The trigger and extractor were initially milled from steel, but after May of 1948 The Type II was based on the 1906 Browning/1908 Colt design (which was a downsized version of the 1903 Colt), and M.A.B.ĭid not eliminate the grip safety as so many other copies did, though the internal lockwork was redesigned. A nickel version appeared in November of 1929. Production of the Type II Model A in blue began in Januaryġ925. Léon Barthe died on 14 April 1937 at the age of 54. He also retained his gun shop on the Rue Gambetta, which continued in operation until 1940. These guns are sometimes referred to as the Type I Model A.īarthe established a factory on the Allées Marines, the street which runs along the south side of the Adour River, and hired a number of Basque gunsmiths, many of whom were out of work after The letters “MAB” appear in an oval cartouche at the rear of the frame on the left The slide inscription was changed to read MANUFACTURE D'ARMES AUTOMATIQUES / PISTOLET AUTOMATIQUE 635 “MAB” /īAYONNE, and later to PISTOLET AUTOMATIQUE CAL. The grip plates were made of checkered horn and had the monogram M-A-B in an oval in theĬenter, and were held in place by two grip screws. It must have been about this time that Barthe began to put his own grip plates on the REX pistol.

This made theĬompany seem familiar and more acceptable to French buyers. Initials “MAB” made the company sound like MAC, MAP, or MATTE, which were the initials of the French government armories which manufactured pistols for the military. On 14 Decemberġ920, Barthe established a business with the name Manufacture d’Armes Automatiques, which was soon changed to Manufacture d’Armes de Bayonne. These pistols have checkered horn grips with a single grip screw.Īfter the war, which flooded France with cheap automatic pistols from Spain, weapons for self-defense purposes were perfectly legal, and Léon Barthe’s business prospered. Before World War I heīegan to import a small 6.35mm pistol made by Gregorio Bolumburu of Eibar, Spain, which was marked ‘REX’ on the left side of the slide, and later ‘PISTOLET AUTOMATIQUE “REX”’ with Soon after finishing school he moved to Bayonne where, in 1904 at the age of 22, he opened a shop at 9 Rue Gambetta where he sold hunting supplies, guns, and ammunition. He studied gunsmithing in Liege and finished his schooling in St. Léon Barthe was born in the village of St.-Vincent-de-Tyrosse, about 25 kilometers north of Bayonne, in 1882. This article owes a great deal to their book Les Pistolets MAB which unfortunately is available only in French. I have waited many years for someone to write a history of MAB, and finally in the year 2015 Jean-Pierre Bastié and Daniel Casanova have obliged.

Mab model d serial numbers