Shooting bagel
23 September 20147
The contribution of the inhabitants of the town of Saint-Etienne in the development of firearms weapons not limited to the same machine gun, which I told in my posting the day before yesterday. In 1893, there was also made an interesting self-loading pistol, which became the world’s first model of automatic weapons, acting on the principle of removal of powder gases. This principle is based on the work of most modern automata and machine guns, but in the short-barrels he never caught on.
The gun was invented and made by three brothers - Benoit, Jean-Baptiste and Victor Claire, and a patent for it was obtained back in the 1889 year. The device of the weapon is clearly visible on the drawing. A cylinder with a spring-loaded piston is located under the barrel, the cartridges were placed “in the back of the head” to each other in a curved handle, the loading was done from the front. The pistol used Lebel revolver cartridges caliber 8 mm.
Figure appearance and, as far as I know, the only photograph of the gun “Claire.”
As a standard, six rounds were loaded into the Claire, but it was possible to install a handle on it with the original ring magazine, which increased the ammunition to 14 cartridges. True, the holster for such a gun is difficult to imagine.
The Claire brothers offered their product to the French army, but the military rejected it because of too large dimensions (the length of the weapon - 44 cm) and too much mass - 1,3 kg. It was difficult to shoot with one hand from “Claire”, it was necessary to additionally support the weapon with the left hand for the shank like a carbine. But at the same time, the pistol was notable for easy descent and weak recoil.
For some reason, the brothers did not even try to organize the mass production of their pistols and put them on sale. Perhaps they simply did not have the money for this, and the weapon magnates were not interested in the invention that was ahead of its time. The number of released “Claire” is unknown, but, apparently, this gun is made only in a few copies, none of which has survived to the present day.