The Glisenti M1910
Italy has traditionally been a country able to beautifully design and engineer everything from cars to aircraft, but for some reason, it has a seriously spotty history of designing and constructing weapons for its armed forces. A prime example of this aberration is the Model 1910 Glisenti.
Naturally, the torsional forces led to pistols slowly, if they were used with any frequency (insert World War II Italian army joke here), shooting themselves apart. That was a problem even with the special low-powered 9mm Glisenti round. Should someone mistakenly load a Glisenti with the ubiquitous full-powered 9mm Parabellum round, it could shoot itself apart on a much shorter timescale, say… instantaneously.
Left side view of an M1910 Glisenti. The screw at the front of the frame and removable side plate are visible in this photo. Rock Island Auctions photo
The Glisenti was a magazine-fed, semiautomatic pistol that externally resembled the German P-08 Luger. The 7.65X22mm cartridge the Glisenti was originally chambered for when production began in 1908, however, was thought by the Italian army to be too weak, so the Glisenti was redesigned to fire a 9mm cartridge almost identical in dimensions to the Luger’s 9mm Parabellum. With the caliber change the pistol came to be designated the M1910. Unfortunately, the Glisenti couldn’t handle the pressures of a full-power 9mm Parabellum round, so a special round had to be developed with less powder in the cartridge – the 9mm Glisenti – solely due to the shortcomings of the pistol for which it was named. The major shortcoming of the Glisenti was that the left side of the frame could be removed by loosening a large, knurled takedown screw located at the front of the frame below the barrel. While this might have made for easier cleaning, it meant the left side of the one-piece barrel and receiver were supported only by this removable plate.
The pistol that became known as the Brixia was an attempt to fix some of the Glisenti’s weaknesses. Introduced in 1912, the Brixia had an only slightly strengthened frame, but retained the side plate that was the seat of most of the problems. The Italian army rejected it and just stuck with the Glisenti. NRA National Firearms Museum photo
The Glisenti also employed a somewhat complex delayed recoil action firing from a locked breech. When the trigger was pulled, the barrel and receiver unit moved backwards about 7mm until locked by a rising wedge, the internally-housed bolt continuing to the rear to strip the fired cartridge from the chamber, then carrying forward with a new round to unlock the barrel and receiver, pushing it forward, ready to fire the next round. All this mass was only riding securely on a rail along the right side of the frame. Naturally, the torsional forces led to pistols slowly, if they were used with any frequency (insert World War II Italian army joke here), shooting themselves apart. That was a problem even with the special low-powered 9mm Glisenti round. Should someone mistakenly load a Glisenti with the ubiquitous full-powered 9mm Parabellum round, it could shoot itself apart on a much shorter timescale … say… instantaneously.
The Glisenti’s maker, Metallurgica Bresciana gia Tempini (MBT) attempted to improve the pistol in 1912, and the result became known as the Brixia. The Brixia was not considered by the Italian army to be enough of an improvement over the Glisenti, and it was rejected. The Glisenti soldiered on until replaced by the excellent, if underpowered, .380 Beretta M1934.
Glisenti Model 1910
Type: Semiautomatic pistol
Operating System: Short recoil, locked breech
Weight: 29 ounces
Length: 8.15 inches
Barrel length: 3.94 inches
Cartridge: 9mm Glisenti
Muzzle velocity: 1,000 fps
Magazine: Seven-round detachable box