History:
The automatic pistole series "Le Francais" is consisting of several models of different caliber but same basic construction. It started shortly before World War I in 1913 with a .25 caliber model and was produced in 1914 for the first time als "Modele de Poche".
The construction was by Etienne Mimard, one of the two raisers of the company, and was patented under number 472.505 from August 6th, 1913. The "Modele de Poche" ("pocketmodel") appeared in a price-catalogue of the company of 1914 for the first time.
The construction was new at itīs time and differed in many point from common pocket-pistols of that time. The pistol got a DAO firing pin action, the barrel is to tip and the charging of the first round is done by directly placing it into the tipped barrel. Therefore the slide does not even have riffles for handling it. Because of the safe DAO-system no additional safety was forseen, just the barrel is tipping automatically when removing the magazine.
Several details like e.g. the shape of the handle, the magazine catch and the grip-plates had been modyfied during the time of production, so that today there are some variants of this model existing.
There were also different types of marking and of finishing available, polished, engraved and nickled, up to DeLuxe design.
Though this Modele de Poche was mainly dedicated to the public market, it was in use at the French army too, but not officially. Some of these pistols were carried by higher officer-grades.
The pistols were sold under the name "Franco" too. These ones do not have a marking on the grip-plates and have the word "FRANCO" written at the slide.
The big commercial success, predicted because of the "safe" construction, did not arise, but still the production of these pistols was carried on after both world wars up to the 1960ies. Because of this long production period they were produced in quite some total production numbers.
Technical Datas:
SYSTEM: blowback with DAO firing pin action
CARTRIDGES : 7+1
CALIBRE : .25 ACP
BARREL LENGTH : 60 mm , 6 grooves right hand twisting
WEIGHT EMPTY : 330 g
TOTAL LENGTH : 114 mm
TOTAL HEIGHT : 86 mm
TOTAL WIDTH : 24 mm
TRIGGER : DAO
SIGHT : fix
SAFETY : none
FINISH : blued
HANDLE : hard rubber