http://www.coltautos.com/images/patents/US580923.pdf
Posted on 04/20/2025 7:17:11 AM PDT by T.B. Yoits
On the 20th April 1897 John Browning received four patents covering his earliest pistol designs. These included two recoil operated systems, a blowback design and Browning’s first pistol design which used an interesting gas-operated toggle action. Browning developed the gas-operated design in 1894-5. While this was the first pistol designed by Browning it eventually proved to be an evolutionary dead end.
Chambered in what would become known as .38 ACP the prototype represents Browning’s continuing experimentation with gas-operation. It had a gas vent on top of the barrel which allowed venting gases to act on a ‘gas lever’ linked by a toggle link to the breech-bolt. Unlike Browning’s later recoil and blowback designs the pistol did not have a slide and to cock the weapon the gas lever was used to pull the bolt to the rear. When the pistol fired the gas lever flipped back toward the operator. A connecting rod then pushed the breech-bolt to the rear unlocking the breech ejecting a spent case. Also cocking the hammer and stripping a new round from the magazine as it returned forward under spring pressure.
The prototype was 21.6cm long, weighing 964g and fed from a 7-round box magazine. It was this pistol which Browning first demonstrated to Colt representatives on the 3rd July 1895. They were so impressed with the pistol and Browning’s other designs that they entered into a verbal agreement to purchase production rights to Browning’s pistol designs.
On the 24th July 1896 Colt bought the manufacturing and sales rights to all four of Browning’s pistol designs. While the blowback and recoil-operated designs would go on to spawn iconic pistols the gas-operated design was not developed and Browning only built a single toolroom prototype.
(Excerpt) Read more at historicalfirearms.info ...
http://www.coltautos.com/images/patents/US580923.pdf
Leftists try to make illegal designs from the 1800s.
Mr Browning was genuis.
“21.6cm long, weighing 964g”
I would say that Mr. Browning did not use centimeters and grams.
Yes he certainly was a genius.
In today’s Amerika, he’d be in Supermax.
LOL. Yeah, Matthew Ross is British.
Related, the partnership between Browning and the Belgian company Fabrique Nationale Herstal (FN) began in 1897. Belgium adopted the metric system in 1816.
Magnificent drawings.
His prototypes were neither factory marked and had no serial numbers hence he made “ghost guns”. Food for thought.
Yes, back then being a draftsman was a real calling.
Have a FN 1900 in 32 auto currently illegally on loan to a forester friend. The 1900 was the first semi with a slide.
T.B. Yoits ~ Yes, back then being a draftsman was a real calling.
It sure was. My most recent patent has rather crude drawings, I expected the patent attorney to have a professional draftsman clean them up.
Good enough, I guess. The USPTO approved my patent in six months...
(Information preservation and conveyance system and method of use, US-11993421-B2)
.
Hoping that the Supreme Court saves us on this.
I should have thought of that. I guess that is why it is a 9.65 caliber! The Europeans are always ahead of us.
Thay’s OK. Essentially 9mm bullet (plus 55 micrometersmoere metal)
No, it is not. the .38 isthe case mouth dimemnsion, not the bullet size, which is .357 in. to be exact.
Correct.
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