Weapons and firms. We continue our story about the companies, one way or another connected with the production of automatic rifles based on the AR-15, the legendary Eugene Stoner rifle, which, as readers of "VO", have probably already been able to notice from the previous materials of the cycle, is not produced in the West unless a very lazy gunsmith industrialist. Accordingly, there are a lot of firms that produce it, and firms are different. There are those created recently and under the name of the brand, and there are those whose history was included in the world fund for the history of weapons. Again, there are more well-known firms, and there are less, but equally interesting, and sometimes even more interesting. One of these firms is the Savage Arms Company, one of the oldest American enterprises, which, in addition to small arms, also produces various types of ammunition, as well as accessories for it. The firm is headquartered in Westfield, Massachusetts, and one of the direct manufacturing divisions of the company is in Lakefield (Ontario, Canada). It was founded in 1894 by a certain Arthur Savage, a man with a very, let's say, unusual biography, with which we will begin our story.
Arthur William Savage was born on May 13, 1857 in Kingston on the island of Jamaica. Moreover, his father was the British educational commissioner for the black slaves who received their freedom there. Savage Sr. also spared no money on his son's education, and he studied in England, Britain and the United States, in the city of Baltimore in Maryland. After completing his education, Arthur Savage married Annie Bryant, from whom he had four daughters and four sons.
At thirty, Arthur Savage and his family for some reason went to Australia. If it was a passion for adventure, then he could fully satisfy it there: he often lived in a gold digger's van, and then for about a year he lived among a tribe of local natives, either as a hostage or as a guest. But something else is important here: Savage eventually became the owner of perhaps the largest cattle ranch in Australia and began to receive the corresponding income from it.
And he would have lived happily in Australia in a two-story house with columns in the colonial British style, but then he again suffered in the United States. In 1892, he settled in Utica, New York, where he was employed on the Utica Belt Line Street, and worked so well there that he ended up as its superintendent there. And then two years later, Savage and his eldest son Arthur John took, and opened their own weapons production, which they called Savage Arms. Moreover, they were not afraid even of competition with such firms as Colt and Winchester. Although it cannot be said that they had no experience in the arms business, because, while working on the railway, Arthur also managed to work part-time at a local arms factory. And before that, by order of the Colt company, he manufactured a rifle to participate in a competition for a new rifle for the US Army. His development did not come into service, but the fact that he attracted the attention of such a well-known company at that time speaks for itself. So he had the money to design, and a certain amount of experience, and, undoubtedly, a clear ability to design in the field of arms business.
This first model was followed by a second, the 1894 model. She, like the previous one, was reloaded by means of the movement of the "Henry's staple", but at the same time it had not an underbarrel, but a rotary magazine. The rotary magazine looks like a drum magazine, but in fact it is very different from it. The drum is both a magazine and a chamber, while in the rotor the cartridges are only stored and from it are fed into the chamber with the help of a shutter. It is important that in such a magazine the cartridges are located without touching each other, and not in the same way as in a "hard drive" - one after the other. That is, Savage's bullet nose could not in any way pierce the primer of the cartridge located behind, and if so, then the most advanced ammunition of that time could be used in the new rifle, that is, cartridges with pointed bullets. And Savage himself made such a cartridge, and he received the designation.303 Savage. Like many rifle cartridges of those years, he had a rim, but his bullet had a pointed shape. It turned out that the new cartridge is superior in energy and ballistic performance to the Winchester.30-30 cartridge, although not very significantly. Nevertheless, as a hunting cartridge, it retained its popularity until the 30s of the XX century.
A year later, the "Model 1895" followed, produced by Marlin Repeating Arms in a quantity of 9,600 units. And now she made a real sensation in the American arms market! Firstly, it did not have any protruding parts, and secondly, its entire mechanism was most reliably sheltered from dust and dirt inside the receiver; that is, this guaranteed its reliable and uninterrupted operation in any conditions. It is interesting that the trigger of this rifle was not just covered, but was absent altogether as a detail: Savage's rifle had a design with a drummer, which ensured a decrease in the mass of its moving parts at the time of the shot, and as a result, increased firing accuracy. The rotary magazine for 8 rounds was also a novelty then, as was the cartridge number indicator on the left side of the receiver.
Then Savage Arms with the model 1895 won the competition of the National Guard of the State of New York, but due to undercover intrigues, the guards never received it, and remained with the old Springfield rifles M 1873. She did not join the army either., having lost in the competition of army rifles to the Norwegian Krag-Jorgensen rifle. However, this did not affect the popularity of the new rifle and they bought it very well. And then in 1899, the M1899 rifle appeared with a five-round magazine, a shortened barrel and a modified sight, and now it literally conquered the American hunting weapon market. From 1899 to 1998, more than one million copies were produced for cartridges of various calibers. That is, what only she did not shoot. These were the.303 Savage and.30-30 Winchester cartridges, and the later and stronger.300 Savage cartridge, its competitor was the.308 Winchester, and.358 Winchester, and 7mm-08 Remington, and 8mm.32-40 Ballard. Moreover, in 1899, Savage proposed to convert any previously purchased rifle or carbine of the 1895 model into the configuration of the 1899 model for a fee of only $ 5.
However, this rifle still fell into the hands of the soldiers. During the First World War, the Montreal Home Guard was armed with M1899-D "Musket" rifles. They were released in the amount of 2500 pieces, and they all had a completely military appearance: a long barrel, covered with a receiver plate along its entire length, and, of course, a bayonet mount. Moreover, the guards had to acquire these rifles for their own money and at the same time engrave their own name and surname on them.
It should be noted here that, competing with the Krag-Jorgensen rifle, Savage also had competitors among the Americans, and one of them, John H. Blake from New York, created a rifle somewhat similar to his own, but with a sliding bolt of direct action … It hardly makes sense to describe the shutter here, but the shop for it turned out to be from its creator and indeed very original. Like Savage's rifle, it was rotary (so the members of the competition committee did not even know what to call it more correctly), only Blake's rotor with cartridges was removable, and represented … a clip that was loaded into the store.
To load a rifle, a soldier had to first open the lid of a semicircular-section magazine on it, which closed with a latch, then take a cylindrical clip, reminiscent of a revolver drum, only without walls (it contained seven.30 Blake rounds), and insert it into the magazine so, so that it is fixed inside him. Now the lid could be slammed shut and fired. And although Blake's store could fit seven cartridges, and another could also be inserted into the barrel, the American military did not like such a complicated process of loading, and his 1892 model rifle lost the competition.
Its mechanism was designed too complex, in particular, it had a switch from the single-shot mode to the "Rapid" mode - that is, high-speed shooting. During single firing, the bolt alternately pushed the cartridges into the chamber, the clip rotated, a new cartridge was fed to the feed line, and the spent cartridges were thrown away.
During high-speed shooting, the rifle acted in the same way, but the cartridge clip rose to the level of the feed line, which is why the empty cases were not thrown away, but remained in the clip. It was removed along with the casings, and a fraction of a second was saved on the firing process. If desired, the soldier could even switch the rifle to manual reloading mode. Then, with the clip completely shot and filled with sleeves, it would be possible to throw out all the empty sleeves one by one by moving the shutter. That is, the design was clearly unnecessarily complicated without any performance gain. As a result, neither the army nor the American navy took an interest in the Blake rifle. Unlike the Savage rifle, it was not in demand on the commercial weapons market either.
However, the popularity of the Savage rifle was associated not only with its high consumer properties, but also with well-organized advertising, as was the case, for example, with the Colt revolvers. And it so happened that the chief of the Cheyenne tribe from a reservation in Wyoming named Bear, offered Arthur Sevidge to sell him a batch of rifles for a very low price, but promised that for this his Indians would advertise his rifles as the best. Savage turned out to be a reasonable man and agreed with this proposal. And everyone won. The Indians received cheap and high-quality rifles, and the company received excellent advertising, since it was with its rifles that the Cheyenne participated in speeches that told about life in the Wild West. Moreover, it was after talking with the Indians that he came up with her memorable and very suitable for America logo - the profile of the head of an Indian wearing a headdress made of eagle feathers, the image of the same Bear, which became a personal gift to Savage from the leader.
