Tuesday - October 27, 2015

more real steampunk

Another super modern firearm. Adopted in 1906. Total steampunk reality.

The first semi-automatic pistol adopted by any military power. Served the Austrio-Hungarian Army throughout WWI. Everything I read leads me to believe it was designed as a cavalry pistol, at the dawn of the machine gun age.

Also known as the Roth-Krnka M.7, it field strips into just 7 parts and the frame.

It was a locked breech design, but an unusual one. Instead of a toggle link (eg 1911) or a rotating bolt, the M.7 used a rotating, recoiling barrel!

The Roth–Steyr pistol fires from an unusual style of locked breech. The bolt is very long. Its rear end is solid, except for a sleeve for the striker, but its front part is hollow and fits tightly over the barrel. The interior of the bolt has cam grooves cut into it, and the barrel has studs which fit into the grooves. When the pistol is fired, the barrel and bolt recoil together within the hollow receiver for about 0.5 inch. During this operation, the helical grooves in the muzzle bushing cause the barrel to turn 90 degrees clockwise, after which it is held while the unlocked bolt continues to the rear, cocking the action as it does so. For safety with intended use by mounted cavalry, the pistol has a heavy trigger pull against the firing striker spring, similar to a hammerless revolver.

See that? It was striker fired, just like the coolest new pistols you can buy today.

It had an internal 10 round magazine, so it was loaded via stripper clip ...

While the pistol deliberately had no safety, it had a very unique firing pin design: the gun only cocked the firing spring when you fired it! And no, it wasn’t “DAO”, not exactly; this one is a single action semi-auto.

The Roth-Steyr also has an unusual striker mechanism. As the bolt goes forward, the striker is held by the sear with minimal compression of the striker spring. Pulling the trigger forces the striker back, compressing the striker spring, until it is released by the sear to fire the cartridge. This mechanism, very similar to the Roth-Sauer pattern, is said to have demanded by the cavalry; demanding a conscious effort to fire, it guards against a skittish horse jolting a conventional cocked hammer out of engagement with the sear.

For cavalry who at the time used handguns as primary weapons (and who might be liable to drop a pistol from 7 or 8 feet off the ground), this was a considerable benefit. In the early part of the 20th Century, safety features like this were not yet common in automatic handguns, and the Roth-Steyr’s very large sear engagement surface and out of battery safety made it one of the safest automatic pistols of the period. Krnka designed this system 80 years before Gaston Glock designed his polymer wondernine, and over 30 years before Walther would popularize the DA/SA mechanism with the PPK, making his design truly a pistol ahead of its time.

The Roth-Steyr M1907 fired a 8mm (.32 caliber) 116 grain steel jacketed bullet at 1088fps. Not as potent as a 9mm Luger or a .32-20, but a good step up from a .32 ACP or even a .380 ACP. The steel casing on the bullet gave it superb penetration.

And it’s just so damn cool looking.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roth%E2%80%93Steyr_M1907
https://www.all4shooters.com/it/home/pistole/2012-gallerie/Roth-Steyr/
http://www.hungariae.com/RothStey.htm
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/10/23/the-m1907-roth-steyr-an-austrian-striker-fired-handgun-before-it-was-cool-friday-field-strip/
https://www.all4shooters.com/it/home/pistole/2012-articoli/Roth-Steyr-pistola-semiautomatica/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baUTYMPsh9M&ab_channel=ForgottenWeapons

PS - that’s not a hammer spur you see in the top picture. This pistol was hammerless. The little bit sticking out is a hand rest, like the beaver tail on a modern 1911. It puts your hand in the proper position while you’re busy driving your horse.

Posted by Drew458     on 10/27/2015 at 10:16 AM   
Filed Under: • Guns and Gun Control •  
• Comments (2) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

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