That is an incredibly beautiful and historic collector's item, for sure. Congrats on its acquisition and display!
For those that might not appreciate its historical importance, I'll take the liberty of re-printing here an article I authored for Dillon's
Blue Press some time ago.
John
When the smoke cleared in the U.S. 45 caliber pistol trials of 1911, the handgun designed by John Browning and manufactured by Colt won out and has become forever famous and popular. Its closest competitor in those trials was an innovative pistol manufactured by the Savage Arms Company. Just a few hundred were ever manufactured, and only their .32 and .380 caliber pocket pistol descendents went on to become accepted in the marketplace. Today, remaining examples of the test trial Savage .45 pistols are extremely rare and have become coveted collector items worth many thousands of dollars. This is the story of a little-known firearm that played a pivotal role in the development of the Model of 1911 pistol, spurring that development by providing tough competition.
In 1906, realizing that .38 caliber revolvers were not getting the job done in combat against fierce Moro tribesman in the Philippines, the United States announced that they were accepting contestants for a .45 semiautomatic pistol contract. Whichever one selected by competitive trials would become the new official pistol of the U.S. armed services. Initially, pistols were submitted by Colt, Deutsch Waffen und Munitionsfabriken (DWM) in Germany, and the Savage Arms Company. The Colt product was a design by John Browning, the DWM entry was a special .45 caliber prototype pistol designed by Georg Luger, and Savage introduced a proposed pistol invented by Elbert H. Searle, who had collaborated with William Condit and Morris Smith on the basic action principles. Condit had briefed Savage's management on Searle's work in late 1905 or early 1906.
Searle was an independent inventor working in a machine shop in Philadelphia, and he had come up with a couple of interesting designs. Savage bought the rights to these designs, and was developing one to the point where the management thought it could be a good competitor. Working with Savage, Searle patented his invention for a .45 pistol.
Searle had moved his shop from Philadelphia to the Savage factory in Utica New York in order to work more closely with the Savage staff. The test trials were subsequently re-scheduled from 1906 to 1907, and this gave Searle and Savage some needed time to refine the design and produce some actual pistols. In 1907, the U.S. Army fired 913 rounds through a Savage prototype, finding it interesting enough to consider for further development and testing. The main negative comment was that the pistol's recoil was unusually harsh.
The pistol as made for the trials had some interesting and innovative features. The magazine was a semi-double-column design, enabling a capacity of 8 rounds. The slide stop lever was on the right side of the pistol behind the trigger guard. The manual safety was located at the left rear of the pistol, and was rotated up for safe and down for firing. The lanyard ring at the heel of the butt was mounted on a swivel pin. When not needed, the ring could be rotated up and out of the way into the magazine well. The magazine release was at the bottom of the front grip strap. There was a grip safety, a lever that was largely free from the rear grip strap. What appeared to be a conventional external hammer was in fact an extension of the spring-loaded firing pin. Only coil springs were used in the gun, and the only two screws secured the checkered walnut grips. The barrel had a top rib, with the Savage markings on it. "CAL.45" was stamped boldly over the breech. The fixed sights were rather tiny, in the style of those times.
The reason for the perceived sharp recoil was that the mechanism of the pistol was in effect only a hesitation-lock, making the opening of the breech almost indistinguishable from that of an unlocked blowback-operated pistol. Upon firing, the lugged barrel was cammed to rotate out of engagement with the slide, relying only on the counter-twist of the bullet in the barrel to delay this unlocking. In later modern testing of one of these pistols it was noted in slow-motion videos that the bullet had barely left the barrel when the slide began to move back violently, releasing substantial residual gas and flame back into the breech area when the case extracted. The locked-breech recoil-operated Colt pistol absorbed some recoil and was much softer on the hand. The Savage pistol also had to rely on a very strong recoil spring (wrapped around the barrel), and this made manual retraction of the slide somewhat difficult.
The Army requested the three contestants to submit 200 pistols each for further testing and field trials. Changes were recommended for all three designs. Georg Luger at DWM decided not to comply, figuring that a U.S. pistol would probably be favored to win, and he could not recoup tooling expenses by manufacturing only 200 pistols. Colt readily agreed to a $25 per pistol payment. Savage initially balked, but finally settled with the government for a $65 payment for each pistol. This provided enough funding to produce not only 200 .45 pistols, but also to help finance initial tooling for scaled-down .32 caliber pistols of the same design that Savage wanted to produce (and did) for the civilian market.
And then some bad stuff hit the fan for Savage. Five of their 200 pistols shipped never arrived at Springfield Armory. Then the Army rejected all the pistols because Savage did not stamp "safe" and "fire" manual safety markings on the frames. On shipping the rejected pistols back to Utica, an additional 67 pistols disappeared. Savage, in frustration, dutifully marked the frames and had to make an additional 72 pistols to make up the combined shortage. Thus, it's calculated that in all, Savage manufactured 288 pistols, of which 200 were original, 72 were replacements, and 16 were prototypes.
In subsequent trials, the Savage and Colt pistols were issued to troops in the field for comments. The main complaints for the Savage guns were sharp recoil, a grip safety that could trap dirt, difficult racking of the slide, and the awkward positions of the slide stop and magazine release. There were some parts breakage, jams, and reports of magazines dropping during firing. The Colts also took some criticism on other matters. The upshot is that additional trials were to be scheduled after needed improvements were addressed. In 1910, further trials showed that neither the Savage nor the Colt could be approved. A new round of tests was scheduled for March of 1911. In these tests, the Colt proved to be clearly superior, firing 6,000 rounds without a malfunction of any kind. Colt secured a contract for 31,344 pistols, and its pistol became the famous Model of 1911. Savage took second place honors, but unfortunately no prize.
The folks at Savage went home and licked their wounds. The .45 pistols they had made were sold back to them for $6.50 each (10% of the original price charged to the government), refurbished, refinished and sold. The smaller pistols they produced on Searle's design went on to be very successful. The magazine of the Savage .45 was among the first to use the double-column concept. This became a well-publicized advantage for the smaller-caliber Savage pocket pistol models of 1907, 1908, 1915, and 1917. "10 Shots Quick" became the advertising slogan.
The Model 1907 .45 Savage pistols are largely unknown, and have long since been swept into the dust bin of history. Still, they have a fascinating history and a great heritage in the guns that followed them. The surviving pistols are treasured items in any condition, and have become collector prizes of great worth.
(c) JLM
You might also be interested in seeing this painstaking and fully functional exact replica of the .45 pistol Georg Luger submitted for testing in the original trials. It belongs to a good friend who is an avid Luger collector.
