Steyr GB
Encyclopedia
The Steyr
Steyr Mannlicher
Steyr Mannlicher is a firearms manufacturer based in the city of Steyr, Austria. Originally a part of the Steyr-Daimler-Puch manufacturing conglomerate, it became independent when the conglomerate was broken in 1990.-History:...

 GB, is a double-action 9×19mm Parabellum caliber, large-framed semi-automatic pistol. The GB uses a gas-delayed blowback action and has a magazine capacity of 18 rounds. It was designed starting in 1968 as a replacement for older handguns in Austrian military service, and went into general civil production in 1982, though approximately 2,300 copies were made in the late 1970s in Morton Grove, Illinois
Morton Grove, Illinois
Morton Grove is a village in Cook County, Illinois, United States. The population was 22,451 at the 2000 census.The Village President of Morton Grove since April 27, 2009, is Daniel J...

 by LES Incorporated, and marketed as the Rogak P-18.

Development

In the early 1970s, Morris and Michael Rogak, a Steyr importer, received a set of preliminary engineering plans for the Steyr Pi-18 pistol, and set up a manufacturing facility in Illinois to produce the new pistol as the Rogak P-18. While the Rogak, with its 18 shot capacity (the highest available at the time) and stainless steel
Stainless steel
In metallurgy, stainless steel, also known as inox steel or inox from French "inoxydable", is defined as a steel alloy with a minimum of 10.5 or 11% chromium content by mass....

 construction, was revolutionary on the market, it was plagued with reliability problems due to poor manufacturing tolerances. Steyr took legal action to halt its production, and in 1980 finalized and introduced their own GB, made in blued steel but otherwise similar, to the world market.

The Steyr GB was briefly widely touted as the ultimate "Wonder Nine" high capacity 9 mm pistol, but its popularity was cut short when the then-brand new Glock 17 pistol by new-to-firearms-manufacturing firm Glock
Glock
Glock Ges.m.b.H. is a weapons manufacturer headquartered in Deutsch-Wagram, Austria, named after its founder, Gaston Glock...

 won a testing competition for the Austrian Army
Military of Austria
The Österreichisches Bundesheer , is the name for the military of the Republic of Austria....

 service pistol order. It was also a competitor for the U.S. military pistol competition
M9 Pistol
The Beretta M9, formally Pistol, Semiautomatic, 9mm, M9, is a 9×19mm Parabellum pistol of the United States military adopted in 1985. It is essentially a military specification Beretta 92F, later the 92FS....

 ultimately won by the Beretta
Beretta
Fabbrica d'Armi Pietro Beretta is an Italian firearms manufacturer. Their firearms are used worldwide for a variety of civilian, law enforcement, and military purposes. It is also known for manufacturing shooting clothes and accessories. Beretta is the oldest active firearms manufacturer in the...

 M92F
Beretta 92 Models
The Beretta 92s are full size pistols. The following is a list of 54 Beretta 92 models and the 93, 96, 98 and 99 models which are based on it.-Table of Beretta 92/93/96/98/99 models:...

.

Commentary from U.S. firearms testers and writers indicated that the GB had remarkably low recoil for a pistol of its caliber and it was generally well liked in testing, but the lack of government orders meant that total production was only a reputed 15,000 to 20,000 pistols between 1981 and 1988. Most were commercial models, 937 examples of the military version were imported into the U.S. before production ceased.

Operating mechanism

The Steyr GB is a semi-automatic, blowback-operated
Blowback (arms)
Blowback is a system of operation for self-loading firearms that obtains energy from the motion of the cartridge case as it is pushed to the rear by expanding gases created by the ignition of the propellant charge....

 firearm. It features a unique gas-delayed blowback locking system (the Barnitzke system), first used in the Volkssturmgewehr 1-5
Volkssturmgewehr 1-5
The Volkssturmgewehr 1-5 is a set of 5 rifle designs developed by Nazi Germany during the last months of World War II...

, and subsequently in the Swiss Pistole 47 W+F (Waffenfabrik Bern) prototype pistol. The Barnitzke system uses gas pressures from the ignited cartridge and feeds them through a small port in the barrel (in front of the chamber) to retard the rearward motion of the slide. This is accomplished by means of a fixed piston formed by the outside of the barrel, inside of a moving cylinder formed by the inside of the slide
Pistol slide
The slide is the part of the weapon on a majority of semi-automatic pistols that moves during the operating cycle and generally houses the firing pin or striker and the extractor, and serves as the bolt...

, that opposes the rearward motion of the slide until the gas pressure has declined—after the bullet has left the barrel—hence allowing the slide to continue its rearward motion, opening the breech and ejecting the empty cartridge case.
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