[BlueTrain]

I'm not a cartridge collector nor am I particularly technical oriented but the relationship of all of these early Browning cartridges has always been interesting to me, given that there were so many different ones. I don't recall if Barnes addresses the geneology, as it were, of them. I don't even know who actually designed them but it wasn't necessarily Browning.

The story goes that the M1907 Husqvarna pistol (the Swedish army model number) was purchased in some quantity, then manufactured by Husqvarna up until about the time the war started, then replaced. The replacement was a 9mm but without looking it up, I don't remember the name and model. It had a Luger look but totally unrelated design. It was also used by a couple of other countries. The new design, while heavy and well made apparently, didn't hold up like it looked like it would because of extra hot 9mm ammunition and eventually the older guns were brought back into service until they were replaced by Glocks. I believe the first two pistols probably had some use at the same time and the last two were probably in service at the same time, too, at least for a while. Somewhere on the internet there's an excellent website about Swedish guns. It is Swedish but it is in English. Lots of good photos of pistol accessories.

Another curiosity along the same lines is that Norway, as you probably know, used .45 automatics. When they fell to the Germans, the Germans took their pistols for their own use. Then after the war, when the Germans had to leave, the Norwegians took the German's guns, including their pistols, mostly Lugers, I understand, and used them until replaced many years later, resulting in the only instance I know of when .45 automatics were replaced by 9mm Lugers. Even the issue German army holsters were retained and altered with the addition of those typical wire devices for attaching to the holes in a US style pistol belt.

This comment really belongs in that other thread about shoulder stocked pistols. Elmer Keith made a couple of comments about shoulder stocked pistols, mentioning that the Luger made a halfway decent, flat shooting carbine, with the limitations of the cartridge not withstanding. But he apparently also had a pre-1911 .45 automatic, some of which apparently were made for shoulder stocks. His description was that "it was something else." The recoiling slide was a problem. It is hard to imagine a time when a Luger was a relatively common surplus handgun.