Elegant and original “Austrians”
Having made my way under the roof,
brushing aside the lace of the cobwebs,
pulled out from a hidden corner
a heavy Mannlicher wrapped in rags.
Coming out of the barn and feeling it in my pocket
the exciting weight of a revolver,
went to the station.
N. Ostrovsky “How the steel was tempered”
brushing aside the lace of the cobwebs,
pulled out from a hidden corner
a heavy Mannlicher wrapped in rags.
Coming out of the barn and feeling it in my pocket
the exciting weight of a revolver,
went to the station.
N. Ostrovsky “How the steel was tempered”
stories about weapons. At the end of the XNUMXth and beginning of the XNUMXth centuries in different countries, many different designers worked tirelessly, trying to create “the best pistol in the world,” and each of them solved this problem in their own way.
In the same Germany, Luger and Mauser pistols were created with automatic action based on a short barrel stroke and magazines in the handle and in front of the trigger guard. In the USA and Belgium, thanks to the work of John Browning, pistols with a removable magazine in the handle appeared. Automation in them was most often used with a short stroke of the barrel linked to the bolt, and in pistols chambered for low-power cartridges, a free bolt was used, which a sufficiently powerful spring only pressed against the breech of the barrel.
Mannlicher pistol 1894 Royal Arsenal, Leeds
But no less interesting pistols were created at the same time in Austria, which was at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, and it was in this state that the pistol that was first put into service was created.
Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher was one of the first to create pistols here. Among his many works, the pistol of 1894 occupies a special place, since its design is very unusual: when fired, the bullet, crashing into the rifling of the barrel, pulls it along with it, the barrel moves forward, compresses the spring located around the barrel and ejects the spent cartridge case. Well, returning back, he simply loaded another cartridge from the magazine and... was ready for the next shot.
As for the trigger mechanism of the M1894 pistol, it had nothing to do with the automatic pistol and was cocked, like a revolver, manually, both by self-cocking and with pre-cocking of the hammer. And the hole for the trigger striker was made in the back wall of the frame.
Interestingly, like revolvers of that time, this pistol did not have a safety lock. To send a cartridge into the barrel, it had to be pushed forward, and its magazine, built into the handle, was loaded using special clips of five cartridges each.
The pistol received the cumbersome name Halbautomatische Repetierpistole Sistem Mannlicher M1894 (semi-automatic reloading pistol with a forward barrel and loading a clip of Mannlicher system cartridges, Model 1894), but it was released only in small quantities and was not put into service or commercial sale.
Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher (1848-1904)
In 1895, another designer, Czech Karel Krnka, presented his pistol. It had the same 8-mm caliber and the same built-in 10-round magazine, and even in appearance they were somewhat similar, but fundamentally different in design.
Pistol M1895. Right view. Note the checkering on the end of the barrel. In fact, it is not made on the barrel at all, but on a locking unscrewing coupling, which locks the return spring placed on the barrel itself. Army Museum in Stockholm
After the shot, the barrel and bolt, linked to each other, moved back together until it stopped, so that they even passed over the magazine receiver. Only after reaching the end, the bolt turned around its axis, disengaged from the barrel and remained in place for some time, while the barrel, pushed by a spring, moved forward and returned to its previous position. When the barrel stopped, the bolt began to move forward. At the same time, he sent the cartridge into the chamber, and then turned again in the opposite direction and engaged with the barrel. Well, the cartridge’s primer was broken by the firing pin, which was hit by the open trigger.
Karel Krnka (1858–1926)
It is interesting that at a time when automatic pistol magazines were filled with 5, 6, 7, 8 cartridges, and it was believed that this was quite enough, Karel’s grip magazine was filled with ten at once, and not just from a clip, but from a clip equipped for convenience special pusher.
Next was again the Mannlicher pistol, which, according to documents from the Steyr company, was patented in 1898 and was originally called the “Model 1900”, and somewhat later “Model 1901”. The cartridge used in the pistol was also the designer’s own design and differed from the 7,63 mm Mauser cartridge, since it would have been too powerful for a blowback system. It was a specially designed 7,63x21mm cartridge.
The Mannlicher cartridge case had a slight taper to make it easier for it to exit the chamber. The bullet weight was 5,5 g, the shell could be steel or copper-nickel alloy. The powder charge allowed it to develop an initial speed of 326 m/s.
The magazine was placed in the handle and loaded from the clip through the open bolt. Due to the extremely simple operation of the mechanism, this pistol had a handle of minimal size, which, by the way, was very similar to a revolver.
The mechanics of this pistol were also simple. Two protrusions on the receiver and, accordingly, two grooves for them on the bolt, which allowed it to move back and forth in relation to the barrel. The barrel was screwed into the receiver, that is, it was connected to it in one piece. There was a spring under the barrel that pressed the bolt to the chamber. There was a trigger behind the bolt. Inside the bolt there is a firing pin that transmits the hammer blow to the cartridge primer and... that’s it! It was also loaded from a clip that contained 10 rounds at once!
Commercial model of the Mannlicher-Steyr pistol, 1905. Note the knurled key on the handle. It had to be pressed to unload the magazine of a loaded pistol with the bolt open. The spring ejected the cartridges with sufficient force, which the shooter had to remember! Total length: 243 mm. Barrel length: 139 mm. Weight: 920 g. Magazine capacity – 10 rounds. Photography by Alain Dobress
The first army to equip the Mannlicher M1901 automatic pistols was the Argentine army, which adopted this pistol in 1905 along with the 7,63mm Mannlicher Automatic 7,63x52mm cartridge. Initial purchases included 1 pistols, over a million rounds of ammunition, as well as holsters and accessories. The Argentine military continued to order these beautiful pistols, and in total they bought about 020 of them.
Pistol holster 1901. Front view. Photo by Rock Island Auction Company
Many call this pistol “the most elegant pistol” of the early twentieth century. You may not agree with this statement, but you cannot help but note that it really looks very impressive.
Pistol M1896/1897. Photography Forgotten weapons
Pistol M1896/1897 with a holster-butt according to the fashion of those years. Photography Forgotten weapons
Mannlicher also developed the M1896/1897 pistol, which in appearance resembled the K96 Mauser. The pistol became known under the designation M1901/1903. It had a fixed magazine in front of the trigger for six rounds, but then it began to use a detachable magazine located in the same place, for the same six rounds. It was not widely used: because buyers were scared off by the curved cocking lever located on the right side of the body, which made it inconvenient for them to use. The death of the designer in 1904 interrupted his work in this direction.
But this is how the hammer of the M1896/1897 pistol was cocked and, in general, it was not very convenient. Photography Forgotten weapons
Well, Karel Krnka’s first truly great success came only after he began to work closely with the Austrian manufacturer and gunsmith Georg Roth and released the Roth-Steyr M1907 pistol (Repetierpistole M7), which entered service with the Austro-Hungarian cavalry . This circumstance turned out to be the best advertisement for this pistol. Although, in fact, this did not have a very strong impact on the fate of the designer himself.
The fact is that all of Krnk’s most successful pistols were produced under other people’s names, for example, “Rot-Sauer”, “Rot-Steyr”, “Steyr”, due to which the role of Krnk himself in their development was simply underestimated for quite a long time.
By the way, the pistol was named “Rot-Steyr” by the name of the city in which its production was established. Moreover, Georg Roth himself was engaged in the production of cartridges, so he was forced to sell licenses for the production of pistols created together with the inventor Karel Krnka to other manufacturers.
Pistol "Rot-Steyr" 1907. Photo by Alain Dobresse
Cartridge clip for the Rot-Steyr pistol. Photography by Alain Dobress
This pistol had a very unusual bolt, which had a length equal to the length of the receiver. The automatic pistol operated due to recoil with a short barrel stroke.
Locking occurred due to the rotation of the barrel, which had two pairs of lugs: the front one was located at the muzzle, moved along the screw grooves of the barrel casing and was responsible for its rotation during rollback and rollback; and the rear one - for the clutch with the bolt, which was hollow in the front part and slid onto the barrel from behind. The spent cartridge case was ejected through a window in the upper part of the receiver, and the cartridge was sent into the chamber when the bolt was returned to its original position, like all other pistols, except perhaps the Mannlicher 1894 model, where the barrel itself was pushed onto the cartridge.
The trigger mechanism was single action. After each shot, the firing pin was cocked, but only partially, and it was re-cocked only when the trigger was pressed. In case of misfire, it could be cocked manually by pulling the bolt back. Such a complex safety system was designed specifically so that the pistol could not fire from accidentally touching the trigger, from which a cavalryman sitting astride a horse that could simply push him under the arm could not be insured.
A 10-round magazine was built into the pistol grip, formed by the lower right part of the frame itself, the left detachable part and two cheeks. The pistol used a unique 8mm wafer cartridge, which gave the bullet an initial speed of 332 m/s. The length of the pistol was 233 mm, barrel length: 131 mm, weight without cartridges: 1 g.
Commercial model "Roth-Sauer" with the bolt extended. Photography by Alain Dobress
But Karel Krnk's most successful pistol was his Model 1911, which he developed based on an earlier design by Georg Roth.
It was a weapon with a short barrel stroke, which, under the influence of recoil, moved back along with the bolt, and the barrel rotated around its axis by about 20°. After disengaging from the barrel, the bolt continued to move back and removed the spent cartridge case. When the barrel returned to its original position, a new cartridge was sent by the bolt into the chamber. The magazine was built into the handle and could be removed when disassembling the pistol.
The pistol was reliable and of very high quality. After the annexation of Austria by Germany in 1938, the German army received large numbers of these pistols as trophies. Many of them were converted by Mauser to chamber the standard 9 mm Parabellum cartridge.
1911 Steyr pistol. Like any other weapon intended for the needs of the army, Steyr pistols of the 1911 model were supplied with pistol straps and holsters. Photography by Alain Dobress
Partial disassembly of a 1911 model pistol. The spiral protrusion on the barrel is clearly visible, thanks to which it rotates inside the bolt casing. Photography by Alain Dobress
Pistol "Steyr" model 1912. Photography by Alain Dobress
And this is how a clip of cartridges was inserted into this pistol, which were then pressed into the magazine by pressing a finger on a special grooved “pusher”. And judging by the way Forgotten weapons' Ian McCollum struggles with loading it, it wasn't always an easy task. While you are fiddling with the clip like this, they can easily kill you! True, his clip is not original, metal, but made of plastic
PS
As for the fact that Nikolai Ostrovsky’s “Mannlicher” pistol was called a “revolver,” although Manlicher never created revolvers, then... nothing can be done about it. At that time, in the literature, a pistol was very often called a revolver and vice versa. It was more important to show the feelings and actions of the characters!
By the way, Ostrovsky’s “Manlicher” had twelve rounds, and these were never produced either - the capacity of the “Manlicher” magazine was 10 rounds. Well, the man forgot... He only remembered that there were a lot of cartridges in it!
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