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.
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.)