Fritz Mann Model 1921: Chamber-Ring-Delayed Blowback
Semiauto Pistols
•
11m
In 1920, Fritz Mann of Germany patented the idea of cutting a shallow ring in the chamber of a pistol as a delaying mechanism. When fired, a cartridge case would expand into this groove, thus requiring more time and energy to push the case out of the chamber and effectively delaying opening. This allowed Mann to reduce the weight of the operating parts of his model 1920 semiauto pistol in .25ACP (aka 6.35mm Browning). The gun was designed to be as small and as light as possible; a true pocket pistol. Thousands of them were made in 1920 and 1921, although he gun failed to see long-term popularity.
Up Next in Semiauto Pistols
-
1945: The French Occupy Mauser and Ma...
In July 1945, just a few months after the first French troops entered Oberndorf, the Mauser factory began assembling guns under French oversight. In addition to HSc pistols, P38 pistols, K98k rifles, and Model 45 training rifles, Mauser also had sufficient stocks of Luger parts to assemble severa...
-
Lugers Under Versailles: The 1926 Sim...
Simson & Co of Suhl was chosen as the sole contractor legally allowed to manufacture and rework military small arms for the German military under the Versailles treaty. They acquired the P08 Luger tooling from the Erfurt arsenal, and began small volume P08 production in 1925. They would product j...
-
Chinese Warlord Pistols: Massive FN 1...
The armies of Warlord Era China had quite a fondness for the FN 1900 pistol, but they also made extensive use of the 7.63mm Mauser cartridge. So what would be a more natural choice than to make copies of the FN 1900 in 7.63mm Mauser? We can look past the fast that the FN design (and its Chinese c...
