![]() ![]() While loading with a stripper clip can be almost as fast as changing magazines, I can’t imagine fumbling about with strippers to recharge your pistol while bouncing around on a horse. It was an era in which the concept of a detachable box magazine was not universally shared, and ammunition for the Steyr-manufactured pistols was actually issued in stripper clips. One of the distinguishing characteristics of all three designs is the use of stripper clips to load - a feature we see also in the Mauser M96. In fact, both military pistols exhibit a high degree of complex machining, hand-fitting and finishing which was the norm in an era. Both feature a rotating barrel with intricately machined cams and locking lugs to secure the barrel to slide. The design of the M1912 is credited to the Czech engineer, Karel Krnka, who also designed the Roth-Steyr M1907. Its design was evolutionary at Steyr, beginning with one of the first successful military auto-pistols, the M1900/M1901 Mannlicher, progressing to the Roth-Steyr M1907 (issued to the Austria-Hungarian cavalry), and finally emerging as the M1912 Steyr. When Austria was absorbed into the Third Reich in 1938, Germany thought so much of the design they had Mauser re-barrel the available M1912s from 9mm Steyr to 9mm Luger and marked the slide “08.” Officially adopted by Austria-Hungary, Romania and Chile, the M1912 soldiered on through two world wars. Yet the Steyr rarely gets a footnote in the references to the small arms of WWI and WWII. When I think of the Steyr M1912, I think of comedian Rodney Dangerfield’s immortal line: “I don’t get no respect at all.” Here was a magnificent pistol developed at the beginning of the 20th Century, a period of arms ferment when nations of all stripes were competing to develop or adopt a semi-auto replacement for their aging revolvers. ![]()
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