Sunday, February 07, 2010

Simplicity by design.

In writing yesterday's post about pocket autos, I spent some time examining the actual pistols as well as exploded drawings. I also looked at the drawings of the two early American autos of which I don't yet have representative examples on hand, the Remington 51 and the Smith & Wesson .35. Most pocket pistols on the market after World War Two sprang from one of three evolutionary families: The 1903/1908 Colt/Brownings, the Walther PP, or the Beretta. That's what makes a look at the pistols from the Cambrian Explosion of self-loader design so fascinating: All manner of solutions to the problem of constructing a reasonably powerful, pocketable, self-loading pistol were tried before the market was thinned to the few that survive today.

The Colt is easily the most familiar, and not only because Colt's made more than half a million of the things over forty-something years. The basic structure of the John Browning design is elegant in its simplicity and several basic features have been copied down through the years by numerous handgun manufacturers.

The Savage is probably the second best known, and it should be, with a production run of several hundred thousand guns in a little over twenty years. The brainchild of one Elbert Searle, it's another simple and elegant design, if a little odd to our eyes, being somewhat of an evolutionary dead-end. Blowback-operated with a slight mechanical delay, its double-stack magazine was futuristic for the time and it contained even fewer parts than the Colt, but a combination of constant redesigns, overproduction, and a slumping market put paid to Savage's pistol efforts.

The H&R took a fairly simple, if odd-looking, Webley & Scott Police Pistol design and, through conversion to striker-firing and addition of a magazine safety, managed to up the parts count to 49; over a dozen more than the Browning design and almost two-thirds more parts than Searle's little pistol. They can't have been making money on those, and the fact that they disappeared from the market so fast suggests that they weren't.

Smith & Wesson, like H&R a revolver company, shopped for an outside design as well, finally settling on the Belgian Clement. With controls that were counter intuitive (the manual safety was a thumbwheel on the backstrap that pretty much could not be operated with the hand in a firing grip), baroque mechanicals (a parts count that far outstripped even the H&R), and extremely complex construction, S&W hammered the last nail in the coffin by arrogantly designing their own pocket pistol cartridge in 1913, when the rest of the market had already settled on Colt's .32ACP. Smith's .35 cartridge got Betamaxed, and the gun itself sank without a ripple; 8,000 were made in an eight year run at a time when Colt and Savage were selling tens of thousands a year.

Remington was the last player to arrive, showing up in 1917 with a graceful, futuristic-looking pistol designed by the great John D. Pedersen: The Remington 51. But its graceful, futuristic-looking lines concealed a funky, floating breech/indirect blowback mechanism and complex innards; Browning's pocket pistol contained five springs while Pedersen's had seven (S&W's Clement clone had nine!) Despite the greater complexity, Remington attempted to undercut Colt's on price, selling its offering for less than sixteen bucks when Colts catalogued for just over twenty. Late to the market, the Remington autos didn't survive the Depression.

And if you think there were some weird ones on the domestic market, well, that's just the start...

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the great pocket pistol posts. These pistols are just packed with fascinating history. I've always thought that Colt could still sell the Pocket Hammerless today; another piece of JMB genius.

Jeff the Baptist said...

I'm curious if you could build the 51 today using CNC machinery. I love hesitation-locked mechanism and the use of the grip safety. But large portions of the gun were overdesigned (like the grips) and the trigger pull is supposed to be pretty awful.

Mikee said...

I have a Colt 1903. It is a delight to shoot and works as a great intermediate caliber pistol between the recoil-free 22LR and the semi-puissant 9mm for new shooters.

Did I also mention that very few folks can pick it up without instantly thinking they are in a gangster movie from the 30's?

Tam said...

It's very Road to Perdition.

Ed Foster said...

Pretty, pretty. It got me looking at the Wikipedia article on the Model 53, it's larger cousin. Ooooh! I learned something.

However, I'm still trying to get Teddy to make a.45acp MauserC96/Shansei type 17, and he says maybe next year if the 1911's go well.

Damned if I know where to get 10 round stripper clips, but 2 five round Mauser clips work nicely in a Shansei I borrowed to show the boss. Those things were really well made. A nice bit of machining there.

Anyway, no pretty Pedersens in the future, dang it. But with a low pressure cartridge like the .45acp that lockup would make a lot a sense.

Jim said...

I am attracted to the H and R, probably for the same reason I once liked a collie with one brown eye and one blue.

The mind can barely accept that a British gun could be redesigned to +add+ parts.

Kristophr said...

Jim: MG could. They would add electronic parts made by Lucas.

Anonymous said...

"baroque"...I like it; much more refined than "fugly".

But I guess not everyone found those designs put-offish...I can squint my eyes and see a Luger in that H&R, and IIRC it was AMT that adopted that fat-butted round-barrel Savage shape in a plastic 30-rd. .22 hunk o' junk.

I did like the Remington (had one back in the seventies in the UMC .380 iteration), probably for the same reasons I'm attracted to the Colt and Walther PP.

Looking forward to your further posts and lovely prose on the offshore efforts of the genre.

Al Terego

homebru said...

Very interesting stuff. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Well, IDNRC...

It wasn't AMT's nice (but pricey!) double-deuce magnum auto I was reminded of by that Savage, but the abortion cranked out by Grendel...whaaat a piece o' chit!

Not happy producing only that fine offering, they also made a dandy little .32 or .380 (apparently cooked in the same Transformers oven), with a handy internal non-removable magazine!

I don't know much about the company or any weapons it may now produce, but the memories I have of these two is enough to cause me to think they may have been run by the Brady campaign..."if we can't ban 'em, let's sell stuff that won't shoot, at least not intentionally".

To any that may have fond memories or good experience with these "guns", I apologize for the hatin', but bad memories die hard. I'd be interested to know if anyone has and likes these things. Also I did read somewhere that Kel-Tec is now producing a large-capacity magnum autoloader; hopefully an improved design that will actually, you know, function.

AT

libertyman said...

Interesting group you have mentioned I have at least one example of each, and in one case, (the Savage) I am not sure how many. The .32 has been relatively inexpensive to acquire. I am told you can shoot .32 in the S&W .35 without harm, though I have yet to try. I have some .35 S&W ammo, but it is hard to find. Remember the Savage "Banishes Fear" , so you will want to add it soon.

Rabbit said...

I owned a Savage M1917 in .380 for awhile. It pointed very well, felt fairly natural in one;s hand.

I've oft wondered what would have been, had the Savage .45CSP been more successful against the Browning design in 1908.

Regards,
Rabbit.

Phillip said...

I own a Remington Model 51 that belonged to my grandfather before it got to me. I love the gun, I've shot it a decent amount, and would love to carry it concealed, but I'm afraid of losing it due to sentimental value. I don't shoot it as much as I used to, because I found out how hard it was to get parts for it. While I could possibly make a piece or two, there's some parts that are beyond my machining skills.

Strangely, the gun has practically no sights to speak of, but I can use it more accurately and faster than anything else I own, borrow, or rent.

Tam said...

Phillip,

In your case, it may very well be worth tracking down a spare parts gun.