In today’s installment of TOTGF, we’re going to look at the history of semi-automatic pistols. Early semi-automatic pistols fascinate me more than any other area of firearms due to the inventiveness and ingenuity of the early guns. Some of them were hopelessly impractical and didn’t work very well at all, but I get a kick out of seeing the engineering involved as a lot of very smart, creative people were trying to solve the same problems. Time has proven that John Browning’s ideas on the function of a semi-automatic pistol work the best and just about everything made today bears his influence…and for the better.
…but there’s still a part of me that looks at a 1912 Steyr or a C96 Mauser and lusts uncontrollably. So sit back and enjoy this informative trip through the history of the semi-automatic pistol.