The "flower mouth" in the so-called "one shot, two horses and three flower mouths" in The old China refers to a famous product of browning company, the Browning M1910 automatic pistol. In the case of "gun brand" and "horse brand" swept Europe and the United States, and even almost occupied the world's modern small self-defense automatic pistol market, Browning completed a new pistol design scheme in 1910, and he handed over the drawings of this pistol to the old cooperative manufacturer Colt Company of the United States, but the latter was unwilling to produce. Prior to this, Browning's design was produced in FN in Belgium, Europe and Colt in the United States, and this time, in view of Colt's attitude, Browning decided to grant the production license only to FN.
The pistol, which later became known as the Browning M1910, was extremely modern and fully embodied the ideological characteristics of Browning's organic combination of inheritance and innovation and the characteristics of striving for perfection. The gun adopts a simple cartridge seat recoil design, the rear seat force is very small, the hammer does not protrude, easy to hide in the pocket. The novel design of the re-entry spring layout laid a "slim" skeleton for this small self-defense pistol, and the cross-section of the sleeve mouth was also changed from the traditional "8" shape to the "O" shape, and the muzzle sleeve at the sleeve mouth was correspondingly changed to a perfect circular ring sleeve, and a circle of knurls was also processed on the leading edge of the muzzle sleeve. In this way, not only in the decomposition and combination, the hand will not slip when rotating the muzzle sleeve, but also add to the aesthetics of the gun. It is precisely because of this circle of beautiful "knurls" on the muzzle sleeve that this new small pistol has a very distinct and typical feature in appearance. Of course, under the joint efforts of China's rich gun culture and rich language, the Browning M1910 7.65mm automatic pistol was "conventionally" called "flower mouth picker". In addition to the 7.65 mm caliber, there are also "flower mouth picks" that use 9 mm bullets.
7.65 mm caliber M1910 side close-up
The M1910 craft pistol from the 1940s
On 28 June 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, and Princess Sofia visited Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, which had been occupied by Austria-Hungary for six years. The streets were crowded, and the Archdukes sat in open-top cars and drove along the Miliaca River towards the Pier of Appel, all the way to the Town Hall, where the mayor would welcome the princely couple on behalf of the people of the city. After the welcoming ceremony at the town hall, the Grand Duke and his party drove to the Pier of Appel, and at a bend, a serbian youth named Gavrilo Princip approached the Grand Duke's car, pulled out a pistol and fired 7 shots in a row, and both the Grand Duke and the Princess were shot and killed. The future successor of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was thus dead on the streets of Sarajevo. This was the famous Sarajevo incident, after which austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia, and Tsarist Russia, which had always regarded itself as a defender of Serbia, began to mobilize, and Germany, which supported Austria-Hungary, also went to war, and a great war inevitably began. By the end of the war in 1918, a total of 12 million people had died in the war. This catastrophe was actually ignited by this small semi-automatic pistol in Princip's hand.
On 28 June 1914, Princip ended the life of Archduke Ferdinand with a Browning M1910 automatic pistol. If it were not for this assassination, the outbreak of the First World War would have been postponed at least. The illustration depicts Princip's weapon as a revolver, which is enough to illustrate the confusion of the details at the time, when Princip used the 9 mm Browning M1910.
A precious war artifact now in the Collection of the Imperial War Museum in London, England, the 9 mm Browning M1910 pistol used by Principe to assassinate Archduke Ferdinand and his wife.
The pistol used by Principe was a 9 mm Browning M1910 semi-automatic pistol produced by the Belgian company FN, with the production serial number 19074 - there have been many records that Princip used an FN M1900 0.32-inch pistol, but in fact those statements are wrong, Princip's weapon is M1910. This pistol is extremely famous, and it is the proud work of Browning, the world's most famous American master of light weapons design. Princip hid the M1910 in his pocket, and the police next to him didn't notice it until he pulled out his pistol and fired it.
Compared with the earlier Browning pistol, the M1910 automatic pistol has made significant progress: under the guidance of the pursuit of the idea of compact structure and small shape of the pistol, Browning has unconventionally adopted the layout of the compound spring center, and the compound spring is directly set on the barrel, so that the barrel has both a shot and a re-entry spring guide rod, so that in the overall shape structure layout of the gun, the height of a re-entry spring diameter is omitted, which is really not simple. Later the Walter PPK and the Soviet Makarov pistol followed this design idea.
After the Nazis seized the FN factory in Belgium, they ordered the plant to continue to produce weapons. This M1910/22 was produced during this period and bears the Nazi eagle emblem on the gun. The M1910/22 is actually an enlarged version of the M1910.
M1910/22 in sleeve pull-back state
The Browning M1910 is a work of the century, opening up another "highway" for the later structural design of small self-defense pistols. From the "Flower Mouth Pick", we can see both unprecedented structural innovation, but also the innovation of the traditional structure in optimizing the combination, and we can also see the re-innovation of the organic combination of tradition and innovation: "Flower Mouth Pick" fully inherits the essence of the "Berthaws", in the design of the aiming device, directly on the top of the sleeve to open a longitudinal groove that runs back and forth, and in the front end of the groove, a small and buried flaky crosshair is set. This groove is actually the gap in the door, elongated into the illumination groove, which plays the role of guiding the shooter to form a line of sight, which is extremely beneficial to improving the directing of the pistol's rapid aiming; at the same time, because there is no protruding crosshair and the door, it completely avoids the hook and hanging that may occur when the gun is drawn from the holster, especially the rapid withdrawal of the gun when the gun is placed directly in the jacket and trouser pocket, plus Browning fully concentrates the advantages of the previous types of pistols, especially the "gun plate" and "horse card", making the "flower mouth picker" The overall structure is more comprehensively optimized. For example, the trigger and trigger linkage and firing resistance iron structure similar to the "gun brand pick" are used on the "flower mouth pick", while the grip insurance, manual insurance, in-place insurance and no magazine insurance mechanism on the gun, as well as the structure of the mechanism combination with the barrel breaking the partition shoot, draw on the characteristics of the "horse brand pick". The overall shape of the "flower mouth picker" whole gun is exquisite and beautiful, the size is light and compact, the structure is simple, the insurance is indeed, and the action is reliable, so it is particularly favored.
Although the "flower mouth picker" is more than beautiful and masculine, it is also quite popular with those who are soft in the military, as well as by high-ranking officials and nobles, businessmen and celebrities, and the police and secret service personnel at that time were also used. This is also the market direction of Browning's design of the "flower mouth pick".
The M1922 craft pistol in the Collection of the American Rifle Association Museum was built around the 1930s. The gun body is engraved with exquisite sacred beasts and tangled branches, the grip guard plate is made of mother beads, and the trigger part is gilded.
In view of the small size of the "flower mouth picker" and could not fully meet the needs of the army, Browning introduced the M1922 automatic pistol. The pistols are available in 7.65 mm and 9 mm calibers, using 7.65 mm × 17 mm Browning automatic pistol cartridges and 9 mm × 17 mm Browning automatic pistol cartridges. The M1922 automatic pistol is actually a variant of the "Flower Mouth Picker". Its structure is basically the same, most of the parts are the same, but the barrel and grip are lengthened, and the magazine capacity is increased. In order to meet the needs of the military, some M1922s also added a safety belt ring in the lower left rear corner of the grip. The M1922 automatic pistol's crosshairs and adjustable directional illumination are also traditionally raised above the gun face. Therefore, this large "flower mouth pick" was soon listed as a military standard pistol by the Netherlands, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Denmark, France and other European countries. In the revolutionary war, our army also captured quite a few from the enemy, so many division and regimental cadres used the M1922 automatic pistol. Since its inception, the "Flower Mouth Pick" has produced nearly one million sticks. Out of a complex of "flower mouth picks", after the end of World War II, some European and American countries still produced it in small quantities.
The Transformers series of toys produced by Takara in Japan. After this Decepticon robot is transformed, it is a brilliant Browning M1910.
The M1910/1922 pistol was widely used in World War II, and after the German occupation of Belgium, it seized the FN factory and asked FN to continue to manufacture the M1922 pistol, which during this period FN produced browning pistols with the Nazi symbol. After the end of World War II, the M1922 was still used in Yugoslavia, the Netherlands, Greece, Turkey, Romania, France, Finland, Denmark and West Germany.
During the war, there were many "flower mouth picks" that entered old China through various channels, and many were captured by our army in the revolutionary war, so they were also widely used. Many people say that the "Browning pistol" is often specifically referred to as "flower mouth picker".