The earliest Ferdinand Mannlicher pistol, manufactured by Fabrique D'Armes de Neuhausen, Switzerland, was designed to be self-loading and to use a special rimmed cartridge in 6.5 mm caliber.

In the standard type of automatic action for low-powered cartridges, the recoil (or blow-back) is utilized to drive back a movable breech face or block, but Mannlicher utilized the principle of a rigid standing breech with the barrel blowing forward to extract, eject, and prepare for reloading.

It is pivoted above the trigger as shown in the drawing from page 188, Mannlicher Rifles and Pistols, Smith, 1947.

The cartridges are stripped off the clip and pressed into the magazine-well in the body of the pistol, compressing the spiral magazine-spring.

[citation needed] As the propellant combusts and expands, the standing breech (a rigid, immovable object) acts to prohibit rearward movement of the cartridge and causes the expanding forces to move against the bullet (a somewhat more movable object), propelling the bullet toward the muzzle.

As the barrel moves forward the extractor draws the empty case from the face of the standing breech to eject it.

In some, the barrel catch does not operate during firing movement, so that the pistol closes to become fully self-loading.

Experimental versions of this arm were also manufactured with a single action movement in which it was necessary to cock the hammer by thumb for each shot.

Late versions of these pistols were made to shoot a special 7.8 mm rimless cartridge with a straight sided case.

The muscular exerts practically the same as for an ordinary double-action revolver, while the rate of fire is much slower.