Savage launched its model 1907 pistol with a lot of marketing fanfare. It was “10 Shots Quick!” and promoted with testimonials form personalities like Buffalo Bill Cody and Sheriff Bat Masterson. It was intended as a pocket pistol for personal protection and home defense, with a lot made of how it was simple and effective for inexperienced people (especially women) to use. A few years later in 1915 a relatively small number (about 10,000) were made in the 1915 pattern, which shrouded the hammer and added a grip safety. I’m shooting our monthly BUG match this time with a Model 1915 in .32 ACP. Let’s see how Bat Masterson’s claim stands up?
Full video on Savage pocket pistol development:
Full video on Savage .45 pistols:
“(…)Sheriff Bat Masterson.(…)”
Savage advert described him as Sheriff, of Dodge City and Government Scout. Was such intersection common at dawn of 20th century or they print it to make reader to consider him as someone unique?
“(…)Bat Masterson’s claim(…)”
There were multiple claims in Savage advert showing Masterson, namely that
anyone, without prac-
tice, can shoot the Savage
Automatic straight. You
point it naturally, off hand,
just as you point your finger,
yet you hit what you aim at
the Savage Auto-
matic is quicker and gets in
the first shot every time
against a revolver. You can
fire 1 0 shots as fast as you can
press (not pull) the trigger
Safer and easier to carry than a revolver
Poweful,
( 32 cal. )
light (19 oz.)
short (6½ in.)
fits flat in pocket
Which one of above was tested during shown BackUp Gun Match shown?
As a government scout, you would be a civilian working with Army units as a reconnaissance specialist. Stereotypically a Native person with knowledge of the area and its Native peoples and languages.
Whereas as a sheriff you would be an employee of the city government.
In Masterson’s particular case, those jobs would have been many years earlier. But Masterson was also known as a gambler, and I think the Savage in .32 ACP would have been more useful as a gambler’s concealed carry than the guns that a scout or sheriff would use.
If a man was at one time a scout and at another a sheriff it is fine to describe him as a scout and sheriff. It is more accurate to add ‘ former’ before r the job titles
By the time Masterson made those plugs for Savage he was a very popular newspaper columnist in New York city, renowned as a national expert in boxing. He had also served as a Deputy US Marshsal under president Theodore Roosevelt. It is alleged by several sources that, whenever he was asked to sell his “Old West sheriff’s gun” he would send an assistant to buy a random old cheap revolver from a pawn shop, and palm this off on the purchaser as the genuine historical article. This scam was said to give him great amusement. Karl on InrangeTV mentions that there is in the Colt factory records an order from Masterson for a .45 SAA, specifying short barrel, tall front sight, a nickel finish and the maximum of engraving,
According to those factory records, Masterson ordered at least four and possibly as many as six Model 1873 revolvers directly from Colt, a not uncommon practice on the frontiers around the world in those days. He consistently asked for them to have the barrel length even with the front end of the ejector rod housing (4 5/8″ or 11.74cm), and the front sight to be 1/8″ (3.175 mm) higher than normal. All were in .45 Colt, rather than .44-40 WCF.
As to why the high front sight, he sighted the revolvers in and filed the front sights down until with the standard 255-grain load, they shot exactly dead-center at 50 yards.
At least two of the revolvers were fully nickel-plated. The one mentioned may have been engraved, but the others were not.
clear ether
eon
you’ve got a spare mag?? you lucky devil!
In the story “Corkscrew,” Dashiell Hammett’s narrator-detective The Continental Op arrives at a town in Arizona. Before starting work he puts in each of his coat side-pockets “an automatic pistol” to supplement his usual revolver, and mentions that each pistol holds ten shots. Savage never named but I don’t think they were Mauser Broomhandles, and I think nothing else in that era was a ten-shooter.
I’m not sure, but isn’t the hammer actually a cocking lever for a (sort of) striker fired handgun? If I am not mistaken it was that way on the .45 Government trials guns, but these look a little different.
thanks CG
My understanding too: not the hammer spur, more like a cocking indicator or a cocking lever. Look at the blueprint here and note the great bloody striker and spring: https://americanhandgunner.com/handguns/the-savage-model-1907-pistol-eating-colts-lunch/
Bet he was right overall, I mean if you weren’t dressed as a “Cowboy” these were probably as revolutionary as… Not being dressed as a cowboy, because by then; toliets were more widespread etc. Times change, I mean most folk who were going to shoot each other with colt .45’s had already by 1915. And thus, it was more appropriate then; probably would have been handy in old west saloons also, but maybe less so outside… Galloping up and down on horses, from fair far away, to less so quite quick. Good old six gun terrority, probably. Anyway @ 100 an odd years old, that is a good gun; it works well.
Quite like it’s styling, sort of looks like… I don’t know “Monorail” you know, futuristic, for the time. Art deco, furturism… Type thing. Nothing wromg with that as a carry gun now, I mean it works and surely you “Don’t want to shoot” folk.
Actually it has just come back to me, I liked the .45 one… So much so, I thought we should knock one up in .44 special. Why? Because it looks like a “monorail” art deco, folk will like it. What are you trying to shoot, a tank. It’s a classy gun, lets do it, aye to carry. (Market; anyone not overly petrified about black people per se.) They’ll be one. Include a Sterling silver
cigarette case with titanium inserts “Hey its been a historical thing said cases stopping/slowing bullets; saving folk. 2 grand. Never need to buy another gun to carry ever again, yes you can hit them with it – not plastic.
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/savage-45-acp-pistols-history-disassembly-video/
Look well made, don’t they; in .44 Special (Modifiy it for the rim, been done before; schnell.) and bingo! The recoil will be better, and folk can buy a gun that is… Good. Bonnie gun that, I think. Like a early 20th c train or something, I like them anyway.
“(…).44 Special (Modifiy it for the rim, been done before;(…)”
Please provide name of automatic pistol firing said cartridge AND feeding from box magazine.
Would you say it’s the tiny sights or the stiff trigger that is the limiting factor with this, or a combination of these factors?