The late nineteenth and early twentieth century period of pioneering development of automatic pistols saw some fascinatingly quirky designs. One of the most interesting and unusual of these is the Mannlicher Model 1894.
Fast Facts
- The Mannlicher Model 1894 was one of Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher’s early semi-automatic pistol designs.
- The Model 1894 is a very unusual design which uses a blow-forward semi-automatic action.
- The Model 1894 showed promise but did not impress the military officers who were charged with evaluating it for military adoption.
- The Model 1894 was made by SIG in Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Switzerland, and by Steyr of Austria.
- A Neuhausen made 6.5x23R example of the Model 1894 is coming up for sale by Rock Island Auction on December 7, 2025.
The Mannlicher designed Model 1894 pistol is best described as quirky. Emanating from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century era of imaginative pioneering handgun design the Mannlicher M1894 is design creativeness at its quirky best.
Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher was an Austrian arms designer perhaps most famous among aficionados of sporting rifles for his Mannlicher-Schönauer hunting rifles which featured a Mannlicher turn-bolt action combined with Otto Schönauer’s rotary magazine.
But Ferdinand Ritter von Mannlicher was prolifically creative and was responsible for a great many European arms designs including pistols, turn-bolt rifles, and straight-pull rifles.
His Model 1894 was one of his early designs, and so it reflects a lot of “out of the box” design thinking – largely because the “box” that ultimately defined self-loading pistol design had not been invented yet.
The Model 1894 was based on a blow-forward action. Very few designers tried the blow-forward style of action, one of few others to design a pistol using this style of action was the Schwarzlose.
The blow-forward action is as one would expect the reverse of a blow-back action. The Mannlicher Model 1894 had a fixed breech and a movable barrel, which was surrounded by the recoil spring both being encased in a stepped outer tube.
When the pistol was fired the expanding gases press in all directions but the only movable object was the bullet, which was driven forward. The action of the gases on the bullet and barrel caused the barrel to move forward until it reached battery protruding from the front of the outer tube while the bullet continued its merry way to the target.
The outer tube is stepped to provide for a specific amount of forward travel of the barrel before it reaches the step in the tube and is stopped by it. The pressure of the recoil spring then takes over and pushes the barrel rearwards, stripping a fresh cartridge from the magazine and seating it in the chamber.
Extraction and ejection of the spent cartridge case is done by the extractor/ejector which is located on the left side and which is attached to the barrel and moves the fired case forward and out of the pistol as the barrel moves forward.
Loading the Model 1894 was a fairly simple operation, but requiring two hands and likely to be awkward for a military officer on horseback.
Loading was done using a Mannlicher style clip containing five cartridges. To hold the action open the trigger had to be fully pressed and held in that position. With that done the barrel could be moved forward using the tab on its top and it would lock into the open position.
Then the clip was fitted into the top of the pistol and the rounds stripped into the magazine. The trigger was then released which in turn released the barrel to slam back stripping a round from the magazine and chambering it as it did so.
The hammer had a rebound position guarding against a slam fire and allowing the pistol to be safely carried with a cartridge in the chamber.
To fire the pistol there were two options. If in an emergency the pistol could be fired double-action, just like a double-action revolver. For a more deliberate aimed shot the hammer could first be cocked providing a lighter trigger pull for single-action shooting.
The method of shooting provided a novel choice; the shooter could simply grip the pistol in the usual way operating the trigger with the index finger, or could wrap the index finger around the groove above the trigger guard and use the middle finger to press the trigger.
The Mannlicher Model 1894 was made chambered for a couple of cartridges, the metric 6.5×23R, and the 7.6×24R.
The 6.5x23R used a heavy for caliber 78 grain projectile at a respectable 1,070 fps (326 m/sec) muzzle velocity. So although there are those who might dub this a “mouse cartridge” I think I would rather not be the “mouse” on the receiving end of one.
Mannlicher Model 1894 pistols were made by Steyr in Austria and by SIG in their Neuhausen am Rheinfall, Switzerland, facility. Production numbers were very small because these pistols were only made for submission for military evaluation.
One of these rather rare pistols is coming up for sale by Rock Island Auction at their Premier Auction on December 7, 2025.
You will find the sale page if you click here.
The Mannlicher Model 1894 qualifies as one of the most quirky – and thus most interesting – of the many semi-automatic pistols created in the developmental period of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
It is a fascinating pistol.
Picture Credits: All pictures of the sale Mannlicher Model 1894 courtesy Rock Island Auction. Other pictures as individually credited.
Jon Branch is the founder and senior editor of Revivaler and has written a significant number of articles for various publications including official Buying Guides for eBay, classic car articles for Hagerty, magazine articles for both the Australian Shooters Journal and the Australian Shooter, and he’s a long time contributor to Silodrome.
Jon has done radio, television, magazine and newspaper interviews on various issues, and has traveled extensively, having lived in Britain, Australia, China and Hong Kong. His travels have taken him to Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan and a number of other countries. He has studied the Japanese sword arts and has a long history of involvement in the shooting sports, which has included authoring submissions to government on various firearms related issues and assisting in the design and establishment of shooting ranges.
