US Test Trials .45 Caliber Knoble Pistol
Prototype & Trials Weapons
•
7m 58s
One of the domestic American pistols entered in the US 1907 pistol trials was this short recoil, toggle locked design by W.E. Knoble of Tacoma Washington. Knoble submitted two experimental pistols to the trial, one with a single action trigger and one with a double action trigger - although he was unable to attend the trial himself. Unfortunately for Knoble, the trials board found his guns crude and unsatisfactory upon examination, and they were dropped from competition without having fired a single shot. The Luger, Colt/Browning, and Savage would go on the be the winners of the initial trials, with the 1911 ultimately winning.
Knoble’s .45 caliber pistol here does certainly lack the finesse of many other pistols, but it did not appear to me to be dangerously crude, and I am a bit surprised that it was not at least test-fired by the trials board. At any rate, Knoble did make a few other guns of a similar style in .30 Luger and .22 Long Rifle, but never had a design reach a production stage.
Up Next in Prototype & Trials Weapons
-
High Standard T3 Prototype: An Americ...
In 1947, the US Army Air Corps (it had not yet become the Air Force) was assessing its pilot survival equipment, and decided that it wanted a smaller and lighter handgun than the Colt 1911. It put forth a tender for new designs in .30 to .35 caliber, and two companies were chosen to produce proto...
-
The Short-Lived No1 Mk6 SMLE Lee Enfield
The SMLE No1 Mk3 was the iconic British infantry rifle of World War 1, but not the final evolution of the Lee Enfield design. By World War 2 it had been replaced by the new No4 Mk1 Lee Enfield, and this is the story of the interim models.
At the end of WW1, the British recognized several areas...
-
The Very First Troop Trials SMLE Rifles
One of the British lessons form the Boer War was that the distinction between infantry rifles and cavalry carbines was becoming obsolete. In 1902, they would initiate troop trials on a new short rifle pattern, intermediate in length between the old rifles and carbines, and intended to be issued u...
