Ruby pistol - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The self-loading Ruby pistol

Pistol

When distinguished as a subset of handguns, a pistol is a handgun with a chamber that is integral with the barrel, as opposed to a revolver, wherein the chamber is separate from the barrel as a revolving cylinder. Typically, pistols have an effective range of about 100 feet.-History:The pistol...

is best known as a French World War I sidearm, the Pistolet Automatique de 7 millim.65 genre "Ruby". A very international piece of weaponry, it was closely modeled after the American John Browning's

John Browning

John Moses Browning , born in Ogden, Utah, was an American firearms designer who developed many varieties of military and civilian firearms, cartridges, and gun mechanisms, many of which are still in use around the world...

M1903 made by the Belgian Fabrique Nationale de Herstal

Fabrique Nationale de Herstal

Fabrique Nationale d'Herstal — self identified as FN Herstal and often referred to as Fabrique Nationale or simply FN — is a firearms manufacturer located in Herstal, Belgium....

, and was produced by over 50 Spanish companies, but primarily by the Spanish Gabilondo y Urresti

Llama firearms

Llama Firearms officially known as Llama-Gabilondo y Cia SA was a Spanish arms company founded in 1904 under the name Gabilondo and Urresti. Its headquarters were in Eibar in the Basque Country, but they also had workshops during different times in Elgoibar and Vitoria. Llama manufactured ...

firm (the official "Gabilondo Ruby").

Gabilondo and the Ruby

In 1914, just before the start of the First World War, Gabilondo started manufacture of a sturdy self-loading pistol based on the Browning Model 1903 and chambered for the 7.65mm Browning/.32 ACP cartridge. Unusually for the time, the magazine capacity was nine shots instead of the usual six or seven. The pistol was intended for export to the Americas, and despite the small calibre was designed with military and police sales in mind. Other Spanish manufacturers had copied the Browning since around 1905. The Ruby, apart from the extended magazine appears to be a direct copy of a pistol called the "Victoria" made by Esperanza and Unceta. This pistol used features patented by Pedro Careaga in 1911, and by the Esperanza and Unceta company in 1912. These patents may have covered the frame-mounted safety (instead of a grip safety), and an internal striker (instead of a hammer).

In 1915 Gabilondo sent examples of the pistols to the French government, who were hard-pressed for all sorts of small-arms, even in this early stage of the war. After testing was completed in May 1915, the French decided to accept the Ruby as the "Pistolet Automatique de 7 millimètre 65 genre "Ruby" and contracted Gabilondo to produce 10,000 pistols a month. By August the target had been raised to 30,000 and later still an incredible 50,000 a month. Despite its size, the company could barely cope with the initial contract and arranged for four partners to manufacture the Ruby for them:

Armeria Elgoibaressa y Cia
Echealaza y Vincinai y Cia
Hijos de Angel Echeverria y Cia
Iraola Salaverria y Cia

The contract stipulated that each company would produce a minimum of 5,000 pistols per month. Gabilondo would produce 10,000 guns, carry out overall quality control

Quality control

Quality control, or QC for short, is a process by which entities review the quality of all factors involved in production. This approach places an emphasis on three aspects:...

and arrange delivery to the French authorities in Bayonne

Bayonne

Bayonne is a city and commune in south-western France at the confluence of the Nive and Adour rivers, in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department, of which it is a sub-prefecture...

. As the number of pistols required increased the company agreed to purchase any pistols in excess of the agreed number at the same contracted price. As demand increased Gabilondo recruited another three partners to help manufacture the Ruby. Estimates of Gabilondo Ruby production are between 250,000 and 300,000 pistols in total. While most Gabilondo contract pistols were of good quality, others were less well made.

Ruby-type pistols by other makers

As the French became more desperate, the procurement process spiralled out of control. Eventually Gabilondo contracted with another three companies and at least 45 other companies contracted with the French directly to produce Ruby-type pistols in a variety of calibres, barrel lengths and magazine capacities.

French officials quickly became aware that few of the Spanish Ruby-types had interchangeable magazines, and insisted the manufacturers mark the base of all magazines. This was to prevent the possibly fatal consequence at the front line of either not being able to insert a new magazine, or having a loaded magazine detach from the gun in action.

Many Ruby-types were plagued by poor finish and incorrectly hardened steel parts which after a short period of use wore so badly that pistols fired on full-auto. On other pistols, the safety mechanism wore out. The good quality Rubies were reliable and accurate,
although some users were disconcerted by the lack of a visible hammer. About 710,000 Ruby-types were accepted by the French from all sources and by 1920, about 580,000 were still serviceable and in French army stores. Many other allied nations, and some of the new nations created after the War such as Finland and Yugoslavia also used Ruby-type pistols.

Gabilondo ceased production in 1919 and switched to more advanced models, but other firms continued to produce the Ruby-type until the Great Depression

Great Depression

The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...

wiped out many arms producers Ruby-types continued to be used until the end of World War II, particularly by Spanish and French Maquis

Maquis (World War II)

The Maquis were the predominantly rural guerrilla bands of the French Resistance. Initially they were composed of men who had escaped into the mountains to avoid conscription into Vichy France's Service du travail obligatoire to provide forced labour for Germany...

, as well as their Vichy

Vichy

Vichy is a commune in the department of Allier in Auvergne in central France. It belongs to the historic province of Bourbonnais.It is known as a spa and resort town and was the de facto capital of Vichy France during the World War II Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.The town's inhabitants...

opponents.

Advantages and Disadvantages

The Ruby-type pistol is very intuitive to operate, even for novices. The slide stop doubles as a safety and field stripping is remarkably simple. The small size and large magazine capacity was an advantage, making it a popular "backup" weapon for troops involved in trench warfare, as well as the standard issue weapons for telephonists, stretcher bearers, machine-gun, tank, and mortar crews, and rear-echelon personnel of all descriptions. The comparatively weak cartridges these pistols were chambered in gave little recoil, making them easy for novices to master accurate shooting with.
The primary disadvantage of these pistols (apart from quality control issues) was the relatively weak cartridges they were chambered in, which gave the pistol little stopping power.

The reliance on only one type of safety, and the lack of a visible hammer made these pistols very dangerous to carry "cocked and locked". Early models could come off safety when holstered in a tight-fitting holster and a large protruding stud was added to the slide in order to prevent this.

In later years, Ruby-types became notorious for the lack of standardization of parts between different manufacturers, resulting in a widespread incompatibility of spare parts that made the Ruby-types difficult to maintain. Some of this is due to the persistent confusion over exactly who made which Ruby-type pistol.

Influence of the Ruby

The Ruby directly influenced the design of the FN Model 1910/22

FN Model 1910

The FN Model 1910 was a blowback-operated, semi-automatic pistol designed by John Browning and manufactured by Fabrique Nationale of Belgium.-Development:...

, which was a nine-shot version of the M1910 developed for Yugoslavia (who had previously been issued Ruby-type pistols). Finland, Holland, Greece, Turkey, Romania, France, Denmark, and Germany also adopted this pistol at various times. Several commercially made French pistols by M.A.B

Manufacture d'armes de Bayonne

Manufacture d'armes de Bayonne was a French pistol manufacturer. The company was founded by Léon Barthe in 1920...

and Unique were heavily influenced by the Ruby.

Users

Early Modern France

Finland

Nazi Germany

Kingdom of Greece

Kingdom of Italy (Napoleonic)

Poland

Kingdom of Romania

Spain

Kingdom of Yugoslavia

List of Ruby-type manufacturers

"Official" Rubies

Gabilondo y Urresti - French Military code stamp GU
Alkartasuma (under the brandnames Alkar, Kapitan and Panama
Panama
Panama , officially the Republic of Panama , is the southernmost country of Central America. Situated on the isthmus connecting North and South America, it is bordered by Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south. The...

)- French Military code stamp AK
Armeria Elgoibaressa y Cia (under the brand name Lusitania
RMS Lusitania
RMS Lusitania was a British ocean liner designed by Leonard Peskett and built by John Brown and Company of Clydebank, Scotland. The ship entered passenger service with the Cunard Line on 26 August 1907 and continued on the line's heavily-traveled passenger service between Liverpool, England and New...

) - French Military code stamp AE
Beistegui Hermanos (under the brandname 1914 Model) - French Military code stamp BH
Echealaza y Vincinai y Cia - French Military code stamp unknown
Erquiaga y Cia (under the brandname Fiel) - French Military code unknown, possibly EC
Hijos de Angel Echeverria y Cia - French Military code stamp HE
Iraola Salaverria y Cia - French Military code stamp IS

Ruby copies under direct contract to the Allies