Browning-Petter SIG system
The Browning-Petter-SIG system , also known as the Browning-Ludwig system or SIG-Sauer system , is a mechanism for locking self-loading pistols. It is used in all modern pistols from Glock , Steyr Mannlicher and Walther . This type of closure is also known as the “modified browning system”.
technology
It is a geometric simplification of the Browning-Petter system and requires the same main components. It no longer works with a locking comb , which is complex to manufacture , but instead only with a mostly cuboid, possibly rounded and open bearing block. The control link below the cartridge chamber is not closed but open: In place of the axis of the slide catch lever through the closed setting are a correspondingly shaped area setting controls below the cartridge chamber against another, permanently integrated in the handle plane with a corresponding form, the term reduction - and the unlocking.
The Browning-Petter-SIG system is easier to manufacture and has increased wear resistance due to the better distribution of force in the locking shoulder. The flat, straight connections and surfaces can be produced easily and with high precision using CNC production. However, this type of closure requires the use of very high quality steels.
Emergence
The Browning-Petter-SIG system was used for the first time - at that time with the control gate supported and closed at the rear - in the French army pistol Mle in 1935 in caliber 7.65 × 20 mm (.32 "long").
The first variant Mle 1935A (A stood for "Alsace" = Alsace) still used the 'conventional' Browning-Petter system, which the Swiss designer Charles Petter had further developed from the US Browning system in the Alsatian engineering factory SACM . Due to various start-up problems, however, production started very slowly, so that one was forced to fall back on a parallel, less complex production. The armaments smiths in St. Etienne MAS took on the matter and developed a simplified locking system, in which the shoulders of the cartridge chamber block instead of the locking comb, the form-fitting connection between barrel and slide was achieved. At the rear, a lug in the cartridge chamber was used to form-fit against the bottom of the slide. This simplified system was used in the alternative model Mle 1935 "S" (S stood for "St. Etienne") and was then delivered in large numbers to the French army from 1937.
The models "A" and "S" look very similar; however, the parts are - with a few exceptions - not interchangeable.
After the French campaign, in mid-1940 - immediately after the German occupation of France - production of the "S" variant in St. Etienne was discontinued. The Reich Armaments Office - all occupied countries were included in the armaments coordination - did not consider the simplified Browning-Petter system to be sufficiently mature due to various bottlenecks in the high-strength steel alloys that were required. Production was therefore relocated back to SACM in Alsace, where the Mle 1935 (A) variant with the somewhat more complex Browning-Petter system was built until the end of 1944.
In the early / mid-1940s, the Swiss Industrial Association (SIG) bought the rights to the “S” version with shoulder lock, but did not use it for the time being. Curiously enough, the 'Browning-Petter system' of variant "A" was used again in the development of the later Swiss army pistol SP47 / 8 or P.49, which was started in 1942. Apparently the SIG still classified this system as the higher quality one.
It was not until the mid-1970s that the shoulder lock of the “S” variant was then used in the Pist 75 / SIG P220 - and has therefore been attributed to the SIG as the “Browning SIG System” since then. Historically, this is not entirely correct, as originally this system was clearly a development of the MAS in St. Etienne / France. However, since Petter design elements are clearly to be found in this system, this locking system is henceforth also referred to as the "Browning Petter SIG system".
literature
- Günter Heuberger: Locking systems for pistols. (Pdf, 27 kB) p. 2 , accessed on May 19, 2017 .
