FN 1903/Husqvarna 1907 Brownings: Familiar?

[woad_yurt]

My dilemma is this:
My girlfriend is a very good shot yet dislikes stout recoil. I would like a simple pistol with some significant mass and sufficient power to be a house gun. She shoots very well with a semi-auto but has problems racking some of the tougher slides (Makarov.)

Yesterday, I got a line on a Swedish Model 1907, an early one made by FN for Sweden, one that was re-chambered to .380 a looong time ago. It seems that a giant, heavy .380 Browning-designed pistol would be very, very pleasant, easy and comfortable to shoot. Since it also has such a massive slide, it shouldn't need a very stiff recoil spring (right???)

I started this thread to ask not for technical info but for shooters' impressions. I know .380 is no cannon but neither is it a slouch in the hands of a good shooter. She's pretty a good shot, btw. Has anyone here shot one? Owned one? It looks like it'd be a baby to shoot, recoil-wise.

Here's a swiped picture for those who are unfamiliar:

 

[lechiffre]

first off i have not shot one

for the girlfreind.....................

any excuse i could come up with to buy one would work for me.


it is still a blowback. so i would think it would still have a stiff spring,but after 100 years it might be worn in.

 

[woad_yurt]

It's seriously not an excuse. I wouldn't get one for myself. It just looks like it'd be a baby to shoot.

 

[Molasses]

Thread resurrection time here.... Hey, it's only been about half a year, that's short!
So, I know it's an old thread, but it's what came up when I searched and I might as well tie straight onto it.

Hey Woad_Yurt,
did you ever get that Swedish-type critter you were looking at? If you did, how'd you like it? How'd the GF like it? Bigger question from my perspective is: do you remember what they wanted for that one you had a line on, whether you bought it or not?

You see, I got foolish (so, what else is new?) at a gun show today (again,...). I'd gone yesterday and stopped in again late today. Many folks were starting to pack up their tables when I got there. One dealer that I've bought a number of odd or interesting things from over the years had a Stevens Model 425 "High Power" lever action on his table that I wanted to look at again before closing. Long story short, I ended up leaving with the rifle and this:

Says "Husquvarna Vapenfabriks Aktiebolag
System Browning" on the slide.
Frame has been stamped Cal .380 for the conversion.

It looks for all the world like a longslide pin gun version of a Colt M1908 pocket model to me, but no doubt it's only visible from my twisted outlook. I've got several older sets of the NRA disassembly/reassembly guides as well as vintage copies of "Small Arms of the World" and I'm positive one source or another will cover this specifically or that I can interpolate from other old Browning designs, so that's not an issue.

So, let's try again; anybody got any kind of experience/opinion concerning these at all? Either in the original chambering or in the .380 conversion. What's a fair price on one nowadays?

MOhopingididntgettooktoobadonthisLASSES

 

[James K]

You don't need to have a twisted outlook to see the similarity to the .32 caliber Colt M1903. Browning worked on the pistols at about the same time and they are nearly identical in operation, though AFAIK no parts interchange. The FN M1903 was originally chambered for the 9mm Browning, which was later called the 9mm Browning Long when the 9mm Browning Short (.380 ACP) came out. The 9mm Browning Long is between the 9mm BS and the 9mm Parabellum in power, but closer to the former. It is obsolete, which is why the importer of those guns had them reworked to use .380 ACP.

Jim

 

[Molasses]

Thanks Jim. I was kind of close to that point before looking at it. I'd tentatively identified it in my mind as a FN in some goofy 9mm <so-called>Long that was made for one of the Scandahoovian countries (might've recalled that tidbit from researching when I encountered reference in one of Ian Fleming's James Bond stories clear back around 1980) and when I commented along those lines I was told I was wrong twice: it was a Husky and was now a .380, followed by handing it over to paw at, then the seller dropped the price by nearly 1/4 from what the tag read, at which point I was pretty much sunk.

Anyway, while looking around yesterday after posting here, I found a great resource on these Swedish 1907s and figured I'd do someone, someday a fovor by linking it in this thread where a future search would find it:

http://www.gotavapen.se/gota/m07/pist07_1.htm

The link leads to a site with info on the also-rans of the trials where these won out, information on the FN contract and Husqvarna production and there's a set of directions for disassembly. Other areas of the site appear to cover other Swedish military pistols, including their version of the Lahti.

 

[LouisianaMan]

Thread reawakened?

Hello,

I'm checking to see how things worked out with these old Browning/Husqvarna pistols. I'm thinking about one that was rechambered to .380 as well, and want to know how reliably they function when so modified. Any feedback?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Molasses]

Sent this as a reply to a PM from LouisianaMan and then realized that it might be useful to stick it into the thread for future reference.

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I never did get good enough results with mine as a .380 to trust it. The major problem was extraction/ejection and after examining the fit of the .380 rim to the extractor, it was obviously SO sloppy a relationship that it had no control of the empty case. The cartridge that the pistols were made for is a semi-rimmed design and the rimless .380 gives less "meat" for the extractor to grab hold of. I found discussion of these guns over on GunBoards forums where there were folks claiming that their particular example worked flawlessly with factory .380 ammo and other folks relating issues like mine, leading me to theorize that it is a matter of how the extractor is fitted on individual guns that decides on whether the .380 conversion works out or not.

What I did do that made my particular gun work, was to order a spare barrel and slide from Sarco. The spare barrel is chambered for the original 9mm Browning Long cartridge and I've trimmed .38 Super brass to the correct length for it. It's percolated right along with ammunition loaded on those cases, as long as it isn't topped with a bullet with too abrupt of a hollow point or truncated cone nose profile; the closer to a traditional round nose FMJ bullet shape, the better they feed. I plan to eventually find internals to install in the spare slide and set it up as a dedicated match to the .380 barrel, complete with a scratch built extractor made to fit the .380 rim.

In the case of the example you're looking at, if the store is okay with you disassembling the pistol, I'd recommend taking the slide off and sliding a .380 under the extractor to see whether it holds it or not.