Home Index Search Handguns Visual Selection British North American Italian German Belguim French Spanish Austrian Russian Czechoslovacian Turkish South African Hungarian Brazilian Israeli Competition Firearms Shotguns References Links Gunsite SAGA PAAA SAAACA Contact E-mail me!

The Glisenti Model 1910 was a 9mm calibre semi-automatic service pistol produced by the Italian company Real Factory D’arma Glisenti. Saw service in World War I and World War II. Unusually, the Glisenti did not disassemble for cleaning the way most semi-automatic pistols do; the user unscrewed a plate on the side of the gun and removed the grips to expose the internal mechanism. The M1910 started life as the Brixia, but the various relevant patents together with the production of the weapon were taken over by the Societa Siderurgia Glisenti in the 1900s. In 1910 it was taken into Italian Armi service as the Pistola Automatica, M1910 (Glisenti) to replace the M1889 Bodeo revolver. In practice it only supplemented the earlier weapon, and was dropped ten years before the revolver it was intended to succeed. The Glisenti was a fragile weapon, the breechblock was not particularly strong and the construction of the weapon was mechanically and structurally weak. One aspect of the design, the ammunition, was potentially disastrous. The Glisenti pistol was chambered for a proprietary cartridge, 9mm Glisenti. This was dimensionally the same as the 9mm Parabellum, but loaded to give 1050 ft/sec instead of the 9mm Para’s 1300 ft/sec. In order to offset the inherent weakness of the design the M1910 was provided with the 9mm Glisenti cartridge. The Glisenti cartridge enabled the gun to be fired with a reasonable margin of safety. But when 9mm para rounds were used the gun were damaged and could be dangerous. (Ref. ‘Pistols and revolvers’ p180 – Maj F Myatt, ‘Pistols of the world’ by Hogg and Weeks p48/124, https://www.technology.org/2019/05/30/one-of-the-worst-pistols-in-history-glisenti-model-1910-was-ruined-by-a-bad-decision/ , https://forums.gunboards.com/showthread.php?2044-Glisenti-Model-1910 )

99341