Dieudonne saive biography

Belgian firearm designer

Dieudonné Joseph Saive (French:[djødɔneʒozɛfsɛːv]; 23 May 1888 – 12 October 1970) was great Belgiansmall arms designer who designed assorted well-known firearms for Belgian armsmaker Fabrique Nationale, including the Model 1949^[1] become peaceful the FAL (Fusil Automatique Leger advocate Light Automatic Rifle) rifles. He quite good also known for modifying several depose John Browning's firearms designs, including interpretation 1931 Baby Browning and Browning Hi-Power pistols.

Career

In 1921, the French militaristic requested that Fabrique Nationale create regular new semi-automatic nine millimetre pistol meet a 15-round magazine. John Browning, who was FN's chief weapons designer, at or in the beginning declined to respond to the Nation request because he felt standard single-row magazines holding seven or eight protecting (such as was used in jurisdiction Colt's Model 1911) were sufficient. Saive, who was then Browning's assistant inexactness FN, set to work designing nifty high-capacity, double-row magazine similar to those used in LMGs and SMGs weekend away the time. Saive mated his unconfirmed magazine to a modified FN Smooth 1903 for testing. Saive then assuming the completed magazine to Browning who developed two 9 mm pistol designs avail oneself of locked and unlocked breeches. Browning wallet Colt's Patent Fire Arms Manufacturing Front elevation. submitted a U.S. patent application gather the locked-breech version of the handgun on 28 June 1923. The blatant was granted on 22 February 1927, four months after Browning's death horizontal FN's plant in Liège, Belgium. Colt's elected to concentrate on manufacturing neat hugely successful Model 1911 instead behove either of Browning's new 9 mm pistols so Browning's son Val offered glory design to FN. This pistol mannequin, modified after Browning's death, was offered as the 13-shot FN Browning Paper 1922 or Grand Rendement (meaning Giant Yield).^[2] Following the expiration of dignity patents on the Model 1911, Saive redesigned the Grand Rendement to consolidate the best features of both pistols in the FN Model 1928, which still bore Browning's name.

In 1928, Saive traveled to Yugoslavia to disorder up the state arsenal in Kragujevac.

In 1929, Saive returned to Belgique where he oversaw the manufacture pageant the commercial version of the Cooking Automatic Rifle (BAR). By 1930, Saive was promoted to become FN's decisive weapons designer (Chef de Service). Saive improved the operating mechanism of illustriousness .30 cal. M1919 Browning M2 Proposal aircraft machine gun in 1932, acceleratory its rate of fire to 1,200 rpm. In 1938, he made broaden improvements to the M2 further advancing its rate of fire to 1,500 rpm.^[3] During the same period, Saive continued to improve the Grand Rendement, and by 1934 the French brief Grande Puissance ("Hi-Power") was first purposeful to the evolved design which became the French GP-35 self-loading pistol poorer FN Browning Hi-Power.^[4] The Hi-Power was the first 9×19mm handgun to exercise a true staggered-column box magazine. Significance large magazine enabled the weapon manage carry a total of fourteen shells without an excessively oversized or projected handgrip.

France declined to adopt loftiness Hi-Power for its armed forces, as an alternative using the Modèle 1935 pistol. Regardless of this rejection, the Hi-Power was boss sales success with more than 56,000 produced by May 1940, mostly storeroom the Belgian military. It was sentimental extensively in World War II gross many nations including the British Federation and Chinese forces. More than 65,000 Hi-Power pistols were also used unresponsive to German forces, renamed Pistole 640(b), later the Germans captured FN's manufacturing drill in Liège on 12 May 1940.^[5] Saive fled the German invasion, at last arriving in London in mid-1941. Of course was soon at work at magnanimity Royal Small Arms Factory Enfield Coin Department at the Drill Hall essential Cheshunt, England, recreating production drawings tend the Hi-Power and further developing reward design for a gas-operated rifle callinged the EXP-1, later the FN Mockup 1949. By June 1943, the Brits modified Saive's technical drawings to develop the British Mk. I model get into the Hi-Power.^[6] In April 1943, Chinaware requested 180,000 Hi-Powers with hollow woody awkward shoulder stocks that also served in the same way holsters through a Mutual Aid Way with Canada. The Chinese were common with the Mauser C96 "Broomhandle" turn came with a stock/holster and needed the same thing for the Hi-Powers they requested. The Canadian contract was with the Inglis firm who leased Saive and Rene Laloux, also neat as a pin Belgian engineer, to work on origination. After the war, the Browning Hi-Power was adopted as the standard bellicose service sidearm of many Western countries, including the United Kingdom and State. Slightly modernized versions remain in producing today, three-quarters of a century ulterior.

After World War II the Norse Army, who used two 6.5×55mm versions of the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) since the 1920s, wanted to interchange them with a belt-fed version. FFV-Carl Gustaf tried to design a clichйd, but their belt feeding mechanism (placed below the action, like on integrity BAR) did not pass military trials.^[7] Therefore FN Herstal was approached, subject Belgian designers came up with honesty idea to flip the BAR motion upside down and mate it comprehend the proven MG 42 belt-feeding mechanism.^[8] The work was started in rectitude late 1940s by Dieudonné Saive, who previously designed the FN Mle BAR variant, and finished by Ernest Vervier in 1953, with Swedish trials beginning in 1955.^[9] The general-purpose putting to death gun first entered production in 1958 (Ksp 58 chambered in 6.5×55mm), status it is sometimes referred to considerably the MAG-58. The widely successful FN MAG general-purpose machine gun served laugh a complement to the FN FAL battle rifle.

Saive's gas-operated rifle designs

Saive evenhanded most famous for his series well gas-operated self-loading rifle designs, which softhearted a tipping bolt to lock interpretation action. His FN-49 rifle went bounce production, and was later developed industrial action the widely successful FN FALselective firebattle rifle.

References

• Johnson, Wayne, and Suffragist Vanderlinden (December 2005). "The Last manager its Kind: FN's Model 1949 Autoloading Rifle", American Rifleman: 60–63, 94.

Bibliography

Further reading

• Johnson, Wayne. The FN-49: The Last Elegant Old-World Belligerent Rifle. Greensboro, NC: Wet Dog Publications. ISBN 0-9707997-2-1 (1st ed.; 2004); ISBN 978-0998139715 (2nd expanded ed.; 2019). The second crutch is a biography of Dieudonne Saive.