The 32 Super Auto......

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
.....better known as the 7.65 MAS pistol, the M1935 French service sidearm. I have had my example for about 30 years, and I suspect it was brought back from Viet Nam by a service member who found it in-country. The sights are kind of vestigial, but if you tend to your business the pistol is pretty accurate. My load (Unique powder) runs a cast Lyman #313249 at about 1050 FPS. These ballistics make the pistol pretty handy for small game and varmints, and it has rolled its share of same over the years.

The M-1935 MAS pistols are a locked-breech design that borrows heavily from Browning and a bit from the Tokarev, which also plagiarized Browning shamelessly. There are some videos on Youtube regarding these pistols, which do a more detailed and time-consuming story on these little jewels. I scrounged up two magazines to fit the pistol from Triple K in San Diego without much fuss and bother, so getting the pistol field-ready wasn't much of a chore.

Ammo was a bit more problematic. I have a partial box of corrosive-primed French milsurp ball ammo that came with the pistol, and in ran 5 of those through the pistol and over the chronograph as velocity exemplars. That is how the "1050 FPS" standard was set.

Ammo has not been loaded in any major amount since 1950. Brass is similarly scarce. Most of what can be found is reworked 32 S&W Long brass, to which a rimless case head is machined. Reloading dies for either 32 ACP or 32 S&W Long work well once brass is located. The ball ammo's bullet weight is 85 grains, which the RN #313249 hits exactly. Charge weight was worked up with Unique from 32 ACP data, adding 0.1 grain at a time until the proper charge was found. (ETA--RCBS makes a caliber-specific shell holder for this round. Mine came from Huntington's Die Specialties for not a whole lot of money).

Just another member of my safe's Weird Caliber Cavalcade.
 
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RicinYakima

High Steppes of Eastern Washington
My Dad had one in the 1950's only because he got a case (240?) of rounds with it. My big brother and I shot that up one summer on the farm in WV, then Dad sold it. Thanks for the memories!
 

Rick H

Well-Known Member
I remember when M1935's were being advertised for sale at ridiculously low prices ....Numrich or maybe Centennial Arms? They were neat looking handguns and as I remember under 75 bucks each. Then again I paid manufacturers suggested retail price for my first Colt 1911 Series 70, $195 brand new. So maybe they were not all that inexpensive.
 

Petrol & Powder

Well-Known Member
The 7.65mm Longue, AKA 7.65 Long, is one of those weird cartridges that never caught on in the world. The U.S. Pederson Device was chambered for it. The other user was the French military. Beyond that, the 7.65 Long didn't get much love.

The designer of the French Model 1935 was Charles Petter. By the way, he was born Swiss not French; he became a French citizen later. Petter was a good engineer and while he borrowed from Browning's designs, he had some good designs of his own. The removable fire control group was one of his better contributions.
The hammer/sear/hammer spring was all contained in one removable unit. This system was licensed by SIG and used in the SIG P210 (Model 49) and just flat stolen by the Soviets for use in the TT-33.

The world wide acceptance of the 9mm Luger cartridge doomed the 7.65 Long. The French held onto that cartridge longer than anyone else but even the French saw the light and adopted the MAS Model 1950 chambered in 9mm after WWII.
 

CZ93X62

Official forum enigma
Huh.......Starline does list this brass. I'll be darned.

Yeah, my M-1935 has a passing resemblance to the P-210, as if it was a P-210 that got shrunk in the wash.