The first semi-automatic pistol to be patented was the Salvator Dormus, patented in Austria on July 11, 1891. The Schönberger-Laumann followed with an Austrian patent in November 1891. Neither got past small runs and military trials.
The first semi-auto pistol made in real numbers was Hugo Borchardt’s C93 of 1893, with roughly 3,000 built. The first big commercial and military hit was the Mauser C96 Broomhandle, in production from 1896. Then came the Luger and John Browning’s FN M1900, and the Colt M1911 was adopted by the U.S. Army on March 29, 1911. Here is the dated timeline, then Kat Ainsworth’s history of how we got there.
We’re all generally familiar with the various firearms platforms, but it’s the semi-automatic that seems to get the most attention. That’s both because it’s understandably popular and because a lot of gun control bills revolve around its existence. The idea seems to be that semi-autos are a modern marvel and not a platform with decades, or centuries, of use behind it. Here’s the thing, though: semi-autos have been around for quite some time. We’re going to tell you all about them.
Table of contents
First Semi-Automatic Pistol Timeline
| Year | Firearm | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| 1884 | Poudre B smokeless powder (Paul Vieille, France) | The first practical smokeless powder, which made reliable self-loaders practical |
| 1885 | Mannlicher Model 1885 rifle | Ferdinand Mannlicher’s early self-loading rifle design, in the black powder era |
| 1891 (July 11) | Salvator Dormus pistol | The earliest patented semi-automatic pistol; about 30 workable pistols went to Austrian trials in 1896 |
| 1891 (Nov. 25) and 1892 | Schönberger-Laumann | Austrian patent in 1891; about 35 made before the Austrian military rejected it in 1896 |
| 1893 | Borchardt C93 | First mass produced semi-auto pistol, about 3,000 built; tested by the U.S. Navy as early as 1894 |
| 1896 | Mauser C96 “Broomhandle” | In production from 1896 to 1937; the first big commercial and military success |
| 1898 to 1900 | Luger (Parabellum) | Georg Luger reworked the Borchardt toggle; designed in 1898, produced from 1900 |
| 1898 to 1900 | FN Browning M1900 | Designed by John Browning in 1898; the first production handgun to use a slide |
| 1911 (March 29) | Colt M1911 | Formally adopted by the U.S. Army as the “Model of 1911” |
Want more on two of the big ones? Read our look at the Luger P08 and our select-fire Broomhandle Mauser story.
🛒 Check current Mauser C96 and Luger listings on GunsAmerica
Semi-Automatic Guns
Semi-automatic firearms aren’t full auto. Each trigger pull fires a single shot. These guns use self-loading actions, automatically feeding the next round into the chamber after firing. This allows continuous shooting without manually ejecting brass or loading a new round.
At first glance, a revolver might seem semi-automatic, but it’s not. Revolvers rely on a cylinder with multiple chambers that must be manually loaded and unloaded. They don’t eject spent brass like a semi-auto, and their operation is fundamentally different.
A revolver requires manual force to function, whereas a semi-auto operates on its own mechanism, keeping rounds ready until the magazine runs empty. That’s a concise overview, but it captures the key differences.
The First Semi-Auto Gun
The Puckle Gun
Odds are good that most people’s brains jump to Glock or the AR-15 when considering what the first semi-automatic gun to hit the market was. However, the semi-auto’s history reaches back significantly farther in history than the mid-to-late 20th century. An inventor named James Puckle created a repeating gun, one he named after himself, of course, in 1718. The Puckle gun wasn’t a semi-auto like we know it today because it required rotating the chambers manually using a hand crank. It was a hand-cranked flintlock, not a self-loader, but it shows how long inventors have chased faster follow-up shots. The Puckle gun is also a stellar example of how our Founding Fathers did indeed know about repeating firearms, not just muskets, when they wrote the Constitution in 1787.
Mannlicher Model 85
Over time, the repeating platform saw significant improvements. A major breakthrough came in 1884 when Paul Marie Eugene Vieille developed smokeless powder, revolutionizing ammunition and expanding firearms technology. However, in 1885, Ferdinand von Mannlicher introduced the Mannlicher Model 85, which set semi-autos in motion but was ultimately doomed. Mannlicher relied on black powder, and given the limited global connectivity of the 19th century, expecting him to have access to smokeless powder would be a stretch, he was Austrian, while Vieille was in France. Despite its failure, the Mannlicher 85 sparked a wave of more successful designs.
The Puckle gun was not a semi-auto at all, since the shooter turned the cylinder by hand. The Mannlicher 85 rifle has a much better claim as one of the first self-loading designs. The way technology advances causes some blurring of lines when it comes to who did what first. There are the failures and the successes. As a general rule, a success wouldn’t ever happen if the failures didn’t pave the way first.
The First Semi-Auto Handgun
If we’re measuring by level of success, the first semi-auto handgun to become a big commercial and military success was the Mauser C96, a gun commonly referred to as the Broomhandle. It was a trio of brothers that came up with the Broomhandle, Friedrich, Fidel, and Josef Feederle, while they were working for Mauser. The Mauser C96 went into production in 1896 and enjoyed incredible popularity. If you’re noticing a trend with labeling models with the last two digits of their production year, you’d be right. Of course, the Mauser C96 wasn’t the only semi-auto handgun of that decade.
The 1893 Borchardt preceded the Mauser C96 and helped spur that manufacturer into taking on the idea presented by the Feederle brothers. Hugo Borchardt created the gun in 1893, and by 1894 it was being tested by the U.S. Navy. The 1893 Borchardt, also known as the Borchardt C93, never became a big seller, with roughly 3,000 made. Its design was bulky and awkward, making it unwieldy in use. To make matters worse, it reportedly produced significant felt recoil, likely due to its chambering in 7.65x25mm Borchardt. The story of this semi-automatic pistol is important, though, largely due to this next part. After the 1893 Borchardt failed, DWM, the manufacturer behind its production, enlisted Georg Luger to fix it. Luger did some work on the design, and the Luger Parabellum was born.
John Browning
Yes, we’re all familiar with the fame of John Browning and his ties to quite a few firearms designs that remain beloved to this day. It was the late 1800s when John Moses Browning turned his sights to improving the semi-auto platform. That led to the release of the FN Browning M1900, a semi-automatic pistol chambered in 32 ACP. The M1900 was preceded by a handful of prototypes that Browning patented and fine-tuned, so it wasn’t his first semi-auto design. It was the one, however, that sold like wildfire.
Time passed, designs came and went, and the 1911 hit the gun world in the year of its name. Considering Browning’s 1911 remains in production today, you could say the rest is semi-auto history.
READ MORE HERE: Choosing Between Semi-Automatic and Revolvers
Semi-Auto Timeframe
If we take the history of firearms in its entirety and include the steps it took to get to the current place in time, repeating firearms have been around for centuries. The repeating idea is about 300 years old, but true self-loaders date to the 1880s and 1890s. There are so many steps in creating anything that there’s really no one moment in history you can point to as the first (not if you’re being realistic). Even the men whose names grace the history books for this or that moment could have been preceded by others whose names we’ll never know.
What we do know is that semi-autos aren’t new and aren’t a 20th-century invention. Repeating firearms came into being decades before the U.S. Constitution was even written. And that in itself is pretty cool.
Learn more about the Puckle gun from Forgotten Weapons here.
FAQ
What was the first semi-automatic pistol?
The Salvator Dormus, patented in Austria on July 11, 1891, is the earliest patented semi-auto pistol. The Borchardt C93 of 1893 was the first one produced in real numbers.
What was the first semi-automatic gun?
Ferdinand Mannlicher’s Model 1885 rifle is often credited as one of the first self-loading designs. Practical semi-autos took off once smokeless powder arrived in the mid 1880s.
Was the Puckle gun semi-automatic?
No. The 1718 Puckle gun was a manually operated flintlock revolver on a tripod. It repeated, but a person turned the cylinder by hand.
When did the military adopt the 1911?
The U.S. Army formally adopted the Colt pistol on March 29, 1911.
Kat Ainsworth Stevens is a prolific outdoor writer based in North Texas. Her love and enjoyment of firearms extends to both self-defense and hunting, and she’s driven to teach safe gun handling. Kat’s the author of several books and thousands of articles as well as a successful editor with more than a decade of experience in marketing. With experience in everything from defensive handgun use to field dressing a deer, Kat’s background is varied and extensive. She firmly believes in the importance of protecting the Second Amendment as well as the First.
When she’s not behind a gun or processing her own game meat, Kat can be found trapping, boating, doing yoga, and mudding. The outdoors and the Lone Star State are where she belongs.
Experience
Author:
Handgun Hunting and anthologies including The Deer Shot Back: And Other Hunting Tales and How Not to Shoot Fish and Other Deer That Got Away.
Dedicated Outdoorsman:
Year-round enthusiast of hunting, trapping, and fishing.
Advanced Training:
More than 1000 hours of training in defensive handguns, long guns, edged weapons, self-defense law, force-on-force, handgun retention, and related topics.
Focused Specialty Skills:
Expert witness. Massad Ayoob Group certified Deadly Force Instructor and graduate of Active Self Protection The Practice & Preparation of Being an Expert Witness.