Wauser t-shirt available from Varusteleka:
https://varusteleka.com/en/products/forgotten-weapons-wauser-cotton-t-shirt
The Rideout Arsenal Dragon is a very interesting new pistol from an independent entrepreneurial designer, Travis Rideout. It is a lever-delayed action with a very low bore axis and a stationary optic when firing. It has a completely tool-less disassembly, and a lot of clever design elements. This example is a pre-production prototype, with production currently beginning on the first batch of 100 initial pistols. I am excited to see where this design goes, and to compare one of the production models to the new Laugo Remus!
Impressive forethought and engineering. Thinking of the customer and how they will use a product and have to live with it (cleaning and service) seems to be an after thought at best in most products.
Fascinating, intricate design. Looks like a machinist’s master-work…
I love it, simply for those reasons.
On the other hand, this isn’t a duty/service pistol, by any standard. For the same reasons…
It looks to me like somebody played way too much Cyberpunk 2020 in college in the Nineties.
Straight out of Chromebook 2.
clear ether
eon
Was it Adolph Loos who said, ‘Form follows function?’ The designers here chose to ignore that. Maybe it doesn’t matter if the pistol is as good as it says. Still I’d prefer less aesthetic exhibitionism
I’d prefer a pistol with less sharp corners, to either get stuck in the holster on the draw or make hamburger out of my hands in rapid fire from a two-hand hold.
The “new style” in self-loading pistols seems to be the result of designers becoming entranced by the theory of fractals in solid geometry. I.e., they think sharp angles and grooves all over everything are “edgy” and “cool”. They add nothing to the actual reliability of the piece and are a real PITA as stated above.
It isn’t just high-end “boutique” items like this one, either. To wit, the Walther PDP F series;
https://www.wbarmory.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/723364231179.jpg
Exactly why it needs a slide with saw teeth that would do credit to a wood-chipper escapes me.
I can lay claim to years of experience with the P.38, PP and PPK both one and off duty. An FEG R-61 in 9 x 18mm Makarov was my “hideout” for many a year; hard kicker, but it hit like a .38 Special 4″. I was never an enthusiast of that slide-mounted, hammer-dropping “safety”, and generally ignored it, lowering the hammer with my thumb as I was accustomed to doing with the 1911. I used similar procedures with all S&W autos with that “feature”, from the 645 on down.
I thought Walther finally got it right with the P99 and S&W’s SW99 “clone”. Finally, a decocking system that made sense and was less likely to AD with wear.
Then they went to their version of the Glock system (or as I think of it, the Roth-Steyr M1907 system), which was a reasonable idea.
And turned the outside of each one into something out of a bad SF movie. Not reasonable at all.
The P99 was smooth and flat on the outside. The SW99 was almost sensuously curved. Either one came out of the holster almost as slickly as a Peacemaker or 1911 (two I have a bit of experience with) and didn’t bite you like a Rottweiler in rapid fire. (You really do not want to get me started on the backstrap of the S&W 645.)
Compared to those two, the new PDP- or this thing- is about as likely to be “comfortable” as sticking your hand in a gem tumbler spinning at full RPM- full of fish-hooks.
If this seems an extreme opinion, visualize doing a tap-rack-BANG with one of these in an IA. You’d better be wearing heavy work gloves.
Post-modern “aesthetics” seem to be trumping ergonomics. Not to mention plain common sense.
All being said and done, I’m even more inclined to stick to revolvers (both SA and DA) and my old traveling companions, the 1911 and the High Power.
clear ether
eon
“(…)less sharp corners(…)”
If you wish to have fixed barrel combined with above then use Vektor CP1 https://modernfirearms.net/en/handguns/handguns-en/south-africa-semi-automatic-pistols/vektor-cp1-eng/
“(…)inclined to stick to revolvers(…)”
Do as you wish, but then be ready to be described as somebody played way too much https://indianajones.fandom.com/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Indiana_Jones_(RPG)
Daweo;
The Vektor CP1 could have been great- if they had ever gotten it to actually work, which they never did. This seems to be the hallmark of autopistol designs around those parts, as per
https://www.forgottenweapons.com/the-end-of-the-mamba-a-tale-of-manufacturing-incompetence/
As for revolvers, the DA revolver is still the concealed carry and home defense gun of choice for more than half of civilians in the United States. No springs under tension, can be kept loaded almost indefinitely, operation is basically “point and click”, and a dud round can be bypassed instantly by a trigger pull, no “tap-rack-BANG” gymnastics required.
I can’t help it that the people who made those movies were so ignorant of 1930s-era handguns that they gave Dr. Jones some of the least satisfactory ones of the era.
BTW, in The Mummy Returns (2001), Rick O’Connell (Brendan Fraser) used a S&W New Century aka “Triple Lock” .44 Special, about the most powerful handgun on Earth at the time, being the direct ancestor of the .44 Magnum;
https://www.imfdb.org/wiki/Mummy_Returns,_The
No fool he.
Even today, if you want maximum kinetic energy in a handgun platform, you’re going to end up with a revolver.
Most self-loaders just can’t handle the breech pressures involved.
cheers
eon
@ Eon
Maybe because someone noticed that, in the first movie, he had two 1973 Chamelot Delvigne in 11mm French Ordnance, one of the weakest cartridges ever adopted by any army.
The PX4 is a rather modern gun without sharp edges.
Or, if you want max power, the 7.5 FK Brno PSD Compact.
1873 Chamelot Delvigne, obviously.
@eon,
The Vektor CP1 was a pistol, in my opinion, where they designed the exterior first, focusing on appearance, and then did the mechanism as an afterthought.
The one example I got to handle felt more like a movie prop than an actual weapon, which in keeping with what Vektor did to the R4, does not surprise me.
The raw fact is, the weapon has to work. Doesn’t work? No amount of cladding or prettying up is going to compensate for that fact… Which has always been one of my beefs with Beretta, a company that seems to prefer “style” over substance more than anything else.
I mean, yeah… The Beretta M92/M9 look great, but someone should have gone through that design with a vengeance, looking for stupid crap to delete, like all those fussy little springs and detents. Whatever the M92 was, it was absolutely not a general-issue military pistol, in terms of simplicity of maintenance and training.
You really have to look at the issue as though it were a synergistic whole; not only must you design for simplicity and durability of use for the actual shooter, but you have to design for simplicity and utility in terms of storage and all the rest of the pistol’s mission. Which, like it or not, is mostly going to be “Storage”. Glock is about the only one that I can think of which really did any of this; the old “Glock Tupperware” cases, for example? They were meant for arms room and arsenal storage, on racks that consisted of a rod you dropped through the cases and then locked, securing them and keeping them clean, dry, and dust-free. The case had all the bits and bobs you needed for the pistol when it was issued to you, and you just took that little Tupperware box off after you signed for it.
Contrast that with anything else you’ve ever seen; Glock was doing holistic design from the beginning, and that was one of the things that put the Glock over the top with regards to the Austrian Army competition.
None of the other major designs I’ve seen have done this, which is a huge conceptual failing.
@ Kirk;
No disagreement on anything you said.
IMPO, the last good design out of Beretta was the M84/85 .380 blowbacks, single or double column magazine. Yes, they had the then-trendy DA trigger, but they also had the 1911 type safety, so you only had to put up with the DA feature if you wanted to.
By comparison, their short-lived Beretta (Roma) Model 90 pistol, basically an odd cross between a Bernardelli Model 60 and an Astra Constable, had nearly as many fiddly bits as the M92 and even worse “functionality”. That should have been their clue that they were on the wrong track.
https://www.berettaweb.com/Beretta%2090%20Roma/Beretta%20Roma%2090.htm
Interestingly, the 84/85 series were regarded as service pistols for uniform police duty in Europe; here, they were classed as concealed carry personal defense pistols. Probably because no police department was going to send officers out on patrol with .380s as their service sidearm. (I can easily imagine the s#!t-fit FOP would have had if that had happened.)
I still know serving officers who think 9 x 19mm is inadequate, and wish they still had .357 Magnum revolvers. (Yes, 9mm NATO has low-end .357 ballistics; it also beats service pistols to death.)
Glock shares honors with the 1911 as a service pistol that is no more complicated than it absolutely has to be. (The Spanish Star copies of the 1911 are even simpler- no grip safety, for instance.)
The one thing that keeps the High Power out of that category is the magazine safety intended to make the pistol idiot-proof. It’s really impossible to make any machinery that actually functions as intended “idiot-proof”, because some idiot will always find a way to f**k up with it.
Considering recent designs such as the Canik, late-model Walthers, and etc., if as the old saying goes imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Glock should be flattered all to Hell.
cheers
eon
“(…)IMPO, the last good design out of Beretta was the M84/85 .380 blowbacks, single or double column magazine. (…)”
Then please explain what is failure inside APX https://modernfirearms.net/en/handguns/handguns-en/italy-semi-automatic-pistols/beretta-apx-eng/
@ Daweo;
Beretta APX- another fractal nightmare externally and nothing new to offer internally. Again, it’s designed to look “edgy” and “cool”.
Based on Beretta’s recent track record, I’d want to see a 10,000 round test with no or at least minimal cleaning before I’d rate it ready for service.
cheers
eon
“(…)want to see a 10,000 round test with no or at least minimal cleaning(…)”
I do not know about such exact test, but https://www.police1.com/police-products/firearms/articles/beretta-apx-a1-reporting-for-duty-BfcLmyQrFrMGXYee/ claims Beretta APX passed every stringent test of the US Army MHS program and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlaldfLhK9s shows rental APX from certain range which fired over 4700 rounds, cleaned 3 times, without fuss.
I was thinking more Rifts Ion pistol…
Carrying that gat you definitely steppin’ razor, chummer.
It would be a Specialist Weapon. until they could figure out a way to make a Monkey version of it.
Technically, by design, it’s a masterpiece. I love delayed blowback designs, and particularly lever delayed. The solution to have a very low bore axis (by having a very flat rear slide) is clever, AND, I alwys stated that one of the clever parts of the Glisenti 1910 design was that it had the sear IN FRONT of the striker, right over the trigger. All the modern striker-fired guns look like hammer-fired conversions, by uselessly having it in the back. This designer came to the same conclusion.
By realization, the part that allow to slingshot-pull the slide seems flimsy and, if used regularly, to me, it’s destined to break. It would have been better to have that fixed. That would have simplified the design and made the red dot more stable.
The ejection pattern also seems to be all over the place, a symptom that there’s something off with the tolerances.
Race guns shoot a lot. Hundreds of rounds every training session. One can only hope that all those legoed parts don’t get loose before, say, 30.000 rounds at least.
I agree with your preference, but – having struggled with this design problem a lot – I wouldn’t call the usual striker placement “useless”. Most other pistols’ locking mechanisms are right over the trigger, such that putting the sear there would require the frame to be either really wide or really tall.
The Glisenti reverses this by putting a tall locking / delaying mechanism where a more-compact FCG usually goes, having an even worse effect on bore axis.
The first prototype of the Glisenti had a Mauser C96 style setup, the rolling block was in the grip, so the bore axis was pretty low, thus having the same sear over the trigger. Moving the magazine into the grip, the rolling block had to be moved on the rear, so rising the bore axis (whose height anyway is identical to that of the Walther p38, IE. it’s only the shape of the frame that makes it seems taller). That anyway has little to do with the placement of the sear.
Between the P38’s slide and thumb cutout, it has about a 1/4″ radius stub beavertail like the 1911’s.
Between the Glisenti’s bolt and thumb cutout, it has about an inch of sheer vertical rise. It’s one of the highest bore axes I’ve ever seen. C&Rsenal talk about it several times in their review; Othais called it “redonculous”.
The fact that the rolling block is there is the reason the Glisenti can have its sear where it is. Its trigger parts are right where the unlocking cam is on a Glock or P365, the locking block on a P38 or M9, etc.
*diameter
Real proportions. https://i.postimg.cc/x82XMLX1/p38-Glisenti.png
The Sear of the Glisenti, (and even better that of the subsequent Brixia 1913, that didn’t require an hinge any more https://i.postimg.cc/nrSM5gdr/464515987-27028109150166481-8395875250470597292-n.jpg) was contained in that lateral bulge. Their dimensions were dictated by the height of the bore axis, not the contrary. They could have been way smaller than they were. And infact that of this gun IS way smaller.
IE, let’s take the FN57 as an example. https://i.ytimg.com/vi/u_sIYUMxATE/maxresdefault.jpg
That’s not a low bore axis gun by any mean. Not that much because it has the Revelli rotating lock moved over the trigger guard (none prescribed the pivot of the trigger to be at the same level than that of the rotating lock), but because it’s an (internal) hammer fired gun, and all the hammer setup has to be placed over the thumb cutout.
What prevents the same gun to be striker fired, and have a Brixia 1913 style sear over the trigger, so getting rid of the transfer bar, all the hammer setup, and having a bore axis as low as that of a Glock?
Nothing really.
I knew the P38 slide was taller, but it looks like it’s just 1/8″ or so in different pictures. Thanks!
Since this is Forgotten Weapons, why don’t you also compare these guns to one of the original low bore axis guns -i.e. an Astra 600 ?
Not even comparable.
The height of bore axis that counts is that between the barrel and the thumb cutout. that of the Astra is not that low. In general, if you don’t use some “trick”, hammer fired semiautos can’t have a very low bore axis, because the hammer has to rotate and palce itself below the slide and above the thumb cutout.
See IE this cutaway of the Makarov that, to be an hammer fired gun, has a very compact hammer setup and pretty low bore axis. It could have been further lowered a little, but not much
https://modernfirearms.net/userfiles/images/handguns/russia/hg21/1287754813.jpg .
Well, I really like that; I think it’s lovely… But if anyone buys one, could someone attach some weights to the laser beam rail – And then when it shoots, even better! Can we not turn all pistols upside down, as oppose trying to do that… r51 thing upside down etc. I mean, c’mon no pirates it’s not a flintlock… pistol grips? Old hat. Flip the lot, thus; the weight is above no flippy, better grippy. Aye, you can throw it at someone still… Losing some pistol whipping, but minor. I mean who does that anymore, pirates. Well thats what I think anyway, without 20 more comments, see did in 1’ish…
Staplegun, no? It’s better! Must be, Hudson this, etc, to improve it; remove pistol grips/Flintlock wobbly wrist thing. A “Staplegun” holster would be smaller than that Glock folding pistol grip lark. No your all wrong and I am right, and furthermore we could attach s bayonet to the “staplegun” top loader, properly, which everyone knows you need; Zulus etc. After food, global warming man made or otherwise “You can’t have my porridge, go back to the desert.” poke, prod.
Rocket spigot bayonet, depends… You might want that now, regardless of need.
No, while I like this pistol, overall, dissambly etc; not good enough “Next you’ll be telling us to invest in A.I” surely a Mexican could do that. Seems far fetched. Bubble, no…
Venezuelan, be lots of them running around soon seemingly; give me a job Donald made me A.I. Or some shit. Chat gpt, I come up with better guns pissed, in five minutes.
Ukraines fecked eh, never learn. Ufo’s will sort it; no you are fecked.
Having watched the video, the pistol grows on me. (Except for the way it ejects empties into different townships.) Still the exterior needs some reconfiguration to make the piece more convenient to carry and draw from under a jacket.As Ian notes, the gun is still pre-production.
And you’d want a walnut case really, “Staplegun” design, fully engraved; Pdw – minus stock, try it. 100m dead, can engrave it with Gustav Adolphus whatever; some mofo in North carolina, you’d think $999.99 Next time you shoot at your neighbour, they’ll be stone dead – Better layout see.