The Savage Model 1907 was one of the most popular American-made pocket pistols of the 20th century. It featured a tubular slide, burr-style cocking lever, coarse slide serrations, and magazine release in the front of the grip.From its beginnings, the .32 ACP and .380 ACP Model 1907 was intended for personal protection and home defense. Illustration courtesy of Dave Koch.

From the 1840s until the early 1900s, the words "handgun" and "revolver" had been more or less synonymous, and it was assumed that nothing could replace the wheelgun in the holsters--and hearts--of American shooters, soldiers, and policemen.

It should come as no surprise that it was those dang furriners in Europe who screwed up everything when they began introducing self-loading pistols. And if that wasn't bad enough, America's premier gun designer, John Moses Browning, jumped on the bandwagon and began designing semiautomatic pistols too.

Those persons occupying the boardrooms of American gun companies started inquiring, "Where was the respect for tradition? Where was the concern for American soldiers and police officers? Where...was there a profit to be made?"

Colt quietly came to an agreement with Browning to manufacture and market several of his designs. Thus it was in 1905, when the U.S. Army expressed an interest in replacing its revolvers with one of these newfangled pistols, that Colt was the only American firm with the experience and wherewithal to produce them. Or at least that's what Colt thought.

When the Army announced trials to find a suitable semiautomatic pistol, Savage--founded in 1884 and well known for the Model 99 lever-action rifle--was one of the first American companies to announce an entry.

Known as the Savage Model 1907 .45 Caliber Military Pistol, it was based upon the designs of Maj. Elbert H. Searle and utilized, what the good major referred to as, a "hesitation" or "delayed" blowback system to lock the breech.

Searle's design consisted of a separate breechblock that contained a spring-loaded striker with a prominent cocking lever that was inserted into the rear of the pistol's slide where it was held in place by a tongue-and-groove system. The barrel had a lug on top of the chamber that mated with a helical groove on the inside of the slide and another on the bottom that fitted into a slot in the frame. At the instant of firing, the barrel and breechblock/slide unit were locked together, but as the slide started rearward, it bore against the top lug. As the bottom lug prevented the barrel from moving to the rear to any degree, the helical groove in the slide rotated the barrel to the right approximately 5 degrees where the lug entered a straight groove in the slide and allowed the breechblock to recoil fully, extracting the spent cartridge case.

As the slide reciprocated, the cocking lever was forced upward as the rear end of the breechblock--to which the lever was pivoted--slid over the rear of the receiver and drew back the striker and engaged it to the sear. A recoil spring located around the barrel pulled the breechblock forward, stripped the next round out of the magazine, and chambered it. As the breechblock went into battery, the section of helical groove inside the slide bore on the barrel lug, rotated the barrel to the left, and locked the barrel and breechblock together.

In an attempt to retard barrel rotation and further delay breech opening, the Model 1907's barrel was rifled so that the bullet spun in a clockwise direction, which, theoretically, counteracted barrel movement. But while Searle's system apparently worked, the breech opened much faster and more violently than that of the Colt/Browning system.