Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com, I'm Ian and today
We are taking a look at a semi-automatic .45 Caliber Army Service pistol manufactured and invented by Colonel Isaac
Newton Lewis. That is the same Isaac, Newton Lewis who developed the Lewis Light Machine Gun, very cool dude.
Really, a gun that should have been in US military service in World War I except for some annoying
Interpersonal issues with the Ordnance Department. Anyway, that is a separate issue
This is one of at least two pistols that Lewis designed and built. I don't know if he actually built it by hand himself or
Subcontracted the work out to a shop but
He had a patent for a second design, which we took a look at a little bit earlier, from 1919, approved in 1922
This design, I really have very little information on historically. I don't know when it was patented
I don't know when it was built
I do know, however, that it was actually tested by the French military and rejected, but it was tested by the French military
So this is a short recoil .45 caliber pistol. It does have a magazine in it, which is nice.
Allegedly, the magazine is 15 rounds although
I haven't tried loading it to confirm that. It is in fact a big double stack magazine that
Really would fit in just perfectly with the .45 caliber double stack pistol magazines that we see today in
various modern guns.
Now the action is a little bit unusual and unique
so why don't we go ahead and pull this apart and I'll show you how it works.
If you're thinking that this looks like a large, bulky, heavy, and kind of clunky handgun,
You would be totally correct, it is all of those things.
It is a short recoil gun, so there's the short recoil itself. It has kind of mediocre sights,
It's about what you'd expect for late teens, early 1920s,
I suppose. Totally fixed, not adjustable in any way. However,
This is a totally unmarked, unnumbered, prototype pistol
So had this actually gone into service, it certainly could have had any number of different styles of sights on it.
Not a lot in the way of controls. We have a magazine release right here, hit that with the middle finger.
There is our magazine.
As I mentioned this really... it kind of resembles a savage magazine with that mag release hole,
But this would be right at home really in any modern .45 caliber automatic pistol.
It's what it looks like. It is a single stack magazine
Or single feed magazine, double stack and it should, according to Newton or according to Lewis, hold 15 rounds. Pretty cool,
That's a lot of capacity
Yet at this time period, I believe savage was the first company to actually market a successful double stack magazine and that would have been
1907, so 10 or 15 years later. This is definitely before the advent of the Browning Hi-Power.
Now this is a, as I mentioned, short recoil gun and it kind of requires a little bit of force to open up.
Once the barrel reciprocates, there the whole action reciprocates this far
Then that unlocks it the slide can go the rest of the way back. That opens up the ejection port here.
Once you're done ejecting the
Slide assembly, or the bolt assembly it would be, covers over that ejection port so you don't have an ingress point for mud and gunk.
I should mention we do have a manual safety right there. Forward is safe and rearward is fire
like that.
Our disassembly is going to begin by removing the magazine.
Pull that out.
Then there is a serrated button in the back of the grip and that allows us to pull the back strap off of the gun.
Pull that out... Oh, I need to have it cocked first.
There we go. Now I can pull the back strap out.
[Grunts]
Should be able to pull... There we go.
Get it out of there.
Alright.
The back strap here actually contains the hammer spring right there and the hammer itself.
There's also a little open hole at the back of the beaver tail
And if you can see that pin, that tells you that the hammer is cocked.
If you can't see it, it tells you the gun is uncocked or fired and
The sear actually pulls this spring forward when you pull the trigger
So that is what releases the hammer. I can do this manually, there we go.
When this spring gets pulled forward, it no longer holds hammer, hammer comes up, hits the primer, fires the gun.
Now we have the backstrap out, the next thing I'm going to do is remove the recoil spring.
Unthread this muzzle cover.
Has a lot of threading to it.
These parts are really nicely made
Despite being a prototype, this isn't one of those, you know, home shop with some files and an old rusty mill
Kind of prototype. This is a nicely made prototype. So this muzzle cover is what holds the recoil spring in place.
Set that aside. A recoil spring is this interesting flat spring type. Set that aside.
Now the last bit is to drop this disassembly catch, so I'm going to squeeze these two pieces together and then pull down.
There we go. Now I can just pull the slide assembly forward and out of the gun.
With this out I can then pull
The barrel assembly out. There's this sleeve on the barrel, which I'm not entirely sure the purpose of, and then our bolt.
So starting with the frame, not a whole lot here that we need to cover.
We do have the trigger here, and you can see this transfer bar.
When I pull that trigger, you can see the sear
Surface back there comes forward, that's what's going to pop the hammer spring and drop the hammer.
Safety here is going to prevent us from moving that
And then this disassembly lug, simply, when it's in the upward position there, the barrel hits that
specifically this sleeve on the barrel is going to hit that and
Stay locked in position like that.
So that's what this is doing actually, this acts as a guide for the barrel.
This is locked in place, and it allows the barrel to slide backwards under that short recoil
without getting out of position.
Now, considering the barrel, barrel extension, and bolt... the bolt here is pretty simple. It's just
Kind of basic breech face there, firing pin, extractor, slot for the ejector. There is our firing pin, it's spring-loaded.
It's threaded at the front for this muzzle cover, which is going to hold the mainspring in place.
Goes on like that.
Then, what's really the important part here is this lever right here.
This is our locking lug, so this is under spring pressure back here
There's a little spring in there somewhere, and it is always trying to move up. When it is in the upward position,
It locks the bolt in place.
So that is our bolt locked. When you push on this,
That lug comes up and now the bolt can slide backwards.
Bolt goes forward, this lug comes up into place and blocks it
So specifically what happens when you fire is these two pieces are locked together because that lug
prevents them from moving independently. The whole assembly moves backward just enough until this hits the rear face of
The frame. So it's going to go backward inside here until it hits this back wall. When it does, that lug
Goes forward, drops the locking lugs,
And then the bolt can go backward against the mainspring, it will eject the empty case,
It then comes forward under pressure from the mainspring because, remember, the spring is getting compressed inside here between the muzzle cover
right there and
This surface that pulls the bolt forward and then you've got this little helper spring right here, just to make sure that the entire
Inner assembly goes forward back into the locked position.
There's a slot in the locking block
Back here. That's what the hammer can swing up in between, through that slot, to hit the firing pin and fire the gun.
I should also point out that the rear end cap of this thing is removable. It's pinned in place and it also contains the rear sight.
You can see the seam there.
I'm assuming that's the pin that holds it in place.
And then the rear sight is also a part of that, so for manufacturing purposes this comes off,
You don't have to try and blindly machine that whole cavity, which is a good thing.
So there you have one Isaac Newton Lewis
Recoil-operated
Locked-breech .45 Caliber Military Service pistol that failed to see acceptance anywhere. Still a very cool gun, though.
Thanks for watching guys. Hope you enjoyed the video
This is, as far as I know, the only surviving example of this type of Lewis pistol.
I would love to try and dig up the actual French trials to report on it.
If I can ever manage to find it, I will go ahead and post it at ForgottenWeapons.com,
Until then,
What you see is pretty much everything we know about this pistol to the best of my abilities. If you enjoy this sort of content,
Please do consider checking out my Patreon page. A little bit of funding there goes a long way towards helping me continue to travel
And find cool goodies like this to bring to you guys. Thanks for watching!