John Browning's Gas-Operated Pistol

On the 20th April 1897 John Browning received four patents covering his earliest pistol designs. These included two recoil operated systems, a blowback design and Browning’s first pistol design which used an interesting gas-operated toggle action. Browning developed the gas-operated design in 1894-5. While this was the first pistol designed by Browning it eventually proved to be an evolutionary dead end. Chambered in what would become known as .38 ACP the prototype represents Browning’s continuing experimentation with gas-operation. It had a gas vent on top of the barrel which allowed venting gases to act on a ‘gas lever’ linked by...