Alois Tomiška

Alois Tomiška (born February 12, 1867 in Pardubitz , Bohemia ; died December 29, 1946 in Prague , Czechoslovakia ) was an entrepreneur and inventor of the double-action automatic pistol.

Life

At the beginning of the 1890s he learned the trade of gunsmith in Vienna . In 1900 he began to develop a self-loading cocking trigger pistol , which he patented 8 years later in Great Britain as a pocket pistol with a cocked trigger and external cock. He called this weapon "Little Tom" based on his family name Tomiska. A few months after his patent application in Great Britain he submitted the same weapon development as a patent in Austria-Hungary . In 1909 he founded the Vienna arms factory together with Camillo Frank. Production of the pocket pistol in the calibers 6.35 mm and 7.65 mm Browning began in the new company. The First World War delayed the start of larger series production of the pocket pistols so that only a small number of items were produced until 1918. In 1919 Tomiska sold his patents to the Vienna weapons factory and moved to Pilsen in Bohemia . There he worked at Jihoceska Zbrojovka (South Czech Arms Factory) and developed other pistol models until his retirement. Alois Tomiska died in Prague in 1946. The functional principle of the double-action automatic pistol patented by him became the model for many different police pistols , including the German Walther PPK (Police Pistole Criminal).

literature

• RJ Berger: Know Your Czechoslovakian Pistols. Blacksmith, Chino Valley 1989.
• JB Wood: "The Little Tom Pistols of Alois Tomiska." Gun Digest, 1980.
• Walter HB Smith: NRA Book of Small Arms, Volume I, Pistols and Revolvers. Harrisburg 1946.
• Ian V. Hogg, John Weeks: Pistols of the World. Arms & Armor Press, London 1978.

Web links

• Alois Tomiška in: www.vhu.cz , accessed on May 14, 2017