Hi guys, thanks for tuning in to another video on ForgottenWeapons.com.
I'm Ian McCollum and we have a fantastically cool pistol
here today. This looks just like a 1911, but it is not.
This is an FN Grand Browning. So
the deal with this is that John Browning had an agreement
with both FN and Colt over ... where each company
... basically was allowed to licence and sell products based on his patents.
So we can see an interesting example of this with the 1903 pistols.
There is a Colt 1903 and there is an FN 1903, and they are
substantially different. The Colt 1903 is a small pocket-sized gun,
where the FN 1903 is more of a service pistol sized gun.
And that is based on what the two companies thought they could effectively market.
Neither one is a copy of either of the others,
they are both guns that are based on John Browning's patents and prototype models.
Now when we skip forward a few more years, we get to what will eventually become the Colt Model of 1911.
This is based on John Browning's Model of 1909 prototype gun and patents.
And as with earlier pistol patents and prototypes, those were available to both the Colt company and the FN company,
and they both independently developed their own final pistol designs based on that prototype and patent.
So for Colt, the Model of 1909 patent became the Model 1909 Colt pistol,
which became the 1910 Colt pistol, which then became the US Model of 1911 service pistol.
In fact if we stick with Colt for a moment, what Colt would do is they actually introduced the gun
in two different calibres and in two actually different independent frame sizes.
So for the US military, of course, they had it in .45 calibre and they made 23 of ... the 1909s.
And then they also were looking at parts of Europe.
Now FN had the rights to market these guns, the Browning pistols, in basically most of Western Europe.
Colt had the exclusive rights to do so in North America, in the United States.
However, there are other areas that were open to both players, whoever could market their gun better.
And the Balkans are an example of this. So there was an interest in the Balkans in a gun like this one.
Colt produced its Model of 1910 in 9.8mm, and they made four of those and sent them down for some testing in the Balkans.
FN was also interested in that area, and FN also thought that this was a pistol that might very well be of interest to European militaries,
in particular the Belgian military. So FN put together their own version of the 1910 pistol which they called the Grand Browning.
So let's take a closer look at this. It is very similar to the Colt Model of 1911
because they're both based on the same original idea and prototype, but it's not identical.
We'll start with looking at some of the markings. On this side where on a Colt we would have Model of 1911,
here we just have a serial number. This is gun number 127. I suspect they started at number 101.
On this side we have the exact same sort of markings that you would find
on one of FNs other pistols, like a Hi Power or a 1903.
The sort of thing that looks right at home on the side of a 1911, but you'd never find on a 1911.
So Fabrique Nationale Des Armes de Guerre, Herstal, Belgique,
Browning's Patent, Depose or déposé means patented.
And then we've got ... Belgian proof marks here on the slide and on the frame.
A little bit harder to see, but we also have a set of those Belgian proof marks on the barrel.
Again, just as you would find for any other FN Belgian pistol.
Mechanically the gun is essentially identical to a Colt Model 1910 or 1911,
because, well as I keep saying, they came from the same place.
There are a couple little differences that I can point out.
One of them is the front sight blade here, which is sort of a shark fin shape instead of just being semi-circular.
Probably the most significant one are the grips, or the grip attachment method. You'll notice that there are no screws on here,
instead you have two lugs at the top, one on each side, and there is a retaining pin down here at the bottom.
So to remove the grips you would tap out this pin,
note that it is larger in diameter there.
You punch that out and then both grip panels just come off.
No need to mess around with screws or bushings, which would in fact cause some
complaints and require some changes for the US military.
The magazines are also a little bit different. So here's our
FN magazine, you'll note that this has 8 witness holes. This holds 9 rounds.
And I think I forgot to mention earlier that the pistol was chambered for the 9.65x23mm cartridge.
This was a brand new cartridge that FN designed for these pistols.
It was functionally basically the same as Colt's 9.8x23mm.
The data I have suggests that the FN loading was a 115 grain bullet
travelling at probably about 1,300 feet per second. So it was a pretty good little cartridge.
At any rate, here's our FN magazine. If we compare that to a Colt 1911 magazine, a very early one,
you'll notice that the FN magazine has one round greater capacity.
They both have the lanyard loops on the floor plate, but the floor plate designs are different.
FN's has this tabbed retainer just like you would see later on in Hi Power pistols.
And the follower designs are also different. So Colt went with a pretty pretty simplistic
sort of skeletonised follower, where the FN pistol has a fully formed follower.
So if we compare the Grand Browning to an actual 1911,
keep in mind that Colt did make a version of this gun, or a version of the 1910, in 9.8,
which would be the same frame size as the FN approximately.
This is a first year production 1911. If we look at these side by side, it's subtle,
but you can see that the FN pistol is just a little bit narrower,
the magazines are narrower, the whole gun.
Of course, it is not a scaled down .45, this was built from the ground up for this 9.65mm cartridge.
So it would follow logically that the gun's going to be just slightly smaller in overall dimensions than a .45.
If we line up the back, you'll see that the .45 is just a fraction of an inch longer than the FN.
So ultimately, what FN had planned to do (probably, there isn't any documented evidence of this, but it all makes really good sense),
FN didn't think that a service pistol like this would be a particularly good commercial sale gun,
they just didn't think it'd sell that well, however they saw the potential for a military sale.
And this is very similar to what they had done in 1903. FN's 1903 pistol is a large service pistol sized gun,
what they did was ... they sought out military contracts which they got, most significantly Sweden.
They used the military contract to pay for the development, and tooling, and setting up of the production of the gun.
And once they had it in production then they started to offer it commercially as well.
They almost certainly would have done exactly the same thing with the Grand Browning here.
The problem was it was approximately 1914 when they had the toolroom prototypes done.
They made somewhere around two dozen pistols, somewhere between like 23 and maybe 30 guns.
And before they had a chance to formally submit them to the Belgian military, where they probably would have gotten a contract,
I bet the Belgians would have been really taken by this pistol.
Before they had the opportunity, well, war were declared and Germany invaded Belgium.
And Germany would occupy FN and Liège for ... literally the duration of the war.
And so, of course, FN was not in a position to do any further marketing or development of the gun.
Once Belgium was liberated and restored after World War One,
well, by that time there are a lot of Colt 1911s floating around and FN looks at this and figures,
"You know what? We might have had a chance at selling a lot of these pistols before the war,
but it's too late now. There's too much that's already in the market,
and it wouldn't be a viable thing to try and compete against Colt's Model 1911."
Instead FN kind of took the next step ... towards what would become the Hi Power, which began as the "Grand Rendement",
the grand renditions [large yield].
The next iterative step in Browning's guns, which of course is double-stack high-capacity 9mm calibre.
So, what we're left with is just a tiny number of FN 1910 Grand Browning pistols,
I think two are documented to still exist today.
And while it looks, and functionally is, almost identical to a 1911 because of their mutual shared origin,
it's a fantastically cool pistol that kind of gives you some insight into what FN and Colt were doing,
and how they split up the world. And Colt was working really hard to sell the guns to the American military.
And FN would have been too, they just were a little bit too late to the game and World War One interrupted all of their plans.
So if you're interested in ... FN pistols and Browning's work with FN, the book I would highly recommend is
Anthony Vanderlinden's "FN Browning Pistols". That is where the information on this one came from.
And he has all sorts of good information on everything from the 1899 and 1900s, the 1903s,
through the development and production of the Browning Hi Power.
Thanks for watching.