Wow, Jeff and everyone. I’m going to have to re-read this thread a few times, there’s a lot here. Thanks.
I saw a guy at the range who was putting the pistol down and retrieving the brass after every shot. I figured he was shooting something interesting, and went over to chat on my way out. I get near and blurt “Wow, is that a Mannlicher?” Sure enough, he was shooting a Mannlicher from 1907. A former Argentine military pistol.
https://unblinkingeye.com/Guns/SM1900/sm1900.html
That pistol fires the 7.63 mm Mannlicher cartridge, a round never used by any other gun. I’m going to guess the ammo has been out of production for the better part of a century. A friend had made him some ammunition by modifying another kind of case, so that’s why he was looking for and saving every last case.
I don’t know how well a 115 year old pistol, with the tiny sights and rudimentary ergonomics of the time, is supposed to shoot. When you’re putting down and picking up the gun with every shot, that can’t help with consistently holding a grip that looks like a squared-off banana. Still, he was doing like a 5” group at 50 ft which I thought was very respectable considering. So we chatted some more. Yeah, he’d been to Camp Perry some.
That’s actually what got me thinking about reloading. But I don’t own a Mannlicher …