The Butte Inter Mountain

NEW ARMY REVOLVER FIRES 116 BULLETS IN A MINUTE.

Luger Automatic Pistol Adopted by the Board of Ordnance and Fortification Is in Many Respects a Remarkable Weapon.

Capable of discharging 116 bullets a minute at a high velocity, the new automatic pistol adopted by the board of ordnance and fortification for the United States army is in many respects a remarkable weapon. As a first step toward the equipment of the army with the new arm, an order for one thousand of the pistols for the use of the cavalry has been placed with the manufacturers. Exhaustive tests by government experts have been made, which seem to indicate that the principles of the automatic field gun and magazine rifle have been combined in practical form in a pistol no heavier than the revolver with which the army is now equipped. Named for its inventor, George Luger, a former officer in the Austrian army, the Luger automatic pistol is made by the German Arms and Ammunition factories. This concern has manufactured about five million Mauser rifles for European nations, and has also brought out several types of automatic pistols. Mr. H. Tauscher, one of the representatives of this company, who came to this country to submit the Luger pistol to the government, said the new pistol was the result of ten years' experiment. "We brought out the Borchardt, the Mauser and Browning, and tested the Mannlicher, the Bergmann and others," said Mr. Tauscher. "All governments sought an improvement on the revolver, which becomes practically useless after the cartridges in the cylinder had been fired. The first government to change was the Swiss. At a test which it instituted in 1891 the Borchardt, which employed the link system of feeding from the magazine, was deemed superior. This is the system that has shown value in the Maxim gun, and is now used in many arms. The Swiss ordnance officers asked for a smaller arm than the Borchardt, and George Luger, the inventor of the Mannlicher rifle, set to work to reconstruct the arm, retaining only the link system. Switzerland made a test in 1898, and in 1899 its military commission adopted the Luger pistol. In a recent test at Washington the pistol met all requirements and received the unanimous approval of the members of the board. Its chief points are its fine shape, its balance, its precision of aim, its rapidity of fire and its great simplicity. It operates on the link system, has a magazine containing eight cartridges, which is thrown out when empty and may be replaced by a single movement. It uses a .32-calibre bullet. The initial velocity of 1,200 feet a second gives this bullet a greater striking effect than a .44-calibre bullet from the pistol now in use in this country. Recent tests in Springfield armory covered accuracy of aim, penetration, velocity of projectile, speed of fire, endurance and the usual dust, rust and sand tests, and a speed of 116 shots per minute was attained, while the accuracy of aim with rapidity was shown by a score of twenty-four bull's eyes out of thirty shots by one man, who could make only nine out of twenty-eight with other styles of pistols in the competition."