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Before the 1911 - A forgotten .45?

4K views 22 replies 11 participants last post by  whatsit 
#1 ·
Saw this while web surfing today.

Has anyone here ever heard of the Gabbett-Fairfax Mars?

Gabbett-Fairfax Mars

A Webley-made semiautomatic, it came in several versions, including one that this article says drove a .45 caliber bullet at 1,250 feet per second.
 
#4 ·
One fascinating thing, reading a 1902 manual on the page, is how on page 3 it talks about shock and wounding and the theory put forth about bullet types then.

Interesting to see the roots of that whole debate (which has spawned many a discussion and gun zine article) going back that far.

http://www.forgottenweapons.com/wp-content/uploads/manuals/MarsPistolmanual.pdf

The manual also features an article on page 15 that says the original Mars caliber was .400, which makes me wonder if this was the original "10mm Auto?"
 
#5 ·
The Thompson-LaGarde Tests took place in 1904 so it was very much on the minds of the people who made guns and even more so on the people who used guns. The debate has probably been around as long as guns have.
 
#6 · (Edited)
DavidE,

Then there were at least TWO .45cal autos before the Colt's 1911. - I don't know what it was called but Colt built some .45 autos in the 1900-1905 period as "test pieces". - The USA Infantry Museum has one of them.
(The curator said that he believes that about 50 were built for the tests.- At least a few were actually "sent out to the field" for "on the job tests". - The one at the USAIS looks a little like the Colt's 1903, with a exposed hammer & W/O slide serrations.)

The weapons collection at the Smithsonian's American History Museum in DC is said to have one of the pistols, too.

yours, sw
 
#7 ·
Savage made the competitor to the Colt in the pistol trials. When the Army asked for x00 pistols for troop trials, Savage didn't bother-or couldn't- make them. This is if the olde memorie banks are still functioning correctly.

I took a brief squint at the article on the Mars. You might want to be suspicious of the claimed velocities. Back in the day, chronographs-or other strange and wonderous devices to determine bullet speed (like ballistic pendulums)- were few and far between and checking up on the claimed velocities wasn't impossible, but might as well have been.
 
#11 ·
You might want to be suspicious of the claimed velocities.
I am suspicious of the claimed velocities.

My first thought upon reading that was what did they use for propellant? Cordite with 40% nitro?

I've loaded thousands of rounds each of .45ACP, .45 Colt and .44 Magnum and am well aware the kinds of powder required to reach those velocities in Blackhawk/Carbine loads in .45 Colt and .44 Magnum. Such powder didn't exist at the turn of the century. For example H2400 was introduced in 1932 and IMR4227 in 1935. In 1900 you were pretty much limited to Bullseye and Unique or fast burning rifle powders.

If the claimed velocities are accurate, the whinging of the troops who test fired the bloody thing should be well preserved in military lore.
 
#12 ·
Yeah, she doesn't seem to have the most graceful lines.

However I am fascinated looking at their loads, and to see where they were thinking of going then. It's like I can see the problems in the article, and that it may have been complex and heavy, but seeing their philosophy is fascinating.

.400 Mars (Original Load) = 10mm A.K.A. the "Centimenter Cartridge?"
.450 Mars Long = Close to a .44 Magnum strength load.
.450 Mars Short = Close to a .45 ACP I am guessing.
.360 Mars = .357 Magnum or .357 Sig?

I am not saying equal, but if one could replicate the loads today and fire them from, say, a Thompson/Center Contender with equal barrel lengths, it might be neat to compare the Mars rounds listed to those more recent calibers. While the pistol may have had problems they had to work out, it and the ammo are kind of fascinating in that respect.

Also, the idea of a .450 Short being developed from the .450 Long is eerily similar to the development of the .40 Caliber from the 10mm. Maybe I'm reading too much into that but it is neat "what if" stuff.
 
#20 ·
I remember seeing reproductions of turn of the 20th century ads that noted, black powder and semi-smokeless and smokeless powders. I've always kinda wondered exactly what semi-smokeless was. Just the other week reading a european black powder blog, I realized it might have been black powder without the sulfer. Apparently, the sulpher is present to lower ignition temperatures for flint ignition and probably early percussion caps.

The early smokeless powders were erosive, the primers were corrosive-you kids don't know how good you have it.

I really miss a Webley I owned.
 
#21 ·
the 1905 . 45 Colt was a disaster. No thumb safety, a swinging link at both ends of the barrel, fragile, clumsy. The Thompson Legarde study was a joke. They shot a whoopee 6 head of cattle, in any sort of relative fashion. they shot 13, but the first day, they shot one beef each with 6 calibers, 1 minute between shots, in the guts. All were still standing after 6 minutes, and were put down with a sledgehammer blow to the head.

The next day, 6 rds were rapidfired into the chest, the fastest to fall was 40 seconds, due to a severed aorta, with the .38 long colt. :) So they reshot that caliber. Nothing about this test established anything. The cadavers, hung by the neck and shot, barely "twitched" at the impact, so no attempt was made to measure/differentiate the caliber-results.
 
#22 ·
the 1905 . 45 Colt was a disaster. No thumb safety, a swinging link at both ends of the barrel, fragile, clumsy.
How many designers get everything right on the first attempt. The 1905 was a development of the 1902. Ever see a diagram of Browning's proof of concept of a self loading rifle?

The Thompson Legarde study was a joke.
After testing existing military cartridges that joke concluded

From Thompson-LaGarde Tests - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Board was of the opinion that a bullet, which will have the shock effect and stopping effect at short ranges necessary for a military pistol or revolver, should have a caliber not less than .45. ... None of the full-jacketed or metal-patch bullets (all of which were less than cal. . 45) showed the necessary shock effect or stopping power for a service weapon.
By the way, do some fact checking. Otherwise you come across like an ignorant thirteen year old.
The first day of testing involved eight live cattle; seven were shot through the lungs using different caliber rounds, and the effects recorded. The remaining animal was shot through the intestines with the .476 Eley. If the animal took too long to die, it was put down by a hammer blow to the head. Results were highly variable due to differences in shot placement, round types, animal size, and the number of times the animal was shot, according to Day/Velleux.
 
#23 ·
did you get your quote from the original? cause that last paragraph is not in the version that I read. Just because the narrator managed to make an intelligent guess at what should be done does NOT prove that the study was effective. Anyone reading this can go and in 1 month of back roads looking for varmints, wearing ear muffs, shoot more animals thru the chest with .45 ball than T-l did in this test. And you'll see them run off, too. :)
 
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