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The Colt .38 automatics had been linked to the frame at both the front and rear of the barrel. Lugs on the barrel mated with recesses in the slide. Thus, the barrel and slide were locked together during firing. Then, as the barrel moved down after firing, the slide was free to move rearward, ejecting the empty case and feeding in a new cartridge on its return cycle. This same system was used with the 45-caliber Model 1905.
THE 1907-1911 TEST TRIALS
The initial tests were scheduled for 1906, then rescheduled for early 1907.
When the board convened on January 15, 1907, eight applicants had submitted nine designs. Three were revolvers, and six were automatic pistols. The revolvers, Colt, Smith & Wesson and Webley-Fosbery, were soon dropped from consideration.
The autoloaders, at that early stage of history, represented a variety of concepts in competition for the first time. Having the 1905 already in production made Colt the front-runner. However, besides the Colt, the Army also tested pistols from Bergmann, Knoble, White-Merrill, Luger, and Savage. Three of the entries - the Bergmann, Knoble and White-Merrill pistols - were rejected early in the tests as being unsuitable. The Colt was considered the best and the Savage worthy of additional testing. The Board authorized the purchase of 200 each of the Colt and Savage pistols for field tests. Colt, of course, readily accepted, but the fledgling Savage company, then just 12 years old, was unwilling to tool up for such a relatively small production run, so the contract was offered to the third-place Luger. The German DWM company (Deutsche Waffenund Munitionsfabriken), the maker of the Luger/Parabellum pistols, accepted the contract but then backed out. Apparently, the larger Luger .45 could not have been made on existing production machinery, and the German firm may have also been reluctant to redesign production tooling for a small contract. Also, DWM may have wanted to put more resources into the final development of its 9mm pistol. This pistol was indeed shortly thereafter adopted by the German Army as the Pistole ’08 (P08).