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1903 Colt Model M - Unblinking Eye
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The 1903 Colt “Hammerless” Pocket Model

Colt Pistols and Revolvers for Firearms Collectors - Model 1903.32 ACP & Model 1908.380 ACP Pocket Hammerless Production Dates. Colt Mkiv Series 80 Mustang 380 Serial Numbers Originally made in 1943 (Serial number 108923x) and refinished sometime after COLT MUSTANG.380 PISTOL BOX WITH ONE CLIP AND ACCESSORIES ONLY GI#: 100559819. COLT MODEL 1903.32 ACP / 1908.380 ACP POCKET HAMMERLESS PRODUCTION. Year: Type: Serial Number (1903.32ACP) Serial Number (1908.380 ACP) Year.

by Ed Buffaloe

On 24 July 1896 John Moses Browning and Matthew S. Browning entered into an agreement with The Colt’s Patent Firearms Manufacturing Company. The agreement gave Colt’s the exclusive right to manufacture John M. Browning’s pistol designs in the United States and market them in the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland. On 7 July 1897 John M. Browning and Fabrique Nationale (FN) signed a similar agreement giving FN the right to sell Browning-designed weapons in much of Europe, and specifically excluding them from markets in the United States, Great Britain, and Ireland. According to Donald Bady, tacit in these agreements was the understanding that Colt’s would manufacture Browning’s locked-breech recoil-operated designs and FN would manufacture the unlocked-breech “blowback” designs.

So it was that FN manufactured the 1899/1900 FN Browning in .32 caliber, and the following year Colt’s began to manufacture the Colt Automatic Pistol in .38 caliber. The FN was a stunning commercial success, with a production record of 100,000 pistols within three years and a total production of 724,450 over twelve years. Picbasic pro compiler 3.1 crack. By contrast, the original 1900 Colt Automatic Pistol had a total production run of less than 5000.

As early as 1901 FN was anxious to put a larger military pistol on the market. FN designed a 9mm cartridge which became known as the 9mm Browning Long. It was nothing more than a scaled-up 7.65mm Browning (.32 A.C.P), with the same straight case and semi-rimmed design. FN asked Browning to design a gun for it. Browning, who was in his prime, delivered a prototype of the pistol to the FN factory in Herstal, Belgium in February 1902, and FN engineers immediately began improving the design and readying it for production. Because of its larger size, it became known as the “Grande Modèle.”

At this point, Colt’s was looking for an automatic pistol that would have the kind of commercial success that the 1900 FN Browning had had, and despite its blowback action they asked Browning to patent his FN design in the U.S. and allow them to manufacture it in .32 caliber. Browning cut a deal with Colt’s to make at least 100 guns per day and sell them at a price that would be competitive with revolvers in the U.S., as well as give him a 40 cent royalty on every gun produced. He modified the design of the barrel bushing for the U.S. patent, which was filed on 3 April 1902 and granted on 22 December 1903 (№747,585), but that was the only design change he made for the U.S. version. Colt’s did not wait for the patent to be granted, but began tooling up late in 1902, and began production of what they called the “Colt Automatic Pistol, Pocket Model” in June 1903. Commercial sales began in August. To avoid confusion with its .38 caliber pocket model, Colt also referred to it as the Colt Hammerless Pocket Model, though it is not a true hammerless design. The internal factory designation for the gun was Model M. The 1903 Colt Pocket Model was considerably smaller than the 1903 FN Grande Modèle (which did not go into full production until 1907).

The hallmark of the 1903 design was its simplicity, which helped make it the most copied pistol in the world. The only feature that might possibly be considered complex or extraneous was the grip safety, which most imitators omitted, but the 1903 was one of the first guns ever manufactured with a grip safety. I suspect that military feedback on the 1900 Colt Automatic Pistol had influenced Browning’s design philosophy. Having grown up in a gun shop, firearms safety required little thought for him, but he must eventually have realized that it was not so for everyone and he needed to make his pistols as safe as possible. The gun could also be disassembled without tools, which was another military preference.

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The Model 1903 had the recoil spring beneath the barrel. The barrel was firmly secured to the receiver by a series of lugs on the underside which mated with slots in the receiver. The sear, disconnector, hammer, and all springs were mounted in the receiver behind the magazine well, as was the grip safety. The magazine held 8 rounds. The quality of workmanship and finish on the early versions of this gun were the finest in the world at the time. The guns were heat blued and polished with oil-soaked leather. The trigger and manual safety lever were given a brilliant fire blue.

In 1908 Colt began production of a .380 version of the gun. It differed only in the bore of the barrel, the width of the extractor, and the width of the magazine well. The .380 version could easily be converted to .32, but not vice versa.

Over the 44 years of production (1903-1946) there were four or five major variants of the .32 Pocket Model and numerous sub- variants (not all of which will be described here).

Type I: Serial numbers from 1 to 71,999. The first variant had a four inch barrel, a separate barrel bushing similar to the one eventually used on the 1911 Government Model .45, no magazine safety, and 14 square cut “plunge milled” slide serrations that tapered toward the bottom. It featured checkered hard rubber grips with “COLT” in a scalloped band inset at the top and the rampant colt logo in a circle at the bottom. The front sight was a tapered half-moon, and the rear sight had a U-shaped notch. At approximately serial number 8000, a screw was added to the right side of the gun to retain the safety. At approximately serial number 25,000, the gun was given 17 triangular-cut slide serrations. The original takedown arrow on the right side of the slide had four feather lines. At approximately serial number 55,000 a fifth feather line was added. The first 10,000 or so pistols featured only the Apr. 20, 1897 patent date, after which the Dec. 22, 1903 patent date was added. The earliest guns were marked “BROWNING’S PATENT”, per Browning’s agreement with Colt’s, but at some point Browning released Colt’s from this requirement and the guns were simply marked “PATENTED”, beneath which were the patent dates. These earliest guns had the rampant Colt logo in a circle at the rear of the slide, just behind the slide serrations.
Type II: Serial numbers from 72,000 to 105,050. This variant differed from the first only in that it had the barrel reduced in length to three-and-three-quarter inches. I’ve never been able to determine a reason for this reduction in barrel length. Serial numbers 72,000 to 74,500 had no take-down arrow, due to the reduced slide length, but subsequent guns had a very short arrow with no feather lines. In 1908 the .380 version was introduced, and its serial numbers began with 1. Beginning with serial number 95,801, the extractor on the .32 version was widened to handle both .32 and .380 cartridges. In 1912 the circle was removed from the rampant Colt logo on the slide.
Type III: Serial numbers from 105,051 to 468,097 (6251 to 92,893 for the .380). The primary difference in this variant was the elimination of the barrel bushing. A lug was added to the bottom front end of the barrel to keep it locked in position. At approximately serial number 114,700 the screw that retained the safety was eliminated. At some point, the slide cutout into which the barrel rotated was machined further to the rear, so the slide did not have to be retracted as far to disassemble the gun, and the takedown arrow was lengthened. However, feather marks were not added. About 1911 (at approximately serial number 115,000 for the .32 and 8000 for the .380) the scalloped band around the word “COLT” was eliminated in favor of two straight lines, and an elongated letter “C” appeared behind the rampant colt inste

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