Roth-Steyr M1907

Don Kael

Don Kael

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I've always been intrigued by this pistol. Barrel length is 13cm (5.1"), shoots a 8mm Roth-Steyr round. Apparently used by Axis forces during WWI & WWII. Around 99,000 produced.

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Anyone in Canada have one? Are they expensive/difficult to find? Anyone have any war photos of soldiers carrying one? I'd love to hear more from the knowledged members here.
 
I have a 1912 Budapest in tough condition (but still has a good bore and is both complete and matching) Nowhere near as nice as the one in the photo shown. I'm still looking for a stripper clip for it.
 
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You can get an M-1 Carbine charger to work if you hold your mouth right and quietly sing "Gott Erhalte Franz den Kaiser".

You can also use the .30 Carbine casing as the basis for functioning handloads.

There must be some of these still on the go in Southern Europe: Fiocchi still makes the ammunition and it was used by nothing else.

Trigger pull is very heavy and quite long, with a definite break-point just before it lets off: they were for use in a Cavalry charge an they didn't want you to shoot your own horse.

As a Cavalry gun, it is designed to be used in the LEFT hand, same as a Luger.

Cartridge was designed by George Roth, an early specialist in high-intensity ammunition; it is much more powerful than it appears.

Gun was designed by Sylvestr Krnka, the famed Bohemian specialist in torque-locked designs. The gun is only locked (by the torque of the bullet passing down the bore) at the very INSTANT of firing; at all other times there is no locking. Same system was used in the 1911 (or 1912: same gun) Steyr-Hahn and in a very FEW other guns, all the way down to the present VIPER being made by the King Abdullah II Design Bureau as the Jordanian Army Weapons System 9mm pistol.
 
Interesting that they used steel bullets and were lined to prevent corrosion.

114 gr8 steel nickel player or steel bullet. 4.5-5 he of flake or nitro-cellulose powder and a 1080 fps.
 
The steel they used in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire for bullet jackets was what was called "greased steel".

It was rolled out quite thing for jacket material, then the surface pocked with a special roller, grease applied to the tiny pocks and then rolled out again, thinner, then the jackets punched out, drawn, formed, filled, bottom skirt rolled up. Then they loaded them into something and shot them.

Considering that steel it basically iron and that iron rusts really easily, these jackets were remarkably rust-resistant.

Bore wear was said to be comparable to the cupronickel jackets used by other Powers, but without the nickel-fouling problems.

It was an ideal material for a country with an advanced steel industry but which was trying to conserve other scarce and expensive resources.

Gilding-metal jackets such as we use today cost a fair bit more but they are far more forgiving regarding barrel wear.

Hope this helps.
 
I've got one and a quantity of Fiocci ammunition from Canada Ammo. No stripper clip either, and after trying it an M1 Carbine doesn't fit at all without major modifications. The ammo fits fine in the clip but the clip is too thick to fit in the guides on the gun. I'm going to try and use a grinder to see if I can take enough material off it to narrow it enough to fit in the guides.
 
Thanks for the information guys, and for sharing your Nyles. Definitely want to start looking for one.

Can I ask you how much you paid for it, roughly?
 
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