The Bang Semi-Automatic Rifle

The semi-automatic arm upon which especially high hopes were placed after 1911 was a gun invented by a Dane, S.H. Bang. Tests followed by modifications of design and then further tests were to be carried on for some years. After the World War the Ordnance Department set Captain Hatcher of the Ordnance service to work upon perfecting a model using the Bang principle.56 The Bang gun first submitted to test at Springfield, however, in May 1911, was designed for use only with 7.5 or 8mm ammunition. Therefore, after a first test the rifle was returned to the manufacturers with request that the inventor adapt it to the U.S. .30 caliber service ammunition and make several other changes of design.57

The new 1911 model, tested on July 30, 1912, was enthusiastically received and the Board of Officers reported that “the functioning of this rifle was more satisfactory than has heretofore been obtained at this Armory from any other rifle of this type.”58 In spite of some defects, notably the wedging of the cartridge in the magazine, and the opening in the bolt unlocking sleeve’s not being properly regulated for the service ammunition, the United States Ordnance Department endeavored to secure rights to manufacture 100 of these Bang guns to issue for trial in the field. While the conditions proposed by the Aktieselkabet Bangs Skydevaaben of Copenhagen, the manufacturer, were so drastic as to cause the Ordnance Office to refuse them,59 the Ordnance Office did arrange with Bang personally to supervise at the Armory some alterations upon the one rifle tested in July. The firings of this altered rifle, conducted in October, showed perfect functioning of the mechanism but such heat was developed that the stock was scorched.60 In fact twenty months later Captain Sheppard noted that tests of the Bang had shown that if a wooden stock were used upon a semi-automatic shoulder arm some kind of insulation of stock from barrel was essential.61 Only the fact that by the end of 1913 Armory officials believed Captain Sheppard’s own design more promising than the Bang led the Ordnance Office to drop for the time being testings of the latter.62

A close-up view of the action on the Bang Semi-Automatic Rifle

Renewal of Tests the next year followed, an endurance test of an altered 1911 model, and some weeks later a complete test of the 1913 model in which were embodied a number of changes desired by the Ordnance Department.63 The report of the testing Board noted the improvements in the 1913 model, but listed several weaknesses. In the words of Lt. Colonel W.S. Pierce, the Commanding Officer:

It is not believed that this rifle in its present stage of development is satisfactory as a military arm, although it is the most promising semi-automatic shoulder rifle known to this office. The weight of the rifle [9.93 lbs.] is somewhat against it; its accuracy is not equal to that of the service rifle; and its ease and certainty of operation are not yet satisfactory.64

The Bang 1913 model was kept at the Armory to serve as a basis for developmental work. But little further was to be accomplished till after the World War.65