Weapons and firms. So, Arthur Savage made a name for himself and capital on a rifle with a rotary magazine, which the military did not like, but liked the Indians and hunters, and then he was drawn to create a pistol as well. And I must say that he really managed to make a self-loading pistol, which made a significant contribution to the history of short-barreled firearms. Some even say that a new era has begun with them. That Browning's 1900 pistol was, of course, also an epochal thing, but "savage" (as it was called, by the way, in France) was still more significant in this regard. It was fast-firing, accurate and at the same time compact, very convenient for concealed carry, and had the highest rate of fire among all compact self-loading pistols that appeared at that time, and there is nothing to say about revolvers. He surpassed them in this indicator four times at least. It was also a beautiful weapon and looked good in the hand of the shooter. Of course, the main thing in a pistol, as in any weapon, is its lethality and other "lethal properties", but at the same time it matters when all this is combined with the completeness of its forms. In the "luxury version" this pistol had an excellent engraving, and the grip cheeks in this case were made of mother-of-pearl. Women were asked to pay special attention to this, since “savage” was also offered to women as a weapon of self-defense when it was concealed. By the way, the advertising slogans of the Savage company paid special attention to the fairer sex: “This weapon gives her courage,“Fights for her as a friend”, and the very short word“Safety”hit not in the eyebrow, but in the eye, because among people there are definitely those who today are usually called "security guards" and they, well, could not pass by the weapon, which seemed to have been specially created just for them.
Yes, Arthur Savage, having created a rifle with a unique rotating rotary magazine and even a cartridge counter that visually showed their number, showed everyone a very high creative potential. And if his Model 99 became a model of advanced weapon culture at the turn of the century, then the pistol he made became the most real weapon of the twentieth century. Although, just something Savage himself did not personally create. He simply bought patents obtained by Albert Hamilton Searle in 1905 and turned his ideas into metal. However, it was required first to understand the design of Searle and evaluate it, not to mention how to make the new pistol work and work flawlessly. To begin with, this design was distinguished by an original and very unusual system for retarding the shutter-casing retreating back after the shot. At that moment, when the bullet began to move along the barrel and crashed into its rifling, the barrel, trying to turn in the direction opposite to the rotation of the bullet, was pressed with a special protrusion against the edge of the longitudinal and somewhat curved cutout on the bolt casing, which slowed down its rollback. As soon as the bullet left the barrel, this protrusion no longer pressed on the cutout in the bolt-casing, and it freely retreated to the extreme rear position.
Searle himself did not engage in the creation of his pistol, but simply sold all the rights to it to Savage Arms Co. Therefore, when he was finally born, it was called "Savage 1907". It immediately began to be mass-produced, and already in 1908 it appeared on the American arms market. Moreover, he had many original features.
The main feature of the pistol was the placement of the return spring around the barrel, which significantly reduced the dimensions of its front end. John Browning subsequently used this scheme in his Browning 1910 pistol. The trigger of the pistol had the following feature: the trigger did not hit the drummer, but was connected to it by a rod attached to it on the axis. That is, he simply moved it back and forth. The shutter consisted of two parts: front and rear, which was also somewhat unusual. As a protection against accidental shots, a flag fuse is used, located on the left of the frame. The trigger pull for a self-defense pistol can be considered optimal. At a distance of 9 meters, when using Remington cartridges with shell bullets weighing 4, 6 g, the spread of hits is approximately 50 mm, which is an excellent indicator for a short-barreled pistol with a barrel length of only 89 mm. The total length of the pistol, by the way, is also small - only 165 mm, that is, at the time of its appearance, it was the most compact and powerful pistol among its kind. The mass of the pistol without cartridges was also small - 539 g.
The next and very important feature of the pistol was its box magazine, which had a two-row arrangement of cartridges. This design of the store was used for the first time in a serial pistol of that time. The pistol magazine held 10 rounds. In addition, another cartridge could be manually inserted into the chamber. Meanwhile, most of the then pistols had a magazine capacity of only 7-8 rounds. So, having appeared on the market, "Savage 1907" raised the "bar" for the level of quality of such pistols so high that then for a long time none of the manufacturers risked mass production of a self-loading pistol similar to the 1907 model of the year. Of course, the Mauser C-96 also had a two-row magazine, but it was located in front of the trigger guard, which significantly affected the length and its total weight. Users noted that the "Savage" sits perfectly in the hand, that is, holding it while firing did not give the shooter any difficulty. The weight of the pistol with the loaded magazine was 656 g, that is, it was also small, like the weight of the empty one. In 1913, the production of a pistol chambered for.380 ACP, with a total length of 180 mm, was started. But models chambered for 9 mm were as popular as pistols chambered for 7, 65 mm Browning cartridge. So until 1920, only 9,800 copies were made.
When the US Army announced a competition for a pistol to replace revolvers in 1910, Savage introduced a pistol chambered for the.45 ACP. He had to compete with John Browning and the Colt Company. Won Colt with the M1911. But a number of circumstances need to be clarified. Firstly, these companies have been producing pistols designed by Browning for many years, improving them from sample to sample, and chambered for the.45 ACP since 1905. And secondly, Savage's.45 caliber pistol was just a prototype.
Whatever it was, but Savage's pistol of caliber 7, 65 mm was still in service. But not in the USA, but in France, where it received the name "le Pistolet Militaire Savage". And they were purchased quite a lot - about 27,000 copies. Then the pistol was attracted by the Portuguese Navy, which supplied 1200 Pistola Savage da Marinha portuguesa M / 914 pistols, caliber 7, 65 mm.
"Savages" spread in other European countries, and were popular in the Russian Empire. In addition to the high fighting qualities of our compatriots, the price also attracted - 25 rubles, while the similar to it "Colt-pocket hammerless" М1903, cost 34. It is interesting that in tsarist Russia at the beginning of the century, American pistols were valued more than European ones, and Browning, and Mauser and Draize were sold for an average of 16-25 rubles, while Savage, although it was an American, cost almost the same. Officers were allowed to wear it out of order.
But the M1907 pistol achieved the greatest on the civilian weapons market in the United States. Why didn't they buy them, including shooting at picnics. When the production of this model was discontinued in 1920, it turned out that the total number of pistols produced was something about 235,000 units. Eight years later, the production of pistols was stopped completely, and Savage Arms Co completely switched to rifles. However, in history with her M1907 pistol, she will remain forever.
P. S. It is interesting that Elbert Hamilton Searle all this time continued to be engaged in invention, and in 1916-1917. created an original lever-operated pistol that allows cocking the trigger and ejecting the magazine with just one firing hand.
