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FN M1900
Semi-automatic pistol

The FN Browning M1900 (known at the time in Europe just as Browning pistol) is a single action semi-automatic pistol designed c. 1896 by John Browning for Fabrique Nationale de Herstal (FN) and produced in Belgium at the turn of the 20th century. It was the first production handgun to use a slide.

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History

Development

John Browning started his work on semi-automatic pistols in 1894, when he mostly finalized the M1895 Colt–Browning machine gun.1 He initially tried to use the same gas action with a swinging piston, with a prototype ready to be shown to Colt in July 1895,2 and applied for a patent3 in September 1895.4

Although this experimental pistol did not progress further, its general layout and fire control group design were reused in three other designs he developed in the following year. Patents for them were filed in October 1896, and two out of three later became Colt M1900 and FN M1900.5 All four prototypes were chambered in .38 caliber and are currently exhibited at the Browning Firearms Museum in Ogden, Utah.6 Browning licensed the rights to produce and sell them to Colt within the US and Canada in July 1896, but it's believed at the time Colt was mainly protecting its revolver market.7 In 18968 or 18979 Browning also scaled the .38 blowback pistol down to .32 caliber to use as a pocket pistol.

According to a widespread legend,10 in April 189711 FN sent their sales manager Hart O. Berg to Hartford, where he had previously worked, to investigate advances in bicycle design introduced by the Pope Manufacturing Company.12 There, he supposedly accidentally met John Browning13 and persuaded him to have his pistol manufactured at FN by telling him the story of a modern factory with nothing to produce.14

Despite state-of-the-art manufacturing capabilities, by the end of 1895 FN was in poor financial shape due to a lack of orders on their M1889 rifles and a lost legal battle with Mauser over the rights to produce improved M1893s.15 In 1896, most of their primary shareholders left and a major competitor, DWM, took over a controlling stake, excluding the company from the export market for military firearms and forcing it to diversify into sporting firearms, their parts, and even bicycles.16

However, documents from Browning's later legal dispute with Georg Luger tell a different story. In 1896-1897 Berg, who was acquainted with Browning due to their joint work on the Colt machine gun in 1893-1894, persuaded him in correspondence to visit Liège with his pistol designs, which he did in April 1897. FN managers were impressed by the design's reliability and simplicity (it's unclear from secondary sources if it was already in .32 or still in .38) which were uncommon in those early days of semi-automatic guns. Afterward, Berg and Browning traveled to Berlin and showed a locked-breech and a blowback pistol to Hugo Borchardt to obtain approval from DWM.17

Berg presented a draft of the license agreement to the FN board in June 189718 and then traveled to Hartford to finalize it with John and Matt Brownings in July 1897.19 The agreement granted FN the rights to manufacture and sell what became the M1899 in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Spain.20 In 1898 Berg was unsuccessful in attempting to persuade Browning to supervise the pistol’s production in Belgium, but its manufacture by FN transformed the fortunes of that company and laid the foundation for its long-term relationship with Browning (who died on FN’s premises in 1924).21

Production

Serial production started in January 1899, but the M1899 nomenclature postdates it. FN originally called M1899 “modele de présérie”,22 approximately 14,400 of them were made in total.23

In 1900, driven by feedback from the Belgian military, FN introduced what was later called M1900, an improved design based on the M1899. These designations were applied retroactively after FN began manufacture of other Browning pistol designs; initially the M1900 was marketed as simply the "Pistolet Browning" (Browning Pistol).

A shorter barrel reduced the overall length by less than a millimeter while maintaining the same caliber and magazine capacity. The grip plates were made 1 mm wider, offering a more comfortable and secure hold for shooters with larger hands.24

In addition to these external changes, M1900 incorporated several internal improvements. The reinforced area of the frame above the trigger guard was enlarged and thickened, enhancing the pistol's durability (cf. the image comparison above). The diameter of the breech block screws was increased, further strengthening the action. A cocking indicator, visible as an extension of the internal cocking lever, was added, providing a visual confirmation of the pistol's cocked status. Finally, M1900 introduced a slide lock, activated by turning the safety lever upward when the slide was retracted in order to facilitate easier cleaning and maintenance.25

Production ceased only 11 years later, with a total of about 725,000 units having been produced by FN only (excluding all the numerous copies).

Usage

United States President Theodore Roosevelt owned a mother of pearl-gripped Modele 1899, which he regularly kept on his person and in his bedside drawer. It now resides in the NRA Firearms Museum.26

Eugen Schauman, a Finnish nationalist activist, assassinated the Governor-General Nikolay Bobrikov (the highest Russian authority in the Grand Duchy of Finland) with a Browning pistol in Helsinki on June 16, 1904. The act was followed by spontaneous anti-Russian celebrations in the streets of Helsinki and after the 1917 independence Schauman was considered to be a national hero of Finland.27

An Jung-geun, a Korean-independence activist, assassinated the 1st Prime Minister of Japan and Resident-General of Korea Itō Hirobumi with this type of gun on October 26, 1909 in Harbin railway station.2829

Socialist revolutionary Fanny Kaplan also used a FN M1900 in her attempted assassination of Lenin on August 30, 1918.30

Abelardo Mendoza Leyva, a militant of the Peruvian left-wing APRA party, is also reported to have used an FN1900 to assassinate President Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro in Lima, on April 30, 1933.31

The pistol was popular in China from its introduction through World War II and was often copied and used as the basis for other designs.32 State-run arsenals produced serialized production runs for warlord militias, and local craftsmen produced one-off handmade versions.33

The North Korean Type 64 pistol [ja] is closely based on M1900 although with modifications to fire 7.62×17mm Type 64.34 Specimens examined by western authorities were marked with the date of 1964. A silenced variant was produced that featured a shortened slide to allow the threaded barrel to protrude far enough to attach the silencer.35

Ammunition

The weapon is chambered for .32 ACP, also known as 7.65×17mm Browning SR ("SR" denotes semi-rimmed).

Users

Conflicts

Herero Wars56

Mexican Revolution5758

Balkan Wars59

World War I60

Russian Civil War61

Finnish Civil War62

Warlord Era63

Constitutionalist Revolution64

Chaco War65

Chinese Civil War66

Spanish Civil War

World War II

Synonyms

This model is known by several names, including:

  • FN M1900
  • FN Mle.1900
  • Browning M1900
  • Browning No.1

See also

Underbarrel pistols

References

  1. Gorenstein, Nathan (17 May 2022). The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-2922-4. 978-1-9821-2922-4 ↩

  2. "Historical Firearms - John Browning's Gas-Operated Pistol On the 20th..." www.historicalfirearms.info. Retrieved 1 September 2024. https://www.historicalfirearms.info/post/147013210147/john-brownings-gas-operated-pistol-on-the-20th ↩

  3. U.S. patent 580,923 https://patents.google.com/patent/US580923 ↩

  4. Grumpy (23 November 2018). "The 1899/1900 FN Browning Pistol". You Will Shoot Your Eye Out. Retrieved 31 August 2024. https://www.youwillshootyoureyeout.com/2018/11/23/the-18991900-fn-browning-pistol/ ↩

  5. Grumpy (23 November 2018). "The 1899/1900 FN Browning Pistol". You Will Shoot Your Eye Out. Retrieved 31 August 2024. https://www.youwillshootyoureyeout.com/2018/11/23/the-18991900-fn-browning-pistol/ ↩

  6. F, Nathaniel (31 January 2015). "TFB Field Trip: The John M. Browning Firearms Museum". thefirearmblog.com. Retrieved 1 September 2024. https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2015/01/30/tfb-field-trip-john-m-browning-firearms-museum/ ↩

  7. Grumpy (23 November 2018). "The 1899/1900 FN Browning Pistol". You Will Shoot Your Eye Out. Retrieved 31 August 2024. https://www.youwillshootyoureyeout.com/2018/11/23/the-18991900-fn-browning-pistol/ ↩

  8. John Browning and Curt Gentry, John M. Browning, American Gunmaker, An Illustrated Biography of the Man and His Guns, Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1964, p. 181; Anthony Vanderlinden, “1899: Year of the Browning Pistol”, American Rifleman, Vol. 168, No. 9 (October 2020), p. 40. /wiki/Curt_Gentry ↩

  9. According to the Browning Firearms Museum, see https://i.imgur.com/X6Pn4BX.jpeg; U.S. patent 621,747 was only applied for in December 1897 https://i.imgur.com/X6Pn4BX.jpeg ↩

  10. Gorenstein, Nathan (17 May 2022). The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-2922-4. 978-1-9821-2922-4 ↩

  11. "JOHN M. BROWNING". johnmbrowningcollection.com. Retrieved 31 August 2024. https://johnmbrowningcollection.com/pages/story.html ↩

  12. John Browning and Curt Gentry, John M. Browning, American Gunmaker, An Illustrated Biography of the Man and His Guns, Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1964, p. 181; Anthony Vanderlinden, “1899: Year of the Browning Pistol”, American Rifleman, Vol. 168, No. 9 (October 2020), p. 40. /wiki/Curt_Gentry ↩

  13. John Browning and Curt Gentry, John M. Browning, American Gunmaker, An Illustrated Biography of the Man and His Guns, Doubleday & Co., Garden City, NY, 1964, p. 181; Anthony Vanderlinden, “1899: Year of the Browning Pistol”, American Rifleman, Vol. 168, No. 9 (October 2020), p. 40. /wiki/Curt_Gentry ↩

  14. Browning and Gentry, p. 183. ↩

  15. Vanderlinden, Anthony (2016). FN Mauser Rifles - Arming Belgium and the World. Wet Dog Publications. pp. 30–31. ISBN 978-0-9981397-0-8. 978-0-9981397-0-8 ↩

  16. Vanderlinden, Anthony (2016). FN Mauser Rifles - Arming Belgium and the World. Wet Dog Publications. pp. 30–31. ISBN 978-0-9981397-0-8. 978-0-9981397-0-8 ↩

  17. Gorenstein, Nathan (17 May 2022). The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-2922-4. 978-1-9821-2922-4 ↩

  18. "JOHN M. BROWNING". johnmbrowningcollection.com. Retrieved 31 August 2024. https://johnmbrowningcollection.com/pages/story.html ↩

  19. Gorenstein, Nathan (17 May 2022). The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-2922-4. 978-1-9821-2922-4 ↩

  20. Gorenstein, Nathan (17 May 2022). The Guns of John Moses Browning: The Remarkable Story of the Inventor Whose Firearms Changed the World. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 978-1-9821-2922-4. 978-1-9821-2922-4 ↩

  21. Browning and Gentry, p. 183. ↩

  22. "Nouvelle page 0". littlegun.be. Retrieved 2 September 2024. https://littlegun.be/arme%20belge/fn/a%20a%20fn%20gb.htm ↩

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  26. Jim Supica; Doug Wicklund; Philip Schreier (2012). The Illustrated History of Firearms. BOOKSALES Incorporated. p. 88. ISBN 978-0-7858-2989-8. 978-0-7858-2989-8 ↩

  27. Zetterberg, Seppo (1988). Viisi laukausta senaatissa – Eugen Schaumanin elämä ja teko. Kustannusosakeyhtiö Otava. pp. 246–247, 268, 281. ISBN 951-1-09266-9. 951-1-09266-9 ↩

  28. Lee, Sung Joo (2019). 우라웍스 (ed.). 안중근, 사라진 총의 비밀 : 이토 히로부미를 저격하고 빼앗긴 M1900을 찾아서. 청림출판. ISBN 9791155401569. 9791155401569 ↩

  29. Lee, Jeong Hyun (24 October 2019). "안중근은 이토 히로부미를 어떻게 완벽히 저격했나". YTN. Archived from the original on 28 January 2022. Retrieved 10 July 2021. https://m.yna.co.kr/view/AKR20191024122800005 ↩

  30. Vlander, John (20 March 2015). "Pistols in the land of ten thousand guns: China was awash in firearms of all kinds in the 1920s and '30s, but these six pistols were coveted above all others as Communists, Nationalists and warlords squared off". Shotgun News. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. A mainstream Soviet movie from the 1940s, once famous in China, called Lenin in 1918 shows Lenin's bodyguard Wassily using an FN 1900. Also interestingly, in the same movie, the female agent from the Kerensky government named Fanny Kaplan tried to kill Lenin using the same pistol https://web.archive.org/web/20221216173345/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Pistols+in+the+land+of+ten+thousand+guns%3a+China+was+awash+in+firearms...-a0405924095 ↩

  31. Compendio histórico del Perú. La República (siglo XX). Vol. VI. Lima, Perú: Milla Batres. 1993. p. 254. ↩

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  33. McCollum, Ian (2021). "FN 1900 Copies". Pistols of the Warlords: Chinese Domestic Handguns, 1911 - 1949. Headstamp Publishing. pp. 334–461. ISBN 9781733424639. 9781733424639 ↩

  34. Mitzer, Stijn; Oliemans, Joost (2020). The Armed Forces of North Korea: On the Path of Songun. Helion & Company. p. 26. ISBN 978-1-910777-14-5. 978-1-910777-14-5 ↩

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  37. Urrisk, Rolf M. (1990). Die Bewaffnung des österreichischen Bundesheeres, 1918-1990 (1. Aufl ed.). Graz: H. Weishaupt Verlag. ISBN 978-3-900310-53-0. 978-3-900310-53-0 ↩

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  42. "FINNISH ARMY 1918 - 1945: REVOLVERS & PISTOLS PART 4". www.jaegerplatoon.net. Archived from the original on 5 April 2023. Retrieved 24 December 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20230405233951/http://www.jaegerplatoon.net/PISTOLS4.htm ↩

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  47. Association, National Rifle. "An Official Journal Of The NRA | This Old Gun: FN Browning Model 1900". An Official Journal Of The NRA. Retrieved 25 November 2023. https://www.americanrifleman.org/content/this-old-gun-fn-browning-model-1900/ ↩

  48. Hobart, Frank (1974). Jane's Infantry Weapons: 1975 (First Year of Issue). Jane's Information Group. p. 37. ISBN 0-3540-0516-2. 0-3540-0516-2 ↩

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  61. Vlander, John (20 March 2015). "Pistols in the land of ten thousand guns: China was awash in firearms of all kinds in the 1920s and '30s, but these six pistols were coveted above all others as Communists, Nationalists and warlords squared off". Shotgun News. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. A mainstream Soviet movie from the 1940s, once famous in China, called Lenin in 1918 shows Lenin's bodyguard Wassily using an FN 1900. Also interestingly, in the same movie, the female agent from the Kerensky government named Fanny Kaplan tried to kill Lenin using the same pistol https://web.archive.org/web/20221216173345/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Pistols+in+the+land+of+ten+thousand+guns%3a+China+was+awash+in+firearms...-a0405924095 ↩

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  65. "La guerra del Chaco: the bloodiest Latin American war of the 20th century: Part I. - Free Online Library". www.thefreelibrary.com. Archived from the original on 25 December 2022. Retrieved 23 December 2022. https://web.archive.org/web/20221225055004/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/La+guerra+del+Chaco%3a+the+bloodiest+Latin+American+war+of+the+20th...-a0371284356 ↩

  66. Vlander, John (20 March 2015). "Pistols in the land of ten thousand guns: China was awash in firearms of all kinds in the 1920s and '30s, but these six pistols were coveted above all others as Communists, Nationalists and warlords squared off". Shotgun News. Archived from the original on 16 December 2022. A mainstream Soviet movie from the 1940s, once famous in China, called Lenin in 1918 shows Lenin's bodyguard Wassily using an FN 1900. Also interestingly, in the same movie, the female agent from the Kerensky government named Fanny Kaplan tried to kill Lenin using the same pistol https://web.archive.org/web/20221216173345/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Pistols+in+the+land+of+ten+thousand+guns%3a+China+was+awash+in+firearms...-a0405924095 ↩