What Could Have Been

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I really wish this gun didn't suck so hard, because it's a looker. I kinda wanna design a replica, but I don't wanna blow my hand off testing. We got better alloys and shit now, though... Maybe the patents and copyrights have lapsed? I'll do it if I don't have to pay royalties.

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The White-Merrill—Submitted by Samuel Merrill of Boston, MA, this pistol employed one singular characteristic intriguing to the board. Since the adoption of the S&W Schofield in 1877, consideration was given to any gun that could be cleared or loaded with one hand, facilitating the operator to maintain control over his mount by holding the reins with his off hand. The White-Merrill accomplished this objective by having a spur located under the trigger guard permitting the operation of the slide with the pistol hand. However, the amplified blow-back system employed a very strong spring and action to accommodate the increased power of the .45 ACP cartridge making this operation quite difficult. Additionally, numerous cartridge failures, feeding problems and loose screws prevented any more than 211 rounds from being fired before testing stopped. Although no mention was made in the report, the over-sized slide/trigger spur surely would have made for a difficult holster pattern and would certainly have been condemned by troops in the field as being a considerable impediment to handling.

Please continue, this is the most interesting thing I've read all week.

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>>32857434
I'm a sucker for the narrow barrel. If the Ruger Standard came in any reasonable caliber I'd carry one for self-defense. The problem is, you need that barrel mass with a heavy round like 45, unless you have some type of delay mechanism that nobody had thought about in 1907.

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Excellent thread, thanks for the great info

I know it's you, Ian, but I didn't know you browsed /k/

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>>32857447
You got it!

the Webley-Fosbery .455 is still the only automatic revolver ever produced commercially in large numbers (nearly 4,000 manufactured). It passed all the tests and scored higher than any of the automatics when it came to the rust and dirt drills. The board summarily dismissed it as it offered no serious advantages over the submitted automatics with the exception of lighter recoil.

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>>32857496
FUCK

How would I go about buying one of these

>mfw it's probably like $10,000

>>32857434
>>32857471
>that grip angle
ew

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>>32857363
neat thread, anon. have a sagan.

>>32857363
>In its double action form, an additional pull of the trigger would cause the hammer to raise and fall once more in a attempt to secure a positive ignition to a previously failed round
i don't understand, this is what all automatics do?

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>>32857493
Actually not him, but I am a huge fan of his. I pirate all his videos for when the Internet collapses.

Bergman—An enlarged copy of the famous Bergman-Bayard pistol was submitted with great anticipation by its inventor, Theodore Bergman, of Baden, Germany. Having been one of the pioneers of autoloading firearms, his pistol had enjoyed wide sales in Europe and was adopted by numerous military services—including those in Denmark, Greece and Spain. However, when testing began it was argued the supplied cartridges were not of sufficient power to operate the mechanism. Additional cartridges were procured with an increased powder charge, but to no avail. The gun refused to discharge any of the provided ammo and was dismissed from further testing.

I really, really wish this had performed better. Nobody would have questioned the legality of a M3 grease gun in a universe where a clip-forward handgun had been available since before the 1920s. And you just KNOW somebody would have made a drum clip for it during Prohibition...
>>32857536
Yeah, but this is the first! They're all copying this one.
>>32857512
See also: Colt 1903
>>32857500
More, probably. Best advice for you? Find a really ambitious and well-funded engineering student.

>>32857563
I really like this one anon. Keep posting if you can!

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Luger—The assorted colonels, majors and captains who comprised the review board must surely have been impressed with the physical presence at the trials of George Luger, the inventor of the world-renowned self-loading pistol that bore his name. Most of the officers were already familiar with Luger's work as the Army and Navy had purchased 1,000 Lugers for field trials. Luger personally demonstrated the gun before the board and using only one screwdriver and two drifts, he disassembled and reassembled the gun completely in just eight minutes. The gun fairly withstood the firing tests having fired 1,022 rounds—more than any of the other competitors. It averaged below the Colt in the number of jams and below the Savage in the number of misfires. However, the "certainty of action" due to its positive spring action was a major drawback compelling the board to return a negative finding on the pistol. Additionally, the Luger had been tested using 746 rounds of ammunition prepared by Luger and brought over to the trials. Luger had prepared special "hot rounds" with a faster burning powder than was currently available in the U.S. On this point, the Army conceded that the Luger worked best with the German-made rounds.

Wouldn't it have been pretty fucked up if we had the same handguns as the Nazis? We were really that close.

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>>32857596
Nice presentation. Well done.

>>32857363
weird gun, how it works? have videos or schematics?

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Last up, the only one to challenge the Colt in the 1911 finals, the Savage 1906. Designed by Elbert Searle, this design was just barely ready for the 1907 trials-some of the patents weren't filed until the month after, in fact. Given that the Savage auto was a new concept and design to the Savage Arms Co. (whereas Colt had been working with Browning on his auto pistol for nearly 10 years), it is quite amazing how well it did against the combined arms manufacturing genius of Colt and Browning.

The 1906 .45 cal. Savage had nine fewer parts than the Colt, held more rounds than the Colt, required fewer tools to completely disassemble than the Colt, was more accurate than the Colt and passed the sand test in half the time the Colt took. Unfortunately for Savage, it also had 40 percent more jams and misfires than the Colt. The board also found the Savage to be quite violent in discharge and heavy (although the board's own report lists the Savage as weighing only 1/2 ounce more than the Colt).

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>>32857679
Over the next few years, both the Savage and Colt pistols were put through rigorous tests and field trials. John Browning with the Colt engineers and Searle from Savage worked relentlessly to gain the upper hand in the tests. Colt finally began—with with numerous modifications such as the 1905/7, 1909 and 1910 pistols—to out-distance the Savage competition. On March 15, 1911, the Colt-improved Model 1911 went up against the Savage Model 1910. Over 6,000 rounds were fired from each pistol. The Savage had only 37 misfires. The Colt had none. The Colt consistently grouped better in the accuracy tests and was much quicker and easier to disassemble than the Savage. The Colt, after exactly four years of refinement, was unanimously approved by the testing Board and adopted on March 28, 1911.

Savage Arms deserves a movie. They worked so hard, and came so close, but it was always gonna be Colt. Still, they made an awesome gun, sold a bunch of them in 38 and all died rich, I think.

>>32857363
Looks like the ruger Mark whatevers, kind of.

High quality thread, OP. Cool to see the competition Colt was up against, I wasn't expecting Luger.

>>32857596
>Wouldn't it have been pretty fucked up if we had the same handguns as the Nazis? We were really that close.
Though it was never formally adopted by the Germans either, the Army looked at the c96 as well.

>>32857396
Patents and copyrights are long elapsed so have at it.

If you want to make any of those firearms you can do it on a common industrial knee mill "Bridgeport" style machine with some tooling. That's slightly more advanced than the machine tools they were made on in the first place.

CNC would make some curves much easier to cut, but nothing involves more than a (motivated) student machinist can produce. You probably won't buy a "tracer" milling machine but that would work too. I didn't have the space for the last one I saw at auction but they are out there cheap if you hunt systematically.

Take a community college machinist course because formal training pays off.

>>32857512
Looks fine to me

>>32857563
Alternatively get really good at CAD, get a CNC and painstakingly mill one out yourself.

You could probably take certain parts from other guns to speed it up like the cylinders because I wouldn't really do that at home

>>32857596
Nah, the luger was nice but the colt was cheaper to make and domestic, the Nazis switched to the P38 for that reason too.

>>32857563
>clip

Nigger, neat thread but do you know where you are?

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>>32858082
What should I say, 'magazine?' I'm from the 90s, magazines are what you read in the dentist's office.

Here's another wierd gun from the same period, an experimental High Standard 45 prototype.

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>>32858950
Strangely, I haven't been able to find any info on this one, but who cares? It's a cool old 45 and I would love one.

>>32858976
Hmmm, looks like an Automag.

If it were in my power to recreate one of these guns, it would be the Savage as long as it was reliable.

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I love such threads. Not many such cases.

Happy!

>>32858950
I mean, ya you should say magazine because that's what it is. especially with these older pistols, alot of which were indeed clip fed. Calling a magazine a clip is just using the wrong word, not a manner of speaking

>>32858976
That looks like a scaled up version of the old .22 high standard pistols. If they were as reliable as the old .22's, would be pretty cool to try one out

>>32858976
I believe my local cabela's has one of those in the library.

>>32858008
A rotary table with a mounted chuck would handle cylinder boring on a milling machine. Remember when these weapons were made the go-to machine tools were quite basic. Metal is cheap enough you can afford to play with different designs and dimensions keeping what works.

A drafting course or lots of CAD practice would help. You don't need to be amazing, but you do need to be thorough.

>>32858950
>What should I say, 'magazine?' I'm from the 90s, magazines are what you read in the dentist's office.

You can't truly think precisely without using precise terms.

The behaviors of illiterates are inappropriate for machine parts descriptions. When I work on aircraft flight controls I don't refer to leading edge flaps as "droopywings". Precision is not pedantry.

>>32857396
luger p38 looks a lot like this bra