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- The Savage 1907 pistols are interesting to say the least.
The vast majority of early,
small caliber self-loaders were straight blowback
but this gun employs a sort of delayed blowback,
rotating barrel system, which is quite interesting.
However, what sold these guns was capacity.
In an era where single stack pistols were standard,
this gun employed a staggered,
double-column/single-feed magazine,
that offered 10 rounds of .32 on tap
or nine rounds of .380, which was very impressive.
Also impressively, the guns featured no screws at all
and even the grips snapped firmly into place.
The bluing, even after a hundred years,
looks fantastic on this example
and I must say, that I think these guns look terrific.
They also sold quite well,
with over 200,000 made in just 12 years.
But let's take a closer look at some of this gun's features.
First you'll notice that these striations
on the rear of the slide, to charge the pistol,
are quite big and pronounced.
It makes racking the slide very easy
and it also makes clearing malfunctions, equally easy.
Now it does have a magazine toe release
which I really don't like, maybe it's that
I'm used to either a traditional magazine release
or a heel magazine release,
but I suppose they're thinking was
since you had ten rounds, it didn't matter much.
You can also see here, how the barrel rotates
and delays the opening of the action just a little bit.
Not a lot, but I suppose it was better than nothing.
The gun also does have the appearance
of a hammer on the back, but that's actually
just a mechanism to cock the gun.
The safety is also easy to deactivate
and you can do it with your right thumb.
It can also be used to retain the slide to the rear
if you want to lock it open for cleaning
or some other purpose.
As mentioned the magazines are staggered,
double-column/single-feed,
but they're not staggered as much
as a Browning Hi Power or something like that.
So, people generally don't say this is
an early double-column/single-feed magazine
for whatever reason, I'm not sure why.
Loading it is just like a Browning Hi Power
or similar double-column/single-feed magazine.
And being as how this is a .380 model,
it does hold nine rounds in the magazine
and one in the chamber.
So you still did have a total capacity
of 10 rounds and their advertising
slogan of, "10 Shots Quick!"
Was very suiting and sold a whole lot of guns,
making the Savage Corporation a lot of money.
As an interesting aside, they also made a couple of these
in .45 ACP to compete it against
the 1911 in that pistol trial.
So let's shoot it a little bit more.
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The trigger on this gun is not too bad
and the recoil is not snappy either,
or at least not as snappy as other .380s
that I've messed with, that are comparably sized.
However, I did have a malfunction here.
I've shot this gun more than a lot of other guns
in the collection of the same vintage
and it's very rare that this gun doesn't work as expected.
Perhaps it was this type of ammunition that it didn't like,
but I cleared it, and then it
got back ticking and worked just fine.
Really it's an accurate gun, as well.
I have no picks with this gun and while it's heavier
and larger than other .380s on the market today
and probably wouldn't be a viable competitor,
you certainly wouldn't be that outclassed
if you had to use this in some sort of altercation today.
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Proxibid has a lot of upcoming firearm auctions this weekend
and if you'd like to own a Savage 1907,
that might be a great place to look as well.
Also a special thank you to Ventura Munitions
for helping us out with the ammunition in our videos.
Without them, none of this would be possible, guys.
Also without your continued viewership and support,
it wouldn't be possible either.
So thank you very much for watching
and we hope to see you next time.