Question: So, who developed the striker fired concept? First striker fired pistol?

A

armedleo

New member
We know about John Browning and his 1911. But who came up with the striker fired concept? Why? Who manufactured the first striker fired pistols?
 
I believe the first American striker-fired pistol was the Savage 1910. It has what looks like a hammer, but it only cocks the striker. It was also has the first American double stack magazine, holding 10 rounds of 32acp.
 
The Colt Vest Pocket, a Browning design, came out in 1908, but Browning's Model 1900 and other striker pistols were before that in Europe.

Jim
 
I think the earliest example of the partially re-cocking striker action (what a lot of people think of when they use the term "striker fired") would be the Roth-Sauer from the first decade of the 20th century.

Roth-Sauer765mm.jpg
 
IIRC, the Roth-Steyr and Roth-Sauer both came after the FN-Browning Model 1900, and certainly after the Borchardt of 1893. There were early manually operated pistols with strikers (Passler-Seidl, 1887), and by 1900 there were several auto pistols including the successful Borchardt and Luger as well as the Browning.

Also, IIRC, Glock claimed to have studied the Roth-Steyr in designing his firing mechanism, which operates on the same general principle of a partially cocked firing pin.

Jim
 
IIRC, the Roth-Steyr and Roth-Sauer both came after the FN-Browning Model 1900, and certainly after the Borchardt of 1893. There were early manually operated pistols with strikers (Passler-Seidl, 1887), and by 1900 there were several auto pistols including the successful Borchardt and Luger as well as the Browning.

Also, IIRC, Glock claimed to have studied the Roth-Steyr in designing his firing mechanism, which operates on the same general principle of a partially cocked firing pin.
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Yes the Roth-Steyr and Roth-Sauer both certainly came after quite a few striker-fired pistols. What I think they pioneered was the partially re-cocking striker.
 
The Luger was an early striker-fired semi-auto.

Wikipedia says the Luger was "an evolution of the 1893 Hugo Borchardt–designed C-93", and that the C-93 was the first mass-produced semi-auto pistol (not just the first striker-fired pistol). Wiki also says that Georg Luger was an assistant to Borschardt, and contributed to its design.

The Luger was first used by the Swiss Army in 1900, and later adopted by the German army in 1908.
 
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I am unable to find any references to any semi auto striker fired pistol before the Borchardt C93. It may be that the C93 was the first striker fired pistol.

And while the C93 might be considered the first mass produced semi auto (different folks have different numbers for what constitutes "mass production", one I standard I have heard is 5,000 units.) The C93 was not common, I think only a few thousand were made, but that could be enough I suppose.

The appellation of "first successful (or commercially successful) semi auto is usually given to the Mauser C96 aka Broomhandle, which is not a striker fired pistol. The C93 might be the first mass produced, but the Mauser 96 was a commercial success (for a time, anyway), and many, many, many more were made than Borchardts.
 
The thread was on the first striker-fired pistol; the Mausers came late, in the same period as the FN Browning 1910 and 17 years after the Borchardt.

As of now, the 1893 Borchardt appears to be the "winner". I can find nothing earlier and certainly it was the first mass produced auto pistol of any kind. Even if earlier ones existed, they were on paper, not in steel.

Jim
 
I think Obama had his throne set in the sand and commanded the ocean tide to stop and not wet his shoes. It worked and the sand around him remained dry. Of course, he did that in New Mexico.

Back on topic. After the Luger and the Glock, one of the most successful striker fired pistols ever was the 1900 Browning with something like 700,000 made. Yet due to the Colt-FN agreement, the gun remains almost unknown in the U.S. The very clever design uses a single spring for both the slide and firing pin.

Jim
 
Everyone knows gaston is the only maker of striker fired guns (some even argue Glock is the only gun manufacture) so the answer has to be Glock. All those others are just pretenders that predate Glock.
 
The LeFrancaise was also made in .32 ACP for police use. Like the .25, it was not only striker fired but used a tip-down barrel for loading/unloading the chamber. The slide is almost impossible to pull back. One story is that French police were forbidden to carry a round in the chamber, so the .32 version had a loop on the bottom of the magazine in which a round was kept for quick loading.

Jim
 
And the LeFrancais was also made in 9mm Browning Long.

So the external hammer-fired semiauto pistol is a more recent, more highly evolved design?
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Not really; External hammer fired pistols also date back to the 1890s with early Mauser and Mannlicher designs, as well as early Browning prototype pistols.
 
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