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Savage 1915 at the BackUp Gun Match (Ad-free)
🕑 Added 2025-03-29 12:00:02 +0000 UTCSavage launched its model 1907 pistol with a lot of marketing fanfare. It was "10 Shots Quick!" and promoted with testimonials form personalities like Buffalo Bill Cody and Sheriff Bat Masterson. It was intended as a pocket pistol for personal protection and home defense, with a lot made of how it was simple and effective for inexperienced people (especially women) to use. A few years later in 1915 a relatively small number (about 10,000) were made in the 1915 pattern, which shrouded the hammer and added a grip safety. I'm shooting our monthly BUG match this time with a Model 1915 in .32 ACP. Let's see how Bat Masterson's claim stands up?
Full video on Savage pocket pistol development: https://youtu.be/lhy90uT1UtY
Full video on Savage .45 pistols: https://youtu.be/zLYOdvcnvkY
Comments
Bruce Brodnax
Did anyone else get a little gleeful frisson when he said "It's *literally* a 110 years old..." 🙂
Bruce Brodnax
I forget who did the stats analysis of police reported 1-shot stops back in the '90s [M-someone & Sarnow?], but the ol' .32acp swung way above its weight class, rivaling the .380acp for effectiveness [up to a point: as always, YMMV and a determined attacker needs something more than .38, as the US Army learned in the Philippines vs. Moros, hence the M1911 in .45acp a few years later.] I'd still rather have the old Savage in .380: bullet diameter matters, and modern bullet tech means a .380acp can rival the 9mmP ball of yesteryear for efficacy. I forget if that means I'm relegated to the Savage 1917 or if I can get one of the earlier models or not: time to rewatch Ian's vid on the whole batch!
Plan9fromkansas
It would be interesting to see him do one of these back-to-back with a modern small concealment pistol just to see how far we’ve come (or if all the improvements in a hundred years were just in the marketing department).
