"Bergmann-Bayard" - a pistol in the Mauser style
"Bergmann-Bayard" - self-loading pistol chambered for 9 × 23 mm Largo from the collection of the Royal armory chambers in London. Model 1910/21 (manufactured in 1935-1940) Produced in Belgium under a German license
I also saw that every work and every success in business
produce mutual envy between people.
Book of Ecclesiastes or Preacher, 4:4
produce mutual envy between people.
Book of Ecclesiastes or Preacher, 4:4
History firearms. Let's start with the biography of this truly extraordinary person. Theodor Bergmann was born on May 21, 1850 in a family far from the most advanced in terms of education: in the family of the innkeeper and brewer Johann Adam Bergmann, who lived in Bavaria, in the Seilauf community, in the Aschaffenburg region.
He received his primary education at a community school, then studied at a vocational school in Aschaffenburg. His name is known in the history of weapons. But Theodor Bergmann himself was never a weapon designer. He was a businessman and industrialist.
True, he still invented something himself.
He started with household appliances like ovens and vending machines. And he succeeded in this - he created a vending machine "Merkur", which already in 1888 began to be produced together with the Berlin inventor Max Sielaff for the Cologne chocolate manufacturer Ludwig Stollwerk.
By the age of 19, Bergmann was already managing a metallurgical plant in Gaggenau, producing a wide range of products ranging from load-bearing beams to household stoves, as well as bicycles and air guns. Under the leadership of Bergmann, the company expanded the production of pneumatic weapons, and also switched to the production of rifles and barrels for them. This gave him the opportunity to turn to inventors looking for a company to produce their developments, and he soon found such inventors.
Diagram of Otto Brouwetter's pistol from a patent of 1892
So, in 1892, a Hungarian watchmaker named Otto Brauwetter, together with the company "Hagennau" (later became "Bergmanns Industriewerke GmbH") was granted a patent for the mechanism of a self-loading pistol. The fate of Browwetter himself is unclear: he seems to disappear from the records after receiving the first patent. Instead, another man emerged, whom Bergmann found to turn the patent into a viable serial pistol, and that man was none other than Louis Schmeisser, a household name in European firearms history.
Bergmann pistol, model 1893, manufactured for testing in Switzerland. Length 280 mm, barrel length 135 mm, weight 980 g. Swiss patent No. 5030 dated 1892. Pay attention to the ramrod mounted on the pistol on the left, and the grooved plate on the right, which served to cocking the bolt
Schmeisser took a patent from Brouwetter and made a pistol from it first, model 1893, and then in 1895. The 1893 model had a wedge-locked semi-open breechblock. Loading was carried out from a 5-round clip, which was inserted into the pistol on the right and closed with a rotary cover. It used a 7,5-mm revolving cartridge, which was then in service in Switzerland, but in the end the Swiss military rejected this pistol.
Now look at how Louis Schmeisser perfected Otto Brouwetter's pistol in his 1895 patent. The design has become much simpler ...
When cars began to come into fashion, Bergmann immediately turned his attention to them and started producing them already in 1894. And he did not just take up, but produced a car called "Orient Express", which was in production until 1903, and then the model "Lilliput" (until 1907). But…
At the same time, he was engaged in weapons. And in the end, in 1910, he sold his car business to Benz & K to deal exclusively with weapons.
Then Bergmann divided the design activities of his enterprise into two different directions: the creation of weapons for the civilian market and, accordingly, weapons for the army. Later, he transferred developments on civilian weapons to third-party manufacturers so that they would release his samples under license, and completely concentrated all the company's forces on weapons of a purely military purpose.
Scheme from a patent for one of Theodor Bergmann's early pistols - model 1897 with a very original system of locking the barrel with a slide to the left. Moving back after the shot, the bolt tilted to the right, but got into place and connected with its lugs with the lugs on the left on the frame. It's just amazing what technically complex constructions were then invented by the designers, and how difficult it was to produce them ... But they invented and produced them!
The first was the Bergmann-Mars pistol in 1901, and this was Bergmann's first project created directly for the military weapons market.
The second was a pistol for the civilian market - "Bergmann-Simplex".
Pistol "Bergmann-Mars" interested the military of several armies and even got on several comparative tests, conducted together with pistols "Mauser" C96, "Mannlicher", "Browning" and "Luger". In total, his company produced about 1 Bergmann-Mars pistols.
But the designer's creative thought continued to work, and the result of this work was the Bergmann-Bayard pistol. By the way, it was designed by Louis Schmeisser in 1903, after which it was offered on the arms market under the designation M1903.
Pistol "Bergmann-Simplex" (or "pistol number 5), created on the basis of a patent of 1897 (photo of the Rock Island auction)
The same pistol with a butt holster attached to it (photo from the Rock Island auction)
And ... this new pistol really liked the Spanish army, who adopted it under the name “Pistola Bergmann de 9 mm. modelo 1903 ".
The capacity of his own production seemed to Bergmann insufficient to produce a batch of 3 pistols, and he began to look for a German manufacturer to fulfill the Spanish order. I searched ... and did not find!
Then he turned to the famous Belgian manufacturer Henri Pieper, who owned the Anciens Etablissements Pieper company, which was producing weapons under the Bayard trademark.
Pieper turned out to be a prudent and far-sighted man. He not only completed the Spanish order for Bergmann, but also acquired the right from Bergmanns Industriewerke to manufacture his pistols for sale on the civilian market.
This is how this unusual double designation appeared in the trade name of this pistol. Then the pistol was modernized again and later released under the designation "Bergmann-Bayard" 1908 (not to be confused with the pistol "Bayard" 1908).
Pistol "Bergmann-Bayard" M 1910/21 (released in 1935-1940) From the collection of the Royal Armories in London
A characteristic feature of this pistol was the stamp on the left side of the magazine receiver, which is an image of a knight galloping on a horse with the inscription Bayard under it. By the way, although this pistol was adopted by the Spanish army in 1908, the production and delivery of all 3 units of weapons dragged on for two years and was completed only in 000.
A characteristic feature of the pistol was the annular grooves on the magazine and on the “washers” of the bolt, for which the latter was pulled back. The magazine stopper was in front of the trigger, which was convenient: it was enough to move your finger forward and press it, as the magazine fell out of its socket. The pistol weighed about one kilogram, had a length of 254 mm, with a barrel length of 101 mm. The muzzle velocity of the bullet was 350 m / s, the aiming range was 100 m, and there could be two magazines for it - for six and ten rounds
One of the reasons was that Pieper hastened to release Bergmann's pistol to the civilian market in Europe.
And back in 1910, he managed to conclude a contract for the supply of the same pistol to the Danish military. So, Denmark became the second state whose army received this pistol. True, for the Danish military, several changes were required to the original design of the pistol.
For example, semicircular cutouts were made on the side walls of the magazine receiver for more convenient removal. On the stores, ring grooves were arranged so that, again, fingers did not slip on their surface, and it was more convenient to remove them.
An S-shaped mainspring was introduced.
All these changes were made to the design of the pistol in the same 1910 year, but they did not require much work. Thereafter, the Danish Armed Forces ordered 4 pistols of this new model. Deliveries of pistols to Denmark began in 840 and were completed in a year, in 1911.
Advertising of the Bergmann-Bayard pistol. It also shows the 9mm Largo cartridge.
Until the outbreak of the First World War, no one made new large orders to the Anciens Etablissements Pieper company, but the updated model of the Bergmann-Bayard pistol of 1910 was eagerly bought on the civilian market, where it successfully competed with the German Mauser.
Then the First World War began, Belgium was occupied by Germany, and the company "Anciens Etablissements Pieper" continued to produce these pistols, now for the needs of the German army.
Immediately after the end of the war, the production of this pistol in Belgium was discontinued, although a small number of "Bergmanns" were nevertheless collected from parts preserved in warehouses.
Diagram of the device of the pistol "Bergmann-Bayard" in 1908. Please note that the barrel of the pistol, in contrast to the same "Mauser", was made extremely rigid due to a T-shaped flat plate located on top of it, and the front sight was also installed on it. The barrel was one piece with the bolt carrier and, when fired, moved back with it, after which it stopped, and the bolt moved further, cocking the hammer that hit the spring-loaded striker passing through the bolt body. The ejector is located on the top of the shutter. The spent cartridges are also thrown up.
And here the Danish armed forces again needed the same pistols and spare parts for the M1910 pistols already at their disposal.
But now they could not get them from the company "Anciens Etablissements Pieper". Of course, there were a lot of all kinds of pistols in Europe at that time. And a new pistol of any other system could be ordered. But ... everything was outweighed by the power of tradition and habit.
And then in Denmark they decided to produce these pistols on their own. We bought a license, and in 1921, Danish pistols, once again modified, received a new index M1910 / 21, went into the Danish army and were in its service until 1946, which set a kind of record - 35 years in the ranks of the Danish army!
Well, in total, during the period from 1903 to 1935, about 15,5 thousand pistols of this system were produced.
Information