Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are taking a look at
the Mannlicher Model of 1900, or 1899 and 1900 pistol.
Which is this transitional model pistol, or
introductory model pistol that Ferdinand von Mannlicher
developed when his original pistols didn't
really attract a lot of military attention.
They were kind of big and kind of bulky and they had this big ol' cocking lever on the side,
and nobody really wanted them. And he needed to come up with a pistol that was more suitable to military use.
This is 1899, 1900, 1901, this is right at the very cusp of ... European militaries
starting to adopt semi-automatic service pistols.
The very first such adoption would have been Switzerland in 1899, 1900 with the Luger.
And Mannlicher knew, everyone knew, that a lot more countries were going to be following
as the semi-automatic pistol really started to prove itself.
So, he significantly revised his design, really it's a whole new design of pistol.
And it's one that's much more appropriate for a military sidearm: smaller, it's more compact,
and, well, it has a lot to offer.
But he ... wanted to kind of hedge his bets, and what better way to try and attract a military contract
than to give a really nicely embellished fancy pistol to a head of state?
So in addition to a couple of standard Model 1900s, we also have three really just
fabulously embellished, engraved and decorated versions along with their cases.
So this one in the centre here was presented to Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany.
And then the one over here on my left was presented to Sultan Abdul Hamid II of the Ottoman Empire.
And the one over here on my right was presented to one of the Sultan's adjutants.
So, let's go ahead and first take a look at the gun itself. There are a couple of little features on there that were
elusive, they would only exist on this Model 1900 and would be quickly dropped.
And then we'll take a look at these elaborately engraved versions and their cases.
So the most distinctive feature of this is this big lever safety on the side.
But that actually wasn't quite there on the very first guns. So starting in 1899
... Mannlicher started making prototypes of this pattern, and his initial ones didn't have any safety on them.
Understandably that kind of made some people a little bit nervous and unhappy,
and so he went ahead and added this safety.
In total, production of this (the safety will engage only when the hammer is cocked),
in total production of these was about 250. And of those about the first 50 had no safety, and the next 200 did.
Now the markings on here are partially on the slide down here,
we have Patent Mannlicher, and you can see we have some German proof marks.
We have our serial number up here, this one is number 201.
The main manufacturing mark is on the top of the barrel. It's a little difficult to read, but it says,
Munition und Waffenfabrik Sömmerda [Aktiengesellschaft], and then [vormals von Dreyse].
So, manufacturer's name and location up on the top there.
This is a delayed blowback pistol. ... This is the same as the 1901, a little bit of a lever delay in there.
A little spring-loaded lever that the slide has to overcome before it can recoil back.
The rear sight is this kind of funny-looking tower on the back of the chamber there.
Of course a blade front sight out on the end of the barrel.
And on these pistols you have to take this screw out in order to access the lockwork.
On the 1901 patterns that would come next, and in substantially greater quantity,
this screw was replaced with a little spring-loaded tab and the guns became much easier to disassemble.
So this is part of the reason that the Model 1900 or 1899/1900 never took off. ... It was a little too hard to disassemble.
Interestingly, all of the examples of these I've seen have what appears to be a stock cut,
or a stock slot cut in the back strap of the gun, but which has then been filled.
I've never seen one that actually has an open stock slot in it.
Kind of looks like they hammered C96 extractors in there to fill them up, although I'm sure that's not the case.
I've never seen a shoulder stock, I've never seen a picture of a shoulder stock,
I've never even seen a drawing of a shoulder stock.
I suspect that they had the idea to make the stock slot part of the machining ... process for the frames,
but then never actually got around to designing a stock, so.
In my opinion, the gun that Mannlicher came up with here, both in this early iteration
and then extending into the 1901 and 1905s,
really is one of the most elegant and handiest military semi-auto service pistols ever designed.
It fits in the hand very nicely, and I think they just look fantastic.
I should actually it occurs to me, I didn't point out the bottom of the grip here is blind.
This is fed by stripper clip, there is a stripper clip guide in the top of the slide.
And these early patterns hold 8 rounds, so that's what you were getting. All single action.
Nice trigger in there.
Now if you want to talk about truly, truly very nice-looking guns,
well, let's take a look at our embellished and engraved examples.
So we'll start with a pistol here that was presented to one of the adjutants of the Ottoman Sultan.
So this isn't quite as fancy as it got. This was really on par with, you know,
the top end that you could order from the factory as a regular customer.
So we have ebony grips on here, and we have really pretty thorough engraving
across the whole body of the gun. You can see this sort of oak leaf style,
relatively, reasonably deep engraving. And it extends just up onto the chamber area here.
It is interesting to point out that this isn't grey from exposure,
this was actually left basically in the white and then engraved, where the barrel and the frame were blued.
So this is how the gun was intended to look.
The markings that were normally on the top strap of the barrel have been moved to the front strap of the grip.
It's really difficult to see but this does have the same, filled in, what I suspect is a stock slot.
But the engraver has done a really good job of covering that up with the engraving.
You can see how this engraving covers pretty much the whole surface of the gun, including the underside.
They leave a little bit of serration there for taking this part off.
And we have our serial number up there at the front.
And that came in a pretty darn fancy case. Got a nice military crest in there.
This is pretty fancy. It's not quite as fancy as if you're the actual Sultan.
If you're the Sultan, first off you get a much fancier case, same style.
The inside is exactly the same mechanics. ... The original box is the same,
it just gets a much fancier, nicer presentation.
Just solid on the bottom.
And then they really went just all out on the gun.
So we've got just as much engraving here on the receiver, because, well, there wasn't space for any more.
But now you also get engraving
down the whole length of the barrel.
Of course, no markings up there to mar it, just a nice matting to give you a good sight picture.
Not that the person who gets this gun will probably ever fire it.
Gold-plated extractor.
And then the grips, again kind of go all out on the grips.
So coat of arms in the centre. So you've got your Turkish crescent right up here.
And on both sides.
This truly is ... like the royalty level, literally, of embellishment on a pistol like this.
Originally the safety and the trigger were also gold plated, but a lot of that gold has worn away on this gun.
Best of the best here though, is going to be Kaiser Wilhelm's gun I think.
We've got a big ol' cool Germanic crest
in the middle of what is essentially the same case that the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire got.
The background design and the edging are the same as the Turkish or Ottoman gun,
just a different crest here in the middle.
And then we're going to take these little latches,
open them up, there you go, and then,
voilà, that is what you get.
Now these presentation guns weren't actually presented immediately when the pistols were manufactured.
... I mean presumably he thought best case he'd sell pistols without having to do something like this.
But when it became clear that he didn't, in 1903 these guns were presented.
And both these and the Ottoman guns are dated 1903 in the cases.
In fact the inside of all three cases is identical.
So in addition to the gun, you get a little oil bottle. This is for a stripper clip.
Unfortunately, we don't have the appropriate stripper clip here for it.
You then get a cleaning rod,
but how about that? It is an engraved, embellished cleaning rod.
And you also get a cool, carved, embellished screwdriver.
Which is important, because you need that in order to take apart one of these early model Mannlicher pistols.
Now the gun itself is basically identical to the Turkish gun, exact same amount of coverage on this one.
We have ... a little bit more of the gold surviving on the safety,
you can see a little bit of gold on the trigger there.
Tiny bit more gold surviving on the extractor.
And then the grips are of the same basic style, but instead of having a Turkish or Ottoman crest in the middle,
they have the German crest of course, because Kaiser Wilhelm.
So this is one of the perks of being, well, Emperor of an empire is you get guys like Mannlicher
who are looking to make sales giving you cool bribes, basically. Cool free stuff.
Certainly a tremendous amount of work went into this sort of pistol.
Ultimately, all of the work that Mannlicher put into this project kind of was for nought.
I guess ... it wasn't entirely for nothing, but it certainly didn't get the outcome that he was hoping for.
Now Mannlicher had done very well with his rifles, the
Austro-Hungarian Empire had adopted his straight pull rifles dating back to the late 1880s.
So he wasn't exactly hurting for money here, but what he wanted was another really big adoption,
preferably a couple of adoptions of his handguns, and he didn't get that.
Nobody adopted the 1900. He followed that with a 1901 pattern,
and there were no military adoptions of that. And he made something like 1,000 of those for commercial sale.
And then ... he followed that with a 1905 pattern,
which he managed to get a grand total of one military to adopt. That military being ...
Argentina.
OK, like that's better than nobody, but it's not a Germany or an Austria-Hungary or a France or a Russia.
It turned out to be a relatively small order, and he would make something on the order of 10,000 Model 1905s.
About half of which went to Argentina, and the rest were sold commercially.
So I have videos out on the 1901 and the 1905 Mannlichers, as well as his earlier versions,
going all the way back to his very first blow-forward guns.
So if you're interested in the history of Ferdinand von Mannlicher's pistols,
definitely check out some of those videos. I'll link two of them from the end of this one.
But hopefully you enjoyed the opportunity to take a look at not just the
technological intermediary between the two generations of pistols, but also
an idea of what it was like to be king.
Like it's good to be king, and this is part of why.
Thanks for watching.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]