Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Savage Collectors Savage Pistol Model 1907 R&D?

First acquisition of 2023 is a good one.

I would be interested in hearing from the "pistol guys".
Ever seen the anchor stamp??











For comparison

Congratulations. I like the longer barrel.

Is the anchor a repair stamp?

Nice addition to the collection. Congrats.

The anchor probably means it was for the Marine Corps. The Navy isn't much into firearms.

That's a good theory.
There is another theory that it was built and showed around about the time of the French & Portuguese pistols.
The anchor stamps could be to denote a "military" style pistol or maybe just anchor stamped all over to denote it was a product of R&D.
Since it was not normal production it is unlikely to be the typical inspectors stamp.

I was being a little tongue in cheek. When I was in the Navy and stationed in Guantanamo Bay everyone was on the base defense force and had to learn to shoot M1's. Some of the clowns gripped that they didn't join the Navy to have to shoot guns.
I thought it was great. I joined the rifle and pistol team and got to shoot thousands of rounds of free government ammo. The rifle range adjoined the fence between the base and the Communists. The Cuban guards used to watch us with binoculars. Castro was always threatening to invade the base and they were probably identifying who the good shots were. Lucky for us he didn't invade the base. Lucky for him because the 101st Airborne would have been there in 12 hours, kicked his ass and freed Cuba from the Communists.

I presume the serial number is 350x? Which means the slide is from later with that rear sight? Stamp on top seems to be 1915-1917?

Any internal stamps or serial numbers on parts?

Very cool gun!

350 is what is stamped on it. Correct location and font for that period.
As you note, there is a discrepancy between the serial number and the slide (barrel address). Also true for the frame (fire/safe), grips (gutta percha), front sight (taller), lack of load indicator, obviously the barrel and probably some other parts. I need to look at the internals.
Cover it all with anchor stamps and a product of R&D seems rise to the top. Why?? That's where the fun begins....

I wonder if this was an R&D gun representing a Savage interest in a foreign market beyond the military handguns they made for France and Portugal.

There was a sort of trend after WWI among European (mainly Spanish) manufacturers to try to replace the French "Ruby" demand for secondary military pistols, mainly 7,65 Browning caliber, with sales to Asia. This resulted in all kinds of variants of the basic "Ruby" blowback auto they had cribbed from John Browning.

I've seen all kinds of odd "thirty-two autos" from this period. Some had longer-than-pocket-sized barrels, like this Savage. Some had greatly extended butts holding greatly extended magazines. Some had folding bayonets. If you look in any of the big gun dealers' (like Alfa) catalogs of the early '20s you will see some.

Don't know if any of these variants were ever actually adopted by any country as military arms, but they were certainly offered to military officers as personal purchases--I've seen photos of Japanese officers in the '20s carrying these "stretched Rubies" and also seen them in piles so captured Japanese arms.

Wonder if Savage R&D looked at some of those catalogs and thought that maybe they could get rid of any spares from their French contract by "looking East!"

(In this period the Spanish capitalized on the Asian taste for "broomhandles" and produced some modifications of the Mauser '96 pistol that were actually capable military arms. But 7.63mm is little different from 7.65mm in this case).

Yeah, was thinking you'd smudged out the last digit because all the characteristics didn't match SN 350.

Just a stamp of 350 seems odd. There should be a normal early 1907 out there with serial number 350, I'd think they'd have tacked on a letter or something. Wonder what a letter on 350 would show?

This is Bailey's card.



Bailey's factory letter.



I'll see if I can get this pistol to speak. I appears to be well travelled.

Interesting.

I'm starting to think maybe whoever owned #350 sent it back in after WWI and ordered a long barrel for it. So a special order, rather than R&D?

PS: There was a Wright and Wilhemy company in Omaha, NE. Let me know if you're ready for that gun to come home.

Interesting is right.

Bailey and others have contemplated this very pistol.
Of the handful of known longer barrel Savage pistols that were by Newton or Nelson, they appear to be proto-type, R&D, development or similar terminology.

Roe was receptive to locating additional work orders, commonly did so and I'd bet money Bailey pressed the issue unsuccessfully.

I'd be more inclined to think this one came out of the "R&D shop" for unknown marketing reasons much as the Newton's & Nelson's and fell into the secondary market thereafter.

The history of the original #350?
Was returned to factory because it was broke, replaced or whatever. ?? It, or what was left of it was put into the R&D parts bins for years. It resurfaced with parts of other pistol genre with a long barrel and here we are.

Another Savage puzzle. Personally I don't care for common table top puzzles, but I enjoy this type of puzzle for some reason.

Work order entries are kind of like engraving and special order entries... they are usually there, but not always.

Lots of possibilities. My personal guess is return/refinish/special order long slide/barrel making it a factory custom gun. Lots of one-off custom guns, whether it's engraved 250-3000 with crescent buttplate or takedown 99T.

Or it could be as simple as they stamped 350 on two lowers accidentally early on, and that's the second.

Puzzle guns are fun.

From the photos it looks like the slide has an extension welded on verses being made new as a one piece. That makes since.

That was my first thought as well.
It was pointed out to me that soldering of a taller front sight has caused some discoloring of the blue in a few other long barrel pistols in existence. Can be seen in Bailey's, Carr & Stern books.
The "seam" looks clean and sharp on this one where I might expect a fuzzy ring from heat.
I'll get a better look once in hand and report back.

Very distinct line on barrel end of slide where an orig would end ,,,,,,,,,,strange

Note the "ring" on this proto-type as well.

Supica's pics of this pistol better show the "ring" which has a look of heat discoloration.

1907 long barrel