The legend of the pickle series is more than half of the length, explaining the first half of the "one shot, two horses and three flower mouths" for you, these three guns are from the hands of the gun master John Browning, which has a high reputation in the world and is also familiar to domestic military fans. From the beginning of this issue, we will talk about the second half of this sentence "four snakes and five dogs open their mouths and pedals", of which the "four snakes" is the "snake brand picker", the large size is the German Sauer M1913 pistol, compared to the above three kinds of pickles, this gun is more unpopular, less well known. Some readers may have such a view: this series has finally been replaced, and finally there is a work that is not browning design, very embarrassed, although the "snake brand pick" is a German product, but still carries the mark of the Browning pistol, to some extent, it is the follow-up work of the Browning pistol.
■ A family portrait of one shot, two horses and three flowers, from left to right, are gun brand picks, horse brand picks and flower mouth picks.
Sauer & Thorne is a long-established family business in Germany, which has been engaged in the manufacture of firearms from the middle of the 18th century in the small town of Sur in Thuringia, and in 1811 became the first company to supply firearms to the Prussian army. However, for a long time, Sauer Company was mainly based on FOUNDRy, and the original design ability was insufficient, until the 1880s because of the manufacture of high-quality shotguns in the gun market, and was praised for its fine workmanship and high quality. In the 20th century, with the advent of the Browning series of pistols, semi-automatic pistols were hot in the market, and Sauer was also red-eyed and wanted to get a piece of it. Based on the experience of previous oem pistols, combined with various emerging technologies, Sauer's chief designer Fritz Zener personally developed the Sauer M1913 pistol in 1913.
■ The advertisement of the German Sauer company, founded in 1751, the main product is a high-grade shotgun.
The Sauer M1913 pistol adopts the principle of free bolt automatic, the biggest feature in appearance is the cylindrical sleeve structure, and there is a bottom cover with anti-slip pattern at the end of the sleeve, which is connected to the sleeve by thread, and when it is loaded, it is held by the bottom cover to pull the sleeve, and the bottom cover can be unscrewed to remove the firing pin. However, from an aesthetic point of view, this sleeve design is quite ugly, pulling down the value. The Sauer M1913 pistol fires .32ACP pistol cartridges (7.65×17 mm) fed with a 7-round magazine with a magazine release button located under the grip.
■ The Sauer M1913 pistol fires 7.65 mm pistol cartridges with a magazine capacity of 7 rounds.
■The Sauer M1913 can remove the firing pin by twisting the bottom cover of the sleeve open.
The Sauer M1913 is positioned as a small self-defense pistol, so the size and weight are required to be as light as possible, so Zener borrowed browning's re-entry spring center design pioneered on the FN M1910 pistol, wrapping the re-entry spring around the barrel, thus saving space and reducing weight, the full gun weighs 595 grams, the total length is 146 mm, and the barrel length is 73 mm, similar to the FN M1910. The Sauer M1913 chose a translational firing pin in the firing method, a design similarly applied by Browning to the FN M1900 and M1910 pistols, which eliminates the need for a hammer, reduces external protrusions, simplifies the internal structure, and is ideal for small pistols.
■The Sauer M1913 adopts the center design of the re-entry spring and is small in size.
Early models of the Sauer M1913 pistol did not have a separate illumination door, and only a notch was opened at the top of the sleeve bottom cover for aiming. This design is quite similar to the semi-buried sight of the FN M1910, which is intended to reduce protrusions, make the shape smooth, avoid hooking when the gun is fired, and affect the reaction speed. However, unlike the FN M1910 type, which is integrally slotted at the top of the sleeve, the notched illumination door of the Sauer M1913 type is placed on the bottom cover of the sleeve that can be moved, and the sleeve is pulled during use, and the bottom cover is rotated during maintenance and maintenance, which will lead to the inaccurate illumination of the door, so a fixed independent illumination door is set on the later improved version.
■Details on the rear of the sleeve of the Sauer M1913 pistol, pay attention to the notch of the door above the bottom cover of the sleeve (left) and the rear of the sleeve (right) after removing the thickness of the bottom cover.
■ The late version of the Sauer M1913 pistol has a separate illumination door on the top of the sleeve.
It is not difficult to see that the structural design of the Sauer M1913 pistol is deeply influenced by the Browning pistol, which is a sample, but the school in insurance design is not in place. Early models of the Sauer M1913 pistol were provided with manual safety, but only the trigger could be locked after opening the safety, and the gun used a translational firing pin, even if the safety was opened in the loaded state, if the firearm was hit by an external force, such as falling from a high place, it could still cause the firing pin to be fired, causing a safety hazard. In response to this defect, the later models of the Sauer M1913 modified the manual safety to make it possible to lock the trigger and firing pin at the same time, improving the safety of use.
■ Early version of the Sauer M1913 pistol, with manual safety on the sides and an empty safe release button behind the trigger guard.
In addition to manual safety, the Sauer M1913 pistol also features an empty storage design that will not be able to pull the trigger after removing the magazine, avoiding accidental misfire when there is a bullet in the chamber. This design also appeared on browning pistols, except that the empty storage of the Sauer M1913 pistol did not initially have an automatic unlock function, and after reloading the magazine, it was necessary to press the safety release button on the left side of the trigger guard to pull the trigger. In fact, this design is completely a snake, and its purpose may be to circumvent Browning's patent on short position insurance. However, the safety release button was removed on later improvements and unlocked automatically after loading the magazine.
■ Early version of the Sauer M1913 pistol with empty storage safety release button (top) and Sauer M1913 pistol late type (bottom) without empty gun safety release button.
The Sauer M1913 pistol also has a unique detail design, which is equipped with a sleeve lock at the upper edge of the trigger guard, which can be fixed in the recoil position by pulling the sleeve back and pushing the sleeve lock up. The sleeve lock is linked to the trigger, and only the trigger is pulled to unlock and reset the socket. This design is useful for daily maintenance of firearms.
■ Side details of the Sauer M1913 pistol, pay attention to the sleeve lock at the upper edge of the trigger guard.
Overall, the Sauer M1913 pistol is largely a parody of the Browning FN M1910 pistol, which is quite close to or similar in size and detail, with the same positioning and reliable performance, but without too many highlights. However, thanks to the deep accumulation of gun processing in the past hundred years, Sauer Company has quite an advantage in quality control management, so the quality of the Sauer M1913 pistol is excellent, and it has won a good reputation after being introduced to the market, and has achieved good sales performance in the civilian market, and has also been selected by the German police department as a standard police firearm. In addition, France, Britain, Russia and many other countries have also introduced the gun to equip the police. In 1919, Sauer developed the M1919 pocket pistol based on the M1913, firing 6.35 mm pistol cartridges and making it smaller.
■ Sales advertisement for the Sauer M1913 pistol.
■ Sauer M1913 pistol and its holster.
■ The Sauer M1919 pocket pistol, developed based on the M1913 pistol, has a caliber of 6.35 mm.
During world war I, because Germany's military pistol production could not meet the demand, the German army purchased a number of Sauer M1913 pistols as officers. Because of its peculiar shape and good quality, the gun became a favorite trophy of the Allied soldiers. Between the two world wars, Sauer introduced the M1926, M1930 and other modifications, basically following the structure of the M1913, but slightly modified in details, such as canceling the sleeve lock, redesigning the shape of the grip, increasing the bullet indicator in the chamber, changing the shape of the trigger reed, and so on. The production of the Sauer M1913 pistol was not particularly large, about 170,000 pieces, and it was even more difficult to compare with the Browning pistol in terms of influence.
■ Sauer M1930 pistol and holster thereof.
The number of Sauer M1913 pistols flowing into China is also not large, most of them have become self-defense pistols for high-class people or senior officers, and its common name in China is "Snake Brand Pickle", which stems from its trademark design. The name of the Sauer company is abbreviated as S&S, and in the early version of the M1913 pistol, a simple combination of letters was used as a trademark, and in the later products, it was changed to a more artistic flower design, and the double S letter was like two snakes entangled together, so it was named "Snake Brand Pick", which is also said to be the harmonic sound of the Sauer company.
■ The early version of the Sauer M1913 pistol used the S&S trademark on the grip.
■ The grip of the late model of the Sauer M1913 pistol was changed to a flower body trademark, which resembled a double snake winding, so it was called "Snake Brand Picker".