Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum, and today we are taking a look at an exquisitely rare
and super-cool pistol, a Norwegian Model of 1909 Sunngård.
And this thing was actually competing in Norwegian military trials
which ended up resulting in the adoption of the Kongsberg 1914,
which is effectively a slightly modified Colt 1911.
But one has to wonder if they made the right choice because
this holds 7 rounds, where this has 50 rounds in the gun,
plus another 25 held in the magazine pouch within the holster.
This thing ... in its holster (little holster, not very big)
has a grand total of 75 rounds of ammunition in that package, and that's pretty awesome.
So what makes the Sunngård a really mechanically distinctive pistol
is that it actually holds two magazines in the grip simultaneously.
And you shoot the first one empty, and then you drop the first one, and then you slide the back one
into the front position and you have another 25 rounds to shoot.
And if you're still not done shooting stuff at that point, you can then pull your third magazine out of your holster,
load it into the gun and you've got a third set of 25 rounds.
So this was ... designed in 1909. The US patent was issued in 1910. I presume there was a Norwegian patent for it as well,
although I have not located that patent.
It was designed by a guy named Harald Sunngård (soon guard or sun guard, I'm honestly not quite sure which).
And it is mechanically just a simple blowback pistol.
... There were versions for two different cartridges. A grand total of only about 30 of these guns were made,
although there is actually a substantial amount of variation within those.
Most of them apparently were made for the ... 25 calibre, [6.5mm] Sunngård cartridge. It was [6.5x19mm],
so actually kind of a reasonably long case. This was a skinny but long cartridge.
That of course made it all the more practical for stuffing into the magazines,
because each one of these double-stack magazines (by the way, this is a quite early
pistol to have a double-stack magazine) each one of those mags holds 25 rounds.
Now there was a second cartridge that was used in just a couple of the guns, and that was 8mm Sunngård.
Same overall length, so it was an 8x19mm case.
And what's interesting is both of these cartridges used ... the same weight of bullet, and it was only a 29 grain bullet.
Now if you compare that to something else in a similar bore diameter, especially the 8mm version, you know
a .32 ACP is basically the same diameter as 8mm, and those run 60 to 71 grains for typical bullet weight.
This was ... less than half of that, so this had to be almost like a semi-wadcutter sort of bullet.
But I think the reason for that was Sunngård was trying to get a very high velocity.
He claimed 2,000 feet per second, like 600 metres per second.
I don't know if that's legitimate, but maybe in the 8mm.
By the way, the 8mm case was larger in diameter, of course, so it's magazines held only 18 rounds each.
Still like more than any modern military service pistol, although, granted, in a smaller cartridge.
Anyway, let's take a close up look at this. Let me show you how that magazine functionality works, and we'll take the gun apart.
Well, you do get 50 rounds in the gun, the consequence is that the grip is really pretty awkward.
It's actually slightly forward canted which seems like it'd be a problem, but isn't really, but the grip is really long.
You can certainly see that if we compare it to a Kongsberg Colt here.
Yeah, see how much longer that grip is. ...
Overall, this is about the size of a real service automatic, although it is narrower than most of those.
This may not look like a whole lot, but this feels much narrower in the hand than the 1911 is.
But yeah, it's that really long grip that is the most distinctive feature.
There are a couple different types of grips out there. This one has this really kind of interesting
almost like mythologically inspired design on the grip panels, which are some sort of Bakelite type material.
There ... are pictures out there showing a version that has solid flat metal grips,
also without the safety, interestingly. And without this lever.
There is ... at least one example of a gun that doesn't have grip panels.
It has a sheet metal magazine box assembly
with viewing hole perforations in that, so that you can actually see the ammo status of the gun through the grips.
And then of course we have this pattern.
It is marked on the left side Sunngård Patent 1909.
And on the right side. It is actually marked 50 cartridges, Calibre 6.5.
I'm sorry, I said 6.35 earlier, 6.5mm. And then the 7.2 Hg and 9.2 Hg is a measurement
of [the weight of the gun unloaded and loaded, 720g (25 ounces) and 920g (33 ounces)].
This is a striker fired gun, you can see the striker here in the cocked position.
And if I go ahead and fire it, that drops down into the base of the gun.
The sights are a little bit unusual in that we have two big protective wings around a little teeny front post,
and kind of the same setup here for the rear sight. So kind of line everything up and, well, there's your sight picture.
This is a simple blowback mechanism, so when you fire the slide's going to cycle back.
It does not lock open automatically when the gun's empty, but you do have a manual hold open that you can engage, like so.
There is a safety lever on the side here. So all the way up is safe, down is in the fire position.
We have a lanyard ring on the back of the frame.
And then the most relevant control is the magazine release here. So,
you can see we have two magazines staggered in the grip.
... The front one is fired from and the back one stays in reserve.
The magazine release is pushed down like that, and then we can pull out the magazine.
25 rounds double-stack and double-feed, it's really a pretty remarkable magazine.
Now with the front magazine out
We pull the rear magazine down, and it's actually retained in here by a little wire clip
that we'll see in a minute, you then nose it forward to the front,
and snap it in position there.
And then rack the slide. ... If you are counting, and you fired 24 and then reloaded like this,
you'll have one in the chamber. But otherwise you'll then rack the slide and go on shooting.
You can then ... fire another 25 rounds.
Now you cannot reload another magazine in behind this one.
Because it'll fit until it hits, right about there, and then it runs into this protruding rib,
which again we'll see on this magazine.
If you use up your second magazine, then what you have to do is pop this one out,
move it back to the rear, and then you can take your third magazine out of your holster and load that one.
Speaking of the holster, it is a pretty typical type of affair here.
Opens up and you can see down in the bottom there there's a little divider, right here.
So the ... barrel goes in the front, and a magazine is stored in the back here.
There we go.
Flap goes over,
and there is your carry package with 75 rounds of ready ammunition.
So this pistol did participate in the Norwegian military trials which
ultimately led to the adoption of the Kongsberg 1914, basically a Colt 1911.
I don't have the actual trial documentation, ... I can't tell you the original results. But ... I'm pretty sure I know what happened.
And that was this gun was judged very awkward to handle, because it is a really long grip there.
And it was almost certainly judged to be of insufficient calibre.
Even if the velocity was really quite high, like Sunngård was claiming,
that bullet weight of 28.5 grains actually, not even 29, that was too light to be particularly effective on anything.
So, I'm sure that's what got it kicked out of the trials. Which is I suppose the correct decision to have been made.
But it's kind of a shame that something with 50 round capacity in 1909 didn't get adopted.
You know, short of something like a Calico, we really don't even have that today.
In fact, it'd be really interesting for someone to make a reproduction of a gun like this in say .25 ACP,
should be just about the right calibre to duplicate this.
There is also a grip safety built into it, which is on the front strap, spring-loaded on the front strap of the gun right here.
If you don't depress that, of course the trigger is locked.
Alright, and now on to disassembly. This is pretty simple, it's almost too simple.
So there's a section of rail
holding the back end of the slide onto the gun, and what we need to do
is ... open the slide about an inch and it will lift up off of these rails.
So we can pull the slide back to
right there, and then it tips forward.
And then at this point it's being held in place by this lug on the barrel, and so we can pull that forward
and take the slide off of the frame.
Once we have this separated, now we have to take the nose cap off here.
The first thing we're going to do is unscrew this little threaded cap, this just ... makes sure that nothing bounces out of place.
And then the end of the recoil spring is actually bent downwards like a pin here.
That locks into a little notch in this plug.
So what we have to do is actually push this backwards to take the tension off of this plug,
you can then rotate this about 30 degrees and it will then disconnect from the front of the slide here.
And this will come out and then the recoil spring comes out. And the recoil spring is really quite hefty
for this pistol, probably because of the intended velocity of the cartridge.
You're going to need a stiff recoil spring and a heavy slide, even if it's a light bullet, if it's going that fast.
So we are going to push the spring back like so,
that lifts it out of its little notch, then we have to rotate that collar,
and then we can
remove this little collar at the front.
Pull out the recoil spring. There is a lot of recoil spring in this thing, it is quite hefty.
And then the barrel comes out.
Also a pretty long barrel for this sort of service pistol,
or maybe it just looks longer than it really is because it's so small in diameter.
And then lastly, of course, we have the body of the slide. So there are a couple things we can look at here.
Normally on a Browning style of pistol, we would expect the striker to be right back in line here.
And Sunngård did it differently. So this is striker-fired,
there is no hammer or anything in here.
And the sear is actually offset from the striker, so this is the firing sear right over here.
And if you watch the tip of the firing pin that's protruding, when I push this back, that disappears.
So what we would normally expect on a Browning to see in the centre here, we actually have over on the side.
Now looking at the frame, we have two parts that are going to interact with that sear.
We have this piece, which is both the disconnector and the bolt hold open, which is a really clever duplication ... using one part for two purposes.
And then we have the trigger, ... well the trigger connected to the actual sear bar right there.
This is the safety which likes to kind of move around a bit.
So I can show you this a little better by reassembling it without the spring.
And you can see the actual sear catch right there,
And when this starts to close, right there it is caught by this ... hold open lever.
That acts as the disconnector, so whether you're holding the trigger down or not, this is always going to catch the sear.
And then right now this is holding onto the sear, and you can't pull it down far enough to actually release.
So there's no way that the striker can drop forward in this position.
And it continues like that to right here, and then this angle on the slide is going to push this lever down
and that drops it out of engagement with the striker.
Now the striker is being held in place by the trigger, waiting to be pushed up ... when you fire, so
right there it fires.
And then the slide's going to come back under recoil, and right there you can see the ... sear being pushed up and caught.
So ... there's your semi-auto disconnector, it has disconnected.
Come all the way back, forward and then the process repeats.
So this not only acts as disconnector, it also ensures that the gun can't be fired out of battery, because
right here, even if you push the trigger up on the sear,
it's still being held securely by this lever until it's all the way in battery, like that.
Here's the view from the inside of the trigger bar moving up. And it's not this shark fin that actually does the work,
it's not the shark fin, it's actually this little flat section right there.
So you can see when this lever is engaged upwards, it's going to hold securely no matter what the trigger does.
Until it gets pushed out of the way and then you can pop the ... striker up over it.
Here's the view of the inside of the frame with both magazines inserted.
You can see how the rear magazine is lower, so the bolt's only going to catch cartridges in the front magazine to fire.
And then once that's empty,
pop that magazine out, and then the rear magazine comes down, and it's hanging from this hook.
And you put it in nose first and then pop it into place there. And now it's locked in place.
With the gun apart, I can actually ... disconnect that hook, it's right there, and it hooks over this little bar in the back.
So the rear magazine is ... made with this extra little retention bar and this dangly little connector.
You can see our standard magazine does not, nor does our spare magazine.
All three of these are actually numbered to the gun.
You can see that right there: 7, 7 and 7.
So you've got your front magazine, your rear magazine with the hook, and your spare magazine that lives in the holster.
That's why this one's finish is so much rougher, it's been basically stuffed up against tannic acid
in the holster for who knows how many decades?
The magazine catch here is just a simple hook in the front.
You've got a notch right there.
... This is the grip safety, and then the magazine spring is actually a long flat spring that runs underneath the grip safety there.
So pulling this lever down pushes that out to release the mag.
And the safety, of course here in the upward position, locks the trigger, prevents it from going up.
It's really very subtle, but there is just a little bit of surface area right here on both sides at the top of the magazine well
that protrudes inward, so that you can't take a magazine and just slide it directly from front to back.
If I try to do that here you can see that the magazine will only move if it's dropped down like this.
Once I've got it all the way up, right there, it catches on this little protrusion.
That has to be tiny so that it ... basically fits in the curvature at the nose of the magazine.
And that's it.
So you do have to pull the magazine down, pivot it forward, and then you can lock it in place.
If that's not the coolest early high- capacity pistol you have ever seen,
then I need to know what other cool early high-capacity pistols you've seen, because this is just really awesome.
... We had a text blog post on this years ago on Forgotten Weapons, and this is another one of those guns that I never
thought I would actually get my hands on to take a close look at.
However, I had the chance here, so a big thank you to the pistol's owner for letting me
check it out and bring it to you guys. Hopefully you enjoyed the video.
Thanks for watching.
[ sub by sk cn2 ]