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Shooting Grandpas Pocket Pistols
In another thread, one of our fellows asked for opinions of pre-WW II pocket pistols and it dawned on me that it would be a fun project to take my modest collection of old pocket pistols out and run them through a Qualification course. My personal favorite is the New Hampshire Police Qualification course, which covers a lot in just 36 shots. It is shot from the leather, timed, at 3, 5, 7, 10, 15 and 25 yards and covers strong and weak hand one hand shooting, move to cover drills, reloading, and others. And this is what I chose for my test, with the caveat that, in deference to the abysmal sights on some of the guns, I dropped the 25 yard line. I will be shooting a Colt 1903, a Savage 1907, a Browning 1910, a Mauser 1914 and a Remington Model 51. (and if an Ortgies, H&R, Webley & Scott or other such weapon pops up at a good price, it may get a chance at glory as well.) I’ll report a little on what I know about the guns and give my views on how they work.
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The first up is the my Browning 1910. Actually, the one I have now is a post war 380, usually called a 1910/55, though I had an older 1930’s in 7.65 mm in years gone by. Mine has a 6 shot magazine--the 32’s hold 7, and is 6 inches long, 3 15/16” tall and an inch thick, mostly thanks to the rather wide grips. In addition to the thumb safety, it has grip and magazine safeties as well. It is steel framed and weighs 20 1/2 oz on the button. My best guess is that it has about a 6 pound trigger, with minimal take up then bang, with a short reset. The chief drawback is the sighting system. There is a gutter down the slide with a narrow neck at the back for a rear sight and a tiny bump in the middle at the muzzle end for a front sight. Simply put, PU, they stink. A target gun it ain’t.
To take down the 1910 clear the weapon, remove the magazine, push in and rotate the slide ring (barrel bushing, in 1911 parlance) 90 degrees clockwise and carefully release the recoil spring pressure. Remove the recoil spring, and pull the slide back until you can latch it to the rear with the safety and then rotate the barrel 90 degrees, release the safety catch and draw the slide and barrel off to the front. Make sure to note which end of the spring goes to the front. I freely confess that I seldom do this. Reassembly is a mother bear, best done in a completely empty room with white carpeting to facilitate finding the slide ring when the energetic recoil spring launches it into low earth orbit as it slips from your fingers.
As I understand it, Browning offered the design to Colt, as well as FN, but Colt was selling 1903’s as fast as they could make them, so he took the design to FN. There, it met with a very warm welcome. The 1899/1900 Brownings had been wonderful sellers. With over half a million sold in just over 10 years, not to mention lord only knows how many pirated copies, Browning’s initial foray into the pocket pistol market was a complete success. FN looked at the new design and noted that it was less costly to make but looked sleek and modern. They immediately inked a deal and set to work making tooling and in 1911 they began selling them. One of these, in 380 caliber, was the weapon used to assassinate the Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, thereby providing the impulse that led to WW I. They made over 1,000,000 before WW II, and a lot more after production resumed in 1955.
I bought mine at a gun show a while back strictly as a shooter for 369 bucks plus tax. It had quite a bit of rust, pitting and wear, but was still sound mechanically. During the COVID shutdown, I made a pancake holster for it. I have carried and shot it on occasion, but this was the first time I actually ran it through a qualification course (almost, as I’ll explain later.)
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Colts Pocket Hammerless Semiautomatic Model M pistol
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This week’s entrant is the one I have the most experience with: the Colt Pocket Hammerless Model M, usually known as the Colt 1903. Designed by John Browning in the last years of The Victorian age, he sold the same design to both Colt, and FN, though the FN gun was much bigger. But Colt had already been producing several Browning service pistols and wanted to get in on the action being generated by the FN 1899/1900 pistols which were selling like cold lemonade on a hot August day. Browning scaled the design for his 32 ACP cartridge (which wasn’t really the Colt cartridge, yet) and the design engineers made a few tweaks to facilitate manufacture and give it a more modern, sleek design. Boy, did they succeed.
Although the revolver was to continue as the primary choice for Americans (outside of the Military), nobody sold more pocket pistols than Colt in the USA. Well over 570,000 32 ACP 1903’s were made before assembly was stopped shortly after the end of WW II. In addition, over 137,000 more had been made in a separate serial number series chambered for for the 380 ACP. When you consider that Savage, who was the number two producer only made about 280,000 32 and 380’s, and no one else cracked the 100,000 mark, Colt made more than all other U S. gun makers combined. (But not as many as FN, who made over a million 1900 Brownings, and even more 1910’s). But in the USA, it was Colt who ruled the roost. A frequent prop in 1930 and 40’s gangster movies, it came out of the pockets of Charlie Chan, Dick Powell, Humprey Bogart and a host of others. Real life gangsters like Bonnie Parker, John Dillinger and Al Capone were reported fans. In my youth I knew several police officers who favored them for off duty carry.
I bought my first one as a bag of parts at a swap meet in California back in 1973. IIRC, I paid $28.00 for it, on the assurance that it was complete, and took it home, confident in my abilities as a fledging shade-tree gunsmith. Shortly thereafter, I parted with $25.00 to have Old Man Duncan at Duncan’s guns put it together for me. It was one of the early ones, with the separate barrel bushing, and was surprisingly accurate. My Ex liked it very much, named it “Hector”, and claimed it as her gun. I was drinking the magic bullet Cool-aid being dispensed by the Good Colonel and sneered at the notion of carrying a lowly 32 for protection and so I was not heart-broken when my ex and I separated and she took custody of Hector. I was young and foolish then and it was quite a while before I wandered back into the paths 32-dom. But in the late 80’s and early 90’s several more passed into my hands as I resumed my gun trader habits. One of which is the gun I am shooting today.
It is a type III, Model M dating from ~1913. Somewhere along the line it had been allowed to rust and then poorly re-blued over the pits, but the bore is good and it still functions as well as ever. It is svelte, less than an inch thick at it’s widest, just a shade over 6 1/2” long by 4 1/2” tall. Mine weighs just under 26 ounces, fully loaded. I have had it for about 30 years now and have run about 800 rounds through it with no malfunctions.
That brings up an observation of my experience concerning pre-war auto pistols. It has been my experience that in blowback pistols chambered both for 32 and 380 ACP, the 32’s have generally been more reliable. The FN 1910’s not so much, but certainly that is the case with the Colts IME. I cannot recall ever having a malfunction with any of my 1903’s, and I have had 5 of them. Yet neither of the 380’s I have shot was as dependable. This was also the case with CZ 27 I had and the CZ 24 I have--the 32 was utterly reliable while the 24 is most certainly not. I have noticed the same thing with the Mauser Hsc and the Walther PPKs, though there, the 380’s I have owned were all post-war imports. It seems to me that they originally designed the guns for the 32 cartridge, balancing the springs and weights to accommodate it, but they just shoehorned the 380 in as an after thought without making any changes to account for the heavier recoil and larger cartridge diameter. YMMV, but that is just what I have noted over the years.
Anyways, Lets get to the shooting.
Let me state at the out set that this is the Pocket Pistol I am most familiar with, In fact I occasionally carry it a hot-weather, concealed carry pistol, due to its slim lines. I have had three others before I got this one and have another one now, in case I need to go duelist with a gun in each hand. That is reflected in the relatively tight groupings. But lets go line by line.
Starting at the 3 yard line, I drew, fumbled my grip and put one shot out low to the right, my first miss and the 2nd barely in the 9 ring at 3 o’clock--Not starting out particularly well. My next double tap was also low, but in the scoring rings, a 7 and an 8. Things got better at the 5 yard line. I had no problem keeping all shots in the 9 and 10 rings with either hand. The sights on the Colt are not the greatest, but are much better than those on the Browning 1910 or the Remington M-51. The 7 yard line was equally a breeze, keeping all shots save the first in the middle.
I began to have a bit of difficulty because my hands were getting sweaty. It was 92 with high humidity and I was sweating like a circus fat lady in a sauna. One draw back of the 1903 is the smooth surfaces on the frame. The guttapercha grip panels have some checkering, but they are so worn with 110 years of use that it is of little or no value. The frame itself is completely devoid of any catchy, grippy surface. I think I need to look on evil bay and find some checkered walnut repros that will give me a better handle to hang on to. I found the gun slipping in my hand a bit at the 10 yard line, resulting in a couple of high shots up in the 7 and 8 rings. It only got worse as I went back to the 15 yard line.
I had no problem with the first 2 shots standing right, but the reload was a little troublesome. The 1903 does not lock back when empty and I fumbled my first attempt at racking the slide back when my slimy hand slipped off. I wiped my hand on my shorts and then cranked a round into the chamber, dropped into a kneeling position behind cover and cranked off two shots, then crossed over to the left side for 2 more, one of which I totally blew. That is it up above the left shoulder under the holster. I stood up and plopped the last two down range somewhere on the target.
My thoughts on the Colt 1903? I shot it well, despite the bright sun and high humidity. I had no trouble making time on any of the stages. No malfunctions occurred at all with my handloads, consisting of a 71 grain Berry’s bullet over 2.2 grains of WW-231 and an OAL of ~.970. It ended up scoring a 28/30, similar to the Remington and slightly better than the Browning 1910. But 20 of the 28 were in the 9 and 10 rings. Yea, it is missing a few things that more modern guns have; the sights are poor, the frame could stand a bit of skateboard tape and it would be nice if the slide locked open on an empty magazine. It hits low for me when point shooting. However, it is still a serviceable fire arm, today, 120 years since it was first designed. And it slides in and out of a pocket or a shoulder holster as well as it ever did and better than most. Put decent sights on it, coarsen the grip a bit and it would be as useful a weapon as anything else in that caliber.
I knew a retired Detroit police detective who used one to terminate an armed robber back before I was born. He was still carrying it in 1991. What it did then it can still do today. It is my favorite of the antiques.
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H&r 32 acp fails big time
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Well, that didn't work.
In the period before WWII the various purveyors of revolvers sold just about 5 1/2 guns for every semi-auto sold. There was a reason. And this example of the H&R 32 Auto helps explain why. In 12 shots, I had two failures to feed and one out of battery shot. At that, I decided that was all folks. Until I can thoroughly go through my pistol and find a different magazine, this gun is a definite paperweight. I don't know what has happened to this in the intervening century or so since it was made, but as it stands, this dog won't hunt. If it was this good back in the day, I'd have bought a revolver, too.