few manufacturers other than the Austrian Andrea Schwarzlosemanufactured blow-forward pistols in any quantities.

Gas-operated pistols rely on redirecting a small percentage of thegasses generated by the cartridge’s ignition to the rear to activate themechanism. These gasses pass through a small hole near the muzzleto compress a piston assembly that powers the ejection and reload-ing functions. The Clair brothers of Saint Étienne apparently in-vented a very early gas-operated pistol in 1887. Although it actuallyworked, the Clair pistol proved ridiculously heavy for practical pur-poses, chambered only five cartridges, and was prone to jamming(malfunctions caused by underpowered or improperly feeding car-tridges or ejecting cases). Although effective, the gas system is moreefficient when applied to higher-powered cartridges than are nor-

THE SEMIAUTOMATIC PISTOL 173

mally used in handguns. For this reason it is most often applied torifles, shotguns, and carbines.

Early semiautomatic pistol designers also differed on the choiceof placement of the pistols’ magazines and their methods of charg-ing with cartridges. One school preferred the grip with either a de-tachable magazine inserted through the butt, or a fixed internalmagazine loaded through the top with chargers or stripper clips.Other designers rejected this method in favor of placing the detach-able or charger-fed magazine in front of the trigger guard. They ar-gued that the placement of the magazine in the grip, especially inlarger-caliber pistols, made the grip too bulky for comfort for thosewith smaller hands. In addition, they saw that a magazine situatedfarther to the front of the weapon aided its balance.

Many early European pistol designers and manufacturers such asMannlicher, Mauser, and Steyr were also active in the developmentof magazine-fed, bolt-action rifles. As nearly all of their magazinedesigns required stripper clips, it was only logical that they apply thesame method to pistol designs. Even though a rifle designer in hisown right, the renowned Hugo Borchardt rejected the fixed, clip-fedmagazine in favor of the detachable box magazine. In the end, Bor-chardt’s designs proved more practical. Owing to their simplicityand ease of use, by the mid–twentieth century the use of detachablemagazines loaded through the base of the grip far exceeded all otherloading methods.

Semiautomatic pistol designers also developed various safety de-vices that could be used singly or in combination. The most com-mon safety consists of a thumb-operated lever on the left side of theslide. When thumbed into the safe position, this type typically raisesa metal bar as a barrier to prevent the hammer from striking the fir-ing pin. Another lever-type safety located on the frame simply en-gages a notch in the slide, thus preventing movement. A third type—the grip safety—prevents the pistol from firing unless it is firmlygripped in the hand. Magazine safeties also prevent pistols from fir-ing unless a magazine is securely in place. A less-common safetyconsists of a pushbutton, usually near the trigger, that blocks the fir-ing mechanism.

Although hailed by many as the most modern and efficient formof handgun, semiautomatic pistols nevertheless have detractors.Early critics claimed, with some merit, that the more complicateddesigns were susceptible to jamming and other malfunctions thanrevolvers. The rigid frames used in most revolver designs also makethem more suitable for higher-powered cartridges such as the .357

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and .44 Magnum loadings. In addition, many military bureaucrats,regardless of country, often remained true to character. In their con-servative view, any rapidly fired weapon could potentially allowfront-line troops to waste precious ammunition and should be dis-couraged. Despite such objections, semiautomatics continued toimprove and, eventually, universally replaced revolvers as primarycombat weapons.

All the major powers would adopt semiautomatics as standardsidearms during the twentieth century. The United States and Ger-many entered World War I with semiautomatics yet, owing to thehuge demands of wartime, were forced to supplement these issueswith revolvers. By World War II the majority of combatants foughtwith self-loaders. Other countries, such as Great Britain, experi-mented with semiautomatics during World War I but continued toput their trust in revolvers through World War II.

Semiautomatic cartridges, unlike revolver ammunition, play a crit-ical role in the actual mechanical functioning of the pistol. They notonly provide the energy to activate the pistol mechanism; they mustalso cycle smoothly through the ejection and reloading process.Semiautomatic ammunition thus requires specific characteristics toavoid jamming. The three main cartridge characteristics necessaryfor smooth and reliable functioning include the use of smokeless pow-der, precise and consistent manufacture, and a rimless case.

The availability of smokeless powder was the most important fac-tor in the development of semiautomatic ammunition. Smokelesspropellant is less corrosive and burns much more efficiently thanblack powder. This is an important advantage when applied to theclose machining tolerances required in semiautomatic pistols, as itminimizes unburned residue that can jam the pistol. Smokeless am-munition also generates higher pressures than black powder andthus assures a more reliable cycling of the mechanism.

The turn of the twentieth century also saw advanced manufactur-ing techniques that allowed more consistent and secure seating ofthe bullet in the case. This is necessary in semiautomatic weaponsbecause it helps ensure precise cartridge length (an improperlyseated bullet is prone to being driven back into the case during theviolent cycling action and jam the weapon). If the bullet is notseated far enough into the case, it can wedge against the loadingramp or the top of the chamber. The development of the rimless car-tridge case also enhanced feeding by eliminating the projecting rimat the base of the cartridge case. Rimmed cartridges are necessaryfor use in revolvers because they prevent the cartridge from sliding


too far into the cylinder chambers and provide a gripping surface forthe extractor. Rimmed cases, however, are impractical for use insemiautomatics because of the tendency of the rims to bind againstone another in the magazine, again jamming the pistol. Rimless car-tridge cases are manufactured with a groove in the base that elimi-nates the projecting rim yet allows a mating surface for the extrac-tor. They are also generally slightly tapered to ensure that they donot slide too far into the chamber.

A number of semiautomatic pistol cartridges that have survivedthe test of time, even into the twenty-first century, originallyemerged during the late 1890s and early 1900s. These include the9mm 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 .45ACP. The 1980s and 1990s saw the growing popularity of the recentSmith & Wesson caliber .40 S&W cartridge. The .40 S&W cartridgeis something of a compromise between the 9mm Parabellum andthe .45 ACP cartridges, theoretically offering more stopping powerthan the 9mm and less recoil than the .45 ACP. The .40 S&W hasbecome a favored chambering for many police organizations, espe-cially in the United States. The 9mm Parabellum has become thestandard cartridge of most major powers, including the UnitedStates. Many combat veterans, however, continue to disdain the9mm for its comparative lack of stopping power and remainadamantly 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 pistolstypically reflect the national character of their origins.

GERMANY

Hugo Borchardt

Hugo Borchardt (1844–1925), a German emigrant working in Con-necticut, invented both the first practical semiautomatic pistol soldon an appreciable scale and, even more significantly, its cartridge. Itwas Borchardt who first applied the so-called rimless cartridge to aproduction semiautomatic pistol. The new rimless 7.65mm Bor-chardt cartridge was a long bottlenecked design that tapered fromthe main body down to a jacketed caliber .30 bullet. The cartridge

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proved quite accurate and was capable of superior penetration. Thedesign was so successful that slightly modified forms survive to thepresent day.

Borchardt, however, found little interest in the United States for ei-ther his pistol or its cartridge. Having spent a number of years work-ing on semiautomatic rifle designs for the Winchester Repeating ArmsCompany as well as Sharps, he returned to Germany to find employ-ment with Ludwig Loëwe and Company of Berlin. In 1893 Loëwe re-leased the new pistol for sale. Borchardt’s was not the first semiauto-matic pistol to be offered on the general market, but its superiordesign quickly forced competing models, such as those of the Austri-ans Gebruder Schönberger and Andrea Schwarzlose, into obscurity.

The Borchardt was based on what is called the toggle-lockedbreech principle—a mechanism often compared to the action of thehuman knee. A hinge (the “knee”) in the middle of the breechmechanism allows it to buckle upward under the pressure of igni-tion to eject spent cartridge cases. A large recoil spring then forcesthe breech forward, straightening the knee, to strip a cartridge fromthe magazine and seat it in the chamber. The Borchardt also de-buted the removable, spring-loaded, eight-round box magazinehoused in the pistol’s grip. This innovation allowed the carrying of anumber of spare magazines, greatly increasing one’s firepower andspeed in reloading. Loëwe also offered the Borchardt with a detach-able wood shoulder stock/leather holster combination that, when at-tached 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 craftsmanshipand was manufactured to exacting tolerances. These same qualities,however, made it infinitely unsuitable as a military weapon; even atiny amount of dirt or mud easily jammed the mechanism. Its deli-cate components, moreover, are extremely prone to breakage, evenunder the best circumstances. It was also somewhat heavy and awk-ward to handle given its long barrel and bulbous recoil spring hous-ing that extends back and over the user’s hand. Borchardt neverthe-less seemed to consider the pistol a masterpiece and saw little needto tinker with perfection. One of his colleagues at Loëwe apparentlydisagreed.

Georg Luger and the Luger P08

Austrian-born Georg Luger had assisted Borchardt in designing his


new pistol. Luger was thus intimately familiar with the pistol andsoon redesigned the Borchardt with an eye toward creating a practi-cal military sidearm. The arms giant Deutsches Waffen und Muni-tions Fabriken (DWM) of Berlin approved Luger’s modifications andbegan production of the new pistol in 1900. Known as the Luger inthe United States, the redesigned Borchardt became known in somecircles in Europe as the Parabellum (literally, “for war”), a referenceto its cartridge. The Luger’s sleek, aggressive lines made it one of themost instantly recognizable handguns in the world. Luger greatlyadded to the aesthetic appeal by replacing the earlier recoil springand its awkward housing with one placed within the grip. Luger alsorefined Borchardt’s design with a number of minor modificationsand by shortening the pistol’s barrel. Other improvements includedthe addition of a manual safety on the left rear of the slide. Luger’sefforts 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 Borchardt-Luger. Initial Swiss orders were limited, and most Model 1900swere issued to officers. Lower ranks were left to fend for themselveswith the earlier-issue revolvers. One factor in the decision to con-tinue arming enlisted personnel with revolvers was the pervasive at-titude among military hierarchies, in Europe as well as the UnitedStates, that enlisted men lacked the intelligence to operate semiau-tomatics. Although similar in most respects to later Parabellummodels, the 1900 Swiss contract pistols utilized a grip safety, arather weak leaf-type recoil spring, and the 7.65mm (caliber .30Luger) bottlenecked cartridge. The insignia—a Swiss cross within asunburst—on the top of the receivers further distinguished SwissLugers. An eight-round detachable box magazine within the grip fedthe Model 1900 and succeeding models.

The Model 1900 impressed many who used it with its handlingqualities and accuracy. But its recoil spring proved inadequate, andits caliber .30 cartridge lacked stopping power. DWM and Lugerexperimented with a limited number of loadings, including car-tridges with a special truncated cone-type, flat-nosed bullet toboost the ballistic properties and stopping power. In 1902 DWMintroduced the more powerful 9x19mm Parabellum Luger car-tridge, arguably the most successful cartridge ever produced. Lugeralso replaced the earlier leaf-type recoil spring with a stronger coilspring and added other, less critical modifications. In 1904 theGerman Navy adopted the Luger in 9mm Parabellum as the Pis-tole, Marine-Modell 1904, System Borchardt Luger. The Model

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1904 had a 6-inch barrel, an adjustable rear sight, and a combina-tion extractor/loaded indicator on top of the bolt. To many Lugerconnoisseurs, the lines of the 6-inch barrel Navy Luger make it themost aesthetically pleasing of all the German-produced Parabel-lums.

In 1908 the German Army officially adopted the Luger in 9mmwith a 4-inch barrel as the P08 (Pistole 1908). Soon after DWMadded a hold-open device to the Luger to hold the toggle open on anempty magazine—an important feature in a combat weapon becauseit alerts the user of the pistol’s unloaded status. In 1914 the GermanArmy also adopted an 8-inch barrel version popularly referred to asthe Artillery Luger—something of a misnomer, as most seemed tohave been issued to machine-gun units. The Artillery Luger featureda tangent, rifle-style rear sight. It was often issued with aholster/shoulder stock rig consisting of a flat wood shoulder stock at-tached to a leather holster and shoulder strap very similar to the ear-lier Borchardt design. DWM also manufactured a 32-round snail-drum magazine in addition to a special magazine loading device toboost the Artillery Model’s firepower. Although most military Lugersfeature a milled rib for the shoulder stock on the rear grip strap, onlythe Artillery Models seem to have been regularly issued with the hol-ster/stock. The attachment of the stock and snail-drum transformedthe Artillery Luger into a high magazine–capacity carbine.

DWM and the Erfurt Arsenal produced more than 1.5 millionP08s for the German government during the World War I period.The Swiss government also continued production at its arsenal atBern, while Vickers Ltd. of England and, later, Mauser manufac-tured pistols for the Dutch military. A number of other countriesadopted the Luger, including Portugal, Bulgaria, Sweden, Persia,and Brazil. Russia and China ordered limited numbers, and Finlandadopted the pistol in 7.65mm as its Model 1923.

The appearance of the Luger coincided with a growing interest onthe part of the U.S. military in the transition from revolvers to semi-automatics. In 1901 the U.S. Army Board of Ordnance and Fortifi-cation tested the Model 1900 at the Springfield Arsenal and soonordered 1,000 pistols for field trials. The test pistols were stampedwith a prominent American eagle on the top of the breech and werechambered for the 7.65mm cartridge. Holsters were manufacturedat Rock Island Arsenal. Reports from the field indicated two mainflaws with the Model 1900: a tendency to jam and insufficient stop-ping power. Further tests with Model 1902 9mm Parabellum pistolsindicated the desirability of the larger cartridge, but the pistols still


jammed at an alarming rate. In 1907 the Army suspended tests; thetest pistols were sold at auction.

Despite this rejection, DWM and Georg Luger continued to seeka U.S. contract and entered the U.S. Ordnance Trials held in1906–1907. The issue was complicated by the Army’s decision to re-quire all new test pistols to be chambered for a caliber .45 car-tridge—a requirement prompted by the poor performance of caliber.38 pistols during recent action in the Philippines. Such a dramaticstep up in caliber could not be accomplished with the existingDWM tooling and necessitated some ingenuity on the part ofDWM. In 1907 DWM submitted a very limited number of essen-tially hand-made caliber .45 Lugers to the U.S. Ordnance Trials.The caliber .45 Lugers performed reasonably well, but they stillshowed a tendency to jam and required a special German-manufac-tured propellant. Although placing third in the trials, DWM did notprovide additional pistols for further testing. Following the1906–1907 trials DWM abandoned its attempts to win a U.S.contract.

Although the U.S. government officially rejected the Luger formilitary use, the pistol did enjoy moderate civilian sales. During the1920s and 1930s most commercial Lugers were chambered for thecaliber .30 Luger cartridge, and some World War I military 9mmpistols were also converted to that caliber for the civilian market. Inthe United States, the New York outfitting firms A. F. Stoeger andAbercrombie and Fitch marketed especially well-finished Lugers.For its part, Stoeger made the canny commercial move of actuallycopyrighting the Luger name for its products. The LosAngeles–based Ideal Holster Company also manufactured a limitednumber of special holster and shoulder stocks for use with com-mercial Lugers. The 7.65mm Model 1902 Carbine and Model1920 Carbine were two of the more impressive civilian Lugers.Both were sold domestically and abroad and were fitted with rifle-type sights and long (11.75-inch) barrels with woodfore ends. Theattachment of a wood shoulder stock converted the pistol into ashort carbine.

The Treaty of Versailles, the peace treaty that ended World War Iand set the stage for events that would lead to World War II, im-posed dramatic arms restrictions on Germany. Small-arms produc-tion of all types declined in Germany after 1918. Between 1922 and1932 the sporting arms manufacturer Waffenfabrik Simson andCompany of Suhl assembled and reworked existing Lugers for theWeimar government for both military and police issue. These

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post–World War I pistols exhibit a variety of markings—some wereoften undated or marked with an additional date to the prewar andWorld War I dates stamped into the top of the receiver. Simson alsooften omitted its company name on the pistols it assembled.

The Mauser factory of Oberndorf am Neckar took up productionin the mid-1930s. Despite the Nazi government’s adoption of theWalther P38, Mauser produced the P08 into 1942, and theKrieghoff firm continued to produce approximately 19,000 Lugersfor the Luftwaffe (the German air arm) from 1935 into 1944,stamping the top of the toggle with the company’s anchor trade-mark. During World War I the Erfurt Arsenal marked the toggles ofits Lugers with a crown and “ERFURT”; DWM stamped its toggleswith it monogram “DWM” initials. Both factories stamped the date ofmanufacture on top of the breech. Soon after taking power in 1933,Adolf Hitler began to rearm Germany in violation of the VersaillesTreaty. In an attempt to confuse Allied arms inspectors, Germanarms manufacturers thus initiated a system of identification codes.In 1934 Mauser, the primary manufacturer of German militaryLugers after World War I, began stamping its toggles with the codeS/42 and, after 1940, BYF. To further confuse the inspectors,Mauser also substituted the letter “K” for the 1934 date and “G” for1935. The following year the Nazis were sufficiently confident to re-sume the practice of stamping the year of manufacture on the tog-gle. They did, however, continue the use of the manufacturer codesthroughout the war. During World War II the German Army issuedP08s primarily to noncommissioned officers; higher-ranking com-missioned officers considered it more fashionable to holster smallercaliber 7.65mm and 9mm kurz pistols.

Mauser also filled a number of minor foreign contracts forLugers before World War II curtailed exports. These pistols were of-ten stamped with the Mauser banner commercial markings. Thesecontracts included orders from the Dutch Indies Army Air Force,the Royal Netherlands Navy, Turkey, Portugal, Persia, Latvia, andSweden. Switzerland continued to manufacture Lugers at the Eid-genössische Waffenfabrik Bern. The Swiss designated their variousmodels the Ordonnanzpistole 06; the simplified Ordonnanzpistole06/24 was manufactured to reduce costs with plastic grips and wasissued with two rather than three magazines. The final Swiss mili-tary Luger, the Ordonnanzpistole 06/29, remained in productionuntil 1947 and was issued to officers and some noncommissionedofficers.

The Luger holster was a marvel of design and workmanship.


World War I–issue military and, later, police holsters were usuallydyed brown; Nazi military holsters were most often black. Except fora 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 com-pletely enclosed it, protecting it from any elements that could dam-age its delicate mechanism. A large flap covered the top of the hol-ster and was secured by a strap-and-buckle arrangement. A smallcompartment on the internal surface of the flap contained a combi-nation screwdriver/loading tool, and a compartment on the leadingedge of the holster’s main body carried a spare magazine. As the pis-tol sat far down in the main body of the holster, a leather strap wasprovided that, when pulled, raised the pistol out of the holster farenough to grasp. The holster was attached to the belt with twostraps sewn to its back.

Despite being somewhat poorly balanced in its 4-inch barrelform, the Luger fits well in the hand and points naturally. It is, how-ever, not without faults. Part of the safety and sear mechanism is ex-posed on the side of the pistol where it is vulnerable to mud, sand,and dirt. It was also expensive to manufacture and is temperamentalif used with weak ammunition. Although mass-produced, mostLugers still exhibit an excellent finish and are handsome in appear-ance. The metal parts are treated with a deep blued finish, with thetrigger, safety switch, and some smaller parts receiving a straw-colored heat treatment. The standard P08 has checkered walnutgrips. It is 8.75 inches in overall length and weighs 1.93 pounds.When chambered for the 9mm Parabellum cartridge, it achieves amuzzle velocity of 1,050 feet per second (fps).

Well over 2 million military Lugers in dozens of variations wereproduced from 1900 to 1943; thousands of civilian postwar modelswere also manufactured. Some Mauser-manufactured World WarII–period Lugers, nicknamed Black Widows by collectors, weretreated with a cheaper, darker finish and fitted with black plasticgrips. One of the rarest of all is the so-called Baby Luger, of whichno more than five were manufactured experimentally at DWM be-tween 1925 and 1926. The brainchild of the company’s chief engi-neer, Heinrich Hoffman, about half of the Baby Lugers were cham-bered in 7.65mm (.32 ACP) with the others in 9mm kurz (.380ACP). The Baby Luger was never put into production owing to Ger-many’s severe economic depression and the ready availability ofcheaper pocket pistols.

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Peter Paul Mauser and the Model 1896 Broomhandle

In 1896 Peter Paul Mauser of the famous Mauser factory in Obern-dorf am Neckar, Germany, introduced what was to be the Luger’sgreatest 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 sidearmduring two world wars and saw wide use in other countries. Ger-many issued some 135,000 Model 1896s to its troops during WorldWar I. China, Norway, Persia, Siam, Austria, Finland, Italy, Turkey,the French Gendarmerie, and Russia also signed contracts for vari-ous models. Civilian sales were also respectable, with better-finished and engraved examples seeing use throughout the globe.

In addition, Spanish companies such as Astra & Royal manufac-tured numerous copies of the Model 1896. The Spanish Broomhan-dles were often of excellent workmanship; although externally re-sembling the original Mausers, they were simplified for ease andeconomy of manufacture and were internally much different. Chinawas by far the greatest user of Model 1896 pistols, with National-ists, Communists, and various warlords acquiring them by the hun-dreds of thousands. Chinese government arsenals and small work-shops churned out thousands more of widely varying quality. ManyChinese arsenal–manufactured weapons approach a high level ofworkmanship rivaling that of the original Mauser plant, whereas theproducts of some smaller shops are extremely crude. At least onenaval arsenal also manufactured a limited number of Model 1896schambered for the caliber .45 ACP cartridge.

During its more than 40-year production run, Mauser advertisedits self-loader in three basic models (Models 1896, 1930, and 1932),but the company’s continual modifications and improvements re-sulted in numerous submodels. Although Mauser officially marketedthe pistol as the Model 1896 Military, it was also known as theMauser Modell 1896 Selbstlader and, more popularly in Europe, asthe Construktion-96 or C96. The distinctive shape of the pistol’s gripalso prompted two nicknames. German troops soon named the newpistol the Kuhfusspistole (Cow Foot Pistol), whereas English-speak-ing soldiers dubbed it the Broomhandle. Regardless of the nicknameused, Mauser manufactured more than 1 million C96s in dozens ofvariations between 1896 and the outbreak of World War II.

Unlike the Luger, the magazine of the Model 1896 was locatedin front of the trigger guard. In its fixed magazine variations the


Model 1896 was manufactured with six-, 10-, and 20-round capac-ities, while the removable magazine models were available in six-,10-, 20-, and even 40-round capacities. A variety of barrel lengthswere offered (including 3.9, 4.75, 5.2, and 5.5 inches), and bothfixed and adjustable rear sights were available. Grips were typicallyof horizontally grooved walnut. One of the more famous variationsis the Bolo, a shorter-gripped and -barreled weapon purportedlynicknamed for its popularity among the Bolsheviks during the Rus-sian Revolution.

The C96 is a recoil-operated, locked-breech pistol. Initial cockingis accomplished by pulling the bolt back, thus cocking the exposedhammer. Releasing the bolt and allowing its spring to carry it for-ward then forces a cartridge from the magazine and into the cham-ber. The majority of Model 1896 pistols have a 10-round fixed mag-azine forward of the trigger guard that is charged with stripper clips.Most C96 pistols are chambered for the bottlenecked caliber7.63mm Mauser cartridge, based on the earlier, somewhat less pow-erful, caliber 7.65 Borchardt cartridge. During World War I a short-age of P08s forced the German military to order some 150,000Broomhandles in caliber 9mm Parabellum, the official military pis-tol cartridge used in the Luger. These pistols are marked with a largered “9” carved into the grips to distinguish them from other calibers.A very small number were also produced for export in the larger cal-iber 9mm Mauser cartridge.

The safeties underwent numerous improvements and were gener-ally located on the rear of the upper frame to the left of the exposedhammer. Most World War I–issue pistols were fitted with the NeuesSicherung (New Safety) and were stamped with “NS” on the rear ofthe hammer. The New Safety could be applied only while the ham-mer was in the cocked position. The Universal Safety appeared withthe Model 1930 and allowed the hammer to drop safely on a loadedchamber. The C96 also introduced a hold-open device by which thebolt remained in the open position upon emptying the magazine.This was an important feature in a combat weapon in that a soldierwas instantly alerted that his pistol is empty and the pistol could bemore quickly reloaded with the bolt in the rear position.

The most common C96 as issued to the German Army is the so-called Model 1912. It has a 5.5-inch barrel and a 10-round maga-zine. Most are fitted with a tangent leaf sight optimistically markedto 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-

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able, combination wood shoulder stock/holster was also provided toconvert the C96 into a carbine, adding to the weapon’s stability andthus to its accuracy. The Model 1896 shoulder stock differed fromthe Luger’s in that it was hollow with a hinged butt that permittedthe entire pistol to fit inside. A leather harness arrangement allowsfor carrying over the shoulder.

The caliber 7.63mm Model 1932, known commercially as the712, was among Mauser’s last offerings in this popular series. TheModel 1932 was a selective-fire weapon capable of both semiauto-matic and automatic fire and was thus a true machine pistol. It wasoften referred to as the Schnellfeuer (Quick Fire) for this reason. Aswitch on the left side of the receiver allowed the user to select thefiring mode. Owing to its heavy recoil, the Model 1932 was a diffi-cult weapon to control in its full-automatic mode, but it neverthe-less remained popular with front-line troops. The Model 1932 ac-cepted 10- and 20-round detachable magazines and was reportedly afavorite 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 questionablestopping power. It was also expensive and complicated to manufac-ture and is prone to malfunction. Field-stripping the Broomhandleis also somewhat difficult, especially under combat conditions. De-spite these drawbacks, the internal workings of the C96 are a truemarvel of engineering: All of its components ingeniously lock to-gether in such a way that the only screw needed in its constructionsecures the two grip panels.

Still, few other pistols approach the Model 1896 for its legendaryassociations with historic events or its overtly lethal appearance. Itcould still be found on battlegrounds more than a century after itsintroduction. One of Mauser’s first clients was a young Britonnamed Winston Churchill, then a subaltern in the 21st Lancers.Churchill was reported to have used a Model 1896—a gift from hismother—during the 2 September 1898 Battle of Omdurman in theSudan and later as a war correspondent during the Boer War. As lateas 1977 the Model 1896 appeared in one of its more unlikely ven-ues—the George Lucas movie Star Wars. Two main characters—Luke Skywalker and Han Solo—were equipped with Model 1896sonly slightly modified by the studio’s prop department to resemblerayguns with which they fired animated blasts of energy againsttheir enemies.


Mauser Model 1910, Model 1914, and WTP

Mauser’s designers also turned their talents to smaller blowback de-signs with magazines housed within the grips. Although intended forthe civilian market, a number of these pistols saw limited police andmilitary use through private purchases. U.S. officers also used allthese pistols on a limited scale during World War I and World WarII. Following a number of experiments, Mauser introduced theModel 1910, chambered for the 6.35mm Browning (.25 ACP) car-tridge, and followed it with the 7.65 Browning (.32 ACP) Model1914. The even more diminutive 6.35mm Westentaschenpistol(Vest Pocket Pistol; WTP) followed in 1918. Nearly 100,000 WTPswere manufactured in two models before production ceased in1939.

Mauser Model 1934

Although Mauser’s pocket pistols were well-made and reliable, theypaled in style when compared to the more modern-looking productsmarketed by Carl Walther of Zella-Mehlis in Thuringia. Mauser re-sponded to dipping sales with the Model 1934, essentially a re-vamped Model 1914. The Model 1934 became a popular sidearmamong German navy and army officers and police. However, it stillretained a clunky appearance when compared to streamlined clas-sics such as Walther’s Model PP and Model PPK. Mauser finally an-swered the Walther challenge with the even more modernistic HahnSelbstspanner (Self-Cocking Hammer; HSc). The HSc followed twoearlier prototypes—the HSa and the HSb—and was designed byAlex Seidel and his staff.

Mauser Model HSc

The HSc is a wonderfully streamlined and compact weapon cham-bered primarily for the 7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge, with a limitednumber accepting the 9mm kurz (.380 ACP) round. Disassembly issimple and accomplished by pressing a small catch on the front in-ner surface of the trigger guard. A number of improvements make itone of the safest pistols to carry, and an abbreviated yet accessiblehammer spur allowed easy thumb-cocking for a second chance inthe case of a defective primer. Some 250,000 HScs were manufac-

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tured between its introduction in about 1940 and the end of WorldWar II. It was a popular sidearm among Nazi forces in all branchesof service. Following the war Mauser continued marketing the HScand would supply the French government with another 20,000 pis-tols. Following the war, Alex Seidel became a cofounder of the newfirm Heckler & Koch and reintroduced the HSc as the HK 4 (Ezell1981: 409). The HK 4 was manufactured with a stamped steelrather than the earlier machined steel slide, an innovation Seidel ex-plored during World War II as a wartime expedient.

Theodor Bergmann and the Model 1893

Although the Luger and Mauser dominated the field of early Euro-pean semiautomatic pistol development and sales, they did facecompetition. The prolific German inventor Theodor Bergmann, fa-mous for his machine guns and submachine guns, also collaboratedwith Louis Schmeisser to invent a number of important semiauto-matic pistol designs. Bergmann and Schmeisser’s first semiauto-matic was the Model 1893, a retarded blowback–operated weapon.The Model 1893’s magazine was located in front of the trigger guardand was charged with preloaded clips through a loading door piv-oted to the right side of the pistol. The Model 1893 was, as werenearly all of Bergmann’s designs, decidedly awkward in appearanceand handling characteristics.

Bergmann Models 1894, 1896, and 1897

Bergmann and Schmeisser continually refined the basic model overthe next years, producing the Models 1894, 1896, and 1897, and of-fered the pistols with various types of holster/shoulder stock attach-ments. They also experimented with cartridge designs. In 1894 theyintroduced the No. 2 (5mm), No. 3 (6.5mm), and No. 4 (8mm) car-tridges. These cartridges were made without rims or extractorgrooves, and thus the pistols were manufactured without extractors.Bergmann and Schmeisser theorized that the cartridges’ sharply ta-pered cases would allow the gases of their ignition to eject the spentcases without the need for a mechanical extractor. Trials eventuallyproved the cartridges too weak for military use and the theory im-practical in fouled weapons. The pair attempted to create a morepowerful combination with the Model 1897 and its larger bottle-


necked 7.8mm Bergmann cartridge, but sales proved dismal. Still,Bergmann persisted in seeking contracts and fabricated a special10mm model for British trials, but it failed to impress that country’sordnance officials.

Bergmann Simplex

Bergmann and Schmeisser next introduced a pocket pistol that be-came known as the Bergmann Simplex semiautomatic pistol.Bergmann eventually sold the Simplex’s manufacturing rights to aBelgian concern that manufactured some 4,000 units. The Simplexbecame particularly popular in Spain, where local gunsmiths manu-factured thousands of unauthorized copies. With its forward maga-zine and exposed hammer, the Simplex bore a superficial resem-blance to the earlier Mauser Model 1896. The Simplex was,however, underpowered, unattractive, and, owing to the many low-quality copies, reputedly unreliable. Sales were predictably poor.

Bergmann-Bayard/Bergmann-Mars

Bergmann entered the military market in 1903 with an improved re-coil-operated, locked-breech pistol chambered for the potent 9mmNo. 6 Bergmann-Bayard (9mm Largo) cartridge. The new pistol wasalternately called the Bergmann-Mars or the Model No. 6 or 6a. Themagazine was again located in front of the trigger guard and wascommonly of a six-round capacity, although a 10-shot model wasavailable. In 1905 Spain placed the first order for the new pistol, des-ignating it the Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo 1905, but produc-tion 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 mod-ifications suggested by the Spanish military, and production of thepistol, redesignated the Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo 1908, re-sumed. AEP’s most noticeable improvement was the addition ofcutouts in the magazine well, which allowed for easier removal andreplacement of magazines. In addition, Pieper also offered the Model1908 with several varieties of a wood and leather shoulder stock/hol-ster similar to the Mauser Model 1896 arrangement.

In 1911 the Danish Army began the process of phasing out its oldGasser revolvers and adopted the Bergmann as the Danish Model

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1910. Denmark purchased 4,840 Model 1910s, and in 1913, follow-ing the Second Balkan War, Greece placed an additional order. Hav-ing manufactured about 20,000 pistols, Belgium’s manufacture ofthe Bergmann-Bayard ceased with the country’s fall to the Germansin World War I. Danish designers later contributed a number of mi-nor improvements to the basic design, including the replacement ofthe deteriorating AEP synthetic grips with more stable wood panels.In 1922 the Danish Army Manufacturing Arsenal and the Army Stor-age Arsenal began production of what was designated the Model1910/21 Pistol. The arsenals produced some 2,204 Model 1910/21sand, between 1922 and 1935, updated the earlier Model 1910s tothe new specifications. The Model 1910/21 is an extremely well-made weapon and chambered one of the most powerful handguncartridges of its day. It compares well with the Mauser Model 1896,with which it shares a marked resemblance and, with its detachablemagazine, holds certain advantages over it. Still, by the 1930s its ex-pensive manufacturing requirements, ungainly handling characteris-tics, and weight (2.25 pounds) marked the Model 1910/21 as obso-lete in the face of a new generation of semiautomatics.

Carl Walther

The Carl Walther Waffenfabrik of Zella Mehlis in Thuringia, Ger-many, introduced its first pistol in 1908 and over the ensuing threedecades rose to become that country’s dominant semiautomatichandgun manufacturer. Carl Walther (1860–1915) founded thecompany in 1886 to produce hunting and target arms. His sons,Fritz, Georg, and Eric, entered the family business at the turn of thecentury, and the company’s focus soon turned to pistol production.Walther initially manufactured a series of small pistols, essentiallypocket pistols, numerically designated Models 1 through 9, beforedebuting the famous models PP and PPK and ultimately the P38,the standard German World War II sidearm. The company survivedWorld War II. The West German Army (the Bundeswehr) adoptedthe P38 as the P1.

Walther Model 1 and Model 2

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


was manufactured with an open-top slide, its recoil spring is locatedunder the barrel, and an internal striker fires it. The Model 2 enteredthe market in 1909 and shared its predecessor’s caliber but differedthanks to a number of improvements. These include its recoil springthat coils around the barrel and an enclosed slide, both retained by ascrew-on barrel bushing at the muzzle. It also replaced the Model 1’sstriker mechanism with an internal hammer and featured a combina-tion loaded chamber/rear-sight mechanism that pops up into positionwhen 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 majordifferences between the Model 2 and 3 are the switch from a screw-on barrel bushing to an end cap secured by a bayonet-type lock andthe placing of the ejection port from the right to the left of the slide.The latter change, although welcomed by left-handed shooters, wasinconvenient to right-handed shooters in that the casings were nowejected in front of their face. The Model 4, in turn, was based on theModel 3 but was designed as a holster pistol for military and policeuse. It was thus made with a longer grip to accommodate the largereight-round rather than six-round magazine. The Model 4 incorpo-rated the same slide as the Model 3 but was fitted with a longer bar-rel secured with a necessarily longer bushing. Both pistols wereequipped with a safety mounted on the left rear of the frame thatlocked the hammer.

Despite its left-handed ejection, the Model 4 is, as typical ofWalther’s products, reliable and well-finished, usually blued withcheckered black-plastic grips. During World War I German officersbought large numbers of Walthers as personal weapons, and thegovernment contracted for some 250,000 Model 4s in 1915. Fin-land also issued the Model 4 to prison and police personnel duringWorld War II. The success of the Models 1 through 4 allowedWalther to continue expanding its operations, and in 1913 the com-pany brought out an improved 6.35mm (.25 ACP) Model 2, desig-nated the Model 5, followed in 1915 by the Model 6.

Walther Model 6

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

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to be the company’s single major failure. By 1915 the expandingGerman military’s demand for handguns required emergency meas-ures, and the Model 6 was developed solely as a wartime expedientfor issue to the army. Pressed for time, Walther engineers simplyturned to the already proven Model 4 and enlarged and strength-ened it to accommodate the German 9mm Parabellum service car-tridge. The Model 6 marked Walther’s return to placing the ejectionport on the right side of the weapon, but the powerful Parabellumcartridge proved too much for the Model 4’s blowback design. Pro-duction ceased in 1917.

Walther Model 7, Model 8, and Model 9

The Model 7 appeared in 1916 and was a 6.35mm (.25 ACP) ver-sion of the Model 6. It was designed for the refined tastes of higher-ranking staff officers and, as a small-caliber weapon, was muchmore successful than its predecessor. However, its production endedat the end of World War I. Following the Armistice, all weapon pro-duction ceased at Walther and other German armaments firms pur-suant to the terms of the Versailles Treaty. Production at Walther re-sumed in 1920 under the restrictions of the treaty, with twoexcellent civilian small-caliber pistols, the Model 8 of that year andthe Model 9 of 1921. The Model 8 was a 6.35mm (.25 ACP)weapon fed by an eight-round magazine and was produced until1943. With the Model 8 Walther introduced an innovative take-down system that the firm retained in its subsequent smaller-caliberpistols. The mechanism consists of a hinged trigger guard that, uponpulling down on the forward end, releases the slide and barrel.These components can then easily be pulled back to disengage theframe and then be pulled forward off the pistol. The 6.35mm (.25ACP) Model 9 was a tiny vest-pocket pistol fired by a striker mecha-nism that also acted as a cocked indicator.

Walther Model PP

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


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 pro-duction of .22 Model PPs in 1935, thus making the small-caliberweapons the rarest of the series (the 7.65mm models are the mostcommon). The Model PP did much to establish the 7.65mm semi-automatic as the favored sidearm of continental police organiza-tions. In contrast, U.S. lawmen—possibly owing to their perceivedWild West heritage—remained loyal to large-caliber six-shootersinto the late twentieth century.

The Model PP owes much to the Model 8, including the fixedbarrel, coiled recoil spring wrapped around the barrel, and hingedtrigger guard takedown mechanism. However, it signaled a new gen-eration of semiautomatics in its double-action capability, advancedsafety features, and overall sleek, modern styling. A limited numberwere 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 dou-ble-action allows it to be carried safely with a loaded chamber. Shift-ing the pistol’s safety to its safe position also blocks the firing pin, al-lowing the hammer to harmlessly fall on a loaded chamber. With thesafety off, either thumbing back the exposed hammer in single-action mode or simply pulling the trigger for double-action firingcan then discharge the pistol.

Proponents praised the Model PP’s double-action capability forits safety, speed of action, and ability to provide a second chance inthe event of a defective cartridge primer. The Model PP is also fittedwith a small pin that protrudes from the slide above the hammerthat acts as a loaded-chamber indicator. The pin, pushed backwardby the base of a loaded cartridge, visually confirms a loaded cham-ber or can be felt by the thumb in the dark. The standard caliber7.65mm Model PP is charged with an eight-round box magazinethat is released by a button on the left of the frame behind the trig-ger guard.

Walther manufactured some 200,000 Model PPs during WorldWar II, and it was a favored sidearm among German officers, policeunits, and Nazi officials. Early Model PPs were finished in a high-luster blue and bore the company’s full logo and address on theirslides. As World War II progressed the pistols continued to be man-ufactured to the highest mechanical standards but declined cosmet-ically, with later pistols exhibiting machine-tool marks and a gray

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phosphate finish. Some later pistols were also manufactured with-out the loaded indicator pin. Army-issue pistols fo the Nazis werestamped with a small eagle and swastika over the number “356” toindicate the Walther factory; some late pistols are marked with theWalther “AC” Nazi identification code.

The Model PP proved such a success that a number of variationshave appeared since its introduction. These include the caliber7.65mm Hungarian Pistol Model 48, manufactured after World WarII 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 indi-cator over the chamber rather than above the hammer. Turkey alsomanufactured a caliber 9mm Short (.380 ACP) Model PP, theKirikkale, for its armed forces after World War II at Makina veKimya Endustrisi Kurumu.

Walther Model PPK

In 1931–1932 Walther followed the Model PP with the smallerModel PPK. Although some sources claimed that the “K” in the pis-tol’s designation refers to kurtz (German for “short,” as in Police Pis-tol Short), most favor kriminal as the more correct choice. The des-ignation Polizei Pistole Kriminal thus indicates the pistol’s intendeduse by the Kripo or Kriminal Polizei, the detective branch of theGerman police. At 6.1 inches in overall length and 1.25 pounds, theModel PPK was essentially a smaller Model PP with a shorter gripand slide and a 3.4-inch barrel. It was offered in the same calibersas its larger predecessor. Walther also eliminated the Model PP’smetal back strap and instead manufactured the Model PPK with acomfortable one-piece wraparound plastic grip. Owing to the PPK’sshortened grip, its magazine accepted seven cartridges rather thanthe Model PP’s eight. The shorter grip also necessitated the additionof a plastic extension to the magazine base for the shooter’s little fin-ger—a feature found on some Model PPs.

Walther manufactured approximately 150,000 Model PPKs dur-ing the Nazi era. The small pistol became a favored sidearm of thecivilian police and the notorious Gestapo—the Nazi secret police.High-ranking Nazi officials and military officers also consideredsmaller sidearms more prestigious than the larger service pistols andpurchased numbers of engraved Model PPKs as personal statussymbols. Some PPKs manufactured for Nazi Party officials were em-


bellished with special grips molded with the Nazi eagle and swastikamotif or party insignia stamped on their slides. The Model PPKplayed a role in hastening the end of World War II when, on 30 April1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide with his engraved, gold-platedmodel in his bunker in Berlin as Russian troops closed in. The pistollater soared in popularity after it was featured prominently as thesidearm of Ian Fleming’s fictional James Bond.

Walther Model P38

Walther’s growing success in the late 1920s and early 1930s coin-cided with the rise of the Nazi Party and Germany’s rapid remilita-rization. In defiance of the restrictions imposed by the VersaillesTreaty, the German military aggressively sought to modernize its ar-senal and began to reassess the weapons then in use. It soon be-came apparent that its standard P08 Lugers were overly complicatedfor efficient manufacture and needed to be replaced by a more mod-ern pistol that could be produced more rapidly with less machiningtime. Mauser attempted to develop a prototype to replace the Luger,but Walther firmly dominated German pistol development and ulti-mately won the competition to design the German military’s newstandard pistol: the Model P38.

The firm’s greatest obstacle in designing a new pistol lay in thenecessity of chambering it for the powerful 9mm Parabellum Ger-man service cartridge. Walther initially repeated its earlier mistakewith its World War I Model 6 in that it simply enlarged an existingblowback design—in this case the Model PP—to accept the 9mmParabellum cartridge. At 8 inches in overall length with a 5-inchbarrel, the new pistol, the Militärische Pistole (Model MP) sharedthe Model PP’s sleek lines and had fine handling characteristics.Predictably, however, its inherently weak mechanism failed underthe pressures generated by the 9mm Parabellum, and Walther wasforced to abandon the project.

In 1935 a design team consisting of Fritz, Eric, and GeorgWalther and Fritz Barthlemens began work on a new pistol specifi-cally engineered to accommodate high-pressure military cartridges(Ezell 1981: 425). Their combined talents at last culminated in1937 with a prototype of a strikingly new design Walther christenedthe Armee Pistole (Model AP). The Model AP retained the double-action capability of Walther’s earlier pistols but abandoned thefixed-barrel blowback design in favor of an innovative recoil-

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operated locking mechanism. Rather than being rigidly fixed to theframe, the barrel assembly of the Model AP was a separate compo-nent that rode within grooves cut into the slide that, in turn, fol-lowed tracks in the frame. The key to the mechanism was a pivotingblock that was positioned under the barrel assembly and locked it tothe slide when the action was closed. The force of the cartridge’s ig-nition forced the locked barrel and slide backward to a point wherethe locking block disengaged and allowed the slide to continue onits own in its rearward movement. This movement ejected the spentcartridge case and cocked the weapon’s internal hammer. The re-turn movement of the slide stripped a new cartridge from the maga-zine and was aided by two small recoil springs located within eitherside of the frame.

German ordnance officers found only one significant fault withthe Model AP: its lack of an external hammer. The army had cometo the conclusion that an exposed hammer held the twin advantagesof allowing the pistol to be thumb-cocked for single-action shootingand indicated the pistol’s cocked status. The army’s commentsprompted Walther to discontinue the short-lived Model AP and re-work its basic design to provide the exposed hammer.

The result of these final modifications was known as the HeeresPistole (Service Pistol; Model HP), indicating its intended use bythe military. Walther fabricated a small number of experimentalmodels in calibers 7.65mm Parabellum (.30 Luger), Super .38, andeven .45 ACP. The standard Model HP was, however, chambered forthe 9mm Parabellum as specified by the German military. Althoughsomewhat light at the muzzle, the Model HP handled well andproved accurate and reliable. It was 8.6 inches in overall length witha 4.9-inch barrel and weighed 2.1 pounds. The metal finish was ahigh-quality blue, and the pistol was fitted with checkered walnut orplastic grips. It was fed by an eight-round box magazine released bya catch at the base of the grip. Muzzle velocity was slightly higherthan the P08 at 1,115 fps. Walther offered the Model HP to thecivilian and international military markets and submitted it to theGerman military for final trials. After Walther added further minorchanges to the safety, firing pin, and extractor, Germany at lastadopted the new pistol as the Model P38. For its part, the ModelHP lived on into 1944 on a limited scale as Walther continued tomanufacture the pistol as a high-quality civilian alternative to theP38. Sweden also adopted the pistol as its P39, but with the adventof World War II exports ceased abruptly, with only some 1,500 pis-tols being delivered.


Walther designed the P38 to be manufactured with a strict econ-omy of time and machine tooling, utilizing as many stamped (ratherthan machined) steel components as possible. Although the P38 in-corporated slightly more parts, it could thus be manufactured inhalf the time of the P08 with half of the machines of the older pis-tol. The P38 also required less-skilled workers on its productionlines—a considerable advantage during wartime. The manufactur-ing innovations alone mark the P38 as a much more modernweapon than the vast majority of its contemporaries. Although manyproduction records were destroyed during the war, reliable estimateshold that something over 1 million P38s were manufactured duringWorld War II for military and police use.

Walther began manufacturing the P38 in 1939. Unlike thecheckered walnut grips of the Model HP, most wartime P38s werefitted with horizontally grooved brown composition or black plasticgrips. The left side of the slides of early pistols was stamped with theWalther commercial banner trademark “P38” and the pistol’s serialnumber. The German Heereswaffenamt (Service Arms Office), how-ever, had previously initiated a coding system for its various armsmanufacturers. The purpose of this system at first was to confuseVersailles 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 main-tained until 1945, when the code changed to “SVW.” Dates of manu-facture were indicated by the last two digits of the year. The smallHeereswaffenamt inspector proof, consisting of an eagle andswastika over the number “359,” was also applied to various parts ofWalther-manufactured pistols.

As World War II intensified, the Nazi war machine’s demand forModel P38s outstripped Walther’s manufacturing capabilities. Thesituation soon prompted the Heereswaffenamt to press other firmsto manufacture complete pistols as well as various components.Mauser phased out its production of the P08 to begin producing theP38 in late 1941 and was joined in spring 1943 by Spreewerk Gmbhof Berlin. The Heereswaffenamt inspection proof for Mauser wasthe eagle and swastika over “135.” The slides of Mauser manufac-tured P38s were stamped “P38,” with the serial number, the com-pany’s wartime “BYF” code, and the last two numbers of the date ofmanufacture. In 1945 Mauser’s code changed to “SVW.” Spreewerkpistols 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

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war Spreewerk’s code-stamping die was damaged, and many laterpistols by the company appear to be stamped “CYA.” As with othertypes of German pistols, P38s intended for police use were stampedwith a small eagle over the “F” proof mark.

The Heereswaffenamt also farmed out the manufacture of vari-ous P38 parts to domestic and captured arms facilities for assemblyat main production centers. These included slides and frames by theFabrique Nationale (FN) plant in Belgium and barrels by Böhmis-che Waffenfabrik of Prague. Another Czech firm, Erste Nordböh-mische Waffenfabrik, manufactured large numbers of magazinesstamped with the “JVD” code.

Spreewerk pistols were markedly cruder than their Walther andMauser counterparts, in large part owing to the use by that companyof slave labor. For the most part they were serviceable, althoughnumbers of defective weapons did leave the factory—either theproducts of incompetent workmanship or possible sabotage by theforced workers. The vast majority of wartime Walther and MauserP38s were mechanically excellent, but their external finish deterio-rated to varying degrees as the war progressed. Early-war pistolswere finished in a military dull blue over relatively well-polishedmetal. Later pistols exhibit noticeable machine-tooling marks ontheir outer surfaces and a thinner blued finish. As the war enteredits final months Mauser began to use a cheaper and more durablematte-gray phosphate finish. Sometimes known as Gray Ghosts fortheir coloring, Mauser’s later, phosphate-finished “SVW” pistols wereoften fitted with metal ersatz grips rather than the usual brown com-position or black plastic panels. Late war pistols were also often as-sembled with mixed parts of both blue and phosphate finishes.

The quality of P38 holsters also reflected Germany’s decliningwartime fortunes. Early holsters completely enclosed the pistol andwere of high-quality, heavy, molded black leather similar to theP08. These were followed by a more typical break-open style thatwas easier to manufacture and allows faster access to the pistol. Asmall number of paper composition holsters appeared very late inthe war, revealing the desperate, although ingenious, measuresforced upon the Reich’s armaments industry. The typical Nazi P38holster was stamped with its manufacturer’s code and the eagle andswastika Heereswaffenamt proof and was fitted with a slot for aspare magazine.

The heavy fighting at the end of World War II wrecked the P38manufacturing centers yet did not end the pistol’s production. TheWalther factory was initially occupied by U.S. forces but was soon


turned over to the Soviets, who stripped the factory of most of itsmachinery. French forces occupied the Mauser factory long enoughto assemble a number of types of weapons manufactured there.French-assembled P38s were put together from parts left over at thewar’s end and bear a five-pointed star proof stamp. They were alsotypically phosphate-finished with either black plastic or steel gripsand retain the Nazi “SVW” slide markings and “45” date. Those pis-tols assembled the next year were stamped “46.” The site of theMauser factory eventually became part of the Soviet occupationzone, and its moveable machinery, as was Spreewerk’s, was removedby the Russians and shipped east. Numbers of the French-assem-bled P38s saw service in that country’s actions in Southeast Asiaand Algeria.

J.P. Sauer & Sohn

During the late 1800s the firm J.P. Sauer & Sohn of Ulm built aconsiderable reputation for high-grade sporting arms and its produc-tion of Reichsrevolvers. At the turn of the century the firm formed abrief association with Georg Roth to produce a semiautomatic pis-tol, the Roth-Sauer, before introducing its own semiautomatic, theSauer Model 1913. The 7.65mm Model 1913 was a blowback-oper-ated pistol with a fixed barrel and saw limited use as a privately pur-chased officers’ pistol during World War I.

Sauer Behörden Model

In 1930 Sauer improved the Model 1913 and reintroduced it as theBehörden (Official) Modell, indicating its intended use by policeand military forces. The Behörden Modell saw some police use dur-ing the 1930s and 1940s, as well as use by army staff officers duringWorld War II. It was discontinued in 1937. The Behörden Modellutilized a tubular slide with a knurled cocking knob at the rear andloaded indicator pin similar to those used by Walther. It also fea-tured an additional safety in the form of an elongated button on theface of the trigger. The trigger safety prevented the pistol from firingunless the trigger was deliberately pulled. The Behörden Modell wastypically blued with black plastic checkered grips molded with thecompany’s trademark.

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Sauer Model 38H

In 1938 Sauer introduced the blowback-operated 7.65mm Model38H, one of the most advanced pistols of the World War II era. Al-though Sauer’s earlier pistols were well-designed and of the highestquality of manufacture, the Model 38H set new standards for mod-ern semiautomatic pistols. The “H” in the pistol’s designation indi-cates that it is fired by means of an internal hammer rather thanstriker. Although the use of an internal hammer was by no means anew feature, it was fitted with a unique cocking and decocking leveron the left side of the frame. Pressing down on the lever safelydropped the hammer on a loaded chamber, whereas pressing upcocked the pistol. The pistol thus possessed both single- and double-action firing capabilities. The Model 38H was also fitted with amagazine safety and safety lever on the left side of the slide and aloaded indicator pin. A small button on the frame behind the triggerreleased the eight-round magazine.

Although Sauer eliminated the slide safety and company nameon late-war Model 38Hs, the pistols remained mechanically excel-lent. The typical Model 38H was blued and fitted with black plasticcheckered grips with the “SUS” monogram. Slides were stamped“J.P. SAUER & SOHN CAL 7,65.” Sauer provided some 200,000 ofthese superb pistols to the Nazi police and military during the war,yet the company inexplicably failed to reissue the pistol during thepostwar years.

Volkspistole

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


the Volkspistole project produced only a few prototypes before thewar’s end.

Although the Volkspistole never achieved production, its variousdesigners did explore new techniques and concepts that were putinto practice following the war and helped set the stage for a newgeneration of handguns. Most records and prototypes were de-stroyed with Nazi Germany’s fall, but apparently three firms were in-volved in the project: Walther, Mauser, and Gustloff Werk of Suhl.The main criteria set by the government were that the pistol couldbe assembled by minimally skilled workers, was to be chambered forthe standard 9mm Parabellum service cartridge, and that its con-struction consist of as little high-quality materials as possible. As inthe case of the American Liberator, the Volkspistole was fabricatedprimarily with stamped, brazed, and welded sheet metal. Althoughthe designers explored blowback, locked-breech, and gas-operatingsystems, their lasting contribution lay in the use of more easily andeconomically fabricated materials and holding expensively ma-chined components to a minimum.

UNITED STATES

John Browning

A uniquely American figure, John Moses Browning was the mostversatile and prolific firearms genius in history. He was born in 1855near the frontier in Ogden, Utah, the first child of his Mormon fa-ther Jonathan’s second wife. As a youth, John Browning followed inhis gunsmith father’s footsteps and, while still in his teens, pro-duced his first firearm, a breech-loading, dropping-block rifle. Aftertheir father’s death, Browning and his brother, Matthew SandefurBrowning, continued the family business, eventually renaming itJ. M. Browning & Brother. John continued in his role as the inven-tive heart of the company, with the more commercially astuteMatthew handling the partnership’s business affairs. The unions be-tween their father and his three wives provided additional man-power in half-brothers Sam, George, and Ed.

John Browning’s skill alone was sufficient to earn him a reputa-tion as one of the finest frontier gunsmiths. Yet it was the businessacumen of Matthew that helped propel him to international promi-nence. Matthew was instrumental in convincing John to abandon

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the typical frontier gunsmiths’ concentration on the production ofcustom-made weapons and repairs. Using equipment their fatherhad laboriously hauled by wagon from Council Bluffs, Iowa, thebrothers set up a workshop for John. There he experimented withnew designs and, with the assistance of his brothers, began a pro-duction line to manufacture a new rifle.

The brothers quietly patented John’s dropping-block design andmanufactured 600 rifles on their makeshift assembly line. Ratherthan sell the rifles immediately, the Brownings stockpiled them andthus built up an economic base from which to compete with the es-tablished firearms firms in the Northeast. The Brownings’ activitiessoon attracted the attention of T. G. Bennett, vice president of theWinchester Repeating Firearms Company. Bennett, who also servedas general manager of Winchester, saw the potential for competitionor for profit from the brothers’ efforts. Choosing the latter route, in1883 he traveled to Ogden and bought the patent rights to Brown-ing’s rifle design, plus their total inventory of the 600 rifles. TheBrownings then wasted no time in reinvesting the proceeds of thetransaction into expanding their hunting and fishing supply store inOgden and refitting John’s workshop on the building’s second floor.

Browning’s genius did not lie in inventing totally new systems offirearms operation but in perfecting the basic ideas of others—a tal-ent for which he had no peers. He followed up his initial success bypatenting a succession of brilliant designs for lever and pump-actionrifles and shotguns that were then manufactured by Winchester.Some years later, however, he severed the relationship over what heperceived as a combination of shortsightedness and fast dealing byWinchester concerning an automatic shotgun design. In an exhibi-tion of his sometimes prickly nature, he then sold the manufactur-ing rights to the shotgun to Winchester’s chief rival, Remington.

Browning did not limit his interests to civilian arms. In 1889 hebegan experiments in self-loading designs that eventually led to a se-ries of heavy, medium, and light machine guns as well as the famousBrowning Automatic Rifle, more popularly known as the BAR. Dur-ing this period he also fabricated his first self-loading pistol, a cal-iber .38 weapon with a gas-operated mechanism that evolved fromhis work with semiautomatic rifles. Its gas system relied on tappingthe propulsive gas behind the bullet as it passed by a hole in the bar-rel and redirecting it rearward to automatically reload and cock thepistol. The pistol worked but was impractical—the large gas pistonassembly bucked upward into the line of sight with each shot andmade the pistol difficult to aim and control.


Browning nevertheless demonstrated his prototype pistol in earlyJuly 1895 for Colt Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company’s vicepresident, John H. Hall, and the company’s chief designer, Carl J.Ehbets. More meetings followed, with Browning producing threemore designs for the company’s consideration. Ehbets, too, hadbeen experimenting with self-loading designs, but Browning’s de-signs seemed to hold more promise. On 24 July 1896 Browning andHall formally agreed that Colt would develop, manufacture, and dis-tribute Browning’s designs in the United States. To his credit,Ehbets did not seem to resent that Browning’s designs were chosenover his own for development by Colt. The two men became closecollaborators, and Ehbets contributed greatly to perfecting Brown-ing’s patents. Both Browning and Ehbets remained friends untiltheir deaths the same year, 1926. Having struck agreements withsuch domestic arms giants as Winchester and Colt, Browning nextturned to Europe for what he considered even more equitable andprofitable opportunities.

John Browning maintained two parallel careers by continually di-viding his time between the Belgian Fabrique Nationale plant andthe Colt factory in the United States. He was thus positioned to setthe standards for handgun design on both continents and, throughthe two factories’ extensive exports, the world. German forces occu-pied the FN plant on 16 August 1914 following their invasion ofBelgium. This prompted Browning to remain in the United Statesduring World War I. During his absence the factory’s director-general, Alfred Andri, shut down all arms production and refused tocollaborate with the German invaders. He was subsequently impris-oned for his patriotic stand. Still, despite his absence, Browning’sinfluence was so great that “Browning” became synonymous with“semiautomatic pistol” on the continent.

Browning’s association with the Colt factory at Hartford beganwith the essentially experimental Colt Model 1900. Colt producedonly some 3,500, the majority being sold commercially, with about200 going to the Navy and 275 to the Army for trial purposes. TheModel 1900 chambers the caliber .38 rimless smokeless cartridgeand is loaded with a seven-round detachable box magazine. Gripswere available in plain or checkered walnut panels or hard rubber.The finish was blue with a casehardened combination hammersafety and rear-sight device. The 6-inch barrel was attached to theslide with corresponding grooves and lugs. These disengaged duringthe rearward movement of the action, allowing the barrel, attachedto the frame by a swiveling link assembly, to continue back to eject

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the spent casing, cock the exposed hammer, and strip a new car-tridge from the magazine. The Model 1900 was, as were subse-quent large Colt Browning designs, a single-action pistol that re-quired pulling the slide to the rear or cocking the hammer with thethumb before firing.

Although a good start, the Model 1900 did exhibit a number offaults. It was relatively heavy with an unloaded weight of 36 ounces(more than 2 pounds), and its long barrel and correspondingly heavyslide made it unwieldy to aim. The rear sight was also inadequate, asit was integral to the hammer safety catch—an awkward arrange-ment that Colt corrected within a year by removing the safety andinstalling a more sturdy sight. Colt and Browning addressed stillmore of the Model 1900’s faults with the Model 1902 Sporting Au-tomatic version of the pistol.

Colt manufactured the Model 1902 Sporting Automatic until1908, and it differed little from the Model 1900 outwardly other thanit was fitted with checkered hard-rubber grips emblazoned with“COLT” and the company’s rampant colt trademark. Early pistols werecut with serrations on the front of the slide to provide a grip forpulling back the slide. The serrations were on the rear part of the slideon later pistols. Its greatest improvement was internal. The Model1900 had a long firing pin that rested on the cartridge primer andcould thus be accidentally fired if dropped. The Model 1902 SportingAutomatic was much safer to handle, having a shorter firing pin thatrelied on inertia to carry it to the primer when struck by the hammer.

The last of the Long Slide series of Colt automatics, the ColtModel 1902 Military Automatic Pistol was the most successful andwas manufactured until 1929. Despite this military designation,however, the Army bought only about 200 of the approximately18,000 production run for test purposes. It was a more rugged pistolthan the Sporting Model and had a slightly larger grip, an improve-ment that allowed the expansion of the magazine capacity to eightand improved the handling characteristics. The rear butt profile wasalso somewhat more squared than the Sporting Model and was fittedwith a lanyard swivel on its left side. The slide serrations on earlierpistols, 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 onthe left side of the frame as well as a magazine hold-open catch.

The ultimate goal of both Browning and the Colt officials was towin the upcoming trials for a new U.S. military sidearm. Designersand manufacturers on both sides of the Atlantic were well aware


that the winner of the trials would realize continuous and highlyprofitable government contracts well into the future. The firstdecade of the twentieth century was thus a whirlwind of develop-ment activities in the Colt factory, with technicians attempting toperfect a large-caliber military automatic suitable for the gruelingtests 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 simul-taneously design pistols on two continents but also to revolutionizeshotgun, rifle, and machine-gun development as well. As he did withFN, Browning provided Colt with designs for pistols for military andcivilian applications. He thus continued designing smaller pocketpistols for Colt’s ever-growing civilian clientele. Browning’s pocketautomatics proved highly popular among the general population,and they even won some acceptance among the military. High-rank-ing officers prized Colt’s diminutive, Browning-designed pocket pis-tols as symbols of rank and status and often personally ordered thepistols with custom engraving and deluxe grips. The pistols’ size alsomade them ideal for covert purposes and for issue to aircrews (largerpistols were impractical inside cockpits). As a result, limited num-bers of the various smaller Colts were purchased by the military andstamped “U.S.” or “UNITED STATES PROPERTY” to denote governmentownership.

The Colt Model 1903 Pocket Automatic Pistol was nothing morethan a shortened Model 1902 Sporting Automatic. The barrellength was reduced to 4.5 inches, and the slide and recoil springwere shortened accordingly. Although the shorter barrel and slideimprove the pistol’s handling somewhat, the Model 1903 Pocketwas still large for a pocket pistol, and sales were disappointing. Coltsold only some 26,000 before discontinuing the line in 1929.

As sales of the Model 1903 Pocket Automatic foundered, FN re-alized a ready U.S. market for its own finely made pocket pistols.The new foreign competition created a decidedly odd situation forBrowning, as he found himself having to design a new Colt-manu-factured pistol to compete with his own FN-manufactured weapon.He rose to the occasion with the excellent recoil-operated ColtModel 1903 Hammerless .32 Pocket Auto.

Also known as the Model M, the new Browning was one of Colt’sgreatest successes and remained in production until 1946 with totalsales of more than 572,000. Early models mounted a 4-inch barrelthat was later reduced to 3.75 inches for the balance of production.The magazine capacity was eight rounds. The Model 1903 Ham-

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merless introduced a slide lock mounted on the left side of theframe, and later pistols were also fitted with a magazine safety. Al-though it chambers the relatively weak caliber .32 ACP cartridge, itwas a well-made, compact pistol with fine handling characteristics.

Unlike the Model 1903 Pocket Automatic, the Model 1903Hammerless is ideal for pocket carrying. Fitted with a grip safety, itweighed only 23 ounces, and its rounded contours and concealedhammer made it less likely to snag on clothing. A blued finish withhard rubber or walnut grips was standard, but Colt also producedlarge numbers of nickel-finished guns with pearl grips. The gripswere inset with a medallion depicting the company’s rampant colttrademark. The U.S. Army purchased a number of the later modelsof the Hammerless. The combination of the “UNITED STATES PROP-ERTY” stamping, checkered walnut grips, and either a blued or mili-tary Parkerized finish distinguish these from their civilian counter-parts.

Colt and Browning followed the success of the 1903 PocketHammerless with the Model 1908 Hammerless, also known as theColt Model M Hammerless .380 Pocket Auto. The Model 1908 wasnearly identical in appearance to the Model 1903, its main differ-ence being the caliber. The new pistol chambers another of Brown-ing’s highly successful inventions, the caliber .380 ACP cartridge,also known as the 9mm Browning Short and, in Germany, the 9mmkurz. The .380 ACP was much more efficient in its ballistics thanthe underpowered caliber .32 ACP yet lacked the recoil of more po-tent rounds such as the 9mm Parabellum. It was thus an effectivecompromise for use in pocket pistols, as it possessed respectablestopping power yet was not unpleasant to fire. Owing to the slightlylarger size of the .380 ACP cartridge, the Model 1908’s magazinecapacity was reduced by one round from the Model 1903’s eight.

Although the Model 1908 remained in production into 1945, itssales of about 138,000 were disappointing when compared to theModel 1903. The U.S. Army also bought a small number of the lat-ter production Model 1908s. Military pistols were distinguished bythe combination of their blued finish and “UNITED STATES PROPERTY”markings.

Colt realized much greater success with another Browning-designed pistol that had originally been manufactured in large num-bers by FN in Belgium. Having acquired the patent rights from FN,Colt debuted this automatic the same year as the Model 1908 Ham-merless. The Colt Model 1908 Hammerless .25 Caliber Auto, desig-nated by the Colt factory as the Model N, is the smallest of all of


Colt’s semiautos and enjoyed strong sales of 409,061 pistols until itsmanufacture ended in 1941.

Owing to the excessively poor ballistics of its cartridge, the Ham-merless .25 is of very questionable value as a practical weapon. The.25 ACP cartridge is a good-looking round but is capable of even lesspenetration and stopping power than the smaller rimfire caliber .22.Although a very lucky shot can possibly injure or even kill an indi-vidual, wounds from a caliber .25 bullet fired through the Hammer-less’s 2-inch barrel are more likely to further anger a large or heavilydressed attacker. The attraction of the cartridge and the pistol arethus more dependent on their appeal as neat, handy gadgets alongthe lines of Smith & Wesson’s first small .22 revolvers.

Despite its anemic cartridge, the Hammerless .25 is a marvelouspistol. It is only 4.5 inches in overall length and weighs just 13ounces. The magazine holds six rounds, and the tiny .25 cartridgemakes recoil negligible. Safety features have always appealed tothose individuals who carry weapons in their pockets, and the Ham-merless .25 is well-equipped to avoid accidental discharges. It is fit-ted with a grip safety, slide lock, and a magazine safety that preventsthe pistol from firing with its magazine removed. Early pistols arefitted with hard rubber grips that were superseded on later pistolswith walnut panels. The majority are blued, with a substantial num-ber being nickel-plated.

U.S. officers purchased some Hammerless .25s as personalweapons, but no documentation indicates that Colt officially con-tracted with the government for the pistol. Strong evidence such as“U.S. PROPERTY” or “UNITED STATES PROPERTY” stampings and Ord-nance Department–marked weapons do, however, indicate that anumber of Hammerless .25s did find their way into governmentservice. Such pistols were quite possibly issued during World War IIto operatives of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the prede-cessor of the Central Intelligence Agency. In addition to the Ham-merless .25s the OSS also used a small number of caliber .22 LongRifle Colt Woodsman civilian target pistols fitted with silencers forassassinations.

Still, no issue at the turn of the century was more pressing toBrowning and Colt than the upcoming trials to choose a new U.S.government sidearm. They, as did countless other designers andmanufacturers, anticipated the potential contract as one of the mostprestigious and lucrative in the history of firearms. The Army’s com-bat experience in the Philippines and the failure in stopping powerof the caliber .38 revolvers weighed heavily on its criteria for the

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new pistol. In 1904 the Ordnance Office established a committee ofordnance and medical corps officers to address the caliber issue andrecommend the best possible man-stopping cartridge for militaryuse. After a series of tests on live steers and human cadavers, theboard at last reached a consensus. As the trials approached, the gov-ernment thus issued one main requirement for submitted testweapons: Whether revolvers or semiautomatics, they were to be ofcaliber .45. All candidate pistols were to be tested using cartridgesmanufactured by the Union Metallic Arms Company (UMC) ofBridgeport, Connecticut.

Although the army announced the trials in January 1906, numer-ous delays forced postponement until 1907. The board then elimi-nated all but three of the nine test pieces delivered for considera-tion. The finalists were all semiautomatics and included designs byColt and Browning, the newly established Savage Arms Company ofUtica, New York, and DWM’s Georg Luger. DWM and Luger soondropped out, owing to various production problems. These includedthe difficulties and the inherent expense of retooling to adaptLuger’s design to a caliber .45 cartridge, and the unavailability ofthe 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 expatriateJamaican-born Englishman, had only recently founded the firm in1894. The Savage entry itself was designed by a Philadelphian, El-bert Hamilton Searle. It incorporated an eight-round magazine, astriker rather than hammer, and its mechanism also utilized abreechblock 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 ittraveled down the barrel caused the barrel to rotate slightly to un-lock the lugs and operate the action. A coiled spring wrappedaround the barrel within the slide buffered the recoil. It was fittedwith 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 perfectits entry under the most trying circumstances. The company had notyet firmly established itself in the arms field and suffered from alack of financial backing. Savage thus entered the competition un-derfinanced to design and tool up to manufacture the 200 test pis-tols required by the government. Still, with a confidence born ofsome degree of desperation, the company pressed on.

For their part, Colt and Browning were ideally situated to domi-nate the trials. Whereas each pistol manufactured by Savage was es-


sentially an experimental piece in itself with all the pitfalls of an un-tried design, Colt and Browning had years of experience in designand manufacturing. By the time of the trials Browning had alreadyworked out many of the bugs of his basic entry—the caliber .45Model 1905—with the caliber .38 Model 1900 and Model 1902.

Carl Ehbets, James Peard, and George Tansley headed the teamat Colt assigned to refine Browning’s design into the ideal militarypistol (Ezell 1981: 297). The Model 1905 chambers a smokeless,rimless caliber .45 cartridge derived from the earlier caliber .45Long Colt cartridge. Internally, it strongly resembles the Model1902 with a swiveling double-link assembly securing the barrel tothe frame. Magazine capacity was seven rounds, and at 5 inches itsbarrel was 1 inch shorter than the Model 1902. The hammer wascasehardened, with the balance of the metal parts blued. Grips wereof varnished checkered walnut with two larger diamond-shaped ar-eas in each panel.

Whereas Savage struggled to produce individual units for thearmy trials, Colt’s secure position allowed the company to accelerateits Model 1905 into production for civilian as well as military sales.Colt ultimately manufactured some 6,100 Model 1905s for thecivilian market, including a small number slotted for aholster/shoulder stock attachment. The 201 government trial pis-tols, sometimes known as the Model 1907, were serial-numberedseparately and stamped with government inspector markings. Theyalso differed from the civilian model in being manufactured with agrip safety, loaded-chamber indicator, lanyard loop, and a spurrather than rounded hammer. After some delay, the pistols were de-livered to the government in the fall of 1908.

Although the Ordnance Department had committed to a semiau-tomatic pistol, field commanders, most notably those in the infantryand cavalry, still regarded the new weapons with suspicion. Both theColt and Savage entries thus met with resistance from officers whostubbornly deemed the revolver the best sidearm for combat use.The most frequent complaints during field trials concerned break-age of minor parts, cartridge feeding problems, mounted troops’ in-ability to operate the semiautomatics with one hand, and the contin-ued concerns over their use by what the officers deemed the lessintelligent enlisted personnel. Of the two contenders, Colt by faroutstripped its opponent in at least addressing and correcting thetechnical deficiencies of its pistol.

The Colt Browning design evolved rapidly in response to thearmy’s suggestions. The so-called Model 1909 introduced the sin-

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gle-link connector between the barrel and frame and was soon fol-lowed by the Model 1910, essentially the final form of what wouldbecome the famous Model 1911. It also introduced the new caliber.45 ACP government cartridge. Frankford Arsenal created the newround by simply increasing the existing Colt cartridge’s bullet weightfrom 200 to 230 grains. The pistol also had a more slanted grip pro-file to improve aiming characteristics, as well as a seven-shot maga-zine. The magazine was released by a button on the left side of theframe within easy reach of the thumb. Disassembly was accom-plished by removing a bushing at the front of the slide and retract-ing the slide stop that engages the swiveling link attached to the bar-rel. 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 inMarch 1911 proved the Colt-Browning pistol the clear winner forreliability, accuracy, and overall design. On 29 March 1911 the gov-ernment announced its decision for Colt. Savage ultimately pur-chased its test pistols back from the government, refurbished them,and resold them on the civilian market. Savage was more successfulwith a line of caliber .32 ACP pocket-type pistols that were essen-tially .45 test pistols on a smaller scale. Portugal adopted the SavageModel 1907 as its M/908 and later purchased a slightly modifiedversion as the M/915. During World War I France also purchased alimited number of Savage pistols to supplement its wartime issues.

Colt began tooling up for mass production of the Model 1911 andbegan deliveries to the Army on 4 January 1912. The Equipmentand Harness Shops at Rock Island Arsenal originally made the hol-sters issued with the pistols. The new pistol was officially designatedthe U.S. Pistol, Automatic, Caliber .45, Model 1911. Classified aslocked-breech, recoil-operated weapons, World War I–era Model1911s are blued and the slides are stamped “MODEL OF 1911.” Othermarkings indicate the manufacturer and the branch of service towhich the pistol was issued—either “U.S. ARMY,” “U.S. NAVY,” or“U.S.M.C.” The frame is stamped “UNITED STATES PROPERTY” to denotegovernment ownership.

The Colt factory in Hartford, Connecticut, was the primary man-ufacturer, with additional pistols being produced under license bythe government’s Springfield Arsenal, Remington-UMC, and a verysmall lot of some 100 pistols by the North American Arms Companyof Ontario, Canada. Total production of the Model 1911 for thegovernment during the World War I period totaled 723,275 pistols.Colt also manufactured Model 1911s for Brazil and some 21,000


pistols for Britain in 1915 and 1916 chambered for that country’scaliber .455 service cartridge. Czarist Russia also purchased about14,500 Model 1911s in caliber .45 ACP.

The Model 1911 proved immensely popular among U.S. troopsduring World War I. Although designed primarily as a defensive arm,it was occasionally used as an offensive weapon. The famous Corpo-ral Alvin York remarkably illustrated its latter role on 9 October1918 as he led a squad against a German machine-gun battalion.The semiautomatic capability of the Model 1911 combined with thefearsome knockdown power of its cartridge stood York well in thebroken terrain in which the action occurred. York, armed with a cal-iber .30-06 Model 1917 Enfield service rifle and a Model 1911, sin-gle-handedly killed as many as 25 Germans and, with only seven ofhis surviving soldiers, captured 132 of the enemy. For his part in theaction York received the Distinguished Service Cross and the Con-gressional Medal of Honor (Ezell 1981: 632, 635).

Still, combat use during World War I did reveal that the Model1911 required a number of minor improvements to make the pistolmore comfortable to handle. The improvements included roundingand knurling the mainspring housing, shortening and seriating thetrigger, lengthening the tang and trigger spur, and dishing out theframe behind the trigger. The latter two improvements were to easehandling of the pistol by soldiers with smaller hands. The sightswere improved, and the bore was also modified slightly to improveaccuracy. Finally, the two large diamonds on the walnut grip panelswere eliminated. On 15 June 1926 the Army adopted the improvedpistol as the Model 1911A1. Although some troops still complainedthat the pistol was heavy (39 ounces with an empty magazine) andpossessed an uncomfortable recoil, none could fault its reliability,combat accuracy, and knockdown power.

During the 1920s and 1930s the smaller peacetime Army re-quired fewer weapons, and military orders for the Model 1911A1fell significantly. Moreover, by 1940 even its continued issue was inquestion. The recently introduced semiautomatic M1 Carbine im-pressed many military theorists as a logical replacement for the pis-tol. The M1 was light, compact, and, in its M2 form, was capable offull-automatic fire. The rationale behind the pistol’s proposed retire-ment lay in the theory that the carbine would be the more logicalweapon, retaining a degree of compactness yet having greater rangeand magazine capacity.

To counter this trend and with major land combat operations im-minent, pistol proponents in 1942 pushed through the establish-

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ment of the Pistol Industry Integration Committee and the PistolInspector’s Council. The two organizations were formed to revitalizepistol manufacturing, to coordinate the production of pistols be-tween the various firms, and to assure the interchangeability ofparts between manufacturers. Their efforts proved instrumental inaddressing the huge demands placed on U.S. industry to manufac-ture the Model 1911A1 for World War II (Ezell 1981: 316). Thecontinued issue of pistols was quickly vindicated during the war, asthe Model 1911A1 proved ideal as a compact, powerful personalweapon for noncommissioned officers, commissioned officers, andarmored vehicle personnel.

Colt’s Hartford factory was the primary manufacturer of theModel 1911A1 during World War II, producing some 520,316 pis-tols. Its output was also greatly supplemented by a number of othercontractors. 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; andUnion Switch & Signal Company of Swissvale, Pennsylvania, manu-facturing between 40,000 and 55,000. Even a sewing-machinemaker, Singer Manufacturing Company of Elizabeth, New Jersey,interrupted its usual manufacturing to produce a limited run of 500Model 1911A1s. It was to the credit of the agencies and ordnanceinspectors involved that parts from all the manufacturers of Model1911s and Model 1911A1s could be interchanged as needed. Withthe exception of the blued pistols manufactured by Singer, mostwartime Model 1911A1 pistols were treated in a matte gray-greenParkerized finish and fitted with brown plastic checkered grips. Al-though probably incorrect, official records place total World War IIproduction of the Model 1911A1 at 1,878,742. Colt also enjoyedbrisk 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 1911and placed an initial order of 300 pistols with Colt to begin replac-ing its caliber 7.5 Model 1893 Nagant revolvers. Soon after, theNorwegians signed a licensing agreement with Colt to manufacturenearly exact copies of the Model 1911 at the government arsenal atKongsberg. Norway designated the Colt Browning as its Model1912, and deliveries by Kongsberg began in December 1917. Aftersome minor modifications, the pistol was officially redesignated the11.25mm Automatisk Pistol Model 1914. Kongsberg manufacturedsome 21,941 Model 1914s from 1919 until Nazi forces occupied


Norway in 1940. The Nazis then continued to produce some10,000 Model 1914s at Kongsberg for issue to German troops dur-ing World War II. The Nazis designated these pistols the Pistole657 (n)-Norw. 14.

Argentina also purchased the new Colt-Brownings for its military.In Argentine service the Model 1911 was the Pistolà AutomaticaSistema Colt, Calibre 11,25mm, Modelo 1916, with the later Model1911A1 being designated the Pistolà Automatica Sistema Colt, Cal-ibre 11,25mm, Modelo 1927. During the 1930s Argentina negoti-ated an agreement with Colt to manufacture the Modelo 1927 un-der license at its government arsenal at Rosario, the Fabrica Militarde Armas Portatiles. The Colt-Browning design proved so popular inArgentina that another firm, Hispano Argentina de Automovites,S.A. (HAFDASA) of Buenos Aires, produced a somewhat simplifiedunauthorized copy of the Model 1911A1 incorporating some Starfeatures. The Argentine pistol is usually known as the Ballester-Molina for HAFDASA’s founders, Arturo Ballester and EugenioMolina. It is also sometimes identified as the Ballester-Rigand fortwo other HAFDASA engineers, Rorice Rigaud and EugenioMolina. The most apparent external difference between theBallester-Molina and the original Colt is the Argentine pistol’s verti-cally grooved rather than checkered grips and a unique style of gripserrations on the slide. During WWII the clandestine British Strate-gic Operations Executive (SOE) purchased a small number ofBallester-Molinas for issue to its agents and such pistols exhibitBritish proof marks.

After World War I Mexico also adopted the Model 1911 and pur-chased both the original model and the Model 1911A1 when it be-came available. Between about 1934 and 1938 the Fabrica Nacionalde Armas Mexico in Mexico City began production of a design byAlejandro Obregon that externally resembled the Colt-Browning bututilizes a rotating-bolt locking system. For its part, the Mexicanarmy adopted a draconian policy to address the perennial problemof lost pistols by making the loss of a soldier’s sidearm a capital of-fense. As a result, very few Mexican-issue Obregons ever found theirway to the civilian market.

Following 7 December 1941 the U.S. weapons industry was ill-prepared to meet the needs of the country’s rapidly growing forces.Facing an emergency situation, U.S. ordnance officials soon calledon the civilian manufacturing sector to retool their machinery toproduce military equipment and weapons. The need to redirect civil-ian skills toward wartime needs prompted weapons designers to ex-

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periment with innovative methods to provide vast numbers ofweapons for the war effort. Both the Singer Sewing Machine Com-pany and Union Switch & Signal Company manufactured Model1911A1 pistols, while other companies such as International Har-vester and General Motors converted their machinery to produceM1 rifles and carbines. The high standards of government inspec-tors ensured that the weapons produced by these manufacturersmet the high standards of the traditional gun makers and that theirparts were interchangeable.

The need for weapons that could be produced quickly andcheaply, however, prompted U.S. designers to experiment with pis-tols utilizing as many brazed and welded sheet-metal components aspossible. Although approximately 12 experimental Model 1911A1pistols with sheet-metal frames and slides were fabricated duringthe war, none ever saw issue. Still, one U.S. firm did produce a verysimple little sheet-metal pistol that saw at least limited use duringthe war.

The Liberator

In 1942 the U.S. Joint Psychological Warfare Committee called fora cheaply made pistol that could be provided to the various resist-ance movements in Nazi-occupied Europe. Agents of the OSS wereto provide the pistols to local guerillas and partisans, who wouldthen use them to kill German soldiers and capture their serviceweapons. The new pistols were thus designed from the outset to bedisposable once a more suitable firearm was obtained. A well-known firearms designer, George Hyde, soon produced plans for thepistol, which was officially designated a “flare projector” for securitypurposes.

The committee assigned the Guide Lamp Division of the GeneralMotors Corporation the task of fabricating the new pistols. A manu-facturer of automobile headlights before the war, Guide Lampproved its versatility during World War II by manufacturing thou-sands of welded sheet-metal weapons. Although reasonably func-tional, the most famous of these, the M3 and M3A submachineguns, were usually called Grease Guns for their decidedly homelyappearance.

The flare projector, more commonly known as the Liberator,shares the industrial looks of the Grease Gun. Made up of only 23parts, its brazed and welded sheet-steel construction bespeaks of its


speed of manufacture—Guide Lamp produced some 1 million Lib-erators at a cost of $1.72 per unit in just four weeks. Such speedand cheapness were aided by the Liberator’s simplicity. It is a single-shot, smoothbore pistol with no safety, extractor, or magazine. Car-tridges were simply stored in the handle, and a stick was provided tomanually push out empty casings. Cocking the firing pin is accom-plished by pulling back the zinc knob on the rear of the pistol. TheLiberator was packaged in a cardboard box with ten caliber .45 ACPcartridges and the ejector stick. As the pistol was to be dropped in anumber of countries, a simple cartoon-style instruction sheet with-out text was included that showed the use of the pistol in pan-tomime. Roughly half of the Liberator production was shipped tothe European theater of operation, with the other half making itsway to the Pacific. In the end, few Liberators actually found theirway into the hands of underground fighters, and most were eventu-ally dumped overboard from cargo ships or melted down as scrap.

BELGIUM

Fabrique Nationale

By the late nineteenth century Liège, Belgium, was recognized asone of the great arms manufacturing centers of the industrializedworld. Dozens of gun shops large and small turned out hundreds ofthousands of firearms of all types and of varying quality each year.The sheer volume of the city’s output both hurt and helped its repu-tation. Its ability to churn out vast quantities of weapons was un-questioned, and its better gunsmiths had few equals. In contrast,Liège, and Belgium in general, also gained a reputation for producingcheaply made, low-quality firearms. In 1889 Liège industrialists andthe German firm Ludwig Loewe and Company of Berlin formed aconsortium that would permanently establish the city’s reputation forefficiently mass-produced weapons of superior design and quality.

The new Fabrique Nationale d’Armes de Guerre was originallyformed to produce Model 1889 Mauser rifles for the Belgian Armyand soon expanded to manufacture other rifles, pistols, and ma-chine guns. Near the turn of the century FN attracted the talents ofJohn Browning, who began a two-continent business relationshipwith the Belgian firm and Colt. Negotiations eventually clarified thearrangement in 1901, with Colt monopolizing the manufacture and

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sales of Browning’s designs in the United States while FN coveredthe European market. The combination of the two industrial giants’manufacturing capabilities and Browning’s inventive genius were toprofoundly affect the course of firearms history. While alternatingbetween FN and Colt, Browning produced his most successfulhandgun designs.

Browning and FN began their pistol collaboration in 1898 whenthe firm’s engineers began the development of the American’s 1897patents for a blowback semiautomatic. Browning had planned thenew pistol with an eye toward ease of mass production, and FN en-gineers added further simplifications. They produced a limited num-ber of experimental models in 1898 and 1899 before finalizing thedesign as the Modèle 1900. The Modèle 1900 was a businesslike,rugged design with a 4-inch barrel permanently attached to theframe and a seven-shot detachable box magazine. It differed some-what from other blowback designs in that the recoil spring washoused in the slide above the barrel and provided the additionalfunction of powering the striker. The pistols received a blued finishwith checkered hard-rubber grips, and a lanyard loop was added tothe rear of the grip soon after production began. Browning was alsoinstrumental in developing a new cartridge for the Modèle 1900,the rimless caliber .32 ACP, known as the 7.65mm Browning in Eu-rope. The 7.65mm became instantly popular on the continent, al-though its rather weak ballistic properties excluded it as a primary-issue military cartridge in the United States.

The Belgian Army, however, adopted the new pistol in March 1900as the Modèle 1900 Pistolet Automatique Browning, and civilian andforeign military and police sales followed soon after. The Modèle1900 remained in production into 1912, with 724,450 being manu-factured by FN. The Modèle 1900 was also copied extensively inAfghanistan and China. These foreign copies were infringements onBrowning’s patents and varied greatly in quality depending on theskill of the craftsmen who produced them. Afghan- and Chinese-made Modèle 1900s often exhibit rather bizarre proof marks andother markings as the more conscientious gunsmiths attempted tocopy the pistols down to the most minute detail—a daunting task.

A Modèle 1900 earned notoriety as the pistol used to fire the firstshot of World War I. The Bosnian nationalist Gavrilo Princip wasjust days shy of his twentieth birthday when he assassinated the heirto the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, andhis consort, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg, in Sarajevo on 28 June1914. Princip had been trained and armed by the Black Hand, a


Serbian secret terrorist society, and entered the Bosnian capital witha number of other conspirators earlier in the month. The assassins’first attempt on the archduke’s life failed when a bomb tossed byNedjelko Abrinovi bounced off of his car to explode under a follow-ing vehicle in the motorcade. Franz Ferdinand’s luck ran out later inthe day when his driver took a wrong turn and stopped—by sheerchance—directly in front of Gavrilo Princip. Princip immediatelyjumped onto the car’s running board and fired two shots from hisBrowning directly into the archduke and his consort, killing her andmortally wounding Franz Ferdinand. The incident provided the ba-sis for Austria to declare war, thereby precipitating the chain ofevents 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 Modèle1900 had a number of deficiencies that prevented it from being anideal military pistol. FN and Browning attempted to address theseproblems with an improved blowback weapon, the Modèle 1903,known at FN as the Pistolet Automatique Grande Modèle. The re-coil spring of the Modèle 1903 was more conventionally placed un-der the barrel rather than above it as in the Modèle 1900. It wasalso fitted with an internal hammer and a rear grip safety, and thebarrel was secured to the frame by interlocking grooves and lugs inthe two components.

The Modèle 1903 was also much easier to manufacture and dis-assemble for cleaning. To disassemble the weapon, one pulled theslide back to where a catch located on the frame engaged a smallnotch in the slide. With the slide locked in the rearward position,the front of the barrel could then be rotated to disengage its lugsfrom the grooves in the frame. Unlocking the catch then allowed theslide and barrel to be removed from the frame.

The Modèle 1903 exhibits more graceful lines than its predeces-sor that are more in keeping with Browning’s later designs. Althougha number of nations refused to consider the Modèle 1900 becauseof its blowback operation, it was adopted by Belgium, Holland,Peru, Russia, Serbia, and Sweden. Its simplicity in constructionmade the Modèle 1903 a popular pistol for copyists, and hundredsof thousands of unlicensed knockoffs were manufactured in Spainand other countries. Producing only 58,442 pistols, FN itself ceasedproduction of the Modèle 1903 in the 1920s. Sweden’s HusqvarnaVapenfabriks began its own production of the Modèle 1903 whenthe Germans commandeered the FN plant during World War I.Husqvarna continued to produce a total of 94,731 pistols under li-cense as the Model 1907 into the 1940s.

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The Modèle 1903 was a blowback weapon normally fitted with aseven-round detachable box magazine, although a 10-shot magazinewas produced for use with a detachable shoulder stock/holster. Thepistol, as are most FN pistols, was usually finished in blue withcheckered hard-rubber grips. Browning and FN engineers also de-signed a new cartridge for the Modèle 1903 that proved somewhatdisappointing. The 9mm Browning Long cartridge was meant to bemore powerful and thus more suited to military applications thanthe anemic 7.65mm cartridge. Its power, however, was necessarilylimited to the stresses that the simple blowback design of the Mod-èle 1903 could withstand. The compromises incorporated into thedesign of the 9mm Browning Long eventually doomed it to obsoles-cence, and it never gained the wide acceptance of Browning’s andFN’s other loadings.

Browning and FN followed the Modèle 1903 with a pocket pistolthat was little more than a miniaturized version of the original. TheModèle 1906 also introduced the caliber 6.35mm (caliber .25 ACP)cartridge. Both the pistol and cartridge were not powerful enough tobe practical military weapons but proved popular on the civilianmarket. On the last day of January 1914 FN crafted two Modèle1903s, each with the gold inlayed legend “UN MILLION,” to celebratethe one-millionth Browning pistol manufactured by the factory.King Albert of Belgium, the recipient of one of the pistols, presentedthe other as well as the Cross of Knighthood of the Order ofLeopold to Browning.

FN followed the Modèles 1903 and 1906 with another successfulseries, including the Modèle 1910 and its direct descendant, theModèle 1910/22 or 1922. The basic design and appearance of theModèle 1910 Pistolet Automatique Browning was a considerabledeparture from earlier FN pistols. It was a blowback weapon withthe recoil spring wrapped around the barrel rather than housed sep-arately within the slide. The cylindrical slide gave the Modèle 1910a sleeker appearance than its predecessors and was retained by acollar around the muzzle. The Modèle 1910 employed an internalstriker rather than a hammer and was fitted with magazine, manual,and grip safeties. The magazine had a capacity of seven rounds andthe barrel is 3.42 inches in length.

Most Modèle 1910s and 1922s are chambered for the 7.65mmBrowning (.32 ACP) cartridge, but significant numbers also chamberthe much more efficient 9mm Browning Short (.380 ACP) cartridge.The Modèle 1910 was widely distributed in Europe commerciallyand as a police-issue sidearm there and in Japan. Only very limitednumbers saw official military use. It was also copied in Czechoslova-


kia, Finland, and Germany. The Modèle 1910 gained its own share ofinfamy in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on 8 September 1935. There, inthe capitol building, Carl Austin Weiss pressed his Browning into thestomach of the populist governor of Louisiana, Huey P. Long, the“Kingfish,” and fired a single shot. Weiss was immediately felled by afusillade from Long’s bodyguard, and the governor died the next day.

The Modèle 1922 was FN’s successful attempt to attract moremilitary sales by enlarging and modifying the basic Modèle 1910 de-sign. For economy, the plant accomplished these changes by an effi-cient use of existing machinery rather than retooling for a totallynew product. The barrel of the Modèle 1922 was thus lengthened to4.5 inches and the magazine capacity increased to eight. The slidewas lengthened by adding an extension that attached to the front ofthe slide in place of the earlier Modèle 1910 retaining collar. TheKingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes placed an initial order for60,000 of the new pistols, which saw extensive use in the fightingthat eventually resulted in the Communist takeover of what becameYugoslavia. Belgium adopted the Modèle 1922 as its service pistol,as did Holland and Yugoslavia. The Modèle 1922 also enjoyedstrong 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 con-tinued to manufacture the Modèle 1922 as a substitute standardpistol for the German military. The German-produced 7.65mm pis-tols were designated the Pistole Modell 626(b), and those cham-bered for the 9mm Browning cartridge were the Pistole Modell641(b). The quality of Nazi-produced Modèle 1922s deterioratedsteadily as the war progressed and are often fitted with checkeredwood rather than hard rubber grips. They are also stamped withNazi proof marks, including the Nazi eagle over the number “140,”denoting FN manufacture. Out of a total production of more than760,000 Modèle 1922 pistols by FN, 363,200 were manufacturedunder Nazi occupation. Following its liberation, FN continued pro-duction of the popular Modèle 1922 in a slightly modified form asthe Browning .380.

Model 1935 High Power

John Browning died in his office at the FN plant in 1926. Althoughhe died in Belgium, there was never a question as to where his loyal-ties lay. Throughout his long and prolific career he had allowed the

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U.S. government to set the royalties it paid for using his designsrather than negotiate for higher returns. Browning’s last pistol, theHigh Power (Modèle 1935 Grande Puissance in Belgium andFrance), appeared in prototype form in 1923 and entered produc-tion in 1935. Browning considered the High Power a great improve-ment over the Models 1911 and 1911A1, but he died before seeingits remarkable success. Following Browning’s death it fell to the ca-pable Dieudonne J. Salve to complete the final details of the mas-ter’s legacy.

The High Power was chambered for the 9mm Parabellum car-tridge and externally resembled its predecessors, the Model 1911 and1911A1 pistols. It too was single-action, recoil-operated, and lockedby means of corresponding lugs cut into the barrel and interior of theslide. Browning, however, refined his basic design by incorporatingfewer but more sophisticated components. Improvements includethe elimination of the grip safety as well as the forward barrel bush-ing and the swiveling link connecting the barrel to the frame. Inplace of the link assembly Browning designed an extension on thebottom of the rear of the barrel that follows a cam in the frame toguide it during the firing process. Although lacking a grip safety, theHigh Power introduced a magazine safety that prevents the pistol fir-ing on a loaded chamber with its magazine removed. The High Powerwas also fitted with a thumb-operated positive hammer safety that se-curely locked the hammer in a safe position. A small button on theleft of the frame behind the trigger released the magazine.

The High Power was in all respects a well-designed modern pis-tol, but its most striking feature was its 13-round box magazine. Byredesigning the magazine and chambering his new pistol for thesmaller 9mm Parabellum cartridge rather than the Models 1911 and1911 A1’s caliber .45 ACP, Browning nearly doubled the capacity ofthe standard semiautomatics then in service. He accomplished thisfeat by staggering the cartridges in a double row within the maga-zine instead of placing them in a straight line as in the earlier pis-tols. Rather surprisingly, although increasing the magazine capacitynecessitated an enlargement of the pistol’s grip, many shooters findthe pistol more comfortable to handle and aim than the more con-ventional Models 1911and 1911A1. The 9mm Parabellum cartridgealso adds to the High Power’s appeal in that, although possessingless stopping power than the caliber .45 ACP, it is still a powerfulcartridge and yields much less recoil.

FN initially offered the High Power in two models: the OrdinaryModel with fixed sights, and the Adjustable Rear Sight Model. The


latter was fitted with a ramp-type rear sight graduated to 500 metersand was slotted to accept a detachable wood shoulder stock with anattached leather holster. The pistols were blued with checkered wal-nut grip panels. Belgium moved rapidly to adopt the new pistol asthe Pistolet Automatique Browning Modèle a Grande Puissance(GP), and civilian sales and orders from foreign governments fol-lowed soon after. Ironically, Browning offered the High Power toFrance in its early design stage, but that country declined it in favorof its own Model 1935, itself a rather inferior modification ofBrowning’s Model 1911. More than 60 countries adopted the HighPower, including Argentina, the Belgian Congo, China, Denmark, ElSalvador, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Lithuania, the Netherlands,Paraguay, Rumania, Siam, Syria, and Venezuela.

Following the Nazi occupation of Belgium in 1940 the FN plantcame under control of the Germans, who continued the productionof the High Power, designating it the Pistole 640(b). The Pistole640(b) shared the same cartridge as the standard German WaltherP38 and P08 Luger and was thus considered a substitute standardsidearm in German service. Its high magazine capacity and handlingcharacteristics made it valuable to elite front-line troops such as theWaffen SS and paratroopers. As with nearly all weapons made by theNazis, the overall finish of wartime High Powers deteriorated overthe course of the conflict owing to shortages of manpower and ma-terials combined with urgency for higher production. Although aconsiderable number of Nazi-produced High Powers were manufac-tured without magazine safeties, they were reliable weapons despitetheir evident external machining marks and thin bluing. The Nazisproduced approximately 200,000 High Powers during the war.

A number of FN technicians escaped Belgium as it fell to theNazis and eventually found their way to Canada. There they offeredtheir skills to the John Inglis Company of Toronto to manufacturesome 200,000 High Powers for the Allied cause. The first InglisHigh Power contract was to Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Chinese,with later pistols primarily seeing service with British and Canadianparatroop and commando units. The slides of Inglis-manufacturedHigh Powers were stamped “BROWNING-FN” with the company’sname and “CANADA.” Additional large Chinese characters above thestandard markings distinguished Chinese contract pistols.

Inglis High Powers were essentially identical to those made at FNwith a few minor modifications as reflected by their British andCanadian nomenclature. The pistol (officially: Pistol, Browning,FN, 9mm, HP, No. 1 Mark 1) mounted a tangent rear sight gradu-

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ated to 500 meters and was slotted for a wood shoulder stock/hol-ster similar to that issued for the Mauser Broomhandle. Like laterInglis pistols, it was also fitted with a lanyard ring mounted to thebase of the left grip. Another model (Pistol, Browning, FN, 9mm,HP, No. 1 Mark 1*) was manufactured with a larger ejector andslightly modified rear sight. As the war progressed, Inglis again madechanges to the extractor and replaced the tangent with a simplenotch 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 HighPower proved such a success that it remained the standard sidearmof UK and other forces long after World War II.

During the 1970s and 1980s FN produced the High Power Marks2, 3, and 3S. These pistols featured more comfortable grips, am-bidextrous safeties, and improved sights. A more durable matte oxi-dized finish was standard.

GREAT BRITAIN

The acceptance of semiautomatic pistols was delayed in the UnitedStates and Britain by a traditional preference for revolvers by theirrespective military establishments. U.S. troops had relied on six-shooters through the Civil War and the Indian Wars and were loathto surrender them for an unfamiliar and untried substitute. InBritain the Webley series had gained the trust and respect of therank and file, and a replacement seemed almost a betrayal of an oldfriend. Still, the semiautomatic was a mark of progress, and inven-tors in both countries attacked the problem.

Gabbet-Fairfax Mars

Britain lagged behind all the major powers in its development ofsemiautomatic pistols and was the last to abandon the revolver as itsstandard sidearm. The few British semiautomatics that did reachany appreciable level of production tended to exhibit rather poorhandling characteristics as well as a remarkable lack of aesthetic ap-peal. Appearing around 1895, the huge Gabbet-Fairfax Mars Self-Loading Pistol was one of Britain’s earliest semiautomatic pistols. Itwas the brainchild of Hugh W. Gabbet-Fairfax, who in 1899 entered


into an agreement with Webley & Scott to develop, manufacture,and distribute the pistol. In that year Webley technicians fabricateda small number of essentially handmade test models in calibers8.5mm, 9mm, .360, 10mm, and .45 Long. Unfortunately, Webleynever achieved a final form of the pistol suitable for production andeventually dropped the project in 1901.

The caliber .450 Mars is probably the most representative ofGabbet-Fairfax’s pistols. As made by Webley & Scott, it was an accu-rate, beautifully made pistol with a blued finish, checkered walnutgrips, and fine machining. A detachable box magazine was loadedthrough the base of the grip, and capacities varied between eightand 10 rounds. Some pistols were made to accept a detachableshoulder stock. The Gabbet-Fairfax is also one of the most powerfulhandguns ever made, firing a heavy 230-grain bullet that achieves adevastating velocity of 1,180 fps.

For his part, Gabbet-Fairfax had invested considerable time andmoney into his pistol and was desperate to see his project through toa profitable conclusion. Following his break with Webley & Scott hearranged financial backing to organize the Mars Automatic PistolSyndicate, Ltd., to continue the venture. The syndicate, based inBirmingham, never lived up to Gabbet-Fairfax’s expectations; whatpistols were made under its auspices were apparently farmed out tosmall shops. Gabbet-Fairfax repeatedly submitted the Mars to theBritish Small Arms Committee for trials, but thorough testing ulti-mately condemned it as overly heavy, complicated, and expensive tomanufacture. Cartridge-feeding was especially involved in that thedesign incorporated a mechanical lifter that transferred the car-tridges from the magazine to the chamber. To make matters worse,the Gabbet-Fairfax had excessive trigger pull, a massive recoil, and adisconcerting tendency to eject its spent casings directly back intoits user’s face—an unneeded feature in any weapon. With the mili-tary’s decision final and facing mounting debts, Gabbet-Fairfax de-clared bankruptcy in 1903. A few small Birmingham shops made avery limited number of Mars pistols following its inventor’s bank-ruptcy, but around 1906 they too shelved the project. All in all,probably fewer than 80 Mars pistols were made by the combined ef-forts 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

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by one of its own employees, William John Whiting. Whiting hadassisted Gabbet-Fairfax in developing the Mars and began workingin earnest on his own semiautomatic after Webley & Scott aban-doned the Mars project. Beginning in about 1903, the companymanufactured Whiting’s basic recoil-operated design in a numberof sizes and calibers. These included caliber .32 chamberings forpocket and police use and larger calibers, including 9mm BrowningLong, 9mm Parabellum, and the large British service-issue caliber.455. Although well-made and neatly finished, the contrast be-tween the boxy frame and slide assembly and the slender barrelgave Webley & Scott automatics of all sizes a clumsy appearance—an impression reinforced by the pistol’s awkward grip angle. De-spite their appearance, the production models of the military Web-ley & Scott Automatics were reliable and achieved a respectablemuzzle velocity of 710 fps.

Webley & Scott was anxious to obtain government contracts forthe new autoloader and in 1904 submitted test pistols to the SmallArms Committee. After extensive testing and a number of modifica-tions, Whiting finalized his design in 1910. The committee subse-quently found the Webley & Scott a better pistol than a competingdesign submitted by Colt and Browning and at last approved it forgovernment service. Two years later the Royal Navy adopted the pis-tol as the .455 Pistol, Self-Loading Mark I, 1912 and retained it,along with its Webley & Scott revolvers, as a standard-issue sidearmthrough World War II. The automatic found more resistance fromthe other services. The Royal Horse Artillery accepted some 100 pis-tols, a number fitted with detachable shoulder stocks, for trials butultimately abandoned the idea. The Royal Flying Corps also distrib-uted a few of the pistols to aircrews during World War I, but the is-sues were stopped before the end of the war. South Africa issued theWebley & Scott in caliber 9mm Parabellum.

The military Webley & Scott Automatic weighs 2.43 pounds andis 8.5 inches in overall length with a 5-inch barrel. A detachableseven-round box magazine in the grip feeds the pistol. Two notchesin the Webley’s unique magazine allow it to operate as both a sin-gle-shot weapon and as a conventional semiautomatic. Insertingthe magazine until it engages with the first notch secures it out ofthe way so that the weapon can be loaded and fired with individualcartridges. A catch holds the slide open after each discharge. Push-ing the magazine completely into its well in the grip engages thesecond notch for its semiautomatic function. The Mark I is also fit-ted with a manual safety as well as a grip safety, with a lanyardswivel at the base of the grip. A later model, the Mark I No. 2, was


developed at Enfield and features an adjustable rear sight and mod-ified manual safety.

Welrod Mark I and Mark II

In 1942 BSA Ltd. began limited production of the Mark I Hand Fir-ing Device, also known as the Welrod Mark I. The Welrod was a spe-cial assassination pistol developed for the clandestine British Spe-cial Operations Executive at Welwyn Garden City and also saw useby operatives of the U.S. Office of Strategic Services. The 7.65mm(.32 ACP) Welrod was fitted with a grip safety and an integral si-lencer. It was a single shot-only weapon, although a six-round maga-zine within the grip charged it. Twisting and retracting a knob at therear of the receiver ejected the spent casings. Pushing the knob for-ward reloaded the chamber and cocked the striker, and a final turnlocked the action. A lever within the trigger guard behind the triggerreleased the entire grip assembly to permit reloading. The WelrodMark II lacked a trigger guard, and the magazine/grip release was lo-cated at the base of the grip.

AUSTRIA

Mannlicher Model 1894

At the turn of the century, the Austrian baron Ferdinand Ritter vonMannlicher (1848–1904) was one of the most original and prolificfirearms designers in the world. Trained as an engineer, Mannlicherbecame interested in firearm design after visiting the 1876 Ameri-can Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Although he achievedfame for scores of developments as applied to long arms,Mannlicher’s pistol designs were innovative yet, owing to their un-derpowered cartridges, not as commercially successful.

Mannlicher developed a blow-forward design in 1893 that he fol-lowed the next year with the Model 1894, originally manufacturedby the Fabrique d’Armes Neuhausen and chambered for the rimmed8mm cartridge. Production then shifted to the Österreichische Waf-fenfabrik Gesellschaft at Steyr, and the new pistols were recham-bered to accept the rimmed 7.6mm Mannlicher loading. The Model1894 was somewhat unusual in that, although the recoil action of

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the pistol reloaded the chamber, the external hammer requires man-ual cocking. Only about 100 Model 1894s were manufactured atthe two factories.


Mannlicher’s Model 1896 (I) is a somewhat better pistol than theModel 1894 but shares its predecessor’s relatively weak 7.6mmMannlicher cartridge. It is blowback-operated and employs a fixedbarrel and recoiling bolt. A six-round, charger-fed fixed magazine ispositioned in front of the trigger guard. The action of the Model1896 (I) loads the pistol but, as with the Model 1894, does not cockthe weapon. Pressing an external lever is required to cock the pis-tol’s internal hammer. The Model 1896 (I) generated little interestin the arms market, forcing Mannlicher to follow it with the Model1896 (II), commonly known as the Model 1903. The Model 1896(II) operates on the locked-breech principle and was also manufac-tured by Steyr. It, too, was crippled by Mannlicher’s decision tochamber it for a weak cartridge. Its special 7.63mm cartridge, al-though similar to the Mauser’s, contained less powder. The Model1896 (II) did achieve somewhat more success than its predecessors,but only some 3,000 saw production.


In 1900 Mannlicher and Steyr introduced an improved retarded-blowback pistol—the Model 1900—but unfortunately chambered itfor the old and underpowered 8mm cartridge used in the Model1894. The next year Mannlicher at last chambered the pistol for a car-tridge with enough power to satisfy military requirements. The newModel 1900/1901’s loading was a straight-sided, 7.63 by 21mm rim-less cartridge that became known as the 7.63 Mannlicher. Although afew saw limited service with German and Austrian officers duringWorld War I, the pistol was ultimately rejected by Austria as its officialsidearm, with only some 12,000 being manufactured. Mannlicher’spistol at least gained the attention of Argentine Army officials, whoadopted it as the Model 1905. The Model 1905 shared many of itscontemporaries’ disadvantages regarding weight and balance but wasalso crippled by its special cartridge, which was available only fromAustria. The magazine held eight stripper-clip or charger-fed car-


tridges and was located in the pistol’s grip. Unloading the pistol re-quires pulling the slide back, pressing a button on the right side of thegrip, 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 re-volvers with the Roth-Steyr 8mm Pistol Model 1907 and the 9mmSteyr Pistol Model 1912. Österreichische Waffenfabrik Gesellschaft(Steyr) manufactured some 60,000 Model 1907s; Fegyvergyr of Bu-dapest produced another 30,000. The Model 1907, or Repetier Pis-tole M. 07, served as Austria’s first semiautomatic pistol and, issuedto the Kaiserliche und Königliche Armee (Ku.K), saw wide use dur-ing World War I. Its well-publicized use by aircrews during the waralso earned it the title Flieger-Pistole (Flyer Pistol). Austrian pistolswere stamped with the Austrian double-headed eagle and date, withHungary marking its pistols with the country’s crest and date of is-sue. A brass disk fixed to the right grip panel denoted regimental is-sue. In addition to Austria-Hungary, the Model 1907 also saw serv-ice with the Australian Air Service.

The Model 1907 is a recoil-operated weapon and was designed byGeorg Roth and Karel Krnka. Its 10-round internal magazine in thegrip is loaded with chargers or stripper clips. The Model 1907 is alsosomewhat unusual in that although the action of the breech mecha-nism reloads the pistol it does not cock its striker. The striker was ac-tivated by an independent trigger mechanism that, as in a double-ac-tion, required a deliberate and heavy trigger pull to cock and fire thepistol. This feature was most probably intended as a safety measure,as the Model 1907 was initially destined for issue to cavalry units. Itmay have lessened the chances of accidental discharge while onhorseback, but unfortunately for infantrymen and others it did makethe Model 1907 difficult to aim accurately. The Roth-Steyr was awell-built weapon but was expensive and difficult to manufacture. Itwas 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 Austrianforces during World War I was chambered for the 9mm Steyr car-tridge and was known by a number of names. It was variously calledthe Model 1911 (or M11) in its civilian version, the Steyr PistolModel 1912 (or M12) in its military form, and officially as the Selb-stiade Pistol M12. It was also popularly known as the Steyr Hahn,

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(hahn meaning to “hand” or “hammer”), in contrast to earlier ham-merless models. Some 250,000 Model 1912s were manufacturedand issued before Steyr ended its production in 1919. The Model1912 was also used by Chile and Romania, and during World War IIa number were rebarreled to 9mm Parabellum and issued to Nazitroops. The slides of Nazi reissue Model 12s were stamped “08” todistinguish them from their original 9mm Steyr chamberings.

Unlike the Model 1907, the Model 1912 was more conventionalin its outer appearance, superficially resembling the squared lines ofthe Colt-Brownings of its day. Still, the eight-round magazine, al-though located in the grip, was not removable and was charged bymeans of stripper clips guided by a slot machined into the top of theslide. It was also fitted with a hold-open device that keeps the slideopen after firing the magazine’s last cartridge. This was a distinct ad-vantage to combat troops in that it alerted them to an empty maga-zine in the heat of battle. The Model 1912 was equipped with athumb safety on the left side of the frame near the hammer, and an-other safety prevents the pistol from discharging unless the slidewas fully closed. Despite such measures, it was still possible for theModel 1912’s main safety to become partially disengaged, allowingit to accidentally fire.

The locking of the action was accomplished by means of corre-sponding slots and ribs in the barrel and inside of the slide. Upon ig-nition, the barrel and slide remain locked during the initial recoil,but as the bullet passed through the barrel the internal cams twistedthe barrel to the left, freeing the slide and allowing it to continue inits rearward cycle. This movement opened the action to eject thecasing, cocks the pistol’s exposed hammer, and strips a fresh car-tridge from the magazine. The Model 1912 was a rugged pistol but,as were other Steyr designs, already outdated when it was intro-duced, owing to its lack of a detachable magazine.

HUNGARY

Frommer Stop

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


the small arms firm Fegyver és Gépgyár Részvénytarsaság of Bu-dapest reflected his close association with both Krnka and Roth. Hispistols were thus beautifully engineered but typically overly difficultto manufacture and maintain for military use. Frommer patentedthe Frommer Stop pistol in 1912, and it became known in Hungary(for obscure reasons) as the 19 Minta Pisztoly, or Model 1919 Pis-tol. Possibly as many as 329,000 were manufactured before produc-tion ceased in the 1930s (Ezell 1981: 233).

The pistol operates on a turning bolt mechanism and is a long re-coil-operated weapon—a needlessly complicated system for its rela-tively underpowered 7.65mm (caliber .32) Browning cartridge. TheFrommer Stop also presents a somewhat unique appearance in theuse of a tubular spring housing above the barrel. The housing con-tains both the recoil- and bolt-operating spring; a clever economicaluse of space, it presents a tricky arrangement for a soldier to disas-semble in the field.

Unlike the Steyrs, the Frommer is fitted with a grip safety and amore modern detachable seven-round box magazine released by acatch 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 Hun-garian troops, as it lacks stopping power and is more delicate whencompared to other contemporary military pistols. Fegyvergyar manu-factured a more powerful Frommer chambered for the 9mm Brown-ing (caliber .380 ACP) cartridge at the end of World War I, but ap-parently few if any made their way to front-line troops.

Frommer Model 29

In 1929 Frommer incorporated a number of John Browning’s con-cepts 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 1929and 1935. Despite the simplifications, the Model 29 remained an un-necessarily complicated weapon, and, coinciding with Frommer’sdeath in 1936, a new, more modern Hungarian pistol at last emerged.

Model 37M

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

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on the conventional Browning models and was fed by a detachableseven-round magazine. It had a blued finish and vertically groovedwalnut grips. Except for a curved finger extension integral with thefront strap, it resembled any number of the contemporary Browningdesigns. Hungary fell under Nazi domination during World War II,and in 1941 the German Luftwaffe ordered 50,000 37M pistols tobe delivered in 7.65mm. Soon after the first deliveries the Germansordered that Fegyvergyar add a manual safety to the left side of thereceiver; most Nazi-issue pistols were equipped with the new fea-ture. Other orders from the Heereswaffenamt followed, and Ger-man-issues of the 37M were some 90,000 of the total estimatedproduction of 250,000. The left side of Nazi 37M pistols’ slides arestamped with the firm’s Nazi code, “JVH” and “PISTOLE M.37 KAL. 7-65MM.” After World War II Hungry issued a modified Walther PP,the 7.65mm Model 48, to its police forces and a domestic copy ofthe Soviet TT33, the Model 48 in the bottlenecked 7.63mm, to itsmilitary. The M60 was a slightly modified Model 48 manufacturedwith an aluminum frame.

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

At its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire in October1918 Czechoslovakia’s small arms inventory consisted of a chaoticmix of castoff foreign weapons. In March 1919 the new governmentset up a national arsenal, the Ceskoslovenské Závody na VyrobuZbrani at Brno in Moravia, to wring some semblance of order out ofthe situation. The Brno arsenal’s essential purpose was to anchor acoherent Czechoslovakian arms industry to equip the country’s mili-tary. Its initial activity centered on the manufacture of MauserModel 98 rifles but soon turned to pistol production as well. In1920 the government began trials to determine the best design for anew pistol.

Two leading designs emerged from the government pistol trials: a7.65mm modified Browning design by Vaclav Holek of the newlyestablished Praga Zbrojovka (Prague Small Arms Company), and a9mm Parabellum by Josef Nickl of Brno. Although Nickl’s designeventually won the trial committee’s approval, various manufactur-ing and development delays at Brno forced the army to order 4,600Praga pistols as an emergency stopgap measure. The Pragaweapons were poorly received by Czech troops, who found them


unreliable and prone to breakage. The army happily retired the Pra-gas as soon as the Brno pistols became available, and many of theold Pragas were reissued to police organizations. Unable to recoverfrom the lack of government patronage, Praga Zbrojovka closed in1926.

Josef Nickl was an engineer and small-arms designer employed byMauser and had arrived in Czechoslovakia to help install newMauser machinery at Brno. During World War I Mauser had shownlittle interest in Nickl’s pistol designs, but the Czech arsenal provedfertile ground for his ambitions. As originally submitted, the Nicklpistol reflected some aspects of the Mauser Model 1910/14 andlocked and unlocked by means of a rotating barrel, much like theSteyr-Hahn Modell 12. Unlike Nickl’s first designs, it was fitted withan external hammer. It was originally chambered for the 9mm Para-bellum cartridge, but by the time of its acceptance the caliber wasreduced 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 manufacturingcapabilities at Brno and basic design flaws. Brno manufactured onlysome 18,000 of the original Armádni Pistole Vzor 22 (Army PistolModel 1922) before more modifications were ordered and produc-tion shifted to the Ceská Zbrojovka (CZ) works at Prague andStrakonitz. Before production began, Frantisek Myska, a technicianat CZ, further modified the Model 1922 by adding a magazine safetyto create the Model 1924. Deliveries finally began in 1926. CZ de-livered a total of 171,400 pistols to the Army into 1936 and sold theModel 1924 commercially, including small export contracts to Fin-land, Lithuania, and Poland.

The Model 1924 is meticulously crafted and exhibits an excel-lent finish. Typical markings, stamped on a rib on the top of theslide, are “CESKÁ ZBROJOVKA A.S. V PRAZE.” Early production Model1924s are fitted with one-piece, smooth wood grips, with later pis-tols having checkered plastic grips bearing the “CZ” trademark.Magazine capacity is eight rounds, and a Mauser Model 1910–stylesafety switch is mounted to the left of the pistol. The magazine issecured by a catch at the rear base of the grip and is equipped witha safety that prevents the pistol from firing without the magazine inplace.

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CZ Model 1927 (vz. 27)

Technicians at CZ realized that the relatively complex locking sys-tem of the Model 1924 was unnecessary for lower-powered car-tridges such as the caliber 9mm Browning (.380 ACP). The next pis-tol in the factory’s line—the Model—was chambered for the evenlower-powered 7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge. Frantisek Myska re-designed the pistol as a more logical and economical blowback-oper-ated weapon primarily for use by police and security forces. Unlikemany blowback weapons, the Model 1924 utilized a removable bar-rel similar to some Colt designs rather than the fixed barrels favoredby many European makers. The Model 1927 shared the magazinecapacity and somewhat boxy appearance of its predecessors, as wellas their fine workmanship. To further distinguish the Model 1927from the Model 1924, the left side of the slide was stamped “PIS-TOLE MODELL 27 KAL. 7.65” in large letters.

During World War II German forces commandeered the CZ plantand continued to manufacture a slightly modified Model 1927 asthe Pistole Modell 27(t). Nazi-manufactured pistols often exhibiteda poorer finish than prewar models and are stamped with the Nazi“FNH” code signifying CZ manufacture. The Nazis also fabricated alimited number of Model 1927s with an extended barrel for the at-tachment of a silencer device. Following World War II CZ resumedoperations as Ceská Zbrojovka Národni Podnik (Bohemian ArmsFactory People’ Enterprise) and continued the production of theModel 1927, adding “NARODNI PODNIK” and “MADE IN CZECHOSLOVA-KIA” to the prewar markings. All told, CZ manufactured more than500,000 Model 1927s between 1927 and 1951.

CZ Model 1938 (vz. 38)

CZ and Myska returned to the 9mm Browning (.380 ACP) cham-bering with the Model 1938 pistol. The Model 1938 retains theblowback operation of the Model 1927 and introduced a double-ac-tion capability to the CZ line. Disassembly of the Model 1938 issomewhat unusual in that, after the removal of the slide, a hinge onthe front of the frame allows the barrel to pivot forward and upwardfor cleaning. Although this system allows for remarkably easy main-tenance, the vz. 38 was an unpopular weapon. It is awkward topoint, and its excessively heavy trigger pull makes it almost impossi-


ble to maintain accurate aim. Apparently none were delivered to theCzech Army before Nazi forces occupied the country. The Nazi des-ignation for the Model 1938 was the Pistole Modell 39(t). Very fewModel 1938s, however, were manufactured by the Nazis, and pro-duction ended with the war. A limited number were used by a des-perate Finland during their 1944 Continuation War with the SovietUnion.

POLAND

Radom VIS35

In 1936 Poland began production of a 9mm Parabellum variation onthe Colt Browning theme as developed by Piotr Wilniewczyc andJan Skrzypinski. The pistol, known to the Polish military as the VisPistolet wojskowy wzor 1935, was adopted to replace the Ng 30, aPolish-made copy of the Russian Nagant Model 1895 revolver, aswell as various other pistols then in service. The new pistol wasmanufactured 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 changedthe “W” to a “V” to spell “VIS,” the Latin word for “force” (Ezell1981: 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 eight-round magazine fitted in the grip. It bears a strong resemblance tothe Colt-Browning Model 1911A1 but introduced a number of inno-vations to make it faster and more economical to manufacture. Al-though locking in the typical Browning manner, the Radom designeliminates the swiveling link system in favor of a cammed surface onthe bottom of the barrel. The Radom is equipped with a grip safetybut, despite the three levers on the left side of the pistol, none is athumb safety. The two switches or levers in the frame are intended toaid field-stripping. The forward lever can be removed to allow thepistol to be disassembled, and the rear lever engages a notch in theslide to lock the slide in the open position during the process. Thelever attached to the rear of the slide automatically retracts the firingpin 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 alanyard loop is attached to the rear of the pistol’s butt.

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The Radom is extremely well made of a steel alloy and finished ina high-polish blue. Owing to its weight, grip angle, and cartridgecombination, it aims well and is pleasant to shoot. The slides ofpre–World War II Radoms are stamped with the Polish eagle, thepatent number, year of manufacture, and “FB RADOM VIS WZ 35.”The black plastic checkered grips are molded with a triangularshield on each panel, the left side containing “FB” (for FabrykaBroni) and the right panel with “VIS.”

Following the fall of Poland in 1939, the Nazis installed supervi-sors from Steyr-Daimler-Puch at Radom to continue the manufac-ture of the VIS35 as the P35(p). The Nazis manufactured approxi-mately 310,000 VIS35s at Radom before Soviet forces captured thefactory in 1944 and production ceased. These arms lack the Polisheagle and date and instead bear the Nazi Waffenamt stamp“WAA77.” Radoms manufactured during the Nazi occupation alsoexhibit a continuous decline in finish and overall quality as the warprogressed. The factory soon abandoned the shoulder-stock cut,slide lock, and hammer release levers and began using a matte gray-green phosphate finish rather than the earlier high-gloss blue. Al-though reliable, very late production Radoms are decidedly crude inappearance, with plain wood grips and evident machining marks.Some pistols may have been assembled from Polish-manufacturedparts at Steyr after the loss of the Radom plant, as they are stampedwith that company’s Nazi “BNZ” manufacturing code.

SOVIET UNION/RUSSIA

Tokarev TT30 and TT33

The Model 1895 Nagant Revolver was the standard czarist sidearmduring World War I. Still, a number of foreign semiautomatic pis-tols, most notably the Mauser Model 1896, saw use by czarist aswell as Red Army and White Army troops during World War I andthe Russian Revolution and civil war. The revolution and subse-quent hostilities in 1917 and 1918 disrupted arms manufacture atRussia’s three primary arsenals, Tula, Izhevsk, and Sestroretsk. Inlate 1918, as the new Soviet government assumed more authority,the factories resumed operations, including the production of theModel 1895 Nagant revolver. The Soviet government, however, de-sired a more modern sidearm and ordered development of a new


semiautomatic service arm. The Soviets tested a number of domes-tic prototypes and foreign pistols during the 1920s before selectinga modified locked breech Browning design by a Russian, FedorVasilevich Tokarev (1871–1968).

Tokarev, a former army officer, had served as a technical directorand engineer at all three major arsenals and had developed a selec-tive-fire machine pistol and improved Maxim machine gun beforesubmitting his pistol. The pistol was designated the TT30, or Tula-Tokarev 1930, indicating its arsenal and designer as well as its adop-tion date. The TT30 was chambered for the Soviet caliber 7.62mmType P bottlenecked cartridge. This was a key advantage in that itwas interchangeable with the caliber 7.63mm cartridge already inuse in the thousands of Mauser Model 1896 pistols in Soviet serv-ice. Magazine capacity was eight rounds.

The TT30 was designed for rapid and economical production andhas no safety mechanism other than a half-cock notch position on itsexposed hammer. It does have two notable improvements over otherBrowning-type pistols then in use. The pistol was manufactured witha removable back strap that allowed easy removal of its lock mecha-nism. Cartridge-feed “lips” were also machined into the frame ratherthan being integral to the magazine. The latter improvement helpedprevent jamming in that the sheet steel lips of detachable magazinesare prone to damage and metal fatigue. The magazine itself was re-leased by a button on the left of the frame behind the trigger. Possi-bly as many as 93,000 Model TT30s were manufactured before animproved model, the TT33, replaced it in 1936.

The main differences between the TT33 and the TT30 was theomission of the removable back strap in favor of one integral to theframe, as well as changes in the machining of the barrel locking lugsto speed manufacture. The TT33 was the primary Soviet sidearmduring World War II and remained in production in that country toat least 1954. It remained in service after the Makarov officially re-placed it, and thousands were supplied to Communist regimes suchas North Korea and North Vietnam. Soviet TT33s, especiallywartime examples, exhibited a noticeably crude external finish androughly checkered wood grip panels. Typical TT33s were fitted withvertically grooved black-plastic grips with a Soviet star within a cir-cle in their center. In addition, the letters “CCCP” were interspersedbetween the tines of the star. Tula also manufactured the TT33 intwo .22 variations—the R-3, a training pistol, and the longer-bar-reled R-4 target pistol.

The TT33 was also manufactured in the Soviet satellite countries

234 PISTOLS

as well as the People’s Republic of China, where it was called theType 51. Poland’s Radom plant manufactured the Tokarev for itsarmed forces as the Pistolett TT and also supplied it to East Ger-many and Czechoslovakia. It was manufactured in Hungary as the48M and in Yugoslavia as the M-57. Chinese Tokarevs were stampedwith arsenal proofs and Chinese characters, with Polish pistols be-ing distinguished by Radom’s distinctive “FB” (Fabryka BroniRadom) and “WP” (Wojskowe Polska, for “Polish Army”) markings onthe grip panels. Relatively large numbers of Tokarevs were later soldas surplus in the United States through various importers. Thesepistols were very often fitted with safeties to comply with U.S.firearms regulations.

FINLAND

Finland won independence from Russia in 1917 but was immedi-ately immersed in a civil war between the Finnish Red Guards andthe White Finnish Defense Corps. Following the defeat of the Redforces in 1918, the new country next turned to building its de-fenses against the Soviet Russian threat on its border. A criticalfactor in this process was the replacement of the obsolescent Rus-sian weapons in Finland’s possession, including the 7.62mm Rus-sian Nagant Model 1895 revolvers. In 1919 the government pur-chased 9,000 surplus 7.65mm Spanish Ruby-type pistols fromFrance as a stopgap measure, designating them the Pistoolimalli/19.

In 1923 Finland contracted with the well-known German firmDWM (Deutsches Waffen und Munitions Fabriken) for deliveries ofthe caliber 7.65mm Parabellum P08 Luger. DWM eventually deliv-ered more than 5,000 P08s, designated the Pistooli m/23 Pb inFinnish service, and a lesser number of detachable wood shoulderstocks before shipments ended in 1935. Finnish Lugers were distin-guished by the Finnish Army (Suomen Armeija) “SA” stamp and abrass unit-identification disk in the wood grip. Characteristically,Finland rarely disposed of damaged or defective weapons and con-tinually overhauled its Lugers during their long service. As a resultof this policy, typical Finnish Lugers were refitted with black plasticrather than the original walnut grips and refinished in a durableblack phosphate. The new barrels installed in refitted FinnishLugers were also typically 1 inch longer than the originals. No effort


was made during the rebuilding process to rematch the serial num-bers of various components. A limited number of pistols were alsoreworked to chamber caliber .22 Long Rifle cartridges and wereknown as Salobellum target and practice pistols.

Lahti L-35

Intent on establishing an autonomous weapons industry, Finlandquickly established two main arsenals. In 1921 the Finnish Volun-teer Guards, a militia-style organization, established its own arsenal,Suojeluskuntain Ase-ja Konepaja Oy (SAKO) in Riihimäki, north ofHelsinki. The national government followed the Guards’ lead in1926 by opening the Valtion Kivääritehdas in Jyväskylä (VKT).These factories were initially engaged in reworking and repairingcaptured Russian weapons as well as those purchased from Franceand Germany. As the Finnish arms industry matured, the militarybegan to press for a more suitable, domestically manufactured pistolthat could stand up to the country’s severe winters. Developmentbegan at VKT in 1929 under the direction of the designer Aimo Jo-hannes Lahti (1896–1970), and in 1935 Finland officially adoptedthe new sidearm as the 9mm Parabellum Pistoolit L-35.

Although its appearance invites comparison to the German P08sthat were then in Finnish service, the L-35 design is mechanicallyvery different from the P08’s toggle locking system. The L-35 em-ploys a short-stroke recoil-activated bolt housed in a barrel exten-sion that encloses the internal mechanism. Upon firing, the L-35’srectangular bolt recoils rearward with the barrel extension about6–8 millimeters. At that point a U-shaped locking yoke slides verti-cally out of the way to allow it to continue to full recoil. A curvedlever acts as a mechanical accelerator to provide extra force to thisaction—a device Lahti found necessary for reliable functioning inFinland’s subzero conditions. Two extensions on the rear of the boltallow it to be pulled back to cock the firing-pin spring.

The L-35 proved somewhat heavy, and full disassembly requiresspecial tools. These defects paled when compared to the excellentworkmanship and quality of materials used in its construction. TheL-35 is highly accurate and so reliable that field repair was rarely re-quired—a catch on the left side of the pistol allows enough disas-sembly for simple cleaning and maintenance. The magazine has acapacity of eight rounds and is released by a catch at the base of thegrips. A safety is located on the left of the slide, and a loaded-

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chamber indicator is provided. Early-production pistols areequipped with beech grip panels that were changed to checkeredblack plastic on later models. The “VKT” in a diamond trademark ismolded into each grip panel. The rear grip strap is also milled, witha lug to accept a Mauser-type wood shoulder stock/holster. Althoughonly 200 shoulder rigs were actually manufactured, all L-35s retainthe stock lug. The L-35 was issued with a black leather holster com-plete 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 largedegree of hand-fitting required in its manufacture and the interrup-tions of the 1939–1940 Winter War and 1944 Continuation Warwith the Soviet Union. Total production of the L-35 was approxi-mately 9,000 by 1954, plus an additional 1,250 modified L-35smanufactured in 1958. The limited numbers of available L-35s dur-ing the Continuation War forced Finland to supplement its pistol is-sues with Browning Model 1935 High Powers, as well as variousother foreign pistols obtained through Germany. Despite the L-35’slimited production, VKT sold small lots to Switzerland, Israel, andSweden. Sweden was so impressed by the L-35 that its Husqvarnafactory obtained a license from VKT to manufacture the L-35 asthat country’s M-40.

The rugged, accurate L-35 proved a deadly weapon in the handsof the heavily outnumbered but tough Finish troops during theRusso-Finnish conflicts. During a particularly one-sided action inDecember 1939 near the villages of Suomussalmi and Hulkoniemi,a first lieutenant armed only with an L-35 faced down two Soviet T-28 tanks. Braving heavy machine-gun fire at a range of only 40 me-ters, the lieutenant brazenly stood up and fired his Lahti at thetanks’ observation ports. No one recorded the effect of his firewithin the tanks, but after having emptied at least three magazinesthe lieutenant still held his ground as the T-28s retreated towardsafety (Trotter 1991: 157).

SWEDEN

Lahti M-40

Before 1939 Sweden issued the 7.5mm Model 87 Nagant revolverand a 9mm Browning Long FN Browning semiautomatic designated


the Model 07. In 1939 the country adopted the caliber 9mm Para-bellum Walther P38 as its P-39. Sweden’s decision to adopt theFinnish L-35 as the M-40 was necessitated by the suspension of ex-ports of the Walther to the country by Germany during World WarII.

The Husqvarna Vapenfabrik made its first deliveries of the M-40to the Swedish Army in 1942 and manufactured some 83,950 Lahtisbefore production ended in 1946. The M-40 differed from the L-35in a number of minor details, including its somewhat longer barreland a short hexagonal section at the barrel’s base. The loaded-cham-ber indicator was also omitted, and the grips were marked with theHusqvarna crown-over-“H” trademark. Husqvarna unfortunatelyused a lesser-quality steel than VKT in its pistols, with the resultthat some M-40s were known to fail when inadvertently used withhigher-powered submachine-gun ammunition. The Swedish Armyfinally replaced the M-40 with the Glock 17/19, known as the M-88/88b in Swedish service.

FRANCE

Modèle 1935A and 1935S

The caliber 8mm Mle 1892 revolver was the official French sidearmduring World War I. It was a reasonably serviceable although under-powered weapon, but most French officers considered it obsolete asa revolver. The growing dissatisfaction with the Mle 1892 and, morepressingly, the lack of sufficient numbers of pistols during the warprompted the French to buy huge quantities of foreign pistols.These included 7.65mm Browning-type pistols made by variousSpanish 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 theFrench pistol inventory was so chaotic that in 1923 the OrdnanceDepartment announced its intention to acquire a single semiauto-matic pistol for standard issue.

Some 22 models, both domestic and foreign, were submitted fortests, with Ordnance eventually choosing a modified Browning de-sign by Swiss-born Charles Gabriel Petter. In 1934 Petter served asa director at the French arsenal Société Alsacienne de Construc-tions Méchaniques (SACM) in Cholet, Alsace. The new pistol, des-ignated the Pistolet Automatique, cal. 7,65L., Modèle 1935 (or Mle

238 PISTOLS

1935), exhibits a sleek appearance and excellent workmanship.Grips are of checkered wood, and the magazine, released by a but-ton next to the trigger, has a capacity of eight rounds. The Mle 1935is essentially a slightly scaled-down Colt Model 1911 with the im-provement of having a lock assembly capable of being removed as asingle unit for maintenance or replacement. The safety mechanism,however, is inferior to the Colt-Browning’s in that it is an overly sim-plified bar that merely blocks the hammer.

Unfortunately, such a defect paled in comparison to the inade-quacies of the Mle 1935 cartridge. The French 7.65x20mm Longcartridge was based on a cartridge initially used in the experimentalU.S. Model 1918 Pederson Device, an apparatus that allowed thecaliber .30-06 U.S. Model 1903 Springfield rifle to fire as a semiau-tomatic. Although the Americans abandoned both the Pederson De-vice and its cartridge as impractical, the French seem to have beenmuch impressed by the latter. The French 7.65x20mm Long car-tridge is, admittedly, superior in its ballistics to the 7.65mm (.32ACP) cartridge but only comparable to the caliber .380 ACP (9mmkurz) for range and stopping power. It is much weaker than the cal-iber 9mm Parabellum, the growing favorite among many Europeancountries at the time as the ideal service cartridge. With the Mle1935 and its 7.65x20mm Long cartridge, the French army contin-ued its tradition of well-made, underpowered sidearms.

Production of the Mle 1935 began at SACM in 1938 and wascontinuing at a leisurely pace when the French at last realized thatthey would need as many weapons as possible very soon. To speedproduction, the Manufacture d’Armes de St. Étienne reworked theMle 1935 design by simplifying its locking system and lock work andreducing the work required on external machining and finishing.The result was a shorter, less aesthetically pleasing pistol that wasjust as effective as the original and could be produced faster. Theoriginal design was then redesignated the Mle 1935A, and the St.Étienne pistol became the Mle 1935S. The manufacture of the Mle1935 pistols also took place at the arsenals Manufacture d’Armes deTulle (MAT) and Manufacture d’Armes de Chatellerault (MAC).

SACM had only manufactured about 3,500 of the Mle 1935Awhen Nazi forces captured the facility on 23 June 1940; a scant1,404 Mle 1935Ss had been finished at St. Étienne when it was cap-tured that same month. Approximately 40,000 Mle 1935A pistolswere later manufactured under Nazi supervision at SACM, with ap-parently no Mle 1935S pistols being produced during the war. TheNazi designation for the Mle 1935A was 7.65mm Pistole 625 (f).


MAB Modèle D, Unique Modèle 17, Pistolet Automatique Union

A number of smaller manufacturers, in addition to the four majorFrench arsenals, produced pistols for the government to supplementMle 1935A and Mle 1935S issues. These pistols were typicallycopies of Spanish pistols from the Eibar region that were, in turn,copies of designs by John Browning. Following the Nazi conquest ofFrance in 1940 these companies continued production for the Ger-mans (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 Model1906, the 7.65mm Modèle D. During World War II MAB providedthe Germans with well over 50,000 of the pistols that were markedwith German proofs and “PISTOLE MAB KALIBER 7.65.” The civilianfirm Manufacture d’Armes des Pyrénées at Hendaye near the Span-ish border began operations in 1923 to build copies of the SpanishRuby—copies of Browning-type pistols. Chambered in either cal-ibers 6.35mm or 7.65mm, these pistols were marketed under thedecidedly misleading brand-name “Unique.” The Nazis began man-ufacturing the nine-shot caliber 7.65mm Unique Modèle 17 as theirSelbstlade pistole Unique soon after occupying Hendaye on 26 June1940. The pistol was later redesignated the Kriegsmodell (WarModel) after the Nazis ordered it redesigned with an external ham-mer. Approximately 25,000 of the Kriegsmodell were manufacturedunder German occupation. M. Seytres of St. Étienne manufacturedanother Eibar-type Pistol, the Pistolet Automatique Union, a seven-shot 7.65mm weapon for the French Army. The company also pro-duced limited numbers of the Union with a longer barrel and abizarre, U-shaped 35-round magazine.

ITALY

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

240 PISTOLS

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

Glisenti Model 1910

The Glisenti Model 1910 was reasonably well made and, althoughnotably boxier, held a general outer resemblance to the Luger P08.Unfortunately, both its basic design and cartridge combined to makeit one of the poorest military sidearms of any era. Trigger pull wasdismally poor, and the Glisenti operated on a delayed blowback prin-ciple utilizing a locked breech. This mechanism was more suited forsome types of machine guns and was thus unusual for a pistol—a pe-culiarity that indicates Revelli may have been more suited to designthe former. The Glisenti was also structurally weak in that the leftside of the slide was actually a removable plate secured by a largescrew on the front of the pistol. Intended to facilitate maintenance,the side plate robbed the pistol of its structural integrity, leadingmany 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 aseven-round detachable box magazine. The Glisenti cartridge itselfcontributed greatly to the pistol’s deficiencies. Although weaker, theModel 1910 cartridge had the same dimensions of the 9mm Para-bellum cartridge. This oversight thus gives the Glisenti less stoppingpower than other military 9mm pistols. More alarmingly, it has beenreported that if accidentally loaded with the more powerful Parabel-lum cartridges, the Italian pistols are capable of exploding in theuser’s hand.

Beretta Model 1915, Model 1915/19, and Model 1923

In 1915 Italy adopted a blowback-operated pistol by the venerableand well-known Fabrica d’Armi Pietro Beretta of Brescia. Pietro


Beretta had founded the business in 1660, and the new semiauto-matic signaled a new and prosperous era for the family of gun mak-ers. A namesake of the company’s founder, Pietro Beretta, and acompany engineer, Tullio Marengoni, designed the Beretta Modello1915, which reflects the family heritage of superior gun making.The Model 1915 was fitted with a thumb-operated safety, manufac-tured with a fixed barrel and internal hammer, and fed by a detach-able seven-shot magazine in the grip. The pistol quickly became afavorite among Italian troops and police owing to its easy disassem-bly for cleaning and its compactness and reliability. Model 1915s is-sued to police forces were stamped “PS” (Public Security) (indicat-ing Publica Sicurezza) with army-issue pistols being marked “RE”(for Regio Esercito, or Royal Army). A limited number of Model1915s also saw use by Finnish support troops during the 1944 Con-tinuation War with the Soviet Union.

The majority of Model 1915s were, however, chambered for the7.65mm (.32 ACP) cartridge—a popular cartridge for pocket andEuropean police pistols but underpowered for a combat weapon. Alesser number of pistols were also chambered for the 9mm Model1910 Glisenti cartridge. Beretta continued to improve and modifyits basic design, resulting in the 7.65mm Model 1915/19 manufac-tured from 1922 to 1931 and issued to Italian military and policeforces. The Model 1915/19 was equipped with sheet-metal gripsrather than the earlier wood panels. It also introduced the open-topslide, a distinguishing feature in following Beretta models. Cham-bered for the caliber 9mm Glisenti cartridge, only some 3,000Model 1923s were manufactured, with most going to the Italianmilitary. A limited number were also sold to the Policia de la Provin-cia de Buenos Aires. The Model 1923’s main improvement over pre-vious Berettas was the introduction of an exposed hammer, allowingthe user to cock and decock it more easily. The magazine capacity ofthe Models 1915/19 and 1923 is eight rounds.

Beretta Model 1931 and Model 1934

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

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who received it. In honor of Benito Mussolini’s assumption ofpower, fascist-era Model 1934s are not only stamped with theirdate of production in Arabic letters but also the year of Il Duce’srule in Roman numerals.

It is light and compact, weighing just 1.25 pounds, and measures6 inches in overall length. Its simple blowback mechanism func-tions smoothly, and its exposed hammer allows it to be lowered on aloaded chamber for safer carrying. A catch on the bottom of thegrip secures the seven-round magazine that is equipped with a fin-ger extension to aid steadier aiming. The Model 1934 is also cham-bered for a much more efficient cartridge than most earlier Italianservice pistols. Known in Italy as the caliber 9mm corto (short) car-tridge, the Model 1934’s loading is also known as the 9mm Kurz inGermany and the caliber .380 ACP in the United States. Althoughnot as powerful as the 9mm Parabellum, it is ideal for such a com-pact weapon and much more powerful in its ballistics than suchcartridges as the popular caliber 7.65mm (.32 ACP). The Model1934 was also used by Romanian and Finnish troops during WorldWar II. Actual usage of the Model 1934 by Italian troops duringWorld War II did little to prove its value as a combat weapon, butthousands were acquired by both Nazi and Allied troops who prizedit as a souvenir.

JAPAN

Kijiro Nambu

Kijiro Nambu dominated Japanese small-arms development duringthe first half of the twentieth century. Born in southern Japan in1869, Nambu entered the Imperial Japanese Army and, in 1897,was posted to the Tokyo Artillery Arsenal as a lieutenant. During hismilitary career Nambu played a key role in the development andmanufacture of Japanese machine guns, rifles, and handguns andultimately rose to the rank of lieutenant general. For better orworse, his position as Japan’s preeminent pistol designer was suchthat “Nambu” eventually became synonymous with “Japanese semi-automatic pistol.”

At best, early Nambus were more advanced than the Type 26 Re-volvers they replaced. They were also at least comparable to othermediocre World War I–era military semiautomatic pistols such as


the Italian Glisenti. Nambu, however, seemed to have felt little needto improve his basic design despite important technological ad-vances beyond Japan’s shores. As a result of such conservatism, Jap-anese soldiers eventually entered World War II with one of the mostobsolete pistols of all the major powers and by the war’s end re-ceived an even worse pistol. Nambu’s special 8mm bottlenecked car-tridge did little to improve the pistol’s performance. It was weakerthan nearly every other military loading of its time and could not beinterchanged with any other cartridge.

Type 04

In 1909 Colonel Nambu publicly demonstrated his first semiauto-matic pistol, having arranged for its manufacture by the civilian firmKayaba Kogyo Kabushiki Kaisha. The pistol was typically called theType 04, indicating the fourth year of the Taisho Era (1915 in theWestern calendar), but was officially designated the Nambu ShikiJido Kenjo Ko, (Nambu Automatic Pistol Type A). Kayaba producedapproximately 2,250 pistols, and Nambu evidently sold them on acommercial basis, including some 500 bought by Siam. Althoughthere were apparently no contracts given by the Japanese govern-ment, Japanese officers privately purchased a number, and some ofNambu’s early pistols were used by Japanese troops during WorldWar I and World War II.

In appearance, the Type 04 resembles the German Luger and theItalian Glisenti, being somewhat more graceful than the Italian pis-tol but less so than the German. Its quality of manufacture is ex-tremely good, with a polished blued finish and finely checkeredwood grips. It balances well in the hand and the trigger pull is pleas-ant. The Type 04 is a recoil-operated weapon utilizing an internalbolt and a single recoil spring. A large grooved knob on the rear ofthe bolt allows cocking. A grip safety is situated on the front gripstrap below the trigger guard, and the rear sight is of the adjustablesliding-ramp type. The rear strap of the majority is slotted to accepta detachable wood holster/shoulder stock that incorporates a uniqueextendable wrist section. A button in the left grip behind the triggerreleases the eight-round magazine. Very early Type 04 pistols weremanufactured with small trigger guards and wood magazine bases.Later pistols underwent a number of minor modifications, includingan enlarged trigger guard to accommodate a gloved finger, an alu-minum rather than wood magazine base, and the elimination of the

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shoulder-stock slot. Manufacture of the Type 04 eventually shiftedto the government’s Tokyo Arsenal and the Tokyo Gas & ElectricCompany (Tokyo Gasu Denki Kabushiki Kaisha). The receivers ofTokyo Arsenal–manufactured pistols are stamped with its four inter-locking rings emblem, and Tokyo Gas & Electric Type 04s receivedthat company’s “GTE” within a circle logo.

Nambu followed his Type 04 pistol with the smaller, Nambu ShikiJido Kenju Otsu (Nambu Automatic Pistol Type B) chambered for abottlenecked 7mm cartridge. Owing to the diminutive size of theType B, it was often called the Baby Nambu by Westerners, with theType A receiving the title Papa Nambu. Manufactured at the TokyoArsenal, the Type B was essentially a scaled-down Type 04 but witha simpler V-notch rear sight and seven-round magazine. The TypeA’s cartridge made it unsuitable for a true combat weapon, but itssmall size and excellent finish made it popular among higher-rank-ing staff officers and some aircrews.

Type 14

In 1925 the Japanese Army adopted the 14 Nen Shiki Kenju (14thYear Type Pistol), also known as the Type 14. Production continuedinto 1945, with possibly as many as 400,000 being manufactured.The Type 14 was a modified Type 1904, simplified and improved tomake it more suitable as a mass-produced military weapon. TheType 14 thus differed from its predecessor in a number of details. Itwas fitted with horizontally grooved grips rather than the finelycheckered grips of the Type 1904, and the complicated adjustablerear sight was also eliminated and replaced with a simple V-notch.Various components of the bolt were modified, including the addi-tion of a second recoil spring and a knurled rather than groovedcocking knob. Although the addition of a magazine safety is an im-provement, the elimination of the grip safety for a manual safety wasa definite step backward. The new safety outwardly resembled theswitch-type safeties used in numerous other designs, but Nambu de-signed it with absolutely no consideration for its practicality in acombat situation. Located above the trigger guard on the left side ofthe pistol, it is beyond the thumb’s reach and thus all but impossibleto operate with one hand. The safety’s inaccessibility is further ag-gravated by the extreme 180-degree rotation required to switch itbetween the safe and fire positions. Nambu’s last significant modifi-cation to the Type 14 occurred in the late 1930s as a result of Japa-


nese troops’ experiences in Manchuria—the trigger guard was fur-ther enlarged to accept an even more heavily gloved hand.

In addition to its unfortunate safety arrangement, the Type 14 ex-hibits a number of other shortcomings. Field repair of damaged pis-tols is complicated by the overreliance of the arsenals on hand-finishing and hand-fitting the pistols’ individual components. TheType 14 also became notorious for its consistently weak firing-pinstriker spring. After repeated use the spring tends to lack sufficientpower to ignite the cartridge’s primer—an extremely dangerous de-fect in a combat weapon. The caliber 8mm Nambu cartridge is alsounderpowered for military purposes, and some pistols lack a bolthold-open device. To make matters worse, the primers and propel-lant used in Japanese cartridges were often of uneven quality duringWorld War II, especially when used in the humid jungle conditionsthat prevailed in the Pacific theater.

An earthquake destroyed the Tokyo Arsenal in 1923, and initialproduction of the Type 14 thus began at the new Kokura Arsenalon the island of Kyushu in about 1928. The Nagoya Arsenal beganmanufacturing the pistol the next year and eventually became thesole producer of the Type 14. Pre–World War II Type 14s are well-made and, although light at the muzzle, are capable of a re-spectable degree of accuracy at close ranges. Wartime-issue Type14s exhibit much less attention to exterior appearance, such as evi-dent machining marks, a lack of polishing, and thin bluing, but arenevertheless quite functional. Type 14 holsters are constructedwith a large flap and completely enclose the pistol and containcompartments for an extra magazine and striker spring. Early exam-ples were well-made and constructed of thick leather, whereaswartime shortages necessitated the use of inferior materials andworkmanship in later holsters.

Type 94

In 1934 the Japanese military adopted the truly dreadful 94 ShikiKenju (Type 94 Pistol), an even worse weapon than the Type 14.The pistol’s designation was derived from the recently adopted prac-tice by the Japanese of dating weapon types based on the reign ofthe country’s first emperor. Under this system, the modern date1934 represented the old Japanese year 2594. Nambu Toyamatsucarried out manufacture of the Type 94. The recoil-operated Type94 shared the same 8mm cartridge as the Type 14 but, owing to its

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shorter grip, accepted a six- rather than eight-round magazine. Inthe eyes of many Japanese troops, the Type 94’s smaller size was itsonly advantage when compared to its predecessor. Its more compactsize makes it more convenient for use by aircraft and tank crews,and the smaller grip makes it more comfortable to use by men withsmall hands.

The machining and overall finish, however, were typically crude;worse still, the Type 94’s weak recoil spring could sometimes allowit to fire on an open breech. It was also manufactured with an ex-posed bar sear on its left side. This oversight allowed one to acci-dentally discharge the Type 94 by pressing the outside of the pistolwithout touching the trigger. During World War II this featuregained the Type 94 the reputation of a suicide gun among Alliedforces. Many soldiers and Marines swore that Japanese troopswould feign surrender of the Type 94, only to squeeze the sear andshoot their potential captors.

SPAIN

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Spain’sgovernment arsenals were less committed to the manufacture of pis-tols than rifles, the army’s primary weapon. As a result, semiauto-matic pistol development in Spain initially lagged somewhat behindthat in other European countries. When Spain adopted its firstsemiautomatic—the Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo 1908—itordered it from the Belgian firm AEP (Société Anonyme Anciens Es-tablissement Pieper).

Despite this apparent slight to domestic gun makers, Spain had astrong tradition in the craft and eventually became an internationalleader in pistol production. The Spanish pistol-making industry waschiefly concentrated in the Basque towns of Eibar, Elgolibar, andGuernica and ranged from small, family-owned shops to larger com-panies capable of mass production. The Basque region thrived fromthe sale of handguns—chiefly copies of various designs by JohnBrowning—to domestic as well as foreign customers. These pistolsbecame known collectively, regardless of manufacturer, as Eibar-type, or Ruby, pistols. World War I proved particularly profitable tothe area because other European countries, most notably Franceand Italy, bought tens of thousands of these Spanish semiautomaticsto supplement their own output. Owing to lax government proofing


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 CivilWar (1936–1937), fighting between the opposing forces disruptedthe region, including its arms production. After the war, Generalis-simo Francisco Franco’s regime exerted more control over Spain’sarms makers and began a more selective and systematic approach toobtaining sidearms for the military and police. By 1940 most of thesmaller makers were forced to close shop, and the large concerns ofAstra, Star, and Llama dominated Spanish handgun manufacture.The reduced number of manufacturers and more stringent govern-ment inspections contributed greatly to the reemergence of Spain asa producer of pistols equal to those of other major arms-manufac-turing countries.

Astra

The firm that eventually became known as Astra was founded in1908 by the partnership of Don Juan Pedro de Unceta-Baerenechea Cendoya and Don Juan Esperanza. The production ofsome 50,000 6.35mm and 7.65mm Browning-type Victoria pistolsbegan at Eibar, but operations soon shifted to Guernica. Following1914 the company began marking its pistols using the Astra brand.During World War I Astra manufactured more than 35,000 Brown-ing-type Ruby pistols for the French and Italians. The companythen went on to develop the Campo-Giro Models 1913 and1913/16 into its highly successful Model 1921/400 series, followedby the Models 300, 600, and 900. The forces of Francisco Francoas well as those of the Republicans used Astras during the SpanishCivil War. The factory escaped the widely condemned destructionof Guernica by the Germans’ infamous Condor Legion bombing at-tack 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 Fab-rica de Armas Portátiles de Oviedo. Campo-Giro’s was a locked-

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breech design chambered for the Model 1908’s powerful 9mmBergmann-Bayard cartridge (known as the 9mm Largo in Spain).Campo-Giro continued to refine his pistol and by 1912 had dis-carded the pistol’s locked-breech mechanism in favor of a simplerblowback 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 stiffspring coiled around the barrel to absorb the recoil. The recoilspring thus required considerable effort to pull the slide rearward tocock the weapon for a first shot. The Model 1913 was loaded withan eight-round magazine fitted in the base of the grip. A thumb-op-erated safety was located on the left of the pistol. Three years afterintroducing the Model 1913, Unceta brought out a slightly im-proved model, the Model 1913–1916. Slightly more than 14,000 ofboth types were manufactured, and further development ceased fol-lowing 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 andsubmitted the reworked design to the Spanish military in 1920.Known as the Astra Model 400 in its civilian form and designatedthe Pistola de 9 millimetros modelo 1921 (Model 1921) for militaryuse, the new Astra offered a very unique feature. Rather than ac-cepting a single type of cartridge, the Model 1921/400 was cham-bered to fire both the 9mm Largo and 9mm Parabellum cartridges.Moreover, under emergency circumstances it could also accommo-date 9mm Steyr, 9mm Browning Long, and the .38 Super Automaticcartridges. Among some circles this unusual ability earned the pistola rather unflattering nickname: the “Ashcan.” Such versatility was,however, an advantage during wartime when the availability ofproper ammunition is sometimes tenuous.

The commercial Model 400 is most readily distinguishable fromthe military Model 1921 in that most Model 400s are fitted withhard rubber grips (most military pistols had wood grips). Civilianpistols are also somewhat better-finished and often have nickel- orchrome-plated minor components. Both models are equipped withmanual, grip, and magazine safeties. Typical markings on the tubu-lar shaped slide include the Astra starburst logo on the top and ei-


ther “ESPERANZA Y UNCETA” or “UNCETA Y COMPANIA, GUERNICA ES-PANA” and “PISTOLA DE 9M/M MODELO 1921.” The insignia of the var-ious Spanish military and police organizations indicate the issue ofSpanish government–owned pistols. During the Spanish Civil Warthe Republicans also produced Model 1921 copies marked “RE” (Re-publica Española, or “Spanish Republic”). The French Army andChilean Navy procured small quantities of Model 1921s, and theGerman Wehrmacht purchased approximately 6,000. Total produc-tion 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 9mmBrowning (.380 ACP or 9mm kurz) cartridges to produce the Model300 for issue to Spanish prison personnel. The next year the com-pany also began producing the pistol in 7.65mm (.32 ACP) for civil-ian and export sales. In 1928 the Spanish Navy adopted the Model300 in its 9mm chambering. The company made 171,300 Model300s until production ceased in 1947. During World War II theGerman Luftwaffe purchased 63,000 pistols in caliber 9mm kurzand an additional 22,390 in 7.65mm. The Nazi designation for theModel 300 was Pistole Astra 300.

Model 600

The later Astra Model 600 also bore a strong resemblance to theModel 400 but was not accepted by the Spanish Army. Owing to theclose ties between the Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, and AdolfHitler, however, Nazi forces acquired approximately 10,450 of theModel 600 in 9mm Parabellum. The Nazi designation for the Model600 was Pistole Astra 600/43, with those issued to the West Germanpolice after the war being designated the P3.

Model 900 series

The severe arms limitations imposed on Germany by the VersaillesTreaty crippled such companies as Mauser’s export trade yet pro-

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vided Spanish makers, including Astra, new opportunities. Easternwarlords, especially in China, were particularly fond of the MauserModel 1896 Broomhandle and were eager to acquire more. Astrathus stepped in with the Model 900, chambered for the 7.63mmMauser cartridge, very similar in appearance to the Broomhandle,and equipped with a wood shoulder stock/holster rig. Although theModel 900 shares the Broomhandle’s looks and 10-round integralmagazine, it is internally quite different. Astra simplified the inter-nal design of the Model 900 to make it more economical to manu-facture and modified its locking system. A screwed-on side plate al-lowed internal access (avoiding Mauser’s method of inserting theentire mechanism in one unit through the back of the pistol frame).Production of the Model 900 continued from 1928 until the Span-ish Civil War interrupted Astra’s operations in 1937.

In 1928 Astra also began manufacturing selective-fire versions ofthe Model 900—the Models 901 and 902. The actual military valueof such selective-fire pistol-carbines as the Astras and MauserSchnellfeuer is often the subject of debate—the light weight of theweapons combined with their rapid rate of fire rendered them allbut impossible to accurately aim after the first shot. The continuedrecoil of the weapon then tended to push the barrel ever higher un-til the last shot of the burst was launched at a 90-degree angle to thefirst. By that point the magazine had typically been emptied owingto its small capacity and the pistol’s blazing cyclic rate. Still, suchpistols appealed to the more dramatic sort and enjoyed a certainpopularity during the period.

The selective-fire pistols have slightly larger hammers and gripsthan the Model 900 and are fitted with a firing-mode selector leveron the right side of the frame above the trigger. Pressing the leverdown allows full-automatic fire, with the upper position providingsemiautomatic use. The longer-barreled Model 903 appeared in1932 and can accept either 10- or 20-round detachable magazines.The Model F was intended to arm Spain’s Guardia Civil (CivilGuard) and as such is chambered for the country’s official caliber9mm Largo cartridge. Only 950 were delivered before Basqueforces captured the factory in 1936. The Model F’s greatest im-provement over the earlier selective-fires consists of a flywheel de-vice in its grip that lowers the pistol’s cyclic rate from 900 to 350rounds per minute. The reduction of the firing rate lessens the ten-dency of the pistol to climb during full-automatic fire and thus aidsaccuracy.


Royal

Two brothers, Juan and Cosme Beistegui, established Beistegui Her-manos in 1909. During World War I the brothers produced Ruby-type pistols for France and Italy and in 1926 began manufacturingselective-fire copies of the Mauser Broomhandle for the Chinesemarket under the brand name Royal. The Royal shares theBroomhandle’s caliber 7.63mm cartridge and wood shoulderstock/holster but, like the Astra, was easier to manufacture. It incor-porated a cylindrical bolt rather than the Mauser’s squared bolt andwas manufactured with 10- and 20-round integral magazines as wellas models accepting 10-, 20-, and 30-round detachable magazines.A later model was also fitted with a mechanism to retard its cyclicrate. Beistegui Hermanos manufactured about 23,000 Royals beforethe factory was destroyed in 1937.

Star Modelo Militar 1920

José-Cruz Echeverria and his son, Bonifacio, of Eibar manufac-tured Ruby-type pistols for France and Italy during World War I be-fore adopting the Star trade name in 1919. The firm then made itsfirst foray into the military market with the Star Modelo Militar1920, a design based on the Colt-Browning swinging link systemand chambered for the 9mm Largo cartridge. The pistol’s appear-ance is also highly derivative of the U.S. design and, other than itslack of a grip safety, looks very much like the Colt Model 1911. Thepistol’s safety, mounted on the back of the slide, was at least some-what 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 theGuardia 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, theGuardia Civil objected to the slide-mounted safety and requestedsuitable modifications. Star responded quickly and soon followedthe Modelo Militar 1920 with the Model 1921, a pistol that incor-porated a frame-mounted safety as well as a grip safety. The grip

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safety, however, proved unpopular with Guardia Civil officers, forc-ing Star to resubmit the design without the safety as the Model1922. The Model 1922 at last satisfied the Guardia Civil. Designat-ing it the Model A, Star also offered the new pistol on the civilianmarket. Star continued to improve the design with the Model 1931,adding a curved and checkered back strap to provide a more com-fortable grip and giving the pistol an even closer resemblance to theColt Model 1911. Following the Spanish Civil War the pistol wasredesignated the Model 1940 and in 1946 replaced the AstraModel 1921 (Model 400) in Spanish Army service. The improvedSuper Star was used by a number of South American nations andremained in Spanish service until production ended in 1983. Inkeeping with the Spanish fascination with full-automatic hand-guns, Star also offered a selective-fire version of the Model 1922equipped with a wood shoulder stock/holster and available in a vari-ety of calibers.

Llama Pistola Automatica Llama 9mm Marque IX

Gabilondo y Urresti began business in 1904 in Guernica. The com-pany then moved to Elgolibar after producing as many as 200,000 ofthe obligatory Ruby pistols for France and Italy during World War I.Later, under its new name, Gabilondo y Compañia, the companymanufactured and marketed a number of Browning-derived pistolsduring the 1920s and 1930s. These included a 7.65mm (.32 ACP)selective-fire model that found some acceptance in the Chinesemarket, with a small number going to Japanese air forces (Ezell1981: 564). The 9mm Llama Especial also saw use with Nationalisttroops during the Spanish Civil War (Hogg 2001: 62). During the1930s Gabilondo y Compañia continued its expansion by manufac-turing quality copies of the Colt Model 1911 in various calibers un-der the brand name Llama. A typical pistol of the World War II pe-riod, the Pistola Automatica Llama 9mm Marque IX was chamberedin 9mm Largo for Spanish military and police use. It was also usedby various other powers, primarily in South America, in 9mm Para-bellum and 9mm Short.


C H A P T E R 6

Post–World War IIDevelopments

The Cold War—the decades-long confrontation between theUnited States and the Soviet Union following 1945—saw both su-perpowers consolidating their respective spheres of influence. In1949 the United States was instrumental in the formation of theNorth Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to counter the Sovietsin Europe. The Soviet Union responded in 1955 with the WarsawPact, a forced alliance of formerly independent Eastern Europeannations that fell under Soviet domination at the close of WorldWar II.

Both the Eastern and the Western military establishments quicklyrecognized the potential logistical problems posed by these rapidlyimposed alliances. NATO and the Warsaw Pact thus moved to stan-dardize weapon types and calibers among their respective allies toensure interchangeability. The Warsaw Pact nations and, by exten-sion, the People’s Republic of China and its satellites thus adoptedthe Soviet 7.62mm Tokarev TT33 pistol as their standard militarysidearm. As a result, the arsenals of the previously independentEastern nations suspended the production of native designs and re-tooled to manufacture domestic versions of the Soviet weapon.

NATO’s signatories were, especially concerning the question ofcaliber, less than unanimous in their choice of both military pistolsand calibers. Nearly all European nations had made the transitionfrom revolvers to semiautomatics before World War II and hadadopted the 9mm Parabellum cartridge (9x19mm NATO) as the

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ideal front-line combat loading. With the most notable exception ofWest Germany’s post–World War II Walther P38, the P1, most Eu-ropean NATO members adopted John Browning’s Model 1935 HighPower or a variation of its basic design. The United States, for itspart, 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 offi-cers, some police forces, and secondary or specialized military per-sonnel. The 7.65mm Browning cartridge (.32 ACP), disdained bymost U.S. agencies as being too anemic for practical use, remainedthe loading of choice for many European police forces and higher-ranking military officers. A leading factor in the longevity of the cal-iber .32 ACP cartridge was its suitability for use with the simplestsemiautomatic operating principle—the blowback mechanism. An-other rationale behind the retention of caliber .32 weapons for po-lice was based on their use in the closer confines of European cities(the light caliber .32 bullet is less likely to pass through the intendedtarget and strike an innocent bystander). The 9mm Short (.380ACP) cartridge, however, had rapidly gained in popularity in thepostwar years owing to its marked lethality over the .32 and its easyaccommodation in blowback weapons.

U.S. police and security forces continued to favor revolvers wellinto the second half of the twentieth century. Their preference wasgrounded not only in a traditional affection for the reliable six-shooter but the revolver’s inherent structural strength. More con-cerned 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 pow-erful .44 Magnum—cartridges that are too powerful for the stan-dard semiautomatic to safely chamber. The 1980s and 1990s,however, saw the rapidly escalating acceptance in the U.S. law en-forcement community of military-style semiautomatics. The newtrend grew out of the availability of a new generation of high-pow-ered, high magazine–capacity pistols and a number of new car-tridges, most notably the .40 Smith & Wesson. The .40 S&W of-fered a logical compromise between the caliber 9mm Parabellumand the .45 ACP, being more powerful than the former but havingless recoil than the latter.

During this period U.S. manufacturers lost significant ground asEuropean manufacturers such as SIG-Sauer, Heckler & Koch, andGlock set higher standards for military handgun design. The new

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

SOVIET UNION/RUSSIA

Makarov PM

The Soviet Union and a number of other Warsaw Pact countries offi-cially replaced the Tokarev TT33 in 1951 with the 9x18mm PistoletMakarova (PM). The new pistol was intended to be easier to controlthan the Tokarev, but, as typical of many Soviet-made weapons, it ismore awkward to handle and has a much worse trigger pull than com-parable Western handguns. The Makarov is a fixed-barrel, double-action, blowback pistol that externally resembled the Walther PP. Al-though pulling the hinged trigger guard downward also disassembledthe Makarov, it lacked a loaded indicator pin and differed from theModel PP in a number of internal details. The magazine has a capac-ity of eight rounds and was released by a catch on the bottom of thegrip. The safety switch was mounted on the left rear of the slide. TheMakarov also chambered a new caliber 9x18mm cartridge that in sizeand power place it between the .380 Browning (9mm kurz) and 9mmNATO. The caliber 9mm Makarov cartridge, although very similar toa 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. Itsmost notable feature is its unique 5.45x18mm bottlenecked car-tridge capable of considerable penetration against body armor. The

POST–WORLD WAR II DEVELOPMENTS 257

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 appear-ance and basic blowback mechanism of the Makarov but is somewhatlarger and capable of selective fire. A selector mounted on the left rearslide indicates safe in its lower position, semiautomatic in the middle,and full automatic in the top position. The Stechkin utilizes a 20-round magazine and was issued with a wood shoulder stock/holstervery similar to that of the Mauser Model 1896. Its cyclic rate of fireon full-automatic mode is approximately 750 rounds per minute. TheStechkin’s main fault lies in that it is too large to be a practical hand-gun and too light to be controlled effectively as a submachine gun. Itwas 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 broth-ers’ design team at CZ (_eska Zbrojovká) and, chambered in caliber7.65mm (.32 ACP), was intended for use by the Czech police. Al-though much more modern in appearance than earlier Czech pis-tols, the Model 1950 is of a conventional blowback design, with anexternal hammer and many features apparently derived from theWalther PP. It differs from the Model PP in that the loaded indica-tor pin is located on the side of the slide rather than above the ham-mer, a catch on the side of the frame allows dismantling, and thesafety is located on the frame rather than slide. CZ later modernizedthe Model 1950 to produce the Model 1970 for issue to police per-sonnel and higher-ranking military officers.

CZ Model 1952

Immediately following World War II Czechoslovakia followed otherSoviet bloc nations in issuing Soviet weapons, including the

258 PISTOLS

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

CZ75 and CZ85

As a member of the Warsaw Pact, Czechoslovakia was required to is-sue weapons chambered to accept cartridges interchangeable withthose of the Soviet Union. The 9mm Parabellum (NATO) CZ75 wasthus initially not accepted for Czech service but released as an ex-port pistol. Its debut on the international market in 1975 won theCZ75 instant acclaim as one of the finest military-style pistols to ap-pear in the post–World War II years.

Its basic mechanism and appearance are of the traditional Brown-ing High Power type but exhibit some characteristics found in theSIG P220 and other significant improvements. Constructed of high-grade materials with superior craftsmanship, the CZ75 is a double-action weapon with either plastic (for civilian use) or walnut (mili-tary issue) grips and accepts a 15-round magazine. The CZ85followed in 1985 and is essentially a CZ75 with the addition of am-bidextrous safety and slide stops. Both models were manufacturedin selective-fire versions with somewhat longer barrels and a provi-sion to use a spare magazine as a forward grip. In 1984 the Swissfirm Sphinx Engineering SA of Porrentruy began offering its AT-2000S, a modification of the CZ75 design.

CZ82 and CZ83

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


blowback-operated, double-action pistol similar in purpose and op-eration to the Walther PP and Soviet Makarov. It has an ambidex-trous safety, slide lock, and magazine release controls, a firing-pinlocking safety, and a large trigger guard to accommodate a glovedfinger. The civilian CZ83 is available chambered in 7.65mm (.32ACP) and 9mm Short (.380 ACP), with the military CZ82 beingchambered for the 9mm Short or 9mm Makarov cartridge. Maga-zine capacity is 15 rounds for 7.65mm models and 13 rounds for9mm pistols. Caliber 9mm Makarov-chambered pistols also differfrom the other models in that they are bored with polygonal riflingrather 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 alsoissued the double-action, 9x18mm P64, a Polish design that sharescharacteristics of both the larger Makarov and the Walther PPK.The select-fire 9x18mm Model 63 Machine Pistol also shows con-siderable Soviet influence and in a number of ways resembles theSoviet Stechkin. It is a blowback weapon and accepts either 15- or20-round magazines.

PEOPLE’S REPUBLIC OF CHINA

Type 51

Before World War II, the Chinese government and various warlordsarmed their forces with a large variety of imported pistols such asthe Mauser Model 1896, the Browning Model 1900, and the FNHigh Power. In addition, small domestic shops and larger factoriesfabricated many thousands of copies of foreign pistols. The Chinesealso acquired huge numbers of Japanese arms from the Soviets, whocaptured them in Manchuria, as well as U.S. weapons taken fromthe Nationalists during the civil war. The Communist Chinese gov-ernment later began a gradual move toward standardization based

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

Type 64 and Type 67

Adopted in 1964, the blowback-operated Chinese Type 64 is auniquely diabolical weapon with an integral silencer designedspecifically for assassinations. The rubber baffles and extremely finewire mesh within the tubular silencer effectively muzzle the reportof its special subsonic 7.65x17mm rimless Type 64 cartridge—aloading similar in appearance to the .32 ACP but interchangeable inno other weapon. A latch on the side of the pistol also locks the slideto prevent the mechanical noise and rear escape of the report thataccompanies a semiautomatic pistol. A mechanical safety is locatedon the left side of the pistol above the grip. The magazine capacity isnine rounds. In 1968 Communist China put into service an im-proved and more compact assassination pistol, the Type 67. TheType 67 features a more streamlined and efficient silencer and across bolt to lock the slide to the barrel. Although in many respectssimilar to the Type 64, the Type 67 is chambered for yet anotherunique 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 Japa-nese, foreign imports, and Soviet and Chinese weapons. The coun-try’s first domestically manufactured service pistol, the Type 64, is arelatively direct copy of the Browning Model 1900 Old Model in7.65mm (.32 ACP). A limited number were also manufactured witha shortened slide that exposed a length of barrel sufficient to attacha silencer.

Type 68

The North Korean Type 68 was a significantly modified Tokarev


TT33 design that locks in a manner similar to the Browning HighPower. It retains the Tokarev’s 7.62mm chambering but is somewhatshorter, with the magazine release located in the base of the griprather than the button type behind the trigger guard found on Sovietweapons.

Type 70

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

UNITED STATES

The decision to join its NATO allies in a sidearm chambered forthe standard 9x19mm NATO (9mm Parabellum) cartridge provedparticularly traumatic for the U.S. military. The United Statesflirted with the idea during the Korean War but abandoned thetransition as uneconomical considering the vast numbers of cal-iber .45 Model 1911A1s then in service. That those Model1911A1s were perfectly serviceable and proven combat veteransfurther strengthened the Army’s decision to retain them for the in-definite future.

Colt General Officer Model Pistol, M15

Colt again broached the subject on a limited scale during the Viet-nam War. In 1969 the company offered a modified version of its9mm Commander as a replacement for the older model pistols thenissued to general officers. The Army, for its part, declined Colt’s sub-mission in favor of a more sophisticated version of the caliber .45ACP 1911A1. Originally manufactured at the government’s Spring-field Arsenal and later the Rock Island Arsenal, the new pistol en-tered service in 1972 as the Caliber .45 General Officer Model Pis-tol, M15. The M15 was somewhat more compact than the Model1911A1 and was fitted with select-grade walnut grips with a brassinsert engraved with the owner’s name. It also exhibited a much su-perior finish to standard-issue weapons. To further distinguish it

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

Beretta M9 (Model 92FS)

In 1977 new small-arms studies undertaken at the U.S. Air ForceArmaments Laboratory at Elgin Air Force Base reignited the 9mmtransition debate. The Florida laboratory’s initial findings indicatedthat government inventories contained not only thousands of Model1911A1s but also a bewildering variety of various caliber .38 re-volvers. The Air Force quickly reached the obvious conclusion: TheU.S. military faced a pressing need to restandardize its handgun is-sues. The Air Force findings soon found their way to the other serv-ices, as well as Congress, with predictable results. By 1979 the stan-dardization issue and 9mm transition debate were embroiled in abureaucratic quarrel complete with the requisite committees andgovernment tests. In 1981 the government at last announced its de-cision to finally join its allies in adopting the 9x19mm NATO cham-bering and called on various foreign and domestic manufacturers fortest pistols.

To the dismay of many, only one U.S.-made pistol—a Smith &Wesson—reached the final testing stages. It faced entries byBeretta, Fabrique Nationale, Heckler & Koch, and SIG-SACO De-fense Systems. After seemingly interminable delays, in 1985 theU.S. government officially announced its decision to replace the cal-iber .45 ACP Colt Model 1911A1 with the Italian entry: the Beretta92FS.

Designated the M9 in U.S. service, the new Beretta was manu-factured in Italy and now in the United States by Beretta USA Corp.of Accokeek, Maryland. Beretta’s concession to manufacture thepistol in the United States and its relatively low cost were major fac-tors in the decision to adopt the foreign-designed weapon. In thewake of the military’s action, numerous police departments followedits lead, phasing out traditional revolvers in favor of the Model 92.The M9 is a double-action weapon and accepts a 15-round maga-zine. It is equipped with a trigger-disconnect safety, is coated in adurable matte Bruniton finish, and fitted with a lanyard ring andchrome-lined barrel. The forward trigger-guard strap is also re-curved to accommodate a two-hand grip.


Inevitably, the adoption of Beretta by the U.S. governmentprompted a considerable ongoing debate as to the military effec-tiveness of the pistol and its 9mm cartridge. Its proponents con-tinue to argue the advantage that they more conform to U.S. allies’issues. They further press that the 9mm cartridge produces less re-coil than the caliber .45 ACP and is thus more suited for use bythe growing number of women entering the U.S. military. Both thepistol and its cartridge, however, have found some of their greatestopposition among U.S. combat veterans who witnessed enemiessustain multiple wounds from 9mm ammunition and still continuean attack. The critics’ resistance has been further strengthened byreports from Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq, and other recent arid bat-tlegrounds: A number of troops involved in those actions havecomplained that the Beretta requires frequent maintenance tomaintain reliability and does not stand up well in harsh combatconditions.

In a scenario hauntingly reminiscent of the Philippines in theearly 1900s, many U.S. soldiers locked away their government-issuepistols in favor of more powerful caliber .45 weapons. Adding to theirony, many U.S. troops still prefer the supposedly obsolescent ColtModel 1911A1 to the advanced M9, while others holster pistolsmanufactured by SIG, Heckler & Koch, and Smith & Wesson. Inaddition to the issue of personal weapons, in 1996 the U.S. SpecialOperations Command (USSOCOM) adopted the caliber .45 ACPHeckler & Koch Mark 23 mod 0 for issue to certain elite units. Atthe beginning of the twenty-first century the United States is nocloser 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-roundModel 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 Parabel-lum cartridge so popular in Europe but as yet relatively untried inthe United States. The two pistols have seen service with the U.S.Navy, Air Force, and Army Special Forces (Green Berets). TheModel 459 was essentially an updated version of the Model 59

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

GERMANY

Walther P1

Its original facilities devastated and lost to the Soviets in the finaldays of World War II, Walther eventually established a new factoryat Ulm/Donau in the early 1950s and renewed production of theP38 in 1957. That year the new German Federal Republic Army, theBundeswehr, adopted the pistol as the Pistole 1, or P1. The P1 dif-fers from the earlier P38 only in its lighter alloy frame, slightchanges in its safety and extractor, and a matte-black finish andblack plastic checkered grips. The P1 was also adopted at varioustimes by the armed forces of Austria, Norway, and Portugal, as wellas Sweden, its initial contractor. The company also manufactured amore meticulously finished model for the civilian market and sold it,in addition to the standard caliber 9mm Parabellum, in calibers .22Long Rifle and 7.65 Parabellum. Shorter-barreled versions, theP38K and the P4, were also manufactured for police use in the1970s but were soon discontinued.

Walther P5

In 1975 Walther introduced the caliber 9mm NATO P5 in responseto changing German police requirements for a high magazine–capacity, double-action sidearm that could be safely carried andquickly put into action. Externally the P5 is a sleek, modern-lookingpistol with a slide enclosing all but the muzzle of the barrel. Its lock-ing system, however, is essentially the same tilting wedge as that ofthe P38. The P5 also shares the same eight-round magazine capac-ity of its predecessor, as well as its trigger mechanism.

Although the P5’s basic mechanics harken to the 1930s, its safetyfeatures are much more advanced. A large lever on the left side of


the frame acts as both a safety and decocking switch that safely low-ers the exposed hammer. In addition, a spring maintains the firingpin itself in a position out of alignment with the hammer’s strikingsurface. Only when the trigger is deliberately pulled does this springallow the pin to shift into firing position. A number of police organi-zations in Germany and other countries adopted the P5, as did thePortuguese Army. Walther followed the basic P5 in 1988 with theshorter P5 Compact and later the improved-safety P1A1. Althoughan excellent pistol, the P5 series was destined for rapid obsoles-cence owing to its relatively small magazine capacity and outmodedlocking system.

Walther P88

In 1988 Walther combined the best features of the P5 with a modi-fied Browning locking system to offer the P88, a cost-efficient, 15-round capacity, double-action pistol suitable for police and militaryuse. The P88 thus shares the excellent trigger and safety mecha-nisms of the P5, as well as an ambidextrous decocking lever. It does,however, abandon the tilting wedge for a system similar to that ofthe Glock, SIG-Sauer, and other new and popular pistols. The tilt-ing barrel, combined with its method of locking into the ejectionport, allowed for much more efficient machining, with a resultantpositive effect on the pistol’s overall cost. In 1996 Walther discon-tinued 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 ofthe former Mauser factory in Oberndorf/Neckar, the old Mausermachinery having been confiscated by French forces. Alex Seidel,formally of Mauser, was a cofounder of the new firm and reintro-duced the Mauser HSc as the Heckler & Koch HK 4. The blowbackHK 4, known as the P11 in German service, is manufactured with astamped steel rather than the earlier machined steel slide and analuminum alloy frame. It differs externally in its basic lines andblack plastic checkered grips molded with a more comfortablethumb rest. A catch on the base of the grip releases the magazine.

Heckler & Koch designed the HK4 to be easily converted to a va-riety of calibers. By switching barrels, magazines, and recoil spring,

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the pistol can chamber 6.35mm (.25 ACP), 7.65mm (32 ACP), and9mm kurz (.380 ACP) cartridges. The breechblock is also fittedwith a faceplate that can be rotated 180 degrees to convert the pis-tol to the more economical rimfire caliber .22 Long Rifle cartridge.The HK4 was manufactured from 1967 to 1984 and issued to theZollpolizei (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 apolice weapon (thus its alternate designation, Polizei Selbstlade Pis-tole, or PSP). The P7 introduced a unique cocking and decockingdevice on the front grip strap activated by squeezing the pistol grip.The pistol is also unusual in that it incorporates the gas-delayedblowback principle. This system relies on a small hole drilled in thebarrel that siphons off a portion of the ignition gasses to operate apiston attached to the slide. The pressure exerted by the gas thus de-lays the opening of the breech until the bullet leaves the barrel.

Heckler & Koch first offered the improved P7 M8 and P7 M13pistols in 1983. These pistols feature ambidextrous magazine re-leases and enlarged trigger guards. The P7 M13 also offers the ad-vantage of a 13-round staggered-row magazine. Other variants in theseries include the blowback-operated P7 K3 in caliber .22 Long Rifleand 9mm Short and the P7 M10 in caliber .40 S&W. Some units ofthe Bundeswehr adopted the P7, as did various police agencies, in-cluding the federal Bundesgrenzschutz (GSG9) and the state policedepartments of Baden-Wurttemberg, Bavaria, and Lower Saxony.

Heckler & Koch Model P9 and Model P9S

Manufactured between about 1972 and 1984, the Heckler & KochModel P9 and its military and police-type counterpart, the P9S, in-corporate numerous modern synthetic components. The civilianModel P9 differs primarily from the P9S in that it is a single-actionrather than double-action weapon and is fitted with adjustable rearsights. Both pistols were offered in 9mm Parabellum (NATO) and7.65 Parabellum (.30 Luger). The company introduced a caliber .45ACP model in 1977. The pistols operate on the delayed blowbacksystem and lock and unlock by means of rollers that engage the slideand two-piece breechblock, an arrangement used in the company’s


G-3 rifle. Typical slide markings are “HK MOD P9S HECKLER & KOCH

OBERNDORF/N,” with the “HK” initials also appearing on the lowergrip panels.

The P9 and P9S are fitted with a thumb-operated lever to cockand decock the internal hammer, as well as a loaded indicator pin. Amanual safety is positioned on the left rear of the slide, and adurable black polymer finish protects the metal parts. Later versionsof the P9S were manufactured with a reverse-curve front triggerguard to accommodate a more comfortable two-handed grip. The P9and P9S also incorporate an advanced polygonal bore that, unlikeconventional rifling, presents a smoother internal surface that dis-courages fouling and provides twist without overly deforming bulletsas they pass through. The P9S was adopted a number of police or-ganizations, including the Saarland state police.

Heckler & Koch Model VP70

Heckler & Koch intended its Model VP70 as a compact selective-fire combat pistol for modern military and police use. Manufacturedfrom about 1970 to 1984, it incorporates a largely polymer frameand enclosed striker. Its sophisticated blowback, fixed-barrel designallows it to efficiently chamber 9mm NATO ammunition, anachievement that had long eluded earlier manufacturers. A specialshock-absorbing system helps reduce recoil and thus aids controlwhile in full-automatic mode. Cartridge capacity is an impressive 18rounds and is accomplished with a double-row magazine that doesnot overly widen the grips. Disassembly is easily accomplished bypulling down a catch within the trigger guard on the bottom of theframe. Optional equipment for the VP70 includes a push-throughsafety behind the trigger guard and a detachable shoulder stock. TheVP70 A1 is equipped with a three-shot burst feature; the VP70 Zwas offered in semiautomatic only. European police and borderguards 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 9mmNATO and .40 S&W. A caliber .45 ACP model, intended primarilyfor sales in the United States, appeared in 1995. All USP pistols are

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designed to accommodate both standard military cartridges as wellas the more powerful +P loadings. Intended as highly versatile mili-tary and police weapons, the USP pistols incorporate the most ad-vanced manufacturing techniques and materials available. The basicUSP models are the Standard, Compact, Match, Expert, and Tacti-cal. The Standard was adopted by the Bundeswehr as the P8 andthe Compact by German police as the P10. Both the P8 and P10 arechambered for the 9mm NATO cartridge.

The USP series is based on a modified Browning locking designassisted by an original Heckler & Koch recoil reduction system toease handling. Truly modern weapons, the USP pistols are manufac-tured with steel-reinforced, high-strength polyamide frames capableof withstanding extreme temperatures, wear, and corrosion. Barrelsare polygonal-bored cold-hammer forged chromium steel; the slidesare of machined steel. To withstand corrosion, external metal partsare treated in a nitro-gas carburized and black oxide coating, withinternal parts receiving a protective Dow-Corning antifriction treat-ment. As a result of such advanced technologies and exacting Heck-ler & Koch craftsmanship, the USP has proved one of the most ac-curate, 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 laseraiming module (LAM) or tactical light.

The combined safety and decocking lever is mounted on theframe above the trigger and can be easily moved from one side tothe other for either right- or left-handed use. The magazine release,protected by the trigger guard, allows the magazine to drop free ofthe pistol and is also designed for ambidextrous use. Caliber 9mmand .40 S&W magazines are constructed of a stainless steel–rein-forced translucent polymer; caliber .45 ACP magazines are of steel.The nonslip polymer grips are ergonomically slanted for comfortableaiming. A wide variety of trigger and control-lever options also giveUSP pistols nine potential combinations of safety as well as single-and 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 ManufacturingCo. to submit test pistols for a new Offensive Handgun Weapon


System (OHWS). As the name of the system suggests, the new pistolwas not to perform in a traditional defensive role but as a specializedoffensive weapon for special operations. The government intendedto issue the new weapons to elite organizations such as the Army’sSpecial Forces (Green Berets) and Rangers, Special Operations Avi-ation, the Navy SEALS, and the Air Force Special OperationsWings. The new weapon system required chambering for the caliber.45 ACP cartridge, a sound and flash suppressor, and a LAM. Morepowerful than the general-issue 9mm NATO Beretta M9, theOHWS was to be the first caliber .45 ACP government pistol sincethe Colt Model 1911A1. After extensive testing, USSOCOMawarded the final contract to Heckler & Koch; the first pistols weredelivered on 1 May 1996.

Although larger and heavier, the winning design, designated theMark 23 mod 0, shares many design features of the H&K caliber .45USP, including its locking system, steel-reinforced polymer compo-nents, and advanced anticorrosion coatings. The polygonal bore isalso chrome-plated to resist wear and corrosion. The trigger guard isrecurved at the front for two-handed use, and the magazine releaseand safety are ambidextrous. Unlike the USP, the decocking lever isa separate component to allow the silent lowering of the hammer inclose or covert combat situations. Frames are grooved for the at-tachment of the LAM, and the muzzle is threaded to accept a si-lencer supplied by Knight’s Manufacturing USA. Magazine capacityis 12 rounds.

The Mark 23 mod 0 is possibly the most thoroughly tested hand-gun ever built and exceeded all government specifications during tri-als. The issue pistol achieves match-grade accuracy and operates al-most flawlessly in the most extreme environments.

GERMANY/SWITZERLAND

SIG-Sauer

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

270 PISTOLS

semiautomatics universally hailed as some of the finest, most ad-vanced combat handguns ever manufactured.

Swiss SIG P210/P49

SIG began development of the single-action P210 during the1940s to replace the obsolescent Lugers still in service at thattime. Known as the P210 in its civilian form and the Pistole 49(designating the year it was accepted by the Swiss military), thenew SIG exhibited the superb materials, craftsmanship, and accu-racy typical of Swiss arms. The design originated in 1937 whenFrance’s SACM negotiated an agreement with the Swiss firm SIGto manufacture a modified Petter-designed Mle 1935 in that coun-try. After a number of improvements SIG developed the SIGSP47/8 (Self-Loading Pistol M1947—eight-round magazine) and,after more modifications, introduced the P49. Denmark alsoadopted the P49 for its military, as did West Germany’s Bundes-grenzpolizei (Border Patrol).

The P49 is a locked-breech, recoil-operated modified Browningdesign and is fed by an eight-round magazine. Unlike the earlier de-signs, the slide of the SIG rides on rails inside rather than outsidethe frame. The P49 is equipped with both a frame-mounted safetyand a magazine safety, preventing the pistol from firing without themagazine in place. It is chambered for the 9mm NATO cartridgerather than the earlier caliber 7.65 Parabellum of the Model 1900Swiss Lugers. The pistol is, however, easily converted to the caliber7.65 cartridge by simply changing the barrel and to the caliber .22Long Rifle with a conversion kit. Military pistols are finished in adull matte finish and plastic grips, with civilian versions usually re-ceiving a blue finish and wood grips.

Although Switzerland adopted the P49, export military sales suf-fered—the precise machining tolerances and quality of materialsused in the P49, as in all SIG products, made it a prohibitively ex-pensive weapon for general issue. Switzerland replaced the P49 in1975 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,


less-expensive replacement for the Swiss P49. It quickly gained a rep-utation as one of the finest combat pistols ever made. Available in anumber of calibers, the new pistol was adopted in 9mm NATO bySwitzerland as the P75 and later by the Japanese Defense Forces. TheP220 locking system is a great improvement both in efficiency andmanufacturing costs over earlier pistols. Rather than rely on a seriesof complicated links or machining processes, the P220 barrel is ma-chined with a single large lug that locks into the ejection port.

A number of other features found on the P220/75 had appearedearlier on the Sauer 38H. Sauer-designed components include theP220/75’s double-action mechanism and cocking and decockinglever. Unlike the 38H, the P220/75 is fitted with an external ham-mer. Original P220/75s were manufactured with aluminum alloyframes and Sauer’s machined breechblock pinned to the interior ofstamped steel slides. The P220/75 is not equipped with a manualsafety owing to the very effective hammer and firing-pin lock. Thismechanism prevents the pistol from firing unless the trigger is delib-erately pulled. A slide stop is located above the left grip. The maga-zine holds eight caliber 9mm cartridges (seven .45 ACP) and is re-leased by a catch at the rear base of the grip on European pistols.Those exported to the United States are fitted with a button-typemagazine release behind the trigger guard.

The P220/75 is also a highly accurate combat handgun. Sightsare of the patented Stavenhagen type, with white-highlighted rearand front sights to facilitate more precise aiming in dim conditions.The front trigger guard is also reverse-curved and grooved to allow asteadier two-hand grip.

SIG-Sauer P225 (P6)

In 1980 SIG-Sauer lightened the P220/75 design and reduced itslength to offer a more compact weapon, the 9mm NATO P225. Itwas adopted by the West German military and various state policeagencies as the P6 and saw extensive police use in other Europeancountries.

SIG-Sauer P226

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

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

SIG-Sauer P228 and P229

Introduced in 1989, the P228 is a compact version of the P226 andmechanically is virtually identical. It is constructed with an alu-minum alloy frame with a machined steel block pinned inside thestamped steel slide. The magazine holds 13 caliber 9mm NATO car-tridges. The U.S. Army adopted the P228 in 1992 as the M11 for is-sue to aircrews and military police personnel; it is also issued to theArmy’s Criminal Investigation Division.

The P229 shares the same internal mechanism and aluminum al-loy frame as the P228. It is, however, chambered for the more po-tent caliber .40 S&W and .357 SIG cartridges and as a result is fit-ted with a sturdier machined-steel slide. The P229 magazinecapacity is 12 rather than the P228’s 13 owing to its larger cartridgesize. Both the P228 and P229 earned universal reputations as highlyreliable and accurate weapons for military and police use. U.S. gov-ernment organizations issuing the P229 include the FBI; the SecretService; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms; and theDrug Enforcement Agency. The P229 also offers the added versatil-ity of interchangeable .40 S&W, .357 SIG, and 9mm NATO barrels.A Sig-Sauer subsidiary, SIGArms, manufactures the P229 in theUnited States.

AUSTRIA

Glock

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


tion links, and practice grenades. Glock made his first foray into thehandgun field in 1980 when the Austrian Army announced that itwas accepting submissions for a new service pistol. Gaston Glockhad little experience in firearms but approached the project with acombination of originality and logic. He first consulted a number ofweapons experts to determine the features most desirable in a com-bat handgun and then applied his own engineering experience to theproblem. Following a six-month whirlwind of research and develop-ment Glock revealed his new pistol: the Glock 17, a revolutionarycombination of the best existing technology and Glock’s innovativeapplication of polymers to firearm construction.

The Austrian Army adopted the recoil-operated, 9mm NATOGlock 17 in 1983 as the P80 and was soon joined by the armedforces of the Netherlands, Norway, the Philippines, Sweden, andThailand. The pistol quickly became the weapon of choice world-wide among military and police organizations. In the United Statesthe Glock played a major role during the transition from revolvers tosemiautomatics as the preferred police sidearm. In the process thepreviously tiny Glock GmbH grew to become an international armsgiant. The appearance of the Glock initially sparked a frenzy amongsome members of the press and antigun lobbyists, who feared thatits polymer components would make it undetectable by airport secu-rity scanning devices and thus be an ideal terrorist weapon. Theseconcerns were unfounded in that the Glock barrel and slide, as wellas numerous other components, are of high-grade steel and are thuseasily detectable by metal detectors and x-ray machines. Above all,Glock pistols have won a reputation for accuracy and reliability inall types of combat conditions.

Glock 17

Gaston Glock gained instant recognition by pioneering the use ofhigh tensile-strength polymers in the Glock 17. The frames, withthe exception of integral steel guide rails for the slide, are of amolded polymer that has a stronger resistance to shock damage thanaluminum and most steels. The polymer frame offers the triple ad-vantages of reduced costs in fabrication, imperviousness to corro-sion, and light weight. The slide is milled from a single piece of steeland treated with an extremely hard and corrosion-resistant Teniferheat treatment. The pistol is rugged, accurate, compact, and light-weight. It also easily dismantles for cleaning and incorporates only33 components in its construction.

274 PISTOLS

The Glock 17 shares with SIG-Sauer the sophisticated modifiedBrowning tilting-barrel locking principle in which a single lug on thetop of the barrel locks into the ejection port. The bore of the 4.5-inchbarrel, however, is of a hexagonal type, in contrast to the lands andgrooves of conventional pistols and the polygonal SIG-Sauer bores.The Glock Safe Action trigger mechanism is also a significant im-provement over earlier systems and is designed for instant yet safeuse under combat conditions. It is based on two molded polymer trig-gers (a large outer trigger that protects a smaller middle trigger fromaccidental activation); there is no external safety switch. The pistolcan thus be fired only with a deliberate finger-pull on the center ofthe trigger arrangement. Pulling the trigger first disengages the inter-nal safety mechanism and then moves the striker from half-cock tofull-cock and then releases it to strike the cartridge primer. The ac-tion of the slide then returns the striker to the half-cock position.

The only external controls other than the trigger are the slide stopand magazine release button, both mounted on the left of the frame.The standard polymer magazine has a capacity of 17 9mm NATOcartridges. Nineteen- and 31-round magazines that extend belowthe 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 am-phibious kit that permits underwater firing at very close range. Al-though rather boxy in appearance, the Glock 17 is well-balancedand ergonomically designed, with a raked grip with finger grooveson the front for comfortable and instinctive aiming. A recurved fronttrigger guard also aids two-handed use.

In 1986 the company offered the Glock 18, a select-fire versionof the original model. The Glock 18 is fitted with a slightly extendedbarrel with dorsal compensator cuts and a selector switch on the leftrear of the slide. Other variations of the Glock 17 include two morecompact pistols: the Glock 19 in 9mm NATO, and the Glock 23 in.40 Smith & Wesson. The Glock 20 was offered in 1990 and ischambered in the new 10mm Auto cartridge and was followed bythe 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 tothat country’s long-established Steyr dynasty. In 1981 Steyr-Daim-ler-Puch AG (later Steyr-Mannlicher AG) pinned its hopes for theArmy’s upcoming trials on its double-action 9mm NATO Steyr


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

Steyr M Series

In 2000 Steyr-Mannlicher GmbH introduced the much more ad-vanced 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-firedM Series utilizes high-strength polymer and steel construction andmounts a loaded-chamber indicator below the rear sight. Lockingand unlocking is accomplished by the familiar Browning tilting bar-rel combined with a single barrel lug that locks into the ejectionport. The magazine release allows ambidextrous use.

Its innovative sighting and safety features distinguish the M Se-ries. The M Series Triangle-Trapezoid sights consist of a triangularprofile front sight and a corresponding triangular rear notch that al-lows instinctive aiming. White highlights on the sights also aid aim-ing under poor light conditions. Safeties include a finger-operatedsafety switch and a Glock-style trigger safety. A separate safety keyalso locks the pistol against unauthorized use and disassembly.

BELGIUM

FN BDA 9

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

276 PISTOLS

FN Five-seveN

Introduced in 1998, the Five-seveN is FN’s most recent attempt torecapture its preeminent position as a manufacturer of modern mil-itary handguns. It is chambered for the new 5.7x28mm FN car-tridge, a loading interchangeable with FN’s P90 personal defenseweapon. Although the caliber 5.7x28mm cartridge is much longerthan the average pistol cartridge and the magazine capacity is 20rounds, the Five-seveN fits comfortably in the hand and aims well.

The Five-seveN is a delayed blowback weapon that relies on theforward motion of the bullet moving out of the barrel to slightly in-terrupt its rearward movement. Following the bullet’s exit from themuzzle the barrel is then freed to rotate and disengage two lugs fromslots in the slide. This allows the slide and extractor to eject thespent casing and to chamber a fresh cartridge. Although compli-cated, the Five-seveN mechanism absorbs much of the powerful5.7x28mm cartridge’s recoil and further enhances the pistol’s han-dling characteristics. The Five-seveN has no manual safety and in-stead relies on a unique two-stage trigger that first compresses thefiring-pin spring before moving on to actually release the firing pin.

ITALY

Beretta Model 1951

Following World War II Beretta introduced the Model 1951, alsoknown as the Model 951, chambered in caliber 9mm NATO. TheModel 1951’s locked-breech, recoil-operated mechanism is some-what similar to the Walther P38, although the Italian pistol lacksthe 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 heavierbut more durable steel frames. The Model 1951 is also fitted with apush-through button-type safety and is fed with an eight-roundmagazine. The Model 1951 was issued to the Italian Army and Navyfrom 1953 to 1982. The Nigerian police also used the Model 1951,as did the armed forces of Israel and Egypt, where it was manufac-tured under license as the Helwan. Beretta offered a select-fire ver-sion of the Model 1951—the M1951R that was issued to the Cara-biniere and counterterrorist organizations. The Model 1951R is


fitted with a 10-round magazine, longer barrel, heavier slide, and ex-tra grip mounted under the muzzle for extra control. The selectorswitch is positioned on the frame above the trigger guard. TheModel 1951R, as are most true machine pistols, is extremely diffi-cult to control in full-automatic fire, and many arms experts havequestioned the practicality of such weapons.

Beretta 92

In 1976 Beretta began manufacturing the Model 92—an improvedaluminum alloy frame, double-action design based on the BerettaModel 1951. The company continually modified the basic Model 92to offer a considerable number of later models varying in size, cal-iber, and external features. Calibers offered include 9mm NATOand .40 S&W with standard magazine capacities of 15 rounds instandard-size pistols and 13, 11, and eight in various compact mod-els. The Italian Army and police adopted the 9mm NATO Beretta92S with a slide-mounted safety/decocking lever. Numerous othercountries adopted the Model 92, including Brazil, where Forjas Tau-rus SA, Porto Alegre, manufactures it under license. In 1985 theU.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 highmagazine–capacity, 9mm Short (.380 ACP), blowback pistol basedon the company’s earlier caliber 7.65 (.32 ACP) Model 81. The pis-tol is also made by the Belgian arms giant Fabrique Nationale andsold as the FN BDA380. The standard Model 84 accepts a 13-roundmagazine with a number of variants available with such features asloaded-chamber indicators and decocking levers. The Model 84 hasproven a high-quality compact sidearm for police use.

Beretta Model 93R

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

278 PISTOLS

a muzzle compensator, folding front grip, and detachable stock tohelp reduce muzzle climb during full-automatic fire. It also acceptseither 15- or 20-round magazines. The Model 93R’s greatest advan-tage over the earlier 1951R is that it is fitted with a three-shot burstselector that minimizes the chances of the user losing control of thepistol during automatic fire.

SPAIN

Spain’s three main pistol manufacturers, Astra, Star, and Llama,carried on their tradition of manufacturing high-quality weaponsduring the second half of the twentieth century. All three companiesmaintained their facilities in the Basque region and continue to pro-duce pistols for the Spanish military and police forces, as well asweapons for foreign governments. Current post–World War II Span-ish 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 A-50 Constable in 1960 as an affordable alternative to the Walther PPKfor the police and civilian markets. Although available in calibers .22Long Rifle and 7.65mm (.32 ACP), it was also offered in the more po-tent 9mm Short (.380 ACP) chambering. The short-recoil operatedAstra A-80 appeared in 1981 and was that company’s contribution tothe new generation of high magazine–capacity, double-action mili-tary-type handguns. It was made available in a range of calibers, in-cluding 9mm NATO, 7.65mm Parabellum, .38 Super Auto, and .45ACP. Magazine capacity is 15 rounds in the smaller calibers, with thecaliber .45 ACP version accepting an eight-round magazine. It is anaccurate and reliable weapon with polymer grips and recurved fronttrigger-guard strap for two-handed aiming. Although not equippedwith a manual safety, the A-80 is a very safe pistol to handle, being fit-ted with a decocking lever as well as a firing-pin lock.

The A-90 replaced the A-80 in 1985 and is a slightly improvedand safer version of the original design. It employs a manual safetyattached to the slide that locks the rear section of the pistol’s two-piece firing pin. Astra continued its development and improvementof the series and dispensed with the manual safety in 1990 with the


M-100. The A-100 is chambered for either the 9mm NATO or .45ACP 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, respec-tively, are more compact pistols available in calibers 9mm NATOand .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 itsreputation for excellent-quality pistols based on the Browning lockingsystem. It continued its Modelo A series in production as the SuperStar until 1983. Spanish police organizations adopted the Star Model30M as their standard sidearm soon after its debut in 1988. It is a 15-shot 9mm NATO weapon and operates on a slightly modified Colt-Browning locking system. Star also incorporated the Swiss SIG sys-tem of manufacturing in that the M30 slide rides on rails within theframe to allow a more positive fit and to increase accuracy. The 30Mis fitted with an ambidextrous safety that withdraws and locks the fir-ing pin and prevents the hammer from striking it. Star also manufac-tures a more compact version of the 30M, the 30PK.

Llama M82

The Spanish Army adopted Llama’s new double-action M82 in the1980s. The M82 retains much of the Colt 1911 styling with moreraked-back and angular lines that give it a distinctly more modernappearance. It does depart from the earlier Colt-Astra locking mech-anism in that it employs the locking-wedge principle introduced inthe Walther P38 and also used in the Beretta 92. It is chambered in9mm NATO and is fitted with a 15-round magazine and a slide-mounted safety.

FRANCE

MAS-1950

The postwar French Army was armed with a mixture of native Mle

280 PISTOLS

1935A and 1935S and foreign pistols, including the Colt Model1911A1 and Walther P38 (some P38s actually being assembled bythe French after they were allowed to occupy the Walther factory).Their experience with the latter convinced them to at last demanda more potent weapon chambered for the 9mm Parabellum car-tridge. St. Etienne thus modified the Mle 1935S to accept thelarger cartridge and increased its magazine capacity to nine to pro-duce the new MAS-1950. St. Étienne and Châtellerault then car-ried out production of the pistol. The MAS-1950 is fitted with aloaded-chamber indicator on its slide, horizontally grooved grippanels, and either a Parkerized or enamel finish. The MAS-1950saw extensive use by French forces in the heavy fighting in Algeriaand Indochina.

MAB Pistolet Automatique 15 (Model F 1)

Produced by Manufacture d’Armes Automatiques, Lotissement In-dustriel des Pontots, Bayonne, the double-action MAB 9mm Para-bellum Pistolet Automatique 15 appeared in the late 1970s and wasoriginally designed as a competition pistol. In appearance, the PA 15closely resembles the earlier Browning and Petter designs, withcheckered wood grips and a blued finish. It is fitted with an exposedhammer and both a frame-mounted safety as well as a magazinesafety. A recoil-operated weapon, it is locked by a rotating barrel andfed by a 15-round, staggered-row magazine. Although an excellentmilitary weapon, the PA 15 ceased production in the late 1980s withthe financial failure of MAB, which prompted the French govern-ment’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 ceasedwith the end of World War II. The postwar Japanese Self-DefenseForces initially adopted as standard issue the Colt caliber .45 ACPModel 1911A1 as used by the United States and, later, the 9mmNATO SIG-Sauer P220. During the 1950s Shin Chuo Kogyo K. K.of Tokyo began manufacturing a line of revolvers and semiautomat-


ics that it marketed as the New Nambu. The New Nambu Model57A, as considered for adoption by the Self-Defense Forces, is amodified Browning-Colt design chambered for the caliber 9mmNATO cartridge. The company also produced the smaller caliber7.65mm (.32 ACP) blowback Type 57B, also a modified Browningdesign.

SOUTH AFRICA

Vektor Z-88 and SP1

The Republic of South Africa initially issued FN Browning HighPowers to its forces. Imports ended, however, with a United Na-tions–mandated ban on arms shipments in response to the country’spolicy of apartheid. The embargo, in turn, prompted the country toinitiate its own domestic arms industry in the late 1960s and early1970s. The first South African–manufactured pistol was the VektorZ-88, a licensed copy of the 9mm NATO Beretta Model 92. In 1992Lyttleton Engineering Company of Pretoria began production of theVektor SP1 for issue to the South African Defence Force. The cal-iber 9mm NATO SP1 incorporates a Walther-type tilting-wedgelocking system in combination with a number of more modern fea-tures. It is a double-action weapon constructed with a machinedsteel 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 incaliber .40 S&W and is fitted with an 11-round magazine. Lyttletonoffers a conversion kit that allows the SP2 to fire 9mm ammunition.The SP-1 and SP-2 General Officer’s Pistols are scaled-down ver-sions of the original models intended for use by higher-ranking offi-cers.

282 PISTOLS

Individual Pistol Models

283

EARLY PISTOLS

Appearing in the fifteenth century, the earliest pistols incorporatedthe matchlock principle, relying on a smoldering length of cord forignition. Their vulnerability to damp conditions and general unrelia-bility, however, made them impractical combat weapons and rela-tively few saw actual use. The wheel lock appeared in about 1500and, although relatively delicate and expensive to manufacture, fi-nally provided a suitable weapon for mounted troops. The wheellock relied on sparks from a spring-activated serrated steel wheelspinning against iron pyrites to ignite its priming. This innovationeliminated the need for a smoldering match and provided a firearmthat could safely be carried loaded and ready to fire from horseback.The wheel lock was instrumental in making the pistol an integralpart of the cavalryman’s arsenal and helped lead to the obsolescenceof the mounted knights’ traditional lances and swords. By the mid-1500s firearms designers began abandoning the wheel lock mecha-nism in favor of systems relying on the striking of flint against steelfor ignition. Handgun evolution subsequently produced such typesas the snaphaunce, dog lock, and miquelet before culminating inthe true flintlock in about 1630. Relatively simple and rugged, theflintlock remained in wide use until the first half of the nineteenthcentury.

The Matchlock: circa early fifteenth to centuries 294

The Wheel Lock: circa fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries294

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, Scotlandpatented the use of fulminate powder for firearms ignition. Highly ex-plosive when struck a sharp blow, fulminates made possible the elimi-nation of the complex flintlock priming procedure and introduced thepercussion ignition system. Within fifteen years other inventers de-vised a method of containing fulminates in a small metal cup—thepercussion cap—and quickly rendered all earlier firearms obsolete.During the 1840s and 1850s all major powers began manufacturingpercussion pistols and converted thousands of the older flintlocks tothe new system. In 1836 the American Samuel Colt patented the firstpractical percussion revolver, thus initiating a worldwide revolution infirearms manufacturing and technological innovation. The percussionrevolver was the standard sidearm of the American Civil War and sawwide use by other nations until it was eventually phased out in the1870s 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

284 PISTOLS

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, circa1863–1875 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 ModelRevolver, circa 1861–1865 305

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

The self-contained metallic cartridge offers the advantages of speedin reloading and resistance to moisture. In the 1850s designers com-bined the metallic cartridge with the bored-through cylinder to cre-ate the first modern breech-loading revolvers. Primitive forms ofmetallic cartridges had appeared in Europe during the early years ofthe nineteenth century; in about 1836 the Frenchman CasimirLefaucheux introduced the pinfire system. The pinfire cartridge uti-lized a small metal pin that extended from the side of the cartridgebase and protruded through a notch in the rear of the revolver’scylinder. The strike of the pistol’s hammer on the pin forced itagainst the priming within the cartridge base, thus detonating thecartridge. Although popular in Europe during the mid-nineteenthcentury, the pinfire cartridge proved liable to accidental detonationand reached obsolescence by the 1870s.

In 1857 the Americans Horace Smith and Daniel B. Wesson com-bined the bored-through cylinder patented by Rollin White with asmall, caliber .22 cartridge of their own invention containing itspriming in the cartridge base’s rim. Their caliber .22 Model No.1 Re-volver was the first mass-produced rimfire pistol and the partners’venture proved so successful that both the firm of Smith & Wessonand various forms of their cartridge survive into the twenty-first cen-tury. Later innovations included the larger caliber centerfire cartridgeoffering the twin advantages of being easily reloaded and a lethalitysuited to military weapons. By the 1880s metallic cartridge revolvers

INDIVIDUAL PISTOL MODELS 285

had replaced the muzzle-loading percussion system and continue tosee 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, 1889314

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 ofthe trigger and mechanically reload and recock themselves by divert-

286 PISTOLS

ing a portion of the energy from their discharge. Semiautomatics of-fer numerous advantages over revolvers in their ease of reloading, ex-panded cartridge capacities, and higher rate of fire. Appearing at theend of the nineteenth century, semiautomatics soon replaced re-volvers in the arsenals of the major military powers and are issueduniversally at the present time. Although Germany at first led theworld in semiautomatic developments it was soon challenged byother nations, most notably the United States. In 1896 Peter PaulMauser introduced the Model 1896, the first mass-produced au-toloading pistol that saw worldwide military usage. The P08, anotherGerman development by Georg Luger, was essentially a refinementof an earlier design by Hugo Borchardt. The most prolific and suc-cessful of all pistol designers, however, was an American, JohnBrowning. Browning’s Model 1900, manufactured by Colt, becamethe model for countless other designs throughout the world. Hisgreatest fame came from his celebrated caliber .45 ACP Colt Models1911 and 1911A1, the United States’ primary sidearms from WWIthrough the Vietnam War. The legacy of Browning continues in thewidespread incorporation of his ideas by others—the vast majority ofmodern semiautomatics still utilize the basic Browning principles es-tablished 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 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 Model 1927 (vz. 27), 1927 330


Czechoslovakia: CZ 1950 (vz. 50), 1950 331

Czechoslovakia: CZ Model 1952, 1952 331



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: 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: 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

288 PISTOLS

Italy: Beretta Model 1915 350

Italy: Beretta Model 1915/19 350





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: 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


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 MarkI, 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

290 PISTOLS

SPECIFICATIONS

Caliber: The diameter of the bore of a firearm or a projectile inthousandths to the inch.

Overall Length: The distance from the rear of the grip to the endof 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 pro-

jectile 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 afresh cartridge. Common types of operation are “blowback” and“recoil.”


EARLY PISTOLS

293

294 EARLY PISTOLS

THE MATCHLOCKCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Circa early fifteenth to mid-seventeenth centuries. Japanese Matchlock.

THE WHEEL LOCKCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Circa fifteenth to early seventeenth centuries.

EARLY PISTOLS 295

ENGLISH LOCKCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Early seventeenth century.

FRENCH LOCKCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Circa 1610 to nineteenth century.

296 EARLY PISTOLS

SCOTTISH PISTOLCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Seventeenth to eighteenth centuries.

QUEEN ANNE PISTOLCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Seventeenth to eighteenth centuries.

EARLY PISTOLS 297

DUELING PISTOLCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Eighteenth to nineteenth centuries.

298 EARLY PISTOLS

DUCK FOOT PISTOLCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Eighteenth to nineteenth centuries.

P E R C U S S I O N P I S T O L S

299

300 PERCUSSION PISTOLS

THE PEPPERBOXCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Late 1830s–early 1860s.

UNITED KINGDOM: ADAMS PERCUSSION REVOLVERCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

1851–1860s.

PERCUSSION PISTOLS 301

UNITED KINGDOM: TRANTER PERCUSSION REVOLVERCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

1853–1860s.

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY PERCUSSION REVOLVERCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

1853–1860s.


UNITED STATES: COLT PATERSON REVOLVERCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Circa 1838–1840.

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

1847.


UNITED STATES: COLT MODEL 1851 NAVY REVOLVERCourtesy 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.


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 REVOLVERCourtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

1863–1875.


UNITED STATES: STARR REVOLVERCourtesy 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.

307

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

308 CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS

Caliber: 9mmOverall Length: 239mm (9.4”)Barrel Length: 119mm (4.7”)

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

JAPAN: TYPE 26, 1893

Caliber: 10.35mmOverall Length: 260mm (10.25”)Barrel Length: 133mm (5.25”)

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

ITALY: MODEL 1889

Caliber: 7.62mmOverall Length: 230mm (9.06”)Barrel Length: 110mm (4.33”)


RUSSIA/SOVIET UNION: NAGANT MODEL 1895

CARTRIDGE REVOLVERS 309

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY .45 WG, 1889

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

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

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

1900.

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY MARK IV, 1899




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


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


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

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



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

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY MARK V, 1929


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

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

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

UNITED KINGDOM: BRITISH SMITH & WESSON .38 PISTOL, C. 1940

Caliber: .38 British Service, .38 S&WOverall Length: 259mm (10.2”)Barrel Length: 127mm (5”)



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, 1873–1878Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

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

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

ACP


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


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

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



Caliber: .45 ACPOverall Length: 273mm (10.75”)Barrel Length: 140mm (5.5”)

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

UNITED STATES: COLT NEW SERVICE REVOLVER, MILITARY MODEL 1917, WORLD WAR I ISSUE

Caliber: .45 ACPOverall Length: 274mm (10.78”)Barrel Length: 140mm (5.5”)

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

AND


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

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

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

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

Caliber: .44 S&W Special, .45 Colt, .44S&W Russian, .450 Eley, .44-40 Win-chester

Overall Length: 298mm (11.75”)

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


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

Caliber: .357 MagnumOverall Length: 255mm (10”)

(with 102mm (4”) barrel) Barrel Lengths: 64mm (2.5”), 102mm

(4”), 152mm (6”), or 203mm (8”)

Weight empty: 1116 g (39 oz)(w 102mm (4”) barrel)

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

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

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

(4”)

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


UNITED STATES: COLT LAWMAN, 1969Courtesy 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

102mm (4”)

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

(.38 Special)


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

UNITED STATES: RUGER SECURITY SIX, 1968

Caliber: .357 MagnumOverall Length: 235mm (9.25”)Barrel Length: 102mm (4”)

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

UNITED STATES: RUGER GP 100, 1987

Caliber: .357 MagnumOverall Length: 235mm (9.25”)Barrel Length: 152mm (6”), 102mm

(4”) or 70 mm (2.75”)

Weight empty: 1247g (44 oz) with152mm (6”) barrel

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

(.38 Special)

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

321

Caliber: .45 ACPOperation: recoilLength overall: 228 mm (8.5”)Barrel length: 127mm (5”)

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

322 SEMIAUTOMATICS

ARGENTINA: BALLESTER MOLINA, CIRCA 1930

AUSTRIA: STEYR Pi18, 1974

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)Operation: gasLength overall: 216mm (8.5”)

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

Caliber: 8mm Roth-SteyrOperation: recoilLength overall: 233mm (9.18”)Barrel length: 131mm (5.18”)


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

Caliber: 9mm Steyr or 9mm ParabellumOperation: recoilLength overall: 216mm (8.5”)Barrel length: 128mm (5.2”)

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

SEMIAUTOMATICS 323

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

AUSTRIA: STEYR GB, 1981

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)Operation: gasLength 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 Parabel-lum); .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)

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

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

324 SEMIAUTOMATICS

AUSTRIA: GLOCK MODEL 17, 1983Courtesy 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: 7Muzzle velocity: 290 mps (950 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 325

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

BELGIUM: FN MODEL 1903

Caliber: 9mm Browning Long, 7.65mm(.32 ACP), and 9mm Short (.380 ACP)

Operation: BlowbackLength 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)

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP), 9mm Short(.380 ACP)

Operation: blowbackLength overall: 153mm (6.02”)

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



Operation: blowbackLength overall: 178mm (7”)Barrel length: 114mm (4.5”)

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

(875 fps)

326 SEMIAUTOMATICS


Caliber: 9mm ParabellumOperation: Short recoilLength overall: 197mm (7.75”)Barrel length: 120mm (4.65”)

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

SEMIAUTOMATICS 327

BELGIUM: FN BROWNING GP-35 HIGH POWER, 1935

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

recoilLength overall: 200mm (7.87”)

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

328 SEMIAUTOMATICS

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

SEMIAUTOMATICS 329

Caliber: 5.7x28mm FNOperation: recoil, rotating barrelLength overall: 208mm (7.8”)Barrel length: 122.5mm (4.42”)

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

(2132 fps)

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

Caliber: 7.65x17mm Type 64 rimlessOperation: blowbackLength overall: 230mm (9.05”) Barrel length: 95mm (3.74”)


330 SEMIAUTOMATICS

CHINA: TYPE 64, 1964

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 22, 1922

Caliber: 9mm Short (.380 ACP)Operation: recoilLength overall: 152mm (6”)Barrel length: 91mm (3.55”)

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

CHINA: TYPE 67, 1967

Caliber: 7.62x17mm Type 64 rimlessOperation: blowbackLength overall: 226mm (8.90”)

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


Caliber: 9mm Short (.380 ACP)Operation: recoilLength overall: 152mm (6”)Barrel length: 91mm (3.55”)

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

CZECHOSLOVAKIA: CZ 27 (VZ27), 1927

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP)Operation: blowbackLength overall: 158mm (6.25”)Barrel length: 100mm (3.9”)

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

(920 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 331

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

Weight empty: 936g (33 oz)Magazine capacity: 8

Muzzle velocity: c. 304 mps (1,000fps)

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





Caliber: 7.62mm Czech M48 (7.62Soviet)

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

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

332 SEMIAUTOMATICS

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

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

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


Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)Operation: short recoilLength overall: 206mm (8.11”)

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

SEMIAUTOMATICS 333

Caliber: 9mm ParabellumOperation: recoilLength overall: 245mm (9.68”)Barrel length: 105mm (4.18”)

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

fps)

FINLAND: LAHTI L-35, 1935

FRANCE: MODÈLE 1935A, 1938

Caliber: 7.65mm LongOperation: recoilLength overall: 193mm (7.6”)Barrel length: 109mm (4.3”)


FRANCE: MODEL 1935S, 1940

Caliber: 7.65mm LongOperation: recoilLength overall: 188mm (7.4”)Barrel length: 104mm (4.1”)


334 SEMIAUTOMATICS

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

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

fps)

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

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


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

SEMIAUTOMATICS 335

Caliber: 7.65mm MannlicherOperation: retarded blowbackLength overall: 244mm (9.62”)Barrel length: 160mm (6.31”)


fps)

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

GERMANY: LUGER MODEL 1900

Caliber: 7.65mm ParabellumOperation: recoilLength overall: 241mm (9.5”)Barrel length: 121mm (4.75”)


336 SEMIAUTOMATICS

Caliber: 7.63mm Mauser and 9mmParabellum

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

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

(7.63 Mauser cartridge)

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

SEMIAUTOMATICS 337



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

338 SEMIAUTOMATICS


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

32-round drumMuzzle velocity: 381 mps (1250 fps)

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

GERMANY: WALTHER MODEL 6, 1915

Caliber: 9mm ParabellumOperation: BlowbackLength overall: 210mm (8.25”)Barrel length: 121mm (4.75”)

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

GERMANY: MAUSER MODEL 1910

Caliber: 7.65mmOperation: blowbackLength overall: 153mm (6.2”)Barrel length: 87mm (3.4”)


SEMIAUTOMATICS 339

Caliber: .22LR, 6.35mm, 7.65mm, 9mmShort

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

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

(950 fps)

GERMANY: WALTHER MODEL PP, 1929

340 SEMIAUTOMATICS

Caliber: 22LR, 6.35mm, 7.65mm, 9mmShort

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

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

(950 fps)

GERMANY: WALTHER MODEL PPK, 1931

SEMIAUTOMATICS 341

Caliber: 7.63mmOperation: recoilLength overall: 298.5mm (11.75”)

w/o stock; 648mm (25.5”) w stockBarrel length: 143mm (5.63”)

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

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




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

GERMANY: SAUER BEHORDEN MODEL, 1930



GERMANY: SAUER MODEL 38H, 1938



342 SEMIAUTOMATICS

Caliber: 9mm ParabellumOperation: Short recoilLength overall: 213mm (8.6”)Barrel length: 127mm (4.9”)


GERMANY: WALTHER P-38, 1938

SEMIAUTOMATICS 343

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

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

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

GERMANY: VOLKSPISTOLE, 1944–1945

Caliber: 9mm ParabellumOperation: delayed blowbackLength overall: 213 mm (8.38”)Barrel length: 127mm (5”)


fps)

GERMANY: HECKLER & KOCH, 1967HK4/ P11

Caliber: .22LR, 6.35mm (.25 ACP),7.65mm (.32 ACP), 9mm Short (.380ACP)


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

(968 fps)

344 SEMIAUTOMATICS


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

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

SEMIAUTOMATICS 345

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabel-lum); .40 S&W (other calibers available)

Operation: delayed blowbackLength 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, 1973Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

GERMANY: HECKLER & KOCH P7 K3, CIRCA 1973

Caliber: 9mm Short (.380 ACP)Operation: blowbackLength overall: 160mm (6.3”)

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

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)or .45 ACP

Operation: delayed blowbackLength 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)

346 SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMANY: HECKLER & KOCH P9/ P9S, CIRCA 1972


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

SEMIAUTOMATICS 347

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

GERMANY: WALTHER P88, 1988

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)Operation: Short recoilLength 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, ham-mer 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); 270mps (886 fps) (.45)

Caliber: .45 ACPOperation: Recoil, dropping barrelLength overall: 245mm (9.65”);

w/suppressor 421mm (16.57”)Barrel length: 149mm (5.87”)

Weight empty: 1210g (42 oz); w/sup-pressor and full magazine 1920g (68 oz)

Magazine capacity: 12Muzzle velocity: c. 270 mps (886 fps)

348 SEMIAUTOMATICS

GERMAN: HECKLER & KOCH MARK 23 MOD 0, 1996

HUNGARY: FROMMER STOP MODEL 19, 1912


Operation: long recoilLength overall: 165mm (6.5”)

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

HUNGARY: MODEL 37M, 1937


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

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

mps (920 fps)

HUNGARY: MODEL 48, 1948

Caliber: 7.62mmOperation: recoilLength overall: 195mm (7.68”)Barrel length: 116mm (4.57”)

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

Caliber: 9mm GlisentiOperation: delayed blowbackLength overall: 207mm (8.22”)Barrel length: 100mm (3.91”)


fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 349

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



350 SEMIAUTOMATICS

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1915Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1915/19



ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1923

Caliber: 9mm GlisentiOperation: blowbackLength overall: 177mm (7”)Barrel length: 87mm (3.5”)


fps)

Caliber: 9mm Corto (.380 ACP)Operation: blowbackLength overall: 152mm (6”)Barrel length: 94mm (3.7”)


SEMIAUTOMATICS 351

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1934Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 1931

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP)Operation: blowbackLength overall: 152mm (5”)

Barrel length: 88mm (3.46”)Weight empty: 700g (24.6 oz)Magazine capacity: 8

Caliber: 9mm ParabellumOperation: Short recoilLength overall: 203mm (8”)Barrel length: 114mm (4.51”)

Weight empty: 890g (31 oz); 709g (25oz) w/aluminum receiver

Magazine capacity: 8Muzzle velocity: c. 350 mps (1182

fps)

352 SEMIAUTOMATICS

ITALY: BERETTA 1951Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)Operation: short recoilLength overall: 217mm (8.54”)Barrel length: 125mm (4.92”)

Weight empty: 950g (33.5 oz) Magazine capacity: 15Muzzle velocity: 390 mps (1280 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 353

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 92, 1976Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 94, 1976

Caliber: 9mm Short (.390 ACP)Operation: blowbackLength overall: 172mm (6.8”)


ITALY: BERETTA MODEL 93R, 1986

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)Operation: Short recoil, selective fireLength overall: 240mm (9.45”)Barrel length: 156mm (6.14”)

Weight empty: 1129g (39.8 oz)Magazine capacity: 15 or 20Muzzle velocity: 375 mps (1230 fps)Cyclic rate: 1100 rpm

Caliber: 8mm NambuOperation: recoilLength overall: 228mm (9”)Barrel length: 120mm (4.7”)


fps)

354 SEMIAUTOMATICS

JAPAN: NAMBU TYPE 04, 1909Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 8mm NambuOperation: recoilLength overall: 227mm (8.93”)Barrel length: 121mm (4.75”)


fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 355

JAPAN: NAMBU TYPE 14, 1925Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 8mm NambuOperation: recoilLength overall: 180mm (7.13”)Barrel length: 79mm (3.13”)


fps)

356 SEMIAUTOMATICS

JAPAN: TYPE 94, 1934Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

JAPAN: NEW NAMBU MODEL 57A, CIRCA 1988



MEXICO: OBREGON, 1934

Caliber: .45 ACPOperation: recoilLength overall: 210mm (8.25”)Barrel length: 124mm (4.88”)

Weight empty: 595g (21oz)Magazine capacity: 7Muzzle velocity: c. 260 mps (850 fps)

Caliber: 9mm ParabellumOperation: recoil Length overall: 211mm (7.8”)Barrel length: 115mm (4.7)


fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 357

POLAND: RADOM VIS, 1935Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

POLAND: MODEL 64, 1964

Caliber: 9mm MakarovOperation: blowbackLength overall: 155mm (6.1”)Barrel length: 84mm (3.3”)


Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP)Operation: delayed blowbackLength overall: 167mm (6.6”)Barrel length: 87mm (3.5”)


358 SEMIAUTOMATICS

PORTUGAL: M908 SAVAGE MODEL, 1907

PORTUGAL: M915 SAVAGE MODEL, 1915

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) and 9mmShort (.380 ACP)

Operation: delayed blowbackLength overall: 167mm 6.5”

Barrel length: 96mm (3.8”)Weight empty: 625g (22 oz)Magazine capacity: 10Muzzle velocity: c. 289 mps (950 fps)

SOUTH AFRICA: VEKTOR SP1, 1992



Caliber: 7.62x35 mmOperation: recoilLength overall: 193mm (7.68”)Barrel length: 116mm (4.57”)


fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 359

SOVIET UNION: TOKAREV TT-33, 1936Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm MakarovOperation: BlowbackLength overall: 160mm (6.35”)Barrel length: 98mm (3.85”)


fps)

360 SEMIAUTOMATICS

SOVIET UNION: MAKAROV, 1951Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm MakarovOperation: blowbackLength 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: 20Muzzle velocity: 335 mps (1100 fps)Cyclic rate: 750 rpm

SEMIAUTOMATICS 361

SOVIET UNION: STETCHKIN APS, 1951Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 5.45mm SovietOperation: blowbackLength overall: 160mm (6.3”)


362 SEMIAUTOMATICS

SOVIET UNION: PSM, 1980Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9x23mm Largo (9mmBergmann Bayard)

Operation: blowbackLength overall: 204 mm (8.03”)Barrel length: 165 mm (6.49”)


fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 363

SPAIN: CAMPO-GIRO MODEL 1913

SPAIN: CAMPO-GIRO MODEL 1913–16


Operation: blowbackLength overall: 204 mm (8.03”)

Barrel length: 165 mm (6.49”)Weight empty: 1049g (37 oz)Magazine capacity: 8Muzzle velocity: c. 355 mps (1165 fps)

SPAIN: ASTRA 400, MODEL 1921, 1921



Barrel length: 140mm (5.5”)Weight empty: 1049g (37 oz)Magazine: 8Muzzle velocity: c. 345 mps (1210 fps)

SPAIN: STAR MODEL MILITAR 1921, MODEL 1921, MODEL A SERIES, 1921

Caliber: 9mm Largo (Bergmann-Bayard)Operation: recoilLength overall: 202mm (7.95”)Barrel length: 127mm (5”)


SPAIN: ASTRA MODEL 300, 1922

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP) and 9mmShort (.380 ACP)

Operation: —Length overall: 165mm (6.5”)


Caliber: 7.63 mm MauserOperation: recoilLength 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)

364 SEMIAUTOMATICS



Caliber: 7.63mm MauserOperation: recoil, select-fireLength overall: 362 mm (14.25”)Barrel Length: 183 mm (7.25”)

Weight: 1332g (47 oz)Magazine capacity: 20Muzzle velocity: c. 456 mps (1500

fps)

SPAIN: LLAMA PISTOLA AUTOMATICA MARQUE IX, 1930S

Caliber: 9mm Largo (Bergmann-Bayard)Operation: recoilLength overall: 158mm (6.25”)Barrel length: 87mm (3.5”)


SPAIN: SUPER STAR, CIRCA 1940

Caliber: 9mm Largo (Bergmann-Bayard)Operation: recoilLength overall: 204mm (8.03”)Barrel length: 134mm (5.25”)


SPAIN: ASTRA A-50, 1960

Caliber: .22 Long Rifle, .32 ACP, or .380ACP


Barrel length: 89mm (3.5”)Weight empty: 680g (24 oz)Magazine capacity: 10 (.22 LR), 8

(.32), 7 (.380)

Caliber: 9mm Largo, 9mm NATO (9mmParabellum), .38 Super Auto, .45ACP, or7.65 Parabellum

Operation: Short recoilLength 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)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 365


SPAIN: LLAMA M82, 1985




Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum),.40 S&W, .45 ACP

Operation: short recoilLength 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 recoilLength 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: 15Muzzle velocity: 375 mps (1230 fps)

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)or .40 S&W

Operation: recoilLength overall: 166mm (6.54”)

Barrel length: 89mm (3.5”)Weight empty: 840g (31 oz)Magazine capacity: 8 (9mm), 7 (.40

S&W)

366 SEMIAUTOMATICS

SPAIN: ASTRA A-70 AND A-75, 1992–1993Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

SWEDEN: LAHTI M-40, 1942



fps)


Weight empty: 900g (34 oz) Magazine capacity: 8Muzzle velocity: 351 mps (1150 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 367

SWITZERLAND: SIG P210/P49, 1949Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

SWITZERLAND: SPHINX AT-2000S, 1984

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum);.40 S&W

Operation: short recoilLength overall: 204mm (8.03”)

Barrel length: 115mm (4.53”)Weight empty: 1030g (36.3 oz)Magazine capacity: 15Muzzle velocity: 352 mps (1155 fps)



368 SEMIAUTOMATICS

SWITZERLAND/GERMANY: SIG-SAUER P-220/ PISTOL 75, 1975Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)Operation: Short recoilLength overall: 180mm (7.09”)Barrel length: 97.6mm (3.84”)


SEMIAUTOMATICS 369

SWITZERLAND/GERMANY: SIG-SAUER P-225 / P6, 1980Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)Operation: Short recoilLength overall: 196mm (7.72”)


370 SEMIAUTOMATICS

SWITZERLAND/GERMANY: SIG-SAUER P-226 / XM9, 1983Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.


Weight empty: 830g (29 oz) Magazine capacity: 13Muzzle velocity: 340 mps (1115 fps)

SEMIAUTOMATICS 371

SWITZERLAND/GERMANY: SIG-SAUER P-228/229, 1989Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .455 Webley automaticOperation: recoilLength overall: 216mm (8.5”)Barrel length: 127mm (5”)


372 SEMIAUTOMATICS

UNITED KINGDOM: WEBLEY & SCOTT .455 MARK I, 1912Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: .45 ACPOperation: Short recoilLength overall: 219mm (8.62”)Barrel length: 127mm (5”)


SEMIAUTOMATICS 373

UNITED STATES: COLT MODEL 1911 AND MODEL 1911A1, 1911Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

UNITED KINGDOM: WELROD MARK 1, 1942Courtesy of Art-Tech\Aerospace\M.A.R.S\TRH\Navy Historical.

Caliber: 7.65mm (.32 ACP)Operation: single-shotLength overall: 312 mm (12”)

Barrel length: 111mm (4.4”)Weight empty: 1011g (36oz.)Magazine capacity: 6

Caliber: .45 ACPOperation: single shotLength overall: 141mm (5.55”)Barrel length: 102mm (4”)

Weight empty: 445g (15.6 oz)Magazine capacity: n/aMuzzle velocity: c. 250 mps (820 fps)

374 SEMIAUTOMATICS

UNITED STATES: GUIDE LAMP “LIBERATOR,” 1942

UNITED STATES: SMITH & WESSON MODEL 39, 1954

Caliber: 9mm NATO (9mm Parabellum)Operation: recoilLength 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: recoilLength 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 ACPOperation: recoilLength overall: 200mm (7.88”)


G L O S S A R Y

back action: a type of percussion lock with the main spring located to therear of the tumbler

Baltic lock: an early form of the flintlock appearing at the beginning of theseventeenth century

barrel: the metal tube that guides the pistol’s projectilebarrel band: a flattened metal ring that secures the barrel to the stock on

some early military pistolsbarrel pin: a metal pin that passes through the stock and an extension on

the bottom of the barrel to secure the two componentsbattery: also known as the frizzen, the hardened metal component of the

flintlock mechanism upon which the flint strikes to create sparks andthus ignite the priming powder

black powder: early propellant created by mixing potassium nitrate (salt-peter), charcoal, and sulfur

blowback action: mechanism used in lower-powered semiautomatic pis-tols without a mechanical locking system. Blowback pistols typicallyutilize a strong spring to hold the breech closed until the bullet leavesthe muzzle

blueing: a heat and chemical treatment for metal components that resultsin a protective blue finish

blunderbuss: a firearm with a dramatically swelled muzzlebolt: 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 inthe chamber

bootleg pistol: a concealable, usually muzzleloading pistol traditionallycarried in a boot as a secondary weapon

bore: the inside of the barrelbox lock: an early firearms mechanism utilizing a hammer attached to the

inside of the lock platebrace: a pair, as in a brace of pistols

375

breech: the rear end of the barrelbreech plug: a threaded metal plug that seals the breech of a flintlock or

percussion barrelbridle: a metal component on the interior of a flint or percussion lock that

secures the tumbler and sear to the lockplatebrowning: an early metal treatment for weapons that resulted in a pur-

plish-brown protective finishbullet: the actual projectile, usually of lead, that is fired from a pistol or

long armbullet patch: a small piece of material, usually cloth, placed around a

round bullet to aid in gripping the bore’s riflingbutt cap: a protective, sometimes ornamental, metal piece that covers the

base of the stock’s buttcaliber: 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 aninch)

cartridge: the combination of bullet and powder, usually wrapped in a pa-per or skin tube in early forms, and requiring separate priming for per-cussion and flintlock pistols. Self-contained metallic cartridges employ aprimer in their base

casehardening: a heat treatment that hardens metal components. Colorcasehardening imparts a decorative swirling pattern on metal parts.

chamber: the rear segment of the barrel that holds the cartridgecheckering: the often decorative texturing of the stock to provide a secure

gripcock: an early term for the hammer of flintlock pistols. It is also the action

that prepares a pistol for immediate firingcone: also known as a nipple, a small hollow tube that screws into a per-

cussion weapon’s breech and provides a seat for the percussion capcylinder: the revolving drum-shaped component of a revolver bored with

typically five or six chambers to contain the cartridgesdag: an archaic term for a large pistolderringer: 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 en-

gages a notch on the lower rear of the hammerdoghead: the component of the wheel-lock mechanism that presses the

iron pyrites against the wheeldouble-action: the mechanism that automatically cocks and releases the

hammer with a single pull of the triggerdueling pistol: a typically unadorned yet highly accurate single-shot flint-

lock or percussion pistol specifically made for duelingEnglish lock: an early form of flintlock, often incorporating a “dog,” or

safety catch, behind the hammer

376 GLOSSARY

extractor: the component that engages the rim of the cartridge case in or-der to remove it from the chamber

fence: a vertical projection on the rear of the pan of flintlock pistols de-signed 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 strikesagainst the frizzen to create the sparks necessary for ignition

flintlock: a mechanism utilizing the striking of a flint against a hardenedsteel frizzen to create sparks to ignite its priming

frame: the major metal component that connects the barrel, cylinder, ac-tion, and grips of a revolver. Also, the lower major component of a semi-auto to which the slide is attached

French lock: also known as the true flintlockfrizzen: also known as the battery, the hardened steel component of a flint-

lock that the flint strikes to create sparks for ignitiongrip: the handle of a pistol, usually made of woodgrooves: the channels cut in a rifled borehalf-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 andfully cocked position. In revolvers, the half-cock position also allows thecylinder to rotate freely

half stock: usually found on single-shot flintlock or percussion pistols, astock that extends for half the length of the barrel

hammer: the spring-powered, pivoting component of a firearm mechanismthat strikes the priming to ignite the main powder charge; in earlyweapons known as the cock

hand: a revolver component attached to the hammer that pushes upwardagainst notches in the rear of the cylinder to rotate it to the nextchamber

hang fire: a dangerous delay between the striking of the primer and the ac-tual ignition of the main powder charge. It is usually caused by defectiveor damp priming or damp powder in the chamber.

horse pistol: a large, usually single-shot military pistol, typically carried aspairs in saddle holsters

lands: the raised part of the grooves cut in a rifled boreloading gate: a hinged “door” on the frame at the rear of a revolver’s cylin-

der that allows cartridges to be loaded into the chambers and spentcases to be extracted

loading lever: a hinged ramrod mounted on percussion revolverslock plate: the metal plate to which the major mechanical components of

a muzzleloading, single-shot pistol are attachedmagazine: the reservoir that holds the cartridges in a semiautomatic pistol.

Most semiautomatic pistols utilize a detachable “box” magazine fitted inthe grip that holds seven or more cartridges

mainspring: the high-tension spring that powers the hammer

GLOSSARY 377

match: the length of potassium nitrate-impregnated hemp cord that whenlit provides the ignition for matchlock weapons

matchlock: the first and most simple type of firing mechanism, typicallyutilizing a “serpentine” cock and glowing, saltpeter-impregnated hempcord, or “match”

miquelet: early form of flintlock popular in Spain and distinguished by anexternal mainspring and large ring at the top of the hammer screw

muzzle: the open end of the barrelmuzzleloader: a weapon loaded through the muzzle with a ramrodnipple: also known as the cone, a small hollow tube that screws into a per-

cussion weapon’s breech and allows a seat for the percussion capnose cap: a protective metal cap attached to the front of a single-shot,

muzzleloader’s fore endpan: small metal dish next to the vent that holds the priming powder on

matchlocks, wheel locks, and flintlockspepperbox: a percussion pistol with multiple revolving barrelspercussion cap: a small copper or brass cup containing a fulminate of mer-

cury priming compound and placed on the nipple of a percussionweapon

pill lock: early percussion system using a small “pill” of fulminate boundwith gum arabic rather than contained in a metallic cap

pin fire: early cartridge system utilizing a metallic cartridge with internalpriming ignited by the hammer striking a small metal pin protruding at aright angle from the base of the case

primer: highly combustible material used to ignite a pistol’s main powdercharge. In later center-fire pistols it is contained in a small metal capcontained in the cartridge base

pyrites: shortened form of iron pyrites, or “fool’s gold.” Used in wheellocks to create sparks against the serrated edge of the action’s wheel toignite the priming. Owing to the pyrites’ tendency to crumble, they werelater replaced with a piece of flint in the flintlock

Queen Anne pistol: popular in England during the early eighteenth cen-tury, a pistol lacking a fore end and with a barrel that unscrews at thebreech for loading and unloading

rammer/ramrod: a metal or wood rod used to push a muzzleloading pistol’spowder and ball securely into the breech of the weapon

revolver: a handgun with a revolving cylinder typically bored with five orsix chambers

rifling: spiral grooves cut into the bore of the barrel to impart a stabilizingspin to the ball or bullet

sear: a component of the lock that engages a notch in the hammer uponcocking and is released by the trigger, thus firing the weapon

serpentine: the S-shaped cock of an early matchlock that holds the pieceof smoldering match

378 GLOSSARY

single-action: a handgun that must be manually cocked by pulling backthe hammer before firing

smokeless powder: a mixture of nitrocellulose, ether, and alcohol used asthe propellant in modern firearms

smoothbore: a nonrifled firearmsnaphaunce: an early form of flintlock characterized by having a separate

frizzen and pan coverstock: the usually wood component of a pistol that connects the metal

components and provides a grip for the userstriker: the firing pin in a semiautomatic pistol that hits the cartridge

primer to cause ignitiontang: an extension of the breech plug that generally provides a support for

a screw to secure the breech of the barrel to the stocktangent sight: an adjustable, ladder-shaped rear sightthimble: a metal ring or ferrule in the ramrod channel under the barrel of

single-shot flintlock or percussion pistols to provide extra support to theramrod in its stowed position

top jaw: the upper component of a flintlock hammer through which thetop jaw screw passes to secure the flint

top strap: in some revolvers, the section of the frame that extends over thetop 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 pow-der in the pan passes to ignite the main powder charge

trigger: the projection at the bottom of the pistol that, when pressed by thefinger, releases the sear to fire the weapon

trigger guard: a bow-shaped metal component that protects the triggertumbler: the pivoting internal component of the lock to which the ham-

mer is attached and which is also cut with the half-cock and full-cocknotches to engage the sear

underhammer pistol: a typically percussion handgun with the hammermounted on the bottom of the weapon

vent: also known as the touchhole, the hole in the breech of a matchlockor flintlock through which the flame from the priming powder in thepan passes to ignite the main powder charge

wheel lock: early ignition system incorporating a spring-powered serratedwheel that spins against iron pyrites to create the sparks to ignite thepriming powder

GLOSSARY 379

B I B L I O G R A P H Y

Bailey, De Witt and Douglass A. Nie. English Gunmakers: The Birminghamand Provincial Gun Trade in the 18th and 19th Century. (New York: ArcoPublishing Company, Inc. 1978).

Baldick, Robert. The Duel. (New York: Clarkson N. Potter, Inc., 1965).Bishop, Chris, ed. Combat Guns and Infantry Weapons. (Shrewsbury: Air-

life 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/ tablesCochran, Hamilton, Noted American Duels and Hostile Encounters.

(Philadelphia: Chilton Books, 1963). Curtis, Chris C. System Lefaucheux: Continuing the Study of Pinfire Car-

tridge Arms Including Their Role in the American Civil War. (Santa Ana,CA: Armslore Press, 2002).

Dowell, William Chipchase. The Webley Story. (Kirkgate, Leeds: TheSkyrac Press, 1967).

Edwards, William B. Civil War Guns. (Secaucus, NJ: Castle Books, 1962).Ezell, Edward C, Handguns of the World: Military Revolvers and Self-Load-

ers from 1870 to 1945. (Harrisburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1981). Com-prehensive/ illustrated/ social/cultural/technical

Ezell, Edward Clinton. Small Arms of the World, 12th revised edition. (Har-risburg: Stackpole Books, 1983).

Flayderman, Norm. Flayderman’s Guide to Antique American Firearms, 7thEdition. (Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1998).

George, J.N. English Pistols & Revolvers. (New York: Arco Publishing Com-pany, Inc., 1962).

Hogg, Ian V., Handguns and Rifles. New York: Gramercy Books, 1999).———. Jane’s Guns Recognition Guide. (Glasgow: Harper Collins, 2002).

381

Hogg, Ian V. and John Weeks. Military Small Arms of the Twentieth Cen-tury: A Comprehensive Illustrated Encyclopedia of the World’s Small-Calibre Firearms, 6th edition. (Iola, WI: DBI Books, 2000).

———. Pistols of the World: The Definitive Illustrated Guide to the World’sPistols 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 Car-

tridges. (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. Duttonand 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: TheStackpole 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 Revolversof the World, 1870 to the Present. (Mechanicsburg, PA: Greenhill Books,1997).

382 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abel, Sir Frederick, 153Abercrombie and Fitch, 180Adams, John, 74, 138-39Adams, Robert, 74, 75, 138Adams Percussion Revolver (U. K.),

74, 75-77, 81, 285, 300Aetna Arms Company, 117Africa, 3, 9Age of Discovery, 23Alexis, Grand Duke, 132Allen, Ethan, 56, 62Allen & Thurber, 56Allen & Wheelock, 56, 117Allen & Wheelock Army Revolver

(U. S.), 97Alsop, Charles R., 91American Revolution, 45, 46Ames, J. T., 112Ames, N. P., 59ammunition

flintlocks and, 26semiautomatic pistols and, 175

Andri, Alfred, 202Ansley, Jesse A., 101Anti-Dueling Association, 33antigun laws, 2Argentina, 212, 288, 328arquebus (matchlock musket), 6Aston, Henry, 60Astra A-50, 1960 (Spain), 279, 290,

365Astra A-70 and A-75, 1992-1993

(Spain), 279, 290, 366Astra A-80, 1981 (Spain), 279, 290,

371Astra A-90 (Spain), 279

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), 250Astra Model 900, 1928 (Spain), 250-

51, 290, 364Astra Model 902, 1928 (Spain), 251,

290, 364Augusta Machine Works, 103Austria

cartridge revolvers in, 149-51, 286matchlocks in, 6post-WWII developments in, 273-

76semiautomatic pistols in, 224-27,

288, 328-30Austro-Hungarian Model 1870 Gasser

Army Revolver (Austria), 150,286

Bacon, Roger, 1Bacon, Thomas, 98Bacon Arms Company, 98Bacon Manufacturing Company, 98Ballester Molina (Argentina), 288, 322Barthlemens, Fritz, 194Beals, Fordyce, 83, 85-86, 93Beaumont, Frederick, 74, 77Beauregard, P. G. T., 103Beistegui, Juan and Cosme, 252Belgium

cartridge revolvers in, 158-59percussion pistols in, 62

383

I N D E X

post-WWII developments in, 276-77

semiautomatic pistols in, 214-21,288, 331-35

Benet, S. V., 125Bennett, T. G., 201Berdan, Hiram, 125-26Beretta, Pietro, 241-42Beretta family, 28Beretta M9 (Model 92FS0) (U. S.),

263-64Beretta MOD (Italy), 359Beretta Model 84 (Italy), 278Beretta Model 92, 1976 (Italy), 257,

276, 278, 289, 353Beretta Model 93R, 1986 (Italy), 278-

79, 290, 353Beretta Model 94, 1976 (Italy), 289,

353Beretta Model 1915 (Italy), 240-41,

241-42, 289, 350Beretta Model 1915/19 (Italy), 241-

42, 289, 350Beretta Model 1923 (Italy), 241-42,

289, 350Beretta Model 1931 (Italy), 242-43,



289, 352Bergman Models 1894, 1896, 1897

(Germany), 187-88Bergmann, Theodor, 187Blake, Eli Whitney, 92Blake, Philos, 92blunderbuss pistols, 36Blunt and Sims, 62Bomford, George, 58Booth, John Wilkes, 57boot pistols, 56Borchardt, Hugo, 174, 176-77, 288Boutet, Nicolas-Noël, 25Boutet, Noël, 25-26, 28Boutet, Pierre-Nicolas, 26Bowie, James, 59Boxer, Edward Mounier, 126Branconet, Henri, 152Britain. See United KingdomBritish East India Company, 79Browning, John, 3, 200-201, 214, 218-

19, 288Browning, Matthew Sandefur, 200

Browning .45 ACP Colt Models 1911and 1911A1 (U. S.), 288

Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) (U. S.), 201

Browning Model 1900 (U. S.), 260,288

Buntline, Ned, 128Burr, Aaron, 32Burton, Sir Richard Francis, 72

C. B. Allen, 59Campo-Giro Model 1913 (Spain),

248-49, 290, 363Campo-Giro Model 1913-16 (Spain),

248-49, 290, 363cannons, 1, 5cartridge revolvers

in Austria, 149-51in Belgium, 158-59cavalry and, 136-37Colt, 106, 123-24, 162-65conversions and, 120-36development of, 105-6Dreyse, 108-9Flobert, 111in France, 109-11, 151-55in Germany, 147-49individual models of, 285-86,

308-11in Italy, 157in Japan, 161-62Lefaucheux, 109-10Pauly, 106-8in Prussia, 108Remington, 122-23in Russia, 131-32, 160-61Smith & Wesson, 111-20, 129-36,

165-67smokeless powder and, 152-53in Spain, 158in Switzerland, 106-8, 155-57in United Kingdom, 138-47in United States, 120-36, 162-67Webley, 140-46See also percussion pistols; pistols;

semiautomatic pistolsCatherine the Great, 22Catlin, George, 71-72cavalry

cartridge revolvers and, 136-37firearms and, 2flintlocks and, 39-40matchlocks and, 2, 9

384 PISTOLS

pistols and, 3revolvers and, 3wheel locks and, 2, 283

Ceballosy Aguirre, Don VenancioLopez de, 248

Cendoya, Don Juan Pedro de Unceta-Baerenechea, 248

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA),206

Chamelot and Delvigne Mle 1873 andMle 1885, 153-54

Charles I, 20Charleville arsenal (France), 46Chase, Anson, 64Chatham, Lord, 50Cheney, Elisha, 46Chiang Kai-shek, 220China, 1, 288, 336

See also People’s Republic of Chinachivalry, 2, 7CIA. See Central Intelligence AgencyCity Company (United Kingdom), 20Clapp, Everett, 87Cochran Turret Revolver, 64-65Code Duello, 30, 32Codex Atlanticus (da Vinci), 11Cody, William “Buffalo Bill”, 128, 130,

132Cold War, 255Collier, Elisha H., 43-44, 64Collier pistols, 43-44, 284Colt, Samuel, 89

background of, 63-64cartridge revolvers and, 106, 112-

13invention of revolvers and, 3patents of, 85, 97-98percussion revolvers and, 284semiautomatic pistols and, 202-9in United Kingdom, 72-74, 78-79

Colt Aircrewman (U. S.), 168, 286Colt 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, 319Colt M15 General Officers Pistol,

1972 (U. S.), 262-63, 291, 374Colt Model 1848 Baby Dragoon

Revolver (U. S.), 69-70Colt Model 1849 Pocket Revolver, 70-

71

Colt Model 1851 Navy Revolver (U. S.), 71-72, 98-99, 101, 102,284, 303

Colt Model 1855 SidehammerRevolver (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 ArmyRevolver (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.), 163Colt Model 1900 (U. S.), 202-3Colt Model 1902 Military Automatic

Pistol (U. S.), 203Colt Model 1903 Hammerless .32

Pocket Auto (U. S.), 204-5Colt Model 1908 Hammerless .25

Caliber Auto (Model N) (U. S.),205-6

Colt Model 1917 Revolver (U. S.),287, 321

Colt Model 1917 New ServiceRevolver, Military Model (U. S.),166-67, 286, 316

Colt Model M Hammerless .380Pocket Auto (U. S.), 205

Colt New Navy, Army, and MarineRevolvers, 1889 (U. S.), 164-65,286, 314

Colt New Service Double ActionRevolver (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, 318Colt Richards-Mason Cartridge

Conversion (U. S.), 127, 286Colt-Root Model. See Colt Model

1855 Sidehammer Revolver (U. S.)

Colt Walker Model (U. S.), 67-68, 71,92, 284, 302

INDEX 385

Colt Whitneyville Hartford DragoonRevolver (U. S.), 68-69

Columbus Fire Arms ManufacturingCompany, 103

Cominazzo, Fortunato Lazarino, 17Cominazzo, Lazarino, 17-18Committee for the Admiralty and Navy

(1658), 21Confederate Griswold & Gunnison

Revolver (U. S.), 101, 285Conrad, Charles M., 58Constable, Richard, 55Continuation War (1944), 237Cotter, August, 6Crispin, Silas, 118Cromwell, Oliver, 13, 14Crosse, J. G., 76Custer, George Armstrong, 82, 87,

115, 130, 137CZ 22, 1922 (Czechoslovakia), 230,

288, 330CZ 24, 1924 (Czechoslovakia), 230,

288, 330CZ 38, 1938 (Czechoslovakia), 231-

32, 288, 331CZ 75, 1975 (Czechoslovakia), 259,

288, 332CZ 82 (Czechoslovakia), 259-60CZ 83 (Czechoslovakia), 259-60CZ 85, 1985 (Czechoslovakia), 259,

288, 332CZ 1950 (vz. 50), 1950

(Czechoslovakia), 258, 288, 331Czechoslovakia, 228-32, 259, 288,

336-38CZ Model 1927 (vz.27), 1927

(Czechoslovakia), 231, 288, 330CZ Model 1952, 1952

(Czechoslovakia), 258-59, 288,331

CZ Model 1970 (Czechoslovakia), 258

dagger pistols, 38Darling, Benjamin and Barton, 61, 62da Vinci, Leonardo, 11Deane, Adams & Deane, 75, 76-77Deane, George and John, 75Decatur, Stephen, 32de Milamete, Walter, 1Denmark, 19, 21, 110, 188-89Deringer, Henry, 55, 58, 59Deringer, Henry, Jr., 57

Desaintes, Louise-Émile, 25De Secretis Operibus Artis et Naturae

(Bacon), 1Deutsches Waffen und Munitions

Fabriken (DWM), 178, 179, 181,235

Dickens, Charles, 73Dodge, W. C., 130dog lock (English lock), 26, 283, 295Dragoon pistols, 41-42, 68-69, 284Dreyse, Franz von, 108Dreyse, Johann Nickolaus von, 108duck foot pistol, 36, 284, 298dueling pistols, 29-33, 55, 284, 297DWM. See Deutsches Waffen und

Munitions Fabriken

E. Allen & Co., 56E. Remington & Sons, 83Earp brothers, 128, 130Echeverria, José-Cruz, 252Edict of Nantes (1685), 21Egg, Durs, 52, 106Egg, Joseph, 28, 55Ehbets, Carl J., 124, 164, 202, 208Elgin, George, 59Elizabeth I, Queen, 15-16Elliott, George Augustus, 41Elliott, William H., 86Ellis, Willard, 119Enfield factory (United Kingdom), 54Enfield Pistol, Revolver, No. 2 Mk1

and Mk1*, 1931 (U. K.), 145-46, 286, 312

England. See United KingdomEnglish Civil War (1642-1649), 13-14,

20Esperanza, Don Juan, 248

Fabrique d’armes Émile et LéonNagant, 158-59

Fabrique Nationale (FN), 197, 202,214-18

Fawcett, David, 33Feederle, Fidel, Friedrich, and Josef,

183Finland, 235-37, 289, 339flintlocks, 3, 16-26

accessories and, 28-29American colonial pistols, 45-46ammunition and, 26Baltic lock, 19blunderbuss pistols, 36

386 PISTOLS

cavalry and, 39-40characteristics of, 16collier pistols, 43-44Collier pistols, 284dagger pistols, 38dog lock, 26, 283Dragoon pistols, 41-42, 284duck foot pistol, 36, 284, 298dueling pistols, 28, 29-33, 284, 297English, 20-21English lock (dog lock), 23-25, 283,

295French lock, 24-26, 283, 295French pistols, 44-45gunpowder and, 27Harpers Ferry Armory models, 47holster pistols, 34ignition and, 17, 18, 23, 25, 50,

283improvements of, 27Kalthoff pistols, 37-38Lorenzoni pistols, 37-38miquelet (Spanish), 16, 22-23, 283multiple-shot pistols, 35naval pistols, 40Nock pistols, 42-43, 284percussion pistols vs., 51pocket pistols, 34-35Prussian pistols, 45Rappahannock Forge, 46Roman candle pistols, 37Russian pistols, 22Scandinavian snaplock, 21Scottish pistols, 19-20, 41, 284snaphaunce, 16-18, 21, 27, 283standardization of, 38-39, 40-41,

44superimposed pistols, 36-37traveling pistols, 33, 284turn-off pistol (Queen Anne pistol),

34, 284, 296types of, 28-38See also matchlocks; wheel locks

Flobert, Louis Nicolas Auguste, 111,113

Floyd, John B., 81FN BDA 9, 1993 (Belgium), 276-77,

288, 328FN 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, 134Forsyth, Alexander John, 49-51, 52,

105, 106, 284Fosbery, G. V., 76, 144France

cartridge revolvers in, 109-11, 151-55, 286

dueling in, 31flintlocks in, 17, 24-26, 44-45, 283,

295percussion pistols in, 55, 62post-WWII developments in, 280-


289, 339-40wheel locks in, 16

Franco, Francisco, 250Francotte, August, 78, 131-32Frankford Arsenal, 125Franklin, William B., 124Franz Ferdinand, Archduke, 215-16Freeman, Austin T., 95Freeman Army Revolver (U. S.), 95French and Indian War, 45French Model 1777, 46, 47French Revolution, 25Frommer, Rudolf, 227-28Frommer Model 29 (Hungary), 228Frommer Stop Model 19, 1912

(Hungary), 227-28, 289, 348

Gabbet-Fairfax, Hugh W., 221-22, 223Gabbet-Fairfax Self-Loading Pistol

(U. K.), 221-22Gabilondo y Urresti, 253Galand, Charles-François, 131Galy-Cazalat, M., 109Garrett, Pat, 128, 133, 163Gasser, Leopold, 149-50Gasser-Kropatschek Model 1876

(Austria), 151General Motors Corporation, 213Germany

cartridge revolvers in, 147-49, 286dueling in, 31

INDEX 387

flintlocks in, 19-20matchlocks in, 6percussion pistols in, 55post-WWII developments in, 265-

70, 270-73semiautomatic pistols in, 176-200,

287-88, 289, 290, 341-54wheel locks in, 11, 13, 14

Giovanbattista, 8Girard, Charles F., 103Glaze, William, 58Glisenti Model 1910 (Italy), 240-41,

242, 289, 349Glock, 257, 273-74Glock, Gaston, 273Glock 17 (Austria), 274-75, 288, 324Gorloff, Aleksandr P., 132Grant, Ulysses S., 126Grease Guns. See Guide Lamp

“Liberator”, 1941 (U. S.)Great Britain. See United KingdomGreece, 189Griswold, Samuel, 101Guérard, Nicholas, 22Guide Lamp “Liberator”, 1941 (U. S.),

213-14, 291, 374Gunnison, A. W., 101gunpowder, 1, 26, 27

Häussler, Paul, 241Hall, John H., 47-48, 89, 202Hamilton, Alexander, 32Hamilton, Philip, 32Hancock, Winfield Scott, 137hand cannons, 1, 5Harper’s Weekly, 119Harpers Ferry Armory, 47, 58, 92Heavy Dragoons, 41, 41-42Heckler & Koch, 1967 (Germany),

289, 343Heckler & Koch Mark 23 mod 0

(Germany), 269-70Heckler & Koch Mk.23 mod 0, 1996

(Germany), 289, 348Heckler & Koch Model HK 4/ P 11

(Germany), 266-67Heckler & Koch Model VP70

(Germany), 268Heckler & Koch P7, 1973 (Germany),

267, 289, 345Heckler & 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, 24Henry VIII, King, 8Hickock, Wild Bill, 115Hitler, Adolf, 181, 194, 250Hoard, Charles B., 94-95, 96Hoffmann, Heinrich, 181Holland, 13holster pistols, 34Houllier, M., 109, 111Household Words (Dickens), 73Hungary, 227-29, 289, 354Hunt, Walter, 111Hunter, James, 46Hunter Iron Works (Rappanhannock

Forge), 46Hyde, George, 213

ignitionflintlocks and, 17, 18, 23, 25, 50,

283matchlocks and, 5percussion pistols and, 49-54, 57,

61, 284revolvers and, 64wheel locks and, 283

India, 3, 9Indian Wars, 60Institute of Civil Engineers, London,

73Ireland, 29-30iron pyrites, 11-12, 18Italy

cartridge revolvers in, 157, 286flintlocks in, 17-18, 21, 23pistols in, 1post-WWII developments in, 277-

79revolvers in, 287, 314semiautomatic pistols in, 240-43,

289-90, 355-59wheel locks in, 11, 13

J. & F. Garrett & Company, 103J. H. Dance & Brothers, 103J. M. Browning & Brother, 200J. M. Cooper & Co., 98-99J. P. Sauer & Sohn, 198Jackson, Thomas “Stonewall”, 110James, Frank and Jesse, 87, 134, 135

388 PISTOLS

Japancartridge revolvers in, 161-62, 286early pistol production in, 3matchlocks in, 9-10post-WWII developments in, 281-

82revolvers in, 287, 314semiautomatic pistols in, 243-47,

290, 360-62Jarvis, Richard W. H., 124Jennings, Lewis, 112Johnson, Cornelius, 6Johnson, Ira N., 60Johnson, Robert, 47Joslyn Army Model Revolver (U. S.),

97Josyln Firearms Company, 97Joyce, Frederick, 53

Köllner, Caspar, 6Kalthoff pistols, 37-38Keen, C. R., 101Kerr, John, 74, 77, 78Kerr Percussion Revolver (U. K.), 74,

77-78, 81, 285Kiefuss, Johann, 11King, C. A., 130Kirkpatrick, Judson, 101Korean War, 169Koulikov, Lev, 257Krnka, Karel, 226Kronberg Gebaerfabrik, 110

Lahti, Aimo Johannes, 236Lahti L-35, 1935 (Finland), 236-37,

289, 333Lahti M-40, 1942 (Sweden), 237-38,

290, 366Lashnev, Tikhon, 257law enforcement, 4Lawrence, Richard, 61Lebel, Nicholas, 154Le Bourgeoys, Marin, 24-25Leech, Thomas, 102Lefaucheux, Casimir, 109, 285Lefaucheux Mle 1870 (France), 152Lefaucheux Model 1858 French Navy

Revolver (France), 81, 109-10,286

LeMat, Jean Alexandre Francois, 103LeMat Grapeshot Revolver (U. S.),

103-4

LeMat Two-Barrel Revolver (U. S.),285, 303

Light Dragoons, 41, 41-42light snapping lock. See snaplockLincoln, Abraham, 57Lindsay, John P., 99-100Llama M82, 1985 (Spain), 290, 365Llama Pistola Automatica Marque IX,

1930s (Spain), 253, 290, 364London Armoury, 78London Times, 73Lord Landsdowne’s Act, 33Lorenzoni, Michel, 37-38Louis XIII, 24Lovell, George, 54Ludwig Loewe Company, 133, 177,

214Luger, Georg, 177-78, 207, 288Luger Model 1900 (Germany), 178,

289, 335Luger 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, 62Manhattan Firearms Company, 97-98Mannlicher, Ferdinand Ritter von, 224Mannlicher Model 1894 (Austria),

224-25Mannlicher Model 1896 (Austria),

225Mannlicher Model 1900 (Germany),

225-26, 289, 335Manton, Joseph, 28, 51-52, 55, 62Manufacture de Versailles, 25Marengoni, Tullio, 242Marquart family, 14Martin, E. H., 125MAS 1950 (France), 280-81, 289, 334Mason, William, 124, 127, 163, 164Massachusetts Arms Company, 78,

112Masterson, Bat, 128matchlocks, 5-10, 16, 283, 294

See also flintlocks; wheel locks

INDEX 389

Mauser, Peter Paul, 148-49, 183-85,288

Mauser, Wilhelm, 148-49Mauser Model 1896 (Germany), 188,

258, 260, 288Mauser Model 1896/1912 (Germany),

183-85, 289, 336Mauser Model 1910 (Germany), 186,

289, 338Mauser Model 1914 (Germany), 186Mauser Model 1932 (Germany), 185,

289, 341Mauser Model 1934 (Germany), 186,

289, 341Mauser Model HSc (Germany), 186-

87, 289, 343Mauser Wetentaschenpistol (Vest

Pocket Pistol; WTP) (Germany),186

Mauser Zig-Zag Revolver (Germany),148-49

Maynard, Edward, 60McCall, Jack, 115McClellan, George, 82McLanahan, J. K., 101-2Memphis Novelty Works, 102Merwin & Bray, 119-20Merz, Martin, 6metallic cartridges. See cartridge

revolversMetropolitan Arms Co., 98-99Mexican War, 60, 67Mexico, 212, 290, 362military pistols. See pistolsmiquelet (Spanish), 3, 16, 17Mle 1886 Lebel service rifle (France),

153Mle 1892 (France), 154-55, 286Modéle 1935A, 1938 (France), 238-

39, 289, 333Modéle 1935S, 1940 (France), 238-

39, 288, 333Model 37M, 1937 (Hungary), 228-29,

288, 348Model 48, 1948 (Hungary), 348Model 64, 1964 (Poland), 260, 289,

357Model 65 (Poland), 260Model 1842 Percussion Navy Pistol

(U. S.), 59-60Model 1855 Pistol-Carbine,

60-61

Model 1872/78 Cartridge Revolver(Switzerland), 155-56

Model 1882 Enfield (U. K.), 286, 309Model 1895 (Russia), 286, 308,

314Model 1917 WWI issue (U. S.), 287Modell 1882 and Modell 1882/29

Ordnance Revolvers(Switzerland), 156-57

Modello 1872 Revolver (Italy), 157Modello 1889 Revolver (Italy), 157,

286, 308Modelo 1884 Revolver (Spain), 158Moira, Lord, 50Moore, Daniel, 120Moray, Sir Robert, 171Mordecai, Alfred, 78Morocco, 19Morrill, Mosman, and Blair, 59Morse, Samuel F. B., 64Mosby, John Singleton, 137Mosin, Ivanovith, 160mounted troups. See cavalrymultiple-shot pistols, 35Munroe, Alexander, 33Mussolini, Benito, 243

Nagant, Charles, 161Nagant, Maurice, 161Nagant, Emile and Léon, 158-59Nagant Model 1893 (Belgium), 159Nagant Model 1895 (Russia), 160-61,

308Nagant Models 1878, 1883, 1886, and

1887 (Belgium), 159Nambu Type 04, 1909 (Japan), 244-

45, 290, 354Nambu Type 14, 1925 (Japan), 245-

46, 290, 355Napoleon, 25, 26, 106Napoleonic Wars, 22, 42National Arms Company, 117NATO. See North Atlantic Treaty

OrganizationNavy Elgin Cutlass Pistol, circa 1838

(U. S.), 284Navy Elgin Cutlass Pistol (U. S.), 59Netherlands, 16New Haven Arms Company, 112New Nambu Model 57A (Japan), 281-

82, 289, 356New Nambu Model 57B (Japan), 281-

82

390 PISTOLS

Nicholas, King, 150Nichols and Childs, 64, 65Nickl, Josef, 229-30Nobel, Alfred, 153Nock, Henry, 42-43Nock pistols, 284Norman, I. G., 131-32North, Simeon, 32, 46, 47, 58North Africa, 19North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO), 255-57North Korea, 261-62Norway, 21, 211-12

Oakley, Annie, 134Obregon, Alejandro, 212Obregon (Mexico), 212, 290, 356Offensive Handgun Weapon System

(OHWS), 270Office of Strategic Services (OSS),

206, 213OHWS. See Offensive Handgun

Weapon SystemOpus Majus (Bacon), 1Ordinentz, Kasavery, 132-33Ordnance Office (United Kingdom),

40Ordonanzrevolver Modell 1872

(Switzerland), 155-56OSS. See Office of Strategic Services

P08 Parabellum Luger, 1908(Germany), 178-82, 288, 289,337

Palmetto Arsenal, 58, 60patchlocks, 51Patent Arms Manufacturing Company,

65, 67Patent Double Shooting Firearms, 99-

100Patent Firearms Company, 117, 120Patter 1796, 42-43Patton, George S., Jr., 128Pauly, Samuel Johannes, 106Pauly Pistol (Switzerland), 106-8, 286Peard, James, 208Pearson, John, 64pellet locks, 51Pelouze, T. J., 152People’s Republic of China, 255, 260-

61See also China

The Pepperbox, 61-63, 284, 300

percussion pistolsboot pistols, 56civilian, 54-56Colt, 63-74confederate, 100-104conversion, 54-55dueling pistols, 55flintlocks vs., 51Forsyth and, 49-51ignition and, 49-54, 57, 61, 284individual models of, 300-305invention of, 3metallic cartridges and, 49patchlocks, 51pellet locks, 51-52The Pepperbox, 61-63, 284, 300pocket and coat pistols, 57Remington, 83-87revolvers and, 3Starr, 87-100tube locks, 52U. S. Civil War and, 80-104, 284U. S. military pistols, 58-61underhammer pistols, 56-57See also cartridge revolvers; pistols;

semiautomatic pistolsPerrin & Delams, 151Perry, Matthew, 9Peter the Great, 22Pettengill, C. S., 95-96Pettengill Revolvers (U. S.), 95Petter, Charles Gabriel, 238Pfister, Laux, 12Phillipines, 128Pinkerton, Allan, 78Pistol, Revolver, Adams, Central Fire,

Breech Loading,Interchangealbe, (Mark II) (U. K.), 139

Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo1905 (Germany), 188

Pistola Bergmann de 9mm Modelo1908 (Germany), 188

Pistol No. 2, Smith & Wesson (U. K.),147

pistolsas combat weapon, 3-4development of, 1-4dueling, 28, 29-33early, 5-48, 283-84, 294-98firearms and, 1flintlock, 16-48gunpowder and, 1, 26

INDEX 391

matchlock, 5-10as personal weapons, 3, 4purposes of, 3standardization of, 3uses of, 3-4wheel lock, 10-16See also percussion pistols

Pitt, William, 50Plant Manufacturing Company, 119-

20pocket and coat pistols, 57pocket pistols, 34-35Poland, 232-33, 260, 290, 363Pomeroy, Lemuel, 58Pond, Lucius W., 117Portugal, 9, 22, 290, 364Pottet, Clement, 109Potzdam Magazin (Prussia), 45Prélat, M., 52, 106Prescott, E. A., 117Princip, Gavrilo, 215-16Prussia, 45, 108Pryse, Charles, 142PSM, 1980 (Soviet Union), 257-58,

290, 362Puckle, James, 26Purdey, James, 50, 62

Queen Anne pistol (turn-off pistol),34, 284, 296

Radom VIS, 1935 (Poland), 232-33,289, 357

Rappahannock Forge (Hunter IronWorks), 46

Rast & Gasser Model 1989 ArmyRevolver (Austria), 151

Raymond, Edward, 95-96Reichsrevolver (Germany), 147-48,

198, 286Remingron 1875 and 1890 Single

Action Army Revolvers (U. S.),123

Remington, Eliphalet, III, 83Remington, Eliphalet, Jr., 83, 158Remington, Eliphalet, Sr., 83Remington, Philo, 83Remington, Samuel, 83Remington 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., 211Remington-Rider Pocket Revolver

(U. S.), 85repeating weapons. See revolversRestoration, 21Revelli, Bethel Abiel, 241revolvers

cavalry and, 3development of, 63-104flint locks vs., 3ignition and, 64individual models of, 287, 314-25invention of, 3, 63-65mass production and, 3metallic cartridges and, 285-86Pepperbox and transition, 63percussion pistols and, 3semiautomatic pistols vs., 287in U. S. Civil War, 3warfare and, 80See also cartridge revolvers;

percussion pistols;semiautomatic pistols

Richards, Charles B., 124, 127, 163Rider, Joseph, 85Rifles and Volunteer Corps (Crosse), 76Rigby, William and John, 29, 62Rigdon, Ansley & Co., 101, 102Rigdon, Charles, 101Ripley, James W., 93Robert, J. A., 109Roberts, W. A., 95Robitaille, Charles, 95-96Roch, Pierre, 241Rock Island Arsenal, 179, 209Rogers, Henry S., 96Rogers & Spencer, 94-95, 95-96Rogers & Spencer Army Model

Revolver (U. S.), 96-97Roosevelt, Theodore, 128, 164-65Root, Elisha King, 82, 123-24Roth, Georg, 198, 226Roth-Steyr Model 1907 (Austria), 226,

288, 322Roth-Steyr Model 1912 (Austria), 226-

27, 323Royal Manufactory (France), 44Ruger GP 100 1987 (U. S.), 286, 320Ruger Security Six 1968 (U. S.), 169,

286, 320

392 PISTOLS

Ruger Speed-Six 1968 (U. S.), 169,286, 320

Rupert, Prince, 20Russia

cartridge revolvers in, 131-32, 160-61, 286, 308

flintlocks in, 22revolvers in, 287, 314See also Soviet Union

Russian Revolution (1917), 161Russo-Turkish War (1877-1878), 133

Salado, Juan, 14Salve, Dieudonne J., 219Sauer Behorden Model 1930

(Germany), 198, 288, 341Sauer Model 38H, 1938 (Germany),

199, 288, 341Sauer Model 1913 (Germany), 198Savage, Arthur W., 207-8, 209Savage & North, 89-90Savage Revolving Firearms Company

Navy Model Revolver (U. S.), 91,285, 305

Scandinavia, 16-17, 21Schöbein, Christian Frerich, 152Schönberger, Gerbruder, 177Schmeisser, Louis, 187, 188Schmidt, Rudolf, 156Schneider, Eugène, 109Schneider & Glassick, 103Schofield, George Wheeler, 134-36Schuyler, Hartley & Graham, 86, 93,

134, 135Schwarzlose, Andrea, 173, 177Scotland

flintlocks in, 16, 17, 19-20, 41,284, 296

percussion pistols in, 284Scott, Winfield, 58Searle, Elbert Hamilton, 207Second Balkan War, 189Seidel, Alex, 187semiautomatic pistols

advantages of, 287ammunition and, 175in Austria, 224-27, 328-30in Belgium, 214-21, 331-35in China, 336Colt, 202-9criticism of, 174-75in Czechoslovakia, 228-32, 336-38in Denmark, 188-89

in Finland, 235-37in France, 238-40, 339-40in Germany, 176-200, 341-54in Hungary, 227-29, 354individual models of, 287-91in Italy, 240-43, 355-59in Japan, 243-47, 360-62metallic cartridges and, 3in Poland, 232-33post-WWII developments and,

257-58pre-WWII development of, 171-76revolvers vs., 287safety and, 174, 184smokeless powder and, 3in Soviet Union, 233-35, 365-68in Spain, 247-53, 369-72in Sweden, 237-38, 372in Switzerland, 373-77in United Kingdom, 221-24, 378in United States, 200-214, 379-80See also percussion pistols; pistols

Sharps, Christian, 60-61Shaw, Joshua, 52, 53Shawk, William, 101-2Sherman, William T., 102SIG P210/P49, 1949 (Switzerland),

271, 290, 367SIG-Sauer, 256-57, 270-71SIG-Sauer P220/ Pistole 75, 1975

(Switzerland), 271-72, 290, 368SIG-Sauer P-225/P6, 1980

(Switzerland), 272, 290, 369SIG-Sauer P226 (Switzerland), 272-73SIG-Sauer P-226/XM9, 1983

(Switzerland), 290, 370SIG-Sauer P-228/229, 1989

(Switzerland), 273, 290, 371Simarin, Anatoliy, 257Skinner, Chauncy D., 89Slocum Patent Pocket Revolver

(U. S.), 117-18Smith, Horace, 111, 112, 113, 134,

285Smith & Wesson, 89, 285-86

patent circumventions of, 117-20Smith & Wesson .38/200 British

Service (U. S.), 286, 318Smith & Wesson .38 Pistol (U. K.),

286, 312Smith & Wesson Hand Ejector,

(U. S.), 165-66, 317

INDEX 393

Smith & Wesson Military & PoliceModel 10, 1905 (U. S.), 286,317

Smith & Wesson Model 3 AmericanFirst Model (U. S.), 122

Smith & Wesson Model 15 CombatMasterpiece and Model 19Combat Magnum (U. S.), 168-69

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. 1Revolver (U. S.), 114-15, 115-16

Smith & Wesson Model No. 2 OldModel Revolvers (U. S.), 115

Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 FirstModel Single Action Army (FirstModel American) (U. S.), 129-30

Smith & Wesson .44 Pistol (U. S.),131-33, 286, 313

Smith & Wesson Model No. 3 SecondModel Single Action Revolver(U. S.), 130-31

Smith & Wesson New Century HandEjector 1908 (U. S.), 286, 316

Smith & Wesson New Model No.3Single Action Revolver (U. S.),133-34

Smith & Wesson New Model Russian(Model 3 Russian Third Model)(U. S.), 133

Smith & Wesson Schofield SingleAction Revolver (U. S.), 134-36

Smith & Wesson U. S. Model 1917,287, 320

smokeless powder, 3, 152-53Smythe, A. J., 101, 102snaphaunce, 3, 16, 17-18, 20-21,

27snaplocks (luntenschnappsloss), 6South Africa, 282, 290, 364Soviet Union


revolvers in, 314semiautomatic pistols in, 233-35,

290, 365-68

Warsaw Pact and, 255See also Russia

Spaincartridge revolvers in, 158flintlocks in, 3, 16, 17, 22-23, 283matchlocks in, 6miquelet, 3, 16, 17, 22-23post-WWII developments in, 279-


290, 369-72wheel lock in, 14-15

Spanish Civil War (1936-1937), 248,253

Sphinx AT-2000S, 1984 (Switzerland),290, 367

Spiller & Burr, 102-3Springfield Arms Company, 72Springfield arsenal (U. S.), 47, 58Star Model 30M and 30PK, 1998

(Spain), 289, 371, 365Star Model Militar 1921, Model 1921,

Model A series, 1921 (Spain),252-53, 289, 363

Starr, Ebenezer, 87Starr, Nathan, 58Starr, Nathan, Jr., 87Starr Arms Company, 87, 89, 95Starr Revolver, (double-action circa

1858-1863; single-action circa1863-1865) (U. S.), 87-100,285, 305

Stetchkin APS, 1951 (Soviet Union),258, 289, 361

Stevens, Joshua, 112Steyr GB80 (Austria), 275-76Steyr GB 1981 (Austria), 287, 323Steyr Model 1912 (Austria), 287, 329Steyr M Series 2000 (Austria), 276,

287, 323Steyr Pi18 1974 (Austria), 275-76,

287, 322Stockwell, Elisha, 99-100Stoeger, A. F., 180Sturm, Ruger and Company, 169superimposed pistols, 36-37Super Star (Spain), 289, 364Sweden, 21, 237-38, 290, 372Switzerland

cartridge revolvers in, 106-8, 155-57, 286

matchlocks in, 6

394 PISTOLS


semiautomatic pistols in, 290, 373-77

Talcott, George, 58-59Tansley, George, 208Taylor, Zachary, 67Texas Paterson. See Colt Paterson

Revolver (U. S.)Thiry Years’ War (1618-1648), 12, 13,

20Thuer, F. Alexander, 124Tiffany, Louis Comfort, 82Tilgham, Ben, 135tinder lock. See snaplockTocqueville, Alexis de, 32Todd, George, 103Tokarev, Fedor Vasilevich, 234Tokarev TT-33, 1936 (Soviet Union),

233-35, 255, 259, 261-62, 289,359

Tower of London, 6, 40, 50The Transition Revolver, 284Tranter, William, 74, 77Tranter Percussion Revolver (U. K.),

77-78, 285, 301traveling pistols, 33, 284Treaty of Versailles, 180, 181tube locks, 52Tucker, Sherrard & Company, 103turn-off pistols, 34, 284Twain, Mark, 62-63Type 26 Revolver (Japan), 161-62,

243-44, 286, 287, 314Type 64, 1964 (China), 261, 287, 330Type 64 (North Korea), 261Type 67, 1967 (China), 261, 287, 330Type 68 (North Korea), 261-62Type 70 (North Korea), 262Type 94, 1934 (Japan), 246-47, 290,

356

U. S. Civil Warcartridge revolvers and, 115-16percussion pistols and, 60-61, 80-

104percussion pistols in, 71percussion revolvers and, 284revolvers in, 3

U. S. Coast Guard, 59-60, 119U. 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 ArmsCompany

underhammer pistols, 56Union Knife Company, 99Union Metallic Arms Company

(UMC), 207United Kingdom

cartridge revolvers in, 138-47, 286,308-9

dueling in, 32-33flintlocks in, 16, 20-21, 23-25, 40-

41, 41-45, 283-84, 295, 296matchlocks in, 6, 15-16percussion pistols in, 50-51, 54,

72-79, 300-301revolvers in, 287, 314-17semiautomatic pistols in, 221-24,

290, 378standardization in, 40-41, 44

United Statescartridge revolvers in, 111-20, 120-

36, 162-67, 286dueling in, 30, 32flintlocks in, 45-46, 46-48mass production in, 3NATO and, 255-57percussion pistols in, 55, 58-74,

302-5post-WWII developments and, 262-

65revolvers in, 3, 287, 318-25semiautomatic pistols in, 200-214,

288, 291, 379-80

Vektor SP 1, 1992 (South Africa), 282,290, 358

Vektor Z-88 (South Africa), 282Vician, Sir Richard Hussey, 44Victoria, Queen, 33, 138Vielle, Paul Eugène, 152-53Vietnam War, 169, 288Virginia Manufactory, 58Volcanic Arms Company, 112Volkspistole (Germany), 199-200, 289,

349

Wainwright, Jonathan M., 128

INDEX 395

Walch, John, 99-100Walch Firearms Company, 99Walker, Samuel H., 67-69Walker Replacement Dragoon (U. S.),

68-69Walther, Carl, 186, 189, 191Walther, Eric, 194Walther, Fritz, 191, 194Walther, Georg, 194Walther Model 6, 1915 (Germany),

288, 338Walther Model HP (Germany), 195-96Walther 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, 72Warsaw Pact, 255, 257, 259Waters, Asa, 47, 58Watt, James, 50Webley, Henry, 140Webley, James, 74, 77-78Webley, Philip, 74, 140Webley, Thomas, 140Webley & Scott .455 Pistol, Self-

Loading 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.), 140Webley .455 Pistol No. 1 Mk VI 1915

(U. K.), 145, 286, 319Webley Army Express Model 1878

(U. K.), 141Webley Fosbery Automatic Revolver

(U. K.), 144, 286, 309Webley Mark IV, 1899 (U. K.), 287,

314Webley Marks I-VI Revolvers, 143Webley Mark V, 1913 (U. K.), 315

Webley Mark V 1929 (U. K.), 286, 311Webley Mark VI Revolver (U. K.), 286Webley Model 1872 Royal Iriah

Constabulary Revolver (U. K.),140

Webley Percussion Revolver (U. K.),74, 77-78, 81, 285, 301

Weiss, Carl Austin, 218Wellington, Duke of, 33Welrod Mark I, 1942 (U. K.), 224,

290, 372Werk, Gustloff, 200Wesson, Daniel B., 111-13, 134, 285,

130Wesson, Edwin, 112Wheeler, Artemus, 43wheel locks, 10-16, 283, 294

cavalry and, 2, 10, 283flintlocks vs., 18, 20-21ignition and, 283impact of, 12-13invention of, 11matchlocks vs., 2mechanism of, 11-13society and, 12-13warfare and, 2, 12-13See also flintlocks; matchlocks

White, John H., 119White, Rollin, 104, 113, 118, 124,

126Whiting, William John, 223Whitney, Eli, 58, 83, 91, 92Whitney, Eli, Jr., 68, 92, 94Whitney-Beals Patent Pocket Revolver

(U. S.), 93Whitney Hooded Cylinder Pocket

Revovler (U. S.), 92Whitney Model 1798 flintlock musket,

91-92Whitney Navy Revolver (U. S.), 91-94,

285Whitney New Model Pocket Revolver

(U. S.), 94Whitney Pocket Model Percussion

Revolver (U. S.), 94Whitney Ring Trigger Pocket Revolver

(U. S.), 92-93Whitney Two Trigger Pocket Revolver

(U. S.), 92-93Whitneyville Armory, 91-94Wilkes-South Sea Exploring

Expedition, 59Wilkinson, Henry, 36

396 PISTOLS

Williamson, David, 120Winchester, Oliver, 89, 112Winchester Repeating Arms Company,

112, 177, 201Winchilsea, Earl of, 33Winter War (1939-1940), 237Wogdon, Robert, 28, 29Woolcott, H. H., 87

World War I, 180, 288World War II, 180Wright, E. Goode, 53

York, Alvin, 210Younger, Cole and Bob, 87, 135

Zeppelin, Ferdinand von, 106

INDEX 397

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Pistols: An Illustrated History of Their Impact

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