Here's a gun you won't see everyday, the relatively scarce S&W 1913 in .35 S&W. It's fun trying to find ammo for these, about $65 a box! 
From the looks of the works of this gun, it's apparent why S&W took so long to get back to the semi-auto side of the business! The maching is outstanding, but the ergonomics leave something to be desired. The manual safety is under your hand on the backstrap, and the grip safety is on the front of the grip where you need to take care to actuate it. The bolt is very unusual too, it's very light, and it has the strongest spring I've ever seen on any semi-auto! It's basically impossible to cycle the bolt with the spring engaged, so S&W has a disconnect button to chamber a round with the recoil spring disconnected! All in all, an interesting engineering exercise, but I can see why it was a commercial failure. I suspect it was also very expensive to manufacture...
From the looks of the works of this gun, it's apparent why S&W took so long to get back to the semi-auto side of the business! The maching is outstanding, but the ergonomics leave something to be desired. The manual safety is under your hand on the backstrap, and the grip safety is on the front of the grip where you need to take care to actuate it. The bolt is very unusual too, it's very light, and it has the strongest spring I've ever seen on any semi-auto! It's basically impossible to cycle the bolt with the spring engaged, so S&W has a disconnect button to chamber a round with the recoil spring disconnected! All in all, an interesting engineering exercise, but I can see why it was a commercial failure. I suspect it was also very expensive to manufacture...
