Salvator Dormus pistol

The Salvator-Dormus pistol is the earliest-patented semi-automatic pistol. It was patented on 11 July 1891, by Archduke Karl Salvator of Austria and Count Georg von Dormus. As the first of its kind, it was designed without the benefit of experience with earlier models. Various modifications were made with approximately twenty prototypes before thirty pistols of a workable design were submitted for Austrian military trials in 1896. This 8 mm delayed blowback pistol loads through the top and has a hinged magazine door on the butt. The pistol has a separate bolt release and safety. The production delay between patent and military trials allowed comparisons with other self-loading pistols, and the Salvator Dormus was considered inferior to its competition. The designers abandoned this project; and few pistols survive. The Bundeswehr Museum of German Defense Technology in Koblenz has one of these specimens in its collection.