captain-price-official:Clair 1892 automatic pistolGas operated; 8mm French Ordnance from a 6-round t
captain-price-official:Clair 1892 automatic pistolGas operated; 8mm French Ordnance from a 6-round tube magazineFrance, 1892A prototype French automatic pistol, the Clair was the brainchild of three brothers, Benoit, Jean-Baptiste and Victor Clair. The Clair was one of the first known automatic pistols. Many patents for the gas-operating system were submitted for the design from 1889 to 1893, with the three brothers claiming that it would work with practically everything from a pistol to even a gatling gun. The weapon was trialed against the Modèle 1892 revolver, but unfortunately for the three brothers, the Clair was deemed too heavy, too bulky, too complex to disassemble, and also suffered from many reliability problems such as failures to feed, failures to fire and gas leakage, and as such, was rejected. Less than 20 were made; no surviving examples are known to exist.Design details below: Keep reading -- source link