Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian, and today we're taking a look
at the Number 2 Bergmann automatic pistol.
This is one of the versions of the Model of 1896
for Bergmann, and in 1896 he had revised
a lot of the basic flaws with his original 1894 design.
Now again, this is the work of Louis Schmeisser.
It bears Bergmann's name because he was the financier
who owned the factory and provided the funding to do the work.
And Schmeisser was actually working for him on this project.
So a little unfair there, Schmeisser did the work, a lot of Schmeisser's ideas,
but Bergmann gets the credit because he had the money.
Now, we have a couple of different versions of the Number 2 here.
In general what defines the Number 2 is that it used this small frame,
which is the same on all of these guns,
and it was chambered for a 5mm Bergmann cartridge.
This is one of the wimpiest cartridges ever manufactured as a centrefire.
It threw a 35 grain bullet at approximately 580 feet per second.
If we turn that into metric, that's about a 2.25 gram bullet at about 177 metres per second.
This is like a little over half the power of a .22 Short, this is a really, really wimpy cartridge.
It was simple to manufacture for that reason, these are simple blowback pistols.
But this certainly contributed to its not being hugely popular.
In total about 1,500 to 2,000 of these pistols were made in the late 1890s.
Like I said, didn't turn out to be all that popular,
the Number 3 Bergmann would sell much better.
Now at the beginning this 5mm cartridge, along with Bergmann's ... 6.5mm,
it had no extractor groove.
Now this is something that we touched on earlier in this video series.
Simple blowback pistols don't actually necessarily need an extractor in order to extract.
And so at first as simply a way to save cost and save complexity on the guns,
the Bergmann pistols did not come with extractors.
In order to fit with this, the cartridges didn't have extractor grooves.
Now part way into production people realised that the extractor really is helpful,
it allows you to pull a cartridge out of the chamber
if you decide that you don't want to fire it. Which is a
tricky thing to solve if you don't have an extractor.
And it also makes ejection more predictable and more reliable
by effectively guiding the cartridge, and keeping it seated
in a specific position in the bolt until it gets thrown out of the gun.
So partway in, the cartridge was redesigned to have an extractor groove.
These cartridges were manufactured by DWM,
they were one of the main German manufacturers of ammunition at the time.
And in their catalogue this was cartridge number 416 without the groove, and 416A with the groove.
Now we'll ... take a closer look because we have a couple of examples,
both with and without the extractor, so you can see what the differences are.
We also have two interesting ones here with folding triggers.
This was an option on the Number 2 Bergmann that didn't appear on any others.
And it's neat, it's something you often saw on revolvers of this period,
but very unusual to find on a semi-auto, so.
At any rate, we have the two folding trigger guns, we have two standard ones,
including one with a British retail sales marking, which is cool.
And we have two cased examples.
So let me go ahead and bring the camera back in close,
and let's take a look at all of these individually.
Start with cased versions, we have a leather bound case and a wood case.
Both were available all the way through Bergmann production.
And this gives you a pretty good idea of what you would get
with a nice, complete, cased Bergmann Number 2.
So you got your pistol, a little oil bottle, you have two of the monkey-tail clips.
On this one we actually have two clips of loaded ammunition,
which we'll take a closer look at in a moment.
You get a cleaning rod with a little slot, you get a screwdriver for disassembly.
And actually that pretty much covers it.
You got the pistol here, in its own little spot.
Now these are not the first of the Bergmann Number 2 pistols made.
The first ones were actually the folding trigger variety, so let's take a look at those.
So the lowest serial numbers of the Bergmann Number 2 are all folding trigger models.
And these serial numbers go from the very beginning, in fact we have number 16 here.
And they run through approximately 400.
We have number 387 here, which is also a folding trigger.
By the low 600s, they were going back to fixed trigger guns.
So interesting though that these are a specific sequence,
they're all made as a batch at the beginning of production.
And the idea was in order to make it a more compact pocket pistol,
sort of, it's kind of interesting that it doesn't actually make the gun all that much smaller.
But in order to do it, the trigger simply folds up against the front of the gun here.
Now when you look at it on this side, we can see how this actually works.
This bar is simply an extension of the connection to the trigger,
and when you pull the trigger back it pushes that bar, fires the gun.
Like so.
Now the Number 2s, along with all of the other 1896 pattern guns,
had a ... [new] style of safety. ...
This tang here is just a tension spring,
and then this is your actual safety, and it rotates up like so.
It's going to lock the hammer in place, and of course then the trigger does nothing.
Now the safety could also be engaged with the hammer cocked.
Does the same thing here, disengages the trigger so the gun is rendered safe.
And it locks the hammer in place.
Handling-wise, this folding trigger looks pretty awkward,
but it actually works reasonably well, it's not that bad in the hand.
Because these guns are quite small,
the reach to the trigger isn't particularly a stretch, so to speak.
Now we also have a longer-barrelled version of the folding trigger Number 2.
These are quite rare, and I am not aware of any long-barrel fixed-trigger guns.
So if you wanted the long barrel, that appears to be
an option that they offered only at the very beginning.
And probably virtually nobody decided to buy them, so they discontinued that practice.
The Number 2s all have an ejection port on the top of the gun.
And there's no cover for it, frankly because this gun's too small
to effectively have an ejection port cover there without being really flimsy.
Loading works the same way as all of the standard other Bergmann pistols of this period,
the 1894 and the 1896.
We have our cover here, when you open it all the way it locks in place.
Put a clip in, snap the cover back in place.
You'll notice however, instead of a big thumb patch they now have this dual button.
This button protrudes across both sides, you can grab it with both fingers.
So you kind of push it towards this side, towards the right side.
Now let's go back to the more typical gun here.
You'll notice that there is a big hole in the side, that's a gas vent hole.
That opens up into the back of the chamber, so that if you do have a ruptured cartridge case
the gas will come out there instead of anywhere else, potentially causing damage. Which is nice.
Now you'll notice this one has a visible line in the centre of the bolt.
That line, that silver piece there, is the extractor.
And you can see it in the face of the bolt, right there.
This was added later in production.
So you'll find that the folding trigger version here has a solid bolt,
it has no extractor, and it used the non-grooved cartridge.
Where the later guns, the fixed trigger guns, did have an extractor.
You see it there, and of course they would have used ammunition with extractor grooves.
Now comparing here one on top of the other, you can get an idea for
the little bit of advantage you got in size from the folding trigger version.
This is about an inch, not quite an inch shorter, about 2cm shorter.
The height of the gun is exactly the same,
they were simply able to make the fire control group a little more compact in here
because they don't have to have a big opening for the trigger in the middle.
You'll see this is serial number 784,
and it already has the extractor in it.
So a significant majority of these guns do have the extractor.
It was pretty clearly a better idea, and so that's what they went with.
One last cool example here, this is another standard fixed trigger gun.
It is quite early, ... it's serial number 656.
You'll notice it does have an extractor, even at this early date.
I suspect that it was all of the folding trigger guns had no extractor.
And when they went to the fixed trigger design here
they added the extractor and the extractor groove to the cartridge.
What's also cool about this one is that this is marked Westley Richards & Company, London.
This is a gun that was manufactured for retail resale,
which was done in England, and also in South America in particular.
So if you owned a company like Westley Richards, or a large retail department store type company,
you could buy pistols already marked with your brand name on them.
Now this does also have the proper Bergmann marks on it.
You'll see here on the side of the ... magazine well is the logo for the Bergmann Company.
It's ... a picture of a miner with a kind of a star burst of light behind him,
and it's marked Gaggenau Suhl.
So Suhl was ... like the locale in Germany,
Gaggenau was the specific city where these were being manufactured.
You can see up here "Patent Bréveté S.G.D.G.", that is actually a Belgian style of patent.
It basically says this is patented, but the government doesn't guarantee it'll actually work,
just that it's patented.
And then we have our German proof marks right there, the crown, crown, over U.
And this is an interesting feature you'll find on ... all of the 1896 Bergmanns.
It's a number on the left side of the barrel, in this case the number is 611.
And what this actually indicates, and this is quite odd really,
that is if you were to describe this 5.5mm barrel as a shotgun gauge, it would be 611 gauge.
Meaning that if you took a pound of lead,
and you formed it into spheres the diameter of the bore of this pistol,
your one pound of lead would give you 611 spheres.
... Well, it's kind of a weird way to denote it,
it's a very accurate way to describe the bore diameter of the gun.
You'll find that on the 2s, 3s and Number 4 Bergmanns all used to describe the calibre.
A couple of last things to point out here.
As with all of the other Bergmanns, these have floating firing pins, there is no firing pin spring.
And as with all of the 1896 model Bergmanns,
the recoil spring is located inside the bolt back here.
In that way kind of similar to a Broomhandle Mauser.
So when you pull the bolt back, it's compressing against this block and the front of the bolt.
The early Bergmanns had a spring up here, but that's gone.
The only spring that's left up here is a coil spring inside this angled section,
which is used to put tension on the magazine cover and follower.
Right there.
One other interesting artifact we have here to go along with the Number 2
is an original Bergmann manufactured holster for the Number 2,
sits on the belt with that loop.
It is packed with a little bit of paper right now,
I am not going to fit the gun in it because this is really quite fragile.
But it has a flap here over the gun,
also a separate flap to carry probably two stripper clips of ammunition.
And you can see the gun fits right in there, so.
The grip handle sticks out right here, pop the flap, pull the pistol.
A little bit small for a standard style belt holster, but pretty cool.
Thanks for watching guys, I hope you enjoyed the video.
Hope you learned something about the Bergmann Number 2.
There really isn't a feature, or version, or variant of the Number 2 that you can find
that we don't have represented here, so a very cool opportunity.
Thanks very much to the anonymous collector
who graciously let me do this series of videos on the Bergmann.
If you guys enjoy the content, please consider checking out my Patreon page.
It's funding from folks like you that makes it possible for me to travel about,
and find these collections and bring them to you guys.
And of course if you enjoyed it, stay tuned for the next iteration in this series,
which will be the Bergmann Number 3.
Probably predict that one coming, huh?
Thanks for watching.