The Destroyer Carbine is a small bolt-actioncarbine usually chambered for the 9 x 23 mm Largo cartridge. It was used by Spanish police and prison services, including the Guardia Civil from the mid-1930s until the late 1960s, replacing the El Tigre Rifle. It continued the tradition, started in the 1890s, of issuing police units with a short, handy, repeating carbine in pistol ammunition calibre.
Design
Markings on a Destroyer carbine
It is essentially a scaled-down Mauser Model 1893 with two rear-mounted locking lugs and a Mauser-style two-position flip safety. The Destroyer fired the same ammunition as the standard-issue police handgun but used a 6-shot single stack magazine. The longer rifle barrel resulted in greater muzzle velocity, accuracy, and range.
The Destroyer was initially manufactured in Eibar, Spain by Gaztanaga y Compania, then by Ayra Duria S.A. and possibly others, with some minor improvements made over time.
The carbine is more accurate than a self-loading service pistol, not because of its barrel length, but mainly due to the lack of moving parts and the stable firing platform offered by a weapon with a sturdy shoulder stock. Due to the longer barrel, muzzle velocity was commonly 200fps-300fps higher than achieved by pistols. The better sights and longer sight radius are also critical in allowing the user to hit targets at greater distances.
While no longer in government service, the Destroyer Carbine is prized as a collectors item due to its comparative rarity, as well as being a desirable target rifle due to favorable shooting characteristics such as minimal recoil and relatively inexpensive ammunition.
While all rimless 9 mm caliber pistol cartridges will chamber in a Destroyer Carbine, and consequently will fire, it is extremely unsafe to use ammunition other than 9 x 23mm Largo due to the dangers of excessive pressure. Some late-production experimental Destroyer Carbines were produced in other calibers such as .38 Auto or 9 mm Para and are even more highly sought after.
The magazines for the Destroyer Carbine are of 6-round capacity.
A carbine is a long gun that has a barrel shortened from its original length. Most modern carbines are rifles that are compact versions of a longer rifle or are rifles chambered for less powerful cartridges.
The Krag–Jørgensen is a repeating bolt-action rifle designed by the Norwegians Ole Herman Johannes Krag and Erik Jørgensen in the late 19th century. It was adopted as a standard arm by Norway, Denmark, and the United States. About 300 were delivered to Boer forces of the South African Republic.
A rifle is a long-barreled firearm designed for accurate shooting and higher stopping power, with a barrel that has a helical pattern of grooves (rifling) cut into the bore wall. In keeping with their focus on accuracy, rifles are typically designed to be held with both hands and braced firmly against the shooter's shoulder via a buttstock for stability during shooting. Rifles are used extensively in warfare, law enforcement, hunting and target shooting sports.
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Mauser, originally the Königlich Württembergische Gewehrfabrik, was a German arms manufacturer. Their line of bolt-action rifles and semi-automatic pistols was produced beginning in the 1870s for the German armed forces. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Mauser designs were also exported and licensed to many countries, which adopted them as military and civilian sporting firearms. The Gewehr 98 in particular was widely adopted and copied, and it is the foundation of many of today's sporting bolt-action rifles.
.32 ACP is a centerfire pistol cartridge. It is a semi-rimmed, straight-walled cartridge developed by firearms designer John Browning, initially for use in the FN M1900 semi-automatic pistol. It was introduced in 1899 by Fabrique Nationale, and is also known as the 7.65 mm Browning Short.
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The 7×57mm Mauser is a first-generation smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. It was developed by Paul Mauser of the Mauser company in 1892 and adopted as a military cartridge by Spain in 1893. It was subsequently adopted by several other countries as the standard military cartridge, and although now obsolete as a military cartridge, it remains in widespread international use as a sporting round. The 7×57 Mauser was a popular stalking cartridge and sporting rifles in this chambering were made by the famous British riflemakers, such as John Rigby, Holland and Holland, Westley Richards and others. British cartridge nomenclature designated caliber in inches, and the cartridge was known as the .275 bore after the measurement of a 7 mm rifle's bore across the lands. The cartridge is sometimes erroneously referred to as the ".275 Rigby", However, the original John Rigby & Sons never referred to the cartridge by that name, nor did any of UK gun trade; the Rigby association is a misconception attributed to modern American gun writers.
6.5×55mm Swedish, also known simply as 6.5×55mm, 6.5x55 SE, 6.5x55 Swede, or in its native military as 6.5 mm patron m/94, meaning "6.5 mm cartridge model 94", referring to 1894, is a first-generation smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. The cartridge has most users in the Scandinavian countries, where it is known as the 6,5×55 or just "the 6,5".
The .45-70, also known as the .45-70 Government, .45-70 Springfield, and .45-21⁄10" Sharps, is a .45 caliber rifle cartridge originally holding 70 grains of black powder that was developed at the U.S. Army's Springfield Armory for use in the Springfield Model 1873. It was a replacement for the stop-gap .50-70 Government cartridge, which had been adopted in 1866, one year after the end of the American Civil War, and is known by collectors as the "Trapdoor Springfield".
The 7.92×57mm Mauser is a rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge. The 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was adopted by the German Empire in 1903–1905, and was the German service cartridge in both World Wars. In its prime, the 7.92×57mm Mauser cartridge was one of the world's most popular military cartridges. In the 21st century it is still a popular sport and hunting cartridge that is factory-produced in Europe and the United States.
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The 7.65×53mm Mauser is a first-generation smokeless powder rimless bottlenecked rifle cartridge developed for use in the Mauser Model 1889 rifle by Paul Mauser of the Mauser company. It is also known as 7.65×53mm Argentine, 7.65×53mm Argentine rimless, 7.65mm Argentine, 7.65×53mm Belgian Mauser, 7.65mm Belgian, and 7.65×53mm Mauser.
The Mauser Model 1893 is a bolt-action rifle commonly referred to as the Spanish Mauser, though the model was adopted by other countries in other calibers, most notably the Ottoman Empire. The M1893 was based on the experimental M1892 rifle, which Paul Mauser developed for the Spanish Army as part of a program to correct deficiencies in the earlier 1889, 1890, and 1891 series of Mauser rifles. The M1893 introduced a short staggered-column box magazine that fit flush with the bottom of the stock; the magazine held five smokeless 7×57mm Mauser rounds, which could be reloaded quickly by pushing a stripper clip from the top of the open bolt.
The .300 AAC Blackout, also known as 7.62×35mm, is an intermediate cartridge developed in the United States by Advanced Armament Corporation (AAC) for use in the M4 carbine. The cartridge yields increased performance in shorter barrels and effective subsonic performance for silencer use when compared to 5.56mm NATO. The .300 AAC Blackout uses standard 5.56mm NATO magazines and components with the exception of the barrel.
The 7.92×33mm Kurz is a rimless bottlenecked intermediate rifle cartridge developed in Nazi Germany prior to and during World War II, specifically intended for development of the Sturmgewehr 44. The ammunition is also referred to as 7.9mm Kurz, 7.9 Kurz, 7.9mmK, or 8×33 Polte. The round was developed as a compromise between the longer 7.92×57mm full-power rifle cartridge and the 9×19mm Parabellum pistol cartridge.
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