It in more calibers, and the new gun eventually became known as the Model 1919. The company reconfigured the M1914 and offered The wartime contract with the French enabled Star to expand its workforce and move into a larger facility in Eibar. Total production is estimated at only about 23,000. Superior quality when compared to the common run of Rubys.” The French purchased about 20,000 Model 1914s under contract with Star during the war. According to Medlin and Huon: “Star products were highly regarded by the French since they were of Limited quantities before the war, but there is no record of it being sold to the French. A smaller 6.35mm version was produced in very The Officer’s Model-and the larger gun had a 138mm barrel and a nine round magazine-it was informally referred to as the Trooper’s Model. However, Medlin and Huon state that the smaller gun had a 126mm barrel and a seven round magazine-it was informally referred to as Larger gun had a 160mm barrel and a ten round magazine. According to Antaris, the smaller gun had a 138mm barrel and a nine round magazine, whereas the The wartime version also came in two sizes, both of which were sold to the French during the war. The pre-war version of the M1914 came with either aġ10mm or a 130mm barrel, with a magazine that held eight rounds. Though it was larger in size, had a takedown lever in front of the trigger guard, and a U-shaped lanyard staked to the corner of the left grip.Īntaris states that the M1914 had a high polish midnight blue finish which he compares to the early Colt and Webley & Scott automatic pistols. The M1914 retained most of the features of Julian’s first pistol design, More so, of the La Lira/Triumph pistol, though unlike these two it was blowback operated (rather than delayed blowback). The M1914 was very reminiscent of the Steyr-Mannlicher and, even Top-mounted extractor like the Steyr- Mannlicher, though each new model saw some design improvement.īefore the beginning of World War I, in 1914, Star brought out its first pistol in a larger caliber: the 7.65mm Model 1914. Most Star pistols were based on this design up until 1920, and even after that Star’s small caliber blowback pistols continued to have a fixed barrel, an open-top slide, and a Probably at about the same time he worked on the La Lira pistol, or soon thereafter, Julian designed a blowback operated pistol, which was also based on the Steyr-Mannlicher he received a patent for it in June The gun, known as the La Lira, and later as the Triumph, was externally nearly identical to the Mannlicher, but had a removeable magazine and wasĬhambered for the 7.65mm Browning (.32 ACP) cartridge, which was more readily available than the proprietary 7.63mm Mannlicher cartridge. Julian Echeverría helped to design an improved version of the Steyr-Mannlicher M1901 pistol for the Spanish arms manufacturer Gárate, Anitua y Cia.