Grant Hammond is best known (to the extent he is known at all) for a .45 caliber pistol submitted to US military trials in 1917 and 1918. This pistol is a proof of concept prototype embodying some of the concepts that would go into the later .45 caliber pistol, and also showing some concepts that would not see further use. This .32 ACP prototype features a hybrid blow forward / blowback mechanism in which the slide uses a gas trapping system to move forward and the bolt moves backward. It also has a unique system for automatically ejecting the magazine when empty. Truly one of the most mechanically unusual pistols I have ever seen.
These unique and unmarked prototype .32 ACP pistols are apparently Iver Johnson prototypes – and I can’t find any information on them beyond that description from their consignor. One is a simpler example in the white, and the other is a more developed example with both a manual safety and an unusual style of grip safety. If anyone has any further information on these, I would be interested to hear it!
Nicholas Pieper designed a blowback pocket pistol which was manufactured under license by Steyr in 1908. It was a reasonably successful pistol, and can be found today in .25ACP and .32ACP calibers. This particular one is an experimental version scaled up to .45ACP, with the intention of making military or commercial sales in the US. One unusual trait it shares with the smaller versions is its lack of extractor – as a blowback design it will function without one, but the shooter must break the action open to manually remove an unfired cartridge.
The Grant Hammond .45 pistol is a gun which was too late to take part in the major 1907 US military pistol trials, and which was instead presented proactively to the military in hopes of supplementing or replacing the current issue pistol (the Remington M53 falls into this same category). Unfortunately for Mr. Hammond, his design just wasn’t good enough to pass muster (the Remington actually would have had a real shot at adoption had it been in the 1907 trials).
Hammond’s early patents were for an exceedingly complex design, which combined elements of blow-forward and long recoil operation (you can see my video on a Hammond .32 prototype), but by the time he was making the gun in .45 for trials he had simplified it considerably. As proposed to the military, it was a short-recoil mechanism with a vertically-sliding locking block. The first prototypes would actually eject their magazine automatically when it ran dry, but this feature was not like, and was removed from later production.
In total, only a handful of Hammond pistols were made. They underwent several military tests in 1917 and 1918, and proved quite accurate – but not durable or reliable enough for further consideration.