French "MAC" 1950

The French Modèle 1950 is a rather obscure pistol in the current military surplus market. When I picked mine up from my FFL, I was asked, "what is it and why is it so expensive".

Mostly based on the French 1935S, the 1950 can be seen as an incremental improvement for the French military. Not a huge upgrade over the 1935S but a solid move in the right direction. Meant to replace the plethora of handguns in French service and inventory, the 1950 didn't quite achieve this until the 1960s or later. Still in limited service today, the French 1950 is akin to the US M1911A1 in longevity and persistence.

The 1950 is a much larger pistol than one might expect. You have to hold one in hand to fully grasp (no pun intended) the nearly ridiculous grip length. With my average sized hands, I can put all four fingers just around the grip, with a bit of room to spare. Only the Japanese Type 14 has a grip that compares in length.

The reason for the lengthy grip is the single-stack 9-round magazine. The French required a 9-round magazine, and the only way to achieve that is to make the single-stack magazine longer. Not the most intelligent design, especially by the 1950s.

Speaking of non-intellegent designs, the safety on the 1950 deserves a discussion. Borrowed from the 1935S, this slide-mounted safety acts soley as a hammer block. Meaning, you can still pull the trigger and the hammer can still fall with the safety on.

In practice, whenever the slide on the 1950 is racked to chamber a round, the safety can accidentally be activated. Since the pistol was meant to be carried in condition 3(loaded magazine and empty chamber) then this presents itself as a serious concern if quickness is needed. Speed tends to exacerbate this problem so God help the poor souls that actually relied on this pistol in a combative environment.

If the safety remains in the proper off position, the pistol is a pleasure to shoot. The long grip and slightly bulky steel construction makes for a controllable shooter with its 9mm chambering. The pistol remains on target while rapid firing and is on par with other Browning designs of the era. The single-action trigger leaves me with no complaints, but neither is it worthy of praise. The 1950 seems to be reliable if kept clean and gave me the impression that the pistol will just keep on working as long as I kept feeding it.

Calling the 1950 a "MAC" is a bit of a misnomer as not just M.A.C. produced them. It does seem that the great majority, if not all, of the Model 1950s in the United States today were made by M.A.C. so one can understand the nickname. And calling it the "MAC Fifty" does have an impressive sound to it.

My example has "FRANCE" stamped into the right side of the frame. This is an indication that it was imported in the only known importation of the Model 1950 during the early 1960s.

According to the ad, this small batch of 250 pistols was imported from Vietnam after the French defeat and evacuation from Indo-China. It makes since that many French arms would have been left behind there but it is quite surprising that these were sold to the United States. Since this is the only known importation, it is assumed that the rest of the small number of 1950s in the US firearms market are bring-backs from the Vietnam War. This makes the French 1950 a very uncommon pistol in the United States today and an interesting addition to anyone's military handgun collection.