Most of today's automatic pistols are either the barrel retreat principle or the free bolt principle, and there are very few such as the "Desert Eagle" that use the gas conduction principle, but no matter which principle, after firing, the automatic machine recoils backwards to draw out the empty shell shell, and then re-enters and pushes the second bullet to the load. However, in the early days of automatic pistols, various automatic principles such as the hundred ghosts of the night, some of the principles that seem strange today were also used at that time, such as the barrel forward thrust principle, and the German Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol is a typical weapon using this strange principle.
Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol
The Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol was not the first weapon to adopt the barrel thrust principle, and earlier in 1894, the Austrian small arms designer Ferdinand von Manlisha (the Manlisha rifle) designed a Manlicia M1894 pistol that used the barrel thrust principle, which was the world's first automatic pistol to use the barrel forward thrust principle. However, the Manlishia M1894 automatic pistol was too old to be designed and produced very little. In contrast, the German Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol is the most complete and produced automatic weapon using the barrel forward thrust principle, with a total of about 8,000 guns produced before and after.
Manlicia M1894 automatic pistol
History of R&D
The schwarzlozer M1909 pistol was designed by andreas Wilhelm Schwarzlose, who was born on 31 July 1867 in Wust, then Prussia. Schwarzlozer showed a talent for firearm design early on, and in 1892, at the age of 25, he designed an automatic pistol and applied for a patent. Although the pistol design patent was not eventually mass-produced, it still showed his ingenuity. Schwarzlozer subsequently applied for several pistol design patents, but none of them were mass-produced.
The most famous of the various designs in Schwarzlozer is not a pistol, but a Schwarzlozer M1907 water-cooled machine gun. This is a kind of elbow delayed recoil (note that the elbow joint here is different from the elbow joint lock of the Maxim machine gun, it cannot completely close the breech, does not require the principle of tube retreat, and the barrel is fixed. This elbow section only adds some resistance to the bolt recoil and delays the bolt recoil speed, which belongs to the semi-free bolt principle. ), a chain-fed, water-cooled machine gun that was equipped with the Austro-Hungarian army during World War I. So much so that to this day, when people talk about Schwarzlozer, the first thing that comes to mind is this Schwarzlozer M1907 heavy machine gun.
Schwarzlozer M1907 heavy machine gun
In 1907, Schwarzlozer patented an automatic pistol design that used the barrel forward charge automatic principle, magazine feeding, and a grip safety. In 1908, this automatic pistol was successfully patented in Germany, and the following year it was patented in the United States, so later generations called this pistol Schwarzlozer M1908 or Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol (named according to the different patent filing times of the two places), but the gun was put into mass production in 1909, so it is more appropriate to call it Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol.
According to the technical description document at the time of Schwarzlozer's patent application, the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol had the following advantages over the popular Browning automatic pistol at the time:
1. The length is shorter than the Browning pistol of the same caliber that adopts the principle of free bolt;
2, the use of barrel forward rush automatic principle, the rear half of the gun is fixed, there is no backward movement of the automatic machine, there will be no automatic machine flying backwards to injure the shooter accident, safer than the free bolt principle;
3. There is a grip safety, which can be safely carried in the case of bullets in the chamber.
Advertisement for the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol of the year
Barrel forward thrust principle exploration
The Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol is 140mm long, the barrel is 105mm long, the whole gun is 110mm high, 24.5mm wide, the empty gun weighs 530g, the caliber is 7.65mm, the firing 7.65x17mm SR Browning Automatic Pistol Cartridge (.32ACP), the magazine is supplied, the ammunition capacity is 6 rounds. The most special thing about the gun is the use of today's rare barrel forward thrust principle, which can actually be seen as the inverted free bolt principle:
We know that the working principle of free bolt weapons is that there is no rigid locking between the bolt (which is the sleeve for many automatic pistols) and the barrel, and only the bolt mass and re-entry spring elasticity are "closed without locking". After the ammunition is fired, the barrel is fixed, the gunpowder gas acts on the bottom of the shell, the bolt is pushed backwards, the empty shell is withdrawn, and then the bolt is re-advanced under the action of the re-entry spring, and the second round is loaded.
Free Bolt Principle Pistols hold the barrel motionless when fired, and the bolt sits back.
The barrel forward thrust principle of the Schwarzlozer M1909 is inverted, the rear half of the gun does not move, the barrel moves forward, the ammunition is fired by the gunpowder gas pressure and the friction of the bullet on the inner wall of the barrel to push the barrel forward, the shell is pulled forward by the shell hook on the bottom handle, so that the barrel is forward, the shell does not move, the empty shell is pulled out, after completing the shell throwing action, the barrel moves backwards again under the action of the spring (which should be called "retraction spring") at this time, covering the bullet of the second bullet, and putting the second bullet into the chamber. Prepare to launch a second round.
The Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol, which uses the barrel forward thrust principle, moves the barrel and moves forward.
Due to the barrel forward-thrust principle, the hammer of the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol cannot be overwhelmed by a recoil bolt/sleeve like a normal automatic pistol, but instead uses a resistive iron attached to the forward-thrust barrel:
When the trigger is pulled, the trigger lever behind the trigger forces the blocking iron rod to deflect in the horizontal direction, the tail is detached from the hammer, and the hammer hits the hammer back forward under the action of the hammer spring to hit the bottom fire and fire the bullet;
Then the barrel is charged forward, because the resistance iron rod is connected to the barrel, so the resistance iron is charged forward with the barrel and detached from the trigger lever;
The barrel is completed back and forth, under the action of the spring, it retreats, trapping the next shot into the chamber, while the group of iron rods pushes the hammer backwards again, returns to the ready position, and prevents the iron head to re-buckle with the trigger lever, ready to fire the next shot.
In addition, there is a grip safety at the leading edge of the grip of the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol, and the usual grip safety pops out, resisting the trigger so that the trigger cannot be pulled, only by holding the grip safety, the trigger has room to pull backwards, and can shoot. This grip insurance also has a different place, when the grip safety lock button on the left side of the grip is pressed, the grip insurance will lock in the off-safe position, can not be pressed, you must press the grip safety lock button again to release.
It should also be noted that although the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol is nominally 7.65mm caliber and uses a 7.65x17mm SR pistol cartridge, due to its special automatic principle, it is better to choose a Schwarzlozer special cartridge. The chamber pressure of this cartridge is slightly higher than that of a normal 7.65mm pistol, and the recoil will increase if used on other 7.65mm Browning automatic pistols; conversely, if the ordinary 7.65mm Browning pistol cartridge is used on the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol, it may cause a failure due to insufficient bore pressure.
Production situation and model evolution
Although the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol is already the largest production of barrel forward-thrust pistols, the total production of only 8,000 pistols is still very small for a mass-produced pistol, and the production period is not long, starting from 1909, and at the latest it was discontinued in 1915, and the manufacturer has changed again and again. First produced by Schwarzlozer's own company, which, due to poor management, collapsed in 1910, the production rights of the gun were resold to a German company called G.C. Dornheim; at the end of 1911, it was sold to warner Arms Corporation in Brooklyn, New York, and sold in the United States on behalf of Kirtland Brothers & Company. Franklin B. Warner and Marvin J. Warner (who are brothers with Franklin Warner) are also owners of Cortland Bros., which means that both companies are owned by Warner Bros.
Due to the production period and manufacturer, the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol has four subtypes before and after, namely the Standard Model, Deluxe Model, Warner Type 1 and Warner Type 2.
The standard type is a baked blue appearance with grip safety, a fine vertical stripe at the rear of the barrel (the first loading action of the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol is to pinch the rear of the barrel to push the barrel forward and then backwards, just the opposite of a normal pistol), and the magazine release button is at the bottom of the grip;
Schwarzlozer M1909 standard
The structure of the Deluxe type is basically similar to that of the standard type, but the surface has been changed to nickel-plated, and the bottom of the magazine has an additional hanging ring hanging the gun rope.
Schwarzlozer M1909 luxury type
Warner 1 is a model distributed by Warner Arms in the United States, characterized by the vertical barrel anti-slip pattern changed to a grid pattern, the magazine release button according to the American habit to change to the left side of the grip, so that there are two buttons on the side of the grip, a grip safety lock button, a magazine release button, the upper part of the grip piece has the company abbreviation WAC three letters overlapping pattern; in addition, the right side of the gun body of the shell hook has also been changed, changed to an enlarged exposed shell hook.
Schwarzlozer M1909 Warner 1
Close-up of the right side of the Schwarzslozer M1909 Warner 1 (right), noting that there is an exposed shell hook behind the barrel anti-slip pattern, which is different from the standard (left).
The Warner 2 is also a model distributed by Warner Arms in the United States, which simply eliminated the grip safety and instead installed a toggleable manual bumper on the left side of the grip, and the magazine release button was changed back to the bottom of the grip.
Schwarzlozer M1909 Warner 2, grip insurance was eliminated and replaced with a manual bumper on the left side of the grip.
Surprisingly, the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol is also related to a historical celebrity - the German Emperor Wilhelm II in The First World War had a customized version of the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol with a special gun number "No.1", which was standard in shape, but had a crown pattern on the grip and a carefully polished blue surface that was very smooth.
William II's No.1 Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol
Kaiser Wilhelm II (left), in the photo, the No. 1 Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol is displayed in the holster of his belt.
Evaluation of the principle of barrel thrust
In the early stage of automatic pistol development" of "hundred ghosts of night", the barrel forward thrust principle used by the Schwarzlozer M1909 pistol is a technical way to solve the automatic loading of the pistol, especially in the case of the free bolt principle is still in the patent protection period, this principle can bypass the technical patent, which has certain significance. But the barrel forward thrust principle is not technically a good design:
1, theoretically speaking, the forward barrel can offset part of the recoil, but each time the heavy barrel will be rushed forward first, and then crashed backwards, the hand holding the gun will feel a larger vibration, feeling strange and uncomfortable;
2, the barrel forward thrust principle is not as reliable as the free bolt principle, pick the bullet, if you use inappropriate ammunition, there will be jamming, unable to play and other failures.
Therefore, this strange automatic principle is only a flash in the pan in the history of firearms development, and after the basic design of automatic weapons is matured and perfected, practical weapons using this principle will no longer be seen.