Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on forgotten weapons calm
I'm Ian McCollum and I'm here today at the Rock island auction company taking a look at some of the guns that they're going to be
selling in their upcoming june of 2017 regional auction and today
We're going to take a look at a pair of warner infallible pistols. How's that for?
optimistic naming
This is a 32 [caliber] or these are both
32 Caliber semi-automatic pistols these were designed and manufactured here [in] the us, right
[around] World War one and
the most notable thing about them may be that they can actually stand up without the use of
Gun stands just pretty cool anyway
These were designed by a guy whose name. I can't pronounce it's going to be something like Andrew furberg
Fyr [ber] G and
Despite me. Not being able to pronounce his name. He actually is one of the more significant and generally completely unrecognized
firearms designers in the u.s. Around
This time period around the turn of the century
[he] has a total of 38 firearms patents to his name. Which is quite a significant number
That's about a third as many as john browning and really nobody has more than [John] [browning]
furberg Gerberg fire burg [I]
Just don't know how you pronounce that, but he did work for a number of companies what he tended to do it appears was
patent ideas
And then he would sell the patents to firearms manufacturers which was a pretty common
Thing at the time for inventors his most significant patent is probably one that was assigned to the iver Johnson Company
[the] safety for their revolvers the safety that was behind their entire campaign their marketing slogan of hammer the hammer [the]
Idea that no [matter] how hard you strike the back of the hammer of their revolver. [it] won't slip forward and fire
Well, that was this guy's patent he also
assigned patents and it work for
Well, not just iver Johnson, but Harrington & Richardson
Forehand and Wodsworth
Cs Shattuck and
probably a number of other nice and
the Warner Arms Corporation
the Warner Arms Company was founded in about 1911 and
It initially appears to have been founded as an import company to bring into the country in 1908 Schwarzlose
Blow forward automatic pistols that were being made in Austria. They're really cool pistol
We have a separate video on those and you should definitely [check] that out
[those] pistols the idea was to sell them here in the us there are very compact a little [32] automatic and
while they're an odd design, they're not necessarily that bad of a gun and
Franklin warner decided that he'd import them and sell them here because in addition to his work in guns
He was also the president and director
Or basically the guy running a company called the Kirtland Sporting Goods company which was in New York City
It was a fairly significant retailer [of] all manner of sporting goods, and that included guns back then as it still does today
Now he brought in some of these
Schwarzlose pistols and started to resell them and you'll find them marked with his company's [name] and then in about 1910
Schwarzlose
Basically went out of business
And they whole-saled off all of their remaining stock of pistols and [werner] decided to buy a whole bunch of the guns and also
Apparently the tooling to manufacture them and his plan I think was to manufacture the guns here and continue to sell them
Probably with the idea of having a better profit margin?
Well that didn't work out all that [well] because the 1908 Schwarzlose just wasn't that popular of a gun
it was a little too weird and a little too goofy, and it may have been priced a little too high and
What warner ended up doing was around 1914 introduced this pistol
To supplement his business and these were being these were advertised through the Kirtland Sporting Goods company
And I'm sure he would have been quite happy to sell them to other retailers as well although
I don't know that anyone else actually bought a really significant number
What's interesting about this is he clearly used some of the tooling from the Schwarzlose pistols in particular the grips
We'll see that in a moment. They're literally leftover grips from the 1908 blow forward
Fitted on to these infallible pistols, so he had some of the tooling from that pistol
He got the design from Andrew whose name. I can't pronounce and
Came up with this thing. [it's] still [a] [32] automatic. It's a much more conventional design it is a blowback design
but
Infallible probably wasn't the most realistic name. He could have given them
So let's go ahead and take a closer. Look at these will pull apart one of them
You can see how it works and why it might not have the best reputation today?
So here we have the two different major mechanical patterns of the gun a first type and the second type
There were more variations throughout production
but we're going to stick to the major mechanical stuff in total these are introduced in 1914 and
Then the warner arms company merged with Davis & Sons which was a shotgun manufacturing company
a relatively small one, and they merged to form the Davis Warner company in about 1917 and
continued to produce infallibles until about 1921
the guns would remain listed in the catalogue of the the Kirtland Sporting Goods company until
1924 and at that point pretty much all trace of them disappears
Here we have one of [the] very first slide legends there was a total of four variants of slide markings on these guns
all of them identify the gun as the infallible
This first pattern is specifically a warner arms corporation
marking
after the merger with Davis & Sons it became the Davis Warner Arms Corporation
And so you'll see that change up there, and it would eventually go back to just warner after the partnership broke up
Now I have here the early infallible and one of the 1908 Schwarzlose blow forwards and there are
Two really serious similarities and one of them jumps right out, and that is [grit] panels the early production of the infallible
Literally used leftover
Schwarzlose Grip panels these are as you can see engraved with this [w] Ac that's warner Arms [Corporation]
[which] was not used?
This is a grip panel that was designed specifically by Warner or made for warner
the original Austrian production guns don't have
That logo in them, but he had leftovers
so
they pretty much [just] drop in on this side of the gun you'll notice that the grip panel doesn't really quite follow the contour of
the grip
And that's because these were just available
On the opposite side there was a little bit more work that went into them the magazine release for the early infallibles is down
here
So warner had to drill a hole in the grips and then make some relief cuts for the top and for the safety lever here
Then the other thing [that] jumps out at least to me is a much more of a stylistic thing and that is
This very thin front rib and front sight which
That design is very similar on both of these guns in fact the rear sight [is] as well
The rear sights here are just little tiny notches cut in the rear of the frames
So you get the same sight picture on both of these guns which is
Kind of like no sight picture at all
So that's the similarity with the early 1908 imported pistols
Now let's take a closer look at the infallible itself. This is a blowback 32 Caliber .32 ACP
Ejection port there trigger all of the controls are [on] this side our magazine release is down here
you got a seven round magazine with six viewing holes in the front and
a couple for viewing holes [slash] notches in the back of the magazine and
Interestingly unlike most designs you can't just push the magazine in you actually have to depress the button
When you get the magazine started in order to put it into the gun this lever is the safety
So rear is safe, and when you push it forward that's the fire position
This button is for the bolt release and this is for disassembly, so we'll get to those in a moment in
Terms of overall handling this thing is top heavy Bulky and awkward
The Grips are a little bit too short, but the top of the gun is substantially too-tall
[I] think this is due in large part to the fact that this actually had a cast either iron or mild steel
Frame and that's why you'll generally see these with a much different finish on the barrel than on the frame
We can see that much more clearly on this late pattern gun
The materials were different the barrel was made out of a much better steel, and it took the finish differently
[until] the very end of production [the] last
Type of these the whole gun was blued but on most of the earlier ones [the] frame would have been completely case hardened
That's unfortunately worn off on both of these examples, but that's why it looks different
Anyway with a cast frame you've got a lot of bulk up here. That's just kind of a result of the casting process
Rather than a machined frame could have been made much smaller effectively, but they didn't do that
So the safety actually does drop
Fairly nicely under your thumb assuming that you're right-handed
so that's nice sights are very small and
apparently these tend to recoil
more
Harshly than one would expect and that's because the bolt itself is pretty light and the recoil Springs are a little bit on the light
Side as well
Now to disassemble this we're going to and this is the early model
We're going to take this lever and rotate it 180 degrees
That actually allows us to disconnect the bolt itself
from
the recoil Springs
Next I'm going to push the disassembly button here which allows the bolt stop right there to drop down
Until I pull that it won't come down so push that button in and then I can pull the bolt out
pull the Trigger
Let's get that down again there we go
So this is bolt assembly
So we have two captive recoil springs and guide rods right here. They each will cycle backwards
Those guide rods fit into these two holes in the top [of] the bolt and then they lock in place
Like so and that locks the bolt into the assembly now one of the potential problems with this gun
Is that that's not [that] hard to bump out of alignment?
[and] if you should accidentally flip that lever while you're shooting the recoil springs come
well they disconnect from the bolt and
If that happens the only thing that prevents the bolt from flying out and hitting you in the face is this little
bolt stop right there
Now I have a little bit of experience with a ross rifle that I deliberately set up to fire out of battery and I
suspect just based on that and
engineering in General [I] think this would probably
Hold the bolt at least for the first the first time that it fired and tried to zoom out of the gun
I think that stop would probably be enough to keep the bolt in the gun prevent it from hurting anybody, [but]
[obviously], this was a concern to warner because it not many of these early model pistols were made before they redesigned the gun
And changing the system
So on the later Pattern guns here now
there's a pin that you have to actually drive out of the bolt [assembly] in order to
To do this to take the bolt out the design is the same it's just instead of having a [quick-release] lever like this
He replaced it with a solid pin
So whether this was actually?
practically speaking dangerous
[is] kind of irrelevant it was clearly seen as being dangerous, and it was a hindrance to selling the pistols
Other than that feature this is [a] fairly [typical] striker-fired semi-auto. You can see the striker, and it's spring down in there
The Sear is located right there when I pull the trigger you can see the sear drop one of
Warner's Claims to fame was that their safety actually blocked the sear and not just the trigger in which okay?
That's a good idea although it also had some unfortunate unintended consequences
Namely if you have the safety engaged you couldn't cycle the bolt you could pull it back partway
but then it would jam on the sear and
Inevitably people would just figure that it needed the application of More force and if you pull this thing hard enough with the say Beyond
to actually cycle the bolt you'll basically you'll bend and deform this sear and
So werner had to including some of their documentation and specific warning not to do that. That's
The unintended consequence of their nice sear blocking safety
the later Pattern of the gun
Retained the exact same mechanical system, but did have a few stylistic changes so you can see that the curvature of the rear frame?
Changes to pretty much straight the Grip panels change once they run out of worn of old 1908 Pattern grip panels
They make new Grip panels
And just that you can see that the shape of the frame up here
Changes slightly as does the profile of this rib with the front sight so those are pretty much all just cosmetic
Manufacturing process changes they don't affect how the guns actually work
Serial numbers for these are located on the bottom of the grip behind the magazine
So there's what they look like to cycle
Really honestly a little bit of an unpleasant gun to cycle
It feels like you really have to force it to get the bolt all [the] way open
Alright and last thing I will [point] out here is they had their the little logo here on the grip
Making sure to get across the point that the safety blocks the sear
they're very proud of that and then that center logo is a:
D, W, A and C all intertwined together for Davis Warner Arms Company or Arms Corporation a
total of about 7,600 these pistols were
Manufactured all here in the us so most of the surviving ones are still here in the us
and they're kind of like the ugly sibling of
Some of what we would consider the more classic 32 caliber pocket pistols of that
Era the Remington model 51 and the [Colt] model 1903 and the savage
Automatic pistols this is from the exact same time period As those and it's the cool
Oddball that you know this failed commercially because let's be honest. It's way too. Heavy. [it's] bulky
It's awkward to handle and it does have this potentially serious safety problem of you know, maybe
Accidentally blowing the bolt back in your face
So it's understandable. Why they didn't become a commercial success
But there's still a really interesting piece from a [collector's] point of view it's in many ways it's more interesting to look at the failed
Designs than the successful ones because you'll often learn more from the failed designs
[anyway], it was very cool to be able to see two of these an early model and [a] late model side-by-side if you'd like to
add
[well] in this case if you'd like to add both of them to your collection yourself
These are actually
part of a single lot of
Handguns here at Rock Island if you take a look at the description text below you'll find a [link] to the catalog page for this
lot and you can take a look at the pictures and the price estimate and everything for
These two along with the couple of other pistols that are batched with them. So hopefully you enjoyed the video. Thanks [for] watching