FN M1900

Lore & Background

John Browning began work on semi-automatic pistols in 1894, initially experimenting with a gas-operated design using a swinging piston. That prototype did not progress, but its layout and fire control group were reused in three later designs, two of which became the Colt M1900 and FN M1900. Browning licensed production rights to Colt for the US and Canada in July 1896, but Colt was believed to be protecting its revolver market. Around 1896 or 1897, Browning scaled the .38 blowback pistol down to .32 caliber for use as a pocket pistol.

According to a widespread legend, FN sales manager Hart O. Berg met Browning accidentally in Hartford in April 1897 and persuaded him to have his pistol manufactured at FN. However, documents from a later legal dispute indicate Berg corresponded with Browning in 1896–1897, leading Browning to visit Liège in April 1897. FN managers were impressed by the design's reliability and simplicity. Berg presented a draft license agreement to the FN board in June 1897, and finalized it with John and Matt Browning in July 1897. The agreement granted FN rights to manufacture and sell the pistol in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Spain.

Serial production began in January 1899 with the M1899, a pre-production model of which about 14,400 were made. In 1900, driven by Belgian military feedback, FN introduced the improved M1900 with a slightly shorter barrel, wider grip plates, a reinforced frame, larger breech block screws, a cocking indicator, and a slide lock. Production ceased 11 years later, with about 725,000 units produced by FN alone, excluding numerous copies.

Reader's Guide

The FN M1900 holds a significant place in firearms history as the first production handgun to incorporate a slide, a feature that became standard on semi-automatic pistols. Its design was simple and reliable for its era, which impressed FN managers and helped transform the company's fortunes, laying the foundation for a long-term relationship with John Browning. The pistol saw widespread use across multiple continents and conflicts, including the Herero Wars, Mexican Revolution, Balkan Wars, World War I, Russian Civil War, Finnish Civil War, Warlord Era, Constitutionalist Revolution, Chaco War, Chinese Civil War, Spanish Civil War, and World War II. It was adopted by various military and police forces, including those of Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Brazil, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Norway, Paraguay, Poland, and the Russian Empire. The M1900 was also used in several notable assassinations and attempts: Eugen Schauman assassinated Governor-General Nikolay Bobrikov in 1904; An Jung-geun assassinated Itō Hirobumi in 1909; Fanny Kaplan attempted to assassinate Lenin in 1918; and Abelardo Mendoza Leyva assassinated President Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro in 1933. The pistol was popular in China through World War II, where it was copied by state-run arsenals and local craftsmen. North Korea later produced a close copy as the Type 64 pistol during the 1960s, some fitted with a silencer for special operations.

Did You Know?

• The FN M1900 was the first production handgun to use a slide.
• President Theodore Roosevelt owned a mother of pearl-gripped M1899, which he kept on his person and in his bedside drawer.
• Eugen Schauman assassinated Governor-General Nikolay Bobrikov with a Browning pistol in Helsinki on June 16, 1904.
• North Korea produced a close copy of the M1900 as the Type 64 pistol during the 1960s.

The Partnership That Rescued a Dying Factory

By 1896, John Browning had patented three semi-automatic pistol designs, two of which would become the Colt and FN M1900. At that same moment, Fabrique Nationale de Herstal was near collapse. A lost legal battle with Mauser and a slump in M1889 rifle orders had left the Belgian firm financially crippled, and in 1896 rival DWM seized a controlling stake, cutting FN off from military export markets. The bridge between Browning and FN was Hart O. Berg, the company's sales manager, who had earlier collaborated with Browning on the Colt machine gun. A popular legend describes a chance meeting in Hartford, but documents from Browning's later dispute with Georg Luger point instead to deliberate correspondence that brought Browning to Liège in April 1897. FN managers were impressed by the design's reliability and simplicity—qualities rare in early semi-automatics. After a Berlin trip to obtain DWM's approval, Berg finalized a license in July 1897 granting FN production rights in France, Belgium, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Spain. Browning refused to supervise Belgian production, yet the agreement rescued the company and forged a partnership that endured until Browning's death on FN's premises in 1924.

Refining the First Sliding Pistol

Serial production of what FN initially called the 'modele de présérie' began in January 1899, with roughly 14,400 units made before the M1899 designation was applied retroactively. In 1900, feedback from the Belgian military prompted a refined version that would become the M1900, though it was originally marketed simply as the 'Pistolet Browning.' The external changes were modest but purposeful: a slightly shorter barrel trimmed the overall length by less than a millimeter while preserving caliber and magazine capacity, and grip plates were widened by one millimeter for a more secure hold. Internally, the frame above the trigger guard was enlarged and thickened for greater durability, breech block screws were made larger to strengthen the action, and a visible cocking indicator was added as an extension of the internal lever. A slide lock, engaged by rotating the safety lever upward while the slide was retracted, made field stripping and maintenance simpler. Though the M1900 was a single-action, semi-automatic design, its broader significance lay in being the first production handgun to employ a sliding action. Over eleven years of manufacture, FN produced approximately 725,000 units, and the pistol's influence extended far beyond Belgium, inspiring numerous copies.

A Pistol in the Crosshairs of History

The FN M1900 found itself at the center of several of the twentieth century's most consequential political acts. United States President Theodore Roosevelt kept a mother-of-pearl-gripped M1899 on his person and in his bedside drawer; that example now resides in the NRA Firearms Museum. In Helsinki on June 16, 1904, Finnish nationalist Eugen Schauman used a Browning pistol to assassinate Governor-General Nikolay Bobrikov, the highest Russian authority in the Grand Duchy of Finland. The shooting triggered spontaneous anti-Russian celebrations in the streets, and after Finland's 1917 independence, Schauman was honored as a national hero. On October 26, 1909, Korean independence activist An Jung-geun fired this type of pistol at Itō Hirobumi, Japan's first Prime Minister and Resident-General of Korea, killing him in Harbin railway station. Socialist revolutionary Fanny Kaplan attempted to assassinate Vladimir Lenin with an FN M1900 on August 30, 1918. Decades later, on April 30, 1933, Peruvian left-wing militant Abelardo Mendoza Leyva of the APRA party used the pistol to kill President Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro in Lima. The gun's reach into political violence spanned four decades and four continents.

Legacy and the Architecture of the Modern Pistol

The FN M1900's most enduring contribution was structural: it was the first production handgun to incorporate a sliding action, a design principle that would become the standard for semi-automatic pistols worldwide. Browning's earlier 1895 prototype had employed a gas-operated swinging piston, but the M1900's simpler blowback slide demonstrated that a compact, reliable, mass-producible semi-automatic was achievable. Browning's four original .38-caliber prototypes from 1895–1896 are preserved at the Browning Firearms Museum in Ogden, Utah, serving as a tangible link to that foundational period. The pistol's commercial success was equally remarkable: over eleven years of production, FN alone manufactured approximately 725,000 units, before numerous copies and imitations multiplied the total far beyond that figure. The M1900 also proved a commercial lifeline for FN, transforming a company that had been forced to diversify into bicycles and sporting parts into a serious arms manufacturer. The partnership it forged with Browning became the backbone of FN's identity, lasting until the designer's death on the company's premises in 1924. The pistol's popularity in China persisted through World War II, and its copied variants kept the design in service long after FN ceased original production.