Borchardt C-93
Country of origin
German Empire
ManufacturerGerman Arms and Ammunition Factory
The Borchardt C93 is a semi-automatic pistol designed by Hugo Borchardt in 1893.
The design is based upon the Maxim gun's toggle lock mechanism. The pistol uses a locked breech and a short recoil operating cycle, with the barrel and breech moving backward together for a short distance before the breech is unlocked.
Borchardt developed the high-velocity, bottlenecked 7.65×25mm Borchardt cartridge for the C93. His assistant at the time, Georg Luger, also claimed to have influenced its design. Machine tool manufacturer Ludwig Loewe & Company of Berlin, Germany, produced the C93 in anticipation of military orders. With about 1,100 manufactured by Loewe and nearly 2,000 more produced by Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken (DWM), the Borchardt C93 was the first mass-produced semi-automatic/toggle-action pistol.
The design is based upon the Maxim gun's toggle lock mechanism. The pistol uses a locked breech and a short recoil operating cycle, with the barrel and breech moving backward together for a short distance before the breech is unlocked.
Borchardt developed the high-velocity, bottlenecked 7.65×25mm Borchardt cartridge for the C93. His assistant at the time, Georg Luger, also claimed to have influenced its design. Machine tool manufacturer Ludwig Loewe & Company of Berlin, Germany, produced the C93 in anticipation of military orders. With about 1,100 manufactured by Loewe and nearly 2,000 more produced by Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken (DWM), the Borchardt C93 was the first mass-produced semi-automatic/toggle-action pistol.
