The Russian Mosin Nagant Forum

Poking around gun and pawns yesterday and today, I found this very nice Savage 1917 (An updated 1907) in just outstanding condition, inside and out. It must have been in a sock drawer for the last 103 years. It is a ten shot .32 ACP, patented in 1905, and this piece was made in 1920. (Back when Jim was just a kid) The fit and finish of this gun is amazing. It was too pretty to leave in the dusty old Pawn shop, so I paid too much for it and brought it home.

I shot a .380 version of this. It was the stiffest pistol I have ever handled. It was hard as hell to rack the slide, but it fired fine.

Here is a pic of it with an ad that I found.

I luv shooting .32's. That one will ping some steel.

I always liked the Colt 1903. never saw one of these Savages before, except in pictures. 1920 was a fun year, the year someone told my farming family the country was going dry and they could make some spare coin making corn likker. Depression started in the upstate counties right after the war, that's the first one, lot of farmers went bust before they made it illegal to drink. Thank the Lord for stupid ass politicians, for once the stupid laws they passed actually helped someone, my family doesn't survive without the 18th amendment along with pocket pistols like this, shotguns, and a few service rifles that came home from the war. You see some folks thought if you made your own home brew then it must be free for the taking, .32 round popped into the head got the point across without too much of a mess.

That is a really nice looking pistol. I like it a lot. If it were in a larger cal. I'd like it better.

Darryl

Darryl wrote: ↑Fri Dec 08, 2023 1:34 pm That is a really nice looking pistol. I like it a lot. If it were in a larger cal. I'd like it better.

Darryl

Well, D, you can get one in .380 or .45 ACP, but the .45 costs in the tens of thousands of dollars. I think that the .380 is a nine shot and the .45 is an 8 shot, but I am not certain. I was looking at some ballistics data, and the .32 ACP is not that big a step under the .380, especially at belly fight distance. I am not about to carry a .32 or a .380, there are some big old boys around this neck of the woods and I am afraid that a poorly placed round of either would really piss them off.

This gun won't be carried, and will be shot infrequently. It is just a piece of Americana. If I didn't already have six boxes of .32 on my shelf, I wouldn't have bought that one. ;)

Very nice! Pawn shop local to me has a couple of these they have sat on forever. I'd thought about picking one of them up, but I got back into guitars and that vanished from my memory until now. One of these days I'll go by and see if they still have them. The last time I paid attention to them (which was a year or so ago) they were reasonably priced.