Last week's Savage 1907 was the variant known as the "1907-10 Modif. #2" and was made sometime in early 1911. Only two and a half years later, Savage was three more iterations down the road. By the latter part of 1913, they'd segued through the pistol now called the "1907-12 Transitional Issue" and the "1907-13 Modif. #1" and started making the pistol in the photos: The 1907-13 Modification Number 2.
The 1907-13 Modif. #2 was made from the latter part of 1913 through 1915, by which time it was largely supplanted by a version made under foreign contracts for the French and Portuguese militaries.
The pistol shown, which is in rather decent shape for an older Savage, was made toward the end of the period.
The easiest tell for distinguishing a 1907-13 Modif. #2 from the earlier Modif. #1 is the large billboard "SAVAGE" in fine-outlined all caps on the left side of the frame.
The trigger is still case-colored and it still has the early version of the burr on the cocking piece as well as the very wide slide serrations. The grips on this example are in very good shape, with the "TRADEMARK" lettering still legible on the chief's headdress.
The 1907-13 had introduced a loaded chamber indicator. This was a piece of spring steel, viewable through the ejection port, that clipped around a recess in the barrel with a tab that extended rearward that would be forced up by the semi-rim of a chambered round. This would provide both visible and tactile indication of a round in the chamber.
The 1907-12 Transitional issue had introduced a new magazine release. Rather than being in the center of the frontstrap and depressed with the ring finger, the second version of the magazine catch, used from the 1907-12 through the rest of the production run, had a knurled bit at the bottom of the catch and was operated by pressing this inward with the pinkie finger of the firing hand.
This obviously required a new magazine with the hole for the mag catch in a higher location.
So by 1913 we have a striker-fired, double-stack, self-loading pocket pistol with an ambidextrous magazine release and a loaded chamber indicator. Savage sold some 30- to 40,000 of them in the days before the Great War.
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| Actual Savage advertisement, circa 1913 |
3 comments:
Tam:
Do you know if there is a handy chart which delineates all of the changes to the Savage models? Something like the one that Lucky Gunner put out for the S&W auto pistols would be nice:
https://www.luckygunner.com/lounge/guide-smith-wesson-semi-automatic-models/
I get easily confused as to which models/years/modifications are which. And is the .380 ACP version a different model number (or numbers)? I've only looked at Wik (not a reliable source of firearms info) and can't seem to tell.
In any case, thank you for the wonderful pictures and commentary regarding these pistols and revolvers you put here.
What calibers were these Savages in?
Blackwing1,
There are only three major variants: The 1907, 1915, and 1917. The minor variations are too complicated to make for an easy chart, really. If one is to get into trying to collect a few, I can't recommend James Carr's book enough.
Overload in Colorado,
.32ACP was the most common, but most variants were also made in .380.
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