Steyr Arms

Origins

Steyr has been on the "iron road" to the nearby Erzberg mine since the days of the Styrian Otakar dukes and their Babenberg successors in the 12th and 13th century, and has been known as an industrial site for forging weapons. The privilege of iron and steel production, particularly for knives, was renewed by the Habsburg duke Albert of Austria in 1287. After the Thirty Years' War, thousands of muskets, pistols, and carbines were produced annually for the Habsburg Imperial Army.

In 1821, Leopold Werndl (1797–1855), a blacksmith in Steyr, began manufacturing iron parts for weapons. After his father's death, 24-year-old Josef Werndl (1831–1889) took over his factory. On April 16, 1864, he founded the Josef und Franz Werndl & Comp. Waffenfabrik und Sägemühle in Oberletten (Josef and Franz Werndl & Partners Weapons Factory and Sawmill in Oberletten), from which later emerged the Österreichische Waffenfabriksgesellschaft (ŒWG, Austrian Arms-Manufacturing Company), a stock company (AG) since 1869, of which in the future Steyr Arms firearm production was a part. In 1912 Bodencreditanstalt bank became a majority shareholder.

World War I

Werndl's cooperation with engineer Ferdinand Mannlicher (1848–1904), who had patented an advanced repeating rifle in use by the Austro-Hungarian Army, made ŒWG one of the largest weapon manufacturers in Europe. At the beginning of World War I, with more than 15,000 employees, production output was 4,000 weapons per day.

The company introduced the world's first machine pistol, the Anschlagpistole M.12, during World War I; it was a machine pistol version of the Steyr M1912 pistol, and was manufactured as product model Anschlagspistole M.12. It used a 16-round fixed magazine loaded via 8 round stripper clips, a detachable shoulder stock and a rather large exposed semi-auto/full-auto selector switch on the right side of the frame above the trigger (down = semi & up = full). It fired the 9×23mm Steyr cartridge, with a full-auto rate-of-fire of about 800 to 1,000 rounds per minute (RPM). It weighed about 2.6 pounds. Introduced in 1916, it is considered one of the world's first full-auto capable pistols. Only about 300 Anschlagspistole M.12 were made.

Aftermath of World War I

After the war, weapons production in Steyr was all but entirely prohibited according to the 1919 Treaty of Saint-Germain, and the company faced bankruptcy. To survive, the ŒWG converted their machinery to concentrate on producing Steyr automobiles under chief designers Hans Ledwinka and Ferdinand Porsche, as well as bicycles (colloquially called Waffenräder (weapon bicycles)). In 1926 the company changed its name to Steyr-Werke, in 1934 to Steyr Daimler Puch. The production of Steyr Daimler Puch weapons continued in cooperation with Patronenfabrik Solothurn AG at Zuchwil in neutral Switzerland.

World War II

After the Austrian Anschluss to Nazi Germany in 1938, the Steyr factories were incorporated into the Reichswerke Hermann Göring industrial conglomerate and the outbreak of World War II provided a brief revival in weapons production. Like many other companies, Steyr Daimler Puch relied also on forced labour, employing from the Steyr-Münichholz subcamp of KZ Mauthausen.

Since 1950s

During the 1950s the Mannlicher–Schönauer full stock rifle, designed in 1900, experienced a renaissance. Simultaneously, the re-emergence of the Austrian Armed Forces in the second republican state was the base for new military weapons production.

In 1989, after the partial dissolution of the Steyr Daimler Puch conglomerate, the weapon division was named Steyr Mannlicher in honour of the great Austro-Hungarian engineer Ferdinand Mannlicher. The name remained in place until 2019, now Steyr Arms.

Assault rifles

AUG – bullpup assault rifle

ACR – experimental flechette rifle

STM556 – modular assault rifle