Rare 1916 Harrington & Richardson .32 semi-automatic pistol

[MikB]

MikB,

Thanks for the information, for now, I shall leave it safely in its holster.

Regards,

LF

I might be being a wet hen. There are numerous other WW1 period guns I've shot extensively with no damage. It might be specific to late-war DWM products.

Regards,

MikB

[TonyE]

I don't think you are being wet Mik, merely cautious. Like you, I owned and shot P.08 Lugers for years but had no problems. However a friend's LP.08 had the rim shear from the toggle pin, one of the points you mentioned.

I don't think there would be a problem with modern .32 ACP (not including +P), as I suspect they are loaded down rather than the opposite by US companies because of the fear of litigation if used in older pistols.

For those unfamiliar with ammunition, 7.65mm Browning and .32ACP are identical rounds, resulting form the fact that FN had the Browning rights in Europe and Colt in America. In each case the rounds were marketed under the makers own name.

Incidentally, .32ACP ammunition was available to British officers and others through the normal military stores system later in the war. The 1918 Priced Vocabulary of Stores lists .32 ACP priced at £6. 4s. 6d. per 1000 along with .38 ACP and .45 ACP.

The point I was trying to make in my earlier post was that any weapon, pistol or rifle, cannot be legally fired if held under the obsolete calibre rules. It must be held on an FAC under the appropriate Section. Even a muzzle loader has to be on a Section 1 FAC if it is to be fired.

On a lighter note, here is a question for you, Mik! The .5 Vickers is listed as an obsolete calibre. If one had a fully functional .5 Vickers MG would it be an obsolete calibre weapon and thus unrestricted or would it be Section 5? After all, pistols that would normally be Section 5 are unrestricted if in the "right" calibre.

Regards

TonyE

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Incidentally, .32ACP ammunition was available to British officers and others through the normal military stores system later in the war. The 1918 Priced Vocabulary of Stores lists .32 ACP priced at £6. 4s. 6d. per 1000 along with .38 ACP and .45 ACP.

TonyE

Many thanks for the information, particularly interested in the WW1 .32 ACP info.

Regards,

LF

[Stoppage Drill]

Whether or not you can fire a weapon which is held as an antique under section 58 of the current principal Firearms Act in UK is, to some extent, debatable. There is nothing explicit which says that you can't. However, the Act says that to be exempt from the licesning regime, a gun must be antique (undefined) and be possessed as a "curiosity or ornament", and the Home Office opine that shooting the thing is not possessing it as a C or O.

The thing which would effectively stop most people is ammunition - this is not covered by any "antique" status. You can have your .577 Snider quite lawfully as an antique, but possess a live Snider round, without a suitable FAC and you break the law. Of course, the ridiculous situation that could arise is that of having two Sniders, one of which you shoot and have on your FAC. You have to lock it in your cabinet when not shooting. The other - identical - could be off ticket, so long as you didn't shoot it, and you can hang it on your wall.

I can't find .5 Vickers on the Home Office obsolete list Tony - is there other nomenclature ? But to answer your question, if a machine gun is chambered for an obsolete round, it will be eligible for antique, off-ticket status. Section 58(2) is quite simple "Nothing in this Act relating to firearms shall apply to an antique firearms . . . . curiosaity or ornament."

The "list" is not definitive and has no statutory status - it's simply advisory. There have been several cases where courts have accepted that a rifle which is chambered for a round which is not on the list, and is still easily available (I'm thinking .22 rimfire) can be possessed as antique. Courts/judges don't pay much attention to the Home Office guidance document, in my experience. Fortunately.

Sorry for spelling errors in previous post - having trouble with "edit" so can't correct.

[MikB]

On a lighter note, here is a question for you, Mik! The .5 Vickers is listed as an obsolete calibre. If one had a fully functional .5 Vickers MG would it be an obsolete calibre weapon and thus unrestricted or would it be Section 5? After all, pistols that would normally be Section 5 are unrestricted if in the "right" calibre.

Regards

TonyE

I suspect Stoppage Drill has the answer to that. If the round's on the list and the Vickers is kept as a 'C or O', I'd think you could own it.

But I do have to say it's hard to foresee a time when I'd have the cash, the storage space and the inclination, all at the same time, and in sufficient measure to go through the act lookng for any 'gotchas'

On the subject of .32 ACP performance, I found this web page which seems very informative:-

http://www.goldenloki.com/ammo/gel/32acp/gel32acp.htm

However, I don't think you can necessarily rely on the lowest performing loads being the least traumatic to the gun. Fast powders can produce modest, accurate and very consistent performance - whilst dealing nasty little hammerblows to the mech with their rapid pressure-peak. That's what finally did for my Luger, when the hooky bit spalled off the extractor nose like a flake of chipped flint. The loads with the larger standard deviations may be using slower and hence less severe powders, so given choice I'd go for the lower-velocity options out of those.

Regards,

MikB

[Stoppage Drill]

Tony, I'm interested in your comment about .32 ACP being available through the normal indenting procedure - this would indicate that there were a fair number of pistols of this calibre in use.

As luck would have it, a policeman of my acquaintance has just had an attic find surrendered to him, a M1903 Colt. The finder believes that his grandfather, a Brit officer, carried this in WW1. Serial number indicates 1915 manufacture, so there is the possibility that it may have "trophy of war" status which would allow the finder to keep it on an FAC so long as he can get Home Office acquisition authority. (Once the authority to acquire is granted, a t-o-w pistol may continue to be possessed on FAC without ongoing HO authorisation).

This would be much easier to prove if pistols of this calibre were indeed widely carried.

I know that US general officers could choose to carry M1903's rather than 1911's in both wars - did high ranking Brits do the same, rather than lug a Webley cannon around ?

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Tony, I'm interested in your comment about .32 ACP being available through the normal indenting procedure - this would indicate that there were a fair number of pistols of this calibre in use.

This would be much easier to prove if pistols of this calibre were indeed widely carried.

I know that US general officers could choose to carry M1903's rather than 1911's in both wars - did high ranking Brits do the same, rather than lug a Webley cannon around ?

Stoppage Drill,

Here are the production figures for the Model 1908 Webley and Scott .32 self-loading semi-automatic pistol 1909 - 1914 :-

1909 - 14,935

1910 - 9,604

1911 - 1,799

1912 - 15,020

1913 - 5,273

1914 - 5,194

Notable persons listed as owning the pistol were :-

Admiral Graham - Lord Winchelsea - Winston Churchill - Major General Sir A. Bayly - Marquis of Lincolnshire - Viscount Templeton -

Admiral Sir Martyn Jervoise - General Burt - General Rowan Robinson - Lord Stanhope - Sir Robert Baden-Powell. to name but a few.

Regards,

LF

[Stoppage Drill]

I'd take a guess and say that those peak production years coincided with police purchases ?

[Lancashire Fusilier]

I'd take a guess and say that those peak production years coincided with police purchases ?

Whilst there were contracts with Webley and Scott to supply .32 self-loading semi-automatics to the Police ( M.P. Model ), the numbers were very low, around 1000 pistols.

The main reason for arming the London Police was the infamous Sidney Street siege of 1911, and after that, the fear of German and Irish terrorist problems in London. The contracts usually called for delivery in batches of just 50 pistols, and an inventory taken on 29 November 1920, showed that the total number of .32 pistols issued to all London Police Divisions was 878, while Scotland Yard accounted for another 121, with half of those being issued to Special Branch officers, 5 more were under repair and 2 held in reserve.

Prior to the 1908 Webley and Scott .32, there was the Model 1905 .32 self-loading semi-automatic pistol, and it seems that some 13,694 were produced between June 1906 - June 1909.

As you can see, both the Webley and Scott, and Harrington and Richardson .32 self-loading semi-automatic pistols are rare, due to their low production numbers.

Regards,

LF

[Lancashire Fusilier]

On the subject of .32 ACP performance, I found this web page which seems very informative:-

http://www.goldenlok...cp/gel32acp.htm

Regards,

MikB

Great link, many thanks.

LF

[Stoppage Drill]

Whilst there were contracts with Webley and Scott to supply .32 self-loading semi-automatics to the Police ( M.P. Model ), the numbers were very low, around 1000 pistols.

The main reason for arming the London Police was the infamous Sidney Street siege of 1911, and after that, the fear of German and Irish terrorist problems in London. The contracts usually called for delivery in batches of just 50 pistols, and an inventory taken on 29 November 1920, showed that the total number of .32 pistols issued to all London Police Divisions was 878, while Scotland Yard accounted for another 121, with half of those being issued to Special Branch officers, 5 more were under repair and 2 held in reserve.

Regards,

LF

The 1911/12 order of 1000 was for the Met only. Many other forces around the country followed the Met's lead - sensibly, as trials had been carried out under Army/Enfield direction to find a suitable pistol for police use. Home Sec Churchill favoured the adoption of the C96.

[TonyE]

Stoppage Drill - I am away shortly to the NFC/ Royal Armouries in Leeds for the rest of this week and will be off the air. However, when I get back I will send you some details of the .32 ACP pistols used during WWI. Other than the private purchase pistols, i covered the government purchases in my secondary weapons books for land and Naval service.

Regards

TonyE

[Stoppage Drill]

Ta.

Anybody - do I remember Sassoon mentioning in his memoirs that he carried a ".32 Browning"

[Stoppage Drill]

Answer my own question - seems he carried a 1900 Browning

http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=3099&hl=%2Bsassoon+%2Bcarried+%2B.32+%2Bbrowning

[BottsGreys]

Interesting thread as I also have a 1916-manufacture H&R Self-Loading .32 named to Henry Roger Malet, RGA, which I found quite by accident while perusing an on-line gunshop's inventory last year. The seller had no clue what he had. Tragically, Major Malet was killed in Dublin in March 1922 by the accidental discharge of a fellow officer's sidearm.

Chris

See http://1914-1918.invisionzone.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=168167&hl=malet

A YouTube video of someone shooting a Self-Loader:

[Lancashire Fusilier]

Interesting thread as I also have a 1916-manufacture H&R Self-Loading .32 named to Henry Roger Malet, RGA, which I found quite by accident while perusing an on-line gunshop's inventory last year. The seller had no clue what he had. Tragically, Major Malet was killed in Dublin in March 1922 by the accidental discharge of a fellow officer's sidearm.

Chris

See http://1914-1918.inv...168167&hl=malet

Chris,

A very interesting, albeit tragic, story.

Always great to have a ' named to ' firearm.

Regards,

LF

[reese williams]

While I realize this is an ancient post, to correct some errors, the pistol Prinzip used to assassinate the Archduke was a Browning model 1910 in .380. It's in a museum in Serbia.

 

[4thGordons]

12 hours ago, reese williams said:

While I realize this is an ancient post, to correct some errors, the pistol Prinzip used to assassinate the Archduke was a Browning model 1910 in .380. It's in a museum in Serbia.

 

I thought I had seen it in the Museum in Vienna? perhaps I am misremembering.

It was an FN manufactured Model 1910 though.

Chris

[MikB]

16 hours ago, reese williams said:

While I realize this is an ancient post, to correct some errors, the pistol Prinzip used to assassinate the Archduke was a Browning model 1910 in .380. It's in a museum in Serbia.

 

I now think you're right about the calibre, aka. 9mm Browning Short.