The White-Merrill 1907 is an early American pistol.
History
The pistol was designed by Joseph Chester White and Samuel Merrill, two gun designers based in Massachusetts. The White-Merrill was designed as a weapon to give all the benefits of a self-loading pistol while retaining the benefits of a revolver. Both White and Merrill were invited by a Springfield Armory representative to participate in the 1907 US Pistol & Revolver Trials.
The White-Merrill looked promising, but it did not perform well; a total of 211 rounds were fired from this weapon during the trial. 20 rounds were fired for demonstration, and this was where problems started to show; 5 out of the 20 rounds malfunctioned.
Despite the weapon's excellent accuracy, with a 10 round group with a 1.7 inch mean distribution, the endurance trial was where the White-Merrill fared extremely poorly; of a total of 110 rounds fired from the pistol, the weapon malfunctioned a total of 40 times, such as failures to feed, failures to eject, light strikes of the primer, failures to eject, and even including pins and screws on the weapon coming loose from all the firing. The White-Merrill's poor performance in the endurance trials was the nail in its coffin and the weapon was unceremoniously dropped from the trials.
Design Details
The White-Merrill was designed as a weapon to give all the benefits of a self-loading pistol while retaining the benefits of a revolver. The weapon uses a 10-round detachable box magazine which can be loaded by stripper clip or via replacing the magazine if the shooter had spares. The weapon has a clear grip on the left-side of the weapon that is riveted on which allows one to see how many rounds are left in the magazine. The slide locks open on the last round, and from there, the weapon can be loaded via stripper clip or single-loaded. The White-Merrill is unique in that it has a device which allows the shooter to cock the weapon with one hand, something that has only been seen on a few other weapons since then.