Hey guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com. I'm Ian McCollum
and I'm here today at the backup gun match, shooting an actual backup gun today
This is a Schwarzlose model of 1908 blow-forward automatic pistol, and
I've done a number of videos on them, how the mechanics work and such
but I've never shot one in a match, because
I only have one magazine for this thing, and that's ...
And frankly it's not a match pistol, but it is perfect for the backup gun match
If you haven't seen one of these backup matches before
the concept is it's designed around basically a five or six shot revolver,
a small compact backup gun, so
You have a number of targets; you can engage as much or as little as you like
Every target ... It was worth up to seven points
Your scoring rings on paper are one three and five so typically
two good hits on paper gets you full score
A shot in the head is worth a full seven points
Steel targets - when they fall - are worth a full seven
and your final score ...
or is your number of points minus the number of seconds rounded down that you take
So if I get 20 points in ten seconds, my score was ten
It's a very simple match, and I think it'll be very interesting with this. Now
the biggest issue with this ...
Well there are several issues with this. The sights are not very good
You can see the rear sight there
It's this little, little ... tiny, tiny little thing
and this kicks like a pocket nine millimeter
Because of the blow forward action, the slide is actually generating recoil
in addition to the bullet generating recoil
It's not quite painful, but it's bordering and actually unpleasant to shoot
despite being chambered for .32 Auto
So, we've got four stages today; let's dive right into it
Stage 3 is a "slicing the pie" drill;
we have three shooting spots here and four targets, (but ignore the last target)
From the first spot you shoot across to the first target
you then move to the second box straight through to the second target
move to the third box, shoot through to the third target
You then have the option of reloading and engaging the fourth target
which I will not be doing because I don't have a spare mag for the pistol today
-Shooter's ready? -Shooter ready
Standby
That was pretty awful
Let's see how we actually did
-Seven. -Clean
-Ooo, and six -Six. Five and a one?
-Close -Not bad for you
Alright so the malfunction sucks
As you might suspect magazine, cartridge presentation is a little tricky
out of a gun where the slide goes forward, so
Hopefully we don't have any more of that
Stage 4 has a twist to it
At the buzzer you drop a coin out of a cup
If it lands heads up you have to engage all four targets headshots only for score, from near to far
If the coin lands on tails
then you have to engage from near to far all four targets but only body shots counter
What makes this a little less unfair is that because of the scoring here
you only need one headshot to clear each target
but you would need two shots on the body to get full score
So the tricky bit here is I don't have enough ammo to complete the body section if that's what I get
I'm not confident enough in a zero to complete the head section, so this will be interesting
-Ready. -Shooter's ready. Standby
Tails!
I think I completely missed the last two targets
-In the bag. -Range is clear, eight seconds
Alright. So that's clear
Clear
Oh, fantastic! Clean!
And I had seven rounds, needed eight to fully complete the stage
so I got one hit on the last target so I get five points instead of the possible seven
Not bad!
-Nicely done -Not bad at all
Stage 1 is very simple
you draw the blue gun, exchange for your real gun; and then engage the three targets
The one with the black X in it is a no shoot which makes this a little bit challenging
-Ready. -Shooter's ready. Standby
I think I've done
Range is clear, nine seconds
Alright, let's have a looksie; I think I did pretty well
That's clean
That's fantastic. I'm very happy with that
and let's see the last guy in the back
Cool ... I have three rounds left, and I figured I might as well use them all
and they're all there
Fantastic. The sights on this aren't quite as bad as I may be though it would
Stage 2 is quite the accuracy challenge
You start by drawing the blue gun, exchanging for your real gun
and then through this window engaging the back plate rack
The front plate rack are no-shoots
and so you have to move and get proper angles to hit those plates
and you better know where your pistols sighted
So slightly and erroneous when I described the stage
The front plate rack are not penalties if you hit them
Or they don't count for
So, hardest one last
Are you ready?
-I am ready. Shooter's ready. Standby
One more!
Alright. So as you may have noticed I actually ran the stages in ...
We did the stage in three four and then one two
so I had the hardest stage just right there with that plate rack
and I had actually kind of gotten my hopes up
after scoring some really good groupings on the paper targets
But no. It turns out the sights are not quite on this thing well enough for me to effectively hit those plates
But it was certainly an interesting challenge
something above and beyond I think what I would normally expect
for performance from a pocket gun, so
All in all, it's very clearly apparent why the 1908 Schwarzlose was never really
a successful commercial gun
It recoils way harder than it ought to
It stings
It's a very narrow grip
and it kicks twice as hard as any other .32 out there because of the blow-forward system, so
Beyond that I should have mentioned it does have a grip safety that's actually fairly stiff
That's nice that there is some safety on it
However, I feel like it's always ...
It always makes me very uncomfortable charging this or having to deal with malfunctions
because it's easy to grab a slide and pull it back and keep your hand out away from the muzzle
With this thing, keeping your hand away from the muzzle
when you're messing with this and the blow-forward system
it just makes me uncomfortable
I would never choose to carry this pistol
and that's aside from the issue that if you look at how the the sear engagement works
it's ... it actually pivots this way
and I get the feeling that a strong rap on the side of the gun would actually discharge this
like if it fell on this side, I think it might fire; if it fell from a large enough distance
Anyway, it's really fun to have a venue like the backup gun match
to be able to play with guns like this in a quasi-realistic sort of scenario, so
Hopefully you guys enjoyed the video
Thanks for watching