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JP Sauer & Sohn, Suhl, Germany (pre-1945). JP Sauer & Sohn, Eckernforde, West Germany (post-1945) This is an old and established company who manufactured the reichsrevolver with V Ch Schilling and CG Haenel early in 1880s. The Roth Sauer was first marketed in 1905 by the firm of J P Sauer & Sohn, in Suhl, Germany, with the inventor of note being Georg Roth of Vienna, Austria. This pistol is based on Roth’s patents from 1892 but also has features found in earlier patents designed by Karel Krnka. Since Roth was a cartridge maker, this may have been one of the pistols that he and Krnka put together, simply that he could sell another cartridge. The calibre known as 7.65 Roth Sauer is essentially a shortened .32 ACP of lighter power. This is an interesting pistol in several respects with Br pat 5223/1890 granted to Roth & Krnka. First, it is a finely finished pistol made from machined steel. With all the compound radius cuts and intricate detail this pistol is almost a work of art. Second it is hard to deduced it’s exact use. The low powered cartridge place the pistol in the pocket pistol category, but its size almost demands a holster, so what function was it designed to fulfil? No one knows exactly how many Roth Sauer pistols were made, and in the United States they are very scarce. While the pistol was discontinued just before World War I, ammunition for it was made for it until the late 1930s in Europe, and from that one might deduce that quite a few pistols exist in Europe or that somebody was doing a lot of shooting with them. Although they were widely marketed prior to World War I, very few of them are seen today, making them very collectable. This Roth-Sauer is a semi-automatic pistol, utilizing a locked breech and a long recoil operation. It has a seven shot, fixed magazine, which is loaded through the top via a stripper clip. The magazine can be unloaded with a little difficulty in two different ways. Either you can cycle all the ammunition through the action by repeatedly reciprocating the bolt, or you can open the bolt and press a magazine release button located on the aft, right side of the frame. Unfortunately, with a full magazine the cartridges tend to jump out and bounce away, so be prepared to catch them. Functioning was quite complicated. Upon firing it utilized Krnka’s long recoil system, in which the barrel and breech block both recoiled to the rear until the bolt hit a cam to rotate it in order to unlock it. The bolt travelled a slight bit further back, while the barrel returned forward, ejecting the empty case. As the barrel came to rest, it tripped a lock, allowing the bolt to fly forward to and strip a fresh cartridge into the chamber. The force of closing rotated the bolt locking it again. The trigger mechanism is also unusual. After the bolt had been cycled, the striker was held back engaged by the sear. Pulling the trigger added pressure to the compressed the striker spring to a degree where it would impart sufficient force to tripp the sear on its backward motion’ and fire the pistol. Since there was not enough spring tension on the striker to fire the cartridge until the trigger was pulled, it was considered unnecessary toe have any safeties on the pistol. But as pointed out by a british collector, the pistol do have a safety, by turning the knurled wheel one eighth anticlockwise the trigger and sear will be blocked This mechanism should not be confused with double action, as is found on another Roth design, the Roth Steyr. In that pistol, pulling the trigger actually cocks the striker. On this pistol the manual operation of the bolt is necessary to cock the striker, and the trigger merely implants additional compression to the spring. This semi-cocked trigger system was adopted by the succesfull Glock pistols in their “safe action”. The Roth-Sauer’s trigger is much less springy than the Glocks. It is classified as a relic in the USA. (Ref. ‘Pistols and revolvers’ by JE Smith, ‘Price guide for collector handguns’ by R H Balderson, ‘Pistols of the world’ by Hogg and Weeks p203)

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