History question

M

mega twin

New member
I think it's interesting in the firearms development field, of the different tangents in revolver and pistol use through out the years between Eureopean designs and American designs.

Seems like the Eureopean nations embraced the auto-loaders quicker than we did,but who came out with the first double action revolver,and double action auto loaders?
 
I believe that DMK is right on both accounts. At least for any hanguns that got produced enough to be mentioned in any reference books.

Any more questions? This could be fun.



Oh, Oh, I have one!

Why did Walther build left-ejecting guns, then the PP which chucks them out to the right, then another left-ejector (the P38)?

Bart Noir
 
No, the PP is older than the P38. I thought there was another pistol that predated the PP in germany that was a Dbl Action semi, though. Which I could find it.
 
thanks for the answers .
Also,were the first auto-loaders blow back design or locked breech?
Was the 9mm cartridge developed for a pistol, or was the pistol design and the cartridge co-designed for each other? I'm refering to the luger pistol on this one.
 
I suspect that the reason Americans stayed wedded to revolvers a lot harder and longer than Europeans is that handguns in general were a LOT more wide spread than they were in Europe.

Colt really set the standard for American revolvers, and Remington and Smith & Wesson really reinforced the fact that the American revolver was of excellent design and durability.
 
I'm pretty sure the 9x19mm round was developed specifically for the Luger. That's why it's called the "9mm Luger" round. I could be mistaken. There was also the 7.62 Luger, which predated the 9mm and was essentially a necked down 9mm.

I believe the first semi-autos were all recoil operated and I seem to recall manlicher producing semi-autos in the 1880s. But, I think his were straight pull rifles that used the inertia of the bullet to operate the action, which I think would be a delayed blow-back system... but I'm not entirely sure and don't feel like vetting myself.
 
That's why it's called the "9mm Luger"
Click to expand...

Hmmm - I was under the impression that it was originally called the 9MM Parabellum and that "9MM Luger" is a nick name for the round in honor of the of the designer -- similar to how some call the .380 ACP the 9MM Browning.
 
Touche. I believe it was parabellum first, actually. I always mix it up. All I know is the boxes of ammo in my counter and the headstamps on my casings mostly say "9mm Luger" except for a few that say "9mm Nato."
 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9x19mm_Parabellum

The 9x19mm Parabellum (abbreviated 9mm, 9x19mm or 9x19) cartridge was designed by Georg Luger and introduced in 1902 by the German weapons manufacturer Deutsche Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) for their Luger semi-automatic pistol.[5] For this reason, it is commonly called the 9mm Luger cartridge, differentiating it from the also-popular 9mm Makarov and 9mm Browning cartridges.
Click to expand...
 
The Luger was originally chamber for the 7.62 round but the military was not infavor of the small bullet to it was "necked up" to 9mm.
 
The Luger was originally chamber for the 7.62 round but the military was not infavor of the small bullet to it was "necked up" to 9mm.
Click to expand...
+1. Interestingly, the original Luger pistol round, the 7.65 Luger (aka .30 Luger or 7.65 Parabellum) is a tapered and bottlenecked cartridge, and the 9x19mm was created by "straightening out" the bottleneck. This is the opposite of the modern trend of necking down rifle rounds (such as the numerous sub-caliber .308Win variants) and pistol rounds (.357 Sig) to attain higher velocities with smaller bullets. :)
 
Interestingly, the original Luger pistol round, the 7.65 Luger (aka .30 Luger or 7.65 Parabellum) is a tapered and bottlenecked cartridge,...
Click to expand...
and was originally designed for what (or is it which?) weapon? ;)
 
The 7.65 Parabellum (.30 Luger) was originally designed for the Luger pistol. The Borchardt, the predecessor of the Luger was chambered for a cartridge dimensionally identical to the 7.63 Mauser (.30 Mauser), but considerably less powerful.

When the 7.65 caliber Luger was tested by the German army, they liked the gun but wanted a bullet of at least 9mm. Luger, up to then thinking along the lines of cartridge support (headspace) using a case shoulder, found it was not possible to expand the 7.65 case to 9mm and still have a useful shoulder. So he hit on the idea of supporting the cartridge on the case mouth. Browning had gone another route, avoiding feed problems in a magazine by reducing the cartridge rims to a minimum and thus inventing a line of semi-rimmed cartridges (.25 ACP, .32 ACP, .38 ACP and 9mm Browning Long).

Apparently some time around 1904, Browning either heard about or saw a Luger with the 9mm cartridge headspacing on the case mouth, and the light went on. After that, Browning's cartridges headspaced the same way, but Browing went Luger one better by making his rimless cases (.380 ACP and .45 ACP) straight instead of tapered like the 9mm Luger.

Jim
 
I note the auto loader had to wait for the development of smokeless powder
while many revolver cartridges easily made the transition from BP to smokeless. And I agree that the wider availability of handguns-revolvers-in the USA contributed to their being the prefered design for decades.
 
Sig, I attribute that to the fact that smaller cartridges could produce more power when smokeless was put into use. The smaller cartridges lend themselves better to semi-autos because of the space taken up by the mechanics of the gun and the feed system. I know that companies and designers were toying with auto fire in the BP days, but usually in rifles.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top