Could this be a prototype for the T.J.Harrington Gat?

[edbear2]

Could it not just be a home / homer at work made effort also?

You would think a prototype might have some mark of some sort, and be a bit better made, especially the trigger / sear area which really look home / very average school metalwork level and not smith / skilled made.

ATB, Ed

[evert]

Could it not just be a home / homer at work made effort also?

You would think a prototype might have some mark of some sort, and be a bit better made, especially the trigger / sear area which really look home / very average school metalwork level and not smith / skilled made.

ATB, Ed

Thats what I'm thinking too. Home made project by someone who had access to a Gat they copy.
The adjustability in the trigger/sear could just be to get the gun working easily without having to alter the parts.

I've been thinking about making something like this for years....

[Garvin]

Another thing in favour of it being a genuine prototype GAT is why would anyone bother making it when GATs are/were so cheap and, let's face it, for all the effort making it, you weren't exactly producing something with stellar fit-for-purpose performance?!

[edbear2]

Another thing in favour of it being a genuine prototype GAT is why would anyone bother making it when GATs are/were so cheap and, let's face it, for all the effort making it, you weren't exactly producing something with stellar fit-for-purpose performance?!

Or the polar opposite, someone looked inside a Gat / pop out and just fancied making one of their own so it was "theirs"

I did exactly the same when 16 years old, copied a Barnett type crossbow as a combined metalwork/woodwork school project spent ages making all the rocking sears /trigger /prod (leafspring) and 3 piece laminated stock!

Truth is no-one will ever know, but as someone who has seen all sorts of stuff made at various factories by all sorts of folk who spent bleedin' weeks fettling away during breaks and quiet times to make something they could have bought cheaply***, trust me I reckon it's a home made job!

*** one notorious guy I worked with was a brilliant engineer and mechanic, and was in F1 from the time of Jackie Stewart, he cound never "waste time" as he called it, so always was making stuff / fixing stuff /improving stuff, especially during the Winter months as was not a newspaper reader or canteen banter type.

He had a pretty basic strimmer and used to get annoyed at the cap thing getting damaged, so spent days forming one from Titanium!

One another occasion he made some roof bars for his the car from a defunct stock of highh tensile tube, forming it into an aero oval section to reduce drag (on a 15 year old Peugeot estate!), all made from 4130 steel and took dozens of hours of work.

Both totally pointless but kept him happy, and I could recount dozens more similar tales from my 50 years of seeing this (and doing it myself!).

ATB, Ed

[ccdjg]

All interesting observations. Purely in the interests of stirring up a bit of discussion on here (things have been too quiet lately), I will make the counter-arguments:

POINT 1:

"Home made project by someone who had access to a Gat they copy."

"Or the polar opposite, someone looked inside a Gat / pop out and just fancied making one of their own so it was "theirs"

I disagree with this idea, as the pistol (IMHO) dates more from the 1930's than 1950's. So when this was made, the Harrington Gat would not have been around long to copy (the pre-war Gat was only available briefly ca. 1939). Look at the patina to see its obvious age:




Another factor is the design of the breech plug (pictured below). The use of one with a female fitting is unique for pop-out pistols, so if someone was trying to make a copy of the Gat, they were introducing quite a bit of their own ingenuity. I think it much more likely that this was a Harrington concept that was later dropped when he finalised his design, perhaps because it involved more machining costs than a conventional breech plug.

POINT 2

Could it not just be a home / homer at work made effort also?
You would think a prototype might have some mark of some sort, and be a bit better made, especially the trigger / sear area which really look home / very average school metalwork level and not smith / skilled made.

When I look at the pistol closely, yes there are aspects of the build that suggest expediency over finesse, but you have to remember that T.J. Harrington was not your Webley or BSA company, but was a one-man band. If he was in a hurry to get a money-making pistol to the market, why would he not cut a few corners?

Having said that, there are other aspects of the gun that do show professional expertise, like the quality of the brazing throughout, as exemplified by the front sight below, the quality of the machining on the brass grip plates, and the attention to detail with the breech plug:

[edbear2]

All interesting observations. Purely in the interests of stirring up a bit of discussion on here (things have been too quiet lately), I will make the counter-arguments:

POINT 1:

"Home made project by someone who had access to a Gat they copy."

"Or the polar opposite, someone looked inside a Gat / pop out and just fancied making one of their own so it was "theirs"

I disagree with this idea, as the pistol (IMHO) dates more from the 1930's than 1950's. So when this was made, the Harrington Gat would not have been around long to copy (the pre-war Gat was only available briefly ca. 1939). Look at the patina to see its obvious age:




Another factor is the design of the breech plug (pictured below). The use of one with a female fitting is unique for pop-out pistols, so if someone was trying to make a copy of the Gat, they were introducing quite a bit of their own ingenuity. I think it much more likely that this was a Harrington concept that was later dropped when he finalised his design, perhaps because it involved more machining costs than a conventional breech plug.

POINT 2

Could it not just be a home / homer at work made effort also?
You would think a prototype might have some mark of some sort, and be a bit better made, especially the trigger / sear area which really look home / very average school metalwork level and not smith / skilled made.

When I look at the pistol closely, yes there are aspects of the build that suggest expediency over finesse, but you have to remember that T.J. Harrington was not your Webley or BSA company, but was a one-man band. If he was in a hurry to get a money-making pistol to the market, why would he not cut a few corners?

Having said that, there are other aspects of the gun that do show professional expertise, like the quality of the brazing throughout, as exemplified by the front sight below, the quality of the machining on the brass grip plates, and the attention to detail with the breech plug:

Do you really think those grips were made for the gun, or "re-purposed" from other grip plate / machine plate / machine cover / car footplate / bus platform etc. old random metal stock?

They look roll impressed or cast even actually, not machined in fact.........I can and do order similar stuff thesedays in 8x4 feet sheets in various thicknesses (Rimex and the like).

We had all this "machining" before recently with folk waxing lyrical over cast componants, very fine and well done, but not machined parts.

Patina and ovious age......Okey dokey I get that, but I have seen BSA's from 1905 that look new, and 1970's Mercuries that look like Civil War muskets, pitting depth and metal condition cannot determine age, simple as that I would venture.


The end plug could have been off something else, but does have quite a coarse thread for a greaser / machine oil dripper cap, which it reminded of as soon as I saw it, like the ones on old Ward lathes (picture is a random type to give idea).




The brazing "skill" is the norm for any person who is a factory worker who did it as part of their job, my mum could have done it even (true she was AID during the war and showed me how to weld).

The machined bits as you say are tidy, but who is to say it was all done by one bloke?

If a "homer" and not using re-purposed bits as described then a trip to a mate in the machine shop may have happened to do the bits the maker could not do, just like me helping countless guys over the years at work with countless projects and vice versa.

Your whole argument seems to be because it looks older than 1939 then it must be "gen" when who knows what was in the mind of the person who made it and the style they wanted etc. It could easily be 50's or 60's even, or indeed 1930's but inspired by an earlier / period pop out and just by pure chance ended up with some GAT type ides.

There are only so many ways to release a piston with a certain amount of room, firearm history is littered with nicked ideas / "inventors" who copied folk who never got any credit, one off and unknowns.Who is to say the GAT geezer saw this home made job and copied THAT!

I have only answered the question posed and "comments would be appreciated" from my career where I have worked in various aspects of engineering /machine shops / factories since 1973 and seen and done all I have described.

My opinion is it's a home made weapon, like countless others out there, and the origins are impossible to determine despite a few possibly random similarities.

I can't help what I think and have described various reasons what I base that opinion on, sorry if it's not what you want it to be.

ATB, ED

[ccdjg]

Many thanks for your comments. Fair points all, That's what I wanted - a bit of controversy to spice things up.

I actually believe we will never be sure one way or the other, so it will stay in my collection as an interesting talking point. As for "it not being what I want it to be", I actually don't want it to be anything. It is what it is.

Cheers,
John