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Old 05-10-2017, 01:43 PM
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Cyrano Cyrano is offline
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World War I was a pistol war unlike any other. For hand to hand fighting in the narrow confines of a trench the over four feet long Berthier rifle with another 18 inches of 'la Rosalie' on the front was not what the situation called for. The need quickly outgrew the number of Mle 1873, 74 and 92 revolvers on hand.The arsenal at St Etienne was making Mle 92s as quickly as posible but it was also making desperately needed rifles and machine guns so its output was limited. France looked elsewhere. America had a thriving arms industry but the weapons were expensive and had to cross U boat infested waters. Nevetheless France obtained quantities of Savage Model 1907, 32 ACP automatics, apparently originally bound for Portugal but delivered to France. France also managed to divert a shipment of Colt Army Special revolvers in 38 Long Colt, bound for Greece. These can be identified by he Greek lettering on the bottom of the butt.

France then turned to Spain which had a large arms industry, for both revolvers and automatic pistols. The revolvers were termed the Mle 92 Espagnol, as they were chambered for the 8mm Mle 92 cartridge. Copies of both Colt and Smith & Wessons were made but they resembled the originals only externally; the mechanism was whatever could be produced at tle least cost. Over 485,000 of them were produced.

France contracted with the Spanish firm of Bonifacio Echeverria to produce their 'Star' pistol. This was a well made pistol in 32 ACP vaguely reminicent of the Mannlicher pistols. Echeverria produced 23,000 of them.

Then came the deluge. France conracted with Gabilondo y Urresti for their 'Ruby' pistol. This was a much simplified copy of the Browning 1903. It was chambered for the 32 ACP and held 9 rounds. France put increasing demands on Gabilondo y Urresti for more and more pistols, forcing them to sub-contract with other makers. Finally France also contracted with Spanish makers for Ruby-type pistols. Around 900,000 were made, by possibly 40 different makers. Quality varied from barely acceptable to dangerous. Parts were not interchangable, including the magazines. Later, pistols were coded with two letters in a circle and magazines were similiarly marked. This was not sufficient as some makers used several varieties of magazine. Finally many of the magazines were marked with the serial number of their pistol. If parts broke, spare parts could be fitted with some filing if one were lucky. As time progrssed, the worse examples either blew up or broke down and were discarded. They were a curse on the French armed forces and the last ones were finally dropped from some obscure French agency in 1973.

Photos:
Savage 1907 with holster.
Colt Army Special.
Mle 92 Espagnol with WW I holster.
Star****by type with WW I holster.
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