La Lira: A Spanish Copy of the Mannlicher 1901
Spain
•
11m
The Spanish firm of Garate Anitua y Cia manufactured this copy of the Mannlicher 1901/1905 pistol for just a brief period around 1910. It is not a straight copy, as the Mannlicher was chambered for its own 7.63mm Mannlicher cartridge and fed using stripper clips and a fixed internal magazine while the La Lira design was chambered for the more common .32 ACP (7.65mm Browning) and used a typical type of detachable magazine. In addition, the La Lira was a simple blowback action, not including the slight delaying mechanism built into the original Mannlicher.
In addition to two standard La Lira pistols, we also have one gold damascened example to take a look at. These are quite rare today - no documented production records are known, but it is estimated that only 500-1000 were made total.
Up Next in Spain
-
Catalonia's Attempt at a Pistol: the ...
The Republican factions in the Spanish Civil War had much more trouble obtaining arms than the Nationalist elements, and this led to several attempts to build pistols in small-scale workshops. The best known of these are the RE and Ascaso copies of the Astra 400, but in the city of Barcelona a gr...
-
Full Auto at 1000m: The 7.92x41mm CET...
The US insistence on a full-power rifle cartridge for the NATO standard in the 1950s derailed a couple potentially very interesting concepts - including the 7.92x41mm CETME cartridge. This round was developed by Dr. Gunther Voss, formerly of Mauser, while working with other ex-Mauser employees li...
-
Hafdasa's Ballester Campeon Competiti...
Made after World War Two until 1957, the Ballester Campeon was a .22 rimfire competition pistol built on the frame of the Argentine Ballester-Molina .45 ACP service pistol. Two versions were made, a standard 5 inch (127mm) barrel with normal sights and the longer 7.5 inch (190mm) Campeon model wi...
